British firm with links to William Hague sells 'protester-tracking' product to Iran

William Hague


A British technology firm with links to William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, has sold a product to Iran which could be used to track down protesters.

By Holly Watt, Claire Newell and Helia Ebrahimi

The Telegraph - 07 November, 2011 - Creativity Software sold the product to the regime despite concerns that it has been used to round up activists communicating with their mobile phones.

The main bankroller of the company is MMC Ventures, whose chief executive and chairman both funded Mr Hague’s private office until recently.

Appeals court sides with Iranian dissident group

(AP) – 16 minutes ago

WASHINGTON — An Iranian opposition group has won a round in its long legal fight to get the State Department to stop classifying it as a terrorist organization.

A federal appeals court on Friday ordered the State Department to reconsider its decision to keep the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran on its list of foreign terrorist organizations. The designation prohibits groups from raising money and obtaining other support in the United States.

The court said the U.S. government must give the Iraq-based group a chance to respond to claims that it continues to engage in terrorist activity or at least retains the capability and intent to do so. The government also maintains a file of secret information that it says supports the continuing terrorist designation. Friday's ruling did not address the classified material.

The People's Mujahedeen has argued that it stopped military operations against the Iranian regime and renounced violence in 2001, and handed over its weapons to U.S.-led forces after the ouster of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003.

The European Union dropped the People's Mujahedeen from its list of banned terrorist groups last year.
Source:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iangC1EhLz9q9ddwhrT9oQHrYtGgD9H09Q680

Iran hangs a little fish

EDITORIAL: THE WASHINGTON TIMES

A year ago, The Washington Times helped bring the world's attention to the plight of Farzad Kamangar, a Kurdish school- teacher wrongly accused of being a terrorist by the Islamic regime in Tehran. He spent almost four years of physical and mental torture in Iran's prison system. Mr. Kamangar's suffering ceased Sunday at the end of a hangman's noose. He was 34 years old.

Mr. Kamangar was killed along with four other "moharebs" or "enemies of God," whom the regime said were "convicted of carrying out terrorist acts." Three of the cases were still undergoing mandatory review when the executions were rushed through. Phone connections to Tehran's infamous Evin Prison were cut over the weekend while the executions were prepared and carried out. The regime did not notify the families or defense attorneys of the condemned in advance, as required by law - they learned of the execution from a press release. For a regime that claims to be the instrument of God, it behaved more like a criminal cabal with something to hide.

Mr. Kamangar's crime was being a Kurd. He taught at an elementary school in the northwestern Iranian city of Kamyaran, where he was a member of the Kurdistan Teachers Union and wrote for various underground human rights publications. He secretly taught his Kurdish students their banned language and told stories about their culture and history. He was arrested in July 2006 and subjected to beatings, whippings, electric shocks, malnourishment, sleep deprivation, and solitary confinement in cold, squalid cells. His cries of torment were drowned out by loud tapes playing passages from the Koran.

Mr. Kamangar was given a five-minute trial in February 2008. His lawyer, Khalil Bahramian, told The Washington Times by phone from Iran last year that there was "absolutely no evidence against Farzad that connects him to a terrorist group or activity." Farzad, he said, "is a teacher, a poet, a journalist, a human rights activist and a special person." And no such evidence was presented to the court, or was needed for it to make its perfunctory, predetermined ruling.

 In his final letter from prison, Mr. Kamangar related the Iranian story "The Little Black Fish," written in 1967 by the dissident teacher Samad Behrangi, which tells the story of a little fish who defies the rules of his community to embark on a journey to discover the sea. Through many adventures, the little black fish finds freedom, but also an untimely death. "Is it possible to be a teacher and not show the path to the sea to the little fish of the country?" he wrote. "Is it possible to carry the heavy burden of being a teacher and be responsible for spreading the seeds of knowledge and still be silent? Is it possible to see the lumps in the throats of the students and witness their thin and malnourished faces and keep quiet? ... I cannot imagine witnessing the pain and poverty of the people of this land and fail to give our hearts to the river and the sea, to the roar and the flood."

