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U.S. is studying military strike options on Iran
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 21, 2006 10:46 am    Post subject: Full Transcript of Rumsfeld interview Reply with quote

Full Transcript of Rumsfeld interview

Rumsfeld Reflects on 'Sept. 12' World

August 20, 2006
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Salena Zito, Colin McNickle and Frank Craig

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_466856.html

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was interviewed Aug. 10 in his Pentagon office by Pittsburgh Tribune-Review editors Frank Craig and Colin McNickle, reporter Salena Zito and photographer Joe Appel. The 70-minute interview occurred the morning that Great Britain announced it had thwarted terrorists’ plans to blow up airliners.

Here is an edited transcript of the interview.

Q: I take it the developments in London this morning bring home the -- what you call "The Long War."

RUMSFELD: They sure do. We've been needless to say tracking it for some days now, and it is a reminder -- probably even a useful reminder for everybody that this is going to be a long struggle and that there are a large number of people who are determined to try to defeat freedom and free peoples, alter their behaviors. It was Harry Truman who once said that -- about the Cold War, that the conflict between people who believe in freedom, the people who want to take us back to slavery and darkness. And the organization, the financing, the purposefulness of these people is real, and they're not the kind of people that you negotiate with and end up solving any differences, because their desires are to change how other people live, and they don't accept half-way measures.


Q: You came into the Pentagon vowing to transform things, and September 11th -- I hope I can assume -- made that mission ever more urgent. How has that transformation gone? And how is it going?

RUMSFELD: A lot of people said to me, "There goes transformation," when 9/11 came, but in fact just the opposite has been true. It has provided an impetus to transforming this institution because it's a daily reminder for people continuously the necessity. You know, you think about it every -- for those of us who were around here on September 11th, every day is September 12th. We focus on it. One of the things we talk about in our department is imagine an event of that nature or double or triple or quadruple in six months from now in your mind and ask yourself, "Are you doing today everything you need to be doing to either prevent that from happening or be arranged in a way that it is mitigated one way or another?"

And we have had a background of being organized, trained and equipped for big armies, navies and air forces, and our folks here can do that pretty darn well, which is one of the obvious reasons why that's not likely to happen in the immediate term. The people -- even countries that have large armies, navies and air forces or reasonably large armies, navies and air forces are fashioning asymmetric approaches to deal with because they can't compete directly nose to nose with our Army, Navy, or Air Force, but they can using irregular warfare, asymmetric warfare, whether it's terrorism or cyber attacks or any number of other things.

Q: So you can have the best transformation plan ever devised, but you can't implement that without the funding and the appropriations and the support of Congress to do that. Has -- what kind of challenge has that been?

RUMSFELD: It's tough. It is tough. Big institutions are hard to change. Big institutions have constituencies. In our case, we have the institution itself, the Department of Defense, and the bureaucracies, civilian, the military bureaucracy. We've got the contracting world and all the corporations that interact and have a vested interest in replicating what it is they do. And the Congress, and the Congress gets comfortable with what is, just as all of us get comfortable with what is and tend to want to continue down that path.

And the reality is that in the 21st century, we can't afford to stay in the industrial age. We've got to be in the information age. We -- there's a pattern for people to tend to think of things the way they were, and so we count things; we look at numbers. I'll give you an example. Carrier battle groups or strike groups; 10 years ago, we had, for the sake of argument, 12 carrier battle groups, and we were able to have out at any given time, deployed, ready to do what they do -- three and surge two more. And today, we have 11 carrier battle groups, and we can have five out and surge one.

So we have -- even though the numbers are smaller, we have vastly better presence in the world because of a whole set of things that have been done by the Navy, very creative. They've got crew slots, where they fly the crews out, so all the time going back and forth isn't wasted. When they're bringing in -- instead of just having everything stop when they bring it in for end of their deployment, where they -- everyone would leave and they'd go to school or they'd take leave and they'd put it in dry dock and do all -- everything and just everything's down. What they do now is they have a lot more spare parts. Therefore, the downtime is much shorter, and therefore, we're able to double the capability almost.

Second, the lethality of a carrier battle group today is totally different from before. …(W)ith a single airplane, you can attack 20 or 30 targets. And so the lethality, the capability is so much different. But we tend to be tied back to past. It's because we're human beings, and it's very hard for people to break out of that.

But we're doing it. The transformation's going forward. This is something I did after our Quadrennial Defense Review …, and I tried to show that transformation is not some -- that it's dynamic; it's not static. You don't start here and end there. You -- it's a process. And so I cast everything as moving from, for example, a peacetime tempo to a wartime sense of urgency; from a threat-based planning to capability-based planning; from single service acquisition systems to joint portfolio management; from the U.S. military performing tasks to a focus on building partnership capabilities with other countries so that they can do those tasks; from amassing forces to amassing effects. And this kind of characterizes it, and that's kind of the preface, I guess, to the Quadrennial Defense Review.

Before I forget -- you asked about the long war on terrorism. There's a copy of a speech I did, and somewhere in there is a comment on terrorism, and it dates back to 1984, when I was President Reagan's Middle East envoy and was involved after the 241 Marines were killed in Lebanon.

And you look at what's going on today, and -- so this long war didn't just start on September 11th. It's been upon us. And it's hard -- there again, changing people's approach is difficult. An awful lot of people still think of it as criminal activity, as a crime, like shooting someone or stealing a car or robbing a bank, where you need to punish. And we've had a great deal of difficulty getting the country and the world to understand that this is different. This is a long struggle with a minority in that religion -- a small minority, to be sure -- that are violent extremists and who are determined and persistent. And you -- it is not as though they're committing a crime. They're on a cause to change the world and to destabilize the regimes in the Middle East, to defeat Western culture and approaches, to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth, and that's a different kind of thing. But our approaches are still really quite different. And you see people thinking about, well, shouldn't these people have a trial? And, of course, in some cases, we didn't try prisoners of war -- and these aren't even prisoners of war. These are people that --

Q: Enemy combatants?

RUMSFELD: -- that are -- yeah, they don't wear uniforms, carry their weapons out. And we don't read Miranda rights on the battlefield. And so the idea of trying to have everything befit Article III of the Constitution, it just doesn't work.

Q: But as we fight the war on terrorism, we have other challenges: China, North Korea. … How serious is the Chinese threat? How serious is the North Korean threat?

RUMSFELD: First, North Korea. It is a -- I think, a real threat from a proliferation standpoint. They have starved their people. They do a lot of bad things. They are on the terrorist list. They counterfeit our money. They sell illegal drugs. But -- and they proliferate. They're the world's leading proliferator of ballistic missile technology, and to the extent they have other WMD technologies, there's no doubt in my mind but that for currency they'll proliferate them as well. And that is a serious danger -- I mean, you start moving that kind of technologies that a state can develop that a terrorist network has difficulty developing and having a state that's willing to transfer those types of things to a terrorist network. A network doesn't have a country to defend, they aren't deterred by the same types of things that other nation-states are deterred by. So they're a threat in that sense.

In terms of a threat to invade the South Koreans, I think today much less so. I mean, the South Koreans -- they have the same population, the same resources as the North and the South, but the South has the 10th-largest economy on the face of the Earth and a very capable military, 50 years after the devastation of the Korean War. The North is taking people in that are four feet, 10 inches tall in their military and weigh less than a hundred pounds because of starvation. It is a tragic circumstance for the North Korean people, that regime.

I keep this (photo) on my desk.

I mean, that's a free system and a free political and a free economic system. This is a command economy and a dictatorship, and that's Pyongyang, the capital. That's it.

Q: That's a satellite photo taken at night?.

RUMSFELD: Yeah.

Q: And China?

RUMSFELD: China -- unclear where China is going. They're increasingly being connected to the world economy -- I think a good thing. I think that it's not -- it doesn't give one certainty as to how they're going to evolve as a country, but that -- it does make them a stakeholder in the success of that economy over time -- it should, I should say, make them a stakeholder.

They do have a dictatorial political system, and they have a(n) evolving, more market-oriented economic system, which strikes me as going to be a complication for them over time. They're going to be faced with having -- if they want to continue to have the growth they're having -- double digits, very successful economic growth -- they're going to be in a position where they're going to have people with a lot of computers and an awful lot of people from other countries running around their country and a lot of people from their country running around other people's countries, and they're going to see how other countries function, how free countries work. And that exposure is going to, I think, change a -- some portion of their population. And the success that comes from a market system, as opposed to a command economy, is going to become something that will be attractive to them, because there are more opportunities.

The other end, their political system, will want to perpetuate itself. That's natural for political systems. And therefore, they are going to find themselves (on) somewhat diverging paths over time. To perpetuate a -- their type of political system means that they have to have controls and manage things, and that runs counter to the freedoms and the opportunities that come from more of a market economy.

They also have some problems. They have some demographic problems. They have some terrible environmental problems. They have enormous and growing -- (inaudible.) Their success in the world economy depends in part in behavior. Money's a coward. Money does not want to go someplace that it's frightened of.

And so they're a country that, for example, doesn't want to lose the Olympics, if you will. And that begins to shape behavior, to a certain extent. It isn't -- you can't be certain about it, because there will be a tug between those two paths they're on.

But I think the task for all of us, other countries, is to try to do what we're doing, and that is to urge them to be more transparent in their military investment. And they aren't, but they should be. To the extent they are not, it's going to be something that other countries are going to notice and wonder, well, what it is -- why is that they're so -- lack transparency with respect -- and why is there a disconnect between what they're doing militarily and what they seem to be wanting to do in other areas. And we've talked to them about that.

I think they're -- the other thing we want to do is to try to encourage -- that we demystify their system and our system to each other. So we're trying to -- we had an abrupt halt after the EP-3 situation, where they caused the loss of our aircraft and then they took prisoner our crew.

But since then, we've been trying to work out the military exchanges and port visits and training for younger officers, so that they can see what we're about and not have it be a mystery to them; and that we can have people go over there, and they can get to know those folks and hope that China continues on a path and moves in a direction that is -- enters the world community in a peaceful and constructive way, and begins to feel a greater stake in the success of that system, and therefore a set of -- a behavior pattern that would resist breaches in that system.

Who knows? We'll have to see where it goes. But one would hope that they would move on a constructive path like that.

Q: How about some of the other countries that seem to be of concern right now -- Iran, for example?

RUMSFELD: There's a country with a proud history and intelligent people, people that in many instances live around the world and have been very successful. And they have in recent periods had leadership that has been managed by a very small handful of clerics that are imposing their views on that population and in -- attempting to affect their neighbors or -- you know, Iraq and Afghanistan, and to -- clearly, a major sponsor of terrorism, the financial and weapon backer of Hezbollah, linking with dictatorships around the world in a way that is -- inevitably has to have the effect of isolating them and -- but having them less connected to the free world and the part of the world that's not dictatorships.

And you look at the visits that go around. You've got Chavez, and you've got Syria, and you've Iran and North Korea and a handful of countries that are comfortable with Iran's behavior -- very extreme statements about wiping Israel off the face of the Earth, that the world's better without the United States and -- (pauses) -- and a determination to have nuclear weapons. That's a problem for the rest of the world and the region as well as the rest of the world.

Again, what you have is a country that's sponsoring terrorist organizations, developing nuclear weapons and funding terrorist organizations. That's a problem. And these problems, like terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, are problems that no one country can solve. They're just not -- they don't lend themselves to single-country solutions. They require -- I mean, just like the global war on terror -- I don't know how many countries are currently cooperating, but it's got to be over 80 in the coalition. In the Security Proliferation Initiative, we must have -- I don't know -- 60 nations involved now. In our counter-narcotics sessions, we've got large numbers of nations involved.

It is unfortunate that we don't have international institutions that a have an ability to play a really constructive role, for example, in something like narcotic – counter-narcotics and proliferation. But we don't, and therefore we have to try to fashion coalitions that can help on those things.


Q: Can the U.S. tolerate Iran having a nuclear weapon?

RUMSFELD: That's a question that I think I'm going to leave to the president.

Q: What you said just a minute ago about, you know, this isn't something that one country can solve, it sounded awfully close to kind of stepping back from what we've been saying all along, which is everything's on the table.

RUMSFELD: Oh, I'm not stepping back from anything like that or anything the president said. No, I was just characterizing proliferation --as something that no one nation can deal with. I mean, it just takes a lot of countries to prevent the proliferation of these dangerous technologies to other people.

And it takes 21st century rules. I mean, we were working to stop a bunch of missiles going into a Middle Eastern country. And if you'll recall, the ship was stopped, they found the missiles, and they ended up having to let the ship go, and the missiles go because there was no law or rule that would permit them from being -- to be stopped. And we had a maritime interdiction system that was available at that time to do that.

But the world has not adjusted to the 21st century, and we're still functioning with institutions that were fashioned at the juncture of the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War, that have stood us in good stead a long time. But this new century is going to require institutions to be either significantly adjusted or new ones to be fashioned, new arrangements to be fashioned. And we think of cyber warfare, the damage that could be done to countries. The rules -- the guidelines and the procedures and the legitimacy of certain types of behavior in that area haven't been thought through well.

Q: With Iraq and Afghanistan, the troop levels involved there, we hear much about our state of readiness. What is our state of readiness?

RUMSFELD: Well, it's an interesting problem, and we've been -- I've been working with Capitol Hill on that subject. The -- if you use our readiness systems as they were designed, for peacetime, what happens is, you end up with apples and oranges on the same chart, and it goes like this. You have -- let's say that your requirement is for a hundred airplanes, and 10 years ago you had 75. So your readiness was at 75 percent of a hundred.

Ten years later, your requirement has gone from a hundred to 500. And you actually have 300, but your readiness has gone down from 75 percent to 66 percent. So you've deteriorated, theoretically, but in fact you've got three times as many airplanes and capability, and they're vastly more capable.

So the old system -- called a sort system, I think -- has that problem that it does not apples and apples or oranges and oranges; it used apples and oranges on the same chart.

And the short answer to your question is that when you're in a war, you are not at peace, and when you're peace, you may have a utilization rate of X number of miles per tanker or X flying hours on an aircraft or whatever, and when you're at war, you may have two and three times X. Then you have a cycle to replace and reset, and the cycle involves trying to get the Congress to pass a supplemental or a bill on time, which -- we don't think we've had one time in how many years -- trying to get the Congress to pass the budget the way you send it up, and any given year it's somewhere between $10 (billion), $15 (billion), $20 billion different. That is to say, they take some money out, they add a bunch of things we don't want and require that the money be taken from something else. We put in a number of savings, like forget the second engine for the Joint Strike Fighter, forget the John F. Kennedy -- it costs too much to repair it -- and they require you to keep it in.

So you end up with a cut, if you will. It's not technically a cut, but it's a reduction in the funds you have available to do the things you need, for those three reasons. And that -- you do that every year for X number of years and it hurts.

Now, where are we? We're actually a vastly more capable force today than we were in 2001. But if you look at -- technically at the readiness things, they would be -- go down, because it -- the depots have money, but they haven't replaced all weapons. It takes -- may take 30 months to replace a helicopter or something. You know, it gets in the queue.

But we have -- we have a force that is -- has more experience than it had five or 10 years ago. We have a force that has benefitted from the investment of hundreds of billions of dollars of new equipment that they have. And we also have a force that is functioning at a rate that it is using things up faster than would be normal, and therefore have a problem in getting it reconstituted or reset, and we -- we're going to have to get still more money from the Congress to meet the needs that the Army particularly but also the Marine Corps has in terms of resetting the force.

But it is a -- you ask anyone about it who knows the full story, and what they'll say is, we're going to -- that we have reset -- budget problem on the reset. We have a timing problem on some of the equipment because of the fact that it takes that long for the production. And notwithstanding all of that, we have a force that's vastly more capable than it was five years ago.

Q: Over the past two days, I've had a dickens of a time trying to find a quote from you in full context, where you were overly optimistic about Iraq.

RUMSFELD: (Laughs.) I don't know how things like that come (out) of the Senate.

Q: It was a senator who did it.

RUMSFELD: (Laughs.) That's a catchy phrase!

Q: But knowing what you know today, would you have done anything different with Iraq, regarding Iraq?

RUMSFELD: You bet. You bet. And what happens is the enemy's got a brain and they're constantly changing what they're doing, and so we have to constantly be changing. It would be wonderful -- and they don't have any big bureaucracy that they have to manage. But they can turn frequently inside your turning circle.

But we are -- I have not been optimistic. War is a tough thing, and I have known that and I've said that repeatedly, and certainly there are things you would want to be different.

I'll give you one example: the training and equipping of the forces. We've done darn well on the Ministry of Defense forces, for example, in Iraq. The Ministry of Interior forces, the police forces, haven't been done as well. And that is not nothing because to the extent you've got sectarian violence and to the extent you've got insurgency and to the extent you've got terrorists, you need a presence in a town so people feel safe, and that is much more of a police function than a military function. It could be both, but -- and today the weakness in Iraq is essentially the police side.

