The claims ... that Iran is one to two years away from producing bomb grade material are, to put it mildly, wildly inaccurate ... IAEA

Sean-Paul Kelley| IAEA Report Contradicts Major Media Narrative On Iran | 21 Comments | Posted May 23, 2007 | 12:32 PM (EST)

I read the IAEA interim report this morning with my tea. One thing which is very clear is that in many respects the Iranians are not being cooperative, especially in three key areas:

Iran has not responded to the Agency's long standing requests related to: ·the uranium contamination at the Physics Research Centre; ·Iran's acquisition of P-1 and P-2 centrifuge technology; and ·the documentation concerning uranium metal and its casting into hemispheres.

This comes as no surprise and is not the most urgent aspect of the report, although it will no doubt be seized upon by the media as more evidence of Iranian 'evildoing'.

What is at issue here today is whether recent reports of Iranian breakthroughs in enrichment are true. Before today's report it was pretty clear the media's claims were not correct. The claims had been completely debunked by experts before the IAEA report came out. And yet the claims still managed to form the dominant media narrative, as this ABC Report reiterates:

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is expected to confirm Iran's rapid progress in advancing its uranium enrichment program in a report due tomorrow.

The only problem is that the report confirms no such thing. What the report details and conversations with arms control experts confirm is that the Iranians have made no major breakthroughs like that claimed by David E. Sanger of the New York Times. Furthermore, his story of May 15 was, as one expert put it, "misleading and sensationalized."
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The claims filtering in and out of the media that Iran is one to two years away from producing bomb grade material are, to put it mildly, wildly inaccurate, as the report notes the Iranians are only reprocessing moderate amounts of UF6 to 4.8% U-235, and bomb grade material must be at least 80%. ...

Iran Proposal to U.S. Offered Peace with Israel

Iran Proposal to U.S. Offered Peace with Israel | Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, May 24 (IPS) - Iran offered in 2003 to accept peace with Israel and to cut off material assistance to Palestinian armed groups and pressure them to halt terrorist attacks within Israel's 1967 borders, according to the secret Iranian proposal to the United States.

The two-page proposal for a broad Iran-U.S. agreement covering all the issues separating the two countries, a copy of which was obtained by IPS, was conveyed to the United States in late April or early May 2003. Trita Parsi, a specialist on Iranian foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies who provided the document to IPS, says he got it from an Iranian official earlier this year but is not at liberty to reveal the source.

The two-page document contradicts the official line of the George W. Bush administration that Iran is committed to the destruction of Israel and the sponsorship of terrorism in the region. ...

"as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history. "

Jimmy Carter slams Bush administration | British leader Tony Blair fares no better as former president lashes out | 01:26 PM CDT on Saturday, May 19, 2007 | Associated Press

LITTLE ROCK – President George W. Bush's administration is "the worst in history" when it comes to international relations, former President Jimmy Carter said Friday, taking aim at the White House's policy of pre-emptive war and its Middle East diplomacy.

The criticism from Carter, which a biographer says is unprecedented from the 39th president, also took aim at Bush's environmental policies and the administration's "quite disturbing" faith-based initiative funding.

"I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history. The overt reversal of America's basic values as expressed by previous administrations, including those of George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon and others, has been the most disturbing to me," Carter said in a copyright story in Saturday's edition of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

"We now have endorsed the concept of pre-emptive war where we go to war with another nation militarily, even though our own security is not directly threatened, if we want to change the regime there or if we fear that some time in the future our security might be endangered. But that's been a radical departure from all previous administration policies."

Carter, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, criticized Bush for having "zero peace talks" in Israel. Carter also said the administration "abandoned or directly refuted" every negotiated nuclear arms agreement, as well as environmental efforts by other presidents.

Carter offered his harshest assessment for the White House's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, which helped religious charities receive $2.15 billion in federal grants in fiscal year 2005 alone.

"The policy from the White House has been to allocate funds to religious institutions, even those that channel those funds exclusively to their own particular group of believers in a particular religion. Those things in my opinion are quite disturbing," Carter said. "As a traditional Baptist, I've always believed in separation of church and state and honored that premise when I was president, and so have all other presidents, I might say, except this one." ...