Mr. Kamangar wrote, "The Little Fish calmly swam in the sea and thought: Facing death is not hard for me, nor do I regret it. (Full Story)"

Source:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/11/iran-hangs-a-little-fish/print/

Iran wins a seat on the U. N. Commission on the Status of Women

Your U.N. at Work!

Last week Iran won a seat at the U.N.'s Commission on the Status of Women, the mission of which is to "set global standards and formulate concrete policies to promote gender equality and advancement of women worldwide." Call it another example of your U.N. at work.

We're told Iran's victory was due to a dearth of competition for the spot. Heaven forfend the commission should let a vacancy go unfilled, rather than elect a regime that recently announced it would arrest suntanned women, and which has blamed provocative female dress for earthquakes.

Those are just the most recent outrages, but far from the most serious. The world—along with, apparently, the U.N.'s "principal global policy-making body" for equal gender rights—has grown used to Tehran denying women's right to choose their own husbands; the right to protection against violence; and the right to seek custody of their children in the event of divorce. Death-by-stoning for "adulterous" women is another of the Islamic Revolution's contributions to the advancement of women. Iran's penal code doesn't recognize rape as a distinct offense, and allows a man to murder his wife and her lover if he catches them in the act, according to Freedom House.

So it's no coincidence that female activists have been at the forefront of Iran's democracy movement. They have the most to gain and the least to lose from liberalization. According to Iran's Feminist School group, 68 female anti-discrimination activists were arrested in Iran between July 2008 and February 2009, well before last June's fraudulent elections swept other groups into the country's democracy movement.

Iranian women, certainly, can smell the fraud. Consider the letter opposing Iran's appointment to the Commission, signed by 214 Iranian women's-rights activists, both inside Iran and in exile, and endorsed by groups such as "Women Living Under Muslim Law." The letter warns that "the Iranian government will certainly use this opportunity to curtail progress and the advancement of women."

Ending the kind of nightmares lived by Iranian women was precisely what Eleanor Roosevelt had in mind in 1946, when she read an open letter to "the women of the world" that would help inspire the U.N.'s women's commission. Its goals were lofty and remain as important. Reality, as practiced by the UN, has been otherwise.

Source:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704608104575219663720214920.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines

Confused on Iran

The Washington Post - DEFENSE SECRETARY Robert M. Gates was the focus of one of those curious Washington kerfuffles over the weekend in which a senior official makes headlines by saying what everyone knows to be true. According to the New York Times, Mr. Gates dispatched a secret memo to the White House in January pointing out that the Obama administration does not have a well-prepared strategy in place for the likely eventuality that Iran will continue to pursue a nuclear weapon and will not be diverted by negotiations or sanctions. Mr. Gates quickly denied that his memo was intended as a "wake-up call," as one unnamed official quoted by the Times called it. And that's probably true: It is evident to any observer that the administration lacks a clear backup plan.

President Obama's official position is that "all options are on the table," including the use of force. But senior officials regularly talk down the military option in public -- thereby undermining its utility even as an instrument of intimidation. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, offered more reassurance to Iran on Sunday, saying in a forum at Columbia University that "I worry . . . about striking Iran. I've been very public about that because of the unintended consequences."

Adm. Mullen appeared to equate those consequences with those of Iran obtaining a weapon. "I think Iran having a nuclear weapon would be incredibly destabilizing. I think attacking them would also create the same kind of outcome," he was quoted as saying. Yet Israel and other countries in the region would hardly regard those "outcomes" as similar.

We are not advocating strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities. But the public signs of the administration's squishiness about military options are worrisome because of the lack of progress on its two-track strategy of offering negotiations and threatening sanctions. A year-long attempt at engagement failed; now the push for sanctions is proceeding at a snail's pace. Though administration officials say they have made progress in overcoming resistance from Russia and China, it appears a new U.N. sanctions resolution might require months more of dickering. Even then it might only be a shell intended to pave the way for ad hoc actions by the United States and European Union, which would require further diplomacy.