And we didn't get involved in that until very late last year. It has been -- it was -- in Afghanistan, it was supposedly undertaken under the Bonn agreement by other countries, and it wasn't done as well. In our government, it's a matter that different committees, from the Armed Services Committee, and the State Department has the responsibility.

And it just -- we do not have trainers for police in the Pentagon. We've ended up taking over that responsibility very recently, and General Casey has described 2006 as the year of the police because it has to be. But we've finally gotten permission from Congress to do that, and we're working it, but it's two or three years behind. And particularly at a difficult time like today in Iraq, that is a problem, that the police aren't strong.

Q: What keeps you up at night?

RUMSFELD: I was asked that when I was up at the confirmation hearings in January of '01, and I said intelligence. And if you think about this department, we have just enormous capability to finish. If you use the phrase "find, fix and finish," we can finish something if we can find it and fix it in time and location. The problem is finding it.

And you can find big armies and big navies and big air forces, and we've gotten quite good at that in this department. It is a whale of a lot harder to deal with a network, with individuals, with people that don't wear uniforms, with people that mix among civilians and hide among innocent people. It is very difficult to do. And we've had some good luck in the case of Saddam Hussein and his sons and Zarqawi. We've had some less than good luck with respect to UBL (bin Laden) and various others.

And -- but getting the right intelligence is, I think, a problem that our world is going to face. And as weapons become more lethal, more dangerous and more available, the necessity of having precise intelligence is greater. And we -- this country of ours tended to migrate away from human intelligence towards technological things, with the result being that we could do an awful lot from overhead assets and various types of technologies.

But the kinds of enemies we face -- human intelligence becomes critically important, and it takes a long time to develop, and it isn't easy. It's dangerous, and yet, it's a must.

Q: What’s a better way to convey the mission? Or is there a better way, as the country is politically restless?

RUMSFELD: Well, I guess another thing I would say -- that I would change -- I would -- even to this day, I do not spend as much time thinking about how to communicate as I do doing the things I have to do here. I mean, we just evacuated 15,000 people out of Lebanon -- moved a major city. Just -- we just sent 500 firefighters out to the west coast. We have got so many things going on in this department. And I wasn't recruited and asked to take this job because I had spent my life in communications. I just haven't. And yet, the fact of the matter is the enemy is fairly skillful. I mean, they have media committees, they work the problem, they plan their attacks to get the maximum drama so that they'll get on the front page, they lie and cheat and dummy up photographs and do all kinds of things that are totally unacceptable in our society, and they're never held to account for it. They know how to manipulate the media in this country and in the capitals of the world. And they know that they can't win a battle out there in any -- in Iraq or Afghanistan. All they can do is win in the capitals of the Western countries. And the center of gravity of these wars, these conflicts, this struggle is clearly in Washington, D.C., and in the country.

And they're good at it, and we're not. We're all tangled up. We have rules -- we can't do this, we can't do that. It's horror's horrors if anyone even thinks about trying to develop a new way of communicating that's different. One of our commanders out there had all the authority in the world to do it, and he ended up believing that he would have fewer Americans killed if -- in his area if he could get the truth of what they were doing -- hospitals, schools, helping people -- into the media. And he couldn't get it in the papers, so he paid somebody to put it in the papers. And they hired a person who would write it in -- from the paper and put it in, and they got it in.

Well, my goodness, you'd think we'd done the most horrible thing in the world. Now, is that a problem? Yes, it is a problem, because we don't do that here.

And -- but we're not here. We're there! So the question is, what should he have done? So he now has suspended that while everyone studies it and decides, is that right? Is it wrong? How do we handle that type of thing?

We don't have a modern, 21st-century capability. We're still organized in here to deal with newspapers and reporters. And as you look at the -- what do you call it? -- circulation figures, a lot of papers' circulation, they're going down, and bloggers are going up, and talk radio's doing this, and there's so many different ways to do things today, and we're still doing it the old way, and we can't.

Furthermore, we don't work with the -- anyone in government has to be very careful about taking taxpayers' money and then fashioning messages that are terribly important in one place because multiple audiences hear them, and they hear them here. And then someone can legitimately say, "My goodness, what are you doing? Are you using taxpayers' money, appropriated by Congress, to communicate to the American people?" And that's not what you're supposed to be doing. And yet, you can't communicate to the Iraqi people and not the American people. It's -- the multiple audiences, they all -- everyone hears everything, except the people who read -- listen to Al-Jazeera. … But it is -- that is something that we have to do better, we must do better. And it worries me. This is the first war that's been fought in the 21st century with a new media reality. And it's a very different environment.

Q: Well, it's interesting to note that in World War II, there was sacrifice and people gave things up, and that doesn't happen in this war. This generation doesn't feel the pull of the war.

RUMSFELD: Well, of course it's a very different kind of war. And it's more like, I think, in a sense the Cold War, which lasted a lot of years, and people didn't give up there, either. And there was a lot of worry, would we have the staying power? I mean, there was plenty of times when Euro-Communism was considered kind of like the good communism, and very fashionable in Europe. And there were amendments in Congress -- I used to have to fly back and testify against them -- to pull our forces out of Europe. There were people who said, "My goodness, the Soviet Union is not going to go away, and you'd be better to accommodate to it." But there were other people who had good sense and they said no, that's not the right thing to do; let's persevere and let's not toss in the towel. And we didn't for decades. Imagine! Successive administration, both political parties, in this country and other countries in Western Europe, and they held together. And that thing called the "Soviet Union" is gone. And it wasn't because we did what we did in World War II. I mean, I had Victory Gardens, and I was raising chickens, and I was growing stuff, and collecting hangers and metal, and doing all kinds of things during World War II.

But I think the American people have a good center of gravity, I really do. I think they've got good sense. And they can get blown off course once in a while, but on big things, over time they tend to re-center and -- this is serious business. What's going on today is not an accident. These people are planning. They're all over the world. They're serious. They want to kill as many people as they can kill. And putting our heads in the sand and pretending they're not there isn't going to do it. It's going to take a lot of time. And it's ultimately going to be won within that religion, and we're going to have to strengthen the moderates in that religion so that they prevail over the extremists, and that the extremists don't win, because if they win, we lose. And if we lose -- I mean, they are happy to do what they're doing in Iraq or Afghanistan or Lebanon or Israel or Spain or London. But their goal is beyond that; it is an appetite that's substantially greater, and it is literally to move as much of the world as they can towards their way of thinking and towards an absence of freedom, and a terribly dark vision that would have dire consequences for our country.

Q: Sir, I just gave you a poll that we did, a national poll, last week, which is very interesting. You should look at it because it talks in there about what Americans think about the war in Iraq, terrorism in general, you know, what's the most pressing issues for them.

RUMSFELD: I'd like to see it.

Q: And what we found was that there's a lot of concern about Iraq; there's less concern about terrorism now, when we asked them to pick the one thing that concerns them most.

I guess I've got a two-part question here. What would you tell all those military families from back in Pittsburgh and western PA that they can look forward to for the foreseeable future? And how about the rest of America, I mean, what are they going to do to help win this war, if they really don't think it's that serious a problem?

RUMSFELD: The first thing I'd say to people in your area is to all of those who are serving and the families of those people serving, thank you. I mean, we are so fortunate that we don't have a draft, we don't have a conscripted Army, military. We have a volunteer service where people put up their hands and say, "Send me. I'll do it. I understand, and I believe it, and I want to serve."

I just looked at the recruiting and retention figures -- someone gave them to me. They're all -- I don't know, for the eighth and ninth month --

STAFF: Fourteenth.

RUMSFELD: Fourteenth?

STAFF: Yes, sir.

RUMSFELD: They're all over 100 percent. And recruiting -- correction. The retention rates are all projected to meet their goal, and the rates for people who served in Afghanistan or Iraq are higher than the rest of the force. Partly that's because there's an incentive for doing it, if they do it while they're over there. So let's -- at the minimum, they're equal. There's no detriment to retention. So we're a fortunate country to have that.

And the American people need to appreciate the danger that exists for them, for all of us, because of the determination of the enemy and the perseverance of the enemy, and the capabilities that the enemy has. I mean, they killed 3,000 on September 11th.

You look at the Johns Hopkins "dark winter" study, and I think it was small pox was theoretically put into three airports, or something, and within a relatively short period of months, the loss of life in this country was something like 800,000 or 900,000 people. So, when you think of chemical weapons, biological weapons, and radiological weapons, and nuclear weapons, and terrorist groups that are determined to kill large numbers of people, to alter their behavior and to have them not be able to be free to do what they want, but to do what the terrorists want them to do, the extremists want them to do, that is a real danger in the country. And people have to, first of all, understand that and put a value on that, a weight to it. And second, they then have to -- I think that's in this.

I would wish -- if I had one wish, it would be that we taught history in our schools in a way that people -- it became a part of their being. And anyone who knows anything about the Revolutionary War knows that we didn't win a battle for ages, that pressure was relentless, that we were up against difficult powers in the world, that they wanted to fire George Washington. And he hung on and we hung on, and we're a country because of it.

Now, you look at the Civil War -- I don't know how many people were killed, but someone gave me a piece of paper and I looked at it, it was half a million people were killed, and -- 524,000 people were killed. So think of that. We've lost 2,054, killed in action in Iraq. World War II was 116,000. World War I -- World War II was 405,000. The Korean War was 36,000. Vietnam was 58,000. The lives that have been lost -- American lives to defend this country and the willingness of the American people to defend the country at those costs says a lot about our country. But we wouldn't be the country we are today if those people hadn't been willing to serve and to -- and we -- you say, "What would you want people to understand?" I think we have to appreciate that wars are terribly difficult things. They're ugly, they're violent, and they're unpredictable, and we are so fortunate to have the people we have serving over there, doing the job they're doing. They're doing an absolutely superb job under terribly difficult circumstances.

And they're doing well at it, and they're proud of it. And you talk to them, and you go out to Walter Reed Hospital in Bethesda, the ones that are wounded and talk to them, talk to their families. They're darn proud of what they're doing, and they know what they're doing. And they know -- they're convinced that they're making progress. It's going to be a lot of -- it's not a military problem over there. It's a political problem in a large measure. And the reconciliation process in Iraq has got to be successful. It's easier to talk about it than to do it, and Prime Minister Maliki's going to have a tough time doing it. But getting it done in a way that satisfies large chunks of that -- those respective communities will make a big difference, and he's working on it. And that's good.

We have to live in this world, but we're here, it's the year 2006, and your leadership and the people I deal with are alive and responsible for this country. We can't stick our head in the sand and pretend the world isn't there. The reach of these networks is obvious. They can go to Madrid, they can go to London, they can go to New York, they can come to Washington, D.C. and hit this building. And they're not going to go away if you turn your head, and the fact that people disagree with us as to how to do it exactly or what to do when, that's understandable in free countries. But in terms of the basic threat, it is real, it is serious, and it's lethal. And we have no choice but to confront it.

Q: All right. Venezuela -- a lot of people, including us, are very worried about Venezuela. How big a threat is Venezuela? Is this going to be another Cuba? Is this going to be something worse than Cuba?

RUMSFELD: I guess only time will tell. Cuba didn't have oil money, for one thing. Venezuela does. And if someone is determined to spread their views, having a large chunk of money helps

They are -- have decided to associate with Iran and with Syria and with Cuba and to involve -- try to involve themselves in elections in Latin America, in some cases, successfully, and in some cases, unsuccessfully.

And the country of Colombia has been very successful over the years, has had very good leadership in President Uribe, and it -- they have been successfully reducing the of amount of real estate that the -- (inaudible) -- controlled. They've been working their drug problem. They have reduced the number of assassinations and hostage takers. And having a neighbor that, in the case of -- in this Venezuelan administration -- is hostile, is difficult. It makes the job of the Colombian government more difficult.

The effort he's (Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez) undertaken to try to get a seat in the U.N. Security Council -- and he's gotten -- lined up a great many people to support -- countries to support him -- would be obviously a most unfortunate thing for the United Nations and for the world, too. To have a country with that orientation sitting on the U.N. Security Council is -- would -- I have trouble understanding how countries could support that, and yet take the institution seriously.

So we're hopeful, obviously, that countries will support Guatemala, if it's to be a country from this hemisphere, which it very likely will be.

Q: Does the U.N. matter anymore? Or NATO? Do either of them, or are they obsolete?

RUMSFELD: If you think of what NATO's done, NATO is in the process of fashioning a NATO Response Force, which is something that can be critically important in transforming that institution and giving it relevance in the 21st century.

Second, we've managed to enlarge it and bring in some countries that very recently didn't have their freedom. And that brings an energy and a respect for freedom, a passion for freedom that is healthy for that institution.

Third, we've managed to reduce down the number of headquarters in there and increase the tooth-to-tail ratio, improve the tooth-to-tail ratio, I don't know, from something like 20 down to 10 headquarters.

And fourth, we have NATO today is engaged in Afghanistan, which is truly historic for that organization, for it to be involved outside of the NATO Treaty area, outside of Europe for the first time, undertaking a significant responsibility -- all 26 countries are participating. There are now a total of 42 countries helping out in Afghanistan, but 26 of them are NATO countries. And in one way or another, they're all doing something there. That is a significant departure for NATO.

So I think that while NATO is a different institution than it was when I was ambassador to NATO back in the early 1970s, and it's gone from 15 to 26 countries, it is -- it probably -- it certainly is today the most important military alliance in the world. It may be the most important military alliance in -- has to be in the century. Is it perfect? No. But does it take time when you're dealing with multiple countries to get something accomplished? Yes. Is it, however, a valuable thing, given what it's done in Bosnia and Kosovo? Yes. What it's doing in Afghanistan? Yes.

Q: And the U.N.?

RUMSFELD: Very different. Not a military alliance. Has difficulties doing things. Countries have vetoes. The General Assembly has votes. They use a rotation -- it needs reform. It needs the kinds of things that John Bolton is recommending. But, I mean, any organization that just automatically goes through and puts countries on things like the Human Rights Commission and you end up with Sudan or something -- they ended up with -- I forgot who it was, some country -- maybe it was Iraq -- or Iran, or it was on the Non-Proliferation Commission we had one time. And the excuse is, well, it's automatic. It just goes through and it doesn't change things.

But it needs reform. And there are people up there working on it -- Newt Gingrich -- and I forget who he worked with. Who was it? Tom Foley or Lee Hamilton, somebody. They had a group they put together and came up with some good ideas as to how that institution might be improved. But --

Q: So you're not ready to throw in the towel and say let's get out of it, let's get rid of it?

RUMSFELD: Well, you know, I don't -- I look at almost all the institutions and say to myself they're basically 20th century institutions. They were fashioned, most of them, in the Truman era. I mean, the World Bank, and the IMF, and NATO, and the U.N. You asked yourself about the OAS. They all needed to be adjusted or adapted or something substituted for them to deal with the information age, to deal with a world that's much more connected, where weapons are much more powerful, and where the threats tend to be global or regional, rather than simply one country threat. It's not Germany invading France, it's -- the threat of proliferation is something that's much more difficult to deal with.

So I think we need the ability to work with other countries, and the question is how do you best get that. And my answer -- my guess is the answer is, very likely, through multiple fora. For whatever reason, the nature of the world today is such that a great many countries won't participate in peacekeeping if there isn't a U.N. mandate. Well, we need peacekeepers.

I mean, the risk of mass migration out of Haiti, for example, and those -- we were able to get a bunch of countries to work down there. We don't have troops there, but a lot of countries do, and God bless them for doing it. And it's been -- and many of them would not have agreed to it, except for the fact that there was a U.N. mandate.

Are we better off handling a group of peacekeepers down in Haiti and not having mass migration and disorder and more -- still more violence than is normal there? I think so.

Q: You mentioned bin Laden a while back. We let you escape from that one. Are we ever going to catch him? And does it even matter anymore?

RUMSFELD: Well, you know, it obviously would be nice, but he must be spending an awful lot of time not getting caught, as opposed to running his organization -- (chuckles) -- because there's an awful lot of folks looking for him.
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Oppenheimer



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PostPosted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 12:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

How Bush intends to tackle Iran’s challenge
Fri. 17 Mar 2006
Iran Focus

http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=6309

London, Mar. 17 – Not since the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics has the United States national security strategy focused on a country more than it is now doing on Iran. The proof comes in a 49-page report just released by the White House.

“The National Security Strategy of the United States of America” describes Iran as the greatest challenge to the U.S. national security, and makes it clear that the Bush administration is prepared to resort to military action, if that’s what it takes to stop Iran’s theocracy from arming itself with nuclear weapons.

