Just what does that involve? Let’s say you are in the US military, you are sent to fight a war. You rely on your government to supply you with the best support it can muster, right? Except for people like Duke, who are on the take. Contracts don’t go to those best qualified, but those who pay people off.

I really don’t care if Randy is gay. Good on ya’, I say. But when such a man issues diatrbes against gays, isn’t there something wrong?

Similarly, I don’t care if Dick Cheney’s daughter is gay. But when she works for her father’s reelection, supporting a party that actively works to support discrimination against gays, isn’t there something wrong? Mary, Duke, what’s with the whiteface?

And moving on, when Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Clarence Thomas and Ken Blackwell mouth their sweet somethings, how do they feel the morning after? Is it all simply a question of gettin’ yours? Are you any different from Mary Cheney and the Dukester?

Witness the past few years. We’ve had that paragon of Republican moral virtue, William Bennett, admit to a serious gambling jones. We’ve had fright-wing DJ Rush Limbaugh admit to being a junkie. We’ve had the virtuous Bill O’Reilly pay off an ex-staffer because his desire to rub certain condiments all over her “spectacular boobs” became public. We’ve had right-wing journalists being paid with tax dollars to become shills for the executive branch, including one who was given White House access while simultaneously running a male hooker ring!

We’ve got the chief-of-staff of the House Majority Leader pleading guilty to serious crimes. We’ve got the chief-of-staff of the Vice President under indictment. We’ve got the Senate Majority Leader under investigation for securities crimes. And all this happening when their own party is in control of virtually every lever of government.

Is it just me? I’m looking for a bit of outrage from those who claim the moral monopoly. From those who “support our troops,” support “family values.” I’m looking for a bit of outrage from those who really believe that homosexuality is a sin. Are you out there?

I’m looking for something from the 30 percenters. Give us just a few slender tendrils that show there is still some monofilament connecting you to a sense of right and wrong, to morals grounded in something other than me, my and mine.

Please, explain. But in doing so, please find an excuse other than Clinton to explain it away.

Monday, May 30, 2005

Oops…
Oh my.

Remember Muhsin Abdul Hameed? He’s the head of the Iraqi Islamic Party in Iraq- a Sunni political party that was basically the only blatantly Sunni party taking part in post-occupation politics in Iraq. For those who have forgotten, Abdul Hameed was chosen as one of the rotating presidents back in 2003. Mohsin was actually, er, Mr. February 2004, if you will.

The last couple of days, we’ve been hearing about raids and detentions in various areas. One of these areas is Amriya. We’ve been hearing about random detentions of ‘suspects’ who may be any male between the ages 15 – 65 and looting by Iraqi forces of houses. It’s like the first months after the occupation when the American forces were conducting raids.

We woke up this morning to the interesting news that Muhsin Abdul Hameed had also been detained! A member of the former Iraqi Governing Council, a rotating puppet president, and *The Sunni*. He is The Sunni they hold up to all Sunnis as an example of cooperation and collaboration. Well, he’s the religious Sunni. There is a tribal Sunni (supposedly to appease the Arab Sunni tribes) and that is Ghazi Al Yawir and there is the religious Sunni- Muhsin Abdul Hameed.

The Americans are saying Muhsin was “detained and interviewed”, which makes one think his car was gently pulled over and he was asked a few questions. What actually happened was that his house was raided early morning, doors broken down, windows shattered and he and his three sons had bags placed over their heads and were dragged away. They showed the house, and his wife, today on Arabiya and the house was a disaster. The cabinets were broken, tables overturned, books and papers scattered, etc. An outraged Muhsin was on tv a few minutes ago talking about how the troops pushed him to the floor and how he had an American boot on his neck for twenty minutes.

Talabani was seemingly irritated. He wondered why no one asked him about the arrest before it occurred- as if the he is personally consulted on every other raid and detention. The detention is disturbing. Now I am not personally fond of Muhsin Abdul Hameed- he looks somewhat like a dried potato, and he’s a Puppet. It is disturbing, though, because if this was really a mistake, then just imagine how many other ‘mistakes’ are being unfairly detained and possibly tortured in places like Abu Ghraib. Abdul Hameed is one of their own and even he wasn’t safe from a raid, humiliation and detention. He was out the same day, but other Iraqis don’t have the luxury of a huffy Talabani and outraged political party.

