Oil Industry Defends Its Record Profits
Executives are sworn in this time during a less volatile hearing and are questioned by senators about competition, mergers and high prices.
By Richard Simon
Times Staff Writer
March 15, 2006
WASHINGTON — Top oil company executives were summoned for a return engagement Tuesday on Capitol Hill to defend their business practices — and this time, they raised their hands and were sworn in.
Still, the hearing by the Senate Judiciary Committee was markedly less contentious than a similar session in November, conducted shortly after damage to Gulf Coast refineries caused by Hurricane Katrina led to gasoline prices that surpassed $3 a gallon in much of the country.
Four months ago, senators focused on accusations of price-gouging, which the company officials strongly denied. And a symbolic dispute spotlighted the tensions surrounding that hearing by the Senate Commerce Committee.
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), the chairman of the Commerce panel, refused to administer the oath to the witnesses, calling such a procedure "nothing but a photo op." That, in turn, sparked complaints by Democrats.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, avoided any such controversy at Tuesday's hearing by swearing in the executives representing America's six largest oil and refining companies.
The businessmen then faced questions about whether mergers and acquisitions among oil and gas companies have reduced competition and led to higher prices. They flatly rejected those premises.
"My answer is, no," said Rex Tillerson, chairman and chief executive of Exxon Mobil Corp.
Tillerson and executives from Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips, Shell Oil Co., BP America Inc. and Valero Energy Corp. said industry consolidations had made their businesses more efficient and better able to pursue large, often risky projects to boost energy supplies.
"Scale matters," David O'Reilly, Chevron's chairman and chief executive, told the committee.
Some lawmakers disputed such arguments; Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said it was "naive to think that massive consolidation has had no impact" on prices.
But overall, the hearing's tone underscored the changed political climate since gasoline prices dropped from their high marks last year. (In California, prices for regular gasoline now average slightly more than $2.50 a gallon).
Proposals for a windfall profits tax on oil companies have foundered. A tax bill approved by the Senate that could cost oil companies more than $4 billion faces an uncertain fate in negotiations with the House. And Congress might pass a bill eagerly sought by the industry that would open new areas off the Gulf Coast to energy exploration.
In their testimony Tuesday, the executives insisted their industry remains highly competitive. And as they did in November, they defended their profits, saying the companies have plowed a large chunk of the money into projects to increase energy supplies.
"When supply is limited and demand is not reduced, the consequence is higher prices; in a free market, that's how it works," Shell President John Hofmeister told the committee.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said that mergers within the industry raised "serious questions about the degree of competition that's actually left … and the huge amount of market power that some of these companies now wield."
In California, six major oil companies control more than 80% of the refining capacity.
Specter said he planned to push legislation that would require closer federal scrutiny of the effect of oil company mergers on energy prices.
Some senators pressed the executives on the issue of profits.
"We're representing people … who are very upset with the price of gasoline," said Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) "It's hard to explain to them how you all, at a time of record high prices that you're paying for your raw material [crude oil], are able to generate record profits."
At November's hearing, the profit issue sparked tough questions from senators who generally are oil industry allies. In another example of the changed atmosphere since then, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) defended the industry Tuesday.
"While each of you might be accused of … making quite a bit of money, that is not yet a crime in America," he said.
The hearing drew criticism from one group, the National Assn. of Manufacturers.
"Parading energy executives before TV cameras and interrogating them won't move us any closer to more flexible, plentiful and affordable energy supplies," the group's president and chief executive, John Engler, said in a statement.
*
Times staff writer Elizabeth Douglass in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
How 364 economists got it totally wrong
By Philip Booth
(Filed: 15/03/2006)
In 1981, Britain was at an economic crossroads. Policies that the Conservative government, elected in 1979, had been implementing to deal with accelerating inflation and a spiralling national debt were not working. Borrowing was rising. Interest rates were moving ever higher. If things had gone on as they were, credibility in the British economy would have collapsed. Investors, firms and trade unions would not have believed that any future government could have restored fiscal and monetary discipline. Britain could have become like so many South and Central American countries in the 1970s and 1980s.
Instead, Margaret Thatcher and her Chancellor, Sir Geoffrey Howe, changed tack. The 1981 Budget increased taxes by £4 billion - an enormous sum in 1981 prices. This was extremely difficult for a government elected to cut taxes. But by showing a determination to cut borrowing, the government made it easier to control monetary policy, too, as interest rates could be reduced. This helped convince the markets, which were also worried that high borrowing would lead to high inflation, because in the 1970s governments had financed their deficits by printing money.
Mrs Thatcher and Howe faced stiff opposition to this Budget, not just from the Labour and Liberal parties, but also from their own back benches. Their determination was really put to the test, however, when 364 economists signed a letter to The Times stating that there was "no basis in economic theory or supporting evidence" for the policy that the Budget was seeking to implement, that it threatened Britain's "social and political stability", and that an alternative course must be pursued.
The whole of the academic establishment - including some luminaries of today - stood against the government. The 364 included Third-Way guru Anthony Giddens; the current Governor of the Bank of England; Monetary Policy Committee member Stephen Nickell; and former and future Nobel Prize winners. Only a brave few stood out against them. Indeed, it is said that Mrs Thatcher was asked in heated debate in the Commons whether she could even name two economists who agreed with her. She replied that she could: Patrick Minford and Alan Walters. As the story goes on, her civil servant said when she returned to Downing Street: "It is a good job he did not ask you to name three." In fact, there were one or two others who deserve mention, such as Terry Burns and Tim Congdon, as well as some journalists and politicians who stayed firm and argued the case for what would today be described as orthodox fiscal and monetary policies.
In many walks of life, we listen to experts with respect. Three hundred and sixty-four experts would normally command a lot of respect. But were the 364 wrong and, if so, why were they so wrong? It should be mentioned that some of the 364 would not have agreed with all the content of the letter. Nickell has said that he signed the letter because it was "the only game in town". He agreed with aspects of it, but did not agree with it in its totality. That is fair enough. The letter was wide-ranging. But the majority of its signatories probably did accept the letter in its entirety. Furthermore, Labour peer and signatory Maurice Peston has said that there would have been hundreds more queueing up to sign it if it had not been sent over Easter.
On the face of it, they were wrong. The economic recovery that the 364 said would not happen began more or less as soon as the letter appeared. Unemployment continued to rise, but this was in the face of a highly regulated and unionised labour market and wholesale industrial restructuring. A long-term fall in the rate of unemployment had to wait until labour market and trade union reforms became embedded some years later.
The 364 were wrong because they believed the Keynesian consensus of the time. Indeed, they taught it to nearly every undergraduate in the country. The textbooks used by nearly all British undergraduates did not pay any attention whatsoever to alternatives. It was as if economic theory began and ended with the naïve Keynesianism of Keynes's immediate followers.
Howe chose not to respond to the problems of the widening Budget deficit as his predecessors had, by managing it through distortionary controls or by ignoring it. He faced it head on and increased taxes. To the naïve Keynesians, the increased taxes would lead to further contraction in the economy and no hope of economic recovery. But they ignored the wider consequences. With government borrowing back on course, Howe could reduce interest rates at a time when they had been rising and when a high exchange rate had been crippling British industry. Thus lower government borrowing meant lower interest rates. This alleviated some of the pressure on industry.
These benefits were reinforced in the medium term because, instead of credibility collapsing, as it could have done had the U-turn the 364 demanded occurred, the government's policy became more credible. Gradually investors came to believe that necessary policies would be followed through and that they would work. They could plan on the basis of lower inflation, lower interest rates and a government that would repay its debt.
At the time, Minford described the 364's letter as a "dangerous and dishonest game". This is a strong charge against fellow academics, but is it justified? The charge of dangerous probably is. The government could well have caved in under the pressure generated by so many experts. If it had done so, the long-term consequences would have been catastrophic. Unemployment of three million would probably not have been avoided in the short term and, in the long term, steady decline would have been the best possible result.
The 364's letter also affected trade union "expectations". If unions expected the government to U-turn, they would expect higher inflation and ask for higher pay increases. This could have contributed to the growth in unemployment. But were the 364 dishonest? Here Minford suggests that the evidence that the Thatcher/Howe policies were both necessary and could work was before their eyes. The alternatives of incomes policy and reflation had been tested to destruction and had failed. The supporting theory and evidence for the Thatcher/Howe approach had been circulating for some time, especially in North America.
Due to the determination of a small number of politicians, backed up by a handful of academics, the government prevailed. Even the 1997 Labour Government decided to institutionalise the pursuit of sound money and fiscal policy by its fiscal rules and by making the Bank of England independent.
There are still many problems with the over-regulated British economy, which is stifled by high government spending. More than ever, Britain needs politicians who will stand up against the experts when there is a need to implement difficult policies. Thankfully we had such people 25 years ago, when the temptations to take the easy way out must have been so great: the consequences had alternative policies been pursued do not bear thinking about.
# Professor Philip Booth is editorial and programme director of the Institute of Economic Affairs. Were 364 Economists All Wrong? is published by the IEA this week
By Philip Booth
(Filed: 15/03/2006)
In 1981, Britain was at an economic crossroads. Policies that the Conservative government, elected in 1979, had been implementing to deal with accelerating inflation and a spiralling national debt were not working. Borrowing was rising. Interest rates were moving ever higher. If things had gone on as they were, credibility in the British economy would have collapsed. Investors, firms and trade unions would not have believed that any future government could have restored fiscal and monetary discipline. Britain could have become like so many South and Central American countries in the 1970s and 1980s.
Instead, Margaret Thatcher and her Chancellor, Sir Geoffrey Howe, changed tack. The 1981 Budget increased taxes by £4 billion - an enormous sum in 1981 prices. This was extremely difficult for a government elected to cut taxes. But by showing a determination to cut borrowing, the government made it easier to control monetary policy, too, as interest rates could be reduced. This helped convince the markets, which were also worried that high borrowing would lead to high inflation, because in the 1970s governments had financed their deficits by printing money.
Mrs Thatcher and Howe faced stiff opposition to this Budget, not just from the Labour and Liberal parties, but also from their own back benches. Their determination was really put to the test, however, when 364 economists signed a letter to The Times stating that there was "no basis in economic theory or supporting evidence" for the policy that the Budget was seeking to implement, that it threatened Britain's "social and political stability", and that an alternative course must be pursued.
The whole of the academic establishment - including some luminaries of today - stood against the government. The 364 included Third-Way guru Anthony Giddens; the current Governor of the Bank of England; Monetary Policy Committee member Stephen Nickell; and former and future Nobel Prize winners. Only a brave few stood out against them. Indeed, it is said that Mrs Thatcher was asked in heated debate in the Commons whether she could even name two economists who agreed with her. She replied that she could: Patrick Minford and Alan Walters. As the story goes on, her civil servant said when she returned to Downing Street: "It is a good job he did not ask you to name three." In fact, there were one or two others who deserve mention, such as Terry Burns and Tim Congdon, as well as some journalists and politicians who stayed firm and argued the case for what would today be described as orthodox fiscal and monetary policies.
In many walks of life, we listen to experts with respect. Three hundred and sixty-four experts would normally command a lot of respect. But were the 364 wrong and, if so, why were they so wrong? It should be mentioned that some of the 364 would not have agreed with all the content of the letter. Nickell has said that he signed the letter because it was "the only game in town". He agreed with aspects of it, but did not agree with it in its totality. That is fair enough. The letter was wide-ranging. But the majority of its signatories probably did accept the letter in its entirety. Furthermore, Labour peer and signatory Maurice Peston has said that there would have been hundreds more queueing up to sign it if it had not been sent over Easter.
On the face of it, they were wrong. The economic recovery that the 364 said would not happen began more or less as soon as the letter appeared. Unemployment continued to rise, but this was in the face of a highly regulated and unionised labour market and wholesale industrial restructuring. A long-term fall in the rate of unemployment had to wait until labour market and trade union reforms became embedded some years later.
The 364 were wrong because they believed the Keynesian consensus of the time. Indeed, they taught it to nearly every undergraduate in the country. The textbooks used by nearly all British undergraduates did not pay any attention whatsoever to alternatives. It was as if economic theory began and ended with the naïve Keynesianism of Keynes's immediate followers.
Howe chose not to respond to the problems of the widening Budget deficit as his predecessors had, by managing it through distortionary controls or by ignoring it. He faced it head on and increased taxes. To the naïve Keynesians, the increased taxes would lead to further contraction in the economy and no hope of economic recovery. But they ignored the wider consequences. With government borrowing back on course, Howe could reduce interest rates at a time when they had been rising and when a high exchange rate had been crippling British industry. Thus lower government borrowing meant lower interest rates. This alleviated some of the pressure on industry.
These benefits were reinforced in the medium term because, instead of credibility collapsing, as it could have done had the U-turn the 364 demanded occurred, the government's policy became more credible. Gradually investors came to believe that necessary policies would be followed through and that they would work. They could plan on the basis of lower inflation, lower interest rates and a government that would repay its debt.
At the time, Minford described the 364's letter as a "dangerous and dishonest game". This is a strong charge against fellow academics, but is it justified? The charge of dangerous probably is. The government could well have caved in under the pressure generated by so many experts. If it had done so, the long-term consequences would have been catastrophic. Unemployment of three million would probably not have been avoided in the short term and, in the long term, steady decline would have been the best possible result.
The 364's letter also affected trade union "expectations". If unions expected the government to U-turn, they would expect higher inflation and ask for higher pay increases. This could have contributed to the growth in unemployment. But were the 364 dishonest? Here Minford suggests that the evidence that the Thatcher/Howe policies were both necessary and could work was before their eyes. The alternatives of incomes policy and reflation had been tested to destruction and had failed. The supporting theory and evidence for the Thatcher/Howe approach had been circulating for some time, especially in North America.
Due to the determination of a small number of politicians, backed up by a handful of academics, the government prevailed. Even the 1997 Labour Government decided to institutionalise the pursuit of sound money and fiscal policy by its fiscal rules and by making the Bank of England independent.
There are still many problems with the over-regulated British economy, which is stifled by high government spending. More than ever, Britain needs politicians who will stand up against the experts when there is a need to implement difficult policies. Thankfully we had such people 25 years ago, when the temptations to take the easy way out must have been so great: the consequences had alternative policies been pursued do not bear thinking about.
# Professor Philip Booth is editorial and programme director of the Institute of Economic Affairs. Were 364 Economists All Wrong? is published by the IEA this week
Goldman Sachs soars as M&A hits record
By Damian Reece, Deputy City Editor (Filed: 15/03/2006)
Rainmakers at Goldman Sachs have had their best quarter since the dotcom merger boom peaked in June 2000, contributing to quarterly net revenues at the bank of $10.34bn (£5.9bn), 42pc up on its previous record.
In the three months to February 24, Goldman Sachs saw net revenues in investment banking soar 65pc to $1.47bn (£845m) against this time last year. Revenue was 55pc up on the fourth quarter of last year. Net revenues hit $1.59bn.
The investment banking business at Goldman Sachs includes not only merger and acquisition (M&A) advice given to clients, which soared 78pc to $736m compared with the same period last year, but also fees from underwriting new share issues which brought in a 53pc increase in net revenues to $735m.
Last quarter's M&A fees included revenue the bank earned from advising Telefonica, of Spain, on its £17bn takeover of UK mobile phone company O2. Overall, Goldman Sachs, which has other operations including bonds and equity trading and asset management, had net revenues of $10.34bn.
Asset management saw net revenues soar 89pc to $1.49bn over the previous record and included $739m of incentive fees reflecting booming stockmarkets.
Henry Paulson, chairman and chief executive, said: "Nearly all of our businesses produced record or near record results this quarter. While we know that we cannot expect to achieve these results every quarter, we continue to see attractive opportunities."
By Damian Reece, Deputy City Editor (Filed: 15/03/2006)
Rainmakers at Goldman Sachs have had their best quarter since the dotcom merger boom peaked in June 2000, contributing to quarterly net revenues at the bank of $10.34bn (£5.9bn), 42pc up on its previous record.
In the three months to February 24, Goldman Sachs saw net revenues in investment banking soar 65pc to $1.47bn (£845m) against this time last year. Revenue was 55pc up on the fourth quarter of last year. Net revenues hit $1.59bn.
The investment banking business at Goldman Sachs includes not only merger and acquisition (M&A) advice given to clients, which soared 78pc to $736m compared with the same period last year, but also fees from underwriting new share issues which brought in a 53pc increase in net revenues to $735m.
Last quarter's M&A fees included revenue the bank earned from advising Telefonica, of Spain, on its £17bn takeover of UK mobile phone company O2. Overall, Goldman Sachs, which has other operations including bonds and equity trading and asset management, had net revenues of $10.34bn.
Asset management saw net revenues soar 89pc to $1.49bn over the previous record and included $739m of incentive fees reflecting booming stockmarkets.
Henry Paulson, chairman and chief executive, said: "Nearly all of our businesses produced record or near record results this quarter. While we know that we cannot expect to achieve these results every quarter, we continue to see attractive opportunities."
U.S. Said To Misread Hussein On Arms
Report Cites Suspicions of Ruse
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 14, 2006; A15
U.S. intelligence agencies misinterpreted Saddam Hussein's directions that his military do away with weapons of mass destruction or their elements, believing incorrectly the orders were a ruse meant to hide evidence of such weapons from United Nations inspectors, according to an article in Foreign Affairs magazine that includes excerpts of a recently declassified report by the Pentagon's Joint Forces Command.
In 2002, when U.S. intelligence intercepted an internal message between two Iraqi commanders talking about removing the words "nerve agents" from "wireless instructions," the analysts "had no way of knowing that this time the information reflected the regime's attempt to ensure it was in compliance with U.N. resolutions," according to the Pentagon report.
The same situation existed when U.S. intelligence learned of instructions to the Iraqi military to search "for any chemical agents" in order to "make sure the area is free of chemical containers, and write a report on it," the article says. The United States "viewed this information through the prism of a decade of prior deceit" and did not believe it.
The Foreign Affairs article was written by three defense analysts who helped draft the Pentagon report: Kevin Woods, an analyst in Washington; James Lacey, a military analyst for the U.S. Joint Forces Command; and Williamson Murray, a history professor at the U.S. Naval Academy.
The intelligence analyses became part of then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's Feb. 5, 2003, briefing of the U.N. Security Council, in which the United States attempted to justify military action against Iraq based on Hussein's failure to disclose his weapons of mass destruction. Piece by piece, the intelligence presented that day by Powell has been shown to have been wrong, and the newly released Joint Forces Command report of lessons learned from the Iraq war, completed in late 2003, adds to that embarrassing record. (NOT ALL OF IT, REMEMBER HE MENTIONED ZARQAWI, WAS THAT WRONG TOO?)
Ali Hassan al-Majeed, now on trial with Hussein in Baghdad for his use of chemical bombs against Kurds, told U.S. interrogators that at some point before the U.S.-led invasion Hussein told his Revolutionary Command Council that Iraq did not have prohibited weapons of mass destruction, but Hussein refused to tell the world that. He "flatly rejected a suggestion that the regime remove all doubts to the contrary, going on to explain that such a declaration might encourage the Israelis to attack," according to the report.
The Foreign Affairs article, originally scheduled to be published in May, was released at the same time the New York Times on Sunday and Monday published excerpts of a book written jointly by its military reporter, Michael Gordon, and retired Marine Lt. Gen. Bernard Trainor, which was published this week and is based partly on the Joint Forces Command report.
Joint Forces Command personnel interviewed more than 100 Iraqi military officers and officials, and read through captured documents. Their book-length classified report focused primarily on the military details of the invasion and the rush to take Baghdad, as seen from both the U.S. and Iraqi sides.
David Kay, the first head of the Iraqi Survey Group that searched for Iraq's unconventional weapons after the March 2003 invasion, said yesterday he had read parts of the classified report in late 2003 and thought it was quite good.
A 1996 memo from the Iraqi Intelligence Service directing subordinates to "insure" there were not items related to prohibited weapons at their sites was the result of the earlier defection of Hussein's two sons-in-law, who told U.N. inspectors and U.S. intelligence personnel that chemical, biological and nuclear weapons had all been destroyed.
"Some stuff was still around because the sons-in-law, before defecting, had not carried out earlier instructions to destroy everything," Kay said.
By late 2002, with U.N. inspectors back in Iraq and the United States building up its invasion force, Hussein decided to try to convince the world that he had in fact given up his prohibited weapons programs.
Hussein "was insistent that Iraq would give full access to U.N. inspectors 'in order not to give President Bush any excuses to start a war,' " said the article, quoting the Pentagon report. "But after years of purposeful obfuscation, it was difficult to convince anyone that Iraq was not once again being economical with the truth," it concluded.
Report Cites Suspicions of Ruse
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 14, 2006; A15
U.S. intelligence agencies misinterpreted Saddam Hussein's directions that his military do away with weapons of mass destruction or their elements, believing incorrectly the orders were a ruse meant to hide evidence of such weapons from United Nations inspectors, according to an article in Foreign Affairs magazine that includes excerpts of a recently declassified report by the Pentagon's Joint Forces Command.
In 2002, when U.S. intelligence intercepted an internal message between two Iraqi commanders talking about removing the words "nerve agents" from "wireless instructions," the analysts "had no way of knowing that this time the information reflected the regime's attempt to ensure it was in compliance with U.N. resolutions," according to the Pentagon report.
The same situation existed when U.S. intelligence learned of instructions to the Iraqi military to search "for any chemical agents" in order to "make sure the area is free of chemical containers, and write a report on it," the article says. The United States "viewed this information through the prism of a decade of prior deceit" and did not believe it.
The Foreign Affairs article was written by three defense analysts who helped draft the Pentagon report: Kevin Woods, an analyst in Washington; James Lacey, a military analyst for the U.S. Joint Forces Command; and Williamson Murray, a history professor at the U.S. Naval Academy.
The intelligence analyses became part of then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's Feb. 5, 2003, briefing of the U.N. Security Council, in which the United States attempted to justify military action against Iraq based on Hussein's failure to disclose his weapons of mass destruction. Piece by piece, the intelligence presented that day by Powell has been shown to have been wrong, and the newly released Joint Forces Command report of lessons learned from the Iraq war, completed in late 2003, adds to that embarrassing record. (NOT ALL OF IT, REMEMBER HE MENTIONED ZARQAWI, WAS THAT WRONG TOO?)
Ali Hassan al-Majeed, now on trial with Hussein in Baghdad for his use of chemical bombs against Kurds, told U.S. interrogators that at some point before the U.S.-led invasion Hussein told his Revolutionary Command Council that Iraq did not have prohibited weapons of mass destruction, but Hussein refused to tell the world that. He "flatly rejected a suggestion that the regime remove all doubts to the contrary, going on to explain that such a declaration might encourage the Israelis to attack," according to the report.
The Foreign Affairs article, originally scheduled to be published in May, was released at the same time the New York Times on Sunday and Monday published excerpts of a book written jointly by its military reporter, Michael Gordon, and retired Marine Lt. Gen. Bernard Trainor, which was published this week and is based partly on the Joint Forces Command report.
Joint Forces Command personnel interviewed more than 100 Iraqi military officers and officials, and read through captured documents. Their book-length classified report focused primarily on the military details of the invasion and the rush to take Baghdad, as seen from both the U.S. and Iraqi sides.
David Kay, the first head of the Iraqi Survey Group that searched for Iraq's unconventional weapons after the March 2003 invasion, said yesterday he had read parts of the classified report in late 2003 and thought it was quite good.
A 1996 memo from the Iraqi Intelligence Service directing subordinates to "insure" there were not items related to prohibited weapons at their sites was the result of the earlier defection of Hussein's two sons-in-law, who told U.N. inspectors and U.S. intelligence personnel that chemical, biological and nuclear weapons had all been destroyed.
"Some stuff was still around because the sons-in-law, before defecting, had not carried out earlier instructions to destroy everything," Kay said.
By late 2002, with U.N. inspectors back in Iraq and the United States building up its invasion force, Hussein decided to try to convince the world that he had in fact given up his prohibited weapons programs.
Hussein "was insistent that Iraq would give full access to U.N. inspectors 'in order not to give President Bush any excuses to start a war,' " said the article, quoting the Pentagon report. "But after years of purposeful obfuscation, it was difficult to convince anyone that Iraq was not once again being economical with the truth," it concluded.
In Wake of Sadr City Attacks, Clerics Speak Out for Restraint
Prominent Shiite Accuses U.S.; Ambassador Issues Rebuke
By Ellen Knickmeyer and Bassam Sebti
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, March 14, 2006; A15
BAGHDAD, March 13 -- Clean-up crews guarded by gun-toting Shiite Muslim militiamen on Monday hauled away the carbonized car hulls and other debris from one of the deadliest attacks of the war in Baghdad's largest Shiite quarter. Three car bombs targeted markets there Sunday while families were shopping, killing 58 and wounding roughly 200, authorities said.
Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish leaders denounced the bombings as the latest attempt to push Iraq into full-scale sectarian war, and Iraq's transitional president, Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, urged political factions "to intensify their efforts to form a government and establish a broad front to achieve security and stability.''
The Muslim Scholars' Association, an influential Sunni group, condemned the bombings and any future retaliation. But the most important call for restraint may have come from Moqtada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric and militia leader whose loyal Baghdad enclave, Sadr City, was hit by Sunday's attacks.
"I can fight the terrorists. I am able to face them, militarily and spiritually," the black-turbaned young cleric said at a news conference in the Shiite holy city of Najaf. "But I don't want to slip into a civil war. Therefore, I will urge calm.''
Sadr's militias were accused of carrying out days of deadly retaliation in Baghdad following the last such major provocative attack against Shiites, a Feb. 22 bombing that blew the gold-plated dome off a Shiite shrine in the city of Samarra.
The clout of Sadr's militia and his massive constituency of loyal Shiite voters have made him a growing force in Iraq.
On Monday, Sadr accused the United States of providing "support'' to the culprits in Sunday's attack, but he did not elaborate.
Sadr also had a response for U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who said last week that U.S. troops would let Iraqi security forces deal with any civil war that might break out.
"My friend, whether there's a civil war or not, we don't want you to intervene," Sadr said at the news conference, referring to Rumsfeld.
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, in turn, spoke sharply of the popular Shiite leader's demands for a U.S. withdrawal, which he has made repeatedly since 2003.
"Coalition forces are present in Iraq on the basis of an invitation from the government, and you are part of it," Khalilzad told al-Hayat newspaper in what he said was a "message" to Sadr, whose political bloc controls some ministries. "You cannot be a part of the government while at the same time you issue statements demanding that we leave."
Also, referring to ousted president Saddam Hussein, Khalilzad said he wanted to remind Sadr that "Saddam's regime killed his father and that the U.S. saved the Iraqi people from this regime. . . . Moqtada al-Sadr should be grateful to us for what the American people did."
The U.S. Embassy on Monday confirmed the text of Khalilzad's rebuke to Sadr, whose militiamen have engaged in two full-scale battles with American troops.
In Sadr City, Iraqi police officers and Sadr's Mahdi Army militiamen manned checkpoints on main roads. "We have done our utmost to protect the people and will continue to do so,'' said Ali Mustafa, a Mahdi Army fighter with an AK-47 assault rifle, guarding the cleaning crews carrying away bomb wreckage. "I think the Americans are behind this," Mustafa added.
Mustafa and the other militiamen wore the street clothes newly adopted by the Mahdi Army. Numerous witnesses had blamed gunmen wearing the old Mahdi Army uniform of black pants and black shirts for the worst of the retaliatory raids and killings in Baghdad following the Feb. 22 mosque bombing.
News reports Monday said vigilantes in Sadr City either shot or hanged four men blamed in Sunday's bombings. Ali Yasri, head of Sadr's political office, denied the reports. Police officials said one would-be bomber was beaten to death by a mob as he tried to enter a hospital treating bombing victims, however.
In Tikrit, attackers killed the owner of a television repair shop, then planted a bomb in a TV set that exploded when police arrived. Six policemen died, police Capt. Hakim al-Azzawi said. A bomb hidden on a busy street in the southern city of Iskandariyah killed one person, and a bomb in the northern city of Kirkuk killed one civilian, police said.
The U.S. military said a bombing in eastern Baghdad killed one American soldier Monday. It also reported the killing of a Marine on Sunday in the western province of Anbar.
Special correspondents Omar Fekeiki in Baghdad and Saad Sarhan in Najaf contributed to this report.
Prominent Shiite Accuses U.S.; Ambassador Issues Rebuke
By Ellen Knickmeyer and Bassam Sebti
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, March 14, 2006; A15
BAGHDAD, March 13 -- Clean-up crews guarded by gun-toting Shiite Muslim militiamen on Monday hauled away the carbonized car hulls and other debris from one of the deadliest attacks of the war in Baghdad's largest Shiite quarter. Three car bombs targeted markets there Sunday while families were shopping, killing 58 and wounding roughly 200, authorities said.
Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish leaders denounced the bombings as the latest attempt to push Iraq into full-scale sectarian war, and Iraq's transitional president, Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, urged political factions "to intensify their efforts to form a government and establish a broad front to achieve security and stability.''
The Muslim Scholars' Association, an influential Sunni group, condemned the bombings and any future retaliation. But the most important call for restraint may have come from Moqtada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric and militia leader whose loyal Baghdad enclave, Sadr City, was hit by Sunday's attacks.
"I can fight the terrorists. I am able to face them, militarily and spiritually," the black-turbaned young cleric said at a news conference in the Shiite holy city of Najaf. "But I don't want to slip into a civil war. Therefore, I will urge calm.''
Sadr's militias were accused of carrying out days of deadly retaliation in Baghdad following the last such major provocative attack against Shiites, a Feb. 22 bombing that blew the gold-plated dome off a Shiite shrine in the city of Samarra.
The clout of Sadr's militia and his massive constituency of loyal Shiite voters have made him a growing force in Iraq.
On Monday, Sadr accused the United States of providing "support'' to the culprits in Sunday's attack, but he did not elaborate.
Sadr also had a response for U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who said last week that U.S. troops would let Iraqi security forces deal with any civil war that might break out.
"My friend, whether there's a civil war or not, we don't want you to intervene," Sadr said at the news conference, referring to Rumsfeld.
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, in turn, spoke sharply of the popular Shiite leader's demands for a U.S. withdrawal, which he has made repeatedly since 2003.
"Coalition forces are present in Iraq on the basis of an invitation from the government, and you are part of it," Khalilzad told al-Hayat newspaper in what he said was a "message" to Sadr, whose political bloc controls some ministries. "You cannot be a part of the government while at the same time you issue statements demanding that we leave."
Also, referring to ousted president Saddam Hussein, Khalilzad said he wanted to remind Sadr that "Saddam's regime killed his father and that the U.S. saved the Iraqi people from this regime. . . . Moqtada al-Sadr should be grateful to us for what the American people did."
The U.S. Embassy on Monday confirmed the text of Khalilzad's rebuke to Sadr, whose militiamen have engaged in two full-scale battles with American troops.
In Sadr City, Iraqi police officers and Sadr's Mahdi Army militiamen manned checkpoints on main roads. "We have done our utmost to protect the people and will continue to do so,'' said Ali Mustafa, a Mahdi Army fighter with an AK-47 assault rifle, guarding the cleaning crews carrying away bomb wreckage. "I think the Americans are behind this," Mustafa added.
Mustafa and the other militiamen wore the street clothes newly adopted by the Mahdi Army. Numerous witnesses had blamed gunmen wearing the old Mahdi Army uniform of black pants and black shirts for the worst of the retaliatory raids and killings in Baghdad following the Feb. 22 mosque bombing.
News reports Monday said vigilantes in Sadr City either shot or hanged four men blamed in Sunday's bombings. Ali Yasri, head of Sadr's political office, denied the reports. Police officials said one would-be bomber was beaten to death by a mob as he tried to enter a hospital treating bombing victims, however.
In Tikrit, attackers killed the owner of a television repair shop, then planted a bomb in a TV set that exploded when police arrived. Six policemen died, police Capt. Hakim al-Azzawi said. A bomb hidden on a busy street in the southern city of Iskandariyah killed one person, and a bomb in the northern city of Kirkuk killed one civilian, police said.
The U.S. military said a bombing in eastern Baghdad killed one American soldier Monday. It also reported the killing of a Marine on Sunday in the western province of Anbar.
Special correspondents Omar Fekeiki in Baghdad and Saad Sarhan in Najaf contributed to this report.
Best supporting neocon
Max Boot
March 15, 2006
DEAR George Clooney,
Congratulations on that best supporting actor Oscar you picked up last week. I couldn't be happier for you. Not only because I admire your Cary Grant-esque panache but because I admire your politics. As an advocate of a hawkish but high-minded foreign policy, I can't find much to cheer about in Hollywood, but you, my friend, consistently deliver. Dare I say it — you're the No. 1 neocon in Never Never Land.
Oh, I know you try to hide your real views behind a lot of progressive rhetoric. You've compared George W. Bush to Tony Soprano and warned that he's leading the country down the same road as Nazi Germany. I don't hold it against you; you gotta do what you gotta do in a liberal business. But your movies are what really count, and, no matter what you say, they've made the neocon case.
Even "Syriana," which has been criticized for its America-bashing by a lot of conservatives (myself included), has a neocon message. It's a protest against the influence of Big Oil on U.S. foreign policy. Neocons couldn't agree more. They argue that the policy supported by the oil companies — backing Middle Eastern despots — is leading us to ruin. It only helps create anti-American suicide bombers — as illustrated by "Syriana." The movie suggests that we should be helping liberal Arab reformers, like the fictional Prince Nasir, just as neocons have been urging.
Then there's "The Peacemaker," your terrific 1997 thriller that sought to shake the nation out of its post-Cold War complacency by showing how easily terrorists could smuggle a nuclear bomb into the U.S. Neocons in the 1990s were arguing for a more ruthless anti-terrorist policy. Your character, Lt. Col. Thomas Devoe, didn't let legal niceties stop him from saving New York.
All that is by way of prelude to your 1998 neocon masterpiece, "Three Kings." It showed that the 1991 Gulf War didn't achieve its goals when it left Saddam Hussein in power. Amid frenzied postwar celebrations, your character, Maj. Archie Gates, observes gloomily, "I don't even know what we did here." Neocons like Paul Wolfowitz were saying the same thing; they wanted to oust Hussein from power, not just from Kuwait.
You lead a group of three other soldiers to steal gold taken from Kuwait, but it soon becomes apparent that, despite your crusty exterior, you can't ignore the suffering of Iraqi Shiites who have risen up against Hussein at American instigation, only to be slaughtered. In the movie's pivotal scene, you watch as an Iraqi goon shoots a Shiite woman in the head. The Iraqi officer in charge is willing to let you leave with the loot. "You go now please," he pleads. "I don't think so," you growl. And then you beat up the Baathists on behalf of the Shiites.
The rest of the movie follows your attempts to get a group of 55 Shiites safely across the border to a refugee camp in Iran. Saving them isn't cheap — you lose most of your bullion, one of your soldiers is killed and another is badly wounded — but it's the right thing to do.
The message is clear: The U.S. should pursue its ideals in foreign policy, not simply try to protect its strategic or economic interests. Believe it or not, that is the essence of modern neoconservatism. And that is precisely the policy that President Bush has been following in Iraq, notwithstanding the sniping he's received from you and your friends.
Perhaps the problem is that you support the ends — getting rid of Hussein — but are leery of the military means. But what other alternative is there? As "Three Kings" showed, asking the Iraqi people to rise up against their oppressor wouldn't have worked. The U.S. had to step in, if only to make up for its betrayal of the Iraqis in 1991.
Anybody who wonders what U.S. troops are doing in Iraq today should rent "Three Kings." It makes an ironclad moral case for the invasion.
Good work, George. I'm looking forward to your next project: "Leo! The Leo Strauss Story."
Max Boot
March 15, 2006
DEAR George Clooney,
Congratulations on that best supporting actor Oscar you picked up last week. I couldn't be happier for you. Not only because I admire your Cary Grant-esque panache but because I admire your politics. As an advocate of a hawkish but high-minded foreign policy, I can't find much to cheer about in Hollywood, but you, my friend, consistently deliver. Dare I say it — you're the No. 1 neocon in Never Never Land.
Oh, I know you try to hide your real views behind a lot of progressive rhetoric. You've compared George W. Bush to Tony Soprano and warned that he's leading the country down the same road as Nazi Germany. I don't hold it against you; you gotta do what you gotta do in a liberal business. But your movies are what really count, and, no matter what you say, they've made the neocon case.
Even "Syriana," which has been criticized for its America-bashing by a lot of conservatives (myself included), has a neocon message. It's a protest against the influence of Big Oil on U.S. foreign policy. Neocons couldn't agree more. They argue that the policy supported by the oil companies — backing Middle Eastern despots — is leading us to ruin. It only helps create anti-American suicide bombers — as illustrated by "Syriana." The movie suggests that we should be helping liberal Arab reformers, like the fictional Prince Nasir, just as neocons have been urging.
Then there's "The Peacemaker," your terrific 1997 thriller that sought to shake the nation out of its post-Cold War complacency by showing how easily terrorists could smuggle a nuclear bomb into the U.S. Neocons in the 1990s were arguing for a more ruthless anti-terrorist policy. Your character, Lt. Col. Thomas Devoe, didn't let legal niceties stop him from saving New York.
All that is by way of prelude to your 1998 neocon masterpiece, "Three Kings." It showed that the 1991 Gulf War didn't achieve its goals when it left Saddam Hussein in power. Amid frenzied postwar celebrations, your character, Maj. Archie Gates, observes gloomily, "I don't even know what we did here." Neocons like Paul Wolfowitz were saying the same thing; they wanted to oust Hussein from power, not just from Kuwait.
You lead a group of three other soldiers to steal gold taken from Kuwait, but it soon becomes apparent that, despite your crusty exterior, you can't ignore the suffering of Iraqi Shiites who have risen up against Hussein at American instigation, only to be slaughtered. In the movie's pivotal scene, you watch as an Iraqi goon shoots a Shiite woman in the head. The Iraqi officer in charge is willing to let you leave with the loot. "You go now please," he pleads. "I don't think so," you growl. And then you beat up the Baathists on behalf of the Shiites.
The rest of the movie follows your attempts to get a group of 55 Shiites safely across the border to a refugee camp in Iran. Saving them isn't cheap — you lose most of your bullion, one of your soldiers is killed and another is badly wounded — but it's the right thing to do.
The message is clear: The U.S. should pursue its ideals in foreign policy, not simply try to protect its strategic or economic interests. Believe it or not, that is the essence of modern neoconservatism. And that is precisely the policy that President Bush has been following in Iraq, notwithstanding the sniping he's received from you and your friends.
Perhaps the problem is that you support the ends — getting rid of Hussein — but are leery of the military means. But what other alternative is there? As "Three Kings" showed, asking the Iraqi people to rise up against their oppressor wouldn't have worked. The U.S. had to step in, if only to make up for its betrayal of the Iraqis in 1991.
Anybody who wonders what U.S. troops are doing in Iraq today should rent "Three Kings." It makes an ironclad moral case for the invasion.
Good work, George. I'm looking forward to your next project: "Leo! The Leo Strauss Story."
U.S. Push for Democracy Could Backfire Inside Iran (IT MAY NOT WORK, SO LET'S JUST GIVE UP)
By Karl Vick and David Finkel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, March 14, 2006; A01
TEHRAN -- Prominent activists inside Iran say President Bush's plan to spend tens of millions of dollars to promote democracy here is the kind of help they don't need, warning that mere announcement of the U.S. program endangers human rights advocates by tainting them as American agents.
In a case that advocates fear is directly linked to Bush's announcement, the government has jailed two Iranians who traveled outside the country to attend what was billed as a series of workshops on human rights. Two others who attended were interrogated for three days. (SO THIS AGAIN, IS BUSH'S FAULT? IS THERE ANYTHING THAT HAPPENS IN THE WORLD THAT IS NOT BUSH'S FAULT?)
The workshops, conducted by groups based in the United States, were held last April, but Iranian investigators did not summon the participants until last month, about the time the Bush administration announced plans to spend $85 million "to support the cause of freedom in Iran this year."
"We are under pressure here both from hard-liners in the judiciary and that stupid George Bush," human rights activist Emad Baghi said as he waited anxiously for his wife and daughter to emerge from interrogation last week. "When he says he wants to promote democracy in Iran, he gives money to these outside groups and we're in here suffering."
The fallout illustrates the steep challenge facing the Bush administration (AGAIN, ONLY THE ADMINISTRATION IS UNDER A CHALLENGE, EVERYONE ELSE HAS SUNSHINE AND FLOWERS) as it seeks to play a role in a country where American influence is called unwelcome even by many who share the goal of increasing democratic freedoms.
"Unfortunately, I've got to say it has a negative effect, not a positive one," said Abdolfattah Soltani, a human rights lawyer recently released from seven months in prison. After writing in a newspaper that his clients were beaten while in jail, Soltani was charged with offenses that included spying for the United States.
"This is something we all know, that a way of dealing with human rights activists is to claim they have secret relations with foreign powers," said Soltani, who co-founded a human rights defense group with Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi. "This very much limits our actions. It is very dangerous to our society."
Activists here said the Bush initiative demonstrates the chasm that often separates those working inside Iran for greater freedoms -- carefully calibrating their actions to nudge incremental changes in a hostile system -- and the more strident approach of many Iranian exiles who often have the ear of Washington policymakers.
"Our society is very complicated," said Vahid Pourostad, editor of National Trust, a new newspaper aligned with Iran's struggling reform movement. "Generally speaking, it is impossible to impose something from outside. Whatever happens will happen from inside.
"It seems to me the United States is not studying the history of Iran very carefully," Pourostad said. "Whenever they came and supported an idea publicly, the public has done the opposite."
Advocates and ordinary Iranians say the U.S. project also may suffer from poor timing. Just four years ago, the Iranian public's appetite for greater freedom was vibrant here, with a reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, returned to office in a landslide and his allies in control of parliament.
But public disillusionment grew steadily as the reformists failed to wrest crucial powers from the appointed clerics who control much of the power in Iran's theocratic system of government. The clerics cemented their grip by excluding dissenters from subsequent elections.
At the same time, hard-liners in the government maintained relentless pressure against independent institutions, closing more than 100 newspapers and jailing students by the hundreds. Many had ventured into the streets at the encouragement of satellite TV stations run by exile groups that breathlessly announced a new revolution in the offing.
"They said I would be joined by millions," said one student, who endured a beating by paramilitary militiamen unleashed against the demonstrators. "I just got beat up." (THEN JUST GIVE UP; YOU LIKE YOUR GOVERNMENT, FINE, LIVE WITH THEM. NO SKIN OFF MY BACK)
Today, Pourostad said, the capacity for civil society is so depleted that homeowners cannot be bothered to protest the cutting of trees in an eastern Tehran park to make way for a freeway extension.
"If such a thing had happened four or five years ago, the newspapers could have mounted a social movement," he said. "Now, we can put it in the paper, but we can't create a social wave. A disaster happens, but we can't do anything about it."
The Bush administration is asking Congress for $75 million in emergency funding to promote democracy in Iran, in addition to $10 million already budgeted. Most of the money, $50 million, would be spent to build a satellite television station. The plan also calls for $5 million each for scholarships and public diplomacy that includes fostering independent media inside Iran.
The final $15 million would go toward nongovernmental organizations and civic education on the lines of what the federally chartered National Endowment for Democracy carries out in a wide variety of countries.
"It's going to be hard for them to spend it here," said a diplomat at a European embassy in Tehran, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The diplomat refused to be identified because the embassy has had some success with a program aimed at fostering reform in one Iranian ministry and publicity could make it a target of hard-liners.
"There is a downside," the diplomat said. "There always is. And they'll have to be clever about how they spend it."
Iran on Monday lodged a formal complaint against the Bush plan through the U.S. Interests Section at the Swiss Embassy here. At the same time, Iran's parliament allocated the equivalent of $15 million to "probe and defuse" U.S. conspiracies and interventions in the country, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
The experience of Baghi's group is cast as a cautionary tale for all concerned, including a prosecutor notorious for using arrests and detention to make examples.
Baghi, 44, has been prominent in Iran's reform movement for a decade. Once a theology student, he worked in sociology and came to prominence as an investigative journalist. After writing articles that exposed the role of Iran's Intelligence Ministry in the murders of dissidents in the 1990s, he served three years in prison.
After his release he started a newspaper, Jumhuriyat. Prosecutors closed it after 13 issues. He then founded the Society for Protecting Prisoners' Rights, a group that provides free attorneys for inmates and lobbies Iran's judiciary for due process and humane treatment.
Baghi said a friend in Europe approached him 16 months ago with a proposal to send members of the group to Dubai for a "human rights workshop." The friend gave the impression the United Nations was involved, Baghi said.
Unable to attend because authorities continue to withhold his passport, Baghi sent three other members of the rights group: his wife, Fatehmeh Kamali; their adult daughter, Maryam Baghi; and Ali Afsahi, a cleric turned film critic. Kamali's nephew, Ehsan, a law student who lived with them, went along for the ride, Baghi said.
By all accounts, the workshops did not go well. "They were very angry about this trip," Baghi wrote his friend in an e-mail. "They felt offended and insulted."
Quoting his wife, who was not available to be interviewed because of her interrogation, Baghi said the workshops offered only rudimentary training in human rights. Other sessions highlighted popular revolts in Serbia, Ukraine and elsewhere. The three Iranians were the only participants and were moved from one hotel to another by the organizers, who conjured an air of cloak and dagger, Baghi said.
"You know what a vulnerable situation we have here in Iran," Baghi wrote. "It was not a good thing to invite us to such a workshop." (THEN WHY DID YOU GO, STUPID?)
Peter Ackerman, who chairs the Washington group that ran a portion of the workshops, took issue with Baghi's description. Ackerman said the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict promotes the potential of nonviolent change by highlighting experiences in formerly oppressive countries, as depicted in the film "A Force More Powerful," which was screened in Dubai.
Baghi's group left Dubai early, saying the workshops were not what they had expected. Back in Iran, their attendance brought no immediate repercussions, even though it apparently was known to government security services. Baghi said the intelligence office of the Higher Education Ministry asked his daughter about the trip while vetting her for a graduate degree four months ago.
Then on Feb. 12, with reports emerging in Washington of the Bush initiative, Afsahi was taken into custody. Ehsan Kamali, the law student, was detained at a filling station four days later. Both remain in solitary confinement in Evin Prison in the north of Tehran, their condition unknown.
Baghi's wife and daughter were summoned to a prosecutor's office last Tuesday, when a Washington Post reporter arriving for a previously scheduled appointment found Baghi cursing Bush. The women were questioned into the night for three days by deputies of the Tehran prosecutor, Said Mortazavi, the government's most widely feared enforcer.
(THAT'S QUITE A CONNECTION, HUMAN RIGHTS AND BUSH. NOW HOW CAN HE BE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND AGAINST HUMAN RIGHTS?)
Diplomats said pressure on individuals has increased since the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president and the showdown over Iran's nuclear ambitions.
"The people who did this workshop don't realize what kind of world we live in here," Baghi said. "Here, we've got Mortazavi and the system behind him. The other side has got the U.S. and its money. The pressure is on people who are trying to promote human rights inside the country.
"I feel Ahmadinejad and President Bush are like two blades of a scissor."
Ackerman took a different view.
"The question is: Why are they going to jail?" he said. "What kind of people are sending these people to jail? What's going on here is wrong. It's despicable."
Finkel reported from Washington.
By Karl Vick and David Finkel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, March 14, 2006; A01
TEHRAN -- Prominent activists inside Iran say President Bush's plan to spend tens of millions of dollars to promote democracy here is the kind of help they don't need, warning that mere announcement of the U.S. program endangers human rights advocates by tainting them as American agents.
In a case that advocates fear is directly linked to Bush's announcement, the government has jailed two Iranians who traveled outside the country to attend what was billed as a series of workshops on human rights. Two others who attended were interrogated for three days. (SO THIS AGAIN, IS BUSH'S FAULT? IS THERE ANYTHING THAT HAPPENS IN THE WORLD THAT IS NOT BUSH'S FAULT?)
The workshops, conducted by groups based in the United States, were held last April, but Iranian investigators did not summon the participants until last month, about the time the Bush administration announced plans to spend $85 million "to support the cause of freedom in Iran this year."
"We are under pressure here both from hard-liners in the judiciary and that stupid George Bush," human rights activist Emad Baghi said as he waited anxiously for his wife and daughter to emerge from interrogation last week. "When he says he wants to promote democracy in Iran, he gives money to these outside groups and we're in here suffering."
The fallout illustrates the steep challenge facing the Bush administration (AGAIN, ONLY THE ADMINISTRATION IS UNDER A CHALLENGE, EVERYONE ELSE HAS SUNSHINE AND FLOWERS) as it seeks to play a role in a country where American influence is called unwelcome even by many who share the goal of increasing democratic freedoms.
"Unfortunately, I've got to say it has a negative effect, not a positive one," said Abdolfattah Soltani, a human rights lawyer recently released from seven months in prison. After writing in a newspaper that his clients were beaten while in jail, Soltani was charged with offenses that included spying for the United States.
"This is something we all know, that a way of dealing with human rights activists is to claim they have secret relations with foreign powers," said Soltani, who co-founded a human rights defense group with Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi. "This very much limits our actions. It is very dangerous to our society."
Activists here said the Bush initiative demonstrates the chasm that often separates those working inside Iran for greater freedoms -- carefully calibrating their actions to nudge incremental changes in a hostile system -- and the more strident approach of many Iranian exiles who often have the ear of Washington policymakers.
"Our society is very complicated," said Vahid Pourostad, editor of National Trust, a new newspaper aligned with Iran's struggling reform movement. "Generally speaking, it is impossible to impose something from outside. Whatever happens will happen from inside.
"It seems to me the United States is not studying the history of Iran very carefully," Pourostad said. "Whenever they came and supported an idea publicly, the public has done the opposite."
Advocates and ordinary Iranians say the U.S. project also may suffer from poor timing. Just four years ago, the Iranian public's appetite for greater freedom was vibrant here, with a reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, returned to office in a landslide and his allies in control of parliament.
But public disillusionment grew steadily as the reformists failed to wrest crucial powers from the appointed clerics who control much of the power in Iran's theocratic system of government. The clerics cemented their grip by excluding dissenters from subsequent elections.
At the same time, hard-liners in the government maintained relentless pressure against independent institutions, closing more than 100 newspapers and jailing students by the hundreds. Many had ventured into the streets at the encouragement of satellite TV stations run by exile groups that breathlessly announced a new revolution in the offing.
"They said I would be joined by millions," said one student, who endured a beating by paramilitary militiamen unleashed against the demonstrators. "I just got beat up." (THEN JUST GIVE UP; YOU LIKE YOUR GOVERNMENT, FINE, LIVE WITH THEM. NO SKIN OFF MY BACK)
Today, Pourostad said, the capacity for civil society is so depleted that homeowners cannot be bothered to protest the cutting of trees in an eastern Tehran park to make way for a freeway extension.
"If such a thing had happened four or five years ago, the newspapers could have mounted a social movement," he said. "Now, we can put it in the paper, but we can't create a social wave. A disaster happens, but we can't do anything about it."