“We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran”, the report, which carried the seal of U.S. President George W. Bush, said.

The document, which maps out the threats to the United States and the way President Bush intends to tackle them, said that the international standoff over Tehran’s suspected nuclear weapons program and its support for terrorism in the Middle East could ultimately be resolved “only if the Iranian regime makes the strategic decision to change these policies, open up its political system, and afford freedom to its people. This is the ultimate goal of U.S. policy”.

“Our strategy is to block the threats posed by the regime while expanding our engagement and outreach to the people the regime is oppressing”, Bush said.

Click here for the full text of the report

----------------------------------------------

So you say you want a revolution.....and build a free society.....well then, get by with a little help from your friends....




http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss/2006/

Presidential Action
On March 16, 2006, the White House released President Bush's second term National Security Strategy (NSS), which reflects the President's most solemn obligation: to protect the security of the American people.

The NSS explains how we are working to protect the American people, advance American interests, enhance global security, and expand global liberty and prosperity. The strategy is founded upon two pillars:



The first pillar is promoting freedom, justice, and human dignity - working to end tyranny, to promote effective democracies, and to extend prosperity through free and fair trade and wise development policies.



The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.

In the world today, the fundamental character of regimes matters as much as the distribution of power among them. Free governments are accountable to their people, govern their territory effectively, and pursue economic and political policies that benefit their citizens. Free governments do not oppress their people or attack other free nations. Peace and international stability are most reliably built on a foundation of freedom.

The second pillar of the strategy is confronting the challenges of our time by leading a growing community of democracies.

Many of the problems we face - from the threat of pandemic disease, to proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, to terrorism, to human trafficking, to natural disasters - reach across borders. Effective multinational efforts are essential to solve these problems. Yet history has shown that only when we do our part will others do theirs. America will continue to lead.
The President's National Security Strategy specifically focuses on the following areas:

Champion Aspirations for Human Dignity



The United States champions freedom because doing so reflects our values and advances our interests.
Championing freedom advances our interests because the survival of liberty at home increasingly depends on the success of liberty abroad.

Because democracies are the most responsible members of the international system, promoting democracy is the most effective long-term measure for strengthening international stability, reducing regional conflicts, countering terrorism and terror-supporting extremism, and extending peace and prosperity.

To protect our Nation and honor our values, the United States seeks to extend freedom across the globe by leading an international effort to end tyranny and to promote effective democracy. We will employ the full array of political, economic, diplomatic, and other tools at our disposal. Effective democracies:

Honor and uphold basic human rights, including freedom of religion, conscience, speech, assembly, association, and press;

Are responsive to their citizens, submitting to the will of the people, especially when people vote to change their government;

Exercise effective sovereignty and maintain order within their own borders, protect independent and impartial systems of justice, punish crime, embrace the rule of law, and resist corruption; and

Limit the reach of government, protecting the institutions of civil society, including the family, religious communities, voluntary associations, private property, independent business, and a market economy.

Elections are the most visible sign of a free society and can play a critical role in advancing effective democracy. But elections alone are not enough - they must be reinforced by other values, rights, and institutions to bring about lasting freedom. Our goal is human liberty protected by democratic institutions.

We have a responsibility to promote human freedom. Yet freedom cannot be imposed; it must be chosen. The form that freedom and democracy take in any land will reflect the history, culture, and habits unique to its people.
Strengthen Alliances to Defeat Global Terrorism and Work to Prevent Attacks Against Us and Our Friends

We are a nation at war. We have made progress in the war against terror, but we are in a long struggle. America is safer, but not yet safe.

In the short run, the fight involves using military force and other instruments of national power to kill or capture the terrorists, deny them safe haven or control of any nation, prevent them from gaining access to weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and cut off their sources of support.

In the long run, winning the war on terror means winning the battle of ideas, for it is ideas that can turn the disenchanted into murderers willing to kill innocent victims.

Terrorists exploit political alienation. Democracy gives people an ownership stake in society.

Terrorists exploit grievances that can be blamed on others. Democracy offers the rule of law, the peaceful resolution of disputes, and the habits of advancing interests through compromise.

Terrorists exploit sub-cultures of conspiracy and misinformation. Democracy offers freedom of speech, independent media, and the marketplace of ideas.

Terrorists exploit an ideology that justifies murder. Democracy offers respect for human dignity.

The advance of freedom and human dignity through democracy is the long-term solution to the transnational terrorism of today. To create the space and time for that long-term solution to take root, there are four steps we will take in the short term: We will 1) prevent attacks by terrorist networks before they occur; 2) deny WMD to rogue states and to terrorist allies who would use them without hesitation; 3) deny terrorist groups the support and sanctuary of rogue states; and 4) deny the terrorists control of any nation that they would use as a base and launching pad for terror.
Work with Others to Defuse Regional Conflicts

If left unaddressed, regional conflicts can lead to failed states, humanitarian disasters, and ungoverned areas that can become safe havens for terrorists. We will work to address regional conflicts at three levels of engagement: conflict prevention and resolution; conflict intervention; and post-conflict stabilization and reconstruction.

Patient efforts to end conflicts should not be mistaken for tolerance of the intolerable.

Genocide must not be tolerated.
Prevent Our Enemies from Threatening Us, Our Allies, and Our Friends with Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

We are committed to keeping the world's most dangerous weapons out of the hands of the world's most dangerous people.

The best way to block aspiring nuclear states or nuclear terrorists is to deny them access to the essential ingredient of fissile material.

We are countering the spread of biological weapons by improving our capacity to detect and respond to biological attacks, securing dangerous pathogens, and limiting the spread of materials useful for biological weapons.

We are working to identify and disrupt terrorist networks that seek chemical weapons capabilities, and we are seeking to deny them access to materials needed to make these weapons.

If necessary, under long-standing principles of self defense, we do not rule out the use of force before attacks occur. When the consequences of an attack with WMD are potentially so devastating, we cannot afford to stand idly by as grave dangers materialize.
Ignite a New Era of Global Economic Growth through Free Markets and Free Trade

We are working to open markets and integrate the global economy through the Doha Development Agenda of the World Trade Organization and through regional and bilateral Free Trade Agreements. To promote energy independence, we are working to open, integrate, and diversify energy markets.

To ensure stability and growth in the international financial system, we will work to promote growth-oriented economic policies worldwide; encourage adoption of flexible exchange rates and open markets for financial services; strengthen international financial institutions; build local capital markets and the formal economy in the developing world; and create a more transparent, accountable, and secure international financial system.
Expand the Circle of Development by Opening Societies and Building the Infrastructure of Democracy

Development reinforces diplomacy and defense, reducing long-term threats to our national security by helping to build stable, prosperous, and peaceful societies. Improving the way we use foreign assistance will make it more effective in strengthening responsible governments, responding to suffering, and improving people's lives.

Long-term development must include encouraging governments to make wise choices and assisting them in implementing those choices. We will encourage and reward good behavior rather than reinforce negative behavior.
Develop Agendas for Cooperative Action with the Other Centers of Global Power

The struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century and finds the great powers all on the same side - opposing the terrorists. This circumstance differs profoundly from the ideological struggles of the 20th century, which saw the great powers divided by ideology as well as by national interest.

We enjoy unprecedented levels of cooperation with other nations on many of our highest national security priorities.

Going forward, the NSS describes our strategy for cooperating with partners in critical regions of the world and discusses the freedom agenda as it relates to different regional contexts.
Transform America's National Security Institutions to Meet the Challenges and Opportunities of the 21st Century

We have taken a number of steps in the last four years to transform our key national security institutions, including establishing the Department of Homeland Security; launching the most significant reorganization of the Intelligence Community since the 1947 National Security Act; and completing the Department of Defense's 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review. We must extend and enhance the transformation of key institutions, both domestically and abroad.

At home, we will sustain the transformation already under way in the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Justice, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Intelligence Community.

We will continue to reorient the Department of State toward transformational diplomacy, which promotes effective democracy and responsible sovereignty. And we will improve the capacity of agencies to plan, prepare, coordinate, integrate, and execute responses covering the full range of crisis contingencies and long-term challenges.

Abroad, we will promote meaningful reform of the United Nations to improve its accountability, efficiency, and effectiveness. We will enhance the role of democracies and democracy promotion through international and multilateral institutions. And we will establish results-oriented partnerships to meet new challenges and opportunities.
Engage the Opportunities and Confront the Challenges of Globalization

Globalization presents many opportunities. Much of the world's prosperity and improved living standards in recent years derives from the expansion of global trade, investment, information, and technology.
Globalization has also exposed us to new challenges and changed the way old challenges touch our interests and values, while also greatly enhancing our ability to respond. Examples include public health challenges like pandemics that recognize no borders; illicit trade, whether in drugs, human beings, or sex, that exploits the modern era's greater ease of transport and exchange; and environmental destruction, whether caused by human behavior or cataclysmic mega-disasters such as floods, earthquakes, or tsunamis.
Effective democracies are better able to deal with these challenges than are repressive or poorly governed states. These challenges require effective democracies to come together in innovative ways.
The United States will lead the effort to reform existing institutions and create new ones - including forging new partnerships between governmental and nongovernmental actors, and with transnational and international organizations.
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 23, 2006 2:28 pm    Post subject: How the Soviets Gave the Mullahs the Bomb Reply with quote

How the Soviets Gave the Mullahs the Bomb
August 23, 2006
FrontPageMagazine.com
Jamie Glazov

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=24019



Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Regnar Rasmussen, a former military interpreter and interrogation specialist trained at the Danish Armed Forces' Specialist School. For more than ten years, he worked as a translator in the Danish Central Police Department (immigration department) as well as in several criminal investigations departments. He affirms that, through his experience, he learned of the many ways in which the Soviet system trained the Islamist enemy we now face in the terror war. More frightening yet, he claims that his sources informed him back in 1992 that the Soviets sold the Iranian Mullahs nuclear warheads in autumn 1991.

FP: Regnar Rasmussen, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Rasmussen: Thank you very much for inviting me on.

FP: First things first, tell us a bit about your background and how you became privy to the information you possess today about our Jihadi enemy and Iran's possession of nuclear weapons.

Rasmussen: Basically I am a linguist and happen to be able to speak a number of useful languages such as Russian, Persian, Urdu/Hindi, Bengali - and of course Danish, German and English. I spent large chunks of my life in India, and with Calcutta as my base I travelled extensively all over South and South East Asia. This experience was one of the reasons why I was frequently called upon as a translator in various cases related to immigration or to crimes committed by immigrants or against immigrants. Throughout ten years in this capacity I was on a virtual 24-hour stand-by duty and often spent the entire day and the entire night as well interrogating huge numbers of foreigners.

Even though I had learned quite a lot about the inner workings of the Soviet system on a theoretical level both at university and at the Armed Forces' Specialist School, it was not until 1984 that I realized that my imaginations had been faint and vague compared with the reality I was now faced with. Asylum seekers from Iran now started to flood all western countries. The reason was that those innumerable communist parties and groupings which had believed in Khomeini as a "true representative of the people" now suddenly had become the targets of Muslim persecution as "infidels" because of their communist beliefs.

A very large section of the younger generation had been involved in communist movements due to their resentment of the Shah. Khomeini saw these naive youngsters as "useful idiots" (expression coined by Lenin) and allowed them to participate in the killing and destruction of any and all persons who might or might not have had cooperation with or sympathy for the Shah or the ideas of the Shah. This was to be understood in the broadest sense so that even any kind of "decadent entertainment" was included in the endless list of offenses punishable by death.

Now this entire section of "helpers of the revolution" was to be eliminated once and for all. Many of them landed "on my doorstep" and I was able to hear their life stories directly from themselves. Out of these a substantial number told me about their education in various Soviet educational institutions.

FP: So tell us how the Soviet Union trained some of our Islamist enemies.

Rasmussen: It became clear to me that the entrance into the Soviet system for practically all foreign students was the Lumumba University. (Click here and also Click here) After one or two years of language training and "political training" here they were then distributed to other educational institutions according to their capabilities and desires.

Those who were talented agitators stayed back at the Lumumba University. Those who were mere thugs with severe personality disorders were sent to Romania and Bulgaria to learn guerrilla warfare. Bulgaria was the playground for large scale guerrilla operations including the use of mortars and anti tank weapons, while Romania had many centers for city guerrilla warfare.

The smarter ones were sent to other places such as Czechoslovakia or Eastern Germany. In Czechoslovakia they were given an education as chemical engineers at the so-called "Semtex University". (Click here and Click here) The education was genuine and serious, but what really made my hairs stand on one end was the immense overweight of practical training in the preparation and use of explosives. It was taught to the Iranian students even down to the minutest details that these skills were deemed necessary if their "revolutionary aims" were to succeed.

In Eastern Germany there were several educational institutions teaching courses in all sorts of engineering. Some became construction engineers and learned everything about large buildings. Again I was taken aback when I learned that the young students were not only taught how to build something - but certainly also how to take it all down again in a single blow. As one of my asylum seekers said: "I doubted whether I should call myself a construction engineer or a demolition engineer".

As 9/11 unfolded before my eyes on the TV screen seven years later I thought of this young man's statement.

It is very important to bear in mind that the Iranians were nothing more than a tiny minority amongst the recruits of the Soviet Union. My Iranians told me that they had to stick together and protect each other by day and by night against the hordes of Arabs surrounding them everywhere on campus. Iranians and Arabs are known to hate each other.

Another important detail is that many of the Iranian students did have sincere aspirations about using their education for good purposes once back in Iran, and most of the graduates did eventually help in building up infrastructure and setting up a new educational system after the Islamic Revolution. However, there were also those who helped setting up the fundamental structures of the Mullah Regime's intelligence services and espionage services. But unfortunately the new regime suddenly turned against them all, and they had to flee. Their job was over and so were their lives.

FP: Kindly expand a bit on how Iranians trained in the Soviet Union ended up working for the Iranian regime.

Rasmussen: A very interesting small number of the Iranians trained in the Soviet system either during the times of the Shah or during the years of the Islamic Revolution finally ended up working for the Mullah Regime - even though they had been communists and should have been exterminated. I have met some of these types. I wouldn't wish for my worst enemy to be faced with one of these. I would describe this group as the most dangerous and unpredictable of them all. These individuals quite often became leaders of various special task forces and turned out to be useful in setting up terrorist cells and movements. I have good reasons to believe that this phenomenon was the same amongst the Arab graduates of the Soviet Terrorist Universities.

After I had been face to face with a number of these, it dawned upon me that the step from being a glowing red communist to becoming a blood-thirsty Muslim fundamentalist is actually a distance equal to zero. Since then I have seen these two categories as the two sides of the same coin. Communism and Islamic fundamentalism have more in common than what meets the eye. They share the same fundamental hatred against individualism and against individuals who wish to be happy and just enjoy life.

The Soviet system had a solid tradition of registering everything. We saw all the details meticulously noted down in every STASI report that came out after the fall of communism in 1989. I know that all the files of each and every single foreign student ever trained in the Soviet Union are still intact. They are kept as state treasures somewhere over there in the big bear's den. If the new Russia wants to show her good intentions in the war against terror she should brush the dust off these old archives and let all relevant authorities scrutinize them. If you trace down each and every single graduate you will also be able to see who in turn became his students or followers. The entire network which was set up by that generation in those days would become clearly visible. By now it has grown to vast dimensions.

FP: Ok, so what information do you have about the Iranians having nuclear weapons and the Soviet connection?

Rasmussen: Well, for one thing it is well known that many Iranians have studied nuclear physics in the Soviet Union. This does not just mean that some individuals were given some data about some sort of a topic. What matters here are the ties which have been formed between Russian individuals and Iranian individuals in the nuclear sphere.

"East is East and West is West, and never the Twain shall meet". This truth is the key to understanding oriental politics. Oriental politics is based on ties between individuals. It is not based on abstract principles such as law or morality or ethical codes. The keyword is: personal relations. It matters who is married to whom. It matters who is the son of whom. Clan affiliation is the determining factor. State and law cannot exist for the very simple reason that the clan is the largest entity which can be perceived by the individual citizen. Anything that tries to assume an authority above the clan immediately becomes reduced to nothing more than "a hostile clan". The idea of a state or government is absurd in a clan society.

Russia belongs to the oriental world. This fact needs to sink in before we can grasp Russian politics.

During my travels and stays in various oriental countries I have been able to establish ties with lots of very different people. In Pakistan I stayed with a retired colonel who taught me everything about Islam and about Pakistani politics the way he saw it. I also travelled all over Pakistan with a group of religious singers, Qawwali-singers, who taught me about the Sufi aspects of Islam and in particular about the discrepancies within Islam.