And what would sanctions accomplish? Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told the Financial Times last week that "maybe . . . that would lead to the kind of good-faith negotiations that President Obama called for 15 months ago." Yet the notion that the hard-line Iranian clique now in power would ever negotiate in good faith is far-fetched. More likely -- and desirable -- would be a victory by the opposition Green movement in Iran's ongoing domestic power struggle. But the administration has so far shrunk from supporting sanctions, such as a gasoline embargo. that might heighten popular anger against the regime.

All this probably explains why Mr. Gates, in his own words, "presented a number of questions and proposals intended to contribute to an orderly and timely decision making process."
"There should be no confusion by our allies and adversaries," he added, "that the United States is . . . prepared to act across a broad range of contingencies in support of our interests." If allies and adversaries are presently confused, that would be understandable.

Gates Says U.S. Lacks a Policy to Thwart Iran

By DAVID E. SANGER and THOM SHANKER

The New York Times, WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has warned in a secret three-page memorandum to top White House officials that the United States does not have an effective long-range policy for dealing with Iran’s steady progress toward nuclear capability, according to government officials familiar with the document.

Several officials said the highly classified analysis, written in January to President Obama’s national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, came in the midst of an intensifying effort inside the Pentagon, the White House and the intelligence agencies to develop new options for Mr. Obama. They include a set of military alternatives, still under development, to be considered should diplomacy and sanctions fail to force Iran to change course.

Officials familiar with the memo’s contents would describe only portions dealing with strategy and policy, and not sections that apparently dealt with secret operations against Iran, or how to deal with Persian Gulf allies.

One senior official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the memo, described the document as “a wake-up call.” But White House officials dispute that view, insisting that for 15 months they had been conducting detailed planning for many possible outcomes regarding Iran’s nuclear program.

In an interview on Friday, General Jones declined to speak about the memorandum. But he said: “On Iran, we are doing what we said we were going to do. The fact that we don’t announce publicly our entire strategy for the world to see doesn’t mean we don’t have a strategy that anticipates the full range of contingencies — we do.”

But in his memo, Mr. Gates wrote of a variety of concerns, including the absence of an effective strategy should Iran choose the course that many government and outside analysts consider likely: Iran could assemble all the major parts it needs for a nuclear weapon — fuel, designs and detonators — but stop just short of assembling a fully operational weapon.

In that case, Iran could remain a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty while becoming what strategists call a “virtual” nuclear weapons state.

According to several officials, the memorandum also calls for new thinking about how the United States might contain Iran’s power if it decided to produce a weapon, and how to deal with the possibility that fuel or weapons could be obtained by one of the terrorist groups Iran has supported, which officials said they considered to be a less-likely possibility.

Mr. Gates has never mentioned the memo in public. His spokesman, Geoff Morrell, declined to comment on specifics in the document, but issued a statement on Saturday saying, “The secretary believes the president and his national security team have spent an extraordinary amount of time and effort considering and preparing for the full range of contingencies with respect to Iran.”

Pressed on the administration’s ambiguous phrases until now about how close the United States was willing to allow Iran’s program to proceed, a senior administration official described last week in somewhat clearer terms that there was a line Iran would not be permitted to cross.

The official said that the United States would ensure that Iran would not “acquire a nuclear capability,” a step Tehran could get to well before it developed a sophisticated weapon. “That includes the ability to have a breakout,” he said, using the term nuclear specialists apply to a country that suddenly renounces the nonproliferation treaty and uses its technology to build a small arsenal.

Nearly two weeks ago, Mr. Obama, in an interview with The New York Times, was asked about whether he saw a difference between a nuclear-capable Iran and one that had a fully developed weapon. “I’m not going to parse that right now,” he said. But he noted that North Korea was considered a nuclear-capable state until it threw out inspectors and, as he said, “became a self-professed nuclear state.”