Was it meant to send a message to Sunnis? That’s what some people are saying. Many people believe it was meant to tell Sunnis, “None of you are safe- even the ones who work with us.” It’s just difficult to believe this is one big misunderstanding or mistake.

On the other hand, watching the situation unfold was somewhat like watching one of those annoying reality tv shows where they take someone off of a farm, for example, and put them in New York and then watch how they cope- what was it called? “Faking It”? How will Muhsin feel about raids and detentions now that he’s been on the other side of them?

- posted by river @ 11:37 PM

Sunday, May 29, 2005

Shia Leaders…
In Baghdad there’s talk of the latest “Operation Lightning”. It hasn’t yet been implemented in our area but we’ve been hearing about it. So far all we’ve seen are a few additional checkpoints and a disappearing mobile network. Baghdad is actually split into two large regions- Karkh (west Baghdad) and Rasafa (east Baghdad) with the Tigris River separating them. Karkh, according to this plan, is going to be split into 15 smaller areas or sub-districts and Rasafa into 7 sub-districts. There are also going to be 675 checkpoints and all of the entrances to Baghdad are going to be guarded.

We are a little puzzled why Karkh should be split into 15 sub-districts and Rasafa only seven. Karkh is actually smaller in area than Rasafa and less populated. On the other hand, Karkh contains the Green Zone- so that could be a reason. People are also anxious about the 675 check points. It’s difficult enough right now getting around Baghdad, more check points are going to make things trickier. The plan includes 40,000 Iraqi security forces and that is making people a little bit uneasy. Iraqi National Guard are not pleasant or upstanding citizens- to have thousands of them scattered about Baghdad stopping cars and possibly harassing civilians is worrying. We’re also very worried about the possibility of raids on homes.

Someone (thank you N.C.) emailed me Thomas L. Friedman’s article in the New York Times 10 days ago about Quran desecration titled “Outrage and Silence”.

In the article he talks about how people in the Muslim world went out and demonstrated against Quran desecration but are silent about the deaths of hundreds of Iraqis in the last few weeks due to bombings and suicide attacks.

In one paragraph he says,

“Yet these mass murders - this desecration and dismemberment of real Muslims by other Muslims - have not prompted a single protest march anywhere in the Muslim world. And I have not read of a single fatwa issued by any Muslim cleric outside Iraq condemning these indiscriminate mass murders of Iraqi Shiites and Kurds by these jihadist suicide bombers, many of whom, according to a Washington Post report, are coming from Saudi Arabia.”

First of all- it’s not only Kurds or Shia who are dying due to car bombs. When a car detonates in the middle of a soug or near a mosque, it does not seek out only Shia or Kurdish people amongst the multitude. Bombs do not discriminate between the young and the old, male and female or ethnicities and religious sects- no matter what your government tells you about how smart they are. Furthermore, they are going off everywhere-… not just in Shia or Kurdish provinces. They seem to be everywhere lately.

One thing I found particularly amusing about the article- and outrageous all at once-was in the following paragraph:

“Religiously, if you want to know how the Sunni Arab world views a Shiite’s being elected leader of Iraq, for the first time ever, think about how whites in Alabama would have felt about a black governor’s being installed there in 1920. Some Sunnis do not think Shiites are authentic Muslims, and they are indifferent to their brutalization.”

Now, it is always amusing to see a Jewish American journalist speak in the name of Sunni Arabs. When Sunni Arabs, at this point, hesitate to speak in a representative way about other Sunni Arabs, it is nice to know Thomas L. Friedman feels he can sum up the feelings of the “Sunni Arab world” in so many words. His arrogance is exceptional.

It is outrageous because for many people, this isn’t about Sunnis and Shia or Arabs and Kurds. It’s about an occupation and about people feeling that they do not have real representation. We have a government that needs to hide behind kilometers of barbed wire and meters and meters of concrete- and it’s not because they are Shia or Kurdish or Sunni Arab- it’s because they blatantly supported, and continue to support, an occupation that has led to death and chaos.