In Northern Pakistan in 1987 I stayed with weapons smugglers who told me how they procured unlimited quantities of weapons from Soviet depots inside the Soviet Union. In Turkey I stayed with a very wise philosopher who was also a muezzin in the local mosque. He opened my eyes to the many horrendous misinterpretations of Islam - but more notably also to the even worse actual statements in the Quran.

During a stay in one of the former Soviet republics after the fall of communism I had the pleasant opportunity to get into a circle of intellectuals who at that time were moving towards political power. I was very impressed by their purity of mind and their fearless endeavours and decided to help them as best I could. Nevertheless everything ended in turmoil and chaos due to the intrigues and dirty workings of the old KGB structures behind the curtain we all thought had fallen. Alas, no curtain ever fell. It was only moved to a position further backwards and deep into the dark shades of backstage.

Nevertheless, in 1992 I had some important talks with a high ranking government official from that country. He needed my help in some business dealings. During our relaxed conversations he told me lots of interesting details about his life and his various encounters with the Soviet system. Amongst many other stories he told me the following:

In autumn 1991 Nursultan Nazarbayev, the president of Khazakhstan, sold three nuclear warheads to the Iranians. The Iranians wanted to use them as a prototype for their own bomb manufacturing. The price was said to have been 7.5 billion USD. Whether this amount is true or just the fantasies of a less paid government official, I cannot verify. The amount was to cover all bribes and kick-offs and military protection during transport. Every country involved had demanded their fair share of the deal.

Anyway, the warheads were removed from a military depot somewhere in Kazakhstan and transported by train down to Makhachkala in Daghestan. Here they were reloaded onto huge trucks and then taken through the Caucasian region and into Turkey. In the city of Dogubeyazit the Iranians met the convoy and took over. The three vehicles were then driven by Iranian drivers down to the border post Bazargan, where they entered Iranian territory.

The warheads were brought down to Teheran and parked in the military campus Lavizan. Here they were seen by a soldier who later defected to Israel and told the story to the Israeli intelligence services who at that time were unable to verify the matter further. Various rumours have been circulating ever since. Some stories say two bombs, some say four. The correct number, however, is three.

Long before the downfall of communism in 1989 nuclear technology had been proliferated by the Soviet Union. The Mullah Regime had had connections and cooperation with the Soviet Union since the early days of the Islamic Revolution in 1978/79, but after 1989 hundreds and hundreds of Russian nuclear scientists were hired on by the Iranians who offered exorbitant wages and golden palaces to them in order to secure their loyalty. This has to be seen on the background of Soviet living conditions in those days. No wonder the Iranians could pick and choose as they wished.

I am personally convinced that Iran quickly managed to duplicate the bombs and that their only obstacle was to produce sufficient quantities of enriched uranium or other substances for their bombs. As of today I am convinced that Iran has had the nuclear bomb already for some years and is now only waiting for a good opportunity to wipe Israel off the map. I am convinced that Israel suddenly pulled out of their invasion of Lebanon long before accomplishing their stated goals simply and solely due to the threats from Iran. Israel finally realized that America was not in a position to make any pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. This is nothing more than my personal belief and conjecture.

But you might wonder whether or not there could be something to it if you take a look at some interesting reports. First take a look at this very interesting link: Then study this link. A few steps down the page you find this interesting note:

1991: A top-secret report from the newly formed Russian intelligence service claims that Iran has obtained at least two nuclear warheads from a batch listed as missing from Kazakhstan. The nuclear weapons were reportedly smuggled across the border to Iran in 1991 and are under the control of Reza Amrollahi, who is head of the Iranian Organization for Atomic Energy and is also in charge of recruiting atomic scientists from the former Soviet Union. Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev is believed to have engineered the weapons deal with Iran, exchanging warheads for hard currency or gasoline. US officials have denied aid to Kazakhstan based on the belief that Kazakhstan has nuclear ambitions.

—Roger Fallgot and Jan Mather, "Iran Has N-Bomb," The European, 30 April-3 May 1992, p. 1.

The bombs mentioned here are the ones I was told about on that cosy November evening in 1992. The entire story of what went on during the travel of that convoy from Khazakhstan and all the way down to the Iranian border is yet to be told. Right here we are running out of space.

But the story has another implication. There is absolutely no way the convoy could have entered into Turkey without clearance from the Turkish government. The Iranians had already cleared the way for the transport. This shows where the Turkish labyrinth also known as Turkish politics had its loopholes. There was an interest in Turkey at that time to support Iranian nuclear ambitions. In my view that interest has not diminished since then. The current political establishment in Turkey is clearly Islamist. The fear that Turkey has systematically allowed weapons grade uranium or plutonium to be transported via Turkish territory is not unfounded.

On the day when the Iranians decide to divulge their nuclear achievements Turkey will forget about becoming European. Turkey will show its true face and stick with the Muslim world. Iran has not made any nuclear tests on Iranian soil. Why? The test was carried out in Pakistan. So why bother to do it in Iran? What's the difference?

FP: Regnar Rasmussen, thank you for joining us and sharing this chilling information with us..

Rasmussen: Thank you Jamie.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine's managing editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in Soviet Studies. He edited and wrote the introduction to David Horowitz’s new book Left Illusions. He is also the co-editor (with David Horowitz) of the new book The Hate America Left and the author of Canadian Policy Toward Khrushchev’s Soviet Union (McGill-Queens University Press, 2002) and 15 Tips on How to be a Good Leftist. To see his previous symposiums, interviews and articles Click Here. Email him at jglazov@rogers.com.
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 28, 2006 11:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

In Bashar Assad's Syria, a Growing Passion for War

The Daily Star, August 23, 2006

http://newsletters.brookings.edu/t/27305/4015/1122/0/

Ammar Abdulhamid, Nonresident Fellow, Saban Center for Middle East Policy




The rise of President Bashar Assad to power in Syria in 2000, which coincided with the collapse of the peace process and the rise of Ariel Sharon as Israeli prime minister, signaled a gradual return to Syrian policies of confrontation with the international community and Israel.

The reasons for this are numerous and are not all related to the internal makeup of the Syrian regime. Nevertheless, that issue does figure highly and should not be dismissed, lest this impede judgment regarding the current Syrian role in the region. Indeed, the minority character of the Syrian regime and its consolidation around the private interests of two particular families, the Assad-Makhlouf clan, have served from the very beginning to undercut the potential for serious reform in the country.

The insistence on keeping things in the family and transferring power from father to son, all consideration of republican norms notwithstanding, has served to establish severe limits on the ability of Bashar Assad. But then, ever since his election, or selection, Assad has not missed an opportunity to show that he is a true believer in the system and in the mandate and mission assigned to him.

This is why he turned against all dissidents and reformers in early 2001, wholeheartedly embraced the Al-Aqsa intifada, allowed people like Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal to roam freely in Syria and transformed the relationship with Hizbullah from that of master-client to a strategic alliance. Moreover, Assad never turned his back on the possibility of getting himself embroiled in regional mayhem and controversy. As was the case with his father, the legitimacy that could not be received from domestic successes and reforms now needed to be derived from external sources, namely from a continuing focus of energies and attention on the Arab-Israel conflict.

This explains why the president went overboard in his criticism of the United States-led invasion of Iraq and lent so much support to the Iraqi "resistance," inviting other Arab states to follow his lead. This also explains his continuing willingness to support radical Palestinian groups and Hizbullah. Indeed, the more pressures the new president and the ruling family have felt, the more radical their stands and policies have become. The point of no return came with the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a development that put the entire ruling family in the line of suspects.

After that, there was no end to how radical the Assad regime was willing to become. It was now facing an existential threat par excellence. The rise of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his subsequent visit to Syria on January 19 this year gave both regimes the opportunity to consolidate their alliance and to extend it to formally include Hizbullah and the radical wing of Hamas. A decision seems to have been made to escalate matters further in Gaza and the Shebaa Farms in the hope of diverting international attention from the Syrian and Iranian regimes and bringing about an acceptance of the status quo they represented, even as they consolidated their grip on power.

While current developments seem more than what Syria, Iran, Hizbullah and Hamas bargained for, they are also heaven-sent, hence the parties' increased vociferousness, belligerence and confidence.

Indeed, as the recent declaration made by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem during his brief visit to Lebanon indicated, the prospect of a wider regional war is something these regimes actually welcome. For the strong showing that Hizbullah has made, the destruction of Lebanese infrastructure notwithstanding, is encouragement enough for these regimes, with their minds and hearts still stuck in the 1980s, to revive the old dream of defeating Israel militarily through involvement in a war of attrition and thus achieving military glory that will boost their credentials both at home and abroad. With the US caught in the Iraqi quagmire and its power seemingly neutralized as a result, this prospect might appear more and more tempting with each passing day.

In fact, the Assads seem to be preparing for this eventuality. They have already called up large reserve cohorts that are busy digging trenches all around the country, and they are currently preparing public opinion for this possibility and cultivating their support thereof. Thus, calls to reopen the Golan front are routinely reiterated during the Friday sermons, and communist and nationalist groups have recently joined the chorus.

So, even if the US and Israel seem uninterested in bringing about such a conflagration, their desires and interests are not the only factors that matter here. There is indeed another side involved, a full-fledged alliance in fact, whose leaders seem to think that war, regardless of its potentially high cost in human and material terms, will serve their interests. The more troubles Israel has in Lebanon and the US in Iraq, the more convinced these leaders will be of the "wisdom" and necessity of war.

© Copyright 2006 The Daily Star
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 29, 2006 3:06 pm    Post subject: Santorum Fighting for Reelection: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Must B Reply with quote

Santorum: Iran poses a threat
Fighting for reelection, the senator said leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad must be stopped.


August 29, 2006
Philadelphia Inquirer
Angela Couloumbis
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/15384673.htm


HARRISBURG -- U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum (R., Pa.) yesterday called Iran the principal leader of the "Islamic fascist movement" that poses the greatest threat to America's freedom and way of life, and said the country must be prevented from developing nuclear weapons.

Santorum also proclaimed Iran's president to be "one of the greatest threats this country has ever seen," and guaranteed that those who don't know who he is or what he stands for will know his name within a year.

The senator, who is locked in a tough reelection battle this fall with State Treasurer Bob Casey Jr., made the remarks during a forceful speech at a press-club luncheon in Harrisburg yesterday, where he conjured a dark future for the United States if Islamic fundamentalism were not stopped.

"We are at war with Islamic fascism," Santorum argued while addressing the standing-room-only audience. "... And the principal leader of this Islamic fascist movement is Iran, led by a man named Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."

"People look at me and say, 'Who is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? I can't even pronounce his name,' " Santorum added. "Well, let me make a guarantee: Within a year, or probably less, every one of you will be able to pronounce Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - you will know him, and know him well."

Santorum also said that while he agreed with President Bush on many things, he parted ways with the President on how to explain the war to the American public. Bush has called it a war on terror, but "this is no more a war on terror than World War II was a war on blitzkrieg. Blitzkrieg is a tactic, it's not our enemy.

"Terrorist attack is not our enemy," he contended. "Our enemy are people who have ideology."

"They're in a holy war," Santorum said of Islamic fundamentalists. "These people are after us not because we oppress them... but because we stand for everything they hate."

The senator said that Islamic extremists were not afraid of death, and contended that they would not stop their attacks even if the United States pulled its forces from Iraq.

Santorum argued that Iran is in the process of developing a nuclear-weapons program in an effort to compete militarily with the United States.

The senator said he has backed the proposed Iran Freedom Support Act, which, among other provisions, would support pro-democracy groups in Iran, punish countries that contribute to that nation's nuclear program, and toughen sanctions against Iran.

Santorum stopped short of saying he would favor striking Iran.

The senator also pointed out that some countries might use oil profits to fund terrorist activities.

But he said U.S. foreign policy challenges abroad underscore the country's need to develop domestic energy sources, and reiterated his support of policies to utilize ethanol and waste coal for those efforts.

"People are dying," Santorum said, his voice rising. "We are at war. This is serious business."

He added that the public will be hearing a lot about his position on foreign policy in the next few months: "This election will turn on this issue. Because this is the issue of our times."
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 01, 2006 9:57 pm    Post subject: President Bush Addresses American Legion National Convention Reply with quote



President Bush Addresses American Legion National Convention
Salt Palace Convention Center

Salt Lake City, Utah


Fact Sheet: Winning the Struggle Between Freedom and Terror in the Middle East
In Focus: National Security
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/08/20060831-1.html

9:08 A.M. MDT

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very much. Please be seated. Thanks for the warm welcome. It's great to join you here in one of America's most beautiful cities. I appreciate your hospitality. I'm proud to stand before some of our country's finest patriots, our veterans and their families. (Applause.) And I'm pleased to call you my fellow Legionnaires -- (applause) -- I suspect I may be the only one here, though, from Post 77, Houston, Texas. That's what I thought. (Laughter.) If you're from Post 77, behave yourself here in Salt Lake. (Laughter.)

Laura did remind me the other night, though, that a few of my fellow members -- at least I've joined a few of my fellow members in another illustrious organization, the "Over 60 Club." (Laughter.)

For almost 90 years, Legionnaires have stood proudly "for God and country." (Applause.) From big cities to small towns, the American Legion name brings to mind the best of our nation -- decency, generosity, and character. (Applause.) I thank you for a lifetime of service. I thank you for the positive contributions you make to our nation, and I'm proud to join you today.

First, I want to thank Tom Bock, the National Commander, for his kind introduction and his strong leadership. I always am pleased to welcome the Commander to the Oval Office to discuss common issues, and you've done a fine job leading this organization, Tom. I also want to thank your wife, Elaine, and I particularly want to pay respect to your son, Captain Bock, of the United States Army, who's joined us today. (Applause.)

I appreciate being here with Carol Van Kirk, the National President of the American Legion Auxiliary. And I want to thank all the Auxiliary members who are with us here today, as well. (Applause.)

I'm proud that the Governor of this great state, Jon Huntsman, and his wife Mary Kaye, have joined us. Governor, thank you for your time. I'm also proud to be joined by two United States Senators who are strong supporters of the United States military, Senator Orrin Hatch, and Senator Bob Bennett. (Applause.)

Members of the congressional delegation from the state of Utah have joined us: Congressman Rob Bishop, and Congressman Chris Cannon. Thank you both for coming. Proud you're here. (Applause.) I thank the state Senator, John Valentine, who is the President of the Utah State Senate. I appreciate Speaker Greg Curtis. I want to thank all the state and local officials who have joined us here today. Most particularly, I want to thank you all for giving me a chance to come and speak to you. I particularly want to thank all the Gold Star families who have joined us today. May God bless you. May God bless you. (Applause.)

As veterans, all of you stepped forward when America needed you most. From North Africa to Normandy, Iwo Jima to Inchon, from Khe Sanh to Kuwait, your courage and service have made it possible for generations to live in liberty. And we owe you more than just thanks. We owe you the support of the federal government. And so, in my first four years as President, we increased funding for veterans more than the previous administration did in eight years. (Applause.) Since then, we've increased it even more. My budget for this year provides more than $80 billion for veterans -- that's a 75-percent increase since I took office. It's the highest level of support for veterans in American history. (Applause.)

For many veterans, health care is a top priority, and it's a top priority of my administration. When Congress passes my 2007 budget, we will have increased the VA health care budget by 69 percent since 2001. We've extended treatment to a million additional veterans, including more than 300,000 men and women returning from Afghanistan and Iraq. (Applause.) We're building new VA facilities in places where veterans are retiring, so that more veterans can get top-quality health care closer to their homes.

I appreciate the Legion's strong history of care and compassion for your fellow veterans. Earlier this week, I traveled to Mississippi and Louisiana to mark the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Veterans were hit hard by this storm, and American Legion posts all across the United States responded with vital relief. In an hour of suffering, you showed the good heart of our nation, and you showed the world that America can always count on Legionnaires. (Applause.)

I also appreciate the Legion's long history of supporting wise legislation in the Nation's Capital. Earlier this year, the Senate voted on a constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration -- we came within a single vote of passing it. The administration looks forward to continuing working with the American Legion to make sure we get this important protection in the Constitution of the United States of America. (Applause.)

Your organization supported another good piece of legislation called the Respect for America's Fallen Heroes Act. This bill ensures that families of fallen service members will not have to endure protests during military funerals. (Applause.)

My administration will also continue to work to locate the men and women in uniform whose fate is still undetermined -- our prisoners of war and personnel missing in action. We will not forget these brave Americans. We must not rest until we've accounted for every soldier, sailor, airman, Coast Guardsman, and Marine. And we will always honor their courage. (Applause.)