The Bush administration is asking Congress for $75 million in emergency funding to promote democracy in Iran, in addition to $10 million already budgeted. Most of the money, $50 million, would be spent to build a satellite television station. The plan also calls for $5 million each for scholarships and public diplomacy that includes fostering independent media inside Iran.
The final $15 million would go toward nongovernmental organizations and civic education on the lines of what the federally chartered National Endowment for Democracy carries out in a wide variety of countries.
"It's going to be hard for them to spend it here," said a diplomat at a European embassy in Tehran, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The diplomat refused to be identified because the embassy has had some success with a program aimed at fostering reform in one Iranian ministry and publicity could make it a target of hard-liners.
"There is a downside," the diplomat said. "There always is. And they'll have to be clever about how they spend it."
Iran on Monday lodged a formal complaint against the Bush plan through the U.S. Interests Section at the Swiss Embassy here. At the same time, Iran's parliament allocated the equivalent of $15 million to "probe and defuse" U.S. conspiracies and interventions in the country, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
The experience of Baghi's group is cast as a cautionary tale for all concerned, including a prosecutor notorious for using arrests and detention to make examples.
Baghi, 44, has been prominent in Iran's reform movement for a decade. Once a theology student, he worked in sociology and came to prominence as an investigative journalist. After writing articles that exposed the role of Iran's Intelligence Ministry in the murders of dissidents in the 1990s, he served three years in prison.
After his release he started a newspaper, Jumhuriyat. Prosecutors closed it after 13 issues. He then founded the Society for Protecting Prisoners' Rights, a group that provides free attorneys for inmates and lobbies Iran's judiciary for due process and humane treatment.
Baghi said a friend in Europe approached him 16 months ago with a proposal to send members of the group to Dubai for a "human rights workshop." The friend gave the impression the United Nations was involved, Baghi said.
Unable to attend because authorities continue to withhold his passport, Baghi sent three other members of the rights group: his wife, Fatehmeh Kamali; their adult daughter, Maryam Baghi; and Ali Afsahi, a cleric turned film critic. Kamali's nephew, Ehsan, a law student who lived with them, went along for the ride, Baghi said.
By all accounts, the workshops did not go well. "They were very angry about this trip," Baghi wrote his friend in an e-mail. "They felt offended and insulted."
Quoting his wife, who was not available to be interviewed because of her interrogation, Baghi said the workshops offered only rudimentary training in human rights. Other sessions highlighted popular revolts in Serbia, Ukraine and elsewhere. The three Iranians were the only participants and were moved from one hotel to another by the organizers, who conjured an air of cloak and dagger, Baghi said.
"You know what a vulnerable situation we have here in Iran," Baghi wrote. "It was not a good thing to invite us to such a workshop." (THEN WHY DID YOU GO, STUPID?)
Peter Ackerman, who chairs the Washington group that ran a portion of the workshops, took issue with Baghi's description. Ackerman said the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict promotes the potential of nonviolent change by highlighting experiences in formerly oppressive countries, as depicted in the film "A Force More Powerful," which was screened in Dubai.
Baghi's group left Dubai early, saying the workshops were not what they had expected. Back in Iran, their attendance brought no immediate repercussions, even though it apparently was known to government security services. Baghi said the intelligence office of the Higher Education Ministry asked his daughter about the trip while vetting her for a graduate degree four months ago.
Then on Feb. 12, with reports emerging in Washington of the Bush initiative, Afsahi was taken into custody. Ehsan Kamali, the law student, was detained at a filling station four days later. Both remain in solitary confinement in Evin Prison in the north of Tehran, their condition unknown.
Baghi's wife and daughter were summoned to a prosecutor's office last Tuesday, when a Washington Post reporter arriving for a previously scheduled appointment found Baghi cursing Bush. The women were questioned into the night for three days by deputies of the Tehran prosecutor, Said Mortazavi, the government's most widely feared enforcer.
(THAT'S QUITE A CONNECTION, HUMAN RIGHTS AND BUSH. NOW HOW CAN HE BE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND AGAINST HUMAN RIGHTS?)
Diplomats said pressure on individuals has increased since the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president and the showdown over Iran's nuclear ambitions.
"The people who did this workshop don't realize what kind of world we live in here," Baghi said. "Here, we've got Mortazavi and the system behind him. The other side has got the U.S. and its money. The pressure is on people who are trying to promote human rights inside the country.
"I feel Ahmadinejad and President Bush are like two blades of a scissor."
Ackerman took a different view.
"The question is: Why are they going to jail?" he said. "What kind of people are sending these people to jail? What's going on here is wrong. It's despicable."
Finkel reported from Washington.
Bush Sets Target for Transition In Iraq
Country's Troops to Take Lead This Year
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 14, 2006; A01
President Bush vowed for the first time yesterday to turn over most of Iraq to newly trained Iraqi troops by the end of this year, setting a specific benchmark as he kicked off a fresh drive to reassure Americans alarmed by the recent burst of sectarian violence.
Bush, who until now has resisted concrete timelines as the Iraq war dragged on longer than he expected, outlined the target in the first of a series of speeches intended to lay out his strategy for victory. While acknowledging grim developments on the ground, Bush declared "real progress" in standing up Iraqi forces capable of defending their nation.
"As more capable Iraqi police and soldiers come on line, they will assume responsibility for more territory with the goal of having the Iraqis control more territory than the coalition by the end of 2006," he said in a speech to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "And as Iraqis take over more territory, this frees American and coalition forces to concentrate on training and on hunting down high-value targets like the terrorist [Abu Musab al-] Zarqawi and his associates."
The president made no commitments about withdrawing U.S. troops, but he repeated his general formula that Americans could come home as Iraqis eventually take over the fight. He also used the speech to urge Iraqis to form a unity government three months after parliamentary elections, and he accused Iran of providing explosives to Shiite militias attacking U.S. forces in Iraq.
The beginning of a new campaign to rally Americans behind the war effort nearly three years after the U.S.-led invasion comes at a time of deepening public misgivings about the campaign in Iraq and Bush's leadership of it. In a Washington Post-ABC News poll this month, 34 percent of Americans surveyed said they think the president has a plan for victory in Iraq, six percentage points lower than in December and the lowest level recorded by that poll. By contrast, 65 percent said Bush has no Iraq plan.
How meaningful or achievable the president's new goal is seems uncertain. In the speech, Bush said Iraqi units today have "primary responsibility" over 30,000 square miles of Iraqi territory, an increase of 20,000 square miles since the beginning of the year. As a country of nearly 169,000 square miles, Iraqi forces would need to control about 85,000 square miles to fulfill Bush's target.
What constitutes control, however, depends on the definition, since no Iraqi unit is currently rated capable of operating without U.S. assistance. And vast swaths of Iraq have never been contested by insurgents, meaning they could ultimately be turned over to local forces without directly affecting the conflict.
Bush said 130 Iraqi battalions are participating in the battle with radical guerrillas, with 60 units taking the lead, an increase from 120 battalions and 40 in the lead when he last delivered major speeches on Iraq at the end of 2005. But Democrats pointed out that a Pentagon report last month showed that the number of Iraqi units rated "Level 1," or fully independent of U.S. help, has fallen from one to zero. (OH MY GOD, WHATEVER WILL WE DO?)
Democratic leaders hammered away at the president's latest effort to win public support for the war. "Instead of launching yet another public relations campaign, President Bush should use his speeches this week to provide a strategy to bring our brave men and women home safely and soon," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) said in a statement. Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (N.J.) said: "It is time for President Bush to stop the spin and start telling the truth about the harsh realities we are confronting in Iraq." (????)
Others praised Bush for committing to a specific target, if not a comprehensive timeline. "This was a step in the right direction," Rep. Dan Boren (Okla.), a centrist Democrat invited to the speech, said in an interview afterward. "Benchmarks set clear, defined goals, and if we see more and more Iraqis being trained and put on the ground, then that means we can bring more Americans home."
In his speech at George Washington University, Bush focused on the threat of improvised explosive devices, called IEDs by troops, and said his administration has increased funding to fight them from $150 million in 2004 to $3.3 billion this year. In stark language, he also accused Iran of helping the bomb makers. Just last week, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld also accused Iran of dispatching elements of its Revolutionary Guard to conduct unspecified operations.
"Some of the most powerful IEDs we're seeing in Iraq today include components that come from Iran," Bush said. Such actions, along with Iran's nuclear program, he said, "are increasingly isolating Iran, and America will continue to rally the world to confront these threats."
After a deadly spasm of sectarian conflict last month sparked by the bombing of a Shiite shrine, the president presented a dour forecast of continuing mayhem. "I wish I could tell you that the violence is waning and that the road ahead will be smooth," he said. "It will not. There will be more tough fighting and more days of struggle and we will see more images of chaos and carnage in the days and months to come."
But Bush said he saw hope in the fact that the country has not fallen into civil war, as some had forecast. "The Iraqi people made their choice," he said. "They looked into the abyss and did not like what they saw."
Bush vowed not to retreat in the face of violence, reading a letter from the mother of Sgt. William S. Kinzer Jr., who was killed last year. "Don't let my son have given his all for an unfinished job," she wrote, according to Bush. "I make this promise to Debbie and all the families of the fallen heroes," he said. "We will not let your loved ones' dying be in vain. We will finish what we started in Iraq. We will complete the mission."
Correction to This Article
Because of incorrect information from the White House, a March 14 article incorrectly said that the previous day President Bush had for the first time set a goal of turning over most of Iraq to Iraqi forces by the end of the year. Bush laid out that goal in a January speech, as well.
Country's Troops to Take Lead This Year
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 14, 2006; A01
President Bush vowed for the first time yesterday to turn over most of Iraq to newly trained Iraqi troops by the end of this year, setting a specific benchmark as he kicked off a fresh drive to reassure Americans alarmed by the recent burst of sectarian violence.
Bush, who until now has resisted concrete timelines as the Iraq war dragged on longer than he expected, outlined the target in the first of a series of speeches intended to lay out his strategy for victory. While acknowledging grim developments on the ground, Bush declared "real progress" in standing up Iraqi forces capable of defending their nation.
"As more capable Iraqi police and soldiers come on line, they will assume responsibility for more territory with the goal of having the Iraqis control more territory than the coalition by the end of 2006," he said in a speech to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "And as Iraqis take over more territory, this frees American and coalition forces to concentrate on training and on hunting down high-value targets like the terrorist [Abu Musab al-] Zarqawi and his associates."
The president made no commitments about withdrawing U.S. troops, but he repeated his general formula that Americans could come home as Iraqis eventually take over the fight. He also used the speech to urge Iraqis to form a unity government three months after parliamentary elections, and he accused Iran of providing explosives to Shiite militias attacking U.S. forces in Iraq.
The beginning of a new campaign to rally Americans behind the war effort nearly three years after the U.S.-led invasion comes at a time of deepening public misgivings about the campaign in Iraq and Bush's leadership of it. In a Washington Post-ABC News poll this month, 34 percent of Americans surveyed said they think the president has a plan for victory in Iraq, six percentage points lower than in December and the lowest level recorded by that poll. By contrast, 65 percent said Bush has no Iraq plan.
How meaningful or achievable the president's new goal is seems uncertain. In the speech, Bush said Iraqi units today have "primary responsibility" over 30,000 square miles of Iraqi territory, an increase of 20,000 square miles since the beginning of the year. As a country of nearly 169,000 square miles, Iraqi forces would need to control about 85,000 square miles to fulfill Bush's target.
What constitutes control, however, depends on the definition, since no Iraqi unit is currently rated capable of operating without U.S. assistance. And vast swaths of Iraq have never been contested by insurgents, meaning they could ultimately be turned over to local forces without directly affecting the conflict.
Bush said 130 Iraqi battalions are participating in the battle with radical guerrillas, with 60 units taking the lead, an increase from 120 battalions and 40 in the lead when he last delivered major speeches on Iraq at the end of 2005. But Democrats pointed out that a Pentagon report last month showed that the number of Iraqi units rated "Level 1," or fully independent of U.S. help, has fallen from one to zero. (OH MY GOD, WHATEVER WILL WE DO?)
Democratic leaders hammered away at the president's latest effort to win public support for the war. "Instead of launching yet another public relations campaign, President Bush should use his speeches this week to provide a strategy to bring our brave men and women home safely and soon," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) said in a statement. Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (N.J.) said: "It is time for President Bush to stop the spin and start telling the truth about the harsh realities we are confronting in Iraq." (????)
Others praised Bush for committing to a specific target, if not a comprehensive timeline. "This was a step in the right direction," Rep. Dan Boren (Okla.), a centrist Democrat invited to the speech, said in an interview afterward. "Benchmarks set clear, defined goals, and if we see more and more Iraqis being trained and put on the ground, then that means we can bring more Americans home."
In his speech at George Washington University, Bush focused on the threat of improvised explosive devices, called IEDs by troops, and said his administration has increased funding to fight them from $150 million in 2004 to $3.3 billion this year. In stark language, he also accused Iran of helping the bomb makers. Just last week, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld also accused Iran of dispatching elements of its Revolutionary Guard to conduct unspecified operations.
"Some of the most powerful IEDs we're seeing in Iraq today include components that come from Iran," Bush said. Such actions, along with Iran's nuclear program, he said, "are increasingly isolating Iran, and America will continue to rally the world to confront these threats."
After a deadly spasm of sectarian conflict last month sparked by the bombing of a Shiite shrine, the president presented a dour forecast of continuing mayhem. "I wish I could tell you that the violence is waning and that the road ahead will be smooth," he said. "It will not. There will be more tough fighting and more days of struggle and we will see more images of chaos and carnage in the days and months to come."
But Bush said he saw hope in the fact that the country has not fallen into civil war, as some had forecast. "The Iraqi people made their choice," he said. "They looked into the abyss and did not like what they saw."
Bush vowed not to retreat in the face of violence, reading a letter from the mother of Sgt. William S. Kinzer Jr., who was killed last year. "Don't let my son have given his all for an unfinished job," she wrote, according to Bush. "I make this promise to Debbie and all the families of the fallen heroes," he said. "We will not let your loved ones' dying be in vain. We will finish what we started in Iraq. We will complete the mission."
Correction to This Article
Because of incorrect information from the White House, a March 14 article incorrectly said that the previous day President Bush had for the first time set a goal of turning over most of Iraq to Iraqi forces by the end of the year. Bush laid out that goal in a January speech, as well.
Leftist Party Gains in Mexico State Election
Lopez Obrador emerges as the big winner in the key test before the July presidential balloting.
By Héctor Tobar
Times Staff Writer
March 14, 2006
MEXICO CITY — The leftist Democratic Revolution Party and its presidential candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, emerged as the big winners Monday in a key state election, the last big political test before the Mexican presidential balloting in July.
The party, known in Spanish as the PRD, made substantial gains in the state of Mexico's legislature. The increase came at the expense of both the Revolutionary Institutional Party, or PRI, and President Vicente Fox's National Action Party, or PAN. The PRI is expected to retain the largest number of seats in the legislature, according to election projections, but by a slim margin.
In the weeks before the vote Sunday in Mexico state, Lopez Obrador campaigned extensively for his party's candidates.
The PRD also won the biggest prize of all: the mayor's race in Ecatepec, a sprawling industrial suburb of Mexico City with 1 million voters. The victory ended years of PRI rule in the suburb, one of the largest municipalities in the nation.
The election results came as a new poll by the influential El Universal newspaper showed Lopez Obrador widening his lead in the presidential race to 10 percentage points over Felipe Calderon of the center-right PAN, the nation's third major party.
Roberto Madrazo of the PRI was 18 points behind his PRD rival in the poll.
"At this point in the race, with the PAN and PRI candidates seemingly stuck, you have to ask if it's possible for them to catch the PRD," Leo Zuckermann, a political analyst, wrote in a survey of the poll results.
In February, Lopez Obrador led his PAN and PRI rivals in the El Universal poll by five and 14 percentage points respectively. Other recent polls also show him with substantial leads.
"It's going to be very difficult for them to bring us down," Lopez Obrador said Monday on his daily television program here. "This is the struggle of a people against a small group of leaders who have ruined Mexico…. We will win by a large margin."
Lopez Obrador, 53, is popular among working-class Mexicans for a number of social programs and public works projects he launched during his five-year tenure as mayor of Mexico City, which ended last year.
In Mexico state, a horseshoe-shaped territory around the nation's capital, Lopez Obrador addressed campaign rallies in 43 municipalities this month. In about a dozen of those cities and towns, his party's candidates unseated the PRI.
Dan Lund, president of the Mexico City-based marketing and opinion research firm Mund Americas, said exit polls in Mexico state showed the leftist party did best in municipalities visited by their presidential candidate.
Much like Bill Clinton did in the United States in 1992, Lopez Obrador is pulling ahead of his rivals because he has strong support among women voters, Lund said. Traditionally, leftist candidates in Mexico have not done well among women. Meanwhile, the allegations of corruption involving the PRI and its presidential candidate have caused Madrazo to lose the support of women voters.
"Some people are saying that there is now a strong probability Lopez Obrador will be the winner," Lund said. "I think that's premature. But the evidence is accumulating. It's hard to think how Calderon and Madrazo will overcome their problems."
Pollsters such as Lund point out that Lopez Obrador remains significantly more popular than his party. But the candidate's coattails helped his party make significant gains in the Mexico state elections, they said.
The PRD, which had been the third-largest party in the state legislature, moved into a virtual first-place tie with the PRI. The PAN slipped to third, a big setback.
Fox won Mexico state in 2000 on his way to becoming the first Mexican president in seven decades who was not from the PRI.
Arturo Garcia Portillo, a spokesman for the PAN, tried to put the best face on the state results. "It's clear that the candidate of the PRD has a high level of support, but this hasn't helped the PRD raise up a weak party structure," he said.
Since January, the PAN's Calderon has outspent both his rivals in the presidential race by a large margin in television advertising. But he has failed to cut into Lopez Obrador's lead.
In recent weeks, Lopez Obrador's rivals have attacked him for agreeing to only one televised debate. And on Friday, Calderon said he had received evidence that Venezuela President Hugo Chavez, a bete noire of the Bush administration, was funding Mexico university groups that support the front-runner.
For his part, Lopez Obrador continued to strike populist tones on the campaign trail.
At a rally Sunday he repeated his pledge to reevaluate the North American Free Trade Agreement among the U.S., Canada and Mexico "because we're not going to allow this country to be flooded with foreign goods."
Lopez Obrador emerges as the big winner in the key test before the July presidential balloting.
By Héctor Tobar
Times Staff Writer
March 14, 2006
MEXICO CITY — The leftist Democratic Revolution Party and its presidential candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, emerged as the big winners Monday in a key state election, the last big political test before the Mexican presidential balloting in July.
The party, known in Spanish as the PRD, made substantial gains in the state of Mexico's legislature. The increase came at the expense of both the Revolutionary Institutional Party, or PRI, and President Vicente Fox's National Action Party, or PAN. The PRI is expected to retain the largest number of seats in the legislature, according to election projections, but by a slim margin.
In the weeks before the vote Sunday in Mexico state, Lopez Obrador campaigned extensively for his party's candidates.
The PRD also won the biggest prize of all: the mayor's race in Ecatepec, a sprawling industrial suburb of Mexico City with 1 million voters. The victory ended years of PRI rule in the suburb, one of the largest municipalities in the nation.
The election results came as a new poll by the influential El Universal newspaper showed Lopez Obrador widening his lead in the presidential race to 10 percentage points over Felipe Calderon of the center-right PAN, the nation's third major party.
Roberto Madrazo of the PRI was 18 points behind his PRD rival in the poll.
"At this point in the race, with the PAN and PRI candidates seemingly stuck, you have to ask if it's possible for them to catch the PRD," Leo Zuckermann, a political analyst, wrote in a survey of the poll results.
In February, Lopez Obrador led his PAN and PRI rivals in the El Universal poll by five and 14 percentage points respectively. Other recent polls also show him with substantial leads.
"It's going to be very difficult for them to bring us down," Lopez Obrador said Monday on his daily television program here. "This is the struggle of a people against a small group of leaders who have ruined Mexico…. We will win by a large margin."
Lopez Obrador, 53, is popular among working-class Mexicans for a number of social programs and public works projects he launched during his five-year tenure as mayor of Mexico City, which ended last year.
In Mexico state, a horseshoe-shaped territory around the nation's capital, Lopez Obrador addressed campaign rallies in 43 municipalities this month. In about a dozen of those cities and towns, his party's candidates unseated the PRI.
Dan Lund, president of the Mexico City-based marketing and opinion research firm Mund Americas, said exit polls in Mexico state showed the leftist party did best in municipalities visited by their presidential candidate.
Much like Bill Clinton did in the United States in 1992, Lopez Obrador is pulling ahead of his rivals because he has strong support among women voters, Lund said. Traditionally, leftist candidates in Mexico have not done well among women. Meanwhile, the allegations of corruption involving the PRI and its presidential candidate have caused Madrazo to lose the support of women voters.
"Some people are saying that there is now a strong probability Lopez Obrador will be the winner," Lund said. "I think that's premature. But the evidence is accumulating. It's hard to think how Calderon and Madrazo will overcome their problems."
Pollsters such as Lund point out that Lopez Obrador remains significantly more popular than his party. But the candidate's coattails helped his party make significant gains in the Mexico state elections, they said.
The PRD, which had been the third-largest party in the state legislature, moved into a virtual first-place tie with the PRI. The PAN slipped to third, a big setback.
Fox won Mexico state in 2000 on his way to becoming the first Mexican president in seven decades who was not from the PRI.
Arturo Garcia Portillo, a spokesman for the PAN, tried to put the best face on the state results. "It's clear that the candidate of the PRD has a high level of support, but this hasn't helped the PRD raise up a weak party structure," he said.
Since January, the PAN's Calderon has outspent both his rivals in the presidential race by a large margin in television advertising. But he has failed to cut into Lopez Obrador's lead.
In recent weeks, Lopez Obrador's rivals have attacked him for agreeing to only one televised debate. And on Friday, Calderon said he had received evidence that Venezuela President Hugo Chavez, a bete noire of the Bush administration, was funding Mexico university groups that support the front-runner.
For his part, Lopez Obrador continued to strike populist tones on the campaign trail.
At a rally Sunday he repeated his pledge to reevaluate the North American Free Trade Agreement among the U.S., Canada and Mexico "because we're not going to allow this country to be flooded with foreign goods."
Iran May Finally Be Ready to Talk
As Tehran shifts toward engagement, however, the U.S. appears to be moving away.
By John Daniszewski and Alissa J. Rubin
Times Staff Writers
March 14, 2006
TEHRAN — In spite of the hostile rhetoric in recent days over Iran's nuclear ambitions, the Islamic Republic may be losing its long-standing reluctance to speak directly with the United States, politicians and analysts here say.
There is a growing body of opinion in Iran that talks with Washington on the nuclear question and regional security issues could be in the country's interest. For the first time, reformers and conservatives appear to be in agreement on that question.
But as Tehran has shifted toward engagement with Washington, the U.S. has appeared to be moving in the opposite direction.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said that channels exist for limited talks with Iran, mentioning the U.S. envoys to Iraq and Afghanistan, and Iran's mission to the United Nations in New York.
"I think that that is the appropriate level of engagement given our deep concerns about Iranian policy on the nuclear issue, on the terrorism issue and indeed in terms of the Iranian regime's treatment of its own people," she said.
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John R. Bolton said Monday, "I don't think we have anything to say to the Iranians."
For almost three decades, Iran shunned contacts with the country labeled here as the Great Satan.
The late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, against relations with the United States during the early days of the Iranian revolution. The country's conservative religious establishment stuck to that line.
Now, that refusal to talk is softening.
Mehdi Karroubi, the former parliament speaker and a close associate of Khomeini, said in an interview that the fatwa was not meant to last forever.
"The break in relations is not forever and not for eternity," said the bearded, white-turbaned mullah, noting that he was expressing his personal opinion. Sipping tea in an elegant reception room in a house near one of the shah's former palaces, he added, "We only need a pioneer, someone to take the first step."
One factor pushing the change is the perception in Iran that the country would be coming to talks in a position of relative strength.
Iran's growing influence in the region, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the U.S. could benefit from Iranian cooperation, allows it to engage the United States on a more equal footing, said Amir Mohebian, political editor of Resalat, a hard-line conservative newspaper.
Under former President Mohammad Khatami, Iran could only move one step forward, two steps back, he said. Under new President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranians will move two steps forward, one back, he predicted.
The rapprochement would not necessarily be from "love or emotion, but out of biological necessity," said Nasser Hadian, professor of international law at Tehran University.
In an interview with Time magazine last month, Ali Larijani, the country's supreme national security secretary, said that from Iran's perspective, talks with the United States could be useful.
"We have no problems in negotiating on nuclear issues, and also issues of interest to Muslims, things that will bring calm to the region, provided that they are honest and that Mr. Bush does not harangue us," said Larijani, a conservative politician who opposed Ahmadinejad in the first round of last year's presidential election.
From the late 1990s until 2002, U.S. policy was to try to engage the Iranian government and coax it gradually to democracy. Beginning with President Bush's "axis of evil" speech in 2002, the U.S. reverted to a policy of containment of Iran.
More recently, the administration appears to have endorsed bringing about the overthrow of the government as its goal, seeking $85 million from Congress for that purpose. The tougher stance is supported by many Iranian exiles in the United States, who see the government as irredeemable.
The election of Ahmadinejad, an ultra-religious, unapologetic hard-liner — and his comments last year questioning the Holocaust and saying that Israel should be wiped from the map — gave ammunition to those in the West and in Israel who argue that Iran must be confronted, not negotiated with.
But advocates of talks note that in Iran, Ahmadinejad is not the only power determining policy. Nor is he in charge of Iran's external affairs, which fall mainly under the purview of the Supreme National Security Council and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's supreme leader.
Supporters of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani — still a potent figure as head of the Expediency Council, which coordinates among the different branches of the state — are among those arguing that dialogue would be a better course for Iran than confrontation.
"We are in favor of a dialogue. Before, the fundamentalists would not have approved, but now they [also] think it would be the thing to do," said Mohammed Atrianfar, editor of the moderate Shargh newspaper, who is close to Rafsanjani.
Hadian believes the elements exist for a compromise between Iran and the United States. There is no consensus among the Iranian elite to weaponize the country's nuclear technology, as Western officials suspect, he says. He asserts that the government has agreed only to seek nuclear knowledge and a limited capability to build weapons as a bargaining chip and a deterrent if it is threatened.
Most of the government believes that having such weapons would actually increase Iran's vulnerability, he said. A nuclear arms race in the Middle East could eliminate Iran's conventional military superiority and drive Arab neighbors further into the arms of America, he said.
The nuclear issue would not be the most important item to be resolved in talks with the United States, Hadian added. For the Americans, he said, the key issues are cooperation on Iraq and curtailment of Iran's support of groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas. The Iranians would like security guarantees and a push for a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East, he said.
Strategically, he said, the United States and Iran share many aims, including stability in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as free movement of oil through the Persian Gulf.
"Both sides have demands," he said. "For a fundamental resolution of the problem, the U.S. should engage, and other issues should be on the table."
The two nations "need one another. They just cannot ignore one another," he said.
As a matter of pride, many Iranians would like to be taken seriously enough by the United States to be engaged directly.
Moreover, diplomats said that what Iran wants most, only the U.S. can give: security guarantees and access to technology and foreign investment.
With U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan and with Israel clearly hostile, Iran is worried about attack, those diplomats say.
"The U.S. keeps talking about regime change in Iran, and that makes them nervous. Only the U.S. can make a security guarantee," said a diplomat close to the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, the U.N. nuclear watchdog in Vienna. And even the threat of sanctions has chilled the Iranian economy.
How talks might take place remains unknown. One option discussed by third-country diplomats would be something akin to the six-party talks underway with North Korea in which the U.S. has joined South Korea, Japan, China and Russia.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei V. Lavrov mentioned that model Friday. Lavrov proposed a group that would include Mohamed ElBaradei, the director of the IAEA. Others have talked about Britain, France and Germany as well as Russia, China, the U.S., Iran, and perhaps South Africa, a nonaligned country that gave up its nuclear program.
"Then the U.S. can say it's multilateral, but when they are all in the room, there will be an opportunity to talk," one diplomat said.
Whatever device is used to open talks, "the question is not about the past. It is how to shape the future," said Mahmood Vaezi, Iran's former deputy foreign minister and now a government advisor. "Both sides now are waiting for the other side to change his view. Both sides should revise their positions together."
Daniszewski reported from Tehran and Rubin from Vienna. Times staff writers Paul Richter in Washington and Maggie Farley at the United Nations also contributed to this report.
As Tehran shifts toward engagement, however, the U.S. appears to be moving away.
By John Daniszewski and Alissa J. Rubin
Times Staff Writers
March 14, 2006
TEHRAN — In spite of the hostile rhetoric in recent days over Iran's nuclear ambitions, the Islamic Republic may be losing its long-standing reluctance to speak directly with the United States, politicians and analysts here say.
There is a growing body of opinion in Iran that talks with Washington on the nuclear question and regional security issues could be in the country's interest. For the first time, reformers and conservatives appear to be in agreement on that question.
But as Tehran has shifted toward engagement with Washington, the U.S. has appeared to be moving in the opposite direction.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said that channels exist for limited talks with Iran, mentioning the U.S. envoys to Iraq and Afghanistan, and Iran's mission to the United Nations in New York.
"I think that that is the appropriate level of engagement given our deep concerns about Iranian policy on the nuclear issue, on the terrorism issue and indeed in terms of the Iranian regime's treatment of its own people," she said.
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John R. Bolton said Monday, "I don't think we have anything to say to the Iranians."
For almost three decades, Iran shunned contacts with the country labeled here as the Great Satan.
The late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, against relations with the United States during the early days of the Iranian revolution. The country's conservative religious establishment stuck to that line.
Now, that refusal to talk is softening.
Mehdi Karroubi, the former parliament speaker and a close associate of Khomeini, said in an interview that the fatwa was not meant to last forever.
"The break in relations is not forever and not for eternity," said the bearded, white-turbaned mullah, noting that he was expressing his personal opinion. Sipping tea in an elegant reception room in a house near one of the shah's former palaces, he added, "We only need a pioneer, someone to take the first step."
One factor pushing the change is the perception in Iran that the country would be coming to talks in a position of relative strength.
Iran's growing influence in the region, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the U.S. could benefit from Iranian cooperation, allows it to engage the United States on a more equal footing, said Amir Mohebian, political editor of Resalat, a hard-line conservative newspaper.
Under former President Mohammad Khatami, Iran could only move one step forward, two steps back, he said. Under new President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranians will move two steps forward, one back, he predicted.
The rapprochement would not necessarily be from "love or emotion, but out of biological necessity," said Nasser Hadian, professor of international law at Tehran University.
In an interview with Time magazine last month, Ali Larijani, the country's supreme national security secretary, said that from Iran's perspective, talks with the United States could be useful.
"We have no problems in negotiating on nuclear issues, and also issues of interest to Muslims, things that will bring calm to the region, provided that they are honest and that Mr. Bush does not harangue us," said Larijani, a conservative politician who opposed Ahmadinejad in the first round of last year's presidential election.
From the late 1990s until 2002, U.S. policy was to try to engage the Iranian government and coax it gradually to democracy. Beginning with President Bush's "axis of evil" speech in 2002, the U.S. reverted to a policy of containment of Iran.
More recently, the administration appears to have endorsed bringing about the overthrow of the government as its goal, seeking $85 million from Congress for that purpose. The tougher stance is supported by many Iranian exiles in the United States, who see the government as irredeemable.
The election of Ahmadinejad, an ultra-religious, unapologetic hard-liner — and his comments last year questioning the Holocaust and saying that Israel should be wiped from the map — gave ammunition to those in the West and in Israel who argue that Iran must be confronted, not negotiated with.
But advocates of talks note that in Iran, Ahmadinejad is not the only power determining policy. Nor is he in charge of Iran's external affairs, which fall mainly under the purview of the Supreme National Security Council and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's supreme leader.
Supporters of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani — still a potent figure as head of the Expediency Council, which coordinates among the different branches of the state — are among those arguing that dialogue would be a better course for Iran than confrontation.
"We are in favor of a dialogue. Before, the fundamentalists would not have approved, but now they [also] think it would be the thing to do," said Mohammed Atrianfar, editor of the moderate Shargh newspaper, who is close to Rafsanjani.
Hadian believes the elements exist for a compromise between Iran and the United States. There is no consensus among the Iranian elite to weaponize the country's nuclear technology, as Western officials suspect, he says. He asserts that the government has agreed only to seek nuclear knowledge and a limited capability to build weapons as a bargaining chip and a deterrent if it is threatened.
Most of the government believes that having such weapons would actually increase Iran's vulnerability, he said. A nuclear arms race in the Middle East could eliminate Iran's conventional military superiority and drive Arab neighbors further into the arms of America, he said.
The nuclear issue would not be the most important item to be resolved in talks with the United States, Hadian added. For the Americans, he said, the key issues are cooperation on Iraq and curtailment of Iran's support of groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas. The Iranians would like security guarantees and a push for a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East, he said.
Strategically, he said, the United States and Iran share many aims, including stability in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as free movement of oil through the Persian Gulf.
"Both sides have demands," he said. "For a fundamental resolution of the problem, the U.S. should engage, and other issues should be on the table."
The two nations "need one another. They just cannot ignore one another," he said.
As a matter of pride, many Iranians would like to be taken seriously enough by the United States to be engaged directly.
Moreover, diplomats said that what Iran wants most, only the U.S. can give: security guarantees and access to technology and foreign investment.
With U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan and with Israel clearly hostile, Iran is worried about attack, those diplomats say.
"The U.S. keeps talking about regime change in Iran, and that makes them nervous. Only the U.S. can make a security guarantee," said a diplomat close to the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, the U.N. nuclear watchdog in Vienna. And even the threat of sanctions has chilled the Iranian economy.
How talks might take place remains unknown. One option discussed by third-country diplomats would be something akin to the six-party talks underway with North Korea in which the U.S. has joined South Korea, Japan, China and Russia.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei V. Lavrov mentioned that model Friday. Lavrov proposed a group that would include Mohamed ElBaradei, the director of the IAEA. Others have talked about Britain, France and Germany as well as Russia, China, the U.S., Iran, and perhaps South Africa, a nonaligned country that gave up its nuclear program.
"Then the U.S. can say it's multilateral, but when they are all in the room, there will be an opportunity to talk," one diplomat said.
Whatever device is used to open talks, "the question is not about the past. It is how to shape the future," said Mahmood Vaezi, Iran's former deputy foreign minister and now a government advisor. "Both sides now are waiting for the other side to change his view. Both sides should revise their positions together."
Daniszewski reported from Tehran and Rubin from Vienna. Times staff writers Paul Richter in Washington and Maggie Farley at the United Nations also contributed to this report.
Baghdad bridges mystery solved
By Francis Harris in Washington
(Filed: 14/03/2006)
A classified American army report based on interviews with senior Iraqis has cleared up a mystery which has baffled western military experts since the invasion of March 2003.
As American units raced towards the capital, military observers had confidently expected Saddam to destroy all the major bridges into Baghdad to give Iraqi forces more time to prepare their defence of the capital. But he did not.
According to papers leaked to The New York Times, Saddam told his commanders that the Americans would not seek to capture Baghdad and instructed that the bridges be left intact so that his forces could head south to crush any revolt by anti-regime elements once the war was over.
A captured commander of Saddam's elite Republican Guard later told the Americans: "We thought the coalition would go to Basra... and then the war would end."
Saddam prepared for a re-run of the 1991 Gulf war when the end of hostilities was followed by a major Shia uprising.
Once it became clear that the Americans were heading for Baghdad, Saddam belatedly gave the order for bridges over the Euphrates to be blown but the explosive charges failed to bring the structures down and the Americans swept across.
The American report says the regime's paranoia hobbled Iraq's defence in other ways.
Determined to prevent an uprising by his own army, Saddam put loyalists in charge of the Republican Guard.
The best troops, those of the Special Republican Guard defending Baghdad, were handed to a notorious drunk and military incompetent, Brig Gen Barzan Majid al-Tikriti.
Meanwhile units south of the city facing the Americans had their radios taken away to prevent any conspiracy against Saddam. That left them unable to co-ordinate their defence.
By Francis Harris in Washington
(Filed: 14/03/2006)
A classified American army report based on interviews with senior Iraqis has cleared up a mystery which has baffled western military experts since the invasion of March 2003.
As American units raced towards the capital, military observers had confidently expected Saddam to destroy all the major bridges into Baghdad to give Iraqi forces more time to prepare their defence of the capital. But he did not.
According to papers leaked to The New York Times, Saddam told his commanders that the Americans would not seek to capture Baghdad and instructed that the bridges be left intact so that his forces could head south to crush any revolt by anti-regime elements once the war was over.
A captured commander of Saddam's elite Republican Guard later told the Americans: "We thought the coalition would go to Basra... and then the war would end."
Saddam prepared for a re-run of the 1991 Gulf war when the end of hostilities was followed by a major Shia uprising.
Once it became clear that the Americans were heading for Baghdad, Saddam belatedly gave the order for bridges over the Euphrates to be blown but the explosive charges failed to bring the structures down and the Americans swept across.
The American report says the regime's paranoia hobbled Iraq's defence in other ways.
Determined to prevent an uprising by his own army, Saddam put loyalists in charge of the Republican Guard.
The best troops, those of the Special Republican Guard defending Baghdad, were handed to a notorious drunk and military incompetent, Brig Gen Barzan Majid al-Tikriti.
Meanwhile units south of the city facing the Americans had their radios taken away to prevent any conspiracy against Saddam. That left them unable to co-ordinate their defence.
Army to withdraw 800 troops from Iraq
By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent
(Filed: 14/03/2006)
The number of British troops serving in Iraq is to be cut by 800 to just over 7,000, it was announced yesterday.
John Reid, the Defence Secretary, told the Commons that the reduction would begin when the next brigade moves to Iraq in May. He insisted that the cut was not triggered by the increase in violence.
"It is an operational decision not a political one," he said.
With more than 235,000 trained members of the Iraqi security forces and 5,000 recruits joining each month, the country now had enough resources to conduct independent operations, he said.
The announcement came as many observers believe Iraq is descending into even greater chaos with the prospect of civil war.
But despite the recent sectarian violence after the dome of the Shia shrine in Samarra was destroyed, the Ministry of Defence's analysis was that civil war was "neither imminent nor inevitable".
Mr Reid hinted that some of Iraq's 18 provinces could be entirely free of foreign troops after the Joint Committee to Transfer Security Responsibility meets this month.
He said that the occupying forces were not about to "cut and run", insisting that their commitment was "steadfast until the job is done".
He added that the reduction was not to release troops for Afghanistan where force levels will peak at almost 6,000 this summer.
The cut in troops will come when 20 Armoured Brigade replaces 7 Armoured Brigade but with fewer troops. The helicopter force will also be reduced by two to 17 machines.
By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent
(Filed: 14/03/2006)
The number of British troops serving in Iraq is to be cut by 800 to just over 7,000, it was announced yesterday.
John Reid, the Defence Secretary, told the Commons that the reduction would begin when the next brigade moves to Iraq in May. He insisted that the cut was not triggered by the increase in violence.
"It is an operational decision not a political one," he said.
With more than 235,000 trained members of the Iraqi security forces and 5,000 recruits joining each month, the country now had enough resources to conduct independent operations, he said.
The announcement came as many observers believe Iraq is descending into even greater chaos with the prospect of civil war.
But despite the recent sectarian violence after the dome of the Shia shrine in Samarra was destroyed, the Ministry of Defence's analysis was that civil war was "neither imminent nor inevitable".
Mr Reid hinted that some of Iraq's 18 provinces could be entirely free of foreign troops after the Joint Committee to Transfer Security Responsibility meets this month.
He said that the occupying forces were not about to "cut and run", insisting that their commitment was "steadfast until the job is done".
He added that the reduction was not to release troops for Afghanistan where force levels will peak at almost 6,000 this summer.
The cut in troops will come when 20 Armoured Brigade replaces 7 Armoured Brigade but with fewer troops. The helicopter force will also be reduced by two to 17 machines.
In Iran, Dissenting Voices Rise on Its Leaders' Nuclear Strategy
March 15, 2006
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
TEHRAN, March 14 — Just weeks ago, the Iranian government's combative approach toward building a nuclear program produced rare public displays of unity here. Now, while the top leaders remain resolute in their course, cracks are opening both inside and outside the circles of power over the issue.
Some people in powerful positions have begun to insist that the confrontational tactics of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have been backfiring, making it harder instead of easier for Iran to develop a nuclear program.
This week, the United Nations Security Council is meeting to take up the Iranian nuclear program. That referral and, perhaps more important, Iran's inability so far to win Russia's unequivocal support for its plans have empowered critics of Mr. Ahmadinejad, according to political analysts with close ties to the government.
One senior Iranian official, who asked to remain anonymous because of the delicate nature of the issue, said: "I tell you, if what they were doing was working, we would say, 'Good.' " But, he added: "For 27 years after the revolution, America wanted to get Iran to the Security Council and America failed. In less than six months, Ahmadinejad did that."
One month ago, the same official had said with a laugh that those who thought the hard-line approach was a bad choice were staying silent because it appeared to be succeeding.
As usual in Iran, there are mixed signals, and the government does not always speak with the same voice.
On Tuesday, both Mr. Ahmadinejad and the nation's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, insisted in public speeches that their country would never back down. At the same time, Iranian negotiators arrived in Moscow to resume talks — at Iran's request — just days after Iran had rejected a Russian proposal to resolve the standoff.
Average Iranians do not seem uniformly confident at the prospect of being hit with United Nations sanctions.
From the streets of Tehran to the ski slopes outside the city, some people have begun to joke about the catch phrase of the government — flippantly saying, "Nuclear energy is our irrefutable right."
Reformers, whose political clout as a movement vanished after the last election, have also begun to speak out. And people with close ties to the government said high-ranking clerics had begun to give criticism of Iran's position to Ayatollah Khamenei, which the political elite sees as a seismic jolt.
"There has been no sign that they will back down," said Ahmad Zeidabady, a political analyst and journalist. "At least Mr. Khamenei has said nothing that we can interpret that there will be change in the policies."
But, he said, "There is more criticism as it is becoming more clear that this policy is not working, especially by those who were in the previous negotiating team."
There are also signs that negotiators are starting to back away, however slightly, from a bare-knuckle strategy and that those who had initially opposed the president's style — but remained silent — are beginning to feel vindicated and are starting to speak up.
A former president, Mohammad Khatami, recently publicly criticized the aggressive approach and called a return to his government's strategy of confidence-building with the west.
"The previous team now feels they were vindicated," said Nasser Hadian, a political science professor at Tehran University who is close to many members of the government. "The new team feels they have to justify their actions."
Ayatollah Khamenei, who has the final say, issued a strong defense of Iran's position on Tuesday.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran considers retreat over the nuclear issue, which is the demand of the Iranian people, as breaking the country's independence that will impose huge costs on the Iranian nation," he said.
"Peaceful use of nuclear technology is a must and is necessary for scientific growth in all fields," Ayatollah Khamenei said. "Any kind of retreat will bring a series of pressures and retreats. So, this is an irreversible path and our foreign diplomacy should defend this right courageously."
In a speech in northern Iran, Mr. Ahmadinejad called on the people to "be angry" at the pressure being put on Iran.
"Listen well," the president said to a crowd chanting "die" as they punched the air with their fists. "A nuclear program is our irrefutable right."
When Mr. Ahmadinejad took office, he embraced a decision already made by the top leadership to move toward confrontation with the West about the nuclear program. From the sidelines, Mr. Ahmadinejad's opponents remained largely silent as his political capital grew.
Iran's ability to begin uranium enrichment, and to remove the seals in January at least three nuclear facilities without any immediate consequences, was initially seen as a validation of the get-tough approach.
But one political scientist who speaks regularly with members of the Foreign Ministry said that Iran had hinged much of its strategy on winning Russia's support. The political scientist asked not to be identified so as not to compromise his relationship with people in the government.
The political scientist said some negotiators believed that by being hostile to the West they would be able to entice Moscow into making Tehran its stronghold in the Middle East. "They thought the turn east was the way forward," the person said. "That was a belief and a vision."
The person added, "They thought, 99 percent, Russia would seize the opportunity and back the Iranian leaders."
The route forward remains unclear as Iran tries to regain a sense of momentum.
There is a consensus here that Iran has many cards to play — from its influence with the Shiites in Iraq to its closer ties to Hezbollah in Lebanon, to the prospect of using oil as a weapon. But the uncertainty of appearing before the Security Council, and the prospect of sanctions, has led some here to begin to rethink the wisdom of fighting the West head-on, analysts said.
Professor Hadian said he believed that for Iran to fundamentally change course the situation for Iran would have to first grow much worse.
"There are concerns to keep the situation calm," said Mr. Zeidabady, the journalist. "We have received orders not even to have headlines saying the case has been sent to the Security Council. Although the situation is very critical, they want to pretend that everything is normal. They do not want to show the country is coming under pressure and lose their supporters."
Nazila Fathi contributed reporting for this article.
March 15, 2006
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
TEHRAN, March 14 — Just weeks ago, the Iranian government's combative approach toward building a nuclear program produced rare public displays of unity here. Now, while the top leaders remain resolute in their course, cracks are opening both inside and outside the circles of power over the issue.
Some people in powerful positions have begun to insist that the confrontational tactics of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have been backfiring, making it harder instead of easier for Iran to develop a nuclear program.
This week, the United Nations Security Council is meeting to take up the Iranian nuclear program. That referral and, perhaps more important, Iran's inability so far to win Russia's unequivocal support for its plans have empowered critics of Mr. Ahmadinejad, according to political analysts with close ties to the government.
One senior Iranian official, who asked to remain anonymous because of the delicate nature of the issue, said: "I tell you, if what they were doing was working, we would say, 'Good.' " But, he added: "For 27 years after the revolution, America wanted to get Iran to the Security Council and America failed. In less than six months, Ahmadinejad did that."
One month ago, the same official had said with a laugh that those who thought the hard-line approach was a bad choice were staying silent because it appeared to be succeeding.
As usual in Iran, there are mixed signals, and the government does not always speak with the same voice.
On Tuesday, both Mr. Ahmadinejad and the nation's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, insisted in public speeches that their country would never back down. At the same time, Iranian negotiators arrived in Moscow to resume talks — at Iran's request — just days after Iran had rejected a Russian proposal to resolve the standoff.
Average Iranians do not seem uniformly confident at the prospect of being hit with United Nations sanctions.
From the streets of Tehran to the ski slopes outside the city, some people have begun to joke about the catch phrase of the government — flippantly saying, "Nuclear energy is our irrefutable right."
Reformers, whose political clout as a movement vanished after the last election, have also begun to speak out. And people with close ties to the government said high-ranking clerics had begun to give criticism of Iran's position to Ayatollah Khamenei, which the political elite sees as a seismic jolt.
"There has been no sign that they will back down," said Ahmad Zeidabady, a political analyst and journalist. "At least Mr. Khamenei has said nothing that we can interpret that there will be change in the policies."
But, he said, "There is more criticism as it is becoming more clear that this policy is not working, especially by those who were in the previous negotiating team."
There are also signs that negotiators are starting to back away, however slightly, from a bare-knuckle strategy and that those who had initially opposed the president's style — but remained silent — are beginning to feel vindicated and are starting to speak up.
A former president, Mohammad Khatami, recently publicly criticized the aggressive approach and called a return to his government's strategy of confidence-building with the west.
"The previous team now feels they were vindicated," said Nasser Hadian, a political science professor at Tehran University who is close to many members of the government. "The new team feels they have to justify their actions."
Ayatollah Khamenei, who has the final say, issued a strong defense of Iran's position on Tuesday.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran considers retreat over the nuclear issue, which is the demand of the Iranian people, as breaking the country's independence that will impose huge costs on the Iranian nation," he said.
"Peaceful use of nuclear technology is a must and is necessary for scientific growth in all fields," Ayatollah Khamenei said. "Any kind of retreat will bring a series of pressures and retreats. So, this is an irreversible path and our foreign diplomacy should defend this right courageously."
In a speech in northern Iran, Mr. Ahmadinejad called on the people to "be angry" at the pressure being put on Iran.
"Listen well," the president said to a crowd chanting "die" as they punched the air with their fists. "A nuclear program is our irrefutable right."
When Mr. Ahmadinejad took office, he embraced a decision already made by the top leadership to move toward confrontation with the West about the nuclear program. From the sidelines, Mr. Ahmadinejad's opponents remained largely silent as his political capital grew.
Iran's ability to begin uranium enrichment, and to remove the seals in January at least three nuclear facilities without any immediate consequences, was initially seen as a validation of the get-tough approach.
But one political scientist who speaks regularly with members of the Foreign Ministry said that Iran had hinged much of its strategy on winning Russia's support. The political scientist asked not to be identified so as not to compromise his relationship with people in the government.
The political scientist said some negotiators believed that by being hostile to the West they would be able to entice Moscow into making Tehran its stronghold in the Middle East. "They thought the turn east was the way forward," the person said. "That was a belief and a vision."
The person added, "They thought, 99 percent, Russia would seize the opportunity and back the Iranian leaders."
The route forward remains unclear as Iran tries to regain a sense of momentum.
There is a consensus here that Iran has many cards to play — from its influence with the Shiites in Iraq to its closer ties to Hezbollah in Lebanon, to the prospect of using oil as a weapon. But the uncertainty of appearing before the Security Council, and the prospect of sanctions, has led some here to begin to rethink the wisdom of fighting the West head-on, analysts said.
Professor Hadian said he believed that for Iran to fundamentally change course the situation for Iran would have to first grow much worse.
"There are concerns to keep the situation calm," said Mr. Zeidabady, the journalist. "We have received orders not even to have headlines saying the case has been sent to the Security Council. Although the situation is very critical, they want to pretend that everything is normal. They do not want to show the country is coming under pressure and lose their supporters."
Nazila Fathi contributed reporting for this article.
The Young Speechwriter Who Captured Rice's Voice
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 14, 2006; A17
Christian D. Brose's rise to the heights of Washington speechwriting could have been scripted in Hollywood.
A year ago, Brose was the most junior speechwriter at the State Department. When Condoleezza Rice was nominated to be secretary of state after the 2004 election, the then-national security adviser summoned the State Department speechwriting team to the White House for a discussion of her confirmation hearings.
The team went over, not sure they would hold their jobs for much longer. To their surprise, they were ushered into the White House situation room. The conversation meandered and seemed uninspired, Rice aides said, until the 25-year-old Brose shyly raised his hand and offered a suggestion that, for Rice, crystallized her foreign policy themes.
"Who is that young red-haired kid?" Rice asked one of her senior advisers, Jim Wilkinson, as they left the room. "Let's keep an eye on him."
A star was born.
Brose, now 26, was recently named Rice's chief speechwriter. He is responsible for many of the major speeches she has delivered around the world to advance the administration's message of spreading democracy, earning the admiration of Rice's top aides.
"Chris can write her voice better than anyone," Wilkinson said. "He's become one of her closest advisers on policy and communications."