Mr. Gates has alluded to his concern that intelligence agencies might miss signals that Iran was taking the final steps toward producing a weapon. Last Sunday on the NBC News program “Meet the Press,” he said: “If their policy is to go to the threshold but not assemble a nuclear weapon, how do you tell that they have not assembled? I don’t actually know how you would verify that.” But he cautioned that Iran had run into production difficulties, and he said, “It’s going slow — slower than they anticipated, but they are moving in that direction.”

Mr. Gates has taken a crucial role in formulating the administration’s strategy, and he has been known over his career to issue stark warnings against the possibility of strategic surprise.

Some officials said his memo should be viewed in that light: as a warning to a relatively new president that the United States was not adequately prepared.

He wrote the memo after Iran had let pass a 2009 deadline set by Mr. Obama to respond to his offers of diplomatic engagement.

Both that process and efforts to bring new sanctions against Iran have struggled. Administration officials had hoped that the revelation by Mr. Obama in September that Iran was building a new uranium enrichment plant inside a mountain near Qum would galvanize other nations against Iran, but the reaction was muted. The next three months were spent in what proved to be fruitless diplomatic talks with Iran over a plan to swap much of its low-enriched uranium for fuel for a medical reactor in Tehran. By the time Mr. Gates wrote his memo, those negotiations had collapsed.

Mr. Gates’s memo appears to reflect concerns in the Pentagon and the military that the White House did not have a well prepared series of alternatives in place in case all the diplomatic steps finally failed. Separately, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote a “chairman’s guidance” to his staff in December conveying a sense of urgency about contingency planning. He cautioned that a military attack would have “limited results,” but he did not convey any warnings about policy shortcomings.

“Should the president call for military options, we must have them ready,” the admiral wrote.

Administration officials testifying before a Senate committee last week made it clear that those preparations were under way. So did General Jones. “The president has made it clear from the beginning of this administration that we need to be prepared for every possible contingency,” he said in the interview. “That is what we have done from day one, while successfully building a coalition of nations to isolate Iran and pressure it to live up to its obligations.”

At the same hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Lt. Gen. Ronald L. Burgess Jr., director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Gen. James E. Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and one of the military’s most experienced officers on nuclear matters, said that Iran could produce bomb-grade fuel for at least one nuclear weapon within a year, but that it would probably need two to five years to manufacture a workable atomic bomb.

The administration has been stepping up efforts to contain the influence of Iran and counter its missiles, including placing Patriot anti-missile batteries, mostly operated by Americans, in several states around the Persian Gulf. The Pentagon also is moving ahead with a plan for regional missile defense that reconfigures architecture inherited from the Bush administration to more rapidly field interceptors on land and at sea.

Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/world/middleeast/18iran.html?pagewanted=all

EDITORIAL: Taking down Tehran

THE WASHINGTON TIMES - A counterrevolution in Iran may be the last, best chance for peace in the region, but it can only happen with American help.

J. Michael Waller of the Institute of World Politics argues that the best way for the United States to promote change in Iran is not via sanctions or military action but by helping the Iranian people overthrow the Islamic regime. After the proper preparation, "revolution could happen in a matter of days," he said at a briefing yesterday at the institute's Washington headquarters.

Iran is poised for radical change. The ruling mullahs are widely viewed as illegitimate and corrupt. The people are disaffected and increasingly willing to stand up to the government. The student movement has shown a degree of fearlessness in confronting the regime. And, perhaps sensing change in the air, the Revolutionary Guard Corps has begun to show cracks in its once-fierce loyalty to the Islamic state.