At this hour, a new generation of Americans in uniform is showing great courage in defending our freedom in the first war of the 21st century. I know that Legionnaires are following this war closely, especially those of you with family and friends who wear our uniform. The images that come back from the front lines are striking, and sometimes unsettling. When you see innocent civilians ripped apart by suicide bombs, or families buried inside their homes, the world can seem engulfed in purposeless violence. The truth is there is violence, but those who cause it have a clear purpose. When terrorists murder at the World Trade Center, or car bombers strike in Baghdad, or hijackers plot to blow up planes over the Atlantic, or terrorist militias shoot rockets at Israeli towns, they are all pursuing the same objective -- to turn back the advance of freedom, and impose a dark vision of tyranny and terror across the world.

The enemies of liberty come from different parts of the world, and they take inspiration from different sources. Some are radicalized followers of the Sunni tradition, who swear allegiance to terrorist organizations like al Qaeda. Others are radicalized followers of the Shia tradition, who join groups like Hezbollah and take guidance from state sponsors like Syria and Iran. Still others are "homegrown" terrorists -- fanatics who live quietly in free societies they dream to destroy. Despite their differences, these groups from -- form the outlines of a single movement, a worldwide network of radicals that use terror to kill those who stand in the way of their totalitarian ideology. And the unifying feature of this movement, the link that spans sectarian divisions and local grievances, is the rigid conviction that free societies are a threat to their twisted view of Islam.

The war we fight today is more than a military conflict; it is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century. (Applause.) On one side are those who believe in the values of freedom and moderation -- the right of all people to speak, and worship, and live in liberty. And on the other side are those driven by the values of tyranny and extremism -- the right of a self-appointed few to impose their fanatical views on all the rest. As veterans, you have seen this kind of enemy before. They're successors to Fascists, to Nazis, to Communists, and other totalitarians of the 20th century. And history shows what the outcome will be: This war will be difficult; this war will be long; and this war will end in the defeat of the terrorists and totalitarians, and a victory for the cause of freedom and liberty. (Applause.)

We're now approaching the fifth anniversary of the day this war reached our shores. As the horror of that morning grows more distant, there is a tendency to believe that the threat is receding and this war is coming to a close. That feeling is natural and comforting -- and wrong. As we recently saw, the enemy still wants to attack us. We're in a war we didn't ask for, but it's a war we must wage, and a war we will win. (Applause.)

In the coming days, I'll deliver a series of speeches describing the nature of our enemy in the war on terror, the insights we've gained about their aims and ambitions, the successes and setbacks we've experienced, and our strategy to prevail in this long war. Today, I'll discuss a critical aspect of this war: the struggle between freedom and terror in the Middle East, including the battle in Iraq, which is the central front in our fight against terrorism.

To understand the struggle unfolding in the Middle East, we need to look at the recent history of the region. For a half- century, America's primary goal in the Middle East was stability. This was understandable at the time; we were fighting the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and it was important to support Middle Eastern governments that rejected communism. Yet, over the decades, an undercurrent of danger was rising in the Middle East. Much of the region was mired in stagnation and despair. A generation of young people grew up with little hope to improve their lives, and many fell under the sway of radical extremism. The terrorist movement multiplied in strength, and resentment that had simmered for years boiled over into violence across the world.

Extremists in Iran seized American hostages. Hezbollah terrorists murdered American troops at the Marine barracks in Beirut and Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. Terrorists set off a truck bomb at the World Trade Center. Al Qaeda blew up two U.S. embassies in East Africa, and bombed the USS Cole. Then came the nightmare of September the 11, 2001, when 19 hijackers killed nearly 3,000 men, women, and children.

In the space of a single morning, it became clear that the calm we saw in the Middle East was only a mirage. We realized that years of pursuing stability to promote peace had left us with neither. Instead, the lack of freedom in the Middle East made the region an incubator for terrorist movements.

The status quo in the Middle East before September the 11th was dangerous and unacceptable, so we're pursuing a new strategy. First, we're using every element of national power to confront al Qaeda, those who take inspiration from them, and other terrorists who use similar tactics. We have ended the days of treating terrorism simply as a law enforcement matter. We will stay on the offense. We will fight the terrorists overseas so we do not have to face them here at home. (Applause.)

Second, we have made it clear to all nations, if you harbor terrorists, you are just as guilty as the terrorists; you're an enemy of the United States, and you will be held to account. (Applause.) And third, we've launched a bold new agenda to defeat the ideology of the enemy by supporting the forces of freedom in the Middle East and beyond.

The freedom agenda is based upon our deepest ideals and our vital interests. Americans believe that every person, of every religion, on every continent, has the right to determine his or her own destiny. We believe that freedom is a gift from an almighty God, beyond any power on Earth to take away. (Applause.) And we also know, by history and by logic, that promoting democracy is the surest way to build security. Democracies don't attack each other or threaten the peace. Governments accountable to the voters focus on building roads and schools -- not weapons of mass destruction. Young people who have a say in their future are less likely to search for meaning in extremism. Citizens who can join a peaceful political party are less likely to join a terrorist organization. Dissidents with the freedom to protest around the clock are less likely to blow themselves up during rush hour. And nations that commit to freedom for their people will not support terrorists -- they will join us in defeating them. (Applause.)

So America has committed its influence in the world to advancing freedom and democracy as the great alternatives to repression and radicalism. We will take the side of democratic leaders and reformers across the Middle East. We will support the voices of tolerance and moderation in the Muslim world. We stand with the mothers and fathers in every culture who want to see their children grow up in a caring and peaceful world. And by supporting the cause of freedom in a vital region, we'll make our children and our grandchildren more secure. (Applause.)

Over the past five years, we've begun to see the results of our actions -- and we have seen how our enemies respond to the advance of liberty. In Afghanistan, we saw a vicious tyranny that harbored the terrorists who planned the September the 11th attacks. Within weeks, American forces were in Afghanistan. Along with Afghan allies, we captured or killed hundreds of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters; we closed down their training camps, and we helped the people of Afghanistan replace the Taliban with a democratic government that answers to them. (Applause.)

Our enemies saw the transformation in Afghanistan, and they've responded by trying to roll back all the progress. Al Qaeda and the Taliban lost a coveted base in Afghanistan and they know they will never reclaim it when democracy succeeds. And so they're trying to return to power by attacking Afghanistan's free institutions. And they will fail. (Applause.) Forces from 40 nations, including every member of NATO, are now serving alongside American troops to support the new Afghan government. The days of the Taliban are over. The future of Afghanistan belongs to the people of Afghanistan. And the future of Afghanistan belongs to freedom. (Applause.)

In Lebanon, we saw a sovereign nation occupied by the Syrian dictatorship. We also saw the courageous people of Lebanon take to the streets to demand their independence. So we worked to enforce a United Nations resolution that required Syria to end its occupation of the country. The Syrians withdrew their armed forces, and the Lebanese people elected a democratic government that began to reclaim their country.

Our enemies saw the transformation in Lebanon and set out to destabilize the young democracy. Hezbollah launched an unprovoked attack on Israel that undermined the democrat government in Beirut. Yet their brazen action caused the world to unite in support for Lebanon's democracy. Secretary Rice worked with the Security Council to pass Resolution 1701, which will strengthen Lebanese forces as they take control of southern Lebanon -- and stop Hezbollah from acting as a state within a state.

I appreciate the troops pledged by France and Italy and other allies for this important international deployment. Together, we're going to make it clear to the world that foreign forces and terrorists have no place in a free and democratic Lebanon. (Applause.)

This summer's crisis in Lebanon has made it clearer than ever that the world now faces a grave threat from the radical regime in Iran. The Iranian regime arms, funds, and advises Hezbollah, which has killed more Americans than any terrorist network except al Qaeda. The Iranian regime interferes in Iraq by sponsoring terrorists and insurgents, empowering unlawful militias, and supplying components for improvised explosive devices. The Iranian regime denies basic human rights to millions of its people. And the Iranian regime is pursuing nuclear weapons in open defiance of its international obligations.

We know the death and suffering that Iran's sponsorship of terrorists has brought, and we can imagine how much worse it would be if Iran were allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. Many nations are working together to solve this problem. The United Nations passed a resolution demanding that Iran suspend its nuclear enrichment activities. Today is the deadline for Iran's leaders to reply to the reasonable proposal the international community has made. If Iran's leaders accept this offer and abandon their nuclear weapons ambitions, they can set their country on a better course. Yet, so far, the Iranian regime has responded with further defiance and delay. It is time for Iran to make a choice. We've made our choice: We will continue to work closely with our allies to find a diplomatic solution -- but there must be consequences for Iran's defiance, and we must not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. (Applause.)

In Iraq, we saw a dictator who harbored terrorists, fired at military planes, paid the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, invaded a neighbor, and pursued and used weapons of mass destruction. The United Nations passed more than a dozen resolutions demanding that Saddam Hussein fully and openly abandon his weapons of mass destruction. We gave him a last chance to comply -- and when he refused, we enforced the just demands of the world. And now Saddam Hussein is in prison and on trial. Soon he will have the justice he denied to so many for so long. (Applause.) And with this tyrant gone from power, the United States, Iraq, the Middle East, and the world are better off. (Applause.)

In the three years since Saddam's fall the Iraqi people have reclaimed sovereignty of their country. They cast their ballots in free elections. They drafted and approved a democratic constitution and elected a constitutional democracy at the heart of the Middle East. Over the same period, Iraq has seen a rise of terrorist and insurgent movements that use brutal and indiscriminate violence to frustrate the desire of the Iraqi people for freedom and peace. Al Qaeda terrorists, former elements of Saddam's regime, illegal militias and unlawful armed groups are all working to undermine Iraq's new democracy. These groups have different long-term ambitions, but the same immediate goals. They want to drive America and our coalition out of Iraq and the Middle East, so they can stop the advance of freedom and impose their dark vision on the people of the Middle East. (Applause.)

Our enemies in Iraq have employed ruthless tactics to achieve those goals. They've targeted American and coalition troops with ambushes and roadside bombs. They've taken hostage and beheaded civilians on camera. They've blown up Iraqi army posts and assassinated government leaders. We've adapted to the tactics -- and thanks to the skill and professionalism of Iraqi and American forces, many of these enemies have met their end. At every step along the way, our enemies have failed to break the courage of the Iraqi people; they have failed to stop the rise of Iraqi democracy -- and they will fail in breaking the will of the American people. (Applause.)

Now these enemies have launched a new effort. They have embarked on a bloody campaign of sectarian violence, which they hope will plunge Iraq into a civil war. The outbreak of sectarian violence was encouraged by the terrorist Zarqawi, al Qaeda's man in Iraq who called for an "all-out war" on Iraqi Shia. The Shia community resisted the impulse to seek revenge for a while. But after this February bombing of the Shia Golden Dome Mosque in Samarra, extremist groups mobilized and sectarian death squads formed on the streets of Baghdad and other areas. Our Ambassador reports that thousands of Iraqis were murdered in Baghdad last month, and large numbers of them were victims of sectarian violence.

This cruelty and carnage has led some to question whether Iraq has descended into civil war. Our commanders and our diplomats on the ground in Iraq believe that's not the case. They report that only a small number of Iraqis are engaged in sectarian violence, while the overwhelming majority want peace and a normal life in a unified country. Iraqi leaders from all backgrounds remember the elections that brought them to power, in which 12 million Iraqis defied the car bombers and killers to claim, "We want to be free." (Applause.)

Iraq's government is working tirelessly to hold the nation together and to heal Iraq's divisions, not to exploit them. The Iraqi people have come a long way. They are not going to let their country fall apart or relapse into tyranny. As Prime Minister Maliki told the United States Congress, "Iraqis have tasted freedom and we will defend it absolutely." (Applause.)

America has a clear strategy to help the Iraqi people protect their new freedom, and build a democracy that can govern itself, and sustain itself, and defend itself. On the political side, we're working closely with Prime Minister Maliki to strengthen Iraq's unity government and develop -- and to deliver better services to the Iraqi people. This is a crucial moment for the new Iraqi government; its leaders understand the challenge. They believe that now is the time to hammer out compromises on Iraq's most contentious issues.

I've been clear with each Iraqi leader I meet: America is a patient nation, and Iraq can count on our partnership, as long as the new government continues to make the hard decisions necessary to advance a unified, democratic and peaceful Iraq. Prime Minister Maliki has shown courage in laying out an agenda to do just that -- and he can count on an ally, the United States of America, to help him promote this agenda. (Applause.)

On the security side, we're refining our tactics to meet the threats on the ground. I've given our commanders in Iraq all the flexibility they need to make adjustments necessary to stay on the offense and defeat the enemies of freedom. We've deployed Special Operation forces to kill or capture terrorists operating in Iraq. Zarqawi found out what they can do. We continue to train Iraqi police forces to defend their own nation. We've handed over security responsibility for a southern province to Iraqi forces. Five of Iraq's 10 army divisions are now taking the lead in their areas of operation. The Iraqi security forces are determined; they're becoming more capable; and together, we will defeat the enemies of a free Iraq. (Applause.)

Recently, we also launched a major new campaign to end the security crisis in Baghdad. Side by side, Iraqi and American forces are conducting operations in the city's most violent areas to disrupt al Qaeda, to capture enemy fighters, crack down on IED makers, and break up the death squads. These forces are helping Iraq's national police force undergo retraining to better enforce law in Baghdad. And these forces are supporting the Iraqi government as it provides reconstruction assistance.

The Baghdad Security Plan is still in its early stages. We cannot expect immediate success. Yet, the initial results are encouraging. According to one military report, a Sunni man in a diverse Baghdad neighborhood said this about the Shia soldiers on patrol: "Their image has changed. Now you feel they're there to protect you." Over the coming weeks and months, the operation will expand throughout Baghdad. until Iraq's democratic government is in full control of its capital. The work is difficult and dangerous, but the Iraqi government and their forces are determined to reclaim their country. And the United States is determined to help them succeed. (Applause.)

Here at home we have a choice to make about Iraq. Some politicians look at our efforts in Iraq and see a diversion from the war on terror. That would come as news to Osama bin Laden, who proclaimed that the "third world war is raging" in Iraq. It would come as news to the number two man of al Qaeda, Zawahiri, who has called the struggle in Iraq, quote, "the place for the greatest battle." It would come as news to the terrorists from Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Yemen and other countries, who have to come to Iraq to fight the rise of democracy.

It's hard to believe that these terrorists would make long journeys across dangerous borders, endure heavy fighting, or blow themselves up in the streets of Baghdad, for a so-called "diversion." Some Americans didn't support my decision to remove Saddam Hussein; many are frustrated with the level of violence. But we should all agree that the battle for Iraq is now central to the ideological struggle of the 21st century. We will not allow the terrorists to dictate the future of this century -- so we will defeat them in Iraq. (Applause.)

Still, there are some in our country who insist that the best option in Iraq is to pull out, regardless of the situation on the ground. Many of these folks are sincere and they're patriotic, but they could be -- they could not be more wrong. If America were to pull out before Iraq can defend itself, the consequences would be absolutely predictable -- and absolutely disastrous. We would be handing Iraq over to our worst enemies -- Saddam's former henchmen, armed groups with ties to Iran, and al Qaeda terrorists from all over the world who would suddenly have a base of operations far more valuable than Afghanistan under the Taliban. They would have a new sanctuary to recruit and train terrorists at the heart of the Middle East, with huge oil riches to fund their ambitions. And we know exactly where those ambitions lead. If we give up the fight in the streets of Baghdad, we will face the terrorists in the streets of our own cities.

We can decide to stop fighting the terrorists in Iraq and other parts of the world, but they will not decide to stop fighting us. General John Abizaid, our top commander in the Middle East region, recently put it this way: "If we leave, they will follow us." And he is right. The security of the civilized world depends on victory in the war on terror, and that depends on victory in Iraq. So the United States of America will not leave until victory is achieved. (Applause.)

Victory in Iraq will be difficult and it will require more sacrifice. The fighting there can be as fierce as it was at Omaha Beach or Guadalcanal. And victory is as important as it was in those earlier battles. Victory in Iraq will result in a democracy that is a friend of America and an ally in the war on terror. Victory in Iraq will be a crushing defeat for our enemies, who have staked so much on the battle there. Victory in Iraq will honor the sacrifice of the brave Americans who have given their lives. And victory in Iraq would be a powerful triumph in the ideological struggle of the 21st century. From Damascus to Tehran, people will look to a democratic Iraq as inspiration that freedom can succeed in the Middle East, and as evidence that the side of freedom is the winning side. This is a pivotal moment for the Middle East. The world is watching -- and in Iraq and beyond, the forces of freedom will prevail. (Applause.)

For all the debate, American policy in the Middle East comes down to a straightforward choice. We can allow the Middle East to continue on its course -- on the course it was headed before September the 11th, and a generation from now, our children will face a region dominated by terrorist states and radical dictators armed with nuclear weapons. Or we can stop that from happening, by rallying the world to confront the ideology of hate, and give the people of the Middle East a future of hope. And that is the choice America has made. (Applause.)