The paragraph is contemptible because the idea of a “Shia leader” is not an utterly foreign one to Iraqis or other Arabs, no matter how novel Friedman tries to make it seem. How dare he compare it to having a black governor in Alabama in the 1920s? In 1958, after the July 14 Revolution which ended the Iraqi monarchy, the head of the Iraqi Sovereignty Council (which was equivalent to the position of president) was Mohammed Najib Al-Rubayi- a Shia from Kut. From 1958 - 1963, Abdul Karim Qassim, a Shia also from Kut in the south, was the Prime Minister of Iraq (i.e. the same position Jaffari is filling now). After Abdul Karim Qassim, in 1963, came yet another Shia by the name of Naji Talib as prime minster. Even during the last regime, there were two Shia prime ministers filling the position for several years- Sadoun Humadi and Mohammed Al-Zubaidi.

In other words, Sunni Arabs are not horrified at having a Shia leader (though we are very worried about the current Puppets’ pro-Iran tendencies). Friedman seems to conveniently forget that while the New Iraq’s president was a polygamous Arab Sunni- Ghazi Al-Yawir- the attacks were just as violent. Were it simply a matter of Sunnis vs. Shia or Arabs vs. Kurds, then Sunni Arabs would have turned out in droves to elect “Al Baqara al dhahika” ("the cow that laughs” or La Vache Qui Rit- it’s an Iraqi joke) as Al-Yawir is known amongst Iraqis.

This sentence,

“Some Sunnis do not think Shiites are authentic Muslims, and they are indifferent to their brutalization.”

...Is just stupid. Friedman is referring to Sunni extremists without actually saying that. But he doesn’t add that some Shia extremists also feel the same way about Sunnis. I’m sure in the “Christian World” there are certain Catholics who feel that way about Protestants, etc. Iraqis have intermarried and mixed as Sunnis and Shia for centuries. Many of the larger Iraqi tribes are a complex and intricate weave of Sunnis and Shia. We donÂ’t sit around pointing fingers at each other and trying to prove who is a Muslim and who isn’t and who deserves compassion and who deserves brutalization.

Friedman says,

“If the Arab world, its media and its spiritual leaders, came out and forcefully and repeatedly condemned those who mount these suicide attacks, and if credible Sunnis are given their fair share in the Iraqi government, I am certain a lot of this suicide bombing would stop”

The Arab world’s spiritual and media leaders have their hands tied right now. Friedman better hope Islamic spiritual leaders don’t get involved in this mess because the first thing they’d have to do is remind the Islamic world that according to the Quran, the Islamic world may not be under the guardianship or command of non-Muslims- and that wouldn’t reflect nicely on an American occupation of Iraq.

Friedman wonders why thousands upon thousands protested against the desecration of the Quran and why they do not demonstrate against terrorism in Iraq. The civilian bombings in Iraq are being done by certain extremists, fanatics or militias. What happened in Guantanamo with the Quran and what happens in places like Abu Ghraib is being done systematically by an army- an army that is fighting a war- a war being funded by the American people. That is what makes it outrageous to the Muslim world.

In other words, what happens in Iraq is terrorism, while what happens to Iraqis and Afghanis and people of other nationalities under American or British custody is simply “counter-insurgency” and “policy”. It makes me naseous to think of how outraged the whole world was when those American POW were shown on Iraqi television at the beginning of the war- clean, safe and respectfully spoken to. Even we were upset with the incident and wondered why they had to be paraded in front of the world like that. We actually had the decency to feel sorry for them.

Friedman focuses on the Sunni Arab world in his article but he fails to mention that the biggest demonstrations were not in the Arab world- they happened in places like Pakistan and Afghanistan. He also fails to mention that in Iraq, the largest demonstration against the desecration of the Quran was actually organized, and attended by, Shia.

Luckily for Iraqis, and in spite of Thomas Friedman, the majority of Sunnis and Shia just want to live in peace as Muslims- not as Sunnis and Shia.