Another fan is Elizabeth Cheney, a principal deputy assistant secretary of state and key participant in the administration's democracy campaign. "Speechwriting is one of the hardest jobs in Washington. Chris is one of the best," she said, praising his "mastery of the subject matter" and his "intellectual curiosity."
Rice considers Brose such an asset that she often brings him along when she travels overseas. Former secretary of state Colin L. Powell's speechwriters never traveled with him, in part because the speeches were completed well before departure. But Rice likes Brose at her side so they can work together to shape and sharpen the speeches until right before she delivers them. A speech in Brazil was altered because of a conversation Rice had on the airport tarmac when she landed in Brasilia, and Rice's signature democracy speech, given in Cairo last June, was tweaked to add language Rice had spontaneously used at a news conference a few hours before the speech.
Last week, the night before leaving with Rice on a 10-day swing through Latin America and Asia, Brose said he had not yet shown her the first draft of a speech she is scheduled to deliver tomorrow in Jakarta. He had gotten some ideas and thoughts from Rice and consulted with experts on Southeast Asia at the State Department, but he said the real work would only begin during the long hours of flying.
"She trusts me to do that first draft with the vision she's given me," he said.
Brose is likable and self-effacing, devoid of the self-promotion that often comes with power in Washington. A former collegiate swimmer and avid bicyclist, the lanky Brose still says that "one of my best jobs" was being a bike messenger because he could tool around on his wheels 10 hours a day. He still bikes to work from the apartment in Adams Morgan that he shares with his wife, Molly, a painter and jewelry designer. Brose often writes Rice's speeches in his wife's studio, "with a pot of coffee at 2 a.m."
Brose was a political science major in college -- what he calls a "Plato-to-NATO education." He became interested in making his mark in Washington after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He was hired as an editor at a couple of serious policy journals and then applied for a job as one of Powell's speechwriters in 2004, after one of his bosses had made the move to the State Department. He thought he had little chance of being hired. "I basically got lucky," he said.
The first day he walked into the main lobby of the State Department and looked up at the flags of nearly every nation, Brose recalled, "it was intimidating but thrilling at the same time."
Brose said one of his aims in Rice's speeches is to connect her life story -- growing up black in a segregated South -- with the struggle to build democracy in faraway lands. Rice's recounting of the difficulties African Americans have faced in gaining a voice in U.S. society seems to strike a chord with audiences here and abroad, in part because it adds a note of humility to a democracy project that many overseas view warily.
Earlier this year, in a speech at Georgetown University, Rice noted that there is a portrait of Thomas Jefferson -- the first secretary of state -- "that looks direct at me when I am speaking to those foreign ministers, and I wonder sometimes, 'What would Mr. Jefferson have thought? . . . What would he have thought about America's pursuit of the democratic enterprise on behalf of the peoples of the world? What would he have thought that my ancestors, who were three-fifths of a man in his constitution, would produce a secretary of state who would carry out that mission?' "
Rice's speech in Cairo last June stands as one of the defining moments of her tenure. It was the first time a secretary of state had gone to the Middle East and demanded that the region's autocrats open up their political systems. Rice began working on Brose's first draft shortly after the plane took off from Andrews Air Force Base. Her aides squeezed into her cabin on the Boeing 757 and spent two hours going over it word by word. Brose then produced two new drafts each day, until the speech was given three days later.
Brose said Rice encourages him to be "forward-leaning," and so he pushes as hard as he can. "My rule of thumb is let them take it out." he said. "I want to get the secretary out as far out on a limb as possible. Otherwise you will end up with oatmeal."
In this case, Brose would have had Rice publicly name three Saudi dissidents who were jailed after they petitioned the monarchy to adopt a constitutional system, prompting one career State Department official to ask if the administration wanted $11-a-gallon gasoline. The names were removed, but Rice raised the issue in her speech, saying such actions "should not be a crime in any country." The Saudis were annoyed, but one of King Abdullah's first acts after being crowned in August was to pardon the men.
Brose likens speech writing to alpine skiing. "If you are lucky, it looks pretty in the end," he said -- "the viewers don't see the falls and the endless hours."
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 14, 2006; A17
Christian D. Brose's rise to the heights of Washington speechwriting could have been scripted in Hollywood.
A year ago, Brose was the most junior speechwriter at the State Department. When Condoleezza Rice was nominated to be secretary of state after the 2004 election, the then-national security adviser summoned the State Department speechwriting team to the White House for a discussion of her confirmation hearings.
The team went over, not sure they would hold their jobs for much longer. To their surprise, they were ushered into the White House situation room. The conversation meandered and seemed uninspired, Rice aides said, until the 25-year-old Brose shyly raised his hand and offered a suggestion that, for Rice, crystallized her foreign policy themes.
"Who is that young red-haired kid?" Rice asked one of her senior advisers, Jim Wilkinson, as they left the room. "Let's keep an eye on him."
A star was born.
Brose, now 26, was recently named Rice's chief speechwriter. He is responsible for many of the major speeches she has delivered around the world to advance the administration's message of spreading democracy, earning the admiration of Rice's top aides.
"Chris can write her voice better than anyone," Wilkinson said. "He's become one of her closest advisers on policy and communications."
Another fan is Elizabeth Cheney, a principal deputy assistant secretary of state and key participant in the administration's democracy campaign. "Speechwriting is one of the hardest jobs in Washington. Chris is one of the best," she said, praising his "mastery of the subject matter" and his "intellectual curiosity."
Rice considers Brose such an asset that she often brings him along when she travels overseas. Former secretary of state Colin L. Powell's speechwriters never traveled with him, in part because the speeches were completed well before departure. But Rice likes Brose at her side so they can work together to shape and sharpen the speeches until right before she delivers them. A speech in Brazil was altered because of a conversation Rice had on the airport tarmac when she landed in Brasilia, and Rice's signature democracy speech, given in Cairo last June, was tweaked to add language Rice had spontaneously used at a news conference a few hours before the speech.
Last week, the night before leaving with Rice on a 10-day swing through Latin America and Asia, Brose said he had not yet shown her the first draft of a speech she is scheduled to deliver tomorrow in Jakarta. He had gotten some ideas and thoughts from Rice and consulted with experts on Southeast Asia at the State Department, but he said the real work would only begin during the long hours of flying.
"She trusts me to do that first draft with the vision she's given me," he said.
Brose is likable and self-effacing, devoid of the self-promotion that often comes with power in Washington. A former collegiate swimmer and avid bicyclist, the lanky Brose still says that "one of my best jobs" was being a bike messenger because he could tool around on his wheels 10 hours a day. He still bikes to work from the apartment in Adams Morgan that he shares with his wife, Molly, a painter and jewelry designer. Brose often writes Rice's speeches in his wife's studio, "with a pot of coffee at 2 a.m."
Brose was a political science major in college -- what he calls a "Plato-to-NATO education." He became interested in making his mark in Washington after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He was hired as an editor at a couple of serious policy journals and then applied for a job as one of Powell's speechwriters in 2004, after one of his bosses had made the move to the State Department. He thought he had little chance of being hired. "I basically got lucky," he said.
The first day he walked into the main lobby of the State Department and looked up at the flags of nearly every nation, Brose recalled, "it was intimidating but thrilling at the same time."
Brose said one of his aims in Rice's speeches is to connect her life story -- growing up black in a segregated South -- with the struggle to build democracy in faraway lands. Rice's recounting of the difficulties African Americans have faced in gaining a voice in U.S. society seems to strike a chord with audiences here and abroad, in part because it adds a note of humility to a democracy project that many overseas view warily.
Earlier this year, in a speech at Georgetown University, Rice noted that there is a portrait of Thomas Jefferson -- the first secretary of state -- "that looks direct at me when I am speaking to those foreign ministers, and I wonder sometimes, 'What would Mr. Jefferson have thought? . . . What would he have thought about America's pursuit of the democratic enterprise on behalf of the peoples of the world? What would he have thought that my ancestors, who were three-fifths of a man in his constitution, would produce a secretary of state who would carry out that mission?' "
Rice's speech in Cairo last June stands as one of the defining moments of her tenure. It was the first time a secretary of state had gone to the Middle East and demanded that the region's autocrats open up their political systems. Rice began working on Brose's first draft shortly after the plane took off from Andrews Air Force Base. Her aides squeezed into her cabin on the Boeing 757 and spent two hours going over it word by word. Brose then produced two new drafts each day, until the speech was given three days later.
Brose said Rice encourages him to be "forward-leaning," and so he pushes as hard as he can. "My rule of thumb is let them take it out." he said. "I want to get the secretary out as far out on a limb as possible. Otherwise you will end up with oatmeal."
In this case, Brose would have had Rice publicly name three Saudi dissidents who were jailed after they petitioned the monarchy to adopt a constitutional system, prompting one career State Department official to ask if the administration wanted $11-a-gallon gasoline. The names were removed, but Rice raised the issue in her speech, saying such actions "should not be a crime in any country." The Saudis were annoyed, but one of King Abdullah's first acts after being crowned in August was to pardon the men.
Brose likens speech writing to alpine skiing. "If you are lucky, it looks pretty in the end," he said -- "the viewers don't see the falls and the endless hours."
Radical Iraqi Cleric Expands His Reach
Sadr rules much of the Shiite street and parts of the government. U.S. officials see his clout as a potential threat to the new regime.
By Borzou Daragahi
Times Staff Writer
March 13, 2006
SADR CITY, Iraq — Muqtada Sadr's expanding web of power starts right here, on the teeming streets of a neighborhood in northeastern Baghdad named after his assassinated father and uncle.
It begins with charities and public services, such as subsidized cooking fuel, street cleaning and soccer games for the aimless boys of the Shiite Muslim ghetto.
It extends to neighborhood watch groups and his Al Mahdi militiamen, who control and secure Sadr City as well as southern cities such as Basra, sometimes menacing rival Shiite groups, U.S.-led forces and, more recently, Sunni Arab neighborhoods.
It has spread to Iraq's parliament, where the young anti-U.S. cleric's followers control a key 35-seat bloc that has boosted interim Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari's political fortunes, and to provincial councils and local police forces in the Shiite south, where militiamen serve as a kind of morality police.
It stretches through key ministries such as transportation and health, which have become vast patronage troves for Sadr's followers. And it has grown beyond Iraq's borders: Sadr has spent the last few months circling the region as he rides a wave of tremendous popular support unique among any of the political movements that have emerged in Iraq since Saddam Hussein was ousted.
Three years ago, the U.S. invaded Iraq at least in part, the White House says, to unleash the nation's democratic potential. By deftly employing gun and ballot alike, Sadr has used the chaos of the postwar period to spread his movement's power day by day — and, startlingly, transform himself from obscure young rabble-rouser to hunted rebel to statesman.
Sadr's status has alarmed U.S. officials hoping to wind down the American presence and leave behind a stable government. U.S. and Iraqi officials worry that his movement, with its arsenal of weapons and radical ideology, poses a threat to any central authority and inspires other political movements to take up arms.
"The true nightmare in Iraq is not Anbar," the province that is the hotbed of the Sunni-led insurgency, "it's Basra," said a high-level U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It's neighborhood by neighborhood, police station by police station, collectives of quasi-political, quasi-criminal gangs, who may use a label that has a national color to it but in reality isn't national at all.
"And it's the intermingling of criminality and the push for individual power, all blended into one."
"Muqtada! Muqtada!" chant thousands of faithful who gather for Friday prayers in Sadr City, in frequent rowdy street rallies, during religious ceremonies where older crowds blush at the sight of Sadr's young male followers jumping up and down and swiveling their hips. "Yes, yes, Muqtada!"
Electricity courses through the crowds of his followers in Sadr City, the milieu of energetic Iraqi youth. They play soccer in dusty fields of a district that has become a national gold mine of talented professional athletes. They volunteer for street cleanup operations and donate blood after Friday prayers. They carry grenade launchers and AK-47s as they patrol the neighborhood as part of his Al Mahdi army.
"We do all the services for the people, all the humanitarian work," said Kareem Jorani, a member of the militia. "Whatever people need, we provide. We protect them at night. We provide security for the people."
Others in Baghdad call Sadr City residents "shuruqi," or easties, a derogatory term referring to the capital's poor eastern edge as well as the predominantly Shiite southeast of the country that was brutally suppressed by Hussein.
The young Sadr, somewhere between his mid-20s and mid-30s, has turned "shuruqi" into an emblem of pride, a rallying cry of a defiant movement forged in mosques as well as the battlefield.
Sadr inherited control of the Martyr Sadr foundation, the network of mosques and charities throughout the country's Shiite areas funded by donations from the millions of followers of the Sadr clerical line, after the fall of Hussein's government.
But his benevolent efforts aside, violence has been a part of Sadr's legacy and a tool for his advancement since he announced the creation of his Al Mahdi army in the summer of 2003, quickly turning it into an impromptu force of thousands of young men. Because the militia is informally organized, its strength today is unknown.
Fighting broke out between Al Mahdi militiamen and U.S. forces in the spring of 2004. The militiamen surprised Americans with their tenacity. By the time the battles ended in the autumn of 2004, the militiamen had fought the Americans to near standstills. (YOU MIGHT WANT TO DOUBLE CHECK THAT)
Sadr's forces suffered heavy losses, and incurred heavy damage to Valley of Peace cemetery in Najaf, his hometown and the site of the shrine of Imam Ali and some of the faith's most important seminaries. (THIS IS A 'DRAW'?)
The people of Najaf and the nearby shrine city of Karbala, mostly loyal to more moderate clerics such as Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, grew to despise Sadr.
But his battle scars and vehement denunciations of U.S. and British forces bolstered his nationalist credentials to followers and demonstrated to a ruling class of mostly exiled politicians his capacity to use his militiamen to bring the political process to a halt.
Senior clergy in both Iraq and Iran pressed him to join a coalition with other Shiite parties in two parliamentary elections last year.
Sadr played it both ways, criticizing the elections while allowing his followers to run as either independents or on the main Shiite slate. He now controls more seats in the 275-seat legislature than any other political leader.
When it came time to dole out ministries, Sadr asked for and got the ministries of transportation, with control over ports, roadways and motor vehicle licensing; and health, with at least 150,000 employees; and began handing out jobs to followers.
"The Mahdi army of Iraq is at the service of the Iraqi people," Sadr said in an interview last month on Al Jazeera TV. "The Mahdi army was at a time a military army, but now it has become a cultural army. In the past the fight was a military one. Now the conflict is a religious one."
Still, Al Mahdi's paramilitary operations continue apace. Among Sadr's crowd, guns and ammunition are always close at hand. Young Mahdi militiamen toting Kalashnikovs and wearing flak jackets direct traffic and check cars in Sadr City. Inside Sadr offices, militiamen monitor radios and cellphones. An agent was recently overheard calling an Al Mahdi army office to report a suspicious car entering the neighborhood.
"Follow him," a commander ordered over a cellphone.
Black-shirted Al Mahdi militiamen are largely believed to be responsible for February attacks on Sunni Arab mosques and clerics after the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra.
For days, Sunni Arab leaders and television stations gave horrifying accounts of "black shirts" marauding through Sunni neighborhoods and abducting young men.
"This is the point of danger in the Sadr movement," said Isam Arrawi, a hard-line Sunni Arab nationalist and member of the Muslim Scholars Assn., a clerical umbrella group. "Furious masses, in the absence of good thinking, did unspeakable things."
Sadr denied that his followers were responsible for the carnage. In response to the chaos, he adopted a moderate tone and ordered his followers to stop wearing black. They complied, and now mostly wear street clothes.
Sadr's followers enforce not only security but a fairly harsh Islamic fundamentalism. On university campuses, Al Mahdi army adherents order women to cover their heads. They have intimidated liquor store owners. Last year in Basra, the militiamen stormed through a coed picnic beating unveiled women.
But even Iraqis who loathe Sadr's fundamentalism welcome his movement's efforts to guard mosques and religious ceremonies and act as a force of order, if not law. In the rest of the capital and much of the rest of the country, Iraqis cower in their homes, their neighborhoods moribund caldrons of fear and despair. Sadr City and cities of the south buzz with frenetic activity, protected by armed militiamen. Pedestrians and cars jostle for space below huge portraits of the young Sadr and his famous father, Mohammed Sadeq Sadr, and uncle, Mohammed Bakr Sadr, both believed to have been slain by Hussein's forces.
"The government cannot protect us because they are infiltrated and corrupted," said Ghasem Khalidi, a 40-year-old employee at the Ministry of Industry from Basra and follower of the moderate cleric Sistani. "The governmental forces are made up of different militias who each seek the interests of their own political parties."
With control over so-called service ministries, Sadr's followers have been able to deliver improvements denied other Iraqis. Sadr City's streets, ravaged by neglect and by bombs planted by Al Mahdi militiamen in the 2004 uprising against the U.S. Army's 1st Cavalry Division, have been repaired.
The whole 8-square-mile neighborhood of up to 2 1/2 million people stands in stark contrast to the rest of the capital. Lime-green saplings have been planted in main squares, part of a rare beautification effort. The stench of raw sewage, which last year overwhelmed warrens of densely packed residential alleyways, has dissipated, signs of progress for which both U.S. officials and Al Mahdi members take credit.
"We diverted resources from Sunni neighborhoods and rich Shiite neighborhoods to our neighborhood," said Hatem Adhad Mohammed, 41, a municipal worker and Sadr loyalist.
As the influence and presence of secular Iraqi politicians such as former Pentagon favorite Ahmad Chalabi and former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi wane, Sadr's domestic and international political credibility swell. U.N. chief envoy Ashraf Jehangir Qazi and most of Iraq's most important politicians have begun visiting the cleric.
Sadr has often traveled to Iran, where he maintains ties with both the political leadership in Tehran and senior clergy in the seminary city of Qom. But he has expanded his regional itinerary, meeting with leaders in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Lebanon.
Unsettled by Sadr's threats and distracted by an ongoing Sunni Arab insurgency, U.S. and Iraqi officials have allowed his movement to gather steam, with his deputies turning segments of the government into patronage machines and his militia turning sections of the country into fiefdoms.
Officials acknowledge the perils involved in his rise.
"It is not an acceptable answer to succumb to the presence of a militia to protect a particular neighborhood or a city's security," said a Western diplomat in Baghdad who specializes in Iraq's military affairs but spoke on condition of anonymity. "Militias are not loyal to a body politic, or to a constitution, or to a nationally elected set of leaders. A militia's loyalty is to one particular ethnic-sectarian group. They're not accountable to the rule of law."
*
A special correspondent in Basra contributed to this report.
Sadr rules much of the Shiite street and parts of the government. U.S. officials see his clout as a potential threat to the new regime.
By Borzou Daragahi
Times Staff Writer
March 13, 2006
SADR CITY, Iraq — Muqtada Sadr's expanding web of power starts right here, on the teeming streets of a neighborhood in northeastern Baghdad named after his assassinated father and uncle.
It begins with charities and public services, such as subsidized cooking fuel, street cleaning and soccer games for the aimless boys of the Shiite Muslim ghetto.
It extends to neighborhood watch groups and his Al Mahdi militiamen, who control and secure Sadr City as well as southern cities such as Basra, sometimes menacing rival Shiite groups, U.S.-led forces and, more recently, Sunni Arab neighborhoods.
It has spread to Iraq's parliament, where the young anti-U.S. cleric's followers control a key 35-seat bloc that has boosted interim Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari's political fortunes, and to provincial councils and local police forces in the Shiite south, where militiamen serve as a kind of morality police.
It stretches through key ministries such as transportation and health, which have become vast patronage troves for Sadr's followers. And it has grown beyond Iraq's borders: Sadr has spent the last few months circling the region as he rides a wave of tremendous popular support unique among any of the political movements that have emerged in Iraq since Saddam Hussein was ousted.
Three years ago, the U.S. invaded Iraq at least in part, the White House says, to unleash the nation's democratic potential. By deftly employing gun and ballot alike, Sadr has used the chaos of the postwar period to spread his movement's power day by day — and, startlingly, transform himself from obscure young rabble-rouser to hunted rebel to statesman.
Sadr's status has alarmed U.S. officials hoping to wind down the American presence and leave behind a stable government. U.S. and Iraqi officials worry that his movement, with its arsenal of weapons and radical ideology, poses a threat to any central authority and inspires other political movements to take up arms.
"The true nightmare in Iraq is not Anbar," the province that is the hotbed of the Sunni-led insurgency, "it's Basra," said a high-level U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It's neighborhood by neighborhood, police station by police station, collectives of quasi-political, quasi-criminal gangs, who may use a label that has a national color to it but in reality isn't national at all.
"And it's the intermingling of criminality and the push for individual power, all blended into one."
"Muqtada! Muqtada!" chant thousands of faithful who gather for Friday prayers in Sadr City, in frequent rowdy street rallies, during religious ceremonies where older crowds blush at the sight of Sadr's young male followers jumping up and down and swiveling their hips. "Yes, yes, Muqtada!"
Electricity courses through the crowds of his followers in Sadr City, the milieu of energetic Iraqi youth. They play soccer in dusty fields of a district that has become a national gold mine of talented professional athletes. They volunteer for street cleanup operations and donate blood after Friday prayers. They carry grenade launchers and AK-47s as they patrol the neighborhood as part of his Al Mahdi army.
"We do all the services for the people, all the humanitarian work," said Kareem Jorani, a member of the militia. "Whatever people need, we provide. We protect them at night. We provide security for the people."
Others in Baghdad call Sadr City residents "shuruqi," or easties, a derogatory term referring to the capital's poor eastern edge as well as the predominantly Shiite southeast of the country that was brutally suppressed by Hussein.
The young Sadr, somewhere between his mid-20s and mid-30s, has turned "shuruqi" into an emblem of pride, a rallying cry of a defiant movement forged in mosques as well as the battlefield.
Sadr inherited control of the Martyr Sadr foundation, the network of mosques and charities throughout the country's Shiite areas funded by donations from the millions of followers of the Sadr clerical line, after the fall of Hussein's government.
But his benevolent efforts aside, violence has been a part of Sadr's legacy and a tool for his advancement since he announced the creation of his Al Mahdi army in the summer of 2003, quickly turning it into an impromptu force of thousands of young men. Because the militia is informally organized, its strength today is unknown.
Fighting broke out between Al Mahdi militiamen and U.S. forces in the spring of 2004. The militiamen surprised Americans with their tenacity. By the time the battles ended in the autumn of 2004, the militiamen had fought the Americans to near standstills. (YOU MIGHT WANT TO DOUBLE CHECK THAT)
Sadr's forces suffered heavy losses, and incurred heavy damage to Valley of Peace cemetery in Najaf, his hometown and the site of the shrine of Imam Ali and some of the faith's most important seminaries. (THIS IS A 'DRAW'?)
The people of Najaf and the nearby shrine city of Karbala, mostly loyal to more moderate clerics such as Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, grew to despise Sadr.
But his battle scars and vehement denunciations of U.S. and British forces bolstered his nationalist credentials to followers and demonstrated to a ruling class of mostly exiled politicians his capacity to use his militiamen to bring the political process to a halt.
Senior clergy in both Iraq and Iran pressed him to join a coalition with other Shiite parties in two parliamentary elections last year.
Sadr played it both ways, criticizing the elections while allowing his followers to run as either independents or on the main Shiite slate. He now controls more seats in the 275-seat legislature than any other political leader.
When it came time to dole out ministries, Sadr asked for and got the ministries of transportation, with control over ports, roadways and motor vehicle licensing; and health, with at least 150,000 employees; and began handing out jobs to followers.
"The Mahdi army of Iraq is at the service of the Iraqi people," Sadr said in an interview last month on Al Jazeera TV. "The Mahdi army was at a time a military army, but now it has become a cultural army. In the past the fight was a military one. Now the conflict is a religious one."
Still, Al Mahdi's paramilitary operations continue apace. Among Sadr's crowd, guns and ammunition are always close at hand. Young Mahdi militiamen toting Kalashnikovs and wearing flak jackets direct traffic and check cars in Sadr City. Inside Sadr offices, militiamen monitor radios and cellphones. An agent was recently overheard calling an Al Mahdi army office to report a suspicious car entering the neighborhood.
"Follow him," a commander ordered over a cellphone.
Black-shirted Al Mahdi militiamen are largely believed to be responsible for February attacks on Sunni Arab mosques and clerics after the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra.
For days, Sunni Arab leaders and television stations gave horrifying accounts of "black shirts" marauding through Sunni neighborhoods and abducting young men.
"This is the point of danger in the Sadr movement," said Isam Arrawi, a hard-line Sunni Arab nationalist and member of the Muslim Scholars Assn., a clerical umbrella group. "Furious masses, in the absence of good thinking, did unspeakable things."
Sadr denied that his followers were responsible for the carnage. In response to the chaos, he adopted a moderate tone and ordered his followers to stop wearing black. They complied, and now mostly wear street clothes.
Sadr's followers enforce not only security but a fairly harsh Islamic fundamentalism. On university campuses, Al Mahdi army adherents order women to cover their heads. They have intimidated liquor store owners. Last year in Basra, the militiamen stormed through a coed picnic beating unveiled women.
But even Iraqis who loathe Sadr's fundamentalism welcome his movement's efforts to guard mosques and religious ceremonies and act as a force of order, if not law. In the rest of the capital and much of the rest of the country, Iraqis cower in their homes, their neighborhoods moribund caldrons of fear and despair. Sadr City and cities of the south buzz with frenetic activity, protected by armed militiamen. Pedestrians and cars jostle for space below huge portraits of the young Sadr and his famous father, Mohammed Sadeq Sadr, and uncle, Mohammed Bakr Sadr, both believed to have been slain by Hussein's forces.
"The government cannot protect us because they are infiltrated and corrupted," said Ghasem Khalidi, a 40-year-old employee at the Ministry of Industry from Basra and follower of the moderate cleric Sistani. "The governmental forces are made up of different militias who each seek the interests of their own political parties."
With control over so-called service ministries, Sadr's followers have been able to deliver improvements denied other Iraqis. Sadr City's streets, ravaged by neglect and by bombs planted by Al Mahdi militiamen in the 2004 uprising against the U.S. Army's 1st Cavalry Division, have been repaired.
The whole 8-square-mile neighborhood of up to 2 1/2 million people stands in stark contrast to the rest of the capital. Lime-green saplings have been planted in main squares, part of a rare beautification effort. The stench of raw sewage, which last year overwhelmed warrens of densely packed residential alleyways, has dissipated, signs of progress for which both U.S. officials and Al Mahdi members take credit.
"We diverted resources from Sunni neighborhoods and rich Shiite neighborhoods to our neighborhood," said Hatem Adhad Mohammed, 41, a municipal worker and Sadr loyalist.
As the influence and presence of secular Iraqi politicians such as former Pentagon favorite Ahmad Chalabi and former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi wane, Sadr's domestic and international political credibility swell. U.N. chief envoy Ashraf Jehangir Qazi and most of Iraq's most important politicians have begun visiting the cleric.
Sadr has often traveled to Iran, where he maintains ties with both the political leadership in Tehran and senior clergy in the seminary city of Qom. But he has expanded his regional itinerary, meeting with leaders in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Lebanon.
Unsettled by Sadr's threats and distracted by an ongoing Sunni Arab insurgency, U.S. and Iraqi officials have allowed his movement to gather steam, with his deputies turning segments of the government into patronage machines and his militia turning sections of the country into fiefdoms.
Officials acknowledge the perils involved in his rise.
"It is not an acceptable answer to succumb to the presence of a militia to protect a particular neighborhood or a city's security," said a Western diplomat in Baghdad who specializes in Iraq's military affairs but spoke on condition of anonymity. "Militias are not loyal to a body politic, or to a constitution, or to a nationally elected set of leaders. A militia's loyalty is to one particular ethnic-sectarian group. They're not accountable to the rule of law."
*
A special correspondent in Basra contributed to this report.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Nanotechnology May Repair Damaged Brains
41 minutes ago
TUESDAY, March 14 (HealthDay News) -- Rodents blinded by brain damage had their vision partially restored within weeks after being treated with nanotechnology developed by bioengineers and neuroscientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The findings provide evidence that similar strategies might someday work in humans.
"If we can reconnect parts of the brain that were disconnected by stroke, then we may be able to restore speech to an individual who is able to understand what is said but has lost the ability to speak," study co-author Rutledge G. Ellis-Behnke, research scientist in MIT's department of brain and cognitive sciences, said in a prepared statement.
This method uses an extremely tiny biodegradable scaffold that provides brain cells with a place to re-grow -- like a vine on a trellis -- in the damaged area of the brain. This is the first study to use nanotechnology to repair and heal the brain and restore function in a damaged brain region. The approach may one day help treat stroke patients and people with spinal cord and traumatic brain injuries.
The findings appear online this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The study included young and adult hamsters with severed neural pathways. The animals were injected with a solution containing certain kinds of peptides (protein fragments) that create a mesh or scaffold of tiny, interwoven fibers. Brain cells are able to grow on this mesh.
Within about six weeks, the hamsters had regained useful vision and the adults' brains responded as well as the younger animals' brains.
"This is not about restoring 100 percent of damaged brain cells, but 20 percent or even less may be enough to restore function, and that is our goal," Ellis-Behnke said.
More information
The Brain Injury Association of America has more about types of brain injury.
41 minutes ago
TUESDAY, March 14 (HealthDay News) -- Rodents blinded by brain damage had their vision partially restored within weeks after being treated with nanotechnology developed by bioengineers and neuroscientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The findings provide evidence that similar strategies might someday work in humans.
"If we can reconnect parts of the brain that were disconnected by stroke, then we may be able to restore speech to an individual who is able to understand what is said but has lost the ability to speak," study co-author Rutledge G. Ellis-Behnke, research scientist in MIT's department of brain and cognitive sciences, said in a prepared statement.
This method uses an extremely tiny biodegradable scaffold that provides brain cells with a place to re-grow -- like a vine on a trellis -- in the damaged area of the brain. This is the first study to use nanotechnology to repair and heal the brain and restore function in a damaged brain region. The approach may one day help treat stroke patients and people with spinal cord and traumatic brain injuries.
The findings appear online this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The study included young and adult hamsters with severed neural pathways. The animals were injected with a solution containing certain kinds of peptides (protein fragments) that create a mesh or scaffold of tiny, interwoven fibers. Brain cells are able to grow on this mesh.
Within about six weeks, the hamsters had regained useful vision and the adults' brains responded as well as the younger animals' brains.
"This is not about restoring 100 percent of damaged brain cells, but 20 percent or even less may be enough to restore function, and that is our goal," Ellis-Behnke said.
More information
The Brain Injury Association of America has more about types of brain injury.
Monday, March 13, 2006
U.S. Campaign Is Aimed at Iran's Leaders
Uneasy About Tehran's Nuclear Plans, Bush Administration Tries to Build Opposition to Theocracy
By Peter Baker and Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, March 13, 2006; A01
As the dispute over its nuclear program arrives at the U.N. Security Council today, Iran has vaulted to the front of the U.S. national security agenda amid Bush administration plans for a sustained campaign against the ayatollahs of Tehran.
President Bush and his team have been huddling in closed-door meetings on Iran, summoning scholars for advice, investing in opposition activities, creating an Iran office in Washington and opening listening posts abroad dedicated to the efforts against Tehran.
The internal administration debate that raged in the first term between those who advocated more engagement with Iran and those who preferred more confrontation appears in the second term to be largely settled in favor of the latter. Although administration officials do not use the term "regime change" in public, that in effect is the goal they outline as they aim to build resistance to the theocracy.
"We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in Senate testimony last week. "We do not have a problem with the Iranian people. We want the Iranian people to be free. Our problem is with the Iranian regime."
In private meetings, Bush and his advisers have been more explicit. Members of the Hoover Institution's board of overseers who met with Bush, Vice President Cheney and national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley two weeks ago emerged with the impression that the administration has shifted to a more robust policy aimed at the Iranian government.
"The message that we received is that they are in favor of separating the Iranian people from the regime," said Esmail Amid-Hozour, an Iranian American businessman who serves on the Hoover board.
"The upper hand is with those who are pushing regime change rather than those who are advocating more diplomacy," said Richard N. Haass, who as State Department policy planning director in Bush's first term was among those pushing for engagement.
But as the administration gears up, the struggle with Iran remains shadowed by Iraq. The botched intelligence on Saddam Hussein's weapons has left a credibility challenge in convincing the public and the world that the administration is right this time about Iran. After alienating European allies in the rush to war in Iraq, the administration is following a slower, multilateral approach. And with U.S. forces stretched, analysts wonder how feasible a military option would be if it came to that. (QUITE A NICE FAIR AND EVEN STATEMENT)
The focus on Iran inside the administration lately has been striking. Bush, according to aides, has been spending more time on the issue, and advisers have invited 30 to 40 specialists for consultations in recent months.
In the past week, the State Department created an Iran desk. Last year, only two people in the department worked full time on Iran; now there will be 10. The department is launching more training in the Farsi language and is planning an Iranian career track, which has been difficult without an embassy there.
Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns said in an interview that the department will also add staff in Dubai, which is part of the United Arab Emirates, as well as at other embassies in the vicinity of Iran, all assigned to watch Tehran. He called the new Dubai outpost the "21st century equivalent" of the Riga station in Latvia that monitored the Soviet Union in the 1930s when the United States had no embassy in Moscow.
The administration also has launched a $75 million program to advance democracy in Iran by expanding broadcasting into the country, funding nongovernmental organizations and promoting cultural exchanges. Voice of America broadcasts one hour a day into Iran; by April, that will grow to four hours a day, and the administration plans to go to 24 hours a day. But the administration suffered a setback last week when lawmakers slashed $19 million, mainly from broadcast operations.
The administration got to this point after a year of deliberately staying on the sidelines. After the United States took the lead on Iraq, the British told Bush administration officials that Washington should let the Europeans go first on dealing with Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program.
During her first trip to Europe as secretary of state, in February 2005, Rice was surprised that most questions from European officials concerned Iran, not Iraq, and was sobered by the realization that they viewed Washington as the problem, not Tehran.
When Bush went to Europe a few weeks later, French President Jacques Chirac and then-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany pushed him to support a British-French-German diplomatic effort dubbed the EU-3. Bush agreed, and Rice announced the decision a year ago last weekend. With the Europeans in the lead, it became easier to persuade Russia and China as well to take a tougher line with Iran.
"We have taken the position from the get-go that we believed it was important to work with as many countries as possible," Burns said. "We wanted to have the entire international community on our side in order to pressure Iran."
The biggest help bringing the international community together, though, came from Iran. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proved so incendiary -- in dismissing the Holocaust and talking about wiping Israel off the map -- that the prospect of a negotiated solution faded. The statements underscored the danger posed by Tehran and, according to Burns, led Rice "to say we need to fire on all pistons on Iran." Ultimately, the Europeans, Russia and China agreed to send Iran to the Security Council.
Bush decided to push more overtly for a democratic Iran. "Tonight," he said in his State of the Union address on Jan. 31, "let me speak directly to the citizens of Iran: America respects you, and we respect your country. We respect your right to choose your own future and win your own freedom. And our nation hopes one day to be the closest of friends with a free and democratic Iran."
Now that the nuclear issue is at the Security Council, the U.S. strategy is to escalate gradually rather than force an immediate climax. The first step would be a statement by the council president declaring Iran in violation of nuclear treaty obligations and demanding it suspend uranium enrichment. If that fails, the council could be asked to impose economic sanctions or pass a resolution allowing military force to enforce compliance. Russia and China, which have veto power, seem unlikely to support either move.
"There's a clear desire to have a broad coalition," a senior U.S. official said. "The question is, how do you get any action out of it?"
Some analysts believe this year will lead to a decision point for Bush whether to use a military option. For now, Bush and his aides say all options are on the table, but as a practical matter no armed strike is likely until diplomacy has been exhausted.
Many military specialists doubt a strike would be effective because Iran's nuclear facilities are scattered in dozens of locations, and would require hundreds of sorties first to disrupt Iranian air defenses. Such an attack, they say, could inflame the Muslim world and alienate reformers within Iran.
(GEE, WHERE HAVE I HEARD THAT BEFORE?)
Haass, now president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said Washington should instead try direct negotiations with Tehran: "The United States ought to make a major diplomatic push in part because it might succeed, in part because none of the other options are attractive and in part because if you're going to escalate you want to demonstrate that you tried." The current policy, he said, "looks to me more like a hope than a strategy." (ALWAYS NEGOTIATIONS, FIRST THE RUSSIANS, GERMANS WHERE WILL IT END?)
Some Republicans, though, say a military attack may be required if only to set back Iran's nuclear program a few years.
"Every year that we wait, the risk increases," said former House speaker Newt Gingrich, a member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board. "I would hope that the administration would decide to do something decisive. . . . We have the military power in the region if we need it. It's a question of whether we have the will."
Such a decision could prompt deep skepticism after the Iraq intelligence failure. "As far as Congress, they're certainly going to do their homework more this time and demand more from the intelligence community before they go along with this," said a Senate Republican leadership aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity. (WHY DID THEY NOT DO THEIR HOMEWORK THE FIRST TIME?)
The way things are going now, the aide said, "It's hard to see this getting resolved under the Bush administration."
Uneasy About Tehran's Nuclear Plans, Bush Administration Tries to Build Opposition to Theocracy
By Peter Baker and Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, March 13, 2006; A01
As the dispute over its nuclear program arrives at the U.N. Security Council today, Iran has vaulted to the front of the U.S. national security agenda amid Bush administration plans for a sustained campaign against the ayatollahs of Tehran.
President Bush and his team have been huddling in closed-door meetings on Iran, summoning scholars for advice, investing in opposition activities, creating an Iran office in Washington and opening listening posts abroad dedicated to the efforts against Tehran.
The internal administration debate that raged in the first term between those who advocated more engagement with Iran and those who preferred more confrontation appears in the second term to be largely settled in favor of the latter. Although administration officials do not use the term "regime change" in public, that in effect is the goal they outline as they aim to build resistance to the theocracy.
"We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in Senate testimony last week. "We do not have a problem with the Iranian people. We want the Iranian people to be free. Our problem is with the Iranian regime."
In private meetings, Bush and his advisers have been more explicit. Members of the Hoover Institution's board of overseers who met with Bush, Vice President Cheney and national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley two weeks ago emerged with the impression that the administration has shifted to a more robust policy aimed at the Iranian government.
"The message that we received is that they are in favor of separating the Iranian people from the regime," said Esmail Amid-Hozour, an Iranian American businessman who serves on the Hoover board.
"The upper hand is with those who are pushing regime change rather than those who are advocating more diplomacy," said Richard N. Haass, who as State Department policy planning director in Bush's first term was among those pushing for engagement.
But as the administration gears up, the struggle with Iran remains shadowed by Iraq. The botched intelligence on Saddam Hussein's weapons has left a credibility challenge in convincing the public and the world that the administration is right this time about Iran. After alienating European allies in the rush to war in Iraq, the administration is following a slower, multilateral approach. And with U.S. forces stretched, analysts wonder how feasible a military option would be if it came to that. (QUITE A NICE FAIR AND EVEN STATEMENT)
The focus on Iran inside the administration lately has been striking. Bush, according to aides, has been spending more time on the issue, and advisers have invited 30 to 40 specialists for consultations in recent months.
In the past week, the State Department created an Iran desk. Last year, only two people in the department worked full time on Iran; now there will be 10. The department is launching more training in the Farsi language and is planning an Iranian career track, which has been difficult without an embassy there.
Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns said in an interview that the department will also add staff in Dubai, which is part of the United Arab Emirates, as well as at other embassies in the vicinity of Iran, all assigned to watch Tehran. He called the new Dubai outpost the "21st century equivalent" of the Riga station in Latvia that monitored the Soviet Union in the 1930s when the United States had no embassy in Moscow.
The administration also has launched a $75 million program to advance democracy in Iran by expanding broadcasting into the country, funding nongovernmental organizations and promoting cultural exchanges. Voice of America broadcasts one hour a day into Iran; by April, that will grow to four hours a day, and the administration plans to go to 24 hours a day. But the administration suffered a setback last week when lawmakers slashed $19 million, mainly from broadcast operations.
The administration got to this point after a year of deliberately staying on the sidelines. After the United States took the lead on Iraq, the British told Bush administration officials that Washington should let the Europeans go first on dealing with Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program.
During her first trip to Europe as secretary of state, in February 2005, Rice was surprised that most questions from European officials concerned Iran, not Iraq, and was sobered by the realization that they viewed Washington as the problem, not Tehran.
When Bush went to Europe a few weeks later, French President Jacques Chirac and then-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany pushed him to support a British-French-German diplomatic effort dubbed the EU-3. Bush agreed, and Rice announced the decision a year ago last weekend. With the Europeans in the lead, it became easier to persuade Russia and China as well to take a tougher line with Iran.
"We have taken the position from the get-go that we believed it was important to work with as many countries as possible," Burns said. "We wanted to have the entire international community on our side in order to pressure Iran."
The biggest help bringing the international community together, though, came from Iran. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proved so incendiary -- in dismissing the Holocaust and talking about wiping Israel off the map -- that the prospect of a negotiated solution faded. The statements underscored the danger posed by Tehran and, according to Burns, led Rice "to say we need to fire on all pistons on Iran." Ultimately, the Europeans, Russia and China agreed to send Iran to the Security Council.
Bush decided to push more overtly for a democratic Iran. "Tonight," he said in his State of the Union address on Jan. 31, "let me speak directly to the citizens of Iran: America respects you, and we respect your country. We respect your right to choose your own future and win your own freedom. And our nation hopes one day to be the closest of friends with a free and democratic Iran."
Now that the nuclear issue is at the Security Council, the U.S. strategy is to escalate gradually rather than force an immediate climax. The first step would be a statement by the council president declaring Iran in violation of nuclear treaty obligations and demanding it suspend uranium enrichment. If that fails, the council could be asked to impose economic sanctions or pass a resolution allowing military force to enforce compliance. Russia and China, which have veto power, seem unlikely to support either move.
"There's a clear desire to have a broad coalition," a senior U.S. official said. "The question is, how do you get any action out of it?"
Some analysts believe this year will lead to a decision point for Bush whether to use a military option. For now, Bush and his aides say all options are on the table, but as a practical matter no armed strike is likely until diplomacy has been exhausted.
Many military specialists doubt a strike would be effective because Iran's nuclear facilities are scattered in dozens of locations, and would require hundreds of sorties first to disrupt Iranian air defenses. Such an attack, they say, could inflame the Muslim world and alienate reformers within Iran.
(GEE, WHERE HAVE I HEARD THAT BEFORE?)
Haass, now president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said Washington should instead try direct negotiations with Tehran: "The United States ought to make a major diplomatic push in part because it might succeed, in part because none of the other options are attractive and in part because if you're going to escalate you want to demonstrate that you tried." The current policy, he said, "looks to me more like a hope than a strategy." (ALWAYS NEGOTIATIONS, FIRST THE RUSSIANS, GERMANS WHERE WILL IT END?)
Some Republicans, though, say a military attack may be required if only to set back Iran's nuclear program a few years.
"Every year that we wait, the risk increases," said former House speaker Newt Gingrich, a member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board. "I would hope that the administration would decide to do something decisive. . . . We have the military power in the region if we need it. It's a question of whether we have the will."
Such a decision could prompt deep skepticism after the Iraq intelligence failure. "As far as Congress, they're certainly going to do their homework more this time and demand more from the intelligence community before they go along with this," said a Senate Republican leadership aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity. (WHY DID THEY NOT DO THEIR HOMEWORK THE FIRST TIME?)
The way things are going now, the aide said, "It's hard to see this getting resolved under the Bush administration."
The coming new wave of jihad
By Rita Katz | March 13, 2006
WASHINGTON
ABU MUSAB AL-ZARQAWI has suddenly disappeared. As briskly as he has emerged, the Jordanian high school dropout who became the undisputed leader of the Iraqi insurgency has descended into obscurity. Where is the man who singlehandedly created from scratch a formidable guerrilla army in occupied Iraq and whom Osama bin Laden called the Emir of Al Qaeda in Iraq?
A year after it assumed the name Al Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers (Iraq), Zarqawi's group took a back seat. In an Internet message posted Jan. 15, Abu Maysara al-Iraqi, the group's spokesman, announced the establishment of the Mujahideen Shura Council in Iraq, an alliance of six Salafi jihadi groups created to lead the ''fight to face the infidels and their followers of the converters," unify the mujahideen as per Sharia [Islamic law], and ''clear the mist off people's eyes."
A few days after the council was established, Al Qaeda in Iraq ceased to post communiques. Abu Maysarah temporarily signed the new council's communiques, but then he, too, stopped. The baffled jihadi community initially believed that Zarqawi headed the new council. But on Jan. 20, the council posted a communique crowning its emir: Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi.
Why, then, did Zarqawi's group surrender its position and succumb to the integration? The answers may be found in a letter from Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda's second in command, to Zarqawi, from July 2005.
After congratulating Zarqawi for his jihad in Iraq, Zawahri described Al Qaeda's plans: ''The jihad in Iraq requires several incremental goals. The first stage: Expel the Americans from Iraq. The second stage: Establish an Islamic authority or emirate . . . a caliphate -- over as much territory as you can to spread its power in Iraq, i.e., in Sunni areas. The third: Extend the jihad wave. . ."
The first stage is a result of the US invasion of Iraq. The second stage, it appears, is beginning. The establishment of the council may well be its opening bell. Zawahri also describes how and by whom the plan will unfold: ''Americans will exit soon, Allah willing, and the establishment of a governing authority . . . does not depend on force alone. Indeed, it's imperative that, in addition to force, there be an appeasement of Muslims and a sharing with them in governance and in the Shura [consulting] council and in promulgating what is allowed and what is not allowed . . . This must be achieved through the people of the Shura and who possess authority to determine issues and make them binding, and who are endowed with the qualifications for working in Sharia."
Therefore, to advance the plan, Iraqis must be in leadership positions; so must be their emir.
''And it does not appear that the mujahideen, much less Al Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers, will lay claim to governance without the Iraqi people. Not to mention that that would be in contravention of the Shura methodology . . ."
Thus Zawahri explained why Zarqawi must give up his position. He then addressed the timing of the changes: ''Things may develop faster than we imagine . . . we must be ready to start now, before events overtake us, and before we are surprised by the conspiracies of the Americans and the United Nations and their plans to fill the void behind them. We must take the initiative. . . . This is the most vital part. This authority, or the Sharia emirate that is necessary, requires fieldwork starting now, alongside combat and war."
Following these instructions, Zarqawi abdicated his position. He had not intended to remain in Iraq forever anyway; he used Iraq only as a springboard for his long-term goal -- establishment of a global caliphate.
Zarqawi said in a January 2005 audio message: ''The caliphate is the entrustment [of Allah] on Earth, the guidance of people to the path of Allah, and the implementation of His world in life. . . . This group has no other choice but to be patient and endure [the hardship of] the path it has followed, and consider with Allah, the leaders and members it has lost, and must follow their path; for Allah has chosen this Ummah [Muslim nation], therefore it must not be impatient, as victory is inevitable."
Toward that goal, attacks by Zarqawi's group have expanded beyond Iraq's borders. His group participated in the rocket attack on US Navy ships at the Jordanian port of Aqaba on Aug. 19, 2005, the rocket attack on the Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona on Dec. 27, 2005, and the suicide attack on Western hotels in Amman on Nov. 9, 2005. Thus, Zarqawi and his Al Qaeda in Iraq are not gone; they have simply moved to the next stage of their jihad against the West.
Rita Katz is director of the SITE Institute, an international terrorist-investigation and information group.
By Rita Katz | March 13, 2006
WASHINGTON
ABU MUSAB AL-ZARQAWI has suddenly disappeared. As briskly as he has emerged, the Jordanian high school dropout who became the undisputed leader of the Iraqi insurgency has descended into obscurity. Where is the man who singlehandedly created from scratch a formidable guerrilla army in occupied Iraq and whom Osama bin Laden called the Emir of Al Qaeda in Iraq?
A year after it assumed the name Al Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers (Iraq), Zarqawi's group took a back seat. In an Internet message posted Jan. 15, Abu Maysara al-Iraqi, the group's spokesman, announced the establishment of the Mujahideen Shura Council in Iraq, an alliance of six Salafi jihadi groups created to lead the ''fight to face the infidels and their followers of the converters," unify the mujahideen as per Sharia [Islamic law], and ''clear the mist off people's eyes."
A few days after the council was established, Al Qaeda in Iraq ceased to post communiques. Abu Maysarah temporarily signed the new council's communiques, but then he, too, stopped. The baffled jihadi community initially believed that Zarqawi headed the new council. But on Jan. 20, the council posted a communique crowning its emir: Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi.
Why, then, did Zarqawi's group surrender its position and succumb to the integration? The answers may be found in a letter from Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda's second in command, to Zarqawi, from July 2005.
After congratulating Zarqawi for his jihad in Iraq, Zawahri described Al Qaeda's plans: ''The jihad in Iraq requires several incremental goals. The first stage: Expel the Americans from Iraq. The second stage: Establish an Islamic authority or emirate . . . a caliphate -- over as much territory as you can to spread its power in Iraq, i.e., in Sunni areas. The third: Extend the jihad wave. . ."
The first stage is a result of the US invasion of Iraq. The second stage, it appears, is beginning. The establishment of the council may well be its opening bell. Zawahri also describes how and by whom the plan will unfold: ''Americans will exit soon, Allah willing, and the establishment of a governing authority . . . does not depend on force alone. Indeed, it's imperative that, in addition to force, there be an appeasement of Muslims and a sharing with them in governance and in the Shura [consulting] council and in promulgating what is allowed and what is not allowed . . . This must be achieved through the people of the Shura and who possess authority to determine issues and make them binding, and who are endowed with the qualifications for working in Sharia."
Therefore, to advance the plan, Iraqis must be in leadership positions; so must be their emir.
''And it does not appear that the mujahideen, much less Al Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers, will lay claim to governance without the Iraqi people. Not to mention that that would be in contravention of the Shura methodology . . ."
Thus Zawahri explained why Zarqawi must give up his position. He then addressed the timing of the changes: ''Things may develop faster than we imagine . . . we must be ready to start now, before events overtake us, and before we are surprised by the conspiracies of the Americans and the United Nations and their plans to fill the void behind them. We must take the initiative. . . . This is the most vital part. This authority, or the Sharia emirate that is necessary, requires fieldwork starting now, alongside combat and war."
Following these instructions, Zarqawi abdicated his position. He had not intended to remain in Iraq forever anyway; he used Iraq only as a springboard for his long-term goal -- establishment of a global caliphate.
Zarqawi said in a January 2005 audio message: ''The caliphate is the entrustment [of Allah] on Earth, the guidance of people to the path of Allah, and the implementation of His world in life. . . . This group has no other choice but to be patient and endure [the hardship of] the path it has followed, and consider with Allah, the leaders and members it has lost, and must follow their path; for Allah has chosen this Ummah [Muslim nation], therefore it must not be impatient, as victory is inevitable."
Toward that goal, attacks by Zarqawi's group have expanded beyond Iraq's borders. His group participated in the rocket attack on US Navy ships at the Jordanian port of Aqaba on Aug. 19, 2005, the rocket attack on the Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona on Dec. 27, 2005, and the suicide attack on Western hotels in Amman on Nov. 9, 2005. Thus, Zarqawi and his Al Qaeda in Iraq are not gone; they have simply moved to the next stage of their jihad against the West.