We see a day when people across the Middle East have governments that honor their dignity, unleash their creativity, and count their votes. We see a day when leaders across the Middle East reject terror and protect freedom. We see a day when the nations of the Middle East are allies in the cause of peace. The path to that day will be uphill and uneven, but we can be confident of the outcome, because we know that the direction of history leads toward freedom.

In the early years of our republic, Thomas Jefferson said that we cannot expect to move "from despotism to liberty in a featherbed." That's been true in every time and place. No one understands that like you, our veterans, understand that. With the distance of history, it can be easy to look back at the wars of the 20th century and see a straight path to victory. You know better than that. You waged the hard battles, you suffered the wounds, you lost friends and brothers. You were there for dark times and the moments of uncertainty. And you know that freedom is always worth the sacrifice.

You also know what it takes to win. For all that is new about this war, one thing has not changed: Victory still depends on the courage and the patience and the resolve of the American people. Above all, it depends on patriots who are willing to fight for freedom. (Applause.) Our nation is blessed to have these men and women in abundance. Our military forces make this nation strong; they make this nation safe; and they make this nation proud. (Applause.)

We thank them and their families for their sacrifice. We will remember all those who have given their lives in this struggle -- and I vow that we will give our men and women in uniform all the resources they need to accomplish their missions. (Applause.)

One brave American we remember is Marine Corporal Adam Galvez, from here in Salt Lake City. Yesterday Adam's mom and dad laid their son to rest. We're honored by their presence with us today. (Applause.) About a month ago, Adam was wounded by a suicide bomb in Iraq's Anbar Province. When he regained consciousness, he found he was buried alive, so he dug himself out of the rubble. And then ran through gunfire to get a shovel to dig out his fellow Marines. As soon as he recovered from his injuries, Adam volunteered to go back to the front lines. and 11 days ago, he was killed when a roadside bomb hit his convoy.

Here is what Adam's mom and dad said about the cause for which their son gave his life: "Though many are debating the justification of this war, Adam believed in his country -- Adam's belief in his country did not waver, even to the point of the ultimate sacrifice. It's our hope and our prayer that people share the same conviction and dedication to our troops and fellow Americans." (Applause.)

Our nation will always remember the selflessness and sacrifice of Americans like Adam Galvez. We will honor their lives by completing the good and noble work they have started. (Applause.) And we can be confident that one day, veterans of the war on terror will gather at American Legion halls across the country, and say the same things you say: We made our nation safer; we made a region more peaceful; and we left behind a better world for our children and our grandchildren. (Applause.)

Thanks for having me. May God bless our veterans. May God bless our troops. And may God continue to bless the United States of America. (Applause.)

END 9:52 A.M. MDT
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Oppenheimer



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PostPosted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 8:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

President Discusses Global War on Terror
Capital Hilton Hotel
Washington, D.C.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/

Fact Sheet: The President's National Strategy for Combating Terrorism

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/09/20060905.html

In Focus: National Security

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/nationalsecurity/


1:15 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very much. (Applause.) Thank you all. Please be seated. General Hendrix, thank you for the invitation to be here. Thanks for the kind introduction. I'm honored to stand with the men and women of the Military Officers Association of America. I appreciate the Board of Directors who are here, and the leaders who have given me this platform from which to speak. I'm proud to be here with active members of the United States military. Thank you for your service. I'm proud to be your Commander-in-Chief. (Applause.)

I am pleased also to stand with members of the diplomatic corps, including many representing nations that have been attacked by al Qaeda and its terrorist allies since September the 11th, 2001. (Applause.) Your presence here reminds us that we're engaged in a global war against an enemy that threatens all civilized nations. And today the civilized world stands together to defend our freedom; we stand together to defeat the terrorists; and were working to secure the peace for generations to come.

I appreciate my Attorney General joining us today, Al Gonzales. Thank you for being here. (Applause.) The Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, is with us. (Applause.) Three members of the United States Senate -- I might say, three important members of the United States Senate -- Senate President Pro Tem Ted Stevens of Alaska. Thank you for joining us, Senator. (Applause.) Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi. (Applause.) The Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, John Warner of Virginia. (Applause.)

I thank Norb Ryan, as well, for his leadership. I do appreciate all the folks that are at Walter Reed who have joined us today. I'm going to tell the parents of our troops, we provide great health care to those who wear the uniform. I'm proud of those folks at Bethesda and Walter Reed -- are providing you the best possible care to help you recover from your injuries. Thank you for your courage. Thank you for joining us here today. May God bless you in your recovery. (Applause.)

Next week, America will mark the fifth anniversary of September the 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks. As this day approaches, it brings with it a flood of painful memories. We remember the horror of watching planes fly into the World Trade Center, and seeing the towers collapse before our eyes. We remember the sight of the Pentagon, broken and in flames. We remember the rescue workers who rushed into burning buildings to save lives, knowing they might never emerge again. We remember the brave passengers who charged the cockpit of their hijacked plane, and stopped the terrorists from reaching their target and killing more innocent civilians. We remember the cold brutality of the enemy who inflicted this harm on our country -- an enemy whose leader, Osama bin Laden, declared the massacre of nearly 3,000 people that day -- I quote -- "an unparalleled and magnificent feat of valor, unmatched by any in humankind before them."

In five years since our nation was attacked, al Qaeda and terrorists it has inspired have continued to attack across the world. They've killed the innocent in Europe and Africa and the Middle East, in Central Asia and the Far East, and beyond. Most recently, they attempted to strike again in the most ambitious plot since the attacks of September the 11th -- a plan to blow up passenger planes headed for America over the Atlantic Ocean.

Five years after our nation was attacked, the terrorist danger remains. We're a nation at war -- and America and her allies are fighting this war with relentless determination across the world. Together with our coalition partners, we've removed terrorist sanctuaries, disrupted their finances, killed and captured key operatives, broken up terrorist cells in America and other nations, and stopped new attacks before they're carried out. We're on the offense against the terrorists on every battlefront -- and we'll accept nothing less than complete victory. (Applause.)

In the five years since our nation was attacked, we've also learned a great deal about the enemy we face in this war. We've learned about them through videos and audio recordings, and letters and statements they've posted on websites. We've learned about them from captured enemy documents that the terrorists have never meant for us to see. Together, these documents and statements have given us clear insight into the mind of our enemies -- their ideology, their ambitions, and their strategy to defeat us.

We know what the terrorists intend to do because they've told us -- and we need to take their words seriously. So today I'm going to describe, in the terrorists' own words, what they believe, what they hope to accomplish, and how they intend to accomplish it. I'll discuss how the enemy has adapted in the wake of our sustained offensive against them, and the threat posed by different strains of violent Islamic radicalism. I'll explain the strategy we're pursuing to protect America, by defeating the terrorists on the battlefield, and defeating their hateful ideology in the battle of ideas.

The terrorists who attacked us on September the 11th, 2001, are men without conscience -- but they're not madmen. They kill in the name of a clear and focused ideology, a set of beliefs that are evil, but not insane. These al Qaeda terrorists and those who share their ideology are violent Sunni extremists. They're driven by a radical and perverted vision of Islam that rejects tolerance, crushes all dissent, and justifies the murder of innocent men, women and children in the pursuit of political power. They hope to establish a violent political utopia across the Middle East, which they call a "caliphate," where all would be ruled according to their hateful ideology. Osama bin Laden has called the 9/11 attacks -- in his words -- "a great step towards the unity of Muslims and establishing the righteous caliphate."

This caliphate would be a totalitarian Islamic empire encompassing all current and former Muslim lands, stretching from Europe to North Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. We know this because al Qaeda has told us. About two months ago, the terrorist Zawahiri -- he's al Qaeda's second in command -- declared that al Qaeda intends to impose its rule in "every land that was a home for Islam, from Spain to Iraq. He went on to say, "The whole world is an open field for us."

We know what this radical empire would look like in practice, because we saw how the radicals imposed their ideology on the people of Afghanistan. Under the rule of the Taliban and al Qaeda, Afghanistan was a totalitarian nightmare -- a land where women were imprisoned in their homes, men were beaten for missing prayer meetings, girls could not go to school, and children were forbidden the smallest pleasures like flying kites. Religious police roamed the streets, beating and detaining civilians for perceived offenses. Women were publicly whipped. Summary executions were held in Kabul's soccer stadium in front of cheering mobs. And Afghanistan was turned into a launching pad for horrific attacks against America and other parts of the civilized world -- including many Muslim nations.

The goal of these Sunni extremists is to remake the entire Muslim world in their radical image. In pursuit of their imperial aims, these extremists say there can be no compromise or dialogue with those they call "infidels" -- a category that includes America, the world's free nations, Jews, and all Muslims who reject their extreme vision of Islam. They reject the possibility of peaceful coexistence with the free world. Again, hear the words of Osama bin Laden earlier this year: "Death is better than living on this Earth with the unbelievers among us."

These radicals have declared their uncompromising hostility to freedom. It is foolish to think that you can negotiate with them. (Applause.) We see the uncompromising nature of the enemy in many captured terrorist documents. Here are just two examples: After the liberation of Afghanistan, coalition forces searching through a terrorist safe house in that country found a copy of the al Qaeda charter. This charter states that "There will be continuing enmity until everyone believes in Allah. We will not meet the enemy halfway. There will be no room for dialogue with them." Another document was found in 2000 by British police during an anti-terrorist raid in London -- a grisly al Qaeda manual that includes chapters with titles such as "Guidelines for Beating and Killing Hostages." This manual declares that their vision of Islam "does not make a truce with unbelief, but rather confronts it." The confrontation calls for the "dialogue of bullets, the ideals of assassination, bombing, and destruction, and the diplomacy of the cannon and machine gun."

Still other captured documents show al Qaeda's strategy for infiltrating Muslim nations, establishing terrorist enclaves, overthrowing governments, and building their totalitarian empire. We see this strategy laid out in a captured al Qaeda document found during a recent raid in Iraq, which describes their plans to infiltrate and take over Iraq's western Anbar Province. The document lays out an elaborate al Qaeda governing structure for the region that includes an Education Department, a Social Services Department, a Justice Department, and an "Execution Unit" responsible for "Sorting out, Arrest, Murder, and Destruction."

According to their public statements, countries that have -- they have targeted stretch from the Middle East to Africa, to Southeast Asia. Through this strategy, al Qaeda and its allies intend to create numerous, decentralized operating bases across the world, from which they can plan new attacks, and advance their vision of a unified, totalitarian Islamic state that can confront and eventually destroy the free world.

These violent extremists know that to realize this vision, they must first drive out the main obstacle that stands in their way -- the United States of America. According to al Qaeda, their strategy to defeat America has two parts: First, they're waging a campaign of terror across the world. They're targeting our forces abroad, hoping that the American people will grow tired of casualties and give up the fight. And they're targeting America's financial centers and economic infrastructure at home, hoping to terrorize us and cause our economy to collapse.

Bin Laden calls this his "bleed-until-bankruptcy plan." And he cited the attacks of 9/11 as evidence that such a plan can succeed. With the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden says, "al Qaeda spent $500,000 on the event, while America lost -- according to the lowest estimate -- $500 billion -- meaning that every dollar of al Qaeda defeated a million dollars of America. Bin Laden concludes from this experience that "America is definitely a great power, with unbelievable military strength and a vibrant economy, but all of these have been built on a very weak and hollow foundation." He went on to say, "Therefore, it is very easy to target the flimsy base and concentrate on their weak points, and even if we're able to target one-tenth of these weak points, we will be able to crush and destroy them."

Secondly, along with this campaign of terror, the enemy has a propaganda strategy. Osama bin Laden laid out this strategy in a letter to the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, that coalition forces uncovered in Afghanistan in 2002. In it, bin Laden says that al Qaeda intends to "launch," in his words, "a media campaign to create a wedge between the American people and their government." This media campaign, bin Laden says, will send the American people a number of messages, including "that their government will bring them more losses in finances and casualties." And he goes on to say that "they are being sacrificed to serve the big investors, especially the Jews." Bin Laden says that by delivering these messages, al Qaeda "aims at creating pressure from the American people on the American government to stop their campaign against Afghanistan."

Bin Laden and his allies are absolutely convinced they can succeed in forcing America to retreat and causing our economic collapse. They believe our nation is weak and decadent, and lacking in patience and resolve. And they're wrong. (Applause.) Osama bin Laden has written that the "defeat of American forces in Beirut" in 1983 is proof America does not have the stomach to stay in the fight. He's declared that "in Somalia, the United States pulled out, trailing disappointment, defeat, and failure behind it." And last year, the terrorist Zawahiri declared that Americans "know better than others that there is no hope in victory. The Vietnam specter is closing every outlet."

These terrorists hope to drive America and our coalition out of Afghanistan, so they can restore the safe haven they lost when coalition forces drove them out five years ago. But they've made clear that the most important front in their struggle against America is Iraq -- the nation bin Laden has declared the "capital of the caliphate." Hear the words of bin Laden: "I now address the whole Islamic nation. Listen and understand. The most serious issue today for the whole world is this Third World War that is raging in Iraq." He calls it "a war of destiny between infidelity and Islam." He says, "The whole world is watching this war," and that it will end in "victory and glory, or misery and humiliation." For al Qaeda, Iraq is not a distraction from their war on America -- it is the central battlefield where the outcome of this struggle will be decided.

Here is what al Qaeda says they will do if they succeed in driving us out of Iraq: The terrorist Zawahiri has said that al Qaeda will proceed with "several incremental goals. The first stage: Expel the Americans from Iraq. The second stage: Establish an Islamic authority or amirate, then develop it and support it until it achieves the level of caliphate. The third stage: Extend the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq. And the fourth stage: The clash with Israel."

These evil men know that a fundamental threat to their aspirations is a democratic Iraq that can govern itself, sustain itself, and defend itself. They know that given a choice, the Iraqi people will never choose to live in the totalitarian state the extremists hope to establish. And that is why we must not, and we will not, give the enemy victory in Iraq by deserting the Iraqi people. (Applause.)

Last year, the terrorist Zarqawi declared in a message posted on the Internet that democracy "is the essence of infidelity and deviation from the right path." The Iraqi people disagree. Last December, nearly 12 million Iraqis from every ethnic and religious community turned out to vote in their country's third free election in less than a year. Iraq now has a unity government that represents Iraq's diverse population -- and al Qaeda's top commander in Iraq breathed his last breath. (Applause.)

Despite these strategic setbacks, the enemy will continue to fight freedom's advance in Iraq, because they understand the stakes in this war. Again, hear the words of bin Laden, in a message to the American people earlier this year. He says: "The war is for you or for us to win. If we win it, it means your defeat and disgrace forever."

Now, I know some of our country hear the terrorists' words, and hope that they will not, or cannot, do what they say. History teaches that underestimating the words of evil and ambitious men is a terrible mistake. In the early 1900s, an exiled lawyer in Europe published a pamphlet called "What is to be Done?" -- in which he laid out his plan to launch a communist revolution in Russia. The world did not heed Lenin's words, and paid a terrible price. The Soviet Empire he established killed tens of millions, and brought the world to the brink of thermonuclear war. In the 1920s, a failed Austrian painter published a book in which he explained his intention to build an Aryan super-state in Germany and take revenge on Europe and eradicate the Jews. The world ignored Hitler's words, and paid a terrible price. His Nazi regime killed millions in the gas chambers, and set the world aflame in war, before it was finally defeated at a terrible cost in lives.

Bin Laden and his terrorist allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them. The question is: Will we listen? Will we pay attention to what these evil men say? America and our coalition partners have made our choice. We're taking the words of the enemy seriously. We're on the offensive, and we will not rest, we will not retreat, and we will not withdraw from the fight, until this threat to civilization has been removed. (Applause.)

Five years into this struggle, it's important to take stock of what's been accomplished -- and the difficult work that remains. Al Qaeda has been weakened by our sustained offensive against them, and today it is harder for al Qaeda's leaders to operate freely, to move money, or to communicate with their operatives and facilitators. Yet al Qaeda remains dangerous and determined. Bin Laden and Zawahiri remain in hiding in remote regions of this world. Al Qaeda continues to adapt in the face of our global campaign against them. Increasingly, al Qaeda is taking advantage of the Internet to disseminate propaganda, and to conduct "virtual recruitment" and "virtual training" of new terrorists. Al Qaeda's leaders no longer need to meet face-to-face with their operatives. They can find new suicide bombers, and facilitate new terrorist attacks, without ever laying eyes on those they're training, financing, or sending to strike us.