- posted by river @ 3:43 PM

In April 2004, after attorneys for a large group of 9/11 family members subpoenaed my deposition, the then Attorney General, John Ashcroft, made his next move: He invoked the state secrets privilege for the second time, and this time, he designated my place of birth, date of birth, my mother tongue, my father tongue, my university background, and my previous employments all State Secrets, Top Secret Classified, and matters of the highest level national security. Let’s see, based on this new ruling and designation by our ironically named Justice Department, my passport would be considered a ‘top secret’ document since it contains my place of birth, information considered state secrets. According to our government officials my Virginia driving license would be considered a ‘Top Secret’ document, since it contains my date of birth, information considered state secrets and classified. Well, heck, even my resume would be considered ‘Top Secret’ since it contains my linguistic credentials and my degrees. As of that day, I officially became a notoriously gagged whistleblower; but I continued on.

In May 2004, two years after two ranking senators (bipartisan) had publicly, and in public records and documents, announced me credible and my case and allegations confirmed and supported, the emboldened then Attorney General, struck again. This time, he, John Ashcroft, decided to gag the entire Congress on anything that had to with Sibel Edmonds and her case. He ordered two ranking senators to take everything referring to me off their websites; he ordered them to consider all documents and letters related to my case ‘Top Secret,’ and he commanded that they, the Congress, shut their mouth on any issue that in any way referred or related to me. Our senators obliged, disregarding the principles of the separation of powers, not honoring the United States Constitution, and not respecting their own prestige and status. As of that day, the United States Congress became officially gagged on Sibel Edmonds; but I continued on.

In June 2004, the United States District Court bowed to his highness, representative of our Executive Branch, John Ashcroft, and announced its decision to no longer honor the Constitution as it relates to citizens’ right to due process: it dismissed the case and excused itself from providing any real explanation, due to any possible explanation, or lack of explanation, being classified as ‘Top Secret,’ and ‘State Secrets.’ Our court system too was not willing to stand up for its authority and its separation from the executive branch. In other words, the District Court willingly allowed itself to be gagged; but I continued on.

In July 2004, after two years of unexplained foot dragging, the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, announced its long over due investigation of Sibel Edmonds’ case complete and issued its report. The further empowered and emboldened then Attorney General stepped in on that same day and gagged his own Inspector General’s findings and report by classifying the entire report as secret. The so-called independent investigatory entity, the Inspector General, wrapped and duct taped its report, bowed, and left the scene now that it was formally and officially gagged on my case; but I continued on.

On April 21, 2005, for the first time in these three gagged years, my attorneys and I finally had, or thought we had, our day in court for our hearing before Appellate Court Judges. Just hours before our hearing, these judges issued an unexpected ruling, barring all reporters and the public from the courtroom for the Edmonds’ Case hearing. Numerous media related entities tried to flex their lately weakened muscles and filed their motion to oppose this ruling. The judges denied their motion, and cited no reason; when asked for a reason they responded that they didn’t have to provide any reason. Everyone was kicked out of the courtroom; except for me, my attorneys, and the large troop of attorneys from the Department of Justice. All the doors to the courtroom were locked and guards were placed in front of each door to watch out for eavesdroppers. Then came the next shock: after bypassing our brief, asking a couple of puzzling and irrelevant questions, and allowing my attorneys 10 minutes or so of response, the Appellate judges asked my attorneys and me (the plaintiff) to leave the courtroom, so that the government attorneys could secretly answer questions and make their argument. The guards escorted us, the plaintiff, out, locked the doors, and stood there in front of the courtroom and watched us for about fifteen minutes. So much for finally having my day in court; here I was, with my attorneys, standing outside the courtroom and being guarded, while in there, three judges were having a cozy mingling session with a large troop of government attorneys. Then, it was over; that was it; we were told to leave. In other words, my attorneys and I were barred from being present in our own court hearing, and my case remained covered up and gagged; but I continued on.