Cluster bomb attacks part of larger plan? many believe that the Israeli government’s bombardment is a deliberate attempt to separate people from their

Cluster Bombs Southern Lebanon’s Only Harvest this Year Karen Button March 8, 2007

Aita al-Shaab, Southern Lebanon—Beautiful rolling hills, verdant and fertile, are dotted with olive groves and family tobacco farms in this small village on the border between Lebanon and Israel. .....

But in the valleys below the city, rich, red dirt lies fallow even though Aita al-Shaab is an agricultural village. Fields above the town go ungrazed. Since last summer, after Israel dropped about one million cluster bombs in southern Lebanon alone—up to 40 percent of which the United Nations Mine Action Clearing Center (MACC) estimates lie unexploded--most farmers and shepherds have been too afraid to go onto their lands.

Israel has been heavily criticized for dropping 90 percent of the 2-3 million cluster bombs used throughout Lebanon during the last 72 hours of the war, after a cease-fire was agreed upon.

MACC is heading up clearing, but has a long way to go.Thus far, 60 teams from UNIFIL (UN Interim Force in Lebanon) and private companies have cleared about 10 percent (110,000) of the unexploded munitions. ...

Cluster bomb attacks part of larger plan?
Many I spoke with, like eco-system management and food sovereignty expert Rami Zurayk, believe that the Israeli government’s bombardment is a deliberate attempt to separate people from their lands.

Video: Not so cool facts about Israel

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One in Ten US Occupation Troops Admit Mistreating Civilians = only 50% would report unethical behavior = 55% would reportkilling innocent civilian ...

One in Ten US Occupation Troops Admit Mistreating Civilians | By AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A survey of US combat troops deployed in Iraq has found that one in 10 said they mistreated civilians and more than a third condoned torture to save the life of a comrade, a report said Friday.

The study by an army mental health advisory team found continuing problems with morale and that acute mental health issues were more prevalent among troops with lengthening tours or on their second and third deployment to Iraq.

"They looked under every rock, and what they found was not always easy to look at," said Ward Casscells, the Pentagon's health affairs chief.

For the first time ever, a sampling of soldiers and marines in combat units were questioned on issues of character, and their answers suggested hardened attitudes toward civilians among front line troops:

-- About 10 percent of soldiers surveyed reported mistreating non-combatants or damaging their property when it was not necessary;

-- Less than half of the soldiers and marines would report a team member for unethical behavior;

-- More than a third of all soldiers and marines reported that torture should be allowed to save the life of a fellow soldier or marine. ...
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The study found that morale among soldiers was worse than among marines, which it said was explained in part by the marines' shorter six month tours.

The team recommended that the army's yearlong tours in Iraq either be shortened, or that soldiers be given 18 to 36 months between deployment to recover.

Instead, the army is moving in the opposite direction, extending tours to 15 months to keep pace with a surge in forces. ...

Only 55 percent of U.S. soldiers would report killing innocent civilianU.S. Examines Iraq Battlefield Ethics | By PAULINE JELINEK | Associated Press Writer

World Bank: Two months later, Wolfowitz cut off an aid package to the country which was mostly going to rural water and health projects.

The real reason Wolfowitz is under fire | By Robert Dobrow | May 4, 2007, 08:20
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May 3, 2007 - From the bloody ground battles in Iraq to the lush board rooms of the World Bank, U.S. imperialism’s “New American Century” is in trouble these days.

Former deputy Pentagon chief and now World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, prince of the neocons and architect of the Iraq invasion, is knee-deep in scandal. The man who began his tenure two years ago as head of the world’s largest so-called public financial institution with calls to battle “global corruption” stands charged with peddling favors to a woman friend at the bank.
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The real story is how the Bush administration has tried to shape the World Bank into a tool of its war agenda, and the limits of its ability to force the rest of the world to bend to its will.
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Aid as a political weapon

Wolfowitz, next to Bush, has been one of the most visible and hated figures around the world for his role in Iraq, for the lies that justified the invasion, for the torture policies of the occupation, for the arrogance and the ruthless conduct of the war.