Rita Katz is director of the SITE Institute, an international terrorist-investigation and information group.
Last update - 09:23 13/03/2006
Group tied to Al-Qaida holds position near Lebanese border
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent
Usbat-al-Ansar, the Lebanon-based Palestinian organization that maintains close ties with some of the Al-Qaida networks, has a front-line command post relatively close to the border with Israel, in the Ain el Helweh refugee camp.
According to reports over the weekend, the Lebanese army arrested, in various locations around the country, eight members of a terrorist group. Half are Palestinians, and the other half are Lebanese. Security sources in Lebanon said that the members of the network are believed to be responsible for the most recent round of Katyusha rocket fire on the Galilee last December.
Following the rocket fire, Al-Qaida in Iraq, headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, published an announcement in which it claimed responsibility for the action. It was the first time an organization affiliated with Al-Qaida had taken responsibility for a direct attack on Israel.
Immediately after the Katyusha fire, Israel had only partial intelligence with regard to those responsible for the attack. In response, the Israel Air Force bombed a base belonging to Ahmed Jibril's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command, and it was subsequently claimed that members of Usbat al-Ansar had trained at the base and had received instruction from PFLP-GC activists.
Meanwhile, it emerged that the organization has a command post in the Ain el Helweh refugee camp also. This command post has not been attacked on the grounds that it lies in a densely populated area and that bombing it is likely to lead to numerous civilian casualties.
Israeli security sources say that the Usbat al-Ansar members are Palestinians who initiated ties with al-Zarqawi's activists in order to receive assistance.
Israeli officials are concerned about the trend, over the past year, of the operations of various networks identified with Al-Qaida moving westward - to Lebanon, Jordan and Sinai.
The officials believe that this trend will gradually manifest itself in more attempted terror attacks against Israel also.
Group tied to Al-Qaida holds position near Lebanese border
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent
Usbat-al-Ansar, the Lebanon-based Palestinian organization that maintains close ties with some of the Al-Qaida networks, has a front-line command post relatively close to the border with Israel, in the Ain el Helweh refugee camp.
According to reports over the weekend, the Lebanese army arrested, in various locations around the country, eight members of a terrorist group. Half are Palestinians, and the other half are Lebanese. Security sources in Lebanon said that the members of the network are believed to be responsible for the most recent round of Katyusha rocket fire on the Galilee last December.
Following the rocket fire, Al-Qaida in Iraq, headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, published an announcement in which it claimed responsibility for the action. It was the first time an organization affiliated with Al-Qaida had taken responsibility for a direct attack on Israel.
Immediately after the Katyusha fire, Israel had only partial intelligence with regard to those responsible for the attack. In response, the Israel Air Force bombed a base belonging to Ahmed Jibril's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command, and it was subsequently claimed that members of Usbat al-Ansar had trained at the base and had received instruction from PFLP-GC activists.
Meanwhile, it emerged that the organization has a command post in the Ain el Helweh refugee camp also. This command post has not been attacked on the grounds that it lies in a densely populated area and that bombing it is likely to lead to numerous civilian casualties.
Israeli security sources say that the Usbat al-Ansar members are Palestinians who initiated ties with al-Zarqawi's activists in order to receive assistance.
Israeli officials are concerned about the trend, over the past year, of the operations of various networks identified with Al-Qaida moving westward - to Lebanon, Jordan and Sinai.
The officials believe that this trend will gradually manifest itself in more attempted terror attacks against Israel also.
Milosevic voiced fears that he was being poisoned
By Neil Tweedie in The Hague
(Filed: 13/03/2006)
The United Nations has come under pressure to clarify the circumstances surrounding the death of Slobodan Milosevic following claims that he feared he was being poisoned.
Preliminary results of a post mortem examination showed that he died of a heart attack, according to a statement by the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
The autopsy was carried out amid suspicions that Milosevic, who had heart problems, had been poisoned or took his own life before he was found dead in his cell on Saturday.
Lawyers representing Milosevic produced a letter said to be from the former president of Yugoslavia to the Russian embassy in the Netherlands expressing his belief that he was being poisoned in order to silence him.
The marathon four-year trial of the man who presided over three brutal wars in the Balkans in the 1990s was due to end at the tribunal in The Hague later this year.
Zdenko Tomanovic, one of the Belgrade lawyers who assisted Milosevic during his trial for war crimes, said his 64-year-old client was worried about traces of drugs in his bloodstream apparently used only to treat leprosy and tuberculosis.
The letter was allegedly sent on Friday, shortly before Milosevic died at the UN prison in Scheveningen. According to a report on the Dutch public television station NOS, the drugs, said to neutralise medicines intended to treat Milosevic's chronic heart complaint and hypertension, were discovered earlier this year.
Dutch doctors, the report said, ordered the tests to find out why his medicines were not working satisfactorily.
Steven Kay QC, the British barrister appointed to assist Milosevic as his health failed, told The Daily Telegraph that Milosevic knew that he was gambling with his life by insisting on presenting his own defence case.
He was worried that UN doctors were not doing enough to treat his illness.
Mr Kay also criticised the length and complexity of the trial, saying the decision of UN prosecutors, led by Carla Del Ponte, to try Milosevic jointly for alleged genocide and other war crimes in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo had resulted in a completely unmanageable process.
Miss Del Ponte refused to rule out suicide as a cause of death yesterday, but said the world would have to await the results of the Dutch autopsy. She defended her policy of seeking a conviction for all three wars.
Milosevic's body will be released to his family today.
By Neil Tweedie in The Hague
(Filed: 13/03/2006)
The United Nations has come under pressure to clarify the circumstances surrounding the death of Slobodan Milosevic following claims that he feared he was being poisoned.
Preliminary results of a post mortem examination showed that he died of a heart attack, according to a statement by the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
The autopsy was carried out amid suspicions that Milosevic, who had heart problems, had been poisoned or took his own life before he was found dead in his cell on Saturday.
Lawyers representing Milosevic produced a letter said to be from the former president of Yugoslavia to the Russian embassy in the Netherlands expressing his belief that he was being poisoned in order to silence him.
The marathon four-year trial of the man who presided over three brutal wars in the Balkans in the 1990s was due to end at the tribunal in The Hague later this year.
Zdenko Tomanovic, one of the Belgrade lawyers who assisted Milosevic during his trial for war crimes, said his 64-year-old client was worried about traces of drugs in his bloodstream apparently used only to treat leprosy and tuberculosis.
The letter was allegedly sent on Friday, shortly before Milosevic died at the UN prison in Scheveningen. According to a report on the Dutch public television station NOS, the drugs, said to neutralise medicines intended to treat Milosevic's chronic heart complaint and hypertension, were discovered earlier this year.
Dutch doctors, the report said, ordered the tests to find out why his medicines were not working satisfactorily.
Steven Kay QC, the British barrister appointed to assist Milosevic as his health failed, told The Daily Telegraph that Milosevic knew that he was gambling with his life by insisting on presenting his own defence case.
He was worried that UN doctors were not doing enough to treat his illness.
Mr Kay also criticised the length and complexity of the trial, saying the decision of UN prosecutors, led by Carla Del Ponte, to try Milosevic jointly for alleged genocide and other war crimes in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo had resulted in a completely unmanageable process.
Miss Del Ponte refused to rule out suicide as a cause of death yesterday, but said the world would have to await the results of the Dutch autopsy. She defended her policy of seeking a conviction for all three wars.
Milosevic's body will be released to his family today.
Slobodan Milosevic
(Filed: 13/03/2006)
Slobodan Milosevic, who was found dead in his prison cell in The Hague on Saturday morning aged 64, was the first former head of state to stand trial for crimes against humanity.
Milosevic seized power in Yugoslavia on the promise of establishing a Greater Serbia; what he achieved was the break-up of Yugoslavia, the ruin of Serbia, the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people and - for himself - an entry on the list of the most brutal and callous tyrants of the 20th century. The Americans called him "The Butcher of the Balkans".
Milosevic began his career as a Marxist apparatchik, but as Communism crumbled throughout Europe he unashamedly played the nationalist card, and traded on the paranoid suspicions of his fellow Serbs.
The Serbs drank from the poisoned chalice he held before them, with fatal effect. Four disastrous wars resulted: the attacks on Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, and the Nato bombing in the spring of 1999. Far from achieving his proclaimed ideal of "All Serbs in One State", Milosovec ended his career with hundreds of thousands of refugee Serbs seeking refuge in Serbia, while others remained scattered in the small successor states of the old Yugoslavia.
With such a record, it was remarkable that Milosevic should have remained in power for so long. As a politician he was cunning enough to deceive not only his own people, but also many western diplomats. Yet his duplicity was written clearly enough in the story of his life.
Slobodan Milosevic was born on August 20 1941 at Pozarevac, south-east of Belgrade, the son of immigrants from Montenegro. His father, having trained as an Orthodox priest, had become a teacher; soon after the end of the Second World War he returned to Montenegro, where he later shot himself. Slobodan and his elder brother were raised by their mother, a strait-laced Communist schoolmistress who, in 1972, hanged herself.
The young Milosevic was a diligent, if strange, schoolboy. He went to classes smartly dressed in a shirt and tie, and upbraided his fellow pupils for not being suitably attired. A contemporary said that he could imagine him "as a stationmaster or punctilious civil servant".
While still at school he met the young woman who would change his life. Mirjana Markovic came from an eminent Communist family - her uncle became president of the Serbian Communist Party - but she too had a difficult background: her mother had been reviled for revealing, under torture, the names of Communist officials to the Gestapo and had been executed by Partisans. "Mira" Markovic made unwavering devotion to Communism the fixed point of her life and told friends that one day Milosevic would be as great a leader as Tito himself.
With Mira Markovic foursquare behind him, Milosevic began his long march to the Yugoslav presidency. At Belgrade University he headed the ideology section of the Communist Party's student branch. There he met Ivan Stambolic, whose uncle had been prime minister of Serbia. As Stambolic climbed the steps to power, Milosevic was hauled up behind him.
In 1960 Milosevic became economic adviser to the mayor of Belgrade. Eight years later he got a job in the Technogas company, where Stambolic was working, and in 1973 became its chairman. By 1978 Milosevic was head of Beobanka, one of Yugoslavia's largest banks. This allowed him to travel to Paris and New York (he spoke passable English), but his real job was that of political and financial fixer.
By the mid-1980s Milosevic was moving into mainstream politics, and in 1986 he became leader of Serbia's Communist Party. The next year Stambolic, by now President of Serbia, sent him to Kosovo to listen to the grievances of its minority Serbs.
They argued, with some justification, that they had been hard done by in the years since Tito had given the province a large measure of autonomy in the 1970s. Now it was run largely by its ethnic Albanian majority, who outnumbered the Serbs there by nine to one. Although hitherto a devout and orthodox Communist, Milosevic saw the opportunity to exploit Serbian nationalist grievances.
He seems to have drawn inspiration from a memorandum of 1986, which argued that the Serbs of Kosovo and Croatia were being subjected to "genocide" and concluded that, for the Serbs, "a worse historical defeat in peacetime cannot be imagined".
In the summer of 1987 Milosevic met the disgruntled Serbs of Kosovo, and when police tried to move them on told them in a potent (and, as it later emerged, premeditated) phrase: "From now on, no one has the right to beat you." In the words of Miroslav Soljevic, a Kosovo Serb leader: "This sentence enthroned him as a Tsar."
Up to this point Milosevic had been seen as a relatively unimportant and colourless Communist apparatchik. Now he emerged as a driven man. He betrayed Stambolic, ousting him from his job, and ruled as head of the Serbian Communist Party before being elected President in 1989. It did not take him long to end the autonomy which Tito had granted to Kosovo and Vojvodina, Serbia's other self-governing province.
While most Serbs greeted Milosevic with euphoria, his ascent to supreme power was noted with fear and dismay across the rest of Yugoslavia. By breaking the great taboo and reopening the divisions within Yugoslavia that Tito had so artfully concealed, Milosevic set off a competitive cycle of mutually antagonistic nationalisms.
But, after the first post-Communist elections, held in 1989 and 1990 in each of Yugoslavia's six republics, it became clear that Milosevic's ambition to become a new Tito - in effect to run the whole country - was doomed to failure.
For a while, until the spring of 1991, the six presidents met in constant crisis session, apparently in the belief that the federation could be kept together. But Milosevic, using the Serbian secret police, was already arming the Serbs of Croatia, especially in the Krajina and eastern Slavonia regions where they lived in relatively compact areas.
He was also working towards a deal with the Slovenes, whereby they would be allowed to secede from the old Yugoslavia provided that they did not oppose his imminent attempt to dismember Croatia. A farcical 10-day "war" in Slovenia in June 1991 masked the Slovene complicity in this first act of the bloody break-up of the country.
The outbreak of war in Croatia came as an appalling shock both to the rest of Europe and to the vast majority of ordinary Yugoslavs. They had assumed that their leaders would draw back from the brink; Yugoslavs knew from the experience of 1941-45 that once war started there would be no mercy.
The Yugoslav - but now effectively Serbian - army proceeded to prosecute a brutal conflict in support of the self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina. Dubrovnik, the so-called "pearl of the Adriatic", came under siege, but its fate was relatively benign compared to that of Vukovar, a once pleasant little town on the banks of the Danube; after a pitiless artillery bombardment lasting three months Vukovar fell in November 1991.
By now the Croats had lost one third of their country, and Milosevic decided it was time to call a halt. United Nations troops were deployed - as he saw it - to safeguard his winnings.
Milosevic next turned on Bosnia. His original strategy had been to create a new Yugoslavia, or rather a Greater Serbia, which included Macedonia and all bar the solidly Croat areas of Bosnia. But his belief that he could intimidate these two republics into bowing to his wishes proved a fatal mistake.
The Macedonians seceded, but as few Serbs lived in this essentially friendly and mostly Slav Orthodox neighbour, this did not create a problem for Milosevic. More seriously, though, the Republic's Muslims, led by Alija Izetbegovic, threw in their lot with the Croats and made it clear that they would fight rather remain in what they disparagingly called "Serboslavia".
For more than a year before the beginning of the Bosnian war Milosevic had been arming the main Bosnian Serb political party, which was led by a psychiatrist, Radovan Karadzic. In April 1992, as the war began, Bosnia won its international recognition, while the Bosnian Serbs proclaimed their own state, with an army led by General Ratko Mladic based on Bosnian regiments of the old Yugoslav Army.
For a few months it seemed as though Milosevic and his henchmen would succeed. Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, came within a hair's breadth of falling and hundreds of thousands of Muslims and Croats were "ethnically cleansed" from vast areas which the Serbs claimed for themselves.
But Sarajevo did not capitulate. Moreover, it emerged that thousands had died in brutal detention camps such as that at Omarska. In consequence, none of the appalling things that subsequently befell ordinary Serbs would elicit much international attention or sympathy.
The Bosnian war soon turned into a stalemate. Then, in the summer of 1995, Mladic's men captured the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica and proceeded to massacre some 8,000 men. With American connivance, the now re-armed Croats attacked Krajina, which fell within three days without Milosevic being able to do anything to save it.
A quarter of a million Serbs who had placed their fate in his hands were forced to flee. Exasperated by the stalemate in Bosnia, Nato now unleashed a massive bombing campaign against Bosnian Serbs, which led directly to peace talks held at an American airbase in Dayton, Ohio.
To set up the negotiations at Dayton, Richard Holbrooke, the American diplomat in charge of the talks, insisted that Milosevic act on behalf of the Bosnian Serbs. This he did - and proceeded (as the Bosnian Serbs saw it) to betray them as he had formerly betrayed the Krajina Serbs.
He told the Bosnian Muslims that they deserved Sarajevo because they had fought for it. At a stroke he signed over the Serb-held areas of the city which so many Serbs had died for.
An uneasy peace descended on Bosnia, enforced by Nato troops. But attention now began to turn to Serbia itself. At the end of 1996 hundreds of thousands of Serbs came on to the streets to demand an end to Milosevic's rule after his Socialist Party had stolen votes in municipal elections.
At first Milosevic seemed prepared to make concessions, but Serbia's opposition leaders now attacked each other, allowing their common antagonist to remain as undisputed master of the country.
Notwithstanding the terror that he unleashed, Milosevic remained an unflamboyant figure, taciturn and seemingly uninterested in women, money or pomp. But he developed a ruthless police force, while around him a gang of cronies and thugs fought for rich pickings from gun-running, sanction-busting and drugs. Opposition, even independent, news outlets were fined and shut down.
In July 1997 Milosevic became president of what remained of Yugoslavia, though he antagonised the Montenegrins to the extent that they, too, threatened to secede. For more than a year the unresolved issue of Kosovo was simply left to fester.
In January 1999, however, the conflict there reignited, as Serb special forces carried out two massacres of ethnic Albanians. The United States, Russia, France, Britain and Italy gave the two sides three weeks to agree on measures giving Kosovo "substantial autonomy".
It seemed that the discussions in France, at Rambouillet, were making progress when Milosevic's tanks entered Kosovo and unleashed a new round of slaughter which drove out half the Albanians. When, in March 1999, Nato ordered air strikes across Yugoslavia, Milosevic reacted with defiance; and although the bombing campaign caused terrible material damage to Serbia, western leaders became increasingly concerned as their attacks showed no sign of bringing the dictator to heel.
At the end of May 1999 Milosevic became the first serving head of state to be indicted for war crimes by the international tribunal in The Hague. A week later, after 78 days of bombing, he accepted a peace plan agreed by Nato and Russia which called for the withdrawal of Serbian forces from Kosovo.
It seemed that the man who had brought such humiliation on his country must be finished. There was speculation that Milosevic had suffered a stroke during the bombing, for afterwards his speech seemed to be slurred and his left arm hung limply by his side. Even the redoubtable Mira, now known as the Lady Macbeth of Serbia, broke down sobbing in front of her political economy class at Belgrade University.
The Serbian Orthodox Church called for Milosevic to resign, and in July Zoran Djindjic, leader of the Democratic Party, returned to Serbia to rally opposition to the regime. Milosevic retreated into seclusion.
In 2000 he seemed to be recovering, cracking down on dissidents and amending the Yugoslav constitution to allow him to serve two more terms, and making the presidency subject to direct election. He announced an election for September 24, probably calculating that the opposition alliance put together under Vojislav Kostunica would fall apart.
But the coalition held, so that even Milosevic's federal election commision was obliged to announce that Kostunica had taken 48 per cent of the vote to Milosevic's 40 per cent. It suggested, though, that as neither side had won a majority there should be a second round.
Kostunica was too shrewd to accept this ruse, and a series of strikes and demonstrations spread throughout Serbia. When the Yugoslav constitutional court annulled the recent election, laying down that Milosevic should complete his term of office (which would end in July 2001), there were mass protests in Belgrade and the Parliament building was stormed.
On the evening of October 6, having drawn no comfort from a meeting with the Russian foreign minister, Milosevic finally threw in the towel. He appeared on television to congratulate Kostunica on his victory. Those who had voted against him, he observed, had earned his gratitude, since they had "freed my soul from an enormous burden of responsibility which I have carried for the last 10 years". All the same, after spending more time with his grandson, he intended to take up his role as leader of the largest opposition party.
As some commentators remarked, it was rather as though Hitler had emerged from his bunker and announced his intention of standing in a local election.
On April 1, 2001 Milosevic was arrested, and two months later the Yugoslav government pushed through a decree which paved the way for his appearance before a United Nations tribunal charged with war crimes. In February the next year he went on trial in The Hague charged with 66 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.
It took the prosecutors until February 2004 to complete the presentation of their case. For the past two years Milosevic had been conducting his own defence. He consistently attempted to delay proceedings, haranguing the West and refusing to recognise the legitimacy of the court.
Although a rabble-rouser by nature, Milosevic could appear courteous and mild-mannered on close encounter. He was punctilious about making coffee and sandwiches for his British legal adviser, Stephen Kaye QC.
Milosevic and his wife Mirjana had two children, a daughter, Marija, who owned a radio station in Belgrade, and a son, Marko, who prided himself on owning the largest discotheque in the Balkans and crashing a great many cars. Mirjana and Marko now live in Russia, Marija in Montenegro.
(Filed: 13/03/2006)
Slobodan Milosevic, who was found dead in his prison cell in The Hague on Saturday morning aged 64, was the first former head of state to stand trial for crimes against humanity.
Milosevic seized power in Yugoslavia on the promise of establishing a Greater Serbia; what he achieved was the break-up of Yugoslavia, the ruin of Serbia, the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people and - for himself - an entry on the list of the most brutal and callous tyrants of the 20th century. The Americans called him "The Butcher of the Balkans".
Milosevic began his career as a Marxist apparatchik, but as Communism crumbled throughout Europe he unashamedly played the nationalist card, and traded on the paranoid suspicions of his fellow Serbs.
The Serbs drank from the poisoned chalice he held before them, with fatal effect. Four disastrous wars resulted: the attacks on Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, and the Nato bombing in the spring of 1999. Far from achieving his proclaimed ideal of "All Serbs in One State", Milosovec ended his career with hundreds of thousands of refugee Serbs seeking refuge in Serbia, while others remained scattered in the small successor states of the old Yugoslavia.
With such a record, it was remarkable that Milosevic should have remained in power for so long. As a politician he was cunning enough to deceive not only his own people, but also many western diplomats. Yet his duplicity was written clearly enough in the story of his life.
Slobodan Milosevic was born on August 20 1941 at Pozarevac, south-east of Belgrade, the son of immigrants from Montenegro. His father, having trained as an Orthodox priest, had become a teacher; soon after the end of the Second World War he returned to Montenegro, where he later shot himself. Slobodan and his elder brother were raised by their mother, a strait-laced Communist schoolmistress who, in 1972, hanged herself.
The young Milosevic was a diligent, if strange, schoolboy. He went to classes smartly dressed in a shirt and tie, and upbraided his fellow pupils for not being suitably attired. A contemporary said that he could imagine him "as a stationmaster or punctilious civil servant".
While still at school he met the young woman who would change his life. Mirjana Markovic came from an eminent Communist family - her uncle became president of the Serbian Communist Party - but she too had a difficult background: her mother had been reviled for revealing, under torture, the names of Communist officials to the Gestapo and had been executed by Partisans. "Mira" Markovic made unwavering devotion to Communism the fixed point of her life and told friends that one day Milosevic would be as great a leader as Tito himself.
With Mira Markovic foursquare behind him, Milosevic began his long march to the Yugoslav presidency. At Belgrade University he headed the ideology section of the Communist Party's student branch. There he met Ivan Stambolic, whose uncle had been prime minister of Serbia. As Stambolic climbed the steps to power, Milosevic was hauled up behind him.
In 1960 Milosevic became economic adviser to the mayor of Belgrade. Eight years later he got a job in the Technogas company, where Stambolic was working, and in 1973 became its chairman. By 1978 Milosevic was head of Beobanka, one of Yugoslavia's largest banks. This allowed him to travel to Paris and New York (he spoke passable English), but his real job was that of political and financial fixer.
By the mid-1980s Milosevic was moving into mainstream politics, and in 1986 he became leader of Serbia's Communist Party. The next year Stambolic, by now President of Serbia, sent him to Kosovo to listen to the grievances of its minority Serbs.
They argued, with some justification, that they had been hard done by in the years since Tito had given the province a large measure of autonomy in the 1970s. Now it was run largely by its ethnic Albanian majority, who outnumbered the Serbs there by nine to one. Although hitherto a devout and orthodox Communist, Milosevic saw the opportunity to exploit Serbian nationalist grievances.
He seems to have drawn inspiration from a memorandum of 1986, which argued that the Serbs of Kosovo and Croatia were being subjected to "genocide" and concluded that, for the Serbs, "a worse historical defeat in peacetime cannot be imagined".
In the summer of 1987 Milosevic met the disgruntled Serbs of Kosovo, and when police tried to move them on told them in a potent (and, as it later emerged, premeditated) phrase: "From now on, no one has the right to beat you." In the words of Miroslav Soljevic, a Kosovo Serb leader: "This sentence enthroned him as a Tsar."
Up to this point Milosevic had been seen as a relatively unimportant and colourless Communist apparatchik. Now he emerged as a driven man. He betrayed Stambolic, ousting him from his job, and ruled as head of the Serbian Communist Party before being elected President in 1989. It did not take him long to end the autonomy which Tito had granted to Kosovo and Vojvodina, Serbia's other self-governing province.
While most Serbs greeted Milosevic with euphoria, his ascent to supreme power was noted with fear and dismay across the rest of Yugoslavia. By breaking the great taboo and reopening the divisions within Yugoslavia that Tito had so artfully concealed, Milosevic set off a competitive cycle of mutually antagonistic nationalisms.
But, after the first post-Communist elections, held in 1989 and 1990 in each of Yugoslavia's six republics, it became clear that Milosevic's ambition to become a new Tito - in effect to run the whole country - was doomed to failure.
For a while, until the spring of 1991, the six presidents met in constant crisis session, apparently in the belief that the federation could be kept together. But Milosevic, using the Serbian secret police, was already arming the Serbs of Croatia, especially in the Krajina and eastern Slavonia regions where they lived in relatively compact areas.
He was also working towards a deal with the Slovenes, whereby they would be allowed to secede from the old Yugoslavia provided that they did not oppose his imminent attempt to dismember Croatia. A farcical 10-day "war" in Slovenia in June 1991 masked the Slovene complicity in this first act of the bloody break-up of the country.
The outbreak of war in Croatia came as an appalling shock both to the rest of Europe and to the vast majority of ordinary Yugoslavs. They had assumed that their leaders would draw back from the brink; Yugoslavs knew from the experience of 1941-45 that once war started there would be no mercy.
The Yugoslav - but now effectively Serbian - army proceeded to prosecute a brutal conflict in support of the self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina. Dubrovnik, the so-called "pearl of the Adriatic", came under siege, but its fate was relatively benign compared to that of Vukovar, a once pleasant little town on the banks of the Danube; after a pitiless artillery bombardment lasting three months Vukovar fell in November 1991.
By now the Croats had lost one third of their country, and Milosevic decided it was time to call a halt. United Nations troops were deployed - as he saw it - to safeguard his winnings.
Milosevic next turned on Bosnia. His original strategy had been to create a new Yugoslavia, or rather a Greater Serbia, which included Macedonia and all bar the solidly Croat areas of Bosnia. But his belief that he could intimidate these two republics into bowing to his wishes proved a fatal mistake.
The Macedonians seceded, but as few Serbs lived in this essentially friendly and mostly Slav Orthodox neighbour, this did not create a problem for Milosevic. More seriously, though, the Republic's Muslims, led by Alija Izetbegovic, threw in their lot with the Croats and made it clear that they would fight rather remain in what they disparagingly called "Serboslavia".
For more than a year before the beginning of the Bosnian war Milosevic had been arming the main Bosnian Serb political party, which was led by a psychiatrist, Radovan Karadzic. In April 1992, as the war began, Bosnia won its international recognition, while the Bosnian Serbs proclaimed their own state, with an army led by General Ratko Mladic based on Bosnian regiments of the old Yugoslav Army.
For a few months it seemed as though Milosevic and his henchmen would succeed. Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, came within a hair's breadth of falling and hundreds of thousands of Muslims and Croats were "ethnically cleansed" from vast areas which the Serbs claimed for themselves.
But Sarajevo did not capitulate. Moreover, it emerged that thousands had died in brutal detention camps such as that at Omarska. In consequence, none of the appalling things that subsequently befell ordinary Serbs would elicit much international attention or sympathy.
The Bosnian war soon turned into a stalemate. Then, in the summer of 1995, Mladic's men captured the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica and proceeded to massacre some 8,000 men. With American connivance, the now re-armed Croats attacked Krajina, which fell within three days without Milosevic being able to do anything to save it.
A quarter of a million Serbs who had placed their fate in his hands were forced to flee. Exasperated by the stalemate in Bosnia, Nato now unleashed a massive bombing campaign against Bosnian Serbs, which led directly to peace talks held at an American airbase in Dayton, Ohio.
To set up the negotiations at Dayton, Richard Holbrooke, the American diplomat in charge of the talks, insisted that Milosevic act on behalf of the Bosnian Serbs. This he did - and proceeded (as the Bosnian Serbs saw it) to betray them as he had formerly betrayed the Krajina Serbs.
He told the Bosnian Muslims that they deserved Sarajevo because they had fought for it. At a stroke he signed over the Serb-held areas of the city which so many Serbs had died for.
An uneasy peace descended on Bosnia, enforced by Nato troops. But attention now began to turn to Serbia itself. At the end of 1996 hundreds of thousands of Serbs came on to the streets to demand an end to Milosevic's rule after his Socialist Party had stolen votes in municipal elections.
At first Milosevic seemed prepared to make concessions, but Serbia's opposition leaders now attacked each other, allowing their common antagonist to remain as undisputed master of the country.
Notwithstanding the terror that he unleashed, Milosevic remained an unflamboyant figure, taciturn and seemingly uninterested in women, money or pomp. But he developed a ruthless police force, while around him a gang of cronies and thugs fought for rich pickings from gun-running, sanction-busting and drugs. Opposition, even independent, news outlets were fined and shut down.
In July 1997 Milosevic became president of what remained of Yugoslavia, though he antagonised the Montenegrins to the extent that they, too, threatened to secede. For more than a year the unresolved issue of Kosovo was simply left to fester.
In January 1999, however, the conflict there reignited, as Serb special forces carried out two massacres of ethnic Albanians. The United States, Russia, France, Britain and Italy gave the two sides three weeks to agree on measures giving Kosovo "substantial autonomy".
It seemed that the discussions in France, at Rambouillet, were making progress when Milosevic's tanks entered Kosovo and unleashed a new round of slaughter which drove out half the Albanians. When, in March 1999, Nato ordered air strikes across Yugoslavia, Milosevic reacted with defiance; and although the bombing campaign caused terrible material damage to Serbia, western leaders became increasingly concerned as their attacks showed no sign of bringing the dictator to heel.
At the end of May 1999 Milosevic became the first serving head of state to be indicted for war crimes by the international tribunal in The Hague. A week later, after 78 days of bombing, he accepted a peace plan agreed by Nato and Russia which called for the withdrawal of Serbian forces from Kosovo.
It seemed that the man who had brought such humiliation on his country must be finished. There was speculation that Milosevic had suffered a stroke during the bombing, for afterwards his speech seemed to be slurred and his left arm hung limply by his side. Even the redoubtable Mira, now known as the Lady Macbeth of Serbia, broke down sobbing in front of her political economy class at Belgrade University.
The Serbian Orthodox Church called for Milosevic to resign, and in July Zoran Djindjic, leader of the Democratic Party, returned to Serbia to rally opposition to the regime. Milosevic retreated into seclusion.
In 2000 he seemed to be recovering, cracking down on dissidents and amending the Yugoslav constitution to allow him to serve two more terms, and making the presidency subject to direct election. He announced an election for September 24, probably calculating that the opposition alliance put together under Vojislav Kostunica would fall apart.
But the coalition held, so that even Milosevic's federal election commision was obliged to announce that Kostunica had taken 48 per cent of the vote to Milosevic's 40 per cent. It suggested, though, that as neither side had won a majority there should be a second round.
Kostunica was too shrewd to accept this ruse, and a series of strikes and demonstrations spread throughout Serbia. When the Yugoslav constitutional court annulled the recent election, laying down that Milosevic should complete his term of office (which would end in July 2001), there were mass protests in Belgrade and the Parliament building was stormed.
On the evening of October 6, having drawn no comfort from a meeting with the Russian foreign minister, Milosevic finally threw in the towel. He appeared on television to congratulate Kostunica on his victory. Those who had voted against him, he observed, had earned his gratitude, since they had "freed my soul from an enormous burden of responsibility which I have carried for the last 10 years". All the same, after spending more time with his grandson, he intended to take up his role as leader of the largest opposition party.
As some commentators remarked, it was rather as though Hitler had emerged from his bunker and announced his intention of standing in a local election.
On April 1, 2001 Milosevic was arrested, and two months later the Yugoslav government pushed through a decree which paved the way for his appearance before a United Nations tribunal charged with war crimes. In February the next year he went on trial in The Hague charged with 66 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.
It took the prosecutors until February 2004 to complete the presentation of their case. For the past two years Milosevic had been conducting his own defence. He consistently attempted to delay proceedings, haranguing the West and refusing to recognise the legitimacy of the court.
Although a rabble-rouser by nature, Milosevic could appear courteous and mild-mannered on close encounter. He was punctilious about making coffee and sandwiches for his British legal adviser, Stephen Kaye QC.
Milosevic and his wife Mirjana had two children, a daughter, Marija, who owned a radio station in Belgrade, and a son, Marko, who prided himself on owning the largest discotheque in the Balkans and crashing a great many cars. Mirjana and Marko now live in Russia, Marija in Montenegro.
Gulf regards DP World outcry as 'racist'
By Edmund Conway in Bahrain (Filed: 13/03/2006)
One of Bahrain's top politicians has warned that the US row surrounding DP World's takeover of P&O has taken on a worryingly racist tenor.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Essa Al-Khalifa, chief executive of the Bahrain Economic Development Board, said that the events surrounding the Dubai company's £3.9bn takeover of the UK ports group had also caused great consternation in the Gulf.
Sheikh Mohammed, who heads up Bahrain's economic investment authority, and is a key member of the island's government, said Arab countries could do little if the negative attitude towards the area persisted in the US.
Asked whether it was fair that many were describing the US reaction as racist, he said: "Absolutely, but it's something we can't speak about. I think it was a shame. The DP World deal was a good deal. But this is politics."
Sheikh Mohammed, who was speaking in the run-up to yesterday's Bahrain Grand Prix, said Bahrain benefited from good relations with the US, but these were not necessarily mirrored elsewhere in the region. "We have by far the best relationship with the US of all the Gulf states," he said.
DP World agreed last week to transfer operations at five American ports to a US entity in a bid to defuse the escalating controversy in Washington.
By Edmund Conway in Bahrain (Filed: 13/03/2006)
One of Bahrain's top politicians has warned that the US row surrounding DP World's takeover of P&O has taken on a worryingly racist tenor.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Essa Al-Khalifa, chief executive of the Bahrain Economic Development Board, said that the events surrounding the Dubai company's £3.9bn takeover of the UK ports group had also caused great consternation in the Gulf.
Sheikh Mohammed, who heads up Bahrain's economic investment authority, and is a key member of the island's government, said Arab countries could do little if the negative attitude towards the area persisted in the US.
Asked whether it was fair that many were describing the US reaction as racist, he said: "Absolutely, but it's something we can't speak about. I think it was a shame. The DP World deal was a good deal. But this is politics."
Sheikh Mohammed, who was speaking in the run-up to yesterday's Bahrain Grand Prix, said Bahrain benefited from good relations with the US, but these were not necessarily mirrored elsewhere in the region. "We have by far the best relationship with the US of all the Gulf states," he said.
DP World agreed last week to transfer operations at five American ports to a US entity in a bid to defuse the escalating controversy in Washington.
Vietnam and Iraq: Looking Back and Looking Ahead
By David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 12, 2006; A04
BOSTON, March 11 -- They were talking about a guerrilla war in Asia. Or, fairly often, more than one.
"You cannot win against an insurgency that springs from the population," said Jack Valenti, former special assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson. "There's never been an insurgency that doesn't prevail against a mighty power."
"How much reform can you do," former secretary of state Henry A. Kissinger wondered later, "simultaneously with fighting a war?"
The banner on their dais read "Vietnam and the Presidency" -- ostensibly, the subject of a high-powered conference that brought historians and former policymakers to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library for two days ending Saturday.
But, as the speakers talked about anti-American insurgents and faulty U.S. intelligence and the search for an honorable way out in Southeast Asia, nearly all found bitter parallels to the current conflict in Iraq.
"It appears to me we haven't learned very much," said Alexander M. Haig Jr., Kissinger's assistant in the Nixon White House and secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan.
The conference's stated subject -- Vietnam's history -- was captivating and wrenching enough on its own. Timothy Naftali, director of the Presidential Recordings Program at the University of Virginia, played recordings of Johnson's conversations, including one from 1965 where he asked Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara how the war was going.
"The current battle is going very well," McNamara said, and then continued with a sentence whose Catch-22 logic made the audience laugh. "The problem is that it's not producing the conditions that will almost certainly win for us."
In one from 1966, Johnson said that "I know we oughtn't to be there [in Vietnam], but I can't get out." He never would: Thousands more troops would die before Johnson left office.
Throughout the weekend, there were signs that even today, more than 30 years after the last U.S. troops left Vietnam, many of the most basic questions about that war remain politicized and unsettled -- questions as basic as: What happened there?
"The Vietnamese won," Marilyn B. Young, a professor of history at New York University, said after she appeared in a panel Friday. (HUH?)
"We defeated ourselves, with the divisions" among the American people, Kissinger said Saturday.
"We didn't lose Vietnam," said Haig, sitting next to Kissinger. "We quit Vietnam."
And there were flashes of the strong emotions that Vietnam still brings up. One audience member's question, submitted anonymously and read by the moderator, NBC news anchor Brian Williams, told the panelists, "You policymakers ripped the heart and soul out of . . . American families."
Another question asked Kissinger, who remains a lightning rod because of the Nixon administration's secret bombing of Cambodia, if he felt he had anything to apologize for.
"This is not the occasion for this sort of a question," Kissinger said. Later, though, Kissinger detailed the rationale behind the bombings, and told the audience, "I have no regrets" about his time in government.
For all the debates about Vietnam, there was one thing that most every speaker agreed on. "The sorry odor of the same aromas that we found in Vietnam" can be detected in Iraq today, Valenti said.
Sometimes, there were echoes of Iraq in references to Vietnam. Young said President Harry S. Truman's secretary of state, Dean Acheson, rejected intelligence reports that contradicted his belief that Vietnamese communist leader Ho Chi Minh was no more than a pawn of the Soviet Union.
"Acheson told them to keep looking, in a model of the use of intelligence with which we've become familiar," Young said in an oblique reference to criticisms that President Bush manipulated intelligence before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Other speakers took on the issue directly.
"I think [Vietnam] sent a cautionary signal . . . that we should be more cautious in military adventurism," former president Jimmy Carter said in a videotaped interview played Saturday. "These lessons that were learned I think have been forgotten or ignored in the present Iraq war." (THANKS JIMMY. WHAT LESSONS DID WE LEARN FROM YOUR IRANIAN NIGHTMARE? DIFFERENT TALK I GUESS)
At times, the conference seemed to demonstrate a serious shift in at least some sectors of public thinking. Where just a few years ago it was debated whether Iraq could be called a "quagmire" such as Vietnam, here the question seemed to be: Could it be worse?
"There is not an adequate sense of nationhood," Kissinger said, contrasting Iraq's ethnic and sectarian divisions with what he called a more homogeneous population in Vietnam.
All told, the speakers spent two days sketching bitter parallels between the two fights -- comparing the Cold War "Domino Theory" of communist expansion with the Bush administration's ambitions to spread democracy in the Middle East, and comparing the Iraqi insurgents to the Viet Cong.
Eventually, some of the panelists were asked: So what should the country do now about Iraq?
"I'm not smart enough to figure out how to get out of Iraq," Valenti said, "any more than I was smart enough to figure out how to get out of Vietnam."
Kissinger, the man whose administration eventually did withdraw U.S. troops, had no solutions either.
"I know the problem," he said, "better than the answer."
By David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 12, 2006; A04
BOSTON, March 11 -- They were talking about a guerrilla war in Asia. Or, fairly often, more than one.
"You cannot win against an insurgency that springs from the population," said Jack Valenti, former special assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson. "There's never been an insurgency that doesn't prevail against a mighty power."
"How much reform can you do," former secretary of state Henry A. Kissinger wondered later, "simultaneously with fighting a war?"
The banner on their dais read "Vietnam and the Presidency" -- ostensibly, the subject of a high-powered conference that brought historians and former policymakers to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library for two days ending Saturday.
But, as the speakers talked about anti-American insurgents and faulty U.S. intelligence and the search for an honorable way out in Southeast Asia, nearly all found bitter parallels to the current conflict in Iraq.
"It appears to me we haven't learned very much," said Alexander M. Haig Jr., Kissinger's assistant in the Nixon White House and secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan.
The conference's stated subject -- Vietnam's history -- was captivating and wrenching enough on its own. Timothy Naftali, director of the Presidential Recordings Program at the University of Virginia, played recordings of Johnson's conversations, including one from 1965 where he asked Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara how the war was going.
"The current battle is going very well," McNamara said, and then continued with a sentence whose Catch-22 logic made the audience laugh. "The problem is that it's not producing the conditions that will almost certainly win for us."
In one from 1966, Johnson said that "I know we oughtn't to be there [in Vietnam], but I can't get out." He never would: Thousands more troops would die before Johnson left office.
Throughout the weekend, there were signs that even today, more than 30 years after the last U.S. troops left Vietnam, many of the most basic questions about that war remain politicized and unsettled -- questions as basic as: What happened there?
"The Vietnamese won," Marilyn B. Young, a professor of history at New York University, said after she appeared in a panel Friday. (HUH?)
"We defeated ourselves, with the divisions" among the American people, Kissinger said Saturday.
"We didn't lose Vietnam," said Haig, sitting next to Kissinger. "We quit Vietnam."
And there were flashes of the strong emotions that Vietnam still brings up. One audience member's question, submitted anonymously and read by the moderator, NBC news anchor Brian Williams, told the panelists, "You policymakers ripped the heart and soul out of . . . American families."
Another question asked Kissinger, who remains a lightning rod because of the Nixon administration's secret bombing of Cambodia, if he felt he had anything to apologize for.
"This is not the occasion for this sort of a question," Kissinger said. Later, though, Kissinger detailed the rationale behind the bombings, and told the audience, "I have no regrets" about his time in government.
For all the debates about Vietnam, there was one thing that most every speaker agreed on. "The sorry odor of the same aromas that we found in Vietnam" can be detected in Iraq today, Valenti said.
Sometimes, there were echoes of Iraq in references to Vietnam. Young said President Harry S. Truman's secretary of state, Dean Acheson, rejected intelligence reports that contradicted his belief that Vietnamese communist leader Ho Chi Minh was no more than a pawn of the Soviet Union.
"Acheson told them to keep looking, in a model of the use of intelligence with which we've become familiar," Young said in an oblique reference to criticisms that President Bush manipulated intelligence before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Other speakers took on the issue directly.
"I think [Vietnam] sent a cautionary signal . . . that we should be more cautious in military adventurism," former president Jimmy Carter said in a videotaped interview played Saturday. "These lessons that were learned I think have been forgotten or ignored in the present Iraq war." (THANKS JIMMY. WHAT LESSONS DID WE LEARN FROM YOUR IRANIAN NIGHTMARE? DIFFERENT TALK I GUESS)
At times, the conference seemed to demonstrate a serious shift in at least some sectors of public thinking. Where just a few years ago it was debated whether Iraq could be called a "quagmire" such as Vietnam, here the question seemed to be: Could it be worse?
"There is not an adequate sense of nationhood," Kissinger said, contrasting Iraq's ethnic and sectarian divisions with what he called a more homogeneous population in Vietnam.
All told, the speakers spent two days sketching bitter parallels between the two fights -- comparing the Cold War "Domino Theory" of communist expansion with the Bush administration's ambitions to spread democracy in the Middle East, and comparing the Iraqi insurgents to the Viet Cong.
Eventually, some of the panelists were asked: So what should the country do now about Iraq?
"I'm not smart enough to figure out how to get out of Iraq," Valenti said, "any more than I was smart enough to figure out how to get out of Vietnam."
Kissinger, the man whose administration eventually did withdraw U.S. troops, had no solutions either.
"I know the problem," he said, "better than the answer."
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Crusader for Serb Honor Was Defiant Until the End
As a Leader and a Defendant, Milosevic Exuded Pride and Rage
By Daniel Williams and R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 12, 2006; A16
ROME, March 11 -- Slobodan Milosevic rode nationalist pride and rage to power and led his Serb compatriots into four ethnic wars.
He lost them all.
Yet until the end, Milosevic played the defiant master of his own fate and defender of Serb honor. He insisted on managing his defense at the U.N. international war crimes tribunal and reveled in ridiculing prosecution witnesses even as his ruddy face belied the high blood pressure that may have contributed to his death Saturday at age 64.
At the tribunal, which was underway at The Hague, in the Netherlands, Milosevic was charged with overseeing the worst wartime atrocities against civilians in Europe since World War II. Among them was the massacre of about 8,000 Bosnian men and boys who were taken to the Bosnian town of Srebrenica and herded off for execution in areas throughout the mountainous region. (UNDER THE WATCHFUL GAZE OF THE UN, WHICH IS LEFT OUT OF EVERY MEDIA ACCOUNT SEEN BY THIS AUTHOR TO DATE)
The trial of the former leader was in its fifth year, and he had been urged by the presiding judge to wrap up his defense by May.
Milosevic was one of the driving forces behind the breakup of Yugoslavia, a multi-ethnic state held together by the charisma and repression of Josip Broz, the World War II fighter and Communist leader known as Tito. The Balkan wars of the 1990s ended with the creation of five new states: Serbia and Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia and Macedonia. (HEY THAT'S GREAT, SELF-DETERMINATION IN ACTION WHICH IS IN THE UN CHARTER)
Only Slovenia and Macedonia broke off from Yugoslavia with relatively little bloodshed, while the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo cost 200,000 lives, created 3 million refugees and left damages estimated at $20 billion to $60 billion. The province of Kosovo is awaiting independence through talks aimed at finally determining its status. Montenegro, which is still joined with Serbia, is set to vote soon on whether to declare independence. (KOSOVO IS UNDER YEAR 10 OF UN RULE; HOW MUCH MONEY HAS THE UN MADE GUIDING KOSOVO?)
Milosevic was one of four Yugoslav political leaders at the end of the Tito era who sought more political control through the formation of an ethnically-based state. In Croatia, it was Franjo Tudjman. In Bosnia, Alija Izetbegovic. In Kosovo, Ibrahim Rugova.
Milosevic, who spoke in short, sharp sentences, appealed to the Serb sense of history and victimization. One phrase, delivered in 1987 on an historic battlefield in Kosovo, then a province of Serbia, set his career on a path of destruction. "No one will ever beat you again," he told a throng of Serbs who were complaining that the majority ethnic Albanians in the province were persecuting them.
Nearly three years later, he was elected president of Serbia in its first democratic elections held since World War II. He then tried to gain Serbian domination of the eight-member Yugoslav presidency, prompting resistance by the leaders of the other republics. As they sought political independence, he incited the Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia to revolt.
His pledge to unify all Serbs in one state turned into an ironic promise. Hundreds of thousands of Serbs were driven out of Croatia and Kosovo into Serbia proper. Many Bosnian Serbs now live in northern Bosnia, in a tense political coexistence with Croats and Muslims living in the country's south. Milosevic was born in the central Serbian town of Pozarevac to a Serbian Orthodox priest and a teacher. At different points in his career, he headed Yugoslavia's state-run natural gas company and the state-operated United Bank of Belgrade. In 1986, the communist apparatchik was named to head the party.
His wife, Mirjana Markovic, was a theoretician for Milosevic's Socialist Party. Serb authorities have charged Markovic and their son, Marko, with abuse of power and corruption. Marko is reported to have earned millions of dollars through cigarette smuggling. Both are in exile in Russia. Milosevic and his wife also had a daughter, Marija.
Critics say Milosevic benefited royally from power. Mladen Dinkic, Serb finance minister until earlier this year, wrote that Yugoslavia under Milosevic was a country in which "paranormal economic phenomena are an everyday occurrence." More than half the country's revenue was deposited in so-called special accounts not listed in its budget.
"This is why Serbia is poor," said Milorad Savicevic, who at the end of the Milosevic era managed two state-owned corporations. "We had low production, no investment and lots of corruption. The result is a nation with 4 million really poor people, and 10,000 really rich people" in a total population of 10 million, living on agriculturally fertile land.
Milosevic also held power through manipulation of the state-run media. His underlings often faxed scripts to state television and radio that condemned his local and foreign enemies in foul language, with orders to read every word on air. Milosevic appointees reviewed all news broadcasts and literally ripped news copy from reporters' hands if deemed incorrect.
Milosevic also effectively used his secret police to undermine opponents, and even ordered the assassination of several of his political rivals, according to criminal charges brought by Serb courts after his ouster.
The worst conflict of his years, in Bosnia, ended in 1995, when Milosevic signed the U.S.-brokered peace agreement in Dayton, Ohio. Nominally, the accord guaranteed Bosnia's statehood within its old borders but left the warring populations largely inhabiting separate areas of the country.
The Kosovo war climaxed with U.S.-led airstrikes in 1999 of Serb army positions in Kosovo and towns and cities in Serbia. The Serb withdrawal from the province opened the way to NATO-led occupation. Kosovo refugees returned to the province and Serbs fled in fear. (NO MENTION THAT THE AIRSTRIKES WERE DONE WITHOUT UN APPROVAL)
After the conclusion of each war, Milosevic faced political crises that he tried to put down with police repression and occasional assassinations. In 1996, he overturned local elections and resisted protest rallies that threatened his rule.
In September 2000, he lost the first direct vote for president, although the election commission declared the need for a runoff. Mobs attacked parliament, but police and the army stood by idly. On Oct. 5, Milosevic was ousted. The revolt was engineered in part by youthful political dissidents who benefited from an infusion of Western cash and training, but it was sustained by key military and political leaders who had become weary of his increasingly oppressive rule.
A successor and longtime rival, Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, engineered Milosevic's extradition to The Hague in April 2001, under international pressure. A secret police sniper assassinated Djindjic on March 12, 2003, as the Djindjic government began to crack down on the Milosevic-era alliance between criminals and security forces. Serbia is now ruled by a fractious coalition that includes Milosevic's former Socialist Party.
Prosecutors at The Hague called 294 witnesses against Milosevic. Milosevic, in turn, named 1,400 people he wanted to question in his defense, among them former president Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, none of whom has been subpoenaed.
In his jail cell, Milosevic read Hemingway and John Updike, a biographer has reported, and listened to the music of Celine Dion and Frank Sinatra. Sinatra's "My Way" was a favorite.
Smith reported from Washington.
As a Leader and a Defendant, Milosevic Exuded Pride and Rage
By Daniel Williams and R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 12, 2006; A16
ROME, March 11 -- Slobodan Milosevic rode nationalist pride and rage to power and led his Serb compatriots into four ethnic wars.
He lost them all.
Yet until the end, Milosevic played the defiant master of his own fate and defender of Serb honor. He insisted on managing his defense at the U.N. international war crimes tribunal and reveled in ridiculing prosecution witnesses even as his ruddy face belied the high blood pressure that may have contributed to his death Saturday at age 64.
At the tribunal, which was underway at The Hague, in the Netherlands, Milosevic was charged with overseeing the worst wartime atrocities against civilians in Europe since World War II. Among them was the massacre of about 8,000 Bosnian men and boys who were taken to the Bosnian town of Srebrenica and herded off for execution in areas throughout the mountainous region. (UNDER THE WATCHFUL GAZE OF THE UN, WHICH IS LEFT OUT OF EVERY MEDIA ACCOUNT SEEN BY THIS AUTHOR TO DATE)
The trial of the former leader was in its fifth year, and he had been urged by the presiding judge to wrap up his defense by May.