On May 6, two weeks after the Kafkaesque court procedure, my attorneys and I were given the verdict: The lower court’s decision was upheld, meaning my entire case, whether or not we had an Inspector General’s Report that confirmed my allegations, whether or not we had several congressional letters confirming my case and my allegations, was prevented from proceeding in court due to some unspecified ‘State Secrets,’ and unexplained secrecy that applied to everything that had to do with me and my case; which were so secret that even the judges could not hear or see. In fact, the Appellate judges in my case did not cite any opinion or reason, because even the opinion itself would have been considered secret. Doesn’t this mean that the Appellate court and these three judges were in effect gagged? It appears so, but I will continue on.

In the past three years, I have been threatened; I have been gagged several times; I have continuously been prevented from pursuing my due process; all reports and investigations looking into my case have been classified; and every governmental or investigative authority dealing with my case has been shut up. According to legal experts familiar with my case, the level of secrecy and classification in my court case and the attitudes and handling of the court system in dealing with my case is unprecedented in the entire U.S. court history. According to other experts I am one of the most, if not the most, gagged woman anybody knows of or has heard of. Why?

Those of you who still think this case, my case, is about covering up some administrative blunder or bureaucratic mismanagement, please think again.

Those of you who may think that my Kafkaesque case, the unprecedented secrecy, is due to some justified and official higher reasons, please think again.

Those of you who may think that our government, our entrusted leaders, may have an ongoing investigation of criminals involved, please think again.

The Office of Inspector General for the Department of Justice, in its ‘unclassified report,’ has confirmed my core allegations. What were those core allegations, and who did they involve? Not only some low-level terrorist or terrorist organization; not only some ‘maybe’ critical foreign entities. No; trust me; they would not go to this length to protect some nobody criminal or terrorist.

It is way past time for a little bit of critical thinking. The Attorney General cites two reasons to justify the unconstitutional and panic driven assault on me and my case. Reason one: To protect certain diplomatic relations - not named since obviously our officials are ashamed of admitting to these relations. Reason two: To protect certain U.S. foreign business relations. Let’s take each one and dissect it (I have given up on our mass media to do that for us!). For reason one, since when is the Department of Justice, the FBI, in the business of protecting ‘US sensitive diplomatic relations?’ They appear to be acting as a mouthpiece for the Department of State. Now, that’s one entity that has strong reasons to cover up, for its own self, what will end up being a blunder of mammoth scale. Not internationally; not really; it is the American people and their outrage they must be worried about; they wouldn’t want to have a few of their widely recognized officials being held criminally liable; would they?

As for reason two, I can assure you that the U.S. foreign business relations they may be referring to are not among those that benefit the majority of the American people; a handful of MIC entities and their lobbying arms can by no means be considered that, can they? In fact, the American people, their national safety and security, and their best interests are being sacrificed for a handful of those with their foreign business interest. Also, since when are nuclear black market related underground activities considered official U.S. foreign business; one may wonder? If you want to have the answers to these questions, please approach your Congress and ask your representatives for hearings - not behind closed doors quasi hearings - but open, public hearings where these questions can be asked and answered.

And lastly, for those of you who may think that since I have been gagged and stopped by almost all available official channels, I must be ready to vaporize into thin air, please think again. I am gagged, but not dead; not yet.

Sleepwalking to Disaster in Iran
by Scott Ritter

Late last year, in the aftermath of the 2004 Presidential election, I was contacted by someone close to the Bush administration about the situation in Iraq. There was a growing concern inside the Bush administration, this source said, about the direction the occupation was going. The Bush administration was keen on achieving some semblance of stability in Iraq before June 2005, I was told.

When I asked why that date, the source dropped the bombshell: because that was when the Pentagon was told to be prepared to launch a massive aerial attack against Iran, Iraq’s neighbour to the east, in order to destroy the Iranian nuclear programme.

Why June 2005?, I asked. ‘The Israelis are concerned that if the Iranians get their nuclear enrichment programme up and running, then there will be no way to stop the Iranians from getting a nuclear weapon. June 2005 is seen as the decisive date.’

To be clear, the source did not say that President Bush had approved plans to bomb Iran in June 2005, as has been widely reported. The President had reviewed plans being prepared by the Pentagon to have the military capability in place by June 2005 for such an attack, if the President ordered.