As al Qaeda changes, the broader terrorist movement is also changing, becoming more dispersed and self-directed. More and more, we're facing threats from locally established terrorist cells that are inspired by al Qaeda's ideology and goals, but do not necessarily have direct links to al Qaeda, such as training and funding. Some of these groups are made up of "homegrown" terrorists, militant extremists who were born and educated in Western nations, were indoctrinated by radical Islamists or attracted to their ideology, and joined the violent extremist cause. These locally established cells appear to be responsible for a number of attacks and plots, including those in Madrid, and Canada, and other countries across the world.

As we continue to fight al Qaeda and these Sunni extremists inspired by their radical ideology, we also face the threat posed by Shia extremists, who are learning from al Qaeda, increasing their assertiveness, and stepping up their threats. Like the vast majority of Sunnis, the vast majority of Shia across the world reject the vision of extremists -- and in Iraq, millions of Shia have defied terrorist threats to vote in free elections, and have shown their desire to live in freedom. The Shia extremists want to deny them this right. This Shia strain of Islamic radicalism is just as dangerous, and just as hostile to America, and just as determined to establish its brand of hegemony across the broader Middle East. And the Shia extremists have achieved something that al Qaeda has so far failed to do: In 1979, they took control of a major power, the nation of Iran, subjugating its proud people to a regime of tyranny, and using that nation's resources to fund the spread of terror and pursue their radical agenda.
Like al Qaeda and the Sunni extremists, the Iranian regime has clear aims: They want to drive America out of the region, to destroy Israel, and to dominate the broader Middle East. To achieve these aims, they are funding and arming terrorist groups like Hezbollah, which allow them to attack Israel and America by proxy. Hezbollah, the source of the current instability in Lebanon, has killed more Americans than any terrorist organization except al Qaeda. Unlike al Qaeda, they've not yet attacked the American homeland. Yet they're directly responsible for the murder of hundreds of Americans abroad. It was Hezbollah that was behind the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 Americans. And Saudi Hezbollah was behind the 1996 bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 Americans, an attack conducted by terrorists who we believe were working with Iranian officials.
Just as we must take the words of the Sunni extremists seriously, we must take the words of the Shia extremists seriously. Listen to the words of Hezbollah's leader, the terrorist Nasrallah, who has declared his hatred of America. He says, "Let the entire world hear me. Our hostility to the Great Satan [America] is absolute. Regardless of how the world has changed after 11 September, 'Death to America' will remain our reverberating and powerful slogan: Death to America."

Iran's leaders, who back Hezbollah, have also declared their absolute hostility to America. Last October, Iran's President declared in a speech that some people ask -- in his words -- "whether a world without the United States and Zionism can be achieved. I say that this goal is achievable." Less than three months ago, Iran's President declared to America and other Western powers: "open your eyes and see the fate of pharaoh. If you do not abandon the path of falsehood, your doomed destiny will be annihilation." Less than two months ago, he warned: "The anger of Muslims may reach an explosion point soon. If such a day comes, America and the West should know that the waves of the blast will not remain within the boundaries of our region." He also delivered this message to the American people: "If you would like to have good relations with the Iranian nation in the future, bow down before the greatness of the Iranian nation and surrender. If you don't accept to do this, the Iranian nation will force you to surrender and bow down."

America will not bow down to tyrants. (Applause.)

The Iranian regime and its terrorist proxies have demonstrated their willingness to kill Americans -- and now the Iranian regime is pursuing nuclear weapons. The world is working together to prevent Iran's regime from acquiring the tools of mass murder. The international community has made a reasonable proposal to Iran's leaders, and given them the opportunity to set their nation on a better course. So far, Iran's leaders have rejected this offer. Their choice is increasingly isolating the great Iranian nation from the international community, and denying the Iranian people an opportunity for greater economic prosperity. It's time for Iran's leader to make a different choice. And we've made our choice. We'll continue to work closely with our allies to find a diplomatic solution. The world's free nations will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. (Applause.)

The Shia and Sunni extremists represent different faces of the same threat. They draw inspiration from different sources, but both seek to impose a dark vision of violent Islamic radicalism across the Middle East. They oppose the advance of freedom, and they want to gain control of weapons of mass destruction. If they succeed in undermining fragile democracies, like Iraq, and drive the forces of freedom out of the region, they will have an open field to pursue their dangerous goals. Each strain of violent Islamic radicalism would be emboldened in their efforts to topple moderate governments and establish terrorist safe havens.

Imagine a world in which they were able to control governments, a world awash with oil and they would use oil resources to punish industrialized nations. And they would use those resources to fuel their radical agenda, and pursue and purchase weapons of mass murder. And armed with nuclear weapons, they would blackmail the free world, and spread their ideologies of hate, and raise a mortal threat to the American people. If we allow them to do this, if we retreat from Iraq, if we don't uphold our duty to support those who are desirous to live in liberty, 50 years from now history will look back on our time with unforgiving clarity, and demand to know why we did not act.

I'm not going to allow this to happen -- and no future American President can allow it either. America did not seek this global struggle, but we're answering history's call with confidence and a clear strategy. Today we're releasing a document called the "National Strategy for Combating Terrorism." This is an unclassified version of the strategy we've been pursuing since September the 11th, 2001. This strategy was first released in February 2003; it's been updated to take into account the changing nature of this enemy. This strategy document is posted on the White House website -- whitehouse.gov. And I urge all Americans to read it.

Our strategy for combating terrorism has five basic elements:

First, we're determined to prevent terrorist attacks before they occur. So we're taking the fight to the enemy. The best way to protect America is to stay on the offense. Since 9/11, our coalition has captured or killed al Qaeda managers and operatives, and scores of other terrorists across the world. The enemy is living under constant pressure, and we intend to keep it that way -- and this adds to our security. When terrorists spend their days working to avoid death or capture, it's harder for them to plan and execute new attacks.

We're also fighting the enemy here at home. We've given our law enforcement and intelligence professionals the tools they need to stop the terrorists in our midst. We passed the Patriot Act to break down the wall that prevented law enforcement and intelligence from sharing vital information. We created the Terrorist Surveillance Program to monitor the communications between al Qaeda commanders abroad and terrorist operatives within our borders. If al Qaeda is calling somebody in America, we need to know why, in order to stop attacks. (Applause.)

I want to thank these three Senators for working with us to give our law enforcement and intelligence officers the tools necessary to do their jobs. (Applause.) And over the last five years, federal, state, and local law enforcement have used those tools to break up terrorist cells, and to prosecute terrorist operatives and supporters in New York, and Oregon, and Virginia, and Texas, and New Jersey, and Illinois, Ohio, and other states. By taking the battle to the terrorists and their supporters on our own soil and across the world, we've stopped a number of al Qaeda plots.

Second, we're determined to deny weapons of mass destruction to outlaw regimes and terrorists who would use them without hesitation. Working with Great Britain and Pakistan and other nations, the United States shut down the world's most dangerous nuclear trading cartel, the AQ Khan network. This network had supplied Iran and Libya and North Korea with equipment and know-how that advanced their efforts to obtain nuclear weapons. And we launched the Proliferation Security Initiative, a coalition of more than 70 nations that is working together to stop shipments related to weapons of mass destruction on land, at sea, and in the air. The greatest threat this world faces is the danger of extremists and terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction -- and this is a threat America cannot defeat on her own. We applaud the determined efforts of many nations around the world to stop the spread of these dangerous weapons. Together, we pledge we'll continue to work together to stop the world's most dangerous men from getting their hands on the world's most dangerous weapons. (Applause.)

Third, we're determined to deny terrorists the support of outlaw regimes. After September the 11th, I laid out a clear doctrine: America makes no distinction between those who commit acts of terror, and those that harbor and support them, because they're equally guilty of murder. Thanks to our efforts, there are now three fewer state sponsors of terror in the world than there were on September the 11th, 2001. Afghanistan and Iraq have been transformed from terrorist states into allies in the war on terror. And the nation of Libya has renounced terrorism, and given up its weapons of mass destruction programs, and its nuclear materials and equipment. Over the past five years, we've acted to disrupt the flow of weapons and support from terrorist states to terrorist networks. And we have made clear that any government that chooses to be an ally of terror has also chosen to be an enemy of civilization. (Applause.)

Fourth, we're determined to deny terrorist networks control of any nation, or territory within a nation. So, along with our coalition and the Iraqi government, we'll stop the terrorists from taking control of Iraq, and establishing a new safe haven from which to attack America and the free world. And we're working with friends and allies to deny the terrorists the enclaves they seek to establish in ungoverned areas across the world. By helping governments reclaim full sovereign control over their territory, we make ourselves more secure.

Fifth, we're working to deny terrorists new recruits, by defeating their hateful ideology and spreading the hope of freedom -- by spreading the hope of freedom across the Middle East. For decades, American policy sought to achieve peace in the Middle East by pursuing stability at the expense of liberty. The lack of freedom in that region helped create conditions where anger and resentment grew, and radicalism thrived, and terrorists found willing recruits. And we saw the consequences on September the 11th, when the terrorists brought death and destruction to our country. The policy wasn't working.

The experience of September the 11th made clear, in the long run, the only way to secure our nation is to change the course of the Middle East. So America has committed its influence in the world to advancing freedom and liberty and democracy as the great alternatives to repression and radicalism. (Applause.) We're taking the side of democratic leaders and moderates and reformers across the Middle East. We strongly support the voices of tolerance and moderation in the Muslim world. We're standing with Afghanistan's elected government against al Qaeda and the Taliban remnants that are trying to restore tyranny in that country. We're standing with Lebanon's young democracy against the foreign forces that are seeking to undermine the country's sovereignty and independence. And we're standing with the leaders of Iraq's unity government as they work to defeat the enemies of freedom, and chart a more hopeful course for their people. This is why victory is so important in Iraq. By helping freedom succeed in Iraq, we will help America, and the Middle East, and the world become more secure.

During the last five years we've learned a lot about this enemy. We've learned that they're cunning and sophisticated. We've witnessed their ability to change their methods and their tactics with deadly speed -- even as their murderous obsessions remain unchanging. We've seen that it's the terrorists who have declared war on Muslims, slaughtering huge numbers of innocent Muslim men and women around the world.

We know what the terrorists believe, we know what they have done, and we know what they intend to do. And now the world's free nations must summon the will to meet this great challenge. The road ahead is going to be difficult, and it will require more sacrifice. Yet we can have confidence in the outcome, because we've seen freedom conquer tyranny and terror before. In the 20th century, free nations confronted and defeated Nazi Germany. During the Cold War, we confronted Soviet communism, and today Europe is whole, free and at peace.

And now, freedom is once again contending with the forces of darkness and tyranny. This time, the battle is unfolding in a new region -- the broader Middle East. This time, we're not waiting for our enemies to gather in strength. This time, we're confronting them before they gain the capacity to inflict unspeakable damage on the world, and we're confronting their hateful ideology before it fully takes root.

We see a day when people across the Middle East have governments that honor their dignity, and unleash their creativity, and count their votes. We see a day when across this region citizens are allowed to express themselves freely, women have full rights, and children are educated and given the tools necessary to succeed in life. And we see a day when all the nations of the Middle East are allies in the cause of peace.

We fight for this day, because the security of our own citizens depends on it. This is the great ideological struggle of the 21st century -- and it is the calling of our generation. All civilized nations are bound together in this struggle between moderation and extremism. By coming together, we will roll back this grave threat to our way of life. We will help the people of the Middle East claim their freedom, and we will leave a safer and more hopeful world for our children and grandchildren.

God bless. (Applause.)

END 1:59 P.M. EDT
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Iranian Boy



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PostPosted: Wed Sep 06, 2006 5:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Once again nice words from President Bush followed by no action, probably just to satisfy the american opinion.
But without a real strategy and support for regime change, the republicans will loose the november elections. Americans have heard these nice speeches for 5 years now and still everyday the terrorists grow stronger because Bush has closed it´s eyes on the biggest terror regime of the world.
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 06, 2006 7:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Is it just me or there are others who no longer listen or read what Bush has to say.
I mean this is funny while Khatami is in the protection of state department Bush talk about fighting terrorists.

I doubt that anyone longer listens to what Bush has to say, it is unfortunat but reaity that Bush is concidered as a joke in europe and as the time passes more people come to the same conclusion.

Payande Iran
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 06, 2006 9:38 am    Post subject: America will not bow down to tyrants Reply with quote

America will not bow down to tyrants.

President Bush wrote:

As we continue to fight al Qaeda and these Sunni extremists inspired by their radical ideology, we also face the threat posed by Shia extremists, who are learning from al Qaeda, increasing their assertiveness, and stepping up their threats. Like the vast majority of Sunnis, the vast majority of Shia across the world reject the vision of extremists -- and in Iraq, millions of Shia have defied terrorist threats to vote in free elections, and have shown their desire to live in freedom. The Shia extremists want to deny them this right. This Shia strain of Islamic radicalism is just as dangerous, and just as hostile to America, and just as determined to establish its brand of hegemony across the broader Middle East. And the Shia extremists have achieved something that al Qaeda has so far failed to do: In 1979, they took control of a major power, the nation of Iran, subjugating its proud people to a regime of tyranny, and using that nation's resources to fund the spread of terror and pursue their radical agenda.
Like al Qaeda and the Sunni extremists, the Iranian regime has clear aims: They want to drive America out of the region, to destroy Israel, and to dominate the broader Middle East. To achieve these aims, they are funding and arming terrorist groups like Hezbollah, which allow them to attack Israel and America by proxy. Hezbollah, the source of the current instability in Lebanon, has killed more Americans than any terrorist organization except al Qaeda. Unlike al Qaeda, they've not yet attacked the American homeland. Yet they're directly responsible for the murder of hundreds of Americans abroad. It was Hezbollah that was behind the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 Americans. And Saudi Hezbollah was behind the 1996 bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 Americans, an attack conducted by terrorists who we believe were working with Iranian officials.
[b]Just as we must take the words of the Sunni extremists seriously, we must take the words of the Shia extremists seriously. Listen to the words of Hezbollah's leader, the terrorist Nasrallah, who has declared his hatred of America. He says, "Let the entire world hear me. Our hostility to the Great Satan [America] is absolute. Regardless of how the world has changed after 11 September, 'Death to America' will remain our reverberating and powerful slogan: Death to America."

Iran's leaders, who back Hezbollah, have also declared their absolute hostility to America. Last October, Iran's President declared in a speech that some people ask -- in his words -- "whether a world without the United States and Zionism can be achieved. I say that this goal is achievable." Less than three months ago, Iran's President declared to America and other Western powers: "open your eyes and see the fate of pharaoh. If you do not abandon the path of falsehood, your doomed destiny will be annihilation." Less than two months ago, he warned: "The anger of Muslims may reach an explosion point soon. If such a day comes, America and the West should know that the waves of the blast will not remain within the boundaries of our region." He also delivered this message to the American people: "If you would like to have good relations with the Iranian nation in the future, bow down before the greatness of the Iranian nation and surrender. If you don't accept to do this, the Iranian nation will force you to surrender and bow down."

America will not bow down to tyrants. (Applause.)


President Bush has less than few weeks to deliver above words which is regime change, otherwise 75% of American public anger rate in US will increase to 95%. For too long US listened to EU, China and Russia witout any positive result.


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espandyar



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PostPosted: Wed Sep 06, 2006 9:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

cyrus wrote:
President Bush wrote:

As we continue to fight al Qaeda and these Sunni extremists inspired by their radical ideology, we also face the threat posed by Shia extremists, who are learning from al Qaeda, increasing their assertiveness, and stepping up their threats. Like the vast majority of Sunnis, the vast majority of Shia across the world reject the vision of extremists -- and in Iraq, millions of Shia have defied terrorist threats to vote in free elections, and have shown their desire to live in freedom. The Shia extremists want to deny them this right. This Shia strain of Islamic radicalism is just as dangerous, and just as hostile to America, and just as determined to establish its brand of hegemony across the broader Middle East. And the Shia extremists have achieved something that al Qaeda has so far failed to do: In 1979, they took control of a major power, the nation of Iran, subjugating its proud people to a regime of tyranny, and using that nation's resources to fund the spread of terror and pursue their radical agenda.
Like al Qaeda and the Sunni extremists, the Iranian regime has clear aims: They want to drive America out of the region, to destroy Israel, and to dominate the broader Middle East. To achieve these aims, they are funding and arming terrorist groups like Hezbollah, which allow them to attack Israel and America by proxy. Hezbollah, the source of the current instability in Lebanon, has killed more Americans than any terrorist organization except al Qaeda. Unlike al Qaeda, they've not yet attacked the American homeland. Yet they're directly responsible for the murder of hundreds of Americans abroad. It was Hezbollah that was behind the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 Americans. And Saudi Hezbollah was behind the 1996 bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 Americans, an attack conducted by terrorists who we believe were working with Iranian officials.
[b]Just as we must take the words of the Sunni extremists seriously, we must take the words of the Shia extremists seriously. Listen to the words of Hezbollah's leader, the terrorist Nasrallah, who has declared his hatred of America. He says, "Let the entire world hear me. Our hostility to the Great Satan [America] is absolute. Regardless of how the world has changed after 11 September, 'Death to America' will remain our reverberating and powerful slogan: Death to America."