Milosevic was one of the driving forces behind the breakup of Yugoslavia, a multi-ethnic state held together by the charisma and repression of Josip Broz, the World War II fighter and Communist leader known as Tito. The Balkan wars of the 1990s ended with the creation of five new states: Serbia and Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia and Macedonia. (HEY THAT'S GREAT, SELF-DETERMINATION IN ACTION WHICH IS IN THE UN CHARTER)
Only Slovenia and Macedonia broke off from Yugoslavia with relatively little bloodshed, while the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo cost 200,000 lives, created 3 million refugees and left damages estimated at $20 billion to $60 billion. The province of Kosovo is awaiting independence through talks aimed at finally determining its status. Montenegro, which is still joined with Serbia, is set to vote soon on whether to declare independence. (KOSOVO IS UNDER YEAR 10 OF UN RULE; HOW MUCH MONEY HAS THE UN MADE GUIDING KOSOVO?)
Milosevic was one of four Yugoslav political leaders at the end of the Tito era who sought more political control through the formation of an ethnically-based state. In Croatia, it was Franjo Tudjman. In Bosnia, Alija Izetbegovic. In Kosovo, Ibrahim Rugova.
Milosevic, who spoke in short, sharp sentences, appealed to the Serb sense of history and victimization. One phrase, delivered in 1987 on an historic battlefield in Kosovo, then a province of Serbia, set his career on a path of destruction. "No one will ever beat you again," he told a throng of Serbs who were complaining that the majority ethnic Albanians in the province were persecuting them.
Nearly three years later, he was elected president of Serbia in its first democratic elections held since World War II. He then tried to gain Serbian domination of the eight-member Yugoslav presidency, prompting resistance by the leaders of the other republics. As they sought political independence, he incited the Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia to revolt.
His pledge to unify all Serbs in one state turned into an ironic promise. Hundreds of thousands of Serbs were driven out of Croatia and Kosovo into Serbia proper. Many Bosnian Serbs now live in northern Bosnia, in a tense political coexistence with Croats and Muslims living in the country's south. Milosevic was born in the central Serbian town of Pozarevac to a Serbian Orthodox priest and a teacher. At different points in his career, he headed Yugoslavia's state-run natural gas company and the state-operated United Bank of Belgrade. In 1986, the communist apparatchik was named to head the party.
His wife, Mirjana Markovic, was a theoretician for Milosevic's Socialist Party. Serb authorities have charged Markovic and their son, Marko, with abuse of power and corruption. Marko is reported to have earned millions of dollars through cigarette smuggling. Both are in exile in Russia. Milosevic and his wife also had a daughter, Marija.
Critics say Milosevic benefited royally from power. Mladen Dinkic, Serb finance minister until earlier this year, wrote that Yugoslavia under Milosevic was a country in which "paranormal economic phenomena are an everyday occurrence." More than half the country's revenue was deposited in so-called special accounts not listed in its budget.
"This is why Serbia is poor," said Milorad Savicevic, who at the end of the Milosevic era managed two state-owned corporations. "We had low production, no investment and lots of corruption. The result is a nation with 4 million really poor people, and 10,000 really rich people" in a total population of 10 million, living on agriculturally fertile land.
Milosevic also held power through manipulation of the state-run media. His underlings often faxed scripts to state television and radio that condemned his local and foreign enemies in foul language, with orders to read every word on air. Milosevic appointees reviewed all news broadcasts and literally ripped news copy from reporters' hands if deemed incorrect.
Milosevic also effectively used his secret police to undermine opponents, and even ordered the assassination of several of his political rivals, according to criminal charges brought by Serb courts after his ouster.
The worst conflict of his years, in Bosnia, ended in 1995, when Milosevic signed the U.S.-brokered peace agreement in Dayton, Ohio. Nominally, the accord guaranteed Bosnia's statehood within its old borders but left the warring populations largely inhabiting separate areas of the country.
The Kosovo war climaxed with U.S.-led airstrikes in 1999 of Serb army positions in Kosovo and towns and cities in Serbia. The Serb withdrawal from the province opened the way to NATO-led occupation. Kosovo refugees returned to the province and Serbs fled in fear. (NO MENTION THAT THE AIRSTRIKES WERE DONE WITHOUT UN APPROVAL)
After the conclusion of each war, Milosevic faced political crises that he tried to put down with police repression and occasional assassinations. In 1996, he overturned local elections and resisted protest rallies that threatened his rule.
In September 2000, he lost the first direct vote for president, although the election commission declared the need for a runoff. Mobs attacked parliament, but police and the army stood by idly. On Oct. 5, Milosevic was ousted. The revolt was engineered in part by youthful political dissidents who benefited from an infusion of Western cash and training, but it was sustained by key military and political leaders who had become weary of his increasingly oppressive rule.
A successor and longtime rival, Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, engineered Milosevic's extradition to The Hague in April 2001, under international pressure. A secret police sniper assassinated Djindjic on March 12, 2003, as the Djindjic government began to crack down on the Milosevic-era alliance between criminals and security forces. Serbia is now ruled by a fractious coalition that includes Milosevic's former Socialist Party.
Prosecutors at The Hague called 294 witnesses against Milosevic. Milosevic, in turn, named 1,400 people he wanted to question in his defense, among them former president Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, none of whom has been subpoenaed.
In his jail cell, Milosevic read Hemingway and John Updike, a biographer has reported, and listened to the music of Celine Dion and Frank Sinatra. Sinatra's "My Way" was a favorite.
Smith reported from Washington.
Electricity Deregulation: High Cost, Unmet Promises
Competition a 'Myth' as Prices Spiral Upward
(YEAH, EVERYONE KNOWS AN UNRESPONSIVE MONOPOLY IS BETTER)
By Terence O'Hara and Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, March 12, 2006; A01
Maryland and District consumers angry at the record electric bills they will receive this summer might want to recall the promises made by proponents of deregulation seven years ago. If they do, they'll be even angrier.
At the time, in 1999, evangelists for deregulation described a competitive, efficient and lower-priced system of energy delivery that, for the most part, remains a fantasy in the Mid-Atlantic region and other parts of the country today, according to industry experts.
The District, Maryland and Virginia, along with much of the nation, are wrestling with the ramifications of deregulation at the same time that the cost of producing electricity is skyrocketing. But as energy prices have soared, electricity rates have gone up more in deregulated states than in regulated ones. (WHAT A SHOCKER. THE REGULATED PRICES HAVE GONE UP LESS! GEE, IT COSTS MORE TO PRODUCE, I WONDER WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO THE PRICE?)
Though Northern Virginia residents won't feel the full effects of deregulation until 2010, when rate caps expire, caps were lifted for Pepco customers in the District and Maryland several years ago, resulting in steady increases, including a 38 percent jump for suburban Maryland and 12 percent for the District announced last week.
Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. customers in Maryland have had artificially low rates for six years because of caps set in the 1999 deal that allowed deregulation to go through, so the sudden 72 percent increase announced last week is a rude awakening.
"With something of that magnitude, I thought, God, it can't be," said Don Dunn, a 77-year-old retired businessman in Howard County on a fixed income. "My gut reaction was, gee, the whole thing is an error."
Dunn, who spent about $700 on electricity last year, is wondering how he can afford more even as property taxes are rising. While he is worrying that he might have to give up the two-story brick home in Ellicott City where he has lived for more than 40 years, deregulation has turned out well for BGE's parent company. (NICE TOUCH, BLUR THE HIGER ENERGY BILL WITH THE INCREASE OF THE PROPERTY TAX. WHAT DOES THE PROPERTY TAX HAVE TO DO WITH DEREGULATION? DOESN'T THE INCREASE IN THE PROPERTY TAX MEAN THE HOUSE IS MORE VALUABLE? MAYBE THEY SHOULD LOWER INSTEAD OF RAISE PROPERTY TAXES?)
Constellation Energy Group Inc.'s revenue has nearly doubled in two years, to $17.1 billion in 2005. Chief executive Mayo A. Shattuck III's cash compensation was nearly $5 million in 2004, up more than 176 percent from 2002. And shareholders are being rewarded with an $11 billion merger deal with a Florida power company. (DOES THE MERGER HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT? REAL EASY ON THE FACTS SO FAR)
Residential customers -- especially those in Maryland facing an average $743 yearly increase in their BGE bills -- are left wondering what deregulation was for, if not to reduce prices.
Under the old system, the price of electricity was strictly based on what it cost the power company to produce it. Now, prices are based on what several hundred highly sophisticated power suppliers and traders believe the market will bear, prices that can have only nominal relation to cost. (SO UNDER REGULATED MARKERTS, THE COST COULD BE THE SAME. WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS ARTICLE?)
In Annapolis, the outcry from voters has sent lawmakers into a frenzy to respond to the rate increase.
Sen. Leo E. Green (D-Prince George's), a longtime opponent of electric deregulation, blamed its failure on false promises from energy companies in the 1990s.
"This whole thing was started with Enron," he said.
Enron Corp. envisioned a world in which power nationally would become a commodity, much like oil, and it could profit by being a supplier and trader of that commodity. Enron lobbied heavily in states, including Maryland, for deregulation. A little less than half the states embraced some form of deregulation in the late 1990s.
But Enron later succumbed to a wave of scandals, including one in which it manipulated the California wholesale electricity market in 2001, causing prices to soar.
Deregulation has not worked as envisioned in any of the 20 states that have undertaken it, said Kenneth Rose, an Ohio energy consultant who advises state utility regulators.
"Those of us who were in favor of the competition that deregulation promised, and I was one of them, haven't had our hopes realized," he said. "Not at all. It was Enron in California where I first thought something is not working here."
For state governments that bought into deregulation, the remorse has been acute.
"I think everyone is just looking at Maryland and getting sick to their stomach," said Elizabeth A. Noel, the D.C. people's counsel. "This is not what was supposed to happen. . . . Nobody intended this."
Constellation officials are adamant in their contention that neither deregulation nor BGE is responsible for the rate increase. The fault lies, they say, in sky-high raw energy prices, particularly natural gas, which is used to generate about half the electricity used in this region.
"Price increases are driven by fuel rises, and gas prices have tripled since 1999, oil prices have doubled and coal prices have doubled," said Mark Case, director of regulatory services for BGE.
Rate increases have been higher in states that deregulated than in those that kept the old regulatory framework. Among the regulated, rate increases have varied widely -- 4.4 in North Carolina, 23 percent in West Virginia and a high of 32 percent in Oklahoma, according to Regulatory Research Associates. Among the deregulated, Delaware will have a 35 percent increase in May. (NO ****. WHAT DO YOU THINK REGULATION IS?)
Experts say higher energy costs are only part of the reason for the jump in wholesale electricity prices, upon which residential rates are based.
Among the promises of deregulation was competition -- homeowners and businesses would be able to pick their own energy providers, creating price competition with local power companies. In Maryland, that has not happened. Part of the blame, experts say, lies in the way Maryland deregulated. The 1999 rate caps, which are coming off this summer, imposed a falsely low rate that no BGE competitor could match, preventing competition. (MAKE SURE YOU BURY THIS HALFWAY INTO THE STORY)
"We were sold a myth called competition," said Del. Patrick L. McDonough (R-Baltimore County). "We will find Jimmy Hoffa in Maryland before we find competition."
Kenneth J. Schrad, a spokesman for the Virginia State Corporation Commission, said the main guarantee of Virginia's deregulation was that its 3.2 million customers would be able to choose their own power suppliers.
"But that doesn't mean much because there isn't anybody to choose," Schrad said. Out of the entire state, only 1,450 customers have switched to a new provider since deregulation -- and they actually switched to a more expensive supplier only because it is environmentally friendly, Schrad said.
Another promise was that suppliers, freed from state regulation, would sell their power to the highest bidder, creating market incentives for increased efficiency and investment in new technologies. But since 1999, older, less-efficient plants have remained profitable, discouraging investment in new plants. The Mid-Atlantic region still has a shortage of capacity, and during much of the year must import energy from outside the area, often at high prices.
Deregulation was also supposed to encourage development of a national grid system. Utilities and their would-be competitors could buy from the lowest-cost producer, no matter where the producer resided. Pepco could, in theory, buy power from a plant in Oklahoma using cheap natural gas. But the national grid hasn't been improved because power producers -- the most logical source of capital to improve the system -- don't want the competition a robust national grid would allow. Today it is nearly impossible to move large amounts of electricity over long distances.
The Virginia General Assembly, getting nervous in 2004 over the lack of competition, extended the rate caps on Dominion Virginia Power -- which serves Northern Virginia -- until Dec. 31, 2010. Prices can be adjusted for rising fuel costs, though, in 2007, and analysts expect that to boost residential rates dramatically. (SO THE SAME PRICE CAPS CITED AS THE PROBLEM ARE BEING EXTENDED?)
Under the regulated system, the power company owned both the power plants and the wires used to deliver the power. Seven years ago, regulators in Maryland, the District and Virginia effectively gave up control over the plants, handing that market power over to unregulated generating companies that were free to charge whatever they could.
Pepco sold all four of its power plants in the region in 2001 and became only a distribution company. While Constellation retained its power plants, it separated them for legal purposes from BGE, which now buys its power not only from Constellation but also from other producers. In Virginia, Dominion operates in the same way as Constellation.
Under this system, said Schrad and Rose, low-cost coal-fired and nuclear plants are able to sell power at the same price as much more expensive natural-gas-fired plants. The primary beneficiaries are, like Constellation, owners of coal and nuclear units.
Noel, the D.C. people's counsel, said lawmakers had assumed that energy companies such as Enron would be slashing prices to enter new markets, but after Enron and other energy companies collapsed, no one was interested in local energy markets .
"We opened the doors, and no one was there," she said.
Constellation has become one of the country's leading independent energy suppliers and marketers. Its Commodities Group buys and sells electricity and natural gas and is now the largest electricity broker in the country. It advises more than 10,000 companies on how to best use energy, including how and where to buy it. It owns 107 power plants at 34 locations in California, Illinois and Maryland..
With higher prices, more competition could still emerge. Last week, Washington Gas Energy Services Inc., a sister company to the District-based Washington Gas Light Co., began offering a 10 percent discount off BGE rates to Maryland customers.
Once deregulated, Rose said, it is nearly impossible for Maryland or other states to retreat.
"It's really just bad luck," Rose said. "A lot of these rate caps are coming off at a time when gas prices are sky high. While this does raise questions about the design of the wholesale market, there's actually very little any one can do about it at this point." (MAYBE PEOPLE SHOULD QUIT BEING ADDICTED TO ARTIFICAILLY CHEAP ENERGY AND START PAYING MARKET PRICES)
Staff researcher Bobbye Pratt contributed to this story.
Competition a 'Myth' as Prices Spiral Upward
(YEAH, EVERYONE KNOWS AN UNRESPONSIVE MONOPOLY IS BETTER)
By Terence O'Hara and Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, March 12, 2006; A01
Maryland and District consumers angry at the record electric bills they will receive this summer might want to recall the promises made by proponents of deregulation seven years ago. If they do, they'll be even angrier.
At the time, in 1999, evangelists for deregulation described a competitive, efficient and lower-priced system of energy delivery that, for the most part, remains a fantasy in the Mid-Atlantic region and other parts of the country today, according to industry experts.
The District, Maryland and Virginia, along with much of the nation, are wrestling with the ramifications of deregulation at the same time that the cost of producing electricity is skyrocketing. But as energy prices have soared, electricity rates have gone up more in deregulated states than in regulated ones. (WHAT A SHOCKER. THE REGULATED PRICES HAVE GONE UP LESS! GEE, IT COSTS MORE TO PRODUCE, I WONDER WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO THE PRICE?)
Though Northern Virginia residents won't feel the full effects of deregulation until 2010, when rate caps expire, caps were lifted for Pepco customers in the District and Maryland several years ago, resulting in steady increases, including a 38 percent jump for suburban Maryland and 12 percent for the District announced last week.
Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. customers in Maryland have had artificially low rates for six years because of caps set in the 1999 deal that allowed deregulation to go through, so the sudden 72 percent increase announced last week is a rude awakening.
"With something of that magnitude, I thought, God, it can't be," said Don Dunn, a 77-year-old retired businessman in Howard County on a fixed income. "My gut reaction was, gee, the whole thing is an error."
Dunn, who spent about $700 on electricity last year, is wondering how he can afford more even as property taxes are rising. While he is worrying that he might have to give up the two-story brick home in Ellicott City where he has lived for more than 40 years, deregulation has turned out well for BGE's parent company. (NICE TOUCH, BLUR THE HIGER ENERGY BILL WITH THE INCREASE OF THE PROPERTY TAX. WHAT DOES THE PROPERTY TAX HAVE TO DO WITH DEREGULATION? DOESN'T THE INCREASE IN THE PROPERTY TAX MEAN THE HOUSE IS MORE VALUABLE? MAYBE THEY SHOULD LOWER INSTEAD OF RAISE PROPERTY TAXES?)
Constellation Energy Group Inc.'s revenue has nearly doubled in two years, to $17.1 billion in 2005. Chief executive Mayo A. Shattuck III's cash compensation was nearly $5 million in 2004, up more than 176 percent from 2002. And shareholders are being rewarded with an $11 billion merger deal with a Florida power company. (DOES THE MERGER HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT? REAL EASY ON THE FACTS SO FAR)
Residential customers -- especially those in Maryland facing an average $743 yearly increase in their BGE bills -- are left wondering what deregulation was for, if not to reduce prices.
Under the old system, the price of electricity was strictly based on what it cost the power company to produce it. Now, prices are based on what several hundred highly sophisticated power suppliers and traders believe the market will bear, prices that can have only nominal relation to cost. (SO UNDER REGULATED MARKERTS, THE COST COULD BE THE SAME. WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS ARTICLE?)
In Annapolis, the outcry from voters has sent lawmakers into a frenzy to respond to the rate increase.
Sen. Leo E. Green (D-Prince George's), a longtime opponent of electric deregulation, blamed its failure on false promises from energy companies in the 1990s.
"This whole thing was started with Enron," he said.
Enron Corp. envisioned a world in which power nationally would become a commodity, much like oil, and it could profit by being a supplier and trader of that commodity. Enron lobbied heavily in states, including Maryland, for deregulation. A little less than half the states embraced some form of deregulation in the late 1990s.
But Enron later succumbed to a wave of scandals, including one in which it manipulated the California wholesale electricity market in 2001, causing prices to soar.
Deregulation has not worked as envisioned in any of the 20 states that have undertaken it, said Kenneth Rose, an Ohio energy consultant who advises state utility regulators.
"Those of us who were in favor of the competition that deregulation promised, and I was one of them, haven't had our hopes realized," he said. "Not at all. It was Enron in California where I first thought something is not working here."
For state governments that bought into deregulation, the remorse has been acute.
"I think everyone is just looking at Maryland and getting sick to their stomach," said Elizabeth A. Noel, the D.C. people's counsel. "This is not what was supposed to happen. . . . Nobody intended this."
Constellation officials are adamant in their contention that neither deregulation nor BGE is responsible for the rate increase. The fault lies, they say, in sky-high raw energy prices, particularly natural gas, which is used to generate about half the electricity used in this region.
"Price increases are driven by fuel rises, and gas prices have tripled since 1999, oil prices have doubled and coal prices have doubled," said Mark Case, director of regulatory services for BGE.
Rate increases have been higher in states that deregulated than in those that kept the old regulatory framework. Among the regulated, rate increases have varied widely -- 4.4 in North Carolina, 23 percent in West Virginia and a high of 32 percent in Oklahoma, according to Regulatory Research Associates. Among the deregulated, Delaware will have a 35 percent increase in May. (NO ****. WHAT DO YOU THINK REGULATION IS?)
Experts say higher energy costs are only part of the reason for the jump in wholesale electricity prices, upon which residential rates are based.
Among the promises of deregulation was competition -- homeowners and businesses would be able to pick their own energy providers, creating price competition with local power companies. In Maryland, that has not happened. Part of the blame, experts say, lies in the way Maryland deregulated. The 1999 rate caps, which are coming off this summer, imposed a falsely low rate that no BGE competitor could match, preventing competition. (MAKE SURE YOU BURY THIS HALFWAY INTO THE STORY)
"We were sold a myth called competition," said Del. Patrick L. McDonough (R-Baltimore County). "We will find Jimmy Hoffa in Maryland before we find competition."
Kenneth J. Schrad, a spokesman for the Virginia State Corporation Commission, said the main guarantee of Virginia's deregulation was that its 3.2 million customers would be able to choose their own power suppliers.
"But that doesn't mean much because there isn't anybody to choose," Schrad said. Out of the entire state, only 1,450 customers have switched to a new provider since deregulation -- and they actually switched to a more expensive supplier only because it is environmentally friendly, Schrad said.
Another promise was that suppliers, freed from state regulation, would sell their power to the highest bidder, creating market incentives for increased efficiency and investment in new technologies. But since 1999, older, less-efficient plants have remained profitable, discouraging investment in new plants. The Mid-Atlantic region still has a shortage of capacity, and during much of the year must import energy from outside the area, often at high prices.
Deregulation was also supposed to encourage development of a national grid system. Utilities and their would-be competitors could buy from the lowest-cost producer, no matter where the producer resided. Pepco could, in theory, buy power from a plant in Oklahoma using cheap natural gas. But the national grid hasn't been improved because power producers -- the most logical source of capital to improve the system -- don't want the competition a robust national grid would allow. Today it is nearly impossible to move large amounts of electricity over long distances.
The Virginia General Assembly, getting nervous in 2004 over the lack of competition, extended the rate caps on Dominion Virginia Power -- which serves Northern Virginia -- until Dec. 31, 2010. Prices can be adjusted for rising fuel costs, though, in 2007, and analysts expect that to boost residential rates dramatically. (SO THE SAME PRICE CAPS CITED AS THE PROBLEM ARE BEING EXTENDED?)
Under the regulated system, the power company owned both the power plants and the wires used to deliver the power. Seven years ago, regulators in Maryland, the District and Virginia effectively gave up control over the plants, handing that market power over to unregulated generating companies that were free to charge whatever they could.
Pepco sold all four of its power plants in the region in 2001 and became only a distribution company. While Constellation retained its power plants, it separated them for legal purposes from BGE, which now buys its power not only from Constellation but also from other producers. In Virginia, Dominion operates in the same way as Constellation.
Under this system, said Schrad and Rose, low-cost coal-fired and nuclear plants are able to sell power at the same price as much more expensive natural-gas-fired plants. The primary beneficiaries are, like Constellation, owners of coal and nuclear units.
Noel, the D.C. people's counsel, said lawmakers had assumed that energy companies such as Enron would be slashing prices to enter new markets, but after Enron and other energy companies collapsed, no one was interested in local energy markets .
"We opened the doors, and no one was there," she said.
Constellation has become one of the country's leading independent energy suppliers and marketers. Its Commodities Group buys and sells electricity and natural gas and is now the largest electricity broker in the country. It advises more than 10,000 companies on how to best use energy, including how and where to buy it. It owns 107 power plants at 34 locations in California, Illinois and Maryland..
With higher prices, more competition could still emerge. Last week, Washington Gas Energy Services Inc., a sister company to the District-based Washington Gas Light Co., began offering a 10 percent discount off BGE rates to Maryland customers.
Once deregulated, Rose said, it is nearly impossible for Maryland or other states to retreat.
"It's really just bad luck," Rose said. "A lot of these rate caps are coming off at a time when gas prices are sky high. While this does raise questions about the design of the wholesale market, there's actually very little any one can do about it at this point." (MAYBE PEOPLE SHOULD QUIT BEING ADDICTED TO ARTIFICAILLY CHEAP ENERGY AND START PAYING MARKET PRICES)
Staff researcher Bobbye Pratt contributed to this story.
Milosevic Found Dead in Prison
Genocide Trial Is Left Without A Final Judgment
By Molly Moore and Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 12, 2006; A01
PARIS, March 11 -- Slobodan Milosevic, the deposed Yugoslav leader who had spent the last four years on trial accused of genocide and crimes against humanity for his role in nearly a decade of Balkan wars, died Saturday in his prison cell near The Hague, according to the U.N. international war crimes tribunal.
A guard found Milosevic "lifeless on his bed in his cell," according to a statement issued by the tribunal. The statement said that Dutch police and a Dutch coroner had been summoned and that an autopsy and a full inquiry had been ordered. Court officials said there was no evidence that Milosevic, who suffered from high blood pressure and chronic heart problems, had committed suicide.
Milosevic's death ends the war crimes court's highest profile trial related to the Balkan atrocities of the 1990s -- conflicts that left an estimated 200,000 civilians dead and millions more displaced, as refugees or through forced relocations. Even though Milosevic, the first former head of state to stand trial for genocide, escaped the final judgment of the tribunal, his trial documented chilling details of the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo in thousands of pages of official records, scores of recorded telephone conversations and hundreds of eyewitness accounts.
Milosevic and his Balkan wars dominated much of President Bill Clinton's foreign policy agenda and tested the resolve of the United States and Europe to act militarily to end a war involving "ethnic cleansing" on European soil. High-level U.S. envoys shuttled constantly between Washington and Belgrade, with Milosevic seen as both an instigator of the violence and the key player who could halt it. In 1999, with mounting reports of Serb atrocities against Kosovo Albanians, Clinton persuaded NATO partners to launch an air war against Serbian forces. That campaign lasted 78 days.
Funeral arrangements for Milosevic remained in disarray late Saturday night and threatened to sharpen the divide in Serbia between Milosevic's shrinking party sympathizers and his political opponents. Officials of his Socialist Party said he should be buried as a hero in Belgrade's central cemetery, while his opponents have demanded he not be buried with state honors. His wife, Mirjana Markovic, and their two children reportedly reside in exile in Russia. Markovic and the couple's son, Marko, are wanted on charges of abuse of power while Milosevic was in power and could be arrested if they return to Serbia for a funeral.
The 64-year-old Milosevic had frequently won trial delays to accommodate his fragile health. During a court session three weeks ago, Milosevic complained about a "thundering noise" in his head and asked judges to allow him to travel to Russia for medical treatment. The judges refused his request, but said Russian doctors would be allowed to treat him at the prison.
News of his death provoked caustic reactions from both supporters and opponents. Victims of atrocities committed under his rule during the disintegration of the Yugoslav republic complained that history had been cheated of final judgment on a man some critics called "the butcher of the Balkans."
"People didn't see him get what he deserved," said Arsim Gerxhaliu, a Kosovo Albanian forensics expert who has exhumed hundreds of bodies for identification and reburial since the 1998-99 Kosovo war.
Family members and sympathizers accused the war crimes tribunal of culpability in his death. "Complete responsibility for this lies on the international tribunal for former Yugoslavia," Milosevic's brother, Borislav, who lives in exile in Russia, told Russian news agencies.
Milosevic has been in court since February 2002, charged with 66 crimes including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity during the 1991-95 war in Croatia; the 1992-95 conflict in Bosnia that ended with the first NATO airstrikes and a peace accord Milosevic signed in Dayton, Ohio; and finally the Serb crackdown in Kosovo, which ended again with a U.S.-led bombing of Milosevic's forces inside Kosovo and of infrastructure in Serbia.
Milosevic never formally acknowledged the authority of the war crimes tribunal and insisted on calling the judges "Mister," rather than "Your Honor." And he remained unrepentant throughout, always denying he had any knowledge of the crimes being committed by Bosnian Serb units in Bosnia, or Yugoslav federal troops in Kosovo. Prosecutors, meanwhile, used their lengthy presentation to show that Milosevic had direct "command responsibility," and either should have known what was happening, or received ample warning -- including from U.S. officials.
Court officials had said they had expected his trial to conclude in May and judges to issue a verdict by the end of the year.
"The death of Slobodan Milosevic a few weeks before the completion of his trial will prevent justice to be done in his case," Carla Del Ponte, the chief war crime prosecutor, said in a statement issued by her office Saturday. "However, the crimes for which he was accused, including genocide, cannot be left unpunished. There are other senior leaders accused of these crimes, six of them still at large."
The war crimes tribunal has indicted 161 people over the past 11 years. Of the six indictees at large, the most prominent include former Bosnia Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic, charged with genocide for their roles in the massacre of an estimated 8,000 Muslim men and boys in July 1995 in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica.
"This is exactly what the judges have feared all along," said Edgar Chen, legal liaison to the war crimes tribunal for the Washington-based watchdog group, Coalition for International Justice. "That the trial wouldn't be complete and there would be no verdict. . . . They knew the fragile state of his health."
Chen, who has monitored long stretches of the trial from behind the bulletproof glass that separates the courtroom from the public, said the trial has been drawn out partially because of the judges' sensitivity to Milosevic's health. Courtroom sessions have been conducted only three days a week to allow Milosevic sufficient time to rest and prepare his presentations. Milosevic, who has a law degree, has been acting as his own attorney.
During heated courtroom debate, Milosevic's high blood pressure often has been evident in the reddened color of his face, intensified by his snowy white hair. Chen said in recent weeks Milosevic's voice had become "more scratchy and hoarse" than usual.
When the judges on Feb. 24 rejected Milosevic's plea for medical treatment in Moscow, the former Yugoslav leader replied, "I consider this a highly unjust decision," Chen said his notes from that session show. He added that presiding Judge Patrick Robinson "cut him off and said, 'I am not going to consider this.' "
Milosevic's death was reported less than a week after one of his former Croation Serb rebel leaders, Milan Babic, committed suicide in his cell at the same tribunal detention center where Milosevic was housed. Babic, who suffocated himself using a plastic bag and a belt, had testified against Milosevic and was scheduled to appear in the trial of another Croation Serb. He was serving a 13-year sentence.
"In The Hague, Serbs are not treated like human beings," said Zoran Andjelkovic, a leader of Serbia's Socialist Party, which Milosevic once headed. "What's happening in that court now that two Serbs have died consecutively in prison?"
Milosevic "has a history of suicide in his family -- both his parents -- but as far as he was concerned, his attitude to me was quite the opposite from that," Steven Kay, a British attorney appointed by the tribunal to assist Milosevic, told BBC television. "He was determined to keep fighting his case."
Milosevic's unexpected death provoked shock but no mass outpourings of grief in Belgrade, the capital of the former Yugoslavia from where he served as president of Serbia until he was overthrown by a popular uprising in 2001. State-run television broadcast classical music between news updates and other stations ran films about the Balkan wars and Milosevic's life.
The government of Serbia limited its statements to offering condolences to the Milosevic family and his Socialist Party. But Justice Minister Zoran Stojkovic charged that Milosevic's death proved that war crimes detainees at The Hague did not receive adequate medical care. "Milosevic's death has shaken me as a person," Stojkovic said.
On Belgrade's streets, smatterings of sympathy alternated with large doses of indifference.
Marko Kraljevic, 63, a passenger on Bus 31 near Belgrade's Hotel Slavija, said Milosevic was a victim of the Hague system. "It clawed his eyes and soul out," he said. "It's amazing a man his age could endure such abuse for so long."
But Zoran Knezevic, owner of the Malt cafe on Branicevska street, said he felt no sympathy. "Milosevic was guilty for ruining and bankrupting our country, for drawing us into war," Knezevic said. "He is guilty for everything that befell us for 10 years. For these crimes I wish he had been tried here and gotten the severest penalty."
Across the Balkans, civilian victims and wartime rivals expressed regret that Milosevic died before the tribunal reached a verdict.
"We're sorry because he will never face legal consequences for his deeds," said Hajra Katic, a member of the Mothers of Srebrenica, a group of women seeking justice for the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica. "However, it seems that he finally faced the God's will."
"For the victims and truth and justice, it would have been better if he lived to the end of the trial," said Sulejman Tihic, a Muslim member of the Muslim-Serb-Croatian inter-ethnic presidency of Bosnia. Bosnia has sued the entire nation of Serbia for war crimes, a case that has just begun in the International Court of Justice, a separate court in The Hague.
In Croatia, a country that was sometimes at war with Serbia and sometimes participated in its efforts to carve up Bosnia, President Stjepan Mesic issued a written statement: "It's a pity that Milosevic did not live through the trial and get his deserved sentence."
The U.S. State Department issued a short statement acknowledging Milosevic's death that read in part, "Milosevic was the principal figure responsible for the violent dismemberment of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Milosevic's rule has long ended, and the United States supports a future for the Serbian people of peace, security, prosperity and greater integration with the Euro-Atlantic community.
Williams reported from Rome. Correspondent Peter Finn in Moscow, special correspondents Rade Maroevic and Joan McQueeney Mitric in Belgrade, and staff writer Glenn Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.
Genocide Trial Is Left Without A Final Judgment
By Molly Moore and Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 12, 2006; A01
PARIS, March 11 -- Slobodan Milosevic, the deposed Yugoslav leader who had spent the last four years on trial accused of genocide and crimes against humanity for his role in nearly a decade of Balkan wars, died Saturday in his prison cell near The Hague, according to the U.N. international war crimes tribunal.
A guard found Milosevic "lifeless on his bed in his cell," according to a statement issued by the tribunal. The statement said that Dutch police and a Dutch coroner had been summoned and that an autopsy and a full inquiry had been ordered. Court officials said there was no evidence that Milosevic, who suffered from high blood pressure and chronic heart problems, had committed suicide.
Milosevic's death ends the war crimes court's highest profile trial related to the Balkan atrocities of the 1990s -- conflicts that left an estimated 200,000 civilians dead and millions more displaced, as refugees or through forced relocations. Even though Milosevic, the first former head of state to stand trial for genocide, escaped the final judgment of the tribunal, his trial documented chilling details of the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo in thousands of pages of official records, scores of recorded telephone conversations and hundreds of eyewitness accounts.
Milosevic and his Balkan wars dominated much of President Bill Clinton's foreign policy agenda and tested the resolve of the United States and Europe to act militarily to end a war involving "ethnic cleansing" on European soil. High-level U.S. envoys shuttled constantly between Washington and Belgrade, with Milosevic seen as both an instigator of the violence and the key player who could halt it. In 1999, with mounting reports of Serb atrocities against Kosovo Albanians, Clinton persuaded NATO partners to launch an air war against Serbian forces. That campaign lasted 78 days.
Funeral arrangements for Milosevic remained in disarray late Saturday night and threatened to sharpen the divide in Serbia between Milosevic's shrinking party sympathizers and his political opponents. Officials of his Socialist Party said he should be buried as a hero in Belgrade's central cemetery, while his opponents have demanded he not be buried with state honors. His wife, Mirjana Markovic, and their two children reportedly reside in exile in Russia. Markovic and the couple's son, Marko, are wanted on charges of abuse of power while Milosevic was in power and could be arrested if they return to Serbia for a funeral.
The 64-year-old Milosevic had frequently won trial delays to accommodate his fragile health. During a court session three weeks ago, Milosevic complained about a "thundering noise" in his head and asked judges to allow him to travel to Russia for medical treatment. The judges refused his request, but said Russian doctors would be allowed to treat him at the prison.
News of his death provoked caustic reactions from both supporters and opponents. Victims of atrocities committed under his rule during the disintegration of the Yugoslav republic complained that history had been cheated of final judgment on a man some critics called "the butcher of the Balkans."
"People didn't see him get what he deserved," said Arsim Gerxhaliu, a Kosovo Albanian forensics expert who has exhumed hundreds of bodies for identification and reburial since the 1998-99 Kosovo war.
Family members and sympathizers accused the war crimes tribunal of culpability in his death. "Complete responsibility for this lies on the international tribunal for former Yugoslavia," Milosevic's brother, Borislav, who lives in exile in Russia, told Russian news agencies.
Milosevic has been in court since February 2002, charged with 66 crimes including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity during the 1991-95 war in Croatia; the 1992-95 conflict in Bosnia that ended with the first NATO airstrikes and a peace accord Milosevic signed in Dayton, Ohio; and finally the Serb crackdown in Kosovo, which ended again with a U.S.-led bombing of Milosevic's forces inside Kosovo and of infrastructure in Serbia.
Milosevic never formally acknowledged the authority of the war crimes tribunal and insisted on calling the judges "Mister," rather than "Your Honor." And he remained unrepentant throughout, always denying he had any knowledge of the crimes being committed by Bosnian Serb units in Bosnia, or Yugoslav federal troops in Kosovo. Prosecutors, meanwhile, used their lengthy presentation to show that Milosevic had direct "command responsibility," and either should have known what was happening, or received ample warning -- including from U.S. officials.
Court officials had said they had expected his trial to conclude in May and judges to issue a verdict by the end of the year.
"The death of Slobodan Milosevic a few weeks before the completion of his trial will prevent justice to be done in his case," Carla Del Ponte, the chief war crime prosecutor, said in a statement issued by her office Saturday. "However, the crimes for which he was accused, including genocide, cannot be left unpunished. There are other senior leaders accused of these crimes, six of them still at large."
The war crimes tribunal has indicted 161 people over the past 11 years. Of the six indictees at large, the most prominent include former Bosnia Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic, charged with genocide for their roles in the massacre of an estimated 8,000 Muslim men and boys in July 1995 in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica.
"This is exactly what the judges have feared all along," said Edgar Chen, legal liaison to the war crimes tribunal for the Washington-based watchdog group, Coalition for International Justice. "That the trial wouldn't be complete and there would be no verdict. . . . They knew the fragile state of his health."
Chen, who has monitored long stretches of the trial from behind the bulletproof glass that separates the courtroom from the public, said the trial has been drawn out partially because of the judges' sensitivity to Milosevic's health. Courtroom sessions have been conducted only three days a week to allow Milosevic sufficient time to rest and prepare his presentations. Milosevic, who has a law degree, has been acting as his own attorney.
During heated courtroom debate, Milosevic's high blood pressure often has been evident in the reddened color of his face, intensified by his snowy white hair. Chen said in recent weeks Milosevic's voice had become "more scratchy and hoarse" than usual.
When the judges on Feb. 24 rejected Milosevic's plea for medical treatment in Moscow, the former Yugoslav leader replied, "I consider this a highly unjust decision," Chen said his notes from that session show. He added that presiding Judge Patrick Robinson "cut him off and said, 'I am not going to consider this.' "
Milosevic's death was reported less than a week after one of his former Croation Serb rebel leaders, Milan Babic, committed suicide in his cell at the same tribunal detention center where Milosevic was housed. Babic, who suffocated himself using a plastic bag and a belt, had testified against Milosevic and was scheduled to appear in the trial of another Croation Serb. He was serving a 13-year sentence.
"In The Hague, Serbs are not treated like human beings," said Zoran Andjelkovic, a leader of Serbia's Socialist Party, which Milosevic once headed. "What's happening in that court now that two Serbs have died consecutively in prison?"
Milosevic "has a history of suicide in his family -- both his parents -- but as far as he was concerned, his attitude to me was quite the opposite from that," Steven Kay, a British attorney appointed by the tribunal to assist Milosevic, told BBC television. "He was determined to keep fighting his case."
Milosevic's unexpected death provoked shock but no mass outpourings of grief in Belgrade, the capital of the former Yugoslavia from where he served as president of Serbia until he was overthrown by a popular uprising in 2001. State-run television broadcast classical music between news updates and other stations ran films about the Balkan wars and Milosevic's life.
The government of Serbia limited its statements to offering condolences to the Milosevic family and his Socialist Party. But Justice Minister Zoran Stojkovic charged that Milosevic's death proved that war crimes detainees at The Hague did not receive adequate medical care. "Milosevic's death has shaken me as a person," Stojkovic said.
On Belgrade's streets, smatterings of sympathy alternated with large doses of indifference.
Marko Kraljevic, 63, a passenger on Bus 31 near Belgrade's Hotel Slavija, said Milosevic was a victim of the Hague system. "It clawed his eyes and soul out," he said. "It's amazing a man his age could endure such abuse for so long."
But Zoran Knezevic, owner of the Malt cafe on Branicevska street, said he felt no sympathy. "Milosevic was guilty for ruining and bankrupting our country, for drawing us into war," Knezevic said. "He is guilty for everything that befell us for 10 years. For these crimes I wish he had been tried here and gotten the severest penalty."
Across the Balkans, civilian victims and wartime rivals expressed regret that Milosevic died before the tribunal reached a verdict.
"We're sorry because he will never face legal consequences for his deeds," said Hajra Katic, a member of the Mothers of Srebrenica, a group of women seeking justice for the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica. "However, it seems that he finally faced the God's will."
"For the victims and truth and justice, it would have been better if he lived to the end of the trial," said Sulejman Tihic, a Muslim member of the Muslim-Serb-Croatian inter-ethnic presidency of Bosnia. Bosnia has sued the entire nation of Serbia for war crimes, a case that has just begun in the International Court of Justice, a separate court in The Hague.
In Croatia, a country that was sometimes at war with Serbia and sometimes participated in its efforts to carve up Bosnia, President Stjepan Mesic issued a written statement: "It's a pity that Milosevic did not live through the trial and get his deserved sentence."
The U.S. State Department issued a short statement acknowledging Milosevic's death that read in part, "Milosevic was the principal figure responsible for the violent dismemberment of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Milosevic's rule has long ended, and the United States supports a future for the Serbian people of peace, security, prosperity and greater integration with the Euro-Atlantic community.
Williams reported from Rome. Correspondent Peter Finn in Moscow, special correspondents Rade Maroevic and Joan McQueeney Mitric in Belgrade, and staff writer Glenn Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.
In Poland, Twin Leaders Push Nationalist Agenda
The president and his brother say they need to build a strong state. Rights groups say the pair's right-wing policies threaten civil liberties.
By Jeffrey Fleishman
Times Staff Writer
March 12, 2006
WARSAW — They were precocious childhood actors who once plotted to steal the moon, but these days the silver-haired Kaczynski twins have a new goal: leading Poland to the right.
President Lech Kaczynski and his identical twin, Jaroslaw, leader of the dominant Law and Justice Party, believe Poland has been weakened by years of liberalism and corruption. They're stoking patriotism and forming alliances with ultraconservative parties.
Their homespun rhetoric resonates in an economically troubled nation that has yet to bury the vestiges of 40 years of communism. The brothers, who oppose gay rights and have chastised a media they view as instigating moral decay, want an education system that emphasizes all things Polish. They also want a new anti-corruption agency to root out communist holdovers.
"Their policies endanger certain rights, and I don't like some of their ideas," said Jakub Marzec, a law student wearing dreadlocks and a gray suit. "But maybe we should give them a chance. Their agenda of a clean state is really attractive. It's difficult not to recognize this as something good after years of Poland's corruption."
Identical in appearance save for a mole on Lech's cheek, they are different in personality. Former Warsaw Mayor Lech, who was elected president in October, is the public persona of the family. Jaroslaw, who lives with his mother and cats, is the less visible ideologist and strategist whom political commentators view as the power behind the presidency.
"I don't see any dangers for civil liberties with this government," said Piotr Maciej Kaczynski, an analyst with the Institute of Public Affairs and no relation to the brothers. "What I see is a struggle over power. They're trying to create a sense of Polish identity around a strong state. There are dangers, and the biggest one is the concentration of power into one man [Jaroslaw] who doesn't even run his own party democratically."
Human rights groups for years have been concerned by the Kaczynskis' politics, which run counter to the more liberal and secular leanings of the European Union, which Poland joined in 2004. In a report last month, Human Rights Watch, a New York-based group, said an "official homophobia" existed in Poland.
Robert Biedron, president of Poland's Campaign Against Homophobia, characterized the Kaczynski brothers' position as "medieval conservative."
"It's actually more clerical than conservative," he said. "It's very much what the Catholic Church says. They're trying to build a Polish nationalist country and bring these values to the European Union."
Many in this overwhelmingly Roman Catholic nation do not think of the brothers, who were prominent Solidarity revolutionaries in the 1980s, as nationalists. Supporters consider them conservatives whose policies are what a proud yet insecure Poland needs to emerge as a strong political voice between Western Europe and the former Soviet states. Much of the Kaczynskis' agenda centers on the political equivalent of tarring and feathering former communists.
After Lech Kaczynski took office in December, the government announced that it would recall 10 Polish ambassadors who had connections with the communist regime that collapsed more than 16 years ago. The government wants to investigate former communist politicians and businessmen linked to scandals involving oil and Russian spies and questionable post-Soviet deals. Some of these officials belong to leftist and social democratic parties that have only recently left power.
"We name streets with the names of heroes, not traitors. So we now have to decide who are the heroes and who are the traitors," said Bronislaw Wildstein, a writer and supporter of Law and Justice. "The Kaczynski government wants deep reforms to the laws and to speak openly about the set of values that exists for much of Poland."
The Kaczynski brothers, who were born in 1949, came to public attention in 1960s as mischievous boys in the allegorical film "The Two Who Stole the Moon." In the 1970s, they joined the anti-communist underground and later Lech Walesa's Solidarity movement. The brothers are not charismatic speakers, but their steely disdain for the communist era and populist sound bites have won over much of the country.
"I would like to clean the state," Jaroslaw Kaczynski said in a recent interview with the daily Gazeta Wyborcza. He said former communists and their business partners still controlled "a large portion of our national product."
Civil libertarians have complained that the proposed anti-corruption agency could be used by the government to wiretap and monitor political dissidents. Other Poles are more concerned over what they view as the brothers' moral fervor and their choice of political allies.
Law and Justice won the most votes in the last election, but not a clear majority. Differences with the nation's second- largest party, the pro-business Civil Platform, forced Law and Justice to seek other coalition partners. They include the ultra-right Polish Families League, the populist Self-Defense Party and the Polish Peasant Party.
Law and Justice leaders acknowledge that they are uneasy with these ties but say they had no other choices to form a government. They fear that such parties lend a radical taint to the government and bolster complaints that the Kaczynskis are less concerned about fixing the economy and its 18% unemployment rate.
The twins have tried to navigate between mainstream and conservative causes while seeking to soften the stances of their coalition partners.
For example, during the last campaign Law and Justice candidates appeared on a popular Catholic program on Radio Maria whose ultra-right views are often not supported by the church. This boosted Law and Justice in rural areas even as the Kaczynskis distanced themselves from Radio Maria's politics. But the brothers believe a creeping liberalism is harming the country.
"Will our civilization be able to renew itself if there will continue to be this incredibly intensive promotion of evil and moral decay?" said Jaroslaw Kaczynski, referring to the media in a recent magazine interview.
As Warsaw mayor last year, Lech Kaczynski cited traffic restrictions to ban a gay rights march. The rally took place anyway, and the courts later ruled that such bans are illegal. Law and Justice-backed Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz was quoted last year as saying that homosexuality is "unnatural — the family is natural, and the state must stand guard over the family."
Rights groups are also concerned that the president may advance his agenda this year, when he is expected to appoint six judges to the country's 15-member Constitutional Tribunal. (WHY DOES THE RIGHTS GROUP ASSUME ONE POSITION ON THE ISSUE IS SUPERIOR?)
A more conservative court will make it less likely that Poland's strict abortion law will be overturned. Last month, a Polish woman with severe myopia went to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, arguing that the law forced her to have a child despite findings by three doctors that giving birth would increase her chances of going blind. Her suit says that her eyesight has worsened since the birth in 2000 and that she is "significantly disabled." The Catholic Church pushed for the tougher abortion law after the fall of communism.
The Kaczynskis are "playing on fears," said Adam Bodnar, legal coordinator with the Helsinki Human Rights Foundation in Warsaw. "These days Poles feel there is a need for a good sheriff…. The president has called for a moral censorship. This is like winking to the electorate that we'll protect you from gays and all the ills that prey on our good Catholic Polish society."
Such characterizations are exaggerated, said Law and Justice's Ryszard Legutko, who is deputy speaker of the Senate. He said that the government was reflecting the will of the country and that proposed reforms were overdue. Although the proposed Institute of National Education has been criticized as an attempt to instill nationalism through schools, Legutko said it was an opportunity to better teach students about their nation's often turbulent history.
"Poles always believed that we were so traditional, so in love with our history that we were unable to keep up with modern technological issues," Legutko said. "The Poles being in love with the past is a myth. Polish kids today can't even tell you about martial law" during communist rule.
*
Fleishman was recently on assignment in Poland.
The president and his brother say they need to build a strong state. Rights groups say the pair's right-wing policies threaten civil liberties.
By Jeffrey Fleishman
Times Staff Writer
March 12, 2006
WARSAW — They were precocious childhood actors who once plotted to steal the moon, but these days the silver-haired Kaczynski twins have a new goal: leading Poland to the right.
President Lech Kaczynski and his identical twin, Jaroslaw, leader of the dominant Law and Justice Party, believe Poland has been weakened by years of liberalism and corruption. They're stoking patriotism and forming alliances with ultraconservative parties.
Their homespun rhetoric resonates in an economically troubled nation that has yet to bury the vestiges of 40 years of communism. The brothers, who oppose gay rights and have chastised a media they view as instigating moral decay, want an education system that emphasizes all things Polish. They also want a new anti-corruption agency to root out communist holdovers.
"Their policies endanger certain rights, and I don't like some of their ideas," said Jakub Marzec, a law student wearing dreadlocks and a gray suit. "But maybe we should give them a chance. Their agenda of a clean state is really attractive. It's difficult not to recognize this as something good after years of Poland's corruption."
Identical in appearance save for a mole on Lech's cheek, they are different in personality. Former Warsaw Mayor Lech, who was elected president in October, is the public persona of the family. Jaroslaw, who lives with his mother and cats, is the less visible ideologist and strategist whom political commentators view as the power behind the presidency.
"I don't see any dangers for civil liberties with this government," said Piotr Maciej Kaczynski, an analyst with the Institute of Public Affairs and no relation to the brothers. "What I see is a struggle over power. They're trying to create a sense of Polish identity around a strong state. There are dangers, and the biggest one is the concentration of power into one man [Jaroslaw] who doesn't even run his own party democratically."
Human rights groups for years have been concerned by the Kaczynskis' politics, which run counter to the more liberal and secular leanings of the European Union, which Poland joined in 2004. In a report last month, Human Rights Watch, a New York-based group, said an "official homophobia" existed in Poland.
Robert Biedron, president of Poland's Campaign Against Homophobia, characterized the Kaczynski brothers' position as "medieval conservative."
"It's actually more clerical than conservative," he said. "It's very much what the Catholic Church says. They're trying to build a Polish nationalist country and bring these values to the European Union."
Many in this overwhelmingly Roman Catholic nation do not think of the brothers, who were prominent Solidarity revolutionaries in the 1980s, as nationalists. Supporters consider them conservatives whose policies are what a proud yet insecure Poland needs to emerge as a strong political voice between Western Europe and the former Soviet states. Much of the Kaczynskis' agenda centers on the political equivalent of tarring and feathering former communists.
After Lech Kaczynski took office in December, the government announced that it would recall 10 Polish ambassadors who had connections with the communist regime that collapsed more than 16 years ago. The government wants to investigate former communist politicians and businessmen linked to scandals involving oil and Russian spies and questionable post-Soviet deals. Some of these officials belong to leftist and social democratic parties that have only recently left power.
"We name streets with the names of heroes, not traitors. So we now have to decide who are the heroes and who are the traitors," said Bronislaw Wildstein, a writer and supporter of Law and Justice. "The Kaczynski government wants deep reforms to the laws and to speak openly about the set of values that exists for much of Poland."