But when Secretary of State Condi Rice told America’s European allies in February 2005, in response to press reports about a pending June 2005 American attack against Iran, she said that ‘the question [of a military strike] is simply not on the agenda at this point—we have diplomatic means to do this.’

President Bush himself followed up on Rice’s statement by stating that ‘This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous.’ He quickly added, ‘Having said that, all options are on the table.’ In short, both the President and the Secretary of State were being honest, and disingenuous, at the same time.

Truth to be told, there is no American military strike on the agenda; that is, until June 2005.

It was curious that no one in the American media took it upon themselves to confront the President or his Secretary of State about the June 2005 date, or for that matter the October 2004 review by the President of military plans to attack Iran in June 2005.

The American media today is sleepwalking towards an American war with Iran with all of the incompetence and lack of integrity that it displayed during a similar path trodden during the buildup to our current war with Iraq.

On the surface, there is nothing extraordinary about the news that the President of the United States would order the Pentagon to be prepared to launch military strikes on Iran in June 2005 . That Iran has been a target of the Bush administration’s ideologues is no secret: the President himself placed Iran in the ‘axis of evil’ back in 2002, and has said that the world would be a better place with the current Iranian government relegated to the trash bin of history.

The Bush administration has also expressed its concern about Iran’s nuclear programmes - concerns shared by Israel and the European Union, although to different degrees.

In September 2004, Iran rejected the International Atomic Energy Agency’s call for closing down its nuclear fuel production programme (which many in the United States and Israel believe to be linked to a covert nuclear weapons programme).

Iran then test fired a ballistic missile with sufficient range to hit targets in Israel as well as US military installations in Iraq and throughout the Middle East.

The Iranian response triggered a serious re-examination of policy by both Israel and the United States.

The Israeli policy review was driven in part by the Iranian actions, and in part by Israel’s own intelligence assessment regarding the Iranian nuclear programme, made in August 2004 .

This assessment held that Iran was ‘less than a year’ away from completing its uranium enrichment programme. If Iran was allowed to reach this benchmark, the assessment went on to say, then it had reached the ‘point of no return’ for a nuclear weapons programme. The date set for this ‘point of no return’ was June 2005.

Israel’s Defense Minister, Shaul Mofaz, declared that ‘under no circumstances would Israel be able to tolerate nuclear weapons in Iranian possession’.

Since October 2003 Israel had a plan in place for a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s major nuclear facilities, including the nuclear reactor facility in Busher (scheduled to become active in 2005).

These plans were constantly being updated, something that did not escape the attention of the Bush White House.

The Israeli policy toward Iran, when it comes to stopping the Iranian nuclear programme, has always been for the US to lead the way.

‘The way to stop Iran’, a senior Israeli official has said, ‘is by the leadership of the US, supported by European countries and taking this issue to the UN, and using the diplomatic channel with sanctions as a tool and a very deep inspection regime and full transparency.’

It seems that Tel Aviv and Washington, DC aren’t too far removed on their Iranian policy objectives, except that there is always the unspoken ‘twist’: what if the United States does not fully support European diplomatic initiatives, has no interest in letting IAEA inspections work, and envisions UN sanctions as a permanent means of containment until regime change is accomplished in Tehran, as opposed to a tool designed to compel Iran to cooperate on eliminating its nuclear programme?

Because the fact is, despite recent warm remarks by President Bush and Condi Rice, the US does not fully embrace the EU’s Iran diplomacy, viewing it as a programme ‘doomed to fail’.

The IAEA has come out with an official report, after extensive inspections of declared Iranian nuclear facilities in November 2004, that says there is no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons programme; the Bush administration responded by trying to oust the IAEA’s lead inspector, Mohammed al-Baradei.

And the Bush administration’s push for UN sanctions shows every intention of making such sanctions deep, painful and long-lasting.

Curiously, the date for the Bush administration’s move to call for UN sanctions against Iran is June 2005.

According to a US position paper circulated in Vienna at the end of last month, the US will give the EU-Iran discussions until June 2005 to resolve the Iranian standoff.

‘Ultimately only the full cessation and dismantling of Iran’s fissile material production efforts can give us any confidence that Iran has abandoned its nuclear weapons ambitions,’ the US draft position paper said.