Mr. Waller says he thinks the United States could facilitate an uprising in Tehran with comparatively little effort. Washington could help the opposition communicate with inexpensive prepaid cell phones and proxy Internet servers and supply Flip video cameras and other means of recording and publicizing the course of the rebellion. Voice of America's Persian News Network could focus reports on regime misdeeds and spread inspirational accounts of insiders turning against the power structure in hopes that others might join them. Tehran's state-controlled media regularly ignore such stories, so VOA would report, and the Iranian people would decide.

Most important, the United States could supply strong moral support. A critical factor keeping Iranians from making a decisive move against the theocracy's religious leadership is a sense of doubt that America would back their play. A clear signal to Iranian dissidents that Washington would support a revolt would go a long way toward making it happen.

Mr. Waller contends, however, that the U.S. government is stymied by "a lack of imagination." The checkered history of American-backed coups, such as the one that brought the shah of Iran to power in 1953, have placed any discussion of destabilization off limits. But the type of political warfare Mr. Waller recommends is akin to what American politicians do on a routine basis. "Would [Secretary of State] Hillary Clinton dig up dirt on a political opponent to destroy them?" Mr. Waller asked rhetorically. "Well, if so, she could also do it to the Supreme Leader of Iran."

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is very sensitive to charges of corruption, yet he reportedly is worth $30 billion, a handsome sum for a humble cleric that must have been amassed through illicit means. The Supreme Leader also reportedly suffers from crippling bouts of depression that could be exploited to paralyze his ability to make decisions during a crisis. "Mrs. Clinton should [apply] the government-wrecking talents she picked up during the Watergate hearings to the Iran issue," Mr. Waller quipped.

Helping overthrow the Islamic regime in Tehran would significantly advance U.S. interests in the Middle East. Iran is actively promoting violence in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority. Iran supplies anti-American insurgents with arms, materiel and intelligence support. The Islamic republic is directly and indirectly responsible for more American military deaths than any country since the Vietnam War and has yet to be called to accounts for it. The price of a destabilization operation is minuscule compared to the costs of American vehicles destroyed by Iranian improvised explosive devices and the rehabilitation of warriors wounded in those attacks. Unlike the sanctions President Obama is pursuing, this plan will get results.

Source:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/apr/16/taking-down-tehran/

Counterfeit US Dollars awash Iraq an Iranian attempt to influence Iraqi politics

Millions in counterfeit U.S. currency has flooded into Iraq since December, and U.S. and Iraqi officials are trying to determine how much of the counterfeiting is criminal and how much is an Iranian attempt to influence Iraqi politics.

NASIRIYAH, Iraq — While some bills were crudely made and easily detected, U.S. military officials said, much of the money seized has been sophisticated fake hundred-dollar notes that require special printing presses, ink and paper.

In the Middle East, such capabilities typically belong to Iran and its proxies, notably branches of the Lebanese Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah.

"It runs the gamut of the local stuff on the ... printer — not the right paper, but kind of looks like it — all the way up to the very well-made versions that we see, the ones coming in from Lebanon," said Army Col. Peter Newell, commander of the 4th Brigade of the 1st Armored Division, which operates in Maysan and two other southern provinces near the border with Iran.

In recent weeks, the officers said, Iraqi and U.S. forces have started an anti-counterfeiting push that involves educating merchants and bankers and gathering intelligence which lead them to the money whaich was linked to Iran's attempt to influence Iraq's March 7 parliamentary elections and to launder money for militia activity in Iraq's southern Shiite heartland.

Southern Iraq, with mostly Shiite provinces that border Iran, is the main entry point for Iranian goods: legitimate items such as produce and building supplies and contraband such as weapons, drugs and counterfeit cash. Iraqi and U.S. agents have seized about $500,000 of the fake hundred-dollar bills in the recent push, nearly all of it in Maysan and other provinces near the border.

The sudden influx of counterfeit notes three months before the March 7 parliamentary elections suggests that Iran was trying to influence the outcome.

An election "is certainly one of the purposes of a mass quantity of cash all of a sudden," Officer, Newell said. "It can pay for lethal aid; it can pay for elections; it can pay for commodities. It can be laundered into a lot of things.