The Kaczynski brothers, who were born in 1949, came to public attention in 1960s as mischievous boys in the allegorical film "The Two Who Stole the Moon." In the 1970s, they joined the anti-communist underground and later Lech Walesa's Solidarity movement. The brothers are not charismatic speakers, but their steely disdain for the communist era and populist sound bites have won over much of the country.
"I would like to clean the state," Jaroslaw Kaczynski said in a recent interview with the daily Gazeta Wyborcza. He said former communists and their business partners still controlled "a large portion of our national product."
Civil libertarians have complained that the proposed anti-corruption agency could be used by the government to wiretap and monitor political dissidents. Other Poles are more concerned over what they view as the brothers' moral fervor and their choice of political allies.
Law and Justice won the most votes in the last election, but not a clear majority. Differences with the nation's second- largest party, the pro-business Civil Platform, forced Law and Justice to seek other coalition partners. They include the ultra-right Polish Families League, the populist Self-Defense Party and the Polish Peasant Party.
Law and Justice leaders acknowledge that they are uneasy with these ties but say they had no other choices to form a government. They fear that such parties lend a radical taint to the government and bolster complaints that the Kaczynskis are less concerned about fixing the economy and its 18% unemployment rate.
The twins have tried to navigate between mainstream and conservative causes while seeking to soften the stances of their coalition partners.
For example, during the last campaign Law and Justice candidates appeared on a popular Catholic program on Radio Maria whose ultra-right views are often not supported by the church. This boosted Law and Justice in rural areas even as the Kaczynskis distanced themselves from Radio Maria's politics. But the brothers believe a creeping liberalism is harming the country.
"Will our civilization be able to renew itself if there will continue to be this incredibly intensive promotion of evil and moral decay?" said Jaroslaw Kaczynski, referring to the media in a recent magazine interview.
As Warsaw mayor last year, Lech Kaczynski cited traffic restrictions to ban a gay rights march. The rally took place anyway, and the courts later ruled that such bans are illegal. Law and Justice-backed Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz was quoted last year as saying that homosexuality is "unnatural — the family is natural, and the state must stand guard over the family."
Rights groups are also concerned that the president may advance his agenda this year, when he is expected to appoint six judges to the country's 15-member Constitutional Tribunal. (WHY DOES THE RIGHTS GROUP ASSUME ONE POSITION ON THE ISSUE IS SUPERIOR?)
A more conservative court will make it less likely that Poland's strict abortion law will be overturned. Last month, a Polish woman with severe myopia went to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, arguing that the law forced her to have a child despite findings by three doctors that giving birth would increase her chances of going blind. Her suit says that her eyesight has worsened since the birth in 2000 and that she is "significantly disabled." The Catholic Church pushed for the tougher abortion law after the fall of communism.
The Kaczynskis are "playing on fears," said Adam Bodnar, legal coordinator with the Helsinki Human Rights Foundation in Warsaw. "These days Poles feel there is a need for a good sheriff…. The president has called for a moral censorship. This is like winking to the electorate that we'll protect you from gays and all the ills that prey on our good Catholic Polish society."
Such characterizations are exaggerated, said Law and Justice's Ryszard Legutko, who is deputy speaker of the Senate. He said that the government was reflecting the will of the country and that proposed reforms were overdue. Although the proposed Institute of National Education has been criticized as an attempt to instill nationalism through schools, Legutko said it was an opportunity to better teach students about their nation's often turbulent history.
"Poles always believed that we were so traditional, so in love with our history that we were unable to keep up with modern technological issues," Legutko said. "The Poles being in love with the past is a myth. Polish kids today can't even tell you about martial law" during communist rule.
*
Fleishman was recently on assignment in Poland.
SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC | 1941 - 2006
Banker, Leader, 'Butcher,' Prisoner
By Jeffrey Fleishman
Times Staff Writer
March 12, 2006
BERLIN — A communist banker who aroused a downtrodden and bitter Serbian spirit, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic unleashed four wars in a bloody decade of "ethnic cleansing" that recast the map of Europe.
His sinister nationalism propelled a vicious campaign throughout the 1990s that left more than 225,000 people dead and scattered millions of refugees across the continent. The rule of the man known as the "Butcher of the Balkans" ended in disgrace in 2000 when mobs seized parliament. Any chance of recapturing power ended the next year, when police stormed his heavily fortified presidential villa and led him to a Belgrade jail.
His quest for a "greater Serbia" brought the 20th century to a messy end in Eastern Europe. As the continent celebrated the demise of Soviet communism, the ethnically diverse Yugoslavia once held together by Marshal Josip Broz Tito splintered. The region became scarred by mass graves and corruption, and instead of delivering his people to international prominence, Milosevic's 13 years in power led to a shrunken and bankrupt state.
The nationalist passions exploited by Milosevic and the late Croatian President Franjo Tudjman spawned armies and paramilitary death squads. The boundaries of Europe were redrawn as new nations, such as Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, along with a NATO-occupied Kosovo province, rose unsteadily from the turmoil.
Sipping plum brandy and puffing Dutch cigarillos, the silver-haired Milosevic was defiant and arrogant, relishing his role as the key to stability in the Balkans. The Yugoslav leader frustrated a parade of U.S. and European diplomats by making promises he often broke. His government — circumventing years of international sanctions — took on the aura of a tawdry, gangster-run enterprise. Former U.S. Ambassador Warren Zimmermann once called Milosevic "the slickest con man in the Balkans."
During his years in prison, Milosevic became the stuff of caricature and derision. His outbursts at The Hague flickered across TV screens in bars and taverns throughout Belgrade. He saw himself as a tragic hero in the mold of the Christian Serbian warriors defeated by Muslim armies of the Ottoman Empire in the 1300s. He asserted that he was the victim of a conspiracy led by the United States and Europe to keep Serbs from realizing their greatness.
From the Adriatic Sea to Sarajevo, Milosevic's nationalist zeal turned villages and cities into killing grounds, such as Srebrenica, where as many as 8,000 Muslim men and boys were massacred in 1995 by Bosnian Serb fighters whom Milosevic supported. Four years later, his security forces in Kosovo killed thousands of ethnic Albanians, and in a matter of weeks forced 800,000 people into exile in a crisis that led to 11 weeks of NATO bombing before Milosevic surrendered.
When asked about Serbian military actions during the Kosovo war, Milosevic told United Press International, "We are not angels. Nor are we the devils you have made us out to be."
Milosevic's control of the army and state security police kept him in power. Opposition voices were stifled through purges and intimidation. Milosevic had a keen sense of detecting the weaknesses of his rivals — including Vuk Draskovic and Zoran Djindjic, who was assassinated while Milosevic was in The Hague — and he split the opposition by playing one personality off another. He outlasted weeks of rallies by 100,000 protesters in the winter of 1996.
His political astuteness, however, eluded him in September 2000 when he made the miscalculation of his career by calling early elections. Defeated by moderate nationalist Vojislav Kostunica, Milosevic refused to step down as Yugoslav president.
A popular uprising — led by university students and armed men from the provinces — swept through Belgrade as protesters stormed parliament and state TV. His once faithful police and the Serbian Orthodox Church abandoned Milosevic as he retreated to his villa. He was arrested after a standoff on April 1, 2001.
Milosevic insisted that the international war crimes tribunal presiding over his genocide trial had no jurisdiction over him. Representing himself in court, he scoffed at prosecutors and was belligerent to witnesses. He made comments to the three-judge panel such as: "We agree on one point, that my conduct was the expression of the will of the people…. I should be given credit for peace in Bosnia, not war."
Meanwhile, his eccentric and violent family provided an endless loop of soap opera. With black bangs, a fluttery voice and a penchant for political intrigue, Milosevic's wife, Mirjana Markovic, was known around Serbia as the "red witch." His son, Marko, was infamous for wrecking sports cars and threatening adversaries with power saws. And his gun-toting daughter, Marija, once quipped to a Belgrade newspaper, "I have not thought about marriage and children. To carry a baby in one arm and a pistol in the other would be complicated."
Born Aug. 20, 1941, in the Serbian mill town of Pozarevac, Milosevic was the son of Svetozar, a defrocked Orthodox priest, and Stanislava, a teacher and Communist Party activist.
His early childhood was marked by the German invasion of Yugoslavia and a Serbian resistance against the Nazis and their counterparts, the Croatian Ustasha, which executed thousands of Serb partisans.
Both his parents committed suicide — his father in 1962 and his mother a decade later. In their biography, "Milosevic: Portrait of a Tyrant," Dusko Doder and Louise Branson wrote, "On the surface, Slobodan was uninspiring and conformist…. A stocky boy with typical Serb features of rounded face and high forehead."
Milosevic met Mirjana in their hometown, and the couple married while studying at Belgrade University. Both were ardent Communists. Milosevic got a law degree and concentrated on business and banking. It was a time when Tito's Yugoslavia — free of Soviet domination — was one of the most prosperous Communist states. A World War II partisan, Tito understood the combustible mix of Croats, Serbs, ethnic Albanians and other groups that made up Yugoslavia's six republics. He suppressed nationalistic tendencies and ruled the nation with an unforgiving hand.
The country began to fragment after Tito's death in 1980. At the same time, Milosevic's political career was taking shape. In 1984, he became head of the Communist Party in Belgrade and in 1986 he became the Serbian Communist Party chief.
Mirjana, whom many Serbian writers have likened to Lady Macbeth, grew more influential in her husband's career and was ruthless in her pursuit of power. She often called Milosevic "puppy" and "kitten" and, according to police and analysts, masterminded his political gambits, including assassination attempts.
The fate of former Serbian President Ivan Stambolic was emblematic of the risk one took angering the couple. Milosevic's political mentor and the best man at his wedding, Stambolic arranged in the 1970s and 1980s for Milosevic to take key jobs at a state-owned gas company and Belgrade's largest bank. The relationship soured over political differences. In 2000, Stambolic was kidnapped from a Belgrade park and killed. Police alleged Milosevic and Mirjana orchestrated the slaying to keep their onetime friend from emerging as a rival.
Milosevic was not so calculating on April 24, 1987, when he unwittingly found the voice that would propel his political ascent. As a Communist Party leader, Milosevic traveled to Kosovo to lend support to minority Serbs complaining of abuses by the majority population of ethnic Albanians. During his meeting, Serbs clashed with local police and Milosevic stepped outside and proclaimed, "No one should dare to beat you."
Those dramatic unscripted words from an otherwise colorless apparatchik resonated with Serbs across the country.
The phrase was uttered in the most hallowed Serbian landscape: In Kosovo in 1389, Serbian armies were defeated by Turkish legions in a place known as the Field of Blackbirds. The battle has echoed through Serbian folklore and literature for centuries — epitomizing the Serbian struggle for independence and the belief that history had treated them cruelly.
Milosevic's irony was that he was not an ideologue, but an opportunist who conveniently switched from Communist bureaucrat to nationalist hero. With bristly dark hair and hard eyes, he projected a certain scrappiness. Yet he was a dour and often uninspiring speaker who preferred back-room cleverness to the more public duties of political life.
"His success," according to "The Fall of Yugoslavia," by Misha Glenny, "lay in the shameless exploitation of the most effective tools of Balkan politics: deception, corruption, blackmail, demagoguery and violence."
Milosevic returned to the Kosovo wellspring in 1989 to reignite Serbian pride on the 600th anniversary of the battle. This collided with the Croatian nationalism fomented by Tudjman and the secessionist desires of Bosnian Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic. That year, Milosevic was elected president of Serbia as Yugoslavia's restive republics began to break away.
Slovenia and Croatia declared independence in June 1991. Slovenia split with little fighting, but Croatia, with a 12% Serbian population, went to war with the rump Yugoslavia. Macedonia declared independence in September 1991. A few months later, Bosnia, the most ethnically diverse of all the republics, sought independence, leading to the worst European conflict since World War II. Milosevic instructed his Yugoslav army to support Serbian paramilitaries in Bosnia and Croatia. He frightened Serbs living in these regions with the prospect that as minorities they would be slaughtered. He funneled weapons and money to Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, now a fugitive war crimes suspect.
This triggered a wave of ethnic cleansing as Croats, Serbs and Muslims — many of whom once shared neighborhoods — began killing one another.
NATO planes bombed Bosnian Serb positions around Sarajevo in August 1995. At the same time, a Bosnian Croat offensive was routing Serb rebels to the west. Milosevic — his quest of a greater Serbia dwindling — was forced to enter U.S.-backed peace talks in Dayton, Ohio, with Tudjman and Izetbegovic. The Dayton agreement was signed in Paris on Dec. 14, 1995.
"Milosevic could switch moods with astonishing speed," former envoy Richard Holbrooke wrote in "To End a War," a diplomatic chronicle of the Bosnian conflict and Dayton negotiations. "He could range from charm to brutality, from emotional outbursts to calm discussion of legal minutiae. When he was angry, his face wrinkled up, but he could regain control of himself instantly."
In 1997, Milosevic had parliament name him president of the new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, made up of only Serbia and Montenegro. The country was mired in unemployment and poverty a year later when rumblings of conflict began in the Serbian province of Kosovo, where the poorly trained Kosovo Liberation Army began launching attacks on state security forces.
Sensing another chance to stoke Serbian nationalism and deflect attention from the nation's miserable economy, Milosevic, who called the Kosovo Liberation Army a terrorist organization, waded into war.
He rebuffed diplomatic attempts by President Clinton, European leaders and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to stop the fighting. Peace talks headed by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright at a castle in Rambouillet, France, failed. Shortly after 8 p.m. on March 24, 1999, NATO warplanes and cruise missiles struck Milosevic's military and government targets. The Yugoslav army began expelling 800,000 Kosovo Albanians to neighboring Macedonia and Albania.
He surrendered after 3,000 NATO bombing missions. The tribunal at The Hague charged him with war crimes.
Milosevic remained president for the next year. In an uncharacteristic gamble, he called for early elections and lost. But it wasn't over yet.
He hunkered down in the presidential villa with his family, cronies, dozens of automatic rifles and 40 grenades.
Milosevic told a Serbian TV station at the time, "I can sleep peacefully and my conscience is completely clear."
Months passed as the new Serbian government — under increasing pressure from Washington to arrest Milosevic — was unsure how to act. On April 1, 2001, Serbian police stormed the villa. An unshaven and exhausted Milosevic was arrested and charged with federal corruption and abuse of power.
"We had a comic end to this," said Doder, author of the Milosevic biography. "He vowed to kill himself and his wife and daughter, and then he settled for surrendering, provided he's driven in his own limousine by his own driver to jail."
For two months, Kostunica refused to extradite Milosevic to the war crimes tribunal. The new government did not want to appear to be capitulating to U.S. pressure. But Serbia was poor and war-ravaged. It needed Western investment and a chance to reenter Europe. In the early morning of June 29, 2001, Milosevic landed in The Hague.
Banker, Leader, 'Butcher,' Prisoner
By Jeffrey Fleishman
Times Staff Writer
March 12, 2006
BERLIN — A communist banker who aroused a downtrodden and bitter Serbian spirit, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic unleashed four wars in a bloody decade of "ethnic cleansing" that recast the map of Europe.
His sinister nationalism propelled a vicious campaign throughout the 1990s that left more than 225,000 people dead and scattered millions of refugees across the continent. The rule of the man known as the "Butcher of the Balkans" ended in disgrace in 2000 when mobs seized parliament. Any chance of recapturing power ended the next year, when police stormed his heavily fortified presidential villa and led him to a Belgrade jail.
His quest for a "greater Serbia" brought the 20th century to a messy end in Eastern Europe. As the continent celebrated the demise of Soviet communism, the ethnically diverse Yugoslavia once held together by Marshal Josip Broz Tito splintered. The region became scarred by mass graves and corruption, and instead of delivering his people to international prominence, Milosevic's 13 years in power led to a shrunken and bankrupt state.
The nationalist passions exploited by Milosevic and the late Croatian President Franjo Tudjman spawned armies and paramilitary death squads. The boundaries of Europe were redrawn as new nations, such as Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, along with a NATO-occupied Kosovo province, rose unsteadily from the turmoil.
Sipping plum brandy and puffing Dutch cigarillos, the silver-haired Milosevic was defiant and arrogant, relishing his role as the key to stability in the Balkans. The Yugoslav leader frustrated a parade of U.S. and European diplomats by making promises he often broke. His government — circumventing years of international sanctions — took on the aura of a tawdry, gangster-run enterprise. Former U.S. Ambassador Warren Zimmermann once called Milosevic "the slickest con man in the Balkans."
During his years in prison, Milosevic became the stuff of caricature and derision. His outbursts at The Hague flickered across TV screens in bars and taverns throughout Belgrade. He saw himself as a tragic hero in the mold of the Christian Serbian warriors defeated by Muslim armies of the Ottoman Empire in the 1300s. He asserted that he was the victim of a conspiracy led by the United States and Europe to keep Serbs from realizing their greatness.
From the Adriatic Sea to Sarajevo, Milosevic's nationalist zeal turned villages and cities into killing grounds, such as Srebrenica, where as many as 8,000 Muslim men and boys were massacred in 1995 by Bosnian Serb fighters whom Milosevic supported. Four years later, his security forces in Kosovo killed thousands of ethnic Albanians, and in a matter of weeks forced 800,000 people into exile in a crisis that led to 11 weeks of NATO bombing before Milosevic surrendered.
When asked about Serbian military actions during the Kosovo war, Milosevic told United Press International, "We are not angels. Nor are we the devils you have made us out to be."
Milosevic's control of the army and state security police kept him in power. Opposition voices were stifled through purges and intimidation. Milosevic had a keen sense of detecting the weaknesses of his rivals — including Vuk Draskovic and Zoran Djindjic, who was assassinated while Milosevic was in The Hague — and he split the opposition by playing one personality off another. He outlasted weeks of rallies by 100,000 protesters in the winter of 1996.
His political astuteness, however, eluded him in September 2000 when he made the miscalculation of his career by calling early elections. Defeated by moderate nationalist Vojislav Kostunica, Milosevic refused to step down as Yugoslav president.
A popular uprising — led by university students and armed men from the provinces — swept through Belgrade as protesters stormed parliament and state TV. His once faithful police and the Serbian Orthodox Church abandoned Milosevic as he retreated to his villa. He was arrested after a standoff on April 1, 2001.
Milosevic insisted that the international war crimes tribunal presiding over his genocide trial had no jurisdiction over him. Representing himself in court, he scoffed at prosecutors and was belligerent to witnesses. He made comments to the three-judge panel such as: "We agree on one point, that my conduct was the expression of the will of the people…. I should be given credit for peace in Bosnia, not war."
Meanwhile, his eccentric and violent family provided an endless loop of soap opera. With black bangs, a fluttery voice and a penchant for political intrigue, Milosevic's wife, Mirjana Markovic, was known around Serbia as the "red witch." His son, Marko, was infamous for wrecking sports cars and threatening adversaries with power saws. And his gun-toting daughter, Marija, once quipped to a Belgrade newspaper, "I have not thought about marriage and children. To carry a baby in one arm and a pistol in the other would be complicated."
Born Aug. 20, 1941, in the Serbian mill town of Pozarevac, Milosevic was the son of Svetozar, a defrocked Orthodox priest, and Stanislava, a teacher and Communist Party activist.
His early childhood was marked by the German invasion of Yugoslavia and a Serbian resistance against the Nazis and their counterparts, the Croatian Ustasha, which executed thousands of Serb partisans.
Both his parents committed suicide — his father in 1962 and his mother a decade later. In their biography, "Milosevic: Portrait of a Tyrant," Dusko Doder and Louise Branson wrote, "On the surface, Slobodan was uninspiring and conformist…. A stocky boy with typical Serb features of rounded face and high forehead."
Milosevic met Mirjana in their hometown, and the couple married while studying at Belgrade University. Both were ardent Communists. Milosevic got a law degree and concentrated on business and banking. It was a time when Tito's Yugoslavia — free of Soviet domination — was one of the most prosperous Communist states. A World War II partisan, Tito understood the combustible mix of Croats, Serbs, ethnic Albanians and other groups that made up Yugoslavia's six republics. He suppressed nationalistic tendencies and ruled the nation with an unforgiving hand.
The country began to fragment after Tito's death in 1980. At the same time, Milosevic's political career was taking shape. In 1984, he became head of the Communist Party in Belgrade and in 1986 he became the Serbian Communist Party chief.
Mirjana, whom many Serbian writers have likened to Lady Macbeth, grew more influential in her husband's career and was ruthless in her pursuit of power. She often called Milosevic "puppy" and "kitten" and, according to police and analysts, masterminded his political gambits, including assassination attempts.
The fate of former Serbian President Ivan Stambolic was emblematic of the risk one took angering the couple. Milosevic's political mentor and the best man at his wedding, Stambolic arranged in the 1970s and 1980s for Milosevic to take key jobs at a state-owned gas company and Belgrade's largest bank. The relationship soured over political differences. In 2000, Stambolic was kidnapped from a Belgrade park and killed. Police alleged Milosevic and Mirjana orchestrated the slaying to keep their onetime friend from emerging as a rival.
Milosevic was not so calculating on April 24, 1987, when he unwittingly found the voice that would propel his political ascent. As a Communist Party leader, Milosevic traveled to Kosovo to lend support to minority Serbs complaining of abuses by the majority population of ethnic Albanians. During his meeting, Serbs clashed with local police and Milosevic stepped outside and proclaimed, "No one should dare to beat you."
Those dramatic unscripted words from an otherwise colorless apparatchik resonated with Serbs across the country.
The phrase was uttered in the most hallowed Serbian landscape: In Kosovo in 1389, Serbian armies were defeated by Turkish legions in a place known as the Field of Blackbirds. The battle has echoed through Serbian folklore and literature for centuries — epitomizing the Serbian struggle for independence and the belief that history had treated them cruelly.
Milosevic's irony was that he was not an ideologue, but an opportunist who conveniently switched from Communist bureaucrat to nationalist hero. With bristly dark hair and hard eyes, he projected a certain scrappiness. Yet he was a dour and often uninspiring speaker who preferred back-room cleverness to the more public duties of political life.
"His success," according to "The Fall of Yugoslavia," by Misha Glenny, "lay in the shameless exploitation of the most effective tools of Balkan politics: deception, corruption, blackmail, demagoguery and violence."
Milosevic returned to the Kosovo wellspring in 1989 to reignite Serbian pride on the 600th anniversary of the battle. This collided with the Croatian nationalism fomented by Tudjman and the secessionist desires of Bosnian Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic. That year, Milosevic was elected president of Serbia as Yugoslavia's restive republics began to break away.
Slovenia and Croatia declared independence in June 1991. Slovenia split with little fighting, but Croatia, with a 12% Serbian population, went to war with the rump Yugoslavia. Macedonia declared independence in September 1991. A few months later, Bosnia, the most ethnically diverse of all the republics, sought independence, leading to the worst European conflict since World War II. Milosevic instructed his Yugoslav army to support Serbian paramilitaries in Bosnia and Croatia. He frightened Serbs living in these regions with the prospect that as minorities they would be slaughtered. He funneled weapons and money to Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, now a fugitive war crimes suspect.
This triggered a wave of ethnic cleansing as Croats, Serbs and Muslims — many of whom once shared neighborhoods — began killing one another.
NATO planes bombed Bosnian Serb positions around Sarajevo in August 1995. At the same time, a Bosnian Croat offensive was routing Serb rebels to the west. Milosevic — his quest of a greater Serbia dwindling — was forced to enter U.S.-backed peace talks in Dayton, Ohio, with Tudjman and Izetbegovic. The Dayton agreement was signed in Paris on Dec. 14, 1995.
"Milosevic could switch moods with astonishing speed," former envoy Richard Holbrooke wrote in "To End a War," a diplomatic chronicle of the Bosnian conflict and Dayton negotiations. "He could range from charm to brutality, from emotional outbursts to calm discussion of legal minutiae. When he was angry, his face wrinkled up, but he could regain control of himself instantly."
In 1997, Milosevic had parliament name him president of the new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, made up of only Serbia and Montenegro. The country was mired in unemployment and poverty a year later when rumblings of conflict began in the Serbian province of Kosovo, where the poorly trained Kosovo Liberation Army began launching attacks on state security forces.
Sensing another chance to stoke Serbian nationalism and deflect attention from the nation's miserable economy, Milosevic, who called the Kosovo Liberation Army a terrorist organization, waded into war.
He rebuffed diplomatic attempts by President Clinton, European leaders and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to stop the fighting. Peace talks headed by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright at a castle in Rambouillet, France, failed. Shortly after 8 p.m. on March 24, 1999, NATO warplanes and cruise missiles struck Milosevic's military and government targets. The Yugoslav army began expelling 800,000 Kosovo Albanians to neighboring Macedonia and Albania.
He surrendered after 3,000 NATO bombing missions. The tribunal at The Hague charged him with war crimes.
Milosevic remained president for the next year. In an uncharacteristic gamble, he called for early elections and lost. But it wasn't over yet.
He hunkered down in the presidential villa with his family, cronies, dozens of automatic rifles and 40 grenades.
Milosevic told a Serbian TV station at the time, "I can sleep peacefully and my conscience is completely clear."
Months passed as the new Serbian government — under increasing pressure from Washington to arrest Milosevic — was unsure how to act. On April 1, 2001, Serbian police stormed the villa. An unshaven and exhausted Milosevic was arrested and charged with federal corruption and abuse of power.
"We had a comic end to this," said Doder, author of the Milosevic biography. "He vowed to kill himself and his wife and daughter, and then he settled for surrendering, provided he's driven in his own limousine by his own driver to jail."
For two months, Kostunica refused to extradite Milosevic to the war crimes tribunal. The new government did not want to appear to be capitulating to U.S. pressure. But Serbia was poor and war-ravaged. It needed Western investment and a chance to reenter Europe. In the early morning of June 29, 2001, Milosevic landed in The Hague.
Milosevic's Death Kindles Old Tensions
The former Serbian leader, on trial since 2002, dies in prison. Backers suspect foul play, but victims say justice has been denied.
By Alissa J. Rubin and Zoran Cirjakovic
Special to The Times
March 12, 2006
BELGRADE, Serbia and Montenegro — Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was found dead Saturday in the prison cell where he had spent his final years facing trial on genocide and war crimes charges for his role in the nationalist wars that racked the Balkans in the 1990s.
His death in the Netherlands before the long-running trial could end is certain to haunt the region: His victims believe that justice has been thwarted, and his fellow Serbs are divided between those who want to forget the past and those who think Milosevic was himself a victim of an unfair international court.
Within hours of his death, apparently of natural causes, Serbian radio and television aired an interview with his lawyer, who said that Milosevic believed he was being poisoned.
The assertions made it all but inevitable that the Serbs' sense of victimhood will continue to shadow the region and make unlikely any full reckoning with the past.
Milosevic, 64, had been on trial since 2002 at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague on genocide charges for the "ethnic cleansing" campaign in Bosnia-Herzegovina and on charges of crimes against humanity and other war crimes for his role in the conflicts in Croatia and Kosovo.
Chief United Nations war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said she regretted Milosevic's death because she believed she would have won a conviction.
"I also regret it for the victims, the thousands of victims, who have been waiting for justice," Del Ponte told the German-language Swiss Television DRS.
Milosevic had a history of poor health, including high blood pressure and a chronic heart condition. His four-year trial was often interrupted by his illnesses, and the trial schedule had been sharply curtailed because of his health. Court officials said that there was no evidence of suicide and that an autopsy had been ordered.
"Milosevic was found lifeless in his bed in his cell," the tribunal said in a statement. "The guard immediately alerted the detention unit officer in command and the medical officer. The latter confirmed that Slobodan Milosevic was dead."
The Russian news agency Interfax quoted Borislav Milosevic as saying that the tribunal was "entirely responsible" for his brother's death. Fearing the former leader would not return to the court if he sought treatment abroad, the tribunal last month denied him permission to see doctors in Russia.
Milosevic's widow, Mirjana Markovic, who was a close advisor to her husband, is under indictment in Serbia and lives in Russia, as does their son, Marko, who faces corruption charges. The couple's daughter, Marija, lives in Montenegro.
Milosevic rose to power through the Communist Party, becoming leader first of Serbia and then of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. As the republics sought independence, Milosevic rallied support among Serbs, who are Orthodox Christians, and the security forces. He skillfully manipulated the media and used military means to try to halt the secession of Croatia in particular, which was largely Catholic, and Bosnia, which had a large Muslim population.
Later, a rebellion broke out in the majority ethnic Albanian province of Kosovo that reignited centuries-old animosities between Serbs and ethnic Albanians. Milosevic ordered a massive crackdown that forced 800,000 ethnic Albanians to flee the province.
Today, the former Yugoslavia has splintered into five countries, with Montenegro likely to declare independence this year and become the sixth. Kosovo's status is still unclear, but eventually it too will probably become independent.
"If we want to define what happened in the 1990s," said Bratislav Grubacic, a political analyst in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia and Montenegro, "the thing is not finished. It is still not entirely clear what happened in this region in the past 15 years.
"One question is: Can the Serbs face their recent past? I do not think Milosevic's death will help this to happen."
Milosevic's death underscored the difficulties of bringing justice through international tribunals, which often take years to set up, have trouble capturing their targets and face enormous difficulties proving that a leader, however brutal, had direct responsibility for atrocities.
Milosevic is the third wartime Balkan leader to die without being brought to justice. Croatian President Franjo Tudjman died in office in 1999, and Alija Izetbegovic, the Muslim leader of wartime Bosnia, died in 2003 as an indictment was reportedly being prepared.
"The general sense is that it's a pity that Milosevic passed away before he was sentenced, because instead of being seen as a war criminal, he will become a hero, a martyr who died in the jail of his enemies and was on the way to proving he was innocent," said Jakob Finci, a longtime Sarajevan and leader of the Jewish community in the Bosnian capital who is viewed as an impartial mediator by Bosnians of all stripes.
"It's an unfinished job by the tribunal, and it will never properly be finished," Finci said. "Milosevic is one of the lessons that you should be much faster."
Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his top general, Ratko Mladic, both alleged to be responsible for the 1995 slaughter of as many as 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the town of Srebrenica, remain at large. Experts in the Balkans now believe it is less likely that the two will be turned over to The Hague.
The combination of Milosevic's death, which many Serbs believe was caused by the tribunal, either through neglect or murder, and a sense that the tribunal treated Serbs unjustly, will make it more difficult for the Serbian government to transfer Mladic to The Hague.
In February, rumors circulated that the Serbian government was on the verge of transferring Mladic to the Hague tribunal and apparently was working through intermediaries to persuade him to surrender, but nothing happened. It remains unclear whether the government has the necessary control of the security services to arrest Mladic.
"The ill feeling of the Serbian public toward the extradition [of Mladic] and toward the Hague [tribunal] in general will significantly increase. That is why I expect that … this will further complicate the arrest and extradition of Ratko Mladic," said Djordje Vukadinovic, a political analyst in Belgrade.
The current, moderate nationalist government in Serbia, led by Vojislav Kostunica, is propped up by a precarious coalition. With ultranationalists almost certain to use Milosevic's death as a rallying point, it is unlikely that Kostunica will be able to push forward with the unpopular move of arresting Mladic or have the leverage to persuade him to surrender and go to The Hague.
The Hague tribunal has faced sharp criticism from all sides. Bosnian Muslims and ethnic Albanians who were the biggest victims of Milosevic's regime said the court moved too slowly. Serbs charged that it was biased against them, noting that three other Serbs had died in prison, including Milan Babic, the onetime leader of Croatian Serbs, who had been convicted and committed suicide last week.
Serbs also believe that ethnic Albanians and Bosnian Muslims accused of crimes have been treated more kindly than Serbs, most recently pointing to a court ruling handed down Friday to allow Ramush Haradinaj, a Kosovo Albanian accused of war crimes, to participate in politics.
In Belgrade, the onetime Yugoslav capital, the reactions were mixed. Some people were simply relieved to have Milosevic removed from the scene, and others were convinced that he had been killed by the court because it could not convict him.
Milosevic had dominated life here long after he was extradited to the Netherlands. Many Serbs followed his courtroom appearances, televised almost daily here, which he used as a platform for his nationalist ideas.
In Banja Luka, the capital of the ethnic Serbian region of Bosnia, supporters walked quietly to the main square carrying lighted candles. Some bore a sign that read, "To the Serbian Hero; for Serbian Justice; Let there be eternal glory for you."
But in Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital that endured a 1992-95 siege by Serbs, the tone was at once philosophical and exhausted. An estimated 200,000 Bosnians died in the conflict, the vast majority of them Muslims.
Ahmed Curevic, 45, an employee at a Sarajevo tourist agency, sounded weary as he spoke of Milosevic. "The whole process has lasted for too long. For me, he has been dead for quite a while. I do not think that his death will have any major impact on political processes in Bosnia and the region," he said.
But for Hatidza Mehmedovic, 54, whose two sons and husband were killed when Srebrenica fell to the Serbs in the summer of 1995 and the invading forces hunted down fleeing men and boys in the surrounding forests, there is only the sense that justice was cheated.
"I regret that we are not going to see the sentencing of Milosevic," she said. "I think that is what all of us, victims of his crimes, were expecting.
"He was the main culprit for all the crimes that happened in former Yugoslavia. He is the most responsible that my town is a ghost town now, and that I live alone without my boys and my husband."
In Kosovo, where news of Milosevic's death raced through Pristina, the provincial capital, on Saturday as people called one another and sent cellphone text messages, there was an overall sense of relief that he was gone. Milosevic was seen as responsible not only for the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo Albanians in 1999, but also for having stripped them progressively of their rights, education and any leverage in the local government during the 1980s and early 1990s.
However, in Kosovo, like Bosnia, there also was the sense of a process cut short before there had been a final ruling.
Gnim Shala, 42, who was standing outside a carwash in Pristina on Saturday, expressed regret and disappointment with the tribunal.
"I'm not very happy, because we did not see the end of it. A lot of procedures were left half finished, a lot of crimes will be forgotten now. I hope that they capture the others, Mladic and Karadzic, but if they don't do that, then the Hague tribunal will have completely failed."
*
Times special correspondent Cirjakovic reported from Belgrade and staff writer Rubin from Vienna.
*
(INFOBOX BELOW)
Milosevic's rise and fall
Aug. 20, 1941: Born in Pozarevac, in central Serbia.
1964: Graduates from Belgrade Law School.
1980: With the death of post-World War II leader Josip Broz Tito, dormant ethnic tensions begin to escalate, slowly tearing apart Yugoslavia.
1984: Milosevic is appointed party leader of Belgrade by Ivan Stambolic, head of the Serbian Communist Party.
1986: Succeeds Stambolic as leader of the Serbian Communist Party after Stambolic becomes president of Serbia.
April 1987: Delivers inflammatory speech to Serbs who were demanding protection from the ethnic Albanian majority in the autonomous province of Kosovo. His nationalist rhetoric catapults him to prominence.
September 1987: Accuses Stambolic and other officials of anti-Communist and anti-Serbian policies during a live telecast of a party meeting. They are later forced out.
1989: Elected president of Serbia. He strips Kosovo of autonomy. Ethnic Albanians protest, leading to clashes with police.
1990: Yugoslavia sends in troops to impose control. Serbia dissolves Kosovo's government.
1991: Croatia and Slovenia declare independence from Yugoslavia. Milosevic instructs his Yugoslav army to support Serbian paramilitaries, and encourages Serbs in Croatia to take up arms.
1992: A U.N.-patrolled cease-fire in Croatia takes effect in January. Bosnia-Herzegovina declares its independence. Milosevic bankrolls the Bosnian Serb rebellion.
1995: As many as 8,000 Muslim men and boys are massacred at Srebrenica by Bosnian Serb fighters. NATO bombs Bosnian Serb positions around Sarajevo. Milosevic agrees to settlement of the Bosnian war at U.S.-sponsored peace talks in Dayton, Ohio.
July 1997: Named presidentof the new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, comprising only the republics of Serbia and Montenegro.
February 1998: Milosevic sends troops to crush new ethnic Albanian uprising in Kosovo. Massive expulsions of ethnic Albanians begin, and thousands are killed.
October 1998: NATO authorizes airstrikes against Serbian military targets. Milosevic agrees to withdraw troops, allow the return of refugees and unarmed monitors to verify compliance. But attacks continue.
March 1999: Kosovo Albanians sign a peace deal calling for broad interim autonomy and 28,000 NATO troops. The Serb delegation refuses and talks are suspended.
March 24, 1999: NATO airstrikes begin.
May 1999: Milosevic and four subordinates are indicted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal on charges of crimes against humanity — murder, deportation and persecutions — and violations of the laws and customs of war.
June 3, 1999: Yugoslavia's government accepts a plan for U.N. administration of Kosovo.
June 9, 1999: Yugoslav and Western generals sign pact.
September 2000: Milosevic calls elections. Supporters of opposition leader Vojislav Kostunica declare him the winner, but an election commission says a runoff is needed. Protests and strikes sweep the country.
Oct. 5, 2000: Milosevic is ousted after huge mobs rampage through Belgrade.
April 1, 2001: Arrested in his villa after 26-hour standoff.
June 28, 2001: Flown to The Hague to face trial on war crimes charges at U.N. tribunal.
Feb. 12, 2002: Trial begins on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
January 2004: Prosecution closes case after calling 294 witnesses.
June 2004: Milosevic, defending himself, names nearly 1,400 people he wants to call in his defense, including former President Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and ex-NATO chief Gen. Wesley Clark.
December 2005: Trial adjourned for six weeks because of Milosevic's ill health.
January 2006: Trial reopens, with tribunal urging Milosevic to wrap up defense by April, with a verdict to be issued later in the year.
February 2006: Tribunal rejects Milosevic's request to seek medical treatment in Russia.
March 11, 2006: Milosevic found dead in his cell at U.N. detention center near The Hague.
*
The former Serbian leader, on trial since 2002, dies in prison. Backers suspect foul play, but victims say justice has been denied.
By Alissa J. Rubin and Zoran Cirjakovic
Special to The Times
March 12, 2006
BELGRADE, Serbia and Montenegro — Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was found dead Saturday in the prison cell where he had spent his final years facing trial on genocide and war crimes charges for his role in the nationalist wars that racked the Balkans in the 1990s.
His death in the Netherlands before the long-running trial could end is certain to haunt the region: His victims believe that justice has been thwarted, and his fellow Serbs are divided between those who want to forget the past and those who think Milosevic was himself a victim of an unfair international court.
Within hours of his death, apparently of natural causes, Serbian radio and television aired an interview with his lawyer, who said that Milosevic believed he was being poisoned.
The assertions made it all but inevitable that the Serbs' sense of victimhood will continue to shadow the region and make unlikely any full reckoning with the past.
Milosevic, 64, had been on trial since 2002 at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague on genocide charges for the "ethnic cleansing" campaign in Bosnia-Herzegovina and on charges of crimes against humanity and other war crimes for his role in the conflicts in Croatia and Kosovo.
Chief United Nations war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said she regretted Milosevic's death because she believed she would have won a conviction.
"I also regret it for the victims, the thousands of victims, who have been waiting for justice," Del Ponte told the German-language Swiss Television DRS.
Milosevic had a history of poor health, including high blood pressure and a chronic heart condition. His four-year trial was often interrupted by his illnesses, and the trial schedule had been sharply curtailed because of his health. Court officials said that there was no evidence of suicide and that an autopsy had been ordered.
"Milosevic was found lifeless in his bed in his cell," the tribunal said in a statement. "The guard immediately alerted the detention unit officer in command and the medical officer. The latter confirmed that Slobodan Milosevic was dead."
The Russian news agency Interfax quoted Borislav Milosevic as saying that the tribunal was "entirely responsible" for his brother's death. Fearing the former leader would not return to the court if he sought treatment abroad, the tribunal last month denied him permission to see doctors in Russia.
Milosevic's widow, Mirjana Markovic, who was a close advisor to her husband, is under indictment in Serbia and lives in Russia, as does their son, Marko, who faces corruption charges. The couple's daughter, Marija, lives in Montenegro.
Milosevic rose to power through the Communist Party, becoming leader first of Serbia and then of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. As the republics sought independence, Milosevic rallied support among Serbs, who are Orthodox Christians, and the security forces. He skillfully manipulated the media and used military means to try to halt the secession of Croatia in particular, which was largely Catholic, and Bosnia, which had a large Muslim population.
Later, a rebellion broke out in the majority ethnic Albanian province of Kosovo that reignited centuries-old animosities between Serbs and ethnic Albanians. Milosevic ordered a massive crackdown that forced 800,000 ethnic Albanians to flee the province.
Today, the former Yugoslavia has splintered into five countries, with Montenegro likely to declare independence this year and become the sixth. Kosovo's status is still unclear, but eventually it too will probably become independent.
"If we want to define what happened in the 1990s," said Bratislav Grubacic, a political analyst in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia and Montenegro, "the thing is not finished. It is still not entirely clear what happened in this region in the past 15 years.
"One question is: Can the Serbs face their recent past? I do not think Milosevic's death will help this to happen."
Milosevic's death underscored the difficulties of bringing justice through international tribunals, which often take years to set up, have trouble capturing their targets and face enormous difficulties proving that a leader, however brutal, had direct responsibility for atrocities.
Milosevic is the third wartime Balkan leader to die without being brought to justice. Croatian President Franjo Tudjman died in office in 1999, and Alija Izetbegovic, the Muslim leader of wartime Bosnia, died in 2003 as an indictment was reportedly being prepared.
"The general sense is that it's a pity that Milosevic passed away before he was sentenced, because instead of being seen as a war criminal, he will become a hero, a martyr who died in the jail of his enemies and was on the way to proving he was innocent," said Jakob Finci, a longtime Sarajevan and leader of the Jewish community in the Bosnian capital who is viewed as an impartial mediator by Bosnians of all stripes.
"It's an unfinished job by the tribunal, and it will never properly be finished," Finci said. "Milosevic is one of the lessons that you should be much faster."
Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his top general, Ratko Mladic, both alleged to be responsible for the 1995 slaughter of as many as 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the town of Srebrenica, remain at large. Experts in the Balkans now believe it is less likely that the two will be turned over to The Hague.
The combination of Milosevic's death, which many Serbs believe was caused by the tribunal, either through neglect or murder, and a sense that the tribunal treated Serbs unjustly, will make it more difficult for the Serbian government to transfer Mladic to The Hague.
In February, rumors circulated that the Serbian government was on the verge of transferring Mladic to the Hague tribunal and apparently was working through intermediaries to persuade him to surrender, but nothing happened. It remains unclear whether the government has the necessary control of the security services to arrest Mladic.
"The ill feeling of the Serbian public toward the extradition [of Mladic] and toward the Hague [tribunal] in general will significantly increase. That is why I expect that … this will further complicate the arrest and extradition of Ratko Mladic," said Djordje Vukadinovic, a political analyst in Belgrade.
The current, moderate nationalist government in Serbia, led by Vojislav Kostunica, is propped up by a precarious coalition. With ultranationalists almost certain to use Milosevic's death as a rallying point, it is unlikely that Kostunica will be able to push forward with the unpopular move of arresting Mladic or have the leverage to persuade him to surrender and go to The Hague.
The Hague tribunal has faced sharp criticism from all sides. Bosnian Muslims and ethnic Albanians who were the biggest victims of Milosevic's regime said the court moved too slowly. Serbs charged that it was biased against them, noting that three other Serbs had died in prison, including Milan Babic, the onetime leader of Croatian Serbs, who had been convicted and committed suicide last week.
Serbs also believe that ethnic Albanians and Bosnian Muslims accused of crimes have been treated more kindly than Serbs, most recently pointing to a court ruling handed down Friday to allow Ramush Haradinaj, a Kosovo Albanian accused of war crimes, to participate in politics.
In Belgrade, the onetime Yugoslav capital, the reactions were mixed. Some people were simply relieved to have Milosevic removed from the scene, and others were convinced that he had been killed by the court because it could not convict him.
Milosevic had dominated life here long after he was extradited to the Netherlands. Many Serbs followed his courtroom appearances, televised almost daily here, which he used as a platform for his nationalist ideas.
In Banja Luka, the capital of the ethnic Serbian region of Bosnia, supporters walked quietly to the main square carrying lighted candles. Some bore a sign that read, "To the Serbian Hero; for Serbian Justice; Let there be eternal glory for you."
But in Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital that endured a 1992-95 siege by Serbs, the tone was at once philosophical and exhausted. An estimated 200,000 Bosnians died in the conflict, the vast majority of them Muslims.
Ahmed Curevic, 45, an employee at a Sarajevo tourist agency, sounded weary as he spoke of Milosevic. "The whole process has lasted for too long. For me, he has been dead for quite a while. I do not think that his death will have any major impact on political processes in Bosnia and the region," he said.
But for Hatidza Mehmedovic, 54, whose two sons and husband were killed when Srebrenica fell to the Serbs in the summer of 1995 and the invading forces hunted down fleeing men and boys in the surrounding forests, there is only the sense that justice was cheated.
"I regret that we are not going to see the sentencing of Milosevic," she said. "I think that is what all of us, victims of his crimes, were expecting.
"He was the main culprit for all the crimes that happened in former Yugoslavia. He is the most responsible that my town is a ghost town now, and that I live alone without my boys and my husband."
In Kosovo, where news of Milosevic's death raced through Pristina, the provincial capital, on Saturday as people called one another and sent cellphone text messages, there was an overall sense of relief that he was gone. Milosevic was seen as responsible not only for the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo Albanians in 1999, but also for having stripped them progressively of their rights, education and any leverage in the local government during the 1980s and early 1990s.
However, in Kosovo, like Bosnia, there also was the sense of a process cut short before there had been a final ruling.
Gnim Shala, 42, who was standing outside a carwash in Pristina on Saturday, expressed regret and disappointment with the tribunal.
"I'm not very happy, because we did not see the end of it. A lot of procedures were left half finished, a lot of crimes will be forgotten now. I hope that they capture the others, Mladic and Karadzic, but if they don't do that, then the Hague tribunal will have completely failed."
*
Times special correspondent Cirjakovic reported from Belgrade and staff writer Rubin from Vienna.
*
(INFOBOX BELOW)
Milosevic's rise and fall
Aug. 20, 1941: Born in Pozarevac, in central Serbia.
1964: Graduates from Belgrade Law School.
1980: With the death of post-World War II leader Josip Broz Tito, dormant ethnic tensions begin to escalate, slowly tearing apart Yugoslavia.
1984: Milosevic is appointed party leader of Belgrade by Ivan Stambolic, head of the Serbian Communist Party.
1986: Succeeds Stambolic as leader of the Serbian Communist Party after Stambolic becomes president of Serbia.
April 1987: Delivers inflammatory speech to Serbs who were demanding protection from the ethnic Albanian majority in the autonomous province of Kosovo. His nationalist rhetoric catapults him to prominence.
September 1987: Accuses Stambolic and other officials of anti-Communist and anti-Serbian policies during a live telecast of a party meeting. They are later forced out.
1989: Elected president of Serbia. He strips Kosovo of autonomy. Ethnic Albanians protest, leading to clashes with police.
1990: Yugoslavia sends in troops to impose control. Serbia dissolves Kosovo's government.
1991: Croatia and Slovenia declare independence from Yugoslavia. Milosevic instructs his Yugoslav army to support Serbian paramilitaries, and encourages Serbs in Croatia to take up arms.
1992: A U.N.-patrolled cease-fire in Croatia takes effect in January. Bosnia-Herzegovina declares its independence. Milosevic bankrolls the Bosnian Serb rebellion.
1995: As many as 8,000 Muslim men and boys are massacred at Srebrenica by Bosnian Serb fighters. NATO bombs Bosnian Serb positions around Sarajevo. Milosevic agrees to settlement of the Bosnian war at U.S.-sponsored peace talks in Dayton, Ohio.
July 1997: Named presidentof the new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, comprising only the republics of Serbia and Montenegro.
February 1998: Milosevic sends troops to crush new ethnic Albanian uprising in Kosovo. Massive expulsions of ethnic Albanians begin, and thousands are killed.
October 1998: NATO authorizes airstrikes against Serbian military targets. Milosevic agrees to withdraw troops, allow the return of refugees and unarmed monitors to verify compliance. But attacks continue.
March 1999: Kosovo Albanians sign a peace deal calling for broad interim autonomy and 28,000 NATO troops. The Serb delegation refuses and talks are suspended.
March 24, 1999: NATO airstrikes begin.
May 1999: Milosevic and four subordinates are indicted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal on charges of crimes against humanity — murder, deportation and persecutions — and violations of the laws and customs of war.
June 3, 1999: Yugoslavia's government accepts a plan for U.N. administration of Kosovo.
June 9, 1999: Yugoslav and Western generals sign pact.
September 2000: Milosevic calls elections. Supporters of opposition leader Vojislav Kostunica declare him the winner, but an election commission says a runoff is needed. Protests and strikes sweep the country.
Oct. 5, 2000: Milosevic is ousted after huge mobs rampage through Belgrade.
April 1, 2001: Arrested in his villa after 26-hour standoff.
June 28, 2001: Flown to The Hague to face trial on war crimes charges at U.N. tribunal.
Feb. 12, 2002: Trial begins on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
January 2004: Prosecution closes case after calling 294 witnesses.
June 2004: Milosevic, defending himself, names nearly 1,400 people he wants to call in his defense, including former President Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and ex-NATO chief Gen. Wesley Clark.
December 2005: Trial adjourned for six weeks because of Milosevic's ill health.
January 2006: Trial reopens, with tribunal urging Milosevic to wrap up defense by April, with a verdict to be issued later in the year.
February 2006: Tribunal rejects Milosevic's request to seek medical treatment in Russia.
March 11, 2006: Milosevic found dead in his cell at U.N. detention center near The Hague.
*
China's Leaders Laud the Little Village That Could
Poor Farming Community Grew Rich by Embracing, Not Resisting, Urbanization and Enterprise
By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, March 10, 2006; A12
HUAXI, China -- Wu Renbao saw the future of his little village long ago, and it worked. It worked so well that Huaxi has become the richest village in China.
As a result, Huaxi has been cited by Communist Party leaders as an example of what they mean when they vow to build a "new socialist countryside" to help farmers share in China's prosperity and halt the protests and riots that have erupted with increasing frequency across the country.
Although it is doubtful Huaxi's exceptional wealth can be duplicated everywhere, the transformation of this community, in Jiangsu province 85 miles northwest of Shanghai, has inspired imitation in a number of villages. In the process, it has opened a window on what China's Communist Party hopes will be the future of this huge, fast-growing nation.
Huaxi's success story began in 1969, when Wu, who was the local party secretary, overcame bitter opposition from Cultural Revolution extremists to start a village-owned textile factory. The village took off a decade later when, again under Wu's leadership, Huaxi residents decided against dividing communal land into family farms, as encouraged under the economic reforms then getting started. They opted to retain village control, retire their plows and build more factories, embracing urbanization instead of fighting it as millions of farmers with family plots have done in recent years.
The decision to stay communal and branch out from agriculture coincided with the rising tide of China's new economy, as liberalizing reforms spread through the 1980s and '90s. Without questioning the party's political control, Huaxi and its go-go socialism have ridden the economic wave ever since. The community has founded eight large corporations, with earnings of $3.8 billion, and relegated farming to a museum-like tract of land where children come to see what squash and mango plants look like.