And now as head of the World Bank, Wolfowitz has imposed a brazen pro-U.S. agenda there as well. A feature story in the April 9 New Yorker magazine by John Cassidy titled “The Next Crusade” cites numerous instances to support this view.

For instance, in July 2005, the Central Asian republic of Uzbekistan ordered the U.S. to remove its troops and aircraft from an Uzbek base it had been using to support the war against Afghanistan. Two months later, Wolfowitz cut off an aid package to the country which was mostly going to rural water and health projects. No cutoff of monies was suggested for neighboring Tajikistan, a brutally repressive but pro-U.S. regime that gets millions in World Bank loans.

Wolfowitz has selectively used the “corruption” charge to deny loans to countries that try to exert a measure of independence from U.S. influence, like Congo-Brazzaville and Chad, poor African nations with rich natural resources. Both countries were denied development aid in the past year by the World Bank.

With Iraq, however, Wolfowitz has been most active in placing the World Bank at the service of the Pentagon.

First Wolfowitz made a series of top-level appointments at the bank to political cronies of right-wing governments that had been some of the strongest backers of U.S. policy in Iraq, such as El Salvador, Spain and Jordan. “He used his tenure in part to reward those governments and individuals who were particularly helpful to the U.S. in the Iraq war,” says Steven Clemmens of the New America Foundation.
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The World Bank and the IMF are leaning on the Iraqi Parliament to establish a Federal Oil and Gas Council, staffed by Big Oil executives. “The new law would grant the council virtually all power to develop policies and plans for undeveloped oil fields and to review and change all exploration and production contracts,” Juan Gonzalez reported in the Daily News on Feb. 21. The Iraqi National Oil Co. would be defenseless against these foreign companies.

“Since most of Iraq’s 73 proven petroleum fields have yet to be developed, the new council would instantly become a world energy powerhouse,” Gonzalez wrote. Contracts with international companies will likely be similar to controversial production-sharing agreements, which sign away the lion’s share of oil profits to foreign investors.

The World Bank was formed in 1945 with the specific intent of projecting U.S. power in the post-war era. The bank’s president is always from the U.S., the bank’s headquarters are in Washington, and the U.S. has a permanent veto. It is under fire in many countries around the world for the severe austerity measures that it forces upon developing nations, including demands for privatizing industries and looting national resources and native industries for the sake of foreign capital.

But the World Bank in the past has also been a coalition effort by U.S., European and Japanese capital, with significant bank funds provided by non-U.S. sources.

Today, however, the Bush administration and its big business masters are not interested in coalitions. They demand total control. This is nowhere better revealed than in the infamous document co-authored by Wolfowitz himself seven years ago titled “Rebuilding American’s Defenses.” This manifesto of the so-called Project for the New American Century has been called the “Mein Kampf” of the neocon movement. It projects a world of U.S. global domination, calling for massive increases in military spending, for covering the planet with Pentagon bases, for a near-permanent state of military readiness, and for regime change wherever U.S. capitalism’s political and economic interests are threatened. ...

“violent policies” of the US and Israel [responsible] for the plight of millions of Iraqi and Palestinian refugees in the Middle East

Syria blames US, Israel for refugee influx | Published: Tuesday, 1 May, 2007, 09:27 AM Doha Time

DAMASCUS: Syrian Vice President Farouq al-Shara yesterday blamed the “violent policies” of the US and Israel for the plight of millions of Iraqi and Palestinian refugees in the Middle East.

“The policies of violence and force pursued by Washington and Tel Aviv threaten international security and stability, and pose a major obstacle to true peace between Arabs and Israel,” he charged in a speech in Damascus.

“The US and Israel are the main parties responsible for the influx of millions of Palestinian and Iraqi refugees to neighbouring Arab countries,” Shara said.

“These two countries should assume the security, economic and moral consequences,” he told a conference on the Arab and Islamic press which the state media said attracted more than 300 participants.

The EU’s development and humanitarian aid commissioner, Louis Michel, on a visit to Damascus on Sunday, numbered Iraqi refugees in Syria at between 1.2mn and 1.5mn.
Jordan also hosts hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the carnage in neighbouring Iraq. ...