Iran has called such thinking ‘hallucinations’ on the part of the Bush administration.

The American media today is sleepwalking towards an American war with Iran Economic sanctions and military attacks are not one and the same. Unless, of course, the architect of America’s Iran policy never intends to give sanctions a chance.

Enter John Bolton, who, as the former US undersecretary of state for arms control and international security for the Bush administration, is responsible for drafting the current US policy towards Iran.

In February 2004, Bolton threw down the gauntlet by stating that Iran had a ‘secret nuclear weapons programme’ that was unknown to the IAEA. ‘There is no doubt that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons production programme’, Bolton said, without providing any source to back up his assertions.

This is the same John Bolton who had in the past accused Cuba of having an offensive biological weapons programme, a claim even Bush administration hardliners had to distance themselves from.

John Bolton is the Bush official who declared the European Union’s engagement with Iran ‘doomed to fail’. He is the Bush administration official who led the charge to remove Muhammad al-Baradai from the IAEA.

And he is the one who, in drafting the US strategy to get the UN Security Council to impose economic sanctions against Iran, asked the Pentagon to be prepared to launch ‘robust’ military attacks against Iran should the UN fail to agree on sanctions.

Bolton understands better than most the slim chances any US-brokered sanctions regime against Iran has in getting through the Security Council.

The main obstacle is Russia, a permanent member of the Security Council who not only possesses a veto, but also is Iran’s main supporter (and supplier) when it comes to its nuclear power programme.

Since October 2003 Israel had a plan in place for a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s major nuclear facilities

John Bolton has made a career out of alienating the Russians. Bolton was one of the key figures who helped negotiate a May 2002 arms reduction treaty signed by Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

This treaty was designed to reduce the nuclear arsenals of both America and Russia by two thirds over a 10 year period.

But that treaty - to Russia’s immense displeasure - now appears to have been made mute thanks to a Bolton-inspired legal loophole that the Bush administration had built into the treaty language.

John Bolton knows Russia will not go along with UN sanctions against Iran, which makes the military planning being conducted by the Pentagon all the more relevant.

John Bolton’s nomination as the next US Ambassador to the United Nations is as curious as it is worrying. This is the man who, before a panel discussion sponsored by the World Federalist Association in 1994, said ‘There is no such thing as the United Nations.’

For the United States to submit to the will of the Security Council, Bolton wrote in a 1999 Weekly Standard article, would mean that ‘its discretion in using force to advance its national interests is likely to be inhibited in the future.’

But John Bolton doesn’t let treaty obligations, such as those incurred by the United States when it signed and ratified the UN Charter, get in the way. ‘Treaties are law only for US domestic purposes’, he wrote in a 17 November 1997 Wall Street Journal Op Ed. ‘In their international operation, treaties are simply political obligations.’

John Bolton believes that Iran should be isolated by United Nations sanctions and, if Iran will not back down from its nuclear programme, confronted with the threat of military action.

And as the Bush administration has noted in the past, particularly in the case of Iraq, such threat must be real and meaningful, and backed by the will and determination to use it.

And the Bush administration’s push for UN sanctions shows every intention of making such sanctions deep, painful and long-lasting. John Bolton and others in the Bush administration contend that, despite the lack of proof, Iran’s nuclear intentions are obvious.

In response, the IAEA’s Muhammad al-Baradai has pointed out the lack of a ‘smoking gun’ which would prove Iran’s involvement in a nuclear weapons programme. ‘We are not God’, he said. ‘We cannot read intentions.’

But, based upon history, precedent, and personalities, the intent of the United States regarding Iran is crystal clear: the Bush administration intends to bomb Iran.

Whether this attack takes place in June 2005, when the Pentagon has been instructed to be ready, or at a later date, once all other preparations have been made, is really the only question that remains to be answered.

That, and whether the journalists who populate the mainstream American media will continue to sleepwalk on their way to facilitating yet another disaster in the Middle East.

Scott Ritter former UN Chief Weapons inspector in Iraq, 1991-1998 author of ‘Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of America’s Intelligence Conspiracy’.