Annual per capita income has grown to $8,000, village leaders said, seven times the national average and 20 times the average for farmers. Many townspeople, although still classified as peasants, are now managers, living in two-story houses on landscaped lots reminiscent of the Washington suburbs. The Huaxi government has made sure the entire population of 30,000 has health insurance and pensions, things many of China's 750 million farmers only dream about.
"Huaxi is the No. 1 village in China," boasted Sun Haiyan, Wu's 26-year-old grandson, who studied in New Zealand and now runs a village-owned import-export business. "That means rich."
The children of Huaxi enjoy not only well-equipped schools with bilingual Chinese-English classes but also the opportunity to play in an amusement park that features replicas of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, the U.S. Capitol and Beijing's Tiananmen gate. Nearby, construction has begun on a $2.4 million clock tower whose giant bell, Wu predicted cheerfully, will be heard for 10 miles around.
Local party cadres from across China have taken to visiting Huaxi by the busload, seeking to learn from Wu's success. More than a million people visited here in 2005, village leaders said, and the number is expected to rise to 1.8 million this year because of President Hu Jintao's emphasis on rural reforms and the drumbeat of propaganda about the "new socialist countryside."
Wu, 79 but still quick and tart, addressed several hundred of the visitors last week, repeating party catchwords such as "scientific development" and "democratic administration" as he urged them to follow Huaxi's entrepreneurial example. His eyes sparkled and he flashed his brown teeth in frequent smiles as he described Huaxi's meteoric rise from poor farm village to industrial park.
"Every month we change things in Huaxi," he said. "Every year, things are better."
His 30-minute homily finished, Wu turned the stage over to a performance of political theater, complete with bubble machines and girls in diaphanous costumes. To recorded music, young dancers and acrobats pranced about, singing the praises of socialism, enterprise and Huaxi's hybrid of the two.
"We don't worry if the factories are free enterprise, we don't worry if the factories are socialist," went one refrain. "We would just worry if there were no factories."
What the visitors see here resembles nothing so much as a company town run by a patriarchal family with a successful business and strict loyalty to the political system. After years at the helm, Wu recently turned over management of Huaxi to his fourth son, Wu Xie'en, 39, who is now party secretary. In an interview, the younger Wu said that despite the title, his guiding principle was not doctrine but efficiency.
"If you go talk to a farmer about Marxism or Leninism, he won't know what you're talking about," he said. "But if you say socialism is about trying to create a happy life for him, then he knows what you mean."
The elder Wu said in an interview that he had no trouble persuading Huaxi's farmers to forgo control over their land 25 years ago. By then, he explained, the first factory was already producing more for villagers' pockets than their fields were, so the idea of turning to industry was appealing even to tradition-minded farmers.
"If you just grow crops, you don't really have a very rich life," he said, still dressed like a farmer on a Sunday outing, in a plain gray jacket and rubber-soled slippers that sell for less than $1. "You've got to have money. Without money, everything is just empty words."
In his unpretentious home, Wu seemed to live by his words. In a room decorated mostly with photos of him greeting party dignitaries, there also hung a large portrait of Deng Xiaoping, the late leader credited with putting China on the road to reform; beside that was a photo of a Mercedes 300SL, the gull-wing sports car that for many symbolized wealth and luxury 50 years ago.
Wu said that although he was a loyal party member, he followed some guidelines from the party's Central Committee and tailored others to suit his pursuit of profit as the years went by and his little village of 2,000 farmers expanded. That, he said, is what the party means by "democratic administration."
Huaxi's citizens, numbering 30,000 after the incorporation of neighboring villages, have turned into shareholders, earning salaries, a monthly stipend based on earnings and annual bonuses for good work. Most are in management. Of the 80,000 people working as laborers and clerks in Huaxi, only 5 percent are locals, according to Gavin Wu, a trading company manger who is deputy party secretary.
The rest are outside workers, drawn by Huaxi's prosperity. If they are permanently hired, they receive Huaxi benefits such as health insurance, Gavin Wu added, but many are temporary migrants. Although most of Huaxi's corporate wealth is communal, about 200 businesses, chiefly small shops, are privately owned, he said, with annual income of $125 million.
One owner, Xu Jun, 39, who just opened an athletic-shoe store on the main square, said he came to the village 10 years ago as a laborer and has decided to stay. "It's a pretty good place to live," he said.
Poor Farming Community Grew Rich by Embracing, Not Resisting, Urbanization and Enterprise
By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, March 10, 2006; A12
HUAXI, China -- Wu Renbao saw the future of his little village long ago, and it worked. It worked so well that Huaxi has become the richest village in China.
As a result, Huaxi has been cited by Communist Party leaders as an example of what they mean when they vow to build a "new socialist countryside" to help farmers share in China's prosperity and halt the protests and riots that have erupted with increasing frequency across the country.
Although it is doubtful Huaxi's exceptional wealth can be duplicated everywhere, the transformation of this community, in Jiangsu province 85 miles northwest of Shanghai, has inspired imitation in a number of villages. In the process, it has opened a window on what China's Communist Party hopes will be the future of this huge, fast-growing nation.
Huaxi's success story began in 1969, when Wu, who was the local party secretary, overcame bitter opposition from Cultural Revolution extremists to start a village-owned textile factory. The village took off a decade later when, again under Wu's leadership, Huaxi residents decided against dividing communal land into family farms, as encouraged under the economic reforms then getting started. They opted to retain village control, retire their plows and build more factories, embracing urbanization instead of fighting it as millions of farmers with family plots have done in recent years.
The decision to stay communal and branch out from agriculture coincided with the rising tide of China's new economy, as liberalizing reforms spread through the 1980s and '90s. Without questioning the party's political control, Huaxi and its go-go socialism have ridden the economic wave ever since. The community has founded eight large corporations, with earnings of $3.8 billion, and relegated farming to a museum-like tract of land where children come to see what squash and mango plants look like.
Annual per capita income has grown to $8,000, village leaders said, seven times the national average and 20 times the average for farmers. Many townspeople, although still classified as peasants, are now managers, living in two-story houses on landscaped lots reminiscent of the Washington suburbs. The Huaxi government has made sure the entire population of 30,000 has health insurance and pensions, things many of China's 750 million farmers only dream about.
"Huaxi is the No. 1 village in China," boasted Sun Haiyan, Wu's 26-year-old grandson, who studied in New Zealand and now runs a village-owned import-export business. "That means rich."
The children of Huaxi enjoy not only well-equipped schools with bilingual Chinese-English classes but also the opportunity to play in an amusement park that features replicas of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, the U.S. Capitol and Beijing's Tiananmen gate. Nearby, construction has begun on a $2.4 million clock tower whose giant bell, Wu predicted cheerfully, will be heard for 10 miles around.
Local party cadres from across China have taken to visiting Huaxi by the busload, seeking to learn from Wu's success. More than a million people visited here in 2005, village leaders said, and the number is expected to rise to 1.8 million this year because of President Hu Jintao's emphasis on rural reforms and the drumbeat of propaganda about the "new socialist countryside."
Wu, 79 but still quick and tart, addressed several hundred of the visitors last week, repeating party catchwords such as "scientific development" and "democratic administration" as he urged them to follow Huaxi's entrepreneurial example. His eyes sparkled and he flashed his brown teeth in frequent smiles as he described Huaxi's meteoric rise from poor farm village to industrial park.
"Every month we change things in Huaxi," he said. "Every year, things are better."
His 30-minute homily finished, Wu turned the stage over to a performance of political theater, complete with bubble machines and girls in diaphanous costumes. To recorded music, young dancers and acrobats pranced about, singing the praises of socialism, enterprise and Huaxi's hybrid of the two.
"We don't worry if the factories are free enterprise, we don't worry if the factories are socialist," went one refrain. "We would just worry if there were no factories."
What the visitors see here resembles nothing so much as a company town run by a patriarchal family with a successful business and strict loyalty to the political system. After years at the helm, Wu recently turned over management of Huaxi to his fourth son, Wu Xie'en, 39, who is now party secretary. In an interview, the younger Wu said that despite the title, his guiding principle was not doctrine but efficiency.
"If you go talk to a farmer about Marxism or Leninism, he won't know what you're talking about," he said. "But if you say socialism is about trying to create a happy life for him, then he knows what you mean."
The elder Wu said in an interview that he had no trouble persuading Huaxi's farmers to forgo control over their land 25 years ago. By then, he explained, the first factory was already producing more for villagers' pockets than their fields were, so the idea of turning to industry was appealing even to tradition-minded farmers.
"If you just grow crops, you don't really have a very rich life," he said, still dressed like a farmer on a Sunday outing, in a plain gray jacket and rubber-soled slippers that sell for less than $1. "You've got to have money. Without money, everything is just empty words."
In his unpretentious home, Wu seemed to live by his words. In a room decorated mostly with photos of him greeting party dignitaries, there also hung a large portrait of Deng Xiaoping, the late leader credited with putting China on the road to reform; beside that was a photo of a Mercedes 300SL, the gull-wing sports car that for many symbolized wealth and luxury 50 years ago.
Wu said that although he was a loyal party member, he followed some guidelines from the party's Central Committee and tailored others to suit his pursuit of profit as the years went by and his little village of 2,000 farmers expanded. That, he said, is what the party means by "democratic administration."
Huaxi's citizens, numbering 30,000 after the incorporation of neighboring villages, have turned into shareholders, earning salaries, a monthly stipend based on earnings and annual bonuses for good work. Most are in management. Of the 80,000 people working as laborers and clerks in Huaxi, only 5 percent are locals, according to Gavin Wu, a trading company manger who is deputy party secretary.
The rest are outside workers, drawn by Huaxi's prosperity. If they are permanently hired, they receive Huaxi benefits such as health insurance, Gavin Wu added, but many are temporary migrants. Although most of Huaxi's corporate wealth is communal, about 200 businesses, chiefly small shops, are privately owned, he said, with annual income of $125 million.
One owner, Xu Jun, 39, who just opened an athletic-shoe store on the main square, said he came to the village 10 years ago as a laborer and has decided to stay. "It's a pretty good place to live," he said.
The Kurd Card
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, March 10, 2006; A19
Lost amid the news of all the bloodletting in Iraq is an important political development: The Kurds have switched sides. In the first parliament after the first set of elections, they allied themselves with the Shiite slate to produce the current Shiite-dominated government led by Ibrahim al-Jafari.
Now the Kurds have joined with the opposition Sunni and secular parties to oppose the Shiite bloc. The result is two large competing coalitions: (a) the Kurd-Sunni-secular bloc, which controls about 140 seats in the 275-seat parliament and would constitute the barest majority, and (b) the Shiite bloc, which itself is a coalition of seven not-always-friendly parties and controls 130 seats, slightly less than a majority.
If only it were that simple, Iraq would have a new, secular-oriented government. But to protect minorities and force the creation of large governing coalitions, the Iraqi constitution essentially requires a two-thirds majority to form a government.
If we had that requirement in the United States, we might still be trying to settle the 2000 election. In Iraq, the result for now is stalemate, which could lead to disaster if the whole system disintegrates because of the impasse. Or it could lead to a more effective, less sectarian government than Jafari's.
The key question is who is going to control the two critical ministries: interior and defense. In Iraq, as in much of the world, interior does not control the national parks. It controls the police. And under the current government it has been under Shiite control and infiltrated by extreme Shiite militias. Some of these militias launched vicious reprisal raids against Sunnis after the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, jeopardizing the entire project of a national police force exercising legitimate authority throughout the country.
The main objective of U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who worked miracles in Afghanistan, is to make sure that the Interior Ministry is purged of sectarianism by giving it to some neutral figure, perhaps a secular Sunni with no ties to the Baath Party. Similarly with the Defense Ministry, which controls the army. The army has, by most accounts, handled itself well following the mosque bombing and subsequent riots, and it has acted as a reliably national institution. It is essential that it not get into sectarian hands.
Political success in Iraq rests heavily on these two institutions. Which is why these negotiations, tiresome and endless as they seem, are so important.
The immediate issue is the prime ministership. An internal ballot among the Shiite bloc brought, by a single vote, another term for Jafari. The critical vote putting him over the top was the faction controlled by Moqtada al-Sadr, the radically anti-American and pro-Tehran cleric whose home base is the Shiite slums of Baghdad. For Sadr, a weak and corruption-ridden government that allows conditions to deteriorate would be the perfect prelude to his gaining power.
Not all parts of the Shiite coalition are happy either with Jafari's ineffectiveness or with his political dependence on Sadr. Splits are already appearing in that uneasy alliance. But the most important challenge to Jafari is the Kurds. They are wary of Sadr and unhappy with Jafari, under whom everything -- services, security, trust -- is deteriorating.
Admittedly, part of their calculation is sectarian. This is, after all, Iraq. Jafari has impeded Kurdish claims on Kirkuk and infuriated the Kurds by traveling to Turkey (which opposes all Kurdish ambitions) without their approval and with a traveling party that did not include a single Kurd.
The Kurd-Sunni-secular bloc wants a new prime minister who will establish a national unity government. Because the United States wants precisely the same outcome, the Kurd defection is very good news in a landscape of almost unrelenting bad news. The other good news is a split in the Shiite bloc, with a near-majority that favors a more technocratic prime minister and is chafing at Sadr's influence. Additionally, the Sunni insurgency is in the midst of its own internecine strife between the local ex-Baathists, who are not particularly religious and want power, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's foreign jihadists, for whom killing Shiites combines sport and religion and who care not a whit for the future of the country. There are numerous reports of Sunni tribes declaring war on these foreign jihadists and of firefights between them.
The security situation is grim and the neighboring powers malign. The one hope for success in Iraq is political. The Kurdish defection has produced the current impasse. That impasse has contributed to the mood of despair here at home. But the defection holds open the best possibility for political success: an effective, broad-based national unity government that, during its mandatory four-year term, presides over an American withdrawal.
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, March 10, 2006; A19
Lost amid the news of all the bloodletting in Iraq is an important political development: The Kurds have switched sides. In the first parliament after the first set of elections, they allied themselves with the Shiite slate to produce the current Shiite-dominated government led by Ibrahim al-Jafari.
Now the Kurds have joined with the opposition Sunni and secular parties to oppose the Shiite bloc. The result is two large competing coalitions: (a) the Kurd-Sunni-secular bloc, which controls about 140 seats in the 275-seat parliament and would constitute the barest majority, and (b) the Shiite bloc, which itself is a coalition of seven not-always-friendly parties and controls 130 seats, slightly less than a majority.
If only it were that simple, Iraq would have a new, secular-oriented government. But to protect minorities and force the creation of large governing coalitions, the Iraqi constitution essentially requires a two-thirds majority to form a government.
If we had that requirement in the United States, we might still be trying to settle the 2000 election. In Iraq, the result for now is stalemate, which could lead to disaster if the whole system disintegrates because of the impasse. Or it could lead to a more effective, less sectarian government than Jafari's.
The key question is who is going to control the two critical ministries: interior and defense. In Iraq, as in much of the world, interior does not control the national parks. It controls the police. And under the current government it has been under Shiite control and infiltrated by extreme Shiite militias. Some of these militias launched vicious reprisal raids against Sunnis after the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, jeopardizing the entire project of a national police force exercising legitimate authority throughout the country.
The main objective of U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who worked miracles in Afghanistan, is to make sure that the Interior Ministry is purged of sectarianism by giving it to some neutral figure, perhaps a secular Sunni with no ties to the Baath Party. Similarly with the Defense Ministry, which controls the army. The army has, by most accounts, handled itself well following the mosque bombing and subsequent riots, and it has acted as a reliably national institution. It is essential that it not get into sectarian hands.
Political success in Iraq rests heavily on these two institutions. Which is why these negotiations, tiresome and endless as they seem, are so important.
The immediate issue is the prime ministership. An internal ballot among the Shiite bloc brought, by a single vote, another term for Jafari. The critical vote putting him over the top was the faction controlled by Moqtada al-Sadr, the radically anti-American and pro-Tehran cleric whose home base is the Shiite slums of Baghdad. For Sadr, a weak and corruption-ridden government that allows conditions to deteriorate would be the perfect prelude to his gaining power.
Not all parts of the Shiite coalition are happy either with Jafari's ineffectiveness or with his political dependence on Sadr. Splits are already appearing in that uneasy alliance. But the most important challenge to Jafari is the Kurds. They are wary of Sadr and unhappy with Jafari, under whom everything -- services, security, trust -- is deteriorating.
Admittedly, part of their calculation is sectarian. This is, after all, Iraq. Jafari has impeded Kurdish claims on Kirkuk and infuriated the Kurds by traveling to Turkey (which opposes all Kurdish ambitions) without their approval and with a traveling party that did not include a single Kurd.
The Kurd-Sunni-secular bloc wants a new prime minister who will establish a national unity government. Because the United States wants precisely the same outcome, the Kurd defection is very good news in a landscape of almost unrelenting bad news. The other good news is a split in the Shiite bloc, with a near-majority that favors a more technocratic prime minister and is chafing at Sadr's influence. Additionally, the Sunni insurgency is in the midst of its own internecine strife between the local ex-Baathists, who are not particularly religious and want power, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's foreign jihadists, for whom killing Shiites combines sport and religion and who care not a whit for the future of the country. There are numerous reports of Sunni tribes declaring war on these foreign jihadists and of firefights between them.
The security situation is grim and the neighboring powers malign. The one hope for success in Iraq is political. The Kurdish defection has produced the current impasse. That impasse has contributed to the mood of despair here at home. But the defection holds open the best possibility for political success: an effective, broad-based national unity government that, during its mandatory four-year term, presides over an American withdrawal.
Mexico Presidential Hopefuls Slug It Out in Local Elections
The candidates stump for their parties' slates in the country's most populous state, which is seen as a bellwether for the national race.
By Héctor Tobar
Times Staff Writer
March 11, 2006
ZUMPANGO, Mexico — The opening round in Mexico's July presidential election is being fought this weekend in the country's most populous state, a horseshoe-shaped territory of bustling industrial suburbs and quaint rural towns around the nation's capital.
Leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the front-runner according to most polls, is campaigning widely in the state of Mexico ahead of local elections Sunday, which are seen as a bellwether for the national campaign. He is lashing out against corruption with strident speeches against the "thieves" in government.
Conservative candidate Felipe Calderon has a new commercial with a gesture that he and his supporters repeat at his campaign rallies: He throws up his hands to show that they are "clean" of the stain of bribery.
And the candidate running third in the polls, Roberto Madrazo, is trying hard to rally the faithful in a state that his Institutional Revolutionary Party can't afford to lose if he wants to be president, even as corruption scandals eat away at the party's support.
"We can't rest now because we've already got half our body through the door" of power, Madrazo told the party faithful at a recent rally in the state capital, Toluca. "We're going to get the rest in, for the good of Mexico."
On Sunday, voters in the state will choose 125 mayors and 75 state legislators. All three leading presidential candidates have campaigned extensively on behalf of their parties' slates with their eyes on the national election.
"The results will be very important symbolically," said Jose Antonio Crespo, a political analyst. "Whoever does well will be in a good position for July."
In the 2000 presidential election, Vicente Fox of the conservative National Action Party won Mexico state on his way to a historic victory that ended seven decades of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as the PRI. Last year, with Fox's popularity waning, the PRI candidate won the governor's race.
Now it's the leftist Democratic Revolution Party that is riding the coattails of its presidential candidate, Lopez Obrador, the popular former mayor of Mexico City. The party, known as the PRD, hopes for a strong showing in the local races.
Lopez Obrador has campaigned in the state more than any other presidential candidate. On the stump, he picks up the populist themes that defined his rise to prominence as Mexico City's mayor, a post he held until last year.
"If we accept the rule of those who think they are the bosses and lords of Mexico, nothing will change for the people on the bottom," Lopez Obrador told about 3,000 supporters at a midweek rally in Zumpango, about 30 miles north of Mexico City. "I come to invite you to join us in this movement, so that together we can help our country escape from backwardness and poverty."
Lopez Obrador is drawing big crowds across the country. Camela Castillo came to the rally in Zumpango with a sign that showed her support for him: "You are my rooster, Andres Manuel! Good luck!"
Still, she didn't have much enthusiasm for his party's mayoral candidate in Zumpango.
"The truth is that none of them [the local candidates] is any good," she said. "The day we have a candidate like Andres Manuel here in Zumpango is the day the PRD will win. They're all sons of caciques," or political bosses.
Across much of the nation, Lopez Obrador is far more popular than his party, according to polls. But analysts say his lead in the presidential race — 6 to 10 percentage points in recent polls — probably will translate into some gains in local elections for the PRD.
The most important of the races may be for mayor of Ecatepec, the biggest municipality in Mexico state. The sprawling suburb just outside Mexico City's Federal District has 1.1 million registered voters.
The PRI runs Ecatepec. But polls show its candidate, Pablo Bedolla Lopez, tied with the PRD's Jose Luis Gutierrez Cureño. Several PRI leaders in the city, angry about what they called corruption in their party, are backing Gutierrez Cureño.
"If the PRI loses Ecatepec, it will look very bad for them," said Leo Zuckermann, a political analyst and professor at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching in Mexico City.
The presidential campaign of Calderon of the conservative National Action Party, or PAN, hopes to get a badly needed boost from Sunday's election. Calderon's strongest support in the state resides in the middle-class and affluent neighborhoods just outside Mexico City.
On Wednesday, Calderon told a campaign rally in Cuautitlan Izcalli that Lopez Obrador was an enemy of foreign investment.
"I'm the one who can make an economy grow," he said. "All he knows how to do is chase jobs away."
Calderon's candidacy has stagnated since January, after a government-imposed "Christmas truce" on campaigning. Despite spending twice as much on television advertising as all the other presidential candidates combined, Calderon has made up little or no ground in the polls on Lopez Obrador.
He replaced his media coordinator and other top members of his campaign team this month.
The candidates stump for their parties' slates in the country's most populous state, which is seen as a bellwether for the national race.
By Héctor Tobar
Times Staff Writer
March 11, 2006
ZUMPANGO, Mexico — The opening round in Mexico's July presidential election is being fought this weekend in the country's most populous state, a horseshoe-shaped territory of bustling industrial suburbs and quaint rural towns around the nation's capital.
Leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the front-runner according to most polls, is campaigning widely in the state of Mexico ahead of local elections Sunday, which are seen as a bellwether for the national campaign. He is lashing out against corruption with strident speeches against the "thieves" in government.
Conservative candidate Felipe Calderon has a new commercial with a gesture that he and his supporters repeat at his campaign rallies: He throws up his hands to show that they are "clean" of the stain of bribery.
And the candidate running third in the polls, Roberto Madrazo, is trying hard to rally the faithful in a state that his Institutional Revolutionary Party can't afford to lose if he wants to be president, even as corruption scandals eat away at the party's support.
"We can't rest now because we've already got half our body through the door" of power, Madrazo told the party faithful at a recent rally in the state capital, Toluca. "We're going to get the rest in, for the good of Mexico."
On Sunday, voters in the state will choose 125 mayors and 75 state legislators. All three leading presidential candidates have campaigned extensively on behalf of their parties' slates with their eyes on the national election.
"The results will be very important symbolically," said Jose Antonio Crespo, a political analyst. "Whoever does well will be in a good position for July."
In the 2000 presidential election, Vicente Fox of the conservative National Action Party won Mexico state on his way to a historic victory that ended seven decades of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as the PRI. Last year, with Fox's popularity waning, the PRI candidate won the governor's race.
Now it's the leftist Democratic Revolution Party that is riding the coattails of its presidential candidate, Lopez Obrador, the popular former mayor of Mexico City. The party, known as the PRD, hopes for a strong showing in the local races.
Lopez Obrador has campaigned in the state more than any other presidential candidate. On the stump, he picks up the populist themes that defined his rise to prominence as Mexico City's mayor, a post he held until last year.
"If we accept the rule of those who think they are the bosses and lords of Mexico, nothing will change for the people on the bottom," Lopez Obrador told about 3,000 supporters at a midweek rally in Zumpango, about 30 miles north of Mexico City. "I come to invite you to join us in this movement, so that together we can help our country escape from backwardness and poverty."
Lopez Obrador is drawing big crowds across the country. Camela Castillo came to the rally in Zumpango with a sign that showed her support for him: "You are my rooster, Andres Manuel! Good luck!"
Still, she didn't have much enthusiasm for his party's mayoral candidate in Zumpango.
"The truth is that none of them [the local candidates] is any good," she said. "The day we have a candidate like Andres Manuel here in Zumpango is the day the PRD will win. They're all sons of caciques," or political bosses.
Across much of the nation, Lopez Obrador is far more popular than his party, according to polls. But analysts say his lead in the presidential race — 6 to 10 percentage points in recent polls — probably will translate into some gains in local elections for the PRD.
The most important of the races may be for mayor of Ecatepec, the biggest municipality in Mexico state. The sprawling suburb just outside Mexico City's Federal District has 1.1 million registered voters.
The PRI runs Ecatepec. But polls show its candidate, Pablo Bedolla Lopez, tied with the PRD's Jose Luis Gutierrez Cureño. Several PRI leaders in the city, angry about what they called corruption in their party, are backing Gutierrez Cureño.
"If the PRI loses Ecatepec, it will look very bad for them," said Leo Zuckermann, a political analyst and professor at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching in Mexico City.
The presidential campaign of Calderon of the conservative National Action Party, or PAN, hopes to get a badly needed boost from Sunday's election. Calderon's strongest support in the state resides in the middle-class and affluent neighborhoods just outside Mexico City.
On Wednesday, Calderon told a campaign rally in Cuautitlan Izcalli that Lopez Obrador was an enemy of foreign investment.
"I'm the one who can make an economy grow," he said. "All he knows how to do is chase jobs away."
Calderon's candidacy has stagnated since January, after a government-imposed "Christmas truce" on campaigning. Despite spending twice as much on television advertising as all the other presidential candidates combined, Calderon has made up little or no ground in the polls on Lopez Obrador.
He replaced his media coordinator and other top members of his campaign team this month.
Job Growth in U.S. Picks Up, Tops Forecasts
February's net gain of 243,000 is up from a revised increase of 170,000 in January. The unemployment rate climbs to 4.8%.
By Joel Havemann
Times Staff Writer
March 11, 2006
WASHINGTON — Jobs grew at a healthy clip in February, the government reported Friday, helping boost wages to their highest year-over-year increase in more than four years while encouraging more jobless people to reenter the labor force.
The stronger-than-predicted net increase of 243,000 jobs was the largest gain in any of the last 12 months except for November, when the economy was rebounding from the effects of Hurricane Katrina.
It compared with revised increases of 170,000 jobs in January and 145,000 in December, the Labor Department reported. The consensus of economic forecasters was for a net gain of 210,000 positions for February.
As more unemployed people sought work, the jobless rate rose to 4.8% in February from a 4 1/2 -year low of 4.7% in January.
"The U.S. labor market is strong but not booming," said David Kelly, economic advisor for Putnam Investments in Boston. Many economists said the latest report reinforced their predictions that the Federal Reserve would raise its benchmark short-term interest rate in two more quarter-point increments to 5%. But they said the report also provided new reasons to stop there.
"There is no justification for the Fed to push its benchmark rate beyond 5%," said Bernard Baumohl, executive director of the Economic Outlook Group in Princeton, N.J. He pointed to strong growth in worker productivity and a weakening housing sector as forces that would make still-higher interest rates unnecessary as anti-inflation measures.
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com in West Chester, Pa., said the job report added to evidence that the economy was growing at an annual rate of more than 4% in the first quarter, higher than its historical average.
Two more Fed interest-rate hikes could temper the economy's growth rate and prevent a new round of inflation, while keeping the unemployment rate at or below 5%, Zandi said.
The report signaled that wage growth, which has lagged behind inflation even as the unemployment rate has tumbled, might finally be making a comeback.
Average hourly wages of production or nonsupervisory workers increased by a nickel to $16.47 an hour, the Labor Department said. Because hours worked fell slightly, average weekly earnings were basically unchanged at $555.04.
For the last 12 months, both measures rose by 3.5%. The year-over-year increase in hourly pay was the highest since September 2001.
Jared Bernstein, senior economist with the labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute in Washington, said higher wages should not spark fears of rising inflation.
"The growth in most workers' wages is probably just about to catch up with inflation, resulting in the first inflation-adjusted wage gains in years," he said.
Consumer prices rose 4% in the 12 months ended in January.
Yet polls show most Americans remain dissatisfied with the economy. Kelly of Putnam Investments said people were dissatisfied because the job rebound had passed many people by.
The most obvious gap, he said, is in the manufacturing sector. It lost 1,000 jobs in February while all other sectors were gaining, and lost 48,000 workers in the last 12 months. The sector now accounts for barely one job in 10 in the United States.
The Northeast and Midwest have seen relatively slow job growth, Kelly said. Michigan has lost jobs since the national job boom began in mid-2003, and Maine, Massachusetts and Ohio have grown by less than 1%.
And less-well-educated workers have fared poorly. Since mid-2003, Kelly said, overall per-capita personal income has grown 12.6%, but the average hourly earnings of production workers and nonsupervisory personnel has risen only 6.6%.
Six months after Katrina devastated New Orleans, it still took a toll, the Labor Department report showed. The 300,000 people in the labor force who had been forced from their homes by the storm but had since gone back showed an unemployment rate of 4.8% — exactly the national average. But another 300,000 had still not returned, and their unemployment rate was 22.6%.
Administration officials and congressional Republicans read the report as a vindication of their tax cuts.
"Today's solid employment number is a vivid reminder that our economy is off to a strong start in 2006," Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez said in a statement. "Our policies are working."
"If there were an Oscar for the strongest economic policy, I think we'd be a contender," Rep. Deborah Pryce of Ohio said in a conference call of House Republican leaders with reporters.
House Majority Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri said this Congress, which has seen jobs grow by 2.4 million, could be the biggest job-growth Congress of recent years by the time the new Congress is installed next January. At the current rate of growth, jobs would increase by 4.3 million during these two years. But that would still be fewer than during any of the four Congresses during the Clinton administration, when tax rates were rising, not falling. (SO, RISING TAXES CREATES JOBS? I'VE YET TO HEAR THAT CLAIMED)
February's net gain of 243,000 is up from a revised increase of 170,000 in January. The unemployment rate climbs to 4.8%.
By Joel Havemann
Times Staff Writer
March 11, 2006
WASHINGTON — Jobs grew at a healthy clip in February, the government reported Friday, helping boost wages to their highest year-over-year increase in more than four years while encouraging more jobless people to reenter the labor force.
The stronger-than-predicted net increase of 243,000 jobs was the largest gain in any of the last 12 months except for November, when the economy was rebounding from the effects of Hurricane Katrina.
It compared with revised increases of 170,000 jobs in January and 145,000 in December, the Labor Department reported. The consensus of economic forecasters was for a net gain of 210,000 positions for February.
As more unemployed people sought work, the jobless rate rose to 4.8% in February from a 4 1/2 -year low of 4.7% in January.
"The U.S. labor market is strong but not booming," said David Kelly, economic advisor for Putnam Investments in Boston. Many economists said the latest report reinforced their predictions that the Federal Reserve would raise its benchmark short-term interest rate in two more quarter-point increments to 5%. But they said the report also provided new reasons to stop there.
"There is no justification for the Fed to push its benchmark rate beyond 5%," said Bernard Baumohl, executive director of the Economic Outlook Group in Princeton, N.J. He pointed to strong growth in worker productivity and a weakening housing sector as forces that would make still-higher interest rates unnecessary as anti-inflation measures.
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com in West Chester, Pa., said the job report added to evidence that the economy was growing at an annual rate of more than 4% in the first quarter, higher than its historical average.
Two more Fed interest-rate hikes could temper the economy's growth rate and prevent a new round of inflation, while keeping the unemployment rate at or below 5%, Zandi said.
The report signaled that wage growth, which has lagged behind inflation even as the unemployment rate has tumbled, might finally be making a comeback.
Average hourly wages of production or nonsupervisory workers increased by a nickel to $16.47 an hour, the Labor Department said. Because hours worked fell slightly, average weekly earnings were basically unchanged at $555.04.
For the last 12 months, both measures rose by 3.5%. The year-over-year increase in hourly pay was the highest since September 2001.
Jared Bernstein, senior economist with the labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute in Washington, said higher wages should not spark fears of rising inflation.
"The growth in most workers' wages is probably just about to catch up with inflation, resulting in the first inflation-adjusted wage gains in years," he said.
Consumer prices rose 4% in the 12 months ended in January.
Yet polls show most Americans remain dissatisfied with the economy. Kelly of Putnam Investments said people were dissatisfied because the job rebound had passed many people by.
The most obvious gap, he said, is in the manufacturing sector. It lost 1,000 jobs in February while all other sectors were gaining, and lost 48,000 workers in the last 12 months. The sector now accounts for barely one job in 10 in the United States.
The Northeast and Midwest have seen relatively slow job growth, Kelly said. Michigan has lost jobs since the national job boom began in mid-2003, and Maine, Massachusetts and Ohio have grown by less than 1%.
And less-well-educated workers have fared poorly. Since mid-2003, Kelly said, overall per-capita personal income has grown 12.6%, but the average hourly earnings of production workers and nonsupervisory personnel has risen only 6.6%.
Six months after Katrina devastated New Orleans, it still took a toll, the Labor Department report showed. The 300,000 people in the labor force who had been forced from their homes by the storm but had since gone back showed an unemployment rate of 4.8% — exactly the national average. But another 300,000 had still not returned, and their unemployment rate was 22.6%.
Administration officials and congressional Republicans read the report as a vindication of their tax cuts.
"Today's solid employment number is a vivid reminder that our economy is off to a strong start in 2006," Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez said in a statement. "Our policies are working."
"If there were an Oscar for the strongest economic policy, I think we'd be a contender," Rep. Deborah Pryce of Ohio said in a conference call of House Republican leaders with reporters.
House Majority Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri said this Congress, which has seen jobs grow by 2.4 million, could be the biggest job-growth Congress of recent years by the time the new Congress is installed next January. At the current rate of growth, jobs would increase by 4.3 million during these two years. But that would still be fewer than during any of the four Congresses during the Clinton administration, when tax rates were rising, not falling. (SO, RISING TAXES CREATES JOBS? I'VE YET TO HEAR THAT CLAIMED)
Bush Goes on Offensive To Explain War Strategy
Speeches to Combat Public Pessimism
By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 11, 2006; A03
President Bush plans to begin a series of speeches next week again explaining the administration's strategy for winning the war in Iraq, as the White House returns to a familiar tactic to allay growing public pessimism about the war that has helped keep the president's approval rating near its historic low.
After previewing the upcoming speech in his radio address today, the president is scheduled to make remarks on the war at George Washington University on Monday. The appearance, which will be followed weekly by as many as four other speeches, marks the start of the White House's latest effort to convince skeptical Americans that it has a coherent plan for victory as the war nears its third anniversary later this month.
The president hopes to give "better depth, understanding and context for how the strategy in Iraq is unfolding," a senior White House official said of the planned speeches. Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other Cabinet members will be making speeches on Iraq in advance of the anniversary of the U.S. invasion.
The public relations offensive is being launched amid intense concern in the White House about polls showing that a growing majority of Americans disapprove of Bush's handling of the war and harbor growing doubts about the prospects for success. A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found that four in five Americans believe that the ongoing sectarian violence in Iraq will mushroom into civil war. Also, more than half of those surveyed believe the United States should begin withdrawing troops from Iraq, the poll found.
Meanwhile, the president's approval rating remains at 41 percent, virtually unchanged since January and among the lowest in his presidency.
The initiative is modeled on a similar effort the White House rolled out in November and December, when Bush gave four speeches, acknowledging setbacks, pointing out how the military had adapted its strategy and highlighting the administration's plans for victory. That effort, coupled with the success of another round of elections in Iraq, helped the president's approval rating to rebound a little, before it fell again amid the latest wave of violence.
Bush's planned speeches on Iraq come as that nation's fledgling democracy is struggling to put together a unity government against a backdrop of intense sectarian violence. The bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra on Feb. 22 ignited a series of attacks and counterattacks that have killed hundreds and brought the nation to the brink of civil war.
"There are some who are trying to, obviously, sow the seeds of sectarian strife," Bush said, during remarks to a group of community newspaper publishers yesterday. "They fear the advancement of a democracy. They blow up shrines in order to cause this Iraqi democracy that is emerging to go backwards, to not emerge."
Bush praised Iraqis for so far not escalating the ongoing crisis into a full-fledged civil war. "As I said earlier, there was -- no question there was violence and killing, the society took a step back from the abyss," Bush said. "And people took a sober reflection about what a civil war would mean."
He also waved away concern about his low poll numbers, saying that they will not cause him to lose sight of his core beliefs. "I understand some of the things I've done are unpopular. But that's what comes with the territory," he said. "If you're afraid to make decisions and you only worried about, you know, whether or not people in the classroom are going to say nice things about you, you're not leading."
As he did during his last round of speeches, Bush will attempt to focus on specific elements of his Iraq strategy in hopes of rallying public support for the war. His speech Monday will focus on the efforts being made by Iraqi security forces to tamp down the ongoing violence. Another address will focus on the military's evolving strategy for detecting and defusing roadside bombs. A third address is likely to be a case study of an Iraqi city or town, which the White House hopes will illustrate its plans for clearing insurgents from parts of Iraq, installing Iraqi security forces then rebuilding.
The ideas is to bring the view "from 30,000 feet down to eye level," the senior White House official said.
Speeches to Combat Public Pessimism
By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 11, 2006; A03
President Bush plans to begin a series of speeches next week again explaining the administration's strategy for winning the war in Iraq, as the White House returns to a familiar tactic to allay growing public pessimism about the war that has helped keep the president's approval rating near its historic low.
After previewing the upcoming speech in his radio address today, the president is scheduled to make remarks on the war at George Washington University on Monday. The appearance, which will be followed weekly by as many as four other speeches, marks the start of the White House's latest effort to convince skeptical Americans that it has a coherent plan for victory as the war nears its third anniversary later this month.
The president hopes to give "better depth, understanding and context for how the strategy in Iraq is unfolding," a senior White House official said of the planned speeches. Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other Cabinet members will be making speeches on Iraq in advance of the anniversary of the U.S. invasion.
The public relations offensive is being launched amid intense concern in the White House about polls showing that a growing majority of Americans disapprove of Bush's handling of the war and harbor growing doubts about the prospects for success. A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found that four in five Americans believe that the ongoing sectarian violence in Iraq will mushroom into civil war. Also, more than half of those surveyed believe the United States should begin withdrawing troops from Iraq, the poll found.
Meanwhile, the president's approval rating remains at 41 percent, virtually unchanged since January and among the lowest in his presidency.
The initiative is modeled on a similar effort the White House rolled out in November and December, when Bush gave four speeches, acknowledging setbacks, pointing out how the military had adapted its strategy and highlighting the administration's plans for victory. That effort, coupled with the success of another round of elections in Iraq, helped the president's approval rating to rebound a little, before it fell again amid the latest wave of violence.
Bush's planned speeches on Iraq come as that nation's fledgling democracy is struggling to put together a unity government against a backdrop of intense sectarian violence. The bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra on Feb. 22 ignited a series of attacks and counterattacks that have killed hundreds and brought the nation to the brink of civil war.
"There are some who are trying to, obviously, sow the seeds of sectarian strife," Bush said, during remarks to a group of community newspaper publishers yesterday. "They fear the advancement of a democracy. They blow up shrines in order to cause this Iraqi democracy that is emerging to go backwards, to not emerge."
Bush praised Iraqis for so far not escalating the ongoing crisis into a full-fledged civil war. "As I said earlier, there was -- no question there was violence and killing, the society took a step back from the abyss," Bush said. "And people took a sober reflection about what a civil war would mean."
He also waved away concern about his low poll numbers, saying that they will not cause him to lose sight of his core beliefs. "I understand some of the things I've done are unpopular. But that's what comes with the territory," he said. "If you're afraid to make decisions and you only worried about, you know, whether or not people in the classroom are going to say nice things about you, you're not leading."
As he did during his last round of speeches, Bush will attempt to focus on specific elements of his Iraq strategy in hopes of rallying public support for the war. His speech Monday will focus on the efforts being made by Iraqi security forces to tamp down the ongoing violence. Another address will focus on the military's evolving strategy for detecting and defusing roadside bombs. A third address is likely to be a case study of an Iraqi city or town, which the White House hopes will illustrate its plans for clearing insurgents from parts of Iraq, installing Iraqi security forces then rebuilding.
The ideas is to bring the view "from 30,000 feet down to eye level," the senior White House official said.
Rice to Reach Out To Bolivia on Trip
Meeting in Chile Follows Recent Discord
By Monte Reel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, March 11, 2006; A13
SANTIAGO, Chile, March 10 -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to meet Saturday with Bolivian President Evo Morales, U.S. officials said, as the cordial relations promised by the Bush administration after Morales's January inauguration show signs of strain.
The meeting, one of several planned by Rice during the inauguration this weekend of Chile's new president, Michelle Bachelet, highlights Washington's trickiest challenge in the region: how to isolate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a self-styled revolutionary leader who seeks greater independence from the United States for Latin America, without alienating his neighbors in the region.
In the past two weeks, relations between the U.S. and Bolivian governments have grown tense. Morales lashed out at the United States for cutting off funds to a Bolivian counterterrorism unit after Morales named a controversial commander as its leader. He labeled the move "blackmail" and vowed not to return weapons requested by the United States after the program was discontinued.
Two weeks ago, a Bolivian legislator who is one of Morales's closest friends learned that her U.S. visa had been revoked because of security concerns.
At a news conference here Friday, Morales declined to discuss the recent spats. He described his upcoming meeting with Rice as "historic" and said he hoped to talk with her about bilateral economic ties.
"We are always open to dialogue. We can talk to President Bush, but we can also talk with Fidel Castro -- that is our culture of dialogue," he said. "We have no fear about talking, we are going to keep talking." Chavez is a close Castro ally, but U.S. officials said they had hoped Morales would moderate his stance toward the Cuban communist leader.
Morales, a former coca grower and head of a socialist party, complained this week that although he had toned down his anti-U.S. rhetoric since becoming president, U.S. officials were still provoking him.
"They have asked us to turn over a new leaf and start new relations," Morales told reporters in La Paz, the Bolivian capital. "Nevertheless, I'm receiving a lot of aggression, a lot of provocation from the U.S. Embassy and the U.S. government."
On her flight to Chile, Rice said she hoped to preserve good relations with Bolivia and with Morales, who has vowed to cooperate with U.S. military efforts against illegal drug trafficking in Bolivia. Neither the United States nor Bolivia has identified the controversial commander he named to the anti-terrorist post, but U.S. officials in Bolivia have said the decision to cut the $400,000 program applies only to the specific anti-terrorism unit involved and does not reflect misgivings about the overall relationship with Morales.
"Our view is that we want to -- and should try to -- have good relations with the Bolivian armed forces to do the work that we all agree is important in trying to manage the security environment in the Andean region," Rice said, according to a transcript of her remarks given to reporters in Santiago.
Morales's complaint that U.S. policies in the region sometimes punish potential allies has been echoed by critics of the Bush administration, who cite cuts in military aid to countries that support subjecting Americans to trials in the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Many countries that back the court are considered important to the policy to contain Chavez that Rice has labeled the "inoculation strategy."
But Rice suggested that she opposed softening the policy, which has put the country at odds with Venezuela's neighbors, including Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia and Uruguay.
"We are looking at the issues concerning those situations in which we may have" been "shooting ourselves in the foot," Rice said. "I think it is important from time to time to take a look to make sure we are not having a negative effect on the relationships that are really important to us."
Analysts said such steps could be important symbols to Latin American governments trying to reconcile the mixed messages that resulted from the conciliatory tone offered by many U.S. diplomats and Washington's occasionally stricter policies.
"The U.S. is not really speaking with a unified voice to Latin America," said Jeff Vogt, a senior associate with the nonprofit Washington Office on Latin America, in a telephone interview from Washington. "I don't think the administration has yet identified a definitive strategy."
Gonzalo Chavez, a political scientist in La Paz, said he agreed that the recent disagreements between Bolivia and the United States were minor but that did not mean they should be taken lightly. "It's hard to solve big problems if you have problems with the little things," he said, "because those little problems can grow if you're not careful."
Special correspondent Jonathan Franklin in Santiago contributed to this report.
Meeting in Chile Follows Recent Discord
By Monte Reel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, March 11, 2006; A13
SANTIAGO, Chile, March 10 -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to meet Saturday with Bolivian President Evo Morales, U.S. officials said, as the cordial relations promised by the Bush administration after Morales's January inauguration show signs of strain.
The meeting, one of several planned by Rice during the inauguration this weekend of Chile's new president, Michelle Bachelet, highlights Washington's trickiest challenge in the region: how to isolate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a self-styled revolutionary leader who seeks greater independence from the United States for Latin America, without alienating his neighbors in the region.
In the past two weeks, relations between the U.S. and Bolivian governments have grown tense. Morales lashed out at the United States for cutting off funds to a Bolivian counterterrorism unit after Morales named a controversial commander as its leader. He labeled the move "blackmail" and vowed not to return weapons requested by the United States after the program was discontinued.
Two weeks ago, a Bolivian legislator who is one of Morales's closest friends learned that her U.S. visa had been revoked because of security concerns.
At a news conference here Friday, Morales declined to discuss the recent spats. He described his upcoming meeting with Rice as "historic" and said he hoped to talk with her about bilateral economic ties.
"We are always open to dialogue. We can talk to President Bush, but we can also talk with Fidel Castro -- that is our culture of dialogue," he said. "We have no fear about talking, we are going to keep talking." Chavez is a close Castro ally, but U.S. officials said they had hoped Morales would moderate his stance toward the Cuban communist leader.
Morales, a former coca grower and head of a socialist party, complained this week that although he had toned down his anti-U.S. rhetoric since becoming president, U.S. officials were still provoking him.
"They have asked us to turn over a new leaf and start new relations," Morales told reporters in La Paz, the Bolivian capital. "Nevertheless, I'm receiving a lot of aggression, a lot of provocation from the U.S. Embassy and the U.S. government."
On her flight to Chile, Rice said she hoped to preserve good relations with Bolivia and with Morales, who has vowed to cooperate with U.S. military efforts against illegal drug trafficking in Bolivia. Neither the United States nor Bolivia has identified the controversial commander he named to the anti-terrorist post, but U.S. officials in Bolivia have said the decision to cut the $400,000 program applies only to the specific anti-terrorism unit involved and does not reflect misgivings about the overall relationship with Morales.
"Our view is that we want to -- and should try to -- have good relations with the Bolivian armed forces to do the work that we all agree is important in trying to manage the security environment in the Andean region," Rice said, according to a transcript of her remarks given to reporters in Santiago.
Morales's complaint that U.S. policies in the region sometimes punish potential allies has been echoed by critics of the Bush administration, who cite cuts in military aid to countries that support subjecting Americans to trials in the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Many countries that back the court are considered important to the policy to contain Chavez that Rice has labeled the "inoculation strategy."
But Rice suggested that she opposed softening the policy, which has put the country at odds with Venezuela's neighbors, including Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia and Uruguay.
"We are looking at the issues concerning those situations in which we may have" been "shooting ourselves in the foot," Rice said. "I think it is important from time to time to take a look to make sure we are not having a negative effect on the relationships that are really important to us."
Analysts said such steps could be important symbols to Latin American governments trying to reconcile the mixed messages that resulted from the conciliatory tone offered by many U.S. diplomats and Washington's occasionally stricter policies.
"The U.S. is not really speaking with a unified voice to Latin America," said Jeff Vogt, a senior associate with the nonprofit Washington Office on Latin America, in a telephone interview from Washington. "I don't think the administration has yet identified a definitive strategy."
Gonzalo Chavez, a political scientist in La Paz, said he agreed that the recent disagreements between Bolivia and the United States were minor but that did not mean they should be taken lightly. "It's hard to solve big problems if you have problems with the little things," he said, "because those little problems can grow if you're not careful."
Special correspondent Jonathan Franklin in Santiago contributed to this report.
Conspicuous Consumption Shapes New Tokyo Skyline
Income Disparity Raises Demand for Public Housing
By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, March 11, 2006; A12
TOKYO -- From his lofty perch inside Roppongi Hills -- the city within a city he built into the ultimate playground for Japan's mega-rich -- real estate magnate Minoru Mori reigns as the king of luxury in the world's largest metropolis.
Roppongi Hills boasts $50,000-a-month apartments, escalators encased in glass domes, a museum stocked with masterworks and a parade of luxury stores representing half of Milan and Paris. It is also the pi'ce de r'sistance of Mori's six "compact cities," glittering projects where some of the winners of Japan's roaring economic comeback live, work, shop, eat and play.
Mori's success has sparked a host of similar projects for the super-rich that are dramatically altering the physical look of Tokyo -- long known for its cramped, "Blade Runner"-like cityscape of towering video screens, glaring neon and cookie-cutter office buildings. But the projects are only one part of what sociologists and economists are calling a major shift in the social architecture of the capital.
On the flip side are a proliferation of Rest Box hotels, where Tokyo's less well-heeled seek out warm bunk beds at $14 a night, and a sharp increase in demand for public housing. Even as the area's population growth has stagnated, the number of applicants for each low-income housing unit has nearly doubled in the past four years. Meanwhile, many people have turned for rest to 24-hour comic book cafes, where a night in a reclining chair with all-you-can-drink coffee and corn soup costs about $13.
Stark lifestyle differences may be nothing new for most of the world's major urban centers, but they mark a relatively new twist in Japan. In a nation that once prided itself on being a one-class society, where chief executives didn't earn that much more than their middle managers, Tokyo's increasingly polarized lifestyles have become part of a furious debate here over a growing income gap.
"We are seeing our society divided up by income," said Masahiro Yamada, a sociologist at Tokyo Gakugei University. "If we keep going like this, we will see the creation of slums in Tokyo even as more places like Roppongi Hills go up for those with extraordinary incomes."
As Japan's economy has rumbled back from a recession that lasted more than a decade, a crop of younger, contrarian Japanese has blazed a trail of conspicuous consumption in a nation where the wealthy once prided themselves on their subtlety. Takafumi Horie, a 33-year-old Internet tycoon, was the epitome of Japan's new hotshots -- until his arrest in January on corporate fraud charges. Using a small start-up company as leverage, he staged hostile takeovers and built a multibillion-dollar enterprise. But he became better known for roaring out of the garage of his $22,000-a-month apartment at Roppongi Hills behind the wheel of his silver Ferrari. "There is nothing money can't buy," he famously said last year.
While wealth in Japan is still more equally distributed than in, say, the United States, statistics show the gap is widening. In 2002, the most recent year for which numbers are available, the richest 20 percent of Japanese earned 50.4 percent of the nation's wealth, compared with 48.8 percent in 1999 and 44.3 percent in 1987. The poorest 20 percent were earning only 0.3 percent of the wealth in 2002, compared with 0.8 percent in 1999 and 2.7 percent in 1987.
People whose income ranks in the middle 30 percent are earning a smaller percentage of the country's total than before. "The Japanese middle class is collapsing," said Makoto Yuasa, secretary general of Moyai, a nonprofit organization that helps Tokyo's poor.