Based on Source:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2011619190_counterfeit16.html

China's top oil firms sell gasoline to Iran-trade

By Luke Pachymuthu and Seng Li Peng
DUBAI/SINGAPORE (Reuters) - State-run Chinaoil has sold two gasoline cargoes for April delivery to Iran, industry sources said on Wednesday, stepping into a void left by fuel suppliers halting shipments under threat of U.S. sanctions.

Beijing, which has close economic ties with Tehran, has resisted sanctions proposed by Western powers on Iran's energy sector that aim to press the Islamic Republic to curb its nuclear program.

U.S. politicians want to impose unilateral sanctions on fuel suppliers to Iran, and several of the world's top oil companies and trading houses have already curbed sales to pre-empt potential penalization of their U.S. operations in future.

But while others back out, Chinaoil has sold a total of about 600,000 barrels worth around $55 million to the Islamic Republic.

The cargoes were Chinaoil's first direct sales to Iran since at least January 2009, according to Reuters data. Chinese firms have previously sold through intermediaries, traders said.

"Prior to this there was some third-party trades going on, but this was a direct sell," a trader said.
Chinaoil is the trading unit for China's top energy group China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), which is the parent of U.S. and Hong Kong-listed PetroChina (0857.HK) (PTR.N).
A CNPC spokesman was unable to comment on the sales.

HIATUS
Another Chinese company, Sinopec Corp (0386.HK) (600028.SS) (SNP.N), was also poised to resume gasoline sales to Tehran following a hiatus of nearly six years, trade sources said. Sinopec is Asia's largest refiner.

Sinopec's trading arm Unipec booked a vessel to load 250,000 barrels in Singapore on Tuesday, with options to discharge in the Gulf. The cargo was likely to go to Iran, trade sources said.
A Sinopec spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

Unipec sold gasoline to Iran between 2001 and 2004. State-run Zhuhai Zhenrong Corp, the world's largest single lifter of Iranian crude, also used to be a regular supplier to Iran.
Despite tough talk from the United States and the West and a number of suppliers halting shipments, Iran has maintained robust imports of gasoline from the international market, also buying from Malaysia's state oil firm Petronas PETR.UL and France's Total (TOTF.PA).

In March, the OPEC member purchased around 128,000 barrels per day (bpd) of gasoline, steady to imports made the previous month, traders said.

"As long as there is money to be made, and economic benefits to be taken advantage off, Iran will always find ready sellers of gasoline from the international market," a trader said. "The politicians don't understand markets...sanctions are cosmetic."

Earlier this month, LUKOIL, Russia's No. 2 oil company, joined a growing list of international oil companies and trading firms who have stopped gasoline sales to Iran.

In March Anglo-Dutch oil firm Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) announced that it had stopped gasoline supplies to the Islamic republic joining two of the world's largest independent trading companies Glencore and Vitol who had taken similar decisions.

Iran, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, has been under mounting pressure by the United States and its allies to halt uranium enrichment. The West says that Tehran is using its atomic program to develop a nuclear bomb, while Iran insists it is for electricity.

Source:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63D1CY20100414

Analysis: Allawi win could curb Iran's influence

By HAMZA HENDAWI (Associate Press)

AP - CAIRO — The surprisingly strong election showing by a secular, nationalist coalition in Iraq has provided a sudden opening for the mostly Sunni Arab world to curtail Iranian influence in Iraq, something that has been a source of serious alarm for the United States and its Arab allies since 2003.

The banner headline in Asharq al-Awsat, an influential newspaper in Saudi Arabia, said it all — "The Awakening of Moderation in Iraq" — offering an immediate endorsement of Iraq's top vote-getter by the regional Sunni Arab powerhouse.