Iran's leaders, who back Hezbollah, have also declared their absolute hostility to America. Last October, Iran's President declared in a speech that some people ask -- in his words -- "whether a world without the United States and Zionism can be achieved. I say that this goal is achievable." Less than three months ago, Iran's President declared to America and other Western powers: "open your eyes and see the fate of pharaoh. If you do not abandon the path of falsehood, your doomed destiny will be annihilation." Less than two months ago, he warned: "The anger of Muslims may reach an explosion point soon. If such a day comes, America and the West should know that the waves of the blast will not remain within the boundaries of our region." He also delivered this message to the American people: "If you would like to have good relations with the Iranian nation in the future, bow down before the greatness of the Iranian nation and surrender. If you don't accept to do this, the Iranian nation will force you to surrender and bow down."

America will not bow down to tyrants. (Applause.)


A lot of TALK, seem like Bush admin bowed sooner than IRI thought!

Bowing to Iran

September 06, 2006
The Boston Globe
Jeff Jacoby



Having warned repeatedly that Iran would face serious consequences if it defied international demands to shut down its nuclear weapons program, the Bush administration wasted no time when Tehran blew off the Security Council's Aug. 31 deadline to stop enriching uranium. It issued a visa authorizing one of Iran's leading theocrats, former president Mohammad Khatami, to embark on a propaganda tour of the United States.

It is the first visa issued to an Iranian president since 1979, when Islamist radicals loyal to the Ayatollah Khomeini seized the US embassy in Tehran and held American diplomats hostage for nearly 15 months.

That'll show `em.

When it comes to Iran, the administration has been consistent only in its inconsistency. Time and again it has condemned the Tehran regime for its sponsorship of Islamist terror, its domestic repression, and its violent rhetoric. And time and again it has failed to back up those condemnations with action. In September 2001, when President Bush included Iran in the ``Axis of Evil" and warned that ``any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime," the mullahs might have thought they had reason to be afraid. Today they know better.

This schizophrenia is perfectly captured in the State Department's inane explanation for the decision allowing Khatami to enter the United States:

``We recognize that former President Khatami headed a regime that is a leading sponsor of terrorism (and) human rights abuses, and presided over Iran's secret nuclear program which is now the focus of possible UN action. After careful deliberation, however, we determined that issuing Mr. Khatami a limited visa, and allowing Mr. Khatami to present his views directly to the American people, will demonstrate to Iran that the United States upholds its commitment to freedom and democracy." Got that? It's up to us to convince Iran that we really are free and democratic. And how? By letting one of Tehran's senior propagandists barnstorm across America. Only in Foggy Bottom could people get paid to concoct such arguments.

And so, five years after the terror attacks that claimed nearly 3,000 lives and plunged the United States into a global war against Islamist radicals, the former president of the world's oldest and most dangerous Islamist dictatorship is on a multi-city US speaking tour. It began with appearances in Chicago and New York; on Thursday Khatami is scheduled to speak at the National Cathedral in Washington. Next Sunday, on the eve of 9/11, Khatami will deliver an address at Harvard University. His topic: ``Ethics of Tolerance in the Age of Violence."

When he became president in 1997, Khatami was reputed to be a moderate democratic reformer. If he had lived up to that reputation, his arrival in America might well be worth celebrating. True, his style was not as incendiary as that of his successor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But he was just as committed to Khomeini's radical revolution and its goal of worldwide Islamist rule. If there is one thing Khatami's presidency made clear, it is that the man was no moderate.

His election came only after religious authorities disqualified 234 potential competitors they considered too liberal. In his own writings, Khatami has insisted that ``only those who have attended religious seminaries should have a voice in government."

He is no more opposed to terrorism than he is to theocracy. As minister of culture and Islamic guidance in the 1980s, he oversaw the creation of Hezbollah, the terrorist group that would kill more Americans prior to 9/11 than any other terrorist organization. During the recent war in Lebanon, he hailed Hezbollah as ``a shining sun that illuminates and warms the hearts of all Muslims." Throughout Khatami's term of office, the US State Department identified Iran as the world's foremost state sponsor of terrorism. It was on his watch that Bush named Iran a part of the ``Axis of Evil."

In 1998, Khatami's intelligence agents brutally murdered Darioush and Parvaneh Forouhar, two well-known leaders of Iran's liberal opposition. The following year, government thugs attacked student dissidents at Tehran University. Several students were killed. Hundreds were arrested and tortured.

Many Iranians had hoped that Khatami's accession to office would mean more freedom of speech and of the press. But he presided over the shutting down of at least 85 newspapers and the prosecution of numerous journalists. Reporters Without Borders called Iran under Khatami ``the biggest prison for journalists in the Middle East." It was a prison as well for Iran's religious minorities, all of which were severely persecuted.

Khatami's visa is a win for the mullahs, but a slap in the face to the people of Iran. What a blunder by the Bush administration. What a disgrace.

Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is jacoby@globe.com.
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 06, 2006 10:17 am    Post subject: America will not bow down to tyrants Reply with quote

President Bush: America will not bow down to tyrants.

Iranian Boy wrote:
Once again nice words from President Bush followed by no action, probably just to satisfy the american opinion.
But without a real strategy and support for regime change, the republicans will loose the november elections. Americans have heard these nice speeches for 5 years now and still everyday the terrorists grow stronger because Bush has closed it´s eyes on the biggest terror regime of the world.


espandyar wrote:
Is it just me or there are others who no longer listen or read what Bush has to say.
I mean this is funny while Khatami is in the protection of state department Bush talk about fighting terrorists.

I doubt that anyone longer listens to what Bush has to say, it is unfortunat but reaity that Bush is concidered as a joke in europe and as the time passes more people come to the same conclusion.

Payande Iran


Oppenheimer wrote:
Fact Sheet: The President's National Strategy for Combating Terrorism

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/09/20060905.html

O yeah of little faith.....use the link.
As I said on another thread, the regime is taking options off the table. the diplomatic process is being exhausted....and that option too the regime will ultimately take off the table.

Best be prepared when there's only one option left.

Nobody wants a war with Iran, except those in Iran who want to make war on the west. You see a lot of attempts made to reason it out with the unreasonable because of that.

-Oppie


espandyar wrote:
cyrus wrote:
President Bush wrote:

As we continue to fight al Qaeda and these Sunni extremists inspired by their radical ideology, we also face the threat posed by Shia extremists, who are learning from al Qaeda, increasing their assertiveness, and stepping up their threats. Like the vast majority of Sunnis, the vast majority of Shia across the world reject the vision of extremists -- and in Iraq, millions of Shia have defied terrorist threats to vote in free elections, and have shown their desire to live in freedom. The Shia extremists want to deny them this right. This Shia strain of Islamic radicalism is just as dangerous, and just as hostile to America, and just as determined to establish its brand of hegemony across the broader Middle East. And the Shia extremists have achieved something that al Qaeda has so far failed to do: In 1979, they took control of a major power, the nation of Iran, subjugating its proud people to a regime of tyranny, and using that nation's resources to fund the spread of terror and pursue their radical agenda.
Like al Qaeda and the Sunni extremists, the Iranian regime has clear aims: They want to drive America out of the region, to destroy Israel, and to dominate the broader Middle East. To achieve these aims, they are funding and arming terrorist groups like Hezbollah, which allow them to attack Israel and America by proxy. Hezbollah, the source of the current instability in Lebanon, has killed more Americans than any terrorist organization except al Qaeda. Unlike al Qaeda, they've not yet attacked the American homeland. Yet they're directly responsible for the murder of hundreds of Americans abroad. It was Hezbollah that was behind the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 Americans. And Saudi Hezbollah was behind the 1996 bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 Americans, an attack conducted by terrorists who we believe were working with Iranian officials.
Just as we must take the words of the Sunni extremists seriously, we must take the words of the Shia extremists seriously. Listen to the words of Hezbollah's leader, the terrorist Nasrallah, who has declared his hatred of America. He says, "Let the entire world hear me. Our hostility to the Great Satan [America] is absolute. Regardless of how the world has changed after 11 September, 'Death to America' will remain our reverberating and powerful slogan: Death to America."

Iran's leaders, who back Hezbollah, have also declared their absolute hostility to America. Last October, Iran's President declared in a speech that some people ask -- in his words -- "whether a world without the United States and Zionism can be achieved. I say that this goal is achievable." Less than three months ago, Iran's President declared to America and other Western powers: "open your eyes and see the fate of pharaoh. If you do not abandon the path of falsehood, your doomed destiny will be annihilation." Less than two months ago, he warned: "The anger of Muslims may reach an explosion point soon. If such a day comes, America and the West should know that the waves of the blast will not remain within the boundaries of our region." He also delivered this message to the American people: "If you would like to have good relations with the Iranian nation in the future, bow down before the greatness of the Iranian nation and surrender. If you don't accept to do this, the Iranian nation will force you to surrender and bow down."

America will not bow down to tyrants. (Applause.)


A lot of TALK, seem like Bush admin bowed sooner than IRI thought!

Bowing to Iran

September 06, 2006
The Boston Globe
Jeff Jacoby



Having warned repeatedly that Iran would face serious consequences if it defied international demands to shut down its nuclear weapons program, the Bush administration wasted no time when Tehran blew off the Security Council's Aug. 31 deadline to stop enriching uranium. It issued a visa authorizing one of Iran's leading theocrats, former president Mohammad Khatami, to embark on a propaganda tour of the United States.

It is the first visa issued to an Iranian president since 1979, when Islamist radicals loyal to the Ayatollah Khomeini seized the US embassy in Tehran and held American diplomats hostage for nearly 15 months.

That'll show `em.

When it comes to Iran, the administration has been consistent only in its inconsistency. Time and again it has condemned the Tehran regime for its sponsorship of Islamist terror, its domestic repression, and its violent rhetoric. And time and again it has failed to back up those condemnations with action. In September 2001, when President Bush included Iran in the ``Axis of Evil" and warned that ``any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime," the mullahs might have thought they had reason to be afraid. Today they know better.

This schizophrenia is perfectly captured in the State Department's inane explanation for the decision allowing Khatami to enter the United States:

``We recognize that former President Khatami headed a regime that is a leading sponsor of terrorism (and) human rights abuses, and presided over Iran's secret nuclear program which is now the focus of possible UN action. After careful deliberation, however, we determined that issuing Mr. Khatami a limited visa, and allowing Mr. Khatami to present his views directly to the American people, will demonstrate to Iran that the United States upholds its commitment to freedom and democracy." Got that? It's up to us to convince Iran that we really are free and democratic. And how? By letting one of Tehran's senior propagandists barnstorm across America. Only in Foggy Bottom could people get paid to concoct such arguments.

And so, five years after the terror attacks that claimed nearly 3,000 lives and plunged the United States into a global war against Islamist radicals, the former president of the world's oldest and most dangerous Islamist dictatorship is on a multi-city US speaking tour. It began with appearances in Chicago and New York; on Thursday Khatami is scheduled to speak at the National Cathedral in Washington. Next Sunday, on the eve of 9/11, Khatami will deliver an address at Harvard University. His topic: ``Ethics of Tolerance in the Age of Violence."

When he became president in 1997, Khatami was reputed to be a moderate democratic reformer. If he had lived up to that reputation, his arrival in America might well be worth celebrating. True, his style was not as incendiary as that of his successor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But he was just as committed to Khomeini's radical revolution and its goal of worldwide Islamist rule. If there is one thing Khatami's presidency made clear, it is that the man was no moderate.

His election came only after religious authorities disqualified 234 potential competitors they considered too liberal. In his own writings, Khatami has insisted that ``only those who have attended religious seminaries should have a voice in government."

He is no more opposed to terrorism than he is to theocracy. As minister of culture and Islamic guidance in the 1980s, he oversaw the creation of Hezbollah, the terrorist group that would kill more Americans prior to 9/11 than any other terrorist organization. During the recent war in Lebanon, he hailed Hezbollah as ``a shining sun that illuminates and warms the hearts of all Muslims." Throughout Khatami's term of office, the US State Department identified Iran as the world's foremost state sponsor of terrorism. It was on his watch that Bush named Iran a part of the ``Axis of Evil."

In 1998, Khatami's intelligence agents brutally murdered Darioush and Parvaneh Forouhar, two well-known leaders of Iran's liberal opposition. The following year, government thugs attacked student dissidents at Tehran University. Several students were killed. Hundreds were arrested and tortured.

Many Iranians had hoped that Khatami's accession to office would mean more freedom of speech and of the press. But he presided over the shutting down of at least 85 newspapers and the prosecution of numerous journalists. Reporters Without Borders called Iran under Khatami ``the biggest prison for journalists in the Middle East." It was a prison as well for Iran's religious minorities, all of which were severely persecuted.

Khatami's visa is a win for the mullahs, but a slap in the face to the people of Iran. What a blunder by the Bush administration. What a disgrace.

Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is jacoby@globe.com.


America will not bow down to tyrants.

The above article has many correct points. President Bush has less than few weeks to deliver above words which is equal to regime change, otherwise 75% of American public anger rate in US will increase to 95%. For too long US listened to EU, China and Russia without any positive result.
In past 5 years Bush Admin did not give massive help to Iranian oppositions to please EU3 ...
Due to the fact that the Mullahs and Revolutionary Guards are not giving up peacefully therefore War is becoming the only real choice.
Probably Khatami is here to take the last US warning secret message for Mullahs before the start of war.
Nothing less than Islamic Regime Change in Iran "Axis Of Evil" can be considered as success for Bush Admin and satisfy freedom-loving Iranian people.

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Oppenheimer



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PostPosted: Wed Sep 06, 2006 11:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Fact Sheet: The President's National Strategy for Combating Terrorism

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/09/20060905.html


O yeah of little faith.....use the link.


As I said on another thread, the regime is taking options off the table. the diplomatic process is being exhausted....and that option too the regime will ultimately take off the table.

Best be prepared when there's only one option left.


Nobody wants a war with Iran, except those in Iran who want to make war on the west. You see a lot of attempts made to reason it out with the unreasonable because of that.

-Oppie
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Iranian Boy



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PostPosted: Thu Sep 07, 2006 9:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

In politics, pressure is a ruling fact and the pressure Bush feels that he may loose the november elections might make him change strategy towards Iran. But if any change, I hope he opts for regime change in Iran by the hands of Iranians and by imposing sanctions on the mullahs. I would be strongly against a military attack limited to the nuclear facilities which is exactly what the mullahs want and what will make them stronger. I believe a regime change in Iran is achievable the same way that the world removed khoda biamorz (Shah) from power in 1979.
A strong economic support to anti regime media in Los Angeles (not radio farda= radio khatami) and support of Iranian opposition inside and outside Iran along with sanctions on the mullahs regime, this is enough to change the regime in Iran by the hands of Iranians but with help and support from the west for Iranians to reach their hope.

It has passed 5 years since september 11 and so far there has been not a single cent given to Iranian opposition. Today it is very late but still not too late, I am not optimistic that Bush administration will opt for regime change. I think his strategy is still "if negotiations fail- then attack". Such an attack if limited only to nuclear facilities and not the regime will be a big gift to the mullahs.

I hope I am wrong.
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Oppenheimer



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PostPosted: Thu Sep 07, 2006 12:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dear IB,

"All options are on the table." But I think logic would indicate that any "limited" action would lead to full-on war anyway. Point being if the military one is the only option left.....look at the way we've dealt with regimes over the last five years....nothing "limited" about it...."regime change" is operable phrase if military option is implemented.

I would note that Shah used fair restraint when protests against him got ugly...especially after incidents where excessive force was used...tried to reconcile with opposition...

I would not anticipate Mullahs to do anything but full-on crushing of uprising....IB, it is like comparing the actions of the sane vs. the insane.

Some 85 million has been allocated by US Congress, Dept of State...applications being taken for grant money for Iranian civil society, democracy programs.

IRI has been putting more thuggies on the streets in anticipation...pre-emtion if you will, of a general uprising. I'm at this point thinking that even if total declaration of regime change and support of people is declared by world community, that the result will ether full-on war with the regime, or full on civil war.

Not a pretty picture, and if in fact regime change is declared policy, then outside intervention is almost inevitable, because to succeed , the internal opposition will need the playing field leveled for them.

I see it being simultaneous from inside and out if the military option is the only one left, at which point "regime change" becomes policy....for the faster regime change happens, when it is declared policy, the less the human toll will be.

Last thing you folks need is a civil war lasting a decade.

Am I making sense here, as to what the parameters are at this point?
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