The reasons for the shift remain in dispute, with opponents of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi citing his reform efforts, which have forced banks to come down harder on debtors and eliminated massive pork-barrel spending that had created a trickledown effect of wealth.
Others blame the rise of the generation of Japanese who grew up in the 1990s disillusioned by the burst of the economic bubble in 1991 and lacking in education and training.
Yamada, the sociologist, said well-paying jobs were plentiful for most of the Japanese workforce during the period of its economic dominance in the 1980s, known as the bubble years. Today, despite a low unemployment rate and Japan's steady economic growth, many young Japanese find themselves working in lower-paying jobs with little security and long hours, even as others have found ways to get in on the new gravy train.
Disparities in income are changing the look and feel of the world's largest metropolitan area. Over the past five years, the number of Tokyo's 100-yen shops -- akin to dollar stores in the United States -- has nearly doubled. Yet over the same period, the number of local outlets of the French fashion house Chanel has jumped from 24 to 37. Cornes & Co., a major dealer of luxury cars in Tokyo, sold almost double the number of Maseratis in 2005 that it did the previous year. Just under half of their buyers were under 40.
As the mega-rich flock to self-contained compact cities -- which are designed to combine facilities for working and living as well as education and entertainment -- cranes on the Tokyo skyline are working at a frantic pace to meet the demand. Next year, Mitsui Fudosan Co.'s Tokyo Midtown project is set to open the city's tallest building as the centerpiece of a complex with a new Ritz-Carlton hotel, pricey apartments and an upscale medical center modeled after Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.
For now, many of the young and the wealthy are flocking to the creations of Minoru Mori.
The 71-year-old scion of a real estate family, Mori inaugurated his latest city, Omotesando Hills, in one of Tokyo's most fashionable neighborhoods last month. There, well-heeled residents can now live just above some of the priciest retail shops on Earth, wandering sparkling hallways where $1,000 Jimmy Choo heels sell alongside $21 ice creams. "What the Guggenheim does with art, we do with shops," Mori said in an interview at Roppongi Hills. "That is the only difference."
Critics of Mori's cities say they have done away with the organic growth that can typify a modern and vibrant urban neighborhood. Mori, who claims a creative kinship with the grand aesthetic of Le Corbusier, strongly disagrees.
In fact, when Roppongi Hills opened on 27 acres in 2003, it brought luxury to a neighborhood that had long been better known for massage parlors and shot bars.
"I call myself a developer of cities," Mori said. "The postwar urban structures don't fit modern lifestyles anymore. We have moved away from an economy led by the manufacturing industry into those of knowledge-led industries."
Executives of those industries, he said, "are living different lifestyles and need a different environment."
Unlike at exclusive communities in other countries, access to Mori's premier project -- at least the retail portion of the complex -- is open to the general public. It has made Roppongi Hills a melting pot of sorts. Alongside its fabulously rich residents walk far more humble Japanese tourists who literally come by the busload to gawk at the Roppongi Hills lifestyle. They can take a guided tour for $20 a person.
"We came to window-shop and get a look at something that is unreal to us," said Midori Sato, 72, who was visiting Roppongi Hills with her sister from the blue-collar suburb of Kawasaki.
"Where we live, you see futons and laundry being hung in the sun or on verandas," she said. "Everyone's daily life is in your face. But you don't see that here. I would love to die in an apartment on the top floor. Or live there for just one year. But even if all of our relatives put all their money together, we know we could never afford it."
Special correspondents Akiko Yamamoto and Sachiko Sakamaki contributed to this report.
Income Disparity Raises Demand for Public Housing
By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, March 11, 2006; A12
TOKYO -- From his lofty perch inside Roppongi Hills -- the city within a city he built into the ultimate playground for Japan's mega-rich -- real estate magnate Minoru Mori reigns as the king of luxury in the world's largest metropolis.
Roppongi Hills boasts $50,000-a-month apartments, escalators encased in glass domes, a museum stocked with masterworks and a parade of luxury stores representing half of Milan and Paris. It is also the pi'ce de r'sistance of Mori's six "compact cities," glittering projects where some of the winners of Japan's roaring economic comeback live, work, shop, eat and play.
Mori's success has sparked a host of similar projects for the super-rich that are dramatically altering the physical look of Tokyo -- long known for its cramped, "Blade Runner"-like cityscape of towering video screens, glaring neon and cookie-cutter office buildings. But the projects are only one part of what sociologists and economists are calling a major shift in the social architecture of the capital.
On the flip side are a proliferation of Rest Box hotels, where Tokyo's less well-heeled seek out warm bunk beds at $14 a night, and a sharp increase in demand for public housing. Even as the area's population growth has stagnated, the number of applicants for each low-income housing unit has nearly doubled in the past four years. Meanwhile, many people have turned for rest to 24-hour comic book cafes, where a night in a reclining chair with all-you-can-drink coffee and corn soup costs about $13.
Stark lifestyle differences may be nothing new for most of the world's major urban centers, but they mark a relatively new twist in Japan. In a nation that once prided itself on being a one-class society, where chief executives didn't earn that much more than their middle managers, Tokyo's increasingly polarized lifestyles have become part of a furious debate here over a growing income gap.
"We are seeing our society divided up by income," said Masahiro Yamada, a sociologist at Tokyo Gakugei University. "If we keep going like this, we will see the creation of slums in Tokyo even as more places like Roppongi Hills go up for those with extraordinary incomes."
As Japan's economy has rumbled back from a recession that lasted more than a decade, a crop of younger, contrarian Japanese has blazed a trail of conspicuous consumption in a nation where the wealthy once prided themselves on their subtlety. Takafumi Horie, a 33-year-old Internet tycoon, was the epitome of Japan's new hotshots -- until his arrest in January on corporate fraud charges. Using a small start-up company as leverage, he staged hostile takeovers and built a multibillion-dollar enterprise. But he became better known for roaring out of the garage of his $22,000-a-month apartment at Roppongi Hills behind the wheel of his silver Ferrari. "There is nothing money can't buy," he famously said last year.
While wealth in Japan is still more equally distributed than in, say, the United States, statistics show the gap is widening. In 2002, the most recent year for which numbers are available, the richest 20 percent of Japanese earned 50.4 percent of the nation's wealth, compared with 48.8 percent in 1999 and 44.3 percent in 1987. The poorest 20 percent were earning only 0.3 percent of the wealth in 2002, compared with 0.8 percent in 1999 and 2.7 percent in 1987.
People whose income ranks in the middle 30 percent are earning a smaller percentage of the country's total than before. "The Japanese middle class is collapsing," said Makoto Yuasa, secretary general of Moyai, a nonprofit organization that helps Tokyo's poor.
The reasons for the shift remain in dispute, with opponents of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi citing his reform efforts, which have forced banks to come down harder on debtors and eliminated massive pork-barrel spending that had created a trickledown effect of wealth.
Others blame the rise of the generation of Japanese who grew up in the 1990s disillusioned by the burst of the economic bubble in 1991 and lacking in education and training.
Yamada, the sociologist, said well-paying jobs were plentiful for most of the Japanese workforce during the period of its economic dominance in the 1980s, known as the bubble years. Today, despite a low unemployment rate and Japan's steady economic growth, many young Japanese find themselves working in lower-paying jobs with little security and long hours, even as others have found ways to get in on the new gravy train.
Disparities in income are changing the look and feel of the world's largest metropolitan area. Over the past five years, the number of Tokyo's 100-yen shops -- akin to dollar stores in the United States -- has nearly doubled. Yet over the same period, the number of local outlets of the French fashion house Chanel has jumped from 24 to 37. Cornes & Co., a major dealer of luxury cars in Tokyo, sold almost double the number of Maseratis in 2005 that it did the previous year. Just under half of their buyers were under 40.
As the mega-rich flock to self-contained compact cities -- which are designed to combine facilities for working and living as well as education and entertainment -- cranes on the Tokyo skyline are working at a frantic pace to meet the demand. Next year, Mitsui Fudosan Co.'s Tokyo Midtown project is set to open the city's tallest building as the centerpiece of a complex with a new Ritz-Carlton hotel, pricey apartments and an upscale medical center modeled after Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.
For now, many of the young and the wealthy are flocking to the creations of Minoru Mori.
The 71-year-old scion of a real estate family, Mori inaugurated his latest city, Omotesando Hills, in one of Tokyo's most fashionable neighborhoods last month. There, well-heeled residents can now live just above some of the priciest retail shops on Earth, wandering sparkling hallways where $1,000 Jimmy Choo heels sell alongside $21 ice creams. "What the Guggenheim does with art, we do with shops," Mori said in an interview at Roppongi Hills. "That is the only difference."
Critics of Mori's cities say they have done away with the organic growth that can typify a modern and vibrant urban neighborhood. Mori, who claims a creative kinship with the grand aesthetic of Le Corbusier, strongly disagrees.
In fact, when Roppongi Hills opened on 27 acres in 2003, it brought luxury to a neighborhood that had long been better known for massage parlors and shot bars.
"I call myself a developer of cities," Mori said. "The postwar urban structures don't fit modern lifestyles anymore. We have moved away from an economy led by the manufacturing industry into those of knowledge-led industries."
Executives of those industries, he said, "are living different lifestyles and need a different environment."
Unlike at exclusive communities in other countries, access to Mori's premier project -- at least the retail portion of the complex -- is open to the general public. It has made Roppongi Hills a melting pot of sorts. Alongside its fabulously rich residents walk far more humble Japanese tourists who literally come by the busload to gawk at the Roppongi Hills lifestyle. They can take a guided tour for $20 a person.
"We came to window-shop and get a look at something that is unreal to us," said Midori Sato, 72, who was visiting Roppongi Hills with her sister from the blue-collar suburb of Kawasaki.
"Where we live, you see futons and laundry being hung in the sun or on verandas," she said. "Everyone's daily life is in your face. But you don't see that here. I would love to die in an apartment on the top floor. Or live there for just one year. But even if all of our relatives put all their money together, we know we could never afford it."
Special correspondents Akiko Yamamoto and Sachiko Sakamaki contributed to this report.
U.S. Presses China and Russia for U.N. Council Action on Iran
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 11, 2006; A07
UNITED NATIONS, March 10 -- The United States, France and Britain remained at odds with Russia and China on Friday over what role the Security Council should play in pressing Iran to abide by the United Nations' demand to cease the enrichment of uranium that could potentially be diverted to a nuclear weapons program.
The Bush administration, backed by France and Britain, pressed Moscow and Beijing at a meeting of the council's five veto-wielding members to support the swift adoption of a Security Council statement urging Iran to seek a negotiated settlement to an escalating nuclear crisis or face the possible threat of sanctions.
Britain and France, the chief drafters of the proposed statement, are hoping to present a text to the 15-nation Security Council as early as Monday, after a morning meeting of the council's permanent five members, according to a council diplomat who requested anonymity because the five permanent members have agreed to secrecy before they reach agreement.
But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov proposed that a high-level international meeting be convened to forge a common approach to Iran, telling a Russian television interviewer that there was no agreement on the council's role in handling the nuclear crisis. He proposed a conference outside of the United Nations among the five veto-wielding nations and the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency. U.S. officials worry such an approach is intended to slow momentum that could lead to U.N. sanctions.
Friday's meeting marked a new and politically delicate phase in a 2 1/2 -year diplomatic confrontation between the major Western powers and Iran, which says it is pursuing a peaceful nuclear energy program. The United States says Iran's energy program is a cover for an atomic weapons effort. (YEAH, IT'S A PICK-'EM)
The International Atomic Energy Agency says Iran has repeatedly concealed its nuclear activities, contributing to international suspicions it is pursuing a weapons program. But the agency's director general, Mohammed ElBaradei, maintains he does not have sufficient evidence to prove Iran is developing nuclear weapons.
On Friday, President Bush sought to maintain pressure on Iran, telling a gathering of the National Newspaper Association that Tehran represents a "grave national security concern" for the United States, and citing its nuclear ambitions and its threat to "destroy our ally Israel."
Although U.S. officials did not reject Lavrov's proposal, they said it was time for the Security Council to address Iran's nuclear activities. "From our perspective, right now where the diplomatic action is, is at the Security Council," said State Department acting spokesman Tom Casey. "We think that's where the focus ought to be."
Bush's closest ally, Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair, meanwhile, warned that Iran will face "a serious situation," an apparent reference to sanctions, if it continued to fail to meet its obligations.
But U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan urged caution, saying that "the best solution is a negotiated one." He said he will cut short an upcoming visit to Africa if "I am needed" to help defuse the crisis. (WILL KOFI EVER REALLY BE NEEDED? YOU FLATTER YOURSELF KOFI)
France and Britain on Wednesday distributed elements of a proposed Security Council statement on Iran. The paper, whose contents were first reported by the New York Times, highlights Iran's efforts to skirt its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and appeals to its leaders to comply with demands by the IAEA, a diplomat said.
The European paper calls on the IAEA's ElBaradei to report on Iran's activities within 14 days. The paper asserts that "Security Council action is necessary to reinforce IAEA authority . . . and to put Security Council weight behind the IAEA's resolutions." It also calls on "Iran to halt construction of heavy water reactors" that can be diverted to a nuclear weapons program, and to "implement and ratify the additional protocols."
Although the European paper does not explicitly threaten Iran with punitive measures, it says that "continued enrichment-related activity would add to the importance and urgency of further action by the Council." U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns told a congressional committee on Wednesday that the United States would press for targeted sanctions against Iran if it failed to comply with the council's demand.
U.S. and European diplomats say that they are planning to seek the adoption of a Chapter 7 resolution, which can lead to the imposition of sanctions or even the use of military force, if Iran fails to cooperate with the IAEA. "The pattern of Iranian behavior suggests at least the desire to acquire weapons capability. We have no hard evidence, but deep suspicions remain," said a British official whose briefing was carried out on the grounds that he remain anonymous.
After Friday's meeting, China's U.N. ambassador, Wang Guangya, said the council's permanent members had "good talks," focusing on "ways of strengthening the hand of the IAEA" in its standoff with Iran. But Wang and Russia's U.N. ambassador, Andrei Denisov, declined to say whether they could support the European draft statement.
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 11, 2006; A07
UNITED NATIONS, March 10 -- The United States, France and Britain remained at odds with Russia and China on Friday over what role the Security Council should play in pressing Iran to abide by the United Nations' demand to cease the enrichment of uranium that could potentially be diverted to a nuclear weapons program.
The Bush administration, backed by France and Britain, pressed Moscow and Beijing at a meeting of the council's five veto-wielding members to support the swift adoption of a Security Council statement urging Iran to seek a negotiated settlement to an escalating nuclear crisis or face the possible threat of sanctions.
Britain and France, the chief drafters of the proposed statement, are hoping to present a text to the 15-nation Security Council as early as Monday, after a morning meeting of the council's permanent five members, according to a council diplomat who requested anonymity because the five permanent members have agreed to secrecy before they reach agreement.
But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov proposed that a high-level international meeting be convened to forge a common approach to Iran, telling a Russian television interviewer that there was no agreement on the council's role in handling the nuclear crisis. He proposed a conference outside of the United Nations among the five veto-wielding nations and the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency. U.S. officials worry such an approach is intended to slow momentum that could lead to U.N. sanctions.
Friday's meeting marked a new and politically delicate phase in a 2 1/2 -year diplomatic confrontation between the major Western powers and Iran, which says it is pursuing a peaceful nuclear energy program. The United States says Iran's energy program is a cover for an atomic weapons effort. (YEAH, IT'S A PICK-'EM)
The International Atomic Energy Agency says Iran has repeatedly concealed its nuclear activities, contributing to international suspicions it is pursuing a weapons program. But the agency's director general, Mohammed ElBaradei, maintains he does not have sufficient evidence to prove Iran is developing nuclear weapons.
On Friday, President Bush sought to maintain pressure on Iran, telling a gathering of the National Newspaper Association that Tehran represents a "grave national security concern" for the United States, and citing its nuclear ambitions and its threat to "destroy our ally Israel."
Although U.S. officials did not reject Lavrov's proposal, they said it was time for the Security Council to address Iran's nuclear activities. "From our perspective, right now where the diplomatic action is, is at the Security Council," said State Department acting spokesman Tom Casey. "We think that's where the focus ought to be."
Bush's closest ally, Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair, meanwhile, warned that Iran will face "a serious situation," an apparent reference to sanctions, if it continued to fail to meet its obligations.
But U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan urged caution, saying that "the best solution is a negotiated one." He said he will cut short an upcoming visit to Africa if "I am needed" to help defuse the crisis. (WILL KOFI EVER REALLY BE NEEDED? YOU FLATTER YOURSELF KOFI)
France and Britain on Wednesday distributed elements of a proposed Security Council statement on Iran. The paper, whose contents were first reported by the New York Times, highlights Iran's efforts to skirt its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and appeals to its leaders to comply with demands by the IAEA, a diplomat said.
The European paper calls on the IAEA's ElBaradei to report on Iran's activities within 14 days. The paper asserts that "Security Council action is necessary to reinforce IAEA authority . . . and to put Security Council weight behind the IAEA's resolutions." It also calls on "Iran to halt construction of heavy water reactors" that can be diverted to a nuclear weapons program, and to "implement and ratify the additional protocols."
Although the European paper does not explicitly threaten Iran with punitive measures, it says that "continued enrichment-related activity would add to the importance and urgency of further action by the Council." U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns told a congressional committee on Wednesday that the United States would press for targeted sanctions against Iran if it failed to comply with the council's demand.
U.S. and European diplomats say that they are planning to seek the adoption of a Chapter 7 resolution, which can lead to the imposition of sanctions or even the use of military force, if Iran fails to cooperate with the IAEA. "The pattern of Iranian behavior suggests at least the desire to acquire weapons capability. We have no hard evidence, but deep suspicions remain," said a British official whose briefing was carried out on the grounds that he remain anonymous.
After Friday's meeting, China's U.N. ambassador, Wang Guangya, said the council's permanent members had "good talks," focusing on "ways of strengthening the hand of the IAEA" in its standoff with Iran. But Wang and Russia's U.N. ambassador, Andrei Denisov, declined to say whether they could support the European draft statement.
U.S. Added 243,000 Jobs in February
By Neil Irwin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 11, 2006; D01
Employers added jobs rapidly last month, the latest evidence that the U.S. economy began the year on an upswing.
The nation gained 243,000 jobs in February, the Labor Department reported yesterday, led by hiring in construction, professional service, health and education. In 2005, the economy added an average of 165,000 new jobs a month.
The new report provides further evidence that the economy is growing at a healthy pace, after a lull at the end of last year. Other data released this month indicate that personal income and consumer spending rose at a healthy pace to begin 2006. The report made investors more confident about the state of the economy, analysts said, helping drive the Dow Jones industrial average up almost 1 percent yesterday.
"This is a surprisingly strong start of the year," said John Silvia, chief economist of Wachovia Corp.
The generally positive numbers come with caveats, however. The unemployment rate edged up in February, to 4.8 percent from 4.7 percent, although economists attributed that to more people entering the labor force looking for jobs rather than fewer jobs being available. And strong job growth appears to have been driven partly by two temporary effects. (PLACE THE 4.8 ON A SCALE COMPARED TO THE PREVIOUS ADMINISTRATION, WE ARE CLOSE TO FULL EMPLOYMENT)
A warm winter contributed to strong growth in construction employment and hiring by building supply stores; economists said those gains could dissipate because construction firms won't have to add workers this spring as they usually do when the weather warms, since they already did that hiring in January and February.
Also, rebuilding efforts in the areas affected by Hurricane Katrina have been ramping up, driving particularly strong employment gains there. Louisiana added jobs at the fastest pace in the nation in January, according to data released this week.
"The headline number of 243,000 new jobs probably overstates the strength of this labor market," said Mickey D. Levy, chief economist of Bank of America. "But even when you pick it apart, it's a very healthy report."
In addition to hiring more workers, businesses appear to be paying them more per hour. The average hourly wage for production and non-management workers was $16.47 in February, up 0.3 percent from January.
That was the third straight month of reasonably strong wage growth. However, it is not yet known how much prices rose in February, so it cannot be determined whether wages rose last month after adjusting for inflation. Higher wages could drive inflationary pressure that would make the Federal Reserve more inclined to keep raising interest rates, some economists said.
Wages were higher, but the number of hours worked was down 0.1 percent. That means that take-home pay for the average U.S. production worker probably didn't rise last month when adjusted for inflation, said Charles W. McMillion, chief economist of MBG Information Services.
"The total number of hours worked in the private sector by production labor declined even though there were more of those jobs," McMillion said. "That tells me that we're seeing a shift not just away from manufacturing jobs but toward jobs with shorter hours."
At the beginning of 2006, many economists predicted that the economy would slow this year as the housing market softened. Home sales are down and inventories of homes for sale are up in recent months. But so far there is little evidence that the broader U.S. economy is decelerating as a result.
"To date, the slowdown in housing hasn't spilled over and negatively affected other sectors," said Levy, though he and other economists stick to their prediction that weakness in housing will mean slower economic growth later this year.
Pockets of weakness remained in the job market last month, largely concentrated among positions held by people with low or moderate education. Companies that manufacture motor vehicles and parts shed 10,600 jobs, and temporary help firms cut 7,300 jobs. Aside from construction and retail, both of which benefited from good weather, many of the sharpest job gains were in sectors that tend to employ people with more education. Companies in the "financial activities" category added 22,000 jobs, professional and business services firms added 9,000, and education and health care firms added 47,000.
"You're still stuck with this disparity between college-educated workers and high school-educated workers," said Silvia, "which shows why this is perceived as an uneven recovery depending on where on the fence you sit."
By Neil Irwin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 11, 2006; D01
Employers added jobs rapidly last month, the latest evidence that the U.S. economy began the year on an upswing.
The nation gained 243,000 jobs in February, the Labor Department reported yesterday, led by hiring in construction, professional service, health and education. In 2005, the economy added an average of 165,000 new jobs a month.
The new report provides further evidence that the economy is growing at a healthy pace, after a lull at the end of last year. Other data released this month indicate that personal income and consumer spending rose at a healthy pace to begin 2006. The report made investors more confident about the state of the economy, analysts said, helping drive the Dow Jones industrial average up almost 1 percent yesterday.
"This is a surprisingly strong start of the year," said John Silvia, chief economist of Wachovia Corp.
The generally positive numbers come with caveats, however. The unemployment rate edged up in February, to 4.8 percent from 4.7 percent, although economists attributed that to more people entering the labor force looking for jobs rather than fewer jobs being available. And strong job growth appears to have been driven partly by two temporary effects. (PLACE THE 4.8 ON A SCALE COMPARED TO THE PREVIOUS ADMINISTRATION, WE ARE CLOSE TO FULL EMPLOYMENT)
A warm winter contributed to strong growth in construction employment and hiring by building supply stores; economists said those gains could dissipate because construction firms won't have to add workers this spring as they usually do when the weather warms, since they already did that hiring in January and February.
Also, rebuilding efforts in the areas affected by Hurricane Katrina have been ramping up, driving particularly strong employment gains there. Louisiana added jobs at the fastest pace in the nation in January, according to data released this week.
"The headline number of 243,000 new jobs probably overstates the strength of this labor market," said Mickey D. Levy, chief economist of Bank of America. "But even when you pick it apart, it's a very healthy report."
In addition to hiring more workers, businesses appear to be paying them more per hour. The average hourly wage for production and non-management workers was $16.47 in February, up 0.3 percent from January.
That was the third straight month of reasonably strong wage growth. However, it is not yet known how much prices rose in February, so it cannot be determined whether wages rose last month after adjusting for inflation. Higher wages could drive inflationary pressure that would make the Federal Reserve more inclined to keep raising interest rates, some economists said.
Wages were higher, but the number of hours worked was down 0.1 percent. That means that take-home pay for the average U.S. production worker probably didn't rise last month when adjusted for inflation, said Charles W. McMillion, chief economist of MBG Information Services.
"The total number of hours worked in the private sector by production labor declined even though there were more of those jobs," McMillion said. "That tells me that we're seeing a shift not just away from manufacturing jobs but toward jobs with shorter hours."
At the beginning of 2006, many economists predicted that the economy would slow this year as the housing market softened. Home sales are down and inventories of homes for sale are up in recent months. But so far there is little evidence that the broader U.S. economy is decelerating as a result.
"To date, the slowdown in housing hasn't spilled over and negatively affected other sectors," said Levy, though he and other economists stick to their prediction that weakness in housing will mean slower economic growth later this year.
Pockets of weakness remained in the job market last month, largely concentrated among positions held by people with low or moderate education. Companies that manufacture motor vehicles and parts shed 10,600 jobs, and temporary help firms cut 7,300 jobs. Aside from construction and retail, both of which benefited from good weather, many of the sharpest job gains were in sectors that tend to employ people with more education. Companies in the "financial activities" category added 22,000 jobs, professional and business services firms added 9,000, and education and health care firms added 47,000.
"You're still stuck with this disparity between college-educated workers and high school-educated workers," said Silvia, "which shows why this is perceived as an uneven recovery depending on where on the fence you sit."
Lebanon nabs al-Qaida-affiliated cell
Margot Dudkevitch, THE JERUSALEM POST Mar. 11, 2006
Four Palestinians and four Lebanese nationals with suspected links to Al Qaida, who are believed to have been involved in rocket attacks on northern Israel in December, were recently arrested by Lebanese security officials.
Lebanese media reports over the weekend revealed that the suspects were arrested by Lebanese Army Intelligence officials in various areas extending from Beirut to the Beka'a Valley and the south.
The Al Safir and The Daily Star newspapers, stated that a large stockpile of weapons, including missiles, rockets and explosives, that had been stashed in caves and on lands the suspects owned, were also seized.
According to sources quoted in the newspapers, the Lebanese intelligence had been monitoring the network for some time after receiving tip off's regarding their activities. The investigation is still ongoing.
After the Al Qaida claimed responsibility for the December katyusha attacks on Kiryat Shomona, Shlomi and the western Galilee, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz declared the Israeli security establishment would closely monitor the situation in southern Lebanon.
"In the past two years we have noticed that Al Qaida is focusing more and more on the Middle East and Israel," Mofaz told reporters while touring the northern border. "We are prepared to deal with that reality," he added. According to security officials, Palestinian terror factions operating in southern Lebanon assist Al Qaida operatives.
At the time, Mofaz estimated that security assessments show that the situation is expected to become more complex in 2006.
The Hizbullah denied involvement in the December rocket attacks, and Israeli intelligence officials estimated that Ahmed Jabril's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine was responsible.
Two days after the katyusha attacks, Al Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility, issuing a statement on an Islamic website, "The lion sons of Al Qaida launched a new attack on the Jewish state by launching ten missiles... from the Moslem lands in Lebanon on selected targets in the north of the Jewish state."
Media reports in Lebanon claim that in recent months Lebanese officials have been alarmed over the influx of weapons from Syria that reach militant Palestinian groups based in the Beka'a Valley and the Na'ameh area south of Beirut.
Last Wednesday, the Lebanese Army deployed troops in two villages located near the Nahr al Kabir river, that separates Syria from Lebanon in an attempt to prevent the entry of "illegal foreigners" and weapons into Lebanese territory.
The measures were in addition to a number of military checkpoints set up by the Lebanese Army days earlier, in an attempt to prevent the flow of weapons from reaching the Hizbullah, or Palestinian groups based in southern Lebanon. According to the reports, the check points were set up in the mountain passageways in the Upper Hemel, where the Syria and Lebanese borders meet.
On Thursday, Lebanese parliament member Walid Jumblatt expressed hopes that "the last shipment of weapons which recently entered the country, would be the last one smuggled into Lebanon from Syria." Speaking at the UN headquarters, Jumblatt was referring to truckloads of arms and missiles that arrived from Syria and were destined for the Hizbullah in February this year.
At the time the weapons haul was made public, Jumblatt indicated that while the Lebanese army had intercepted the arms shipment, it had allowed its delivery to Hizbullah and Palestinian groups. According to the Al Safir report, Jumblat informed Terje Ried-Larsen at Thursday's meeting that he had received assurances from the Lebanese Army commander Michel Suleiman that it will not happen again.
Margot Dudkevitch, THE JERUSALEM POST Mar. 11, 2006
Four Palestinians and four Lebanese nationals with suspected links to Al Qaida, who are believed to have been involved in rocket attacks on northern Israel in December, were recently arrested by Lebanese security officials.
Lebanese media reports over the weekend revealed that the suspects were arrested by Lebanese Army Intelligence officials in various areas extending from Beirut to the Beka'a Valley and the south.
The Al Safir and The Daily Star newspapers, stated that a large stockpile of weapons, including missiles, rockets and explosives, that had been stashed in caves and on lands the suspects owned, were also seized.
According to sources quoted in the newspapers, the Lebanese intelligence had been monitoring the network for some time after receiving tip off's regarding their activities. The investigation is still ongoing.
After the Al Qaida claimed responsibility for the December katyusha attacks on Kiryat Shomona, Shlomi and the western Galilee, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz declared the Israeli security establishment would closely monitor the situation in southern Lebanon.
"In the past two years we have noticed that Al Qaida is focusing more and more on the Middle East and Israel," Mofaz told reporters while touring the northern border. "We are prepared to deal with that reality," he added. According to security officials, Palestinian terror factions operating in southern Lebanon assist Al Qaida operatives.
At the time, Mofaz estimated that security assessments show that the situation is expected to become more complex in 2006.
The Hizbullah denied involvement in the December rocket attacks, and Israeli intelligence officials estimated that Ahmed Jabril's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine was responsible.
Two days after the katyusha attacks, Al Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility, issuing a statement on an Islamic website, "The lion sons of Al Qaida launched a new attack on the Jewish state by launching ten missiles... from the Moslem lands in Lebanon on selected targets in the north of the Jewish state."
Media reports in Lebanon claim that in recent months Lebanese officials have been alarmed over the influx of weapons from Syria that reach militant Palestinian groups based in the Beka'a Valley and the Na'ameh area south of Beirut.
Last Wednesday, the Lebanese Army deployed troops in two villages located near the Nahr al Kabir river, that separates Syria from Lebanon in an attempt to prevent the entry of "illegal foreigners" and weapons into Lebanese territory.
The measures were in addition to a number of military checkpoints set up by the Lebanese Army days earlier, in an attempt to prevent the flow of weapons from reaching the Hizbullah, or Palestinian groups based in southern Lebanon. According to the reports, the check points were set up in the mountain passageways in the Upper Hemel, where the Syria and Lebanese borders meet.
On Thursday, Lebanese parliament member Walid Jumblatt expressed hopes that "the last shipment of weapons which recently entered the country, would be the last one smuggled into Lebanon from Syria." Speaking at the UN headquarters, Jumblatt was referring to truckloads of arms and missiles that arrived from Syria and were destined for the Hizbullah in February this year.
At the time the weapons haul was made public, Jumblatt indicated that while the Lebanese army had intercepted the arms shipment, it had allowed its delivery to Hizbullah and Palestinian groups. According to the Al Safir report, Jumblat informed Terje Ried-Larsen at Thursday's meeting that he had received assurances from the Lebanese Army commander Michel Suleiman that it will not happen again.
Watch out, this 'lame duck' president has nothing to lose
By Niall Ferguson
(Filed: 12/03/2006)
Teaching the history of revolutions has been easy at Harvard this semester. As if to illustrate exactly how these strange historical upheavals work, the university has obligingly staged a revolution of its own. Last month, after more than a year of academic acrimony, the President of the University, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, was forced to announce his resignation. The alternative would have been to face a vote of no confidence by my professorial colleagues, which would have gone overwhelmingly against him.
The outside world is under the impression that one of two things has happened at Harvard. Either a reactionary despot has been deposed by faculty freedom-fighters, or a bold reformer has been thwarted by vested interests. Most revolutions get written up in these contrary ways. Readers of Rousseau romanticise the revolutionaries; readers of Burke suspect their motives.
In reality, revolutions usually begin with rather obscure disputes - how to pay for a standing army in the American colonies, say, or how to sort out the insolvency of the French monarchy. They burst out of the existing political channels only when the number of grievances against the monarch reaches a critical mass and the monarch himself alienates one too many of his own supporters. Thus it was at Harvard. The question I found myself pondering last week was whether or not the same thing is now happening in Washington DC. Is real politics about to imitate academic politics? Could the next president to fall victim to an unruly representative body be George W Bush?
Harvard professors are, on the whole, politically Left of centre. Frustrated since 2000 by their exclusion from the corridors of political power, a number of them came to regard Larry Summers as a kind of Bush substitute - a conservative leader on whom they could actually land some punches. There is, in fact, very little about Summers that could be described as conservative. Never-theless, he gave his foes an opening with a less than tactful rumination about the possible reasons why so few top scientists are women.
As president, Summers had many aims, none of them conservative. He wanted to expand the campus across the River Charles, to devote more of the university's unrivalled resources to the sciences, and to increase the proportion of students from lower-income families. The revolution against him was about none of these things. It was nearly all about his style of leadership. What I saw (and liked) was a man with an allergy to the complacency that bedevils all great universities and an addiction to the dialectical method that propels scientific inquiry forward.
But to colleagues more involved than I in the day-to-day running of the university, precisely that love of adversarial debate was a source of irritation. The fatal development - the real crux of the revolution - was not the vociferous campaign by the firebrands at faculty meetings but the quiet machinations of the department chairs in their informal caucus. Whoever succeeds Larry Summers will find herself (and everyone assumes it will be a woman) having to govern with that caucus, just as William III had to govern with the Whigs in parliament when he accepted the crown they had taken from James II.
Cut to Washington. Another president with a bold (and not wholly conservative) agenda: to wage and win a "long war" against terrorism, to spread freedom around the world, to keep taxes low and to reform social security. Another president with a style problem: not the contrariness of Larry Summers but a reserve verging on introversion - a preference for his own trusted inner circle that has cut him off from his own party in Congress.
Ten days ago I paid a visit to the imposing Russell Building on Capitol Hill where senators have their offices. What I saw there was a timely reminder of just how much power the US constitution vests in the legislature. The senators I spoke to made it abundantly clear that President Bush's "political capital" - about which he boasted after securing re-election 16 months ago - is all used up. The phrase I kept hearing was "lame duck".
It's not hard to see why. With his approval ratings as low as 34 per cent, Bush is now as unpopular a president as his father was in the year before his defeat by Bill Clinton. According to the polls, four out of five Americans expect Iraq - the transformation of which has become the Bush administration's flagship policy - to descend into civil war. As midterm elections near, the political hunting season has begun. Rep-ublicans and Democrats alike are taking pot shots at the president as if merely having a lame duck is not enough. They want this duck dead.
Last week they got him with both barrels. The House Appropriations Committee stunned the Beltway by voting 62-2 to block the acquisition by Dubai Ports World of the US operations of Peninsular & Oriental, a deal backed by the president. Before Bush could even reach for the presidential veto - a weapon he has never had to use thanks to his own party's dominance in Congress - DP World folded, announcing that it would "transfer fully" P&O Ports to "a US entity". This is the biggest humiliation Bush has suffered since entering the White House. It is unlikely to be the last.
As Larry Summers discovered with the Harvard Faculty, grievances in an assembly have a way of multiplying. There was already unease among Republican lawmakers on a number of issues, notably the administration's insistence that torture, detention without charge and phone-tapping without warrants are all legitimate weapons in the war on terror. The idea of Arabs running American ports was the last straw.
But there is a difference between Harvard and Washington. This time last year I listened aghast as Larry Summers abased himself before the faculty with the most abject apology (for his remarks about women scientists) I think I have ever heard. He had forgotten Admiral Jacky Fisher's words of wisdom: "Never apologise, never explain." Saying sorry was like dripping blood into a pool full of sharks; it only made them hungrier.
This is not a mistake I expect President Bush to make. On the contrary, he is more likely to be cussed than contrite in the face of this Congressional revolt. After all, it makes no sense to cast aspersions on the reliability of a Middle Eastern ally such as the United Arab Emirates - especially at a time when America needs all the foreign investment it can get to finance its yawning budget and trade deficits.
Congressmen should beware of underestimating this president as others have done in the past. They should remember that a second-term president is not necessarily a lame duck. He is also a man with nothing to lose.
So my guess is that Bush is going to bite back. And the obvious way for him to do this is over Iran. Last Tuesday Vice-President Dick Cheney gave a speech in which he bluntly declared: "We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon." Remind you of anything? It was Cheney who set the pace four years ago, as the administration prepared to confront Iraq, insisting that Saddam already possessed weapons of mass destruction. And the same sequence of events now looks set to replay itself.
The United States is going to ask the UN Security Council to impose sanctions if Iran does not halt its programme of uranium enrichment. The other permanent members won't agree. And then… Well, when those missiles slam into the Iranian nuclear facilities, don't say I didn't warn you.
Harvard's revolution was a reminder that in academic politics the stakes are relatively low. Larry Summers may even find he is happier back in the classroom, teaching the subject he loves. But where the stakes are high - and they don't get any higher than American national security - the presidents are harder to roll over. The next time you hear the word "duck" in Washington, my advice would be to do just that.
• Niall Ferguson is Laurence A Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University www.niallferguson.org
By Niall Ferguson
(Filed: 12/03/2006)
Teaching the history of revolutions has been easy at Harvard this semester. As if to illustrate exactly how these strange historical upheavals work, the university has obligingly staged a revolution of its own. Last month, after more than a year of academic acrimony, the President of the University, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, was forced to announce his resignation. The alternative would have been to face a vote of no confidence by my professorial colleagues, which would have gone overwhelmingly against him.
The outside world is under the impression that one of two things has happened at Harvard. Either a reactionary despot has been deposed by faculty freedom-fighters, or a bold reformer has been thwarted by vested interests. Most revolutions get written up in these contrary ways. Readers of Rousseau romanticise the revolutionaries; readers of Burke suspect their motives.
In reality, revolutions usually begin with rather obscure disputes - how to pay for a standing army in the American colonies, say, or how to sort out the insolvency of the French monarchy. They burst out of the existing political channels only when the number of grievances against the monarch reaches a critical mass and the monarch himself alienates one too many of his own supporters. Thus it was at Harvard. The question I found myself pondering last week was whether or not the same thing is now happening in Washington DC. Is real politics about to imitate academic politics? Could the next president to fall victim to an unruly representative body be George W Bush?
Harvard professors are, on the whole, politically Left of centre. Frustrated since 2000 by their exclusion from the corridors of political power, a number of them came to regard Larry Summers as a kind of Bush substitute - a conservative leader on whom they could actually land some punches. There is, in fact, very little about Summers that could be described as conservative. Never-theless, he gave his foes an opening with a less than tactful rumination about the possible reasons why so few top scientists are women.
As president, Summers had many aims, none of them conservative. He wanted to expand the campus across the River Charles, to devote more of the university's unrivalled resources to the sciences, and to increase the proportion of students from lower-income families. The revolution against him was about none of these things. It was nearly all about his style of leadership. What I saw (and liked) was a man with an allergy to the complacency that bedevils all great universities and an addiction to the dialectical method that propels scientific inquiry forward.
But to colleagues more involved than I in the day-to-day running of the university, precisely that love of adversarial debate was a source of irritation. The fatal development - the real crux of the revolution - was not the vociferous campaign by the firebrands at faculty meetings but the quiet machinations of the department chairs in their informal caucus. Whoever succeeds Larry Summers will find herself (and everyone assumes it will be a woman) having to govern with that caucus, just as William III had to govern with the Whigs in parliament when he accepted the crown they had taken from James II.
Cut to Washington. Another president with a bold (and not wholly conservative) agenda: to wage and win a "long war" against terrorism, to spread freedom around the world, to keep taxes low and to reform social security. Another president with a style problem: not the contrariness of Larry Summers but a reserve verging on introversion - a preference for his own trusted inner circle that has cut him off from his own party in Congress.
Ten days ago I paid a visit to the imposing Russell Building on Capitol Hill where senators have their offices. What I saw there was a timely reminder of just how much power the US constitution vests in the legislature. The senators I spoke to made it abundantly clear that President Bush's "political capital" - about which he boasted after securing re-election 16 months ago - is all used up. The phrase I kept hearing was "lame duck".
It's not hard to see why. With his approval ratings as low as 34 per cent, Bush is now as unpopular a president as his father was in the year before his defeat by Bill Clinton. According to the polls, four out of five Americans expect Iraq - the transformation of which has become the Bush administration's flagship policy - to descend into civil war. As midterm elections near, the political hunting season has begun. Rep-ublicans and Democrats alike are taking pot shots at the president as if merely having a lame duck is not enough. They want this duck dead.
Last week they got him with both barrels. The House Appropriations Committee stunned the Beltway by voting 62-2 to block the acquisition by Dubai Ports World of the US operations of Peninsular & Oriental, a deal backed by the president. Before Bush could even reach for the presidential veto - a weapon he has never had to use thanks to his own party's dominance in Congress - DP World folded, announcing that it would "transfer fully" P&O Ports to "a US entity". This is the biggest humiliation Bush has suffered since entering the White House. It is unlikely to be the last.
As Larry Summers discovered with the Harvard Faculty, grievances in an assembly have a way of multiplying. There was already unease among Republican lawmakers on a number of issues, notably the administration's insistence that torture, detention without charge and phone-tapping without warrants are all legitimate weapons in the war on terror. The idea of Arabs running American ports was the last straw.
But there is a difference between Harvard and Washington. This time last year I listened aghast as Larry Summers abased himself before the faculty with the most abject apology (for his remarks about women scientists) I think I have ever heard. He had forgotten Admiral Jacky Fisher's words of wisdom: "Never apologise, never explain." Saying sorry was like dripping blood into a pool full of sharks; it only made them hungrier.
This is not a mistake I expect President Bush to make. On the contrary, he is more likely to be cussed than contrite in the face of this Congressional revolt. After all, it makes no sense to cast aspersions on the reliability of a Middle Eastern ally such as the United Arab Emirates - especially at a time when America needs all the foreign investment it can get to finance its yawning budget and trade deficits.
Congressmen should beware of underestimating this president as others have done in the past. They should remember that a second-term president is not necessarily a lame duck. He is also a man with nothing to lose.
So my guess is that Bush is going to bite back. And the obvious way for him to do this is over Iran. Last Tuesday Vice-President Dick Cheney gave a speech in which he bluntly declared: "We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon." Remind you of anything? It was Cheney who set the pace four years ago, as the administration prepared to confront Iraq, insisting that Saddam already possessed weapons of mass destruction. And the same sequence of events now looks set to replay itself.
The United States is going to ask the UN Security Council to impose sanctions if Iran does not halt its programme of uranium enrichment. The other permanent members won't agree. And then… Well, when those missiles slam into the Iranian nuclear facilities, don't say I didn't warn you.
Harvard's revolution was a reminder that in academic politics the stakes are relatively low. Larry Summers may even find he is happier back in the classroom, teaching the subject he loves. But where the stakes are high - and they don't get any higher than American national security - the presidents are harder to roll over. The next time you hear the word "duck" in Washington, my advice would be to do just that.
• Niall Ferguson is Laurence A Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University www.niallferguson.org
A ruthless bully but this complex man was no racist
By Lord Owen
(Filed: 12/03/2006)
Slobodan Milosevic was a deeply complex man. I first met him in Belgrade in September 1992, when I was the European Union's negotiator on the former Yugoslavia and he was president of Serbia.
He was above all a pragmatist, ruthless in the pursuit of power, but ready to spend hours negotiating during which he could be flexible, understanding and even, in a strange way, helpful.
You cannot like someone who is bully, as he was, but as a negotiator you have to sit down with him just the same - and I did so endless times over the next three years.
I did not find any charm but at least he had one quality: at various times I made representations to him - seeking the release of hostages, or requesting safe passage for a humanitarian convoy - and I think he did influence that.
The one issue on which he was obdurate was Kosovo. He believed that it was in the Serb interest to get a settlement first in Croatia and then later in Bosnia Herzegovina. But Kosovo inside Serbia was the issue on which he had risen to power. He had played the nationalist card and almost felt ashamed of it.
He knew that he had exploited Serb grievances against the Kosovo Albanians, and he was implacable that he would not restore Kosovo's autonomy. This was Serb business, in which neither the United Nations or the EU in his mind had any part.
Was he a racist? Probably not. He only once made a racist remark in my presence and then apologised for it - whereas Gen Ratko Mladic was an undoubted racist. I doubt whether Milosevic was really even a nationalist. He just used the nationalist element within Serbia.
In the end he was the great loser in the break-up of Yugoslavia. Serbs were swept out of Krajina - now in Croatia. Serbs lost ground to the Croats in Bosnia and if Kosovo becomes independent, as I think inevitable, the jewel in Serb history will in their eyes be taken from them. The person whom Serb historians will blame will be Slobodan Milosevic.
His trial was potentially very important. It was the first time that a head of state had ever been brought before an international court. Previously leaders thought they were immune from prosecution. Now, because of Milosevic's death, we will never know the verdict.
Even though most people in the world will have already made their own judgment and decided that he was guilty, many Serbs in particular have never been ready to accept responsibility for the acts perpetrated during the five wars that engulfed the former Yugoslavia from 1991-99. I fear many will continue to avoid facing up to the truth.
Many Serbs are beginning to recognise that the propaganda that they were fed was lies and that their previous excuses were beginning to look paper-thin. A moment of truth was the recent discovery of filmed footage of Serbian soldiers, part of an elite force, killing Muslims as part of the Srebrenica massacre - film shown on Serb television.
The court's verdict would have been the final piece of evidence for many that crimes were conducted by Serbs, in the name of Serbia, under President Milosevic.
Now we must try to ensure that no international court ever conducts its proceedings again in the same way. It was not as if there was any mystery about Milosevic's medical condition, and it was sheer folly of the prosecutor, Carla de Ponti, to draw up such a massive charge sheet against him. He was obviously guilty of ethnic cleansing and probably genoicde in Kosovo and ethnic cleansing in what became Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia and he could have been tried on these counts alone.
I do not underestimate the anger of the relatives of those who lost their lives at being deprived of a verdict. Many Muslims in Bosnia have been awaiting this verdict in the belief that seeing justice done would let them move on.
The problem with the International Criminal Tribunal on Yugoslavia (ICTY) is that those who believe in pure justice have been in the driving seat and those who hoped it would contribute to reconciliation have had little influence.
It was essential that justice was seen to be done and that the procedures were fair. I gave evidence to the ICTY over two days and saw how Milosevic never really engaged in his own defence. He used the court as a "bully pulpit" to champion the Serb case and to confront what he felt was prejudiced world opinion. Nevertheless I was interrogated by an independent barrister appointed as an amicus curiae and in a short space of time that barrister put on Milosevic's behalf as good a case as could be made for the defendant and exposed some of the weaknesses in the prosecution's case.
But if reconciliation is to occur then justice must be tempered by the need to be selective and to bring matters to a conclusion on a time scale that meets the needs of reconciliation and future prosperity and stability. There has to be a coming together between sometimes the conflicting objectives of pure justice and reconciliation.
The break-up of the former Yugoslavia was deeply complex. It was both a war across borders and within borders, a war of aggression and a civil war. The bitterness and the passions involved have to be settled and the ICTY has made a significant contribution to this.
But in letting Milosevic escape their verdict a big opportunity has been lost.
By Lord Owen
(Filed: 12/03/2006)
Slobodan Milosevic was a deeply complex man. I first met him in Belgrade in September 1992, when I was the European Union's negotiator on the former Yugoslavia and he was president of Serbia.
He was above all a pragmatist, ruthless in the pursuit of power, but ready to spend hours negotiating during which he could be flexible, understanding and even, in a strange way, helpful.
You cannot like someone who is bully, as he was, but as a negotiator you have to sit down with him just the same - and I did so endless times over the next three years.
I did not find any charm but at least he had one quality: at various times I made representations to him - seeking the release of hostages, or requesting safe passage for a humanitarian convoy - and I think he did influence that.
The one issue on which he was obdurate was Kosovo. He believed that it was in the Serb interest to get a settlement first in Croatia and then later in Bosnia Herzegovina. But Kosovo inside Serbia was the issue on which he had risen to power. He had played the nationalist card and almost felt ashamed of it.
He knew that he had exploited Serb grievances against the Kosovo Albanians, and he was implacable that he would not restore Kosovo's autonomy. This was Serb business, in which neither the United Nations or the EU in his mind had any part.
Was he a racist? Probably not. He only once made a racist remark in my presence and then apologised for it - whereas Gen Ratko Mladic was an undoubted racist. I doubt whether Milosevic was really even a nationalist. He just used the nationalist element within Serbia.
In the end he was the great loser in the break-up of Yugoslavia. Serbs were swept out of Krajina - now in Croatia. Serbs lost ground to the Croats in Bosnia and if Kosovo becomes independent, as I think inevitable, the jewel in Serb history will in their eyes be taken from them. The person whom Serb historians will blame will be Slobodan Milosevic.
His trial was potentially very important. It was the first time that a head of state had ever been brought before an international court. Previously leaders thought they were immune from prosecution. Now, because of Milosevic's death, we will never know the verdict.
Even though most people in the world will have already made their own judgment and decided that he was guilty, many Serbs in particular have never been ready to accept responsibility for the acts perpetrated during the five wars that engulfed the former Yugoslavia from 1991-99. I fear many will continue to avoid facing up to the truth.
Many Serbs are beginning to recognise that the propaganda that they were fed was lies and that their previous excuses were beginning to look paper-thin. A moment of truth was the recent discovery of filmed footage of Serbian soldiers, part of an elite force, killing Muslims as part of the Srebrenica massacre - film shown on Serb television.
The court's verdict would have been the final piece of evidence for many that crimes were conducted by Serbs, in the name of Serbia, under President Milosevic.
Now we must try to ensure that no international court ever conducts its proceedings again in the same way. It was not as if there was any mystery about Milosevic's medical condition, and it was sheer folly of the prosecutor, Carla de Ponti, to draw up such a massive charge sheet against him. He was obviously guilty of ethnic cleansing and probably genoicde in Kosovo and ethnic cleansing in what became Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia and he could have been tried on these counts alone.
I do not underestimate the anger of the relatives of those who lost their lives at being deprived of a verdict. Many Muslims in Bosnia have been awaiting this verdict in the belief that seeing justice done would let them move on.
The problem with the International Criminal Tribunal on Yugoslavia (ICTY) is that those who believe in pure justice have been in the driving seat and those who hoped it would contribute to reconciliation have had little influence.
It was essential that justice was seen to be done and that the procedures were fair. I gave evidence to the ICTY over two days and saw how Milosevic never really engaged in his own defence. He used the court as a "bully pulpit" to champion the Serb case and to confront what he felt was prejudiced world opinion. Nevertheless I was interrogated by an independent barrister appointed as an amicus curiae and in a short space of time that barrister put on Milosevic's behalf as good a case as could be made for the defendant and exposed some of the weaknesses in the prosecution's case.
But if reconciliation is to occur then justice must be tempered by the need to be selective and to bring matters to a conclusion on a time scale that meets the needs of reconciliation and future prosperity and stability. There has to be a coming together between sometimes the conflicting objectives of pure justice and reconciliation.
The break-up of the former Yugoslavia was deeply complex. It was both a war across borders and within borders, a war of aggression and a civil war. The bitterness and the passions involved have to be settled and the ICTY has made a significant contribution to this.
But in letting Milosevic escape their verdict a big opportunity has been lost.
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