The Iraqiya coalition led by Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite who has campaigned for better ties with the Arab world and keeping neighboring Iran at a distance, won 91 of the new legislature's 325 seats, edging Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's mainly Shiite bloc by only two seats. Allawi was prime minister in 2004-05.

The narrow win foreshadowed possibly months of hard-nosed negotiations over the formation of a new government. But Allawi's numerical victory was triumph enough for the mostly Sunni Arab regimes that have been wary of Shiite-dominated Iraqi governments since the 2003 U.S. invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.

Sunni Arab governments have long kept their distance from Iraq's postwar governments. They have declined to send full ambassadors — first because of the U.S. occupation, then because of the precarious security and more recently because of their anger over perceived Iranian influence. But they have begun warming toward Iraq, and Allawi's ascension would likely tip the balance.

The United States has long maintained that Iran was fomenting violence in Iraq. Washington charges that Tehran provides Shiite militiamen with money, weapons and training and blames the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers in Iraq on a particularly effective brand of roadside bomb it says is supplied by Iran.

U.S. officials also claimed the banning by a Shiite-led vetting body of hundreds of candidates from running in the March 7 election for their alleged ties to the Saddam regime was inspired by Tehran. Many of those blacklisted were Sunni Arabs. Iran denies the allegations.

Significantly deepening the concern has been Iran's disputed nuclear program and its alleged support for militant groups like Lebanon's Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas in Gaza.

Iran has not officially commented on the election results, which were reported by the state-run news agency without comment. However, a senior lawmaker charged Saturday that Washington and Saudi Arabia had exerted their influence to get their favorite candidates elected.

"That's why the Iraqi elections have definitely been rigged," hard-line lawmaker Esmaeil Kowsari said.

Iran's main challenge to the region — building a sphere of influence extending from Iraq all the way to Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip — makes any Iraqi leader with an anti-Iranian policy a favorite for Arab governments.

Although a Shiite, Allawi is no exception and has enjoyed friendly relations with Sunni powers like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates for years.

"Allawi will be able to strengthen Iraq's relations with the Arab world and will also be able to initiate contacts and improve relations with countries in the region," said Hani Horani, director of the New Jordan Research Center in Amman, Jordan. "He's capable of establishing balanced relations with all Arab countries and reversing Iraq's tendency to lean toward Iran."

The Asharq al-Awsat newspaper headline, which reflected relief as much as joy, mirrors the thinking in Saudi Arabia on Allawi's victory and al-Maliki's potential departure. The daily is owned by powerful members of the Saudi royal family and religiously toes the oil-rich kingdom's foreign policy line.

It is not certain at this point that Allawi will succeed al-Maliki as prime minister, but he stands a good chance if his bloc is able to join forces with enough other political groupings to gain an influential majority.

Even so, there are doubts over Allawi's ability to end or greatly reduce the influence of Iran's hard-line clerical regime, but sentiment against Tehran has been growing among ordinary Iraqis as well.

"Allawi is the hope of all Iraqis," said Fakhry Zaboun, a taxi driver from eastern Baghdad. "He will face up to the Iranians who want to occupy Iraq when the Americans leave."

The subsequent extent of Allawi's success in reducing Iran's influence in Iraq would depend to a large extent on who would be his partners in the next government.

His most likely options are the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, a large Shiite party established with Iranian backing in Tehran in the early 1980s; and supporters of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, also believed to be linked to the Iranians.

It is doubtful that these two groups would be willing to entirely relinquish their ties with Iran anytime soon, but they could be persuaded to reduce or tone down the more conspicuous manifestations of their ties with Tehran if Allawi demands it as a condition for their participation in his government.

Iran and Iraq both have majority Shiite populations, and are bound by strong religious ties. Iraq also is home to some of the Islamic sect's holiest shrines, which are visited by millions of Iranians every year. Many in Iraq's Shiite political elite lived in exile in Iran for years during Saddam's rule.

Allawi, in contrast, spent most of his years in exile in Britain.

However, the two nations fought a ruinous, eight-year war in the 1980s in which a million people were killed or wounded. Memories of that conflict continue to feed mutual suspicion between Iraqis and Iranians.

Bonds of such complexity and strength are virtually impossible to eradicate, but there is much more leeway when it comes to Iran's political meddling in its neighbor. Furthermore, it is unrealistic to expect any Iraqi government to be outright hostile toward the country's powerful neighbor.

Amr Hamzawy, director of Middle East research at Carnegie — a Washington-based think tank — sees a gradual rather than instant effort by Allawi to reduce Iranian influence.

"There will certainly be a change of rhetoric, but nothing will change fast on the ground," he said.

Source:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ilEpV7_D2_Xx7h5M9wRyW4LwLCPgD9EN5NAG0

Taliban fighters being taught at secret camps in Iran

The Sunday Times

Miles Amoore in Kabul

THE Taliban fighters scurried up the craggy mountainside. As they neared the top, their 30-strong platoon split into three sections and they launched a ferocious assault on an enemy fort, opening fire from numerous positions.

The bullets they sprayed at the fort’s mud-coloured walls were blank, however. They merely pretended to fire their rocket-propelled grenades. When they reached the desert at the foot of the mountain, they did not race away on motorbikes, but filed into sand-coloured tents to refresh themselves with tea and naan.

The attack was a training exercise overseen by Iranian security officials in plain clothes. The Taliban do not know whether they were police officers, soldiers or secret service agents. What they can say is that in camps along the border between Afghanistan and Iran, Taliban recruits are being taught how to ambush British, American and other Nato troops using guns and improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

They are learning to attack checkpoints as well as mountain bases. Iranian instructors are also giving them target practice on desert ranges with Kalashnikov assault rifles.

In the past, Shi’ite Iran has opposed the Sunni Taliban. But western officials say Iran now wants to expand its influence within the Taliban movement.

A Taliban commander who has been trained in Iran said last week: “Our religions and our histories are different, but our target is the same — we both want to kill Americans.”

In recent months, senior American officials have accused Iran of playing “a double game” by training and arming the Taliban while supporting the Afghan government.

Taliban leaders interviewed by The Sunday Times last week provided the first direct evidence of how Iran is training insurgents on its own soil.

According to one Taliban source, emissaries travelled to Iran early last year to discuss a training programme with Iranian officials. The training began during the winter.

Working through local mediators, this newspaper persuaded two Taliban commanders who had attended the programme in Iran to travel to Kabul, the Afghan capital, to tell their stories. The men, interviewed separately in a partially constructed concrete building on the edge of the city, were both extremely nervous. “How do I know you are not spies and that you will not follow me when I leave?” said one before the interview began.

At times, their voices dropped to whispers as they spoke about their role in the insurgency and drank cups of tea on dirty cushions.

One of the commanders, from the central province of Wardak, described how he travelled to Iran with 20 of his men.

His journey took him south into Pakistan, then west to the border with Iran and on to Zahedan, a city of 600,000 people in southeast Iran.

The second Taliban commander, from Ghazni province in southern Afghanistan, took a group of his men on a five-day drive to Nimroz, in the southwest. From there, he crossed into Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province, a hotbed of drug smuggling and tribal rivalry.

The militants paid a $500 fee to Afghan people-smugglers using routes usually taken by refugees looking for work in Iran. They crossed the border at night in cars with the help of Baluch traffickers who guided the groups along dirt tracks to avoid checkpoints. After stopping to rest in the mountains, they headed out again at first light.

Finally, they were met by their Iranian instructors in white Toyota pick-up trucks and were taken to a village on the outskirts of Zahedan, an hour’s drive from the training camps.

There they were placed in basic compounds, each housing up to 30 Taliban fighters, mostly from the south and southeast of Afghanistan where the insurgency against British and American forces is fiercest.

Battered buses and pick-up trucks ferried the militants back and forth between the village and the camps every morning and night.

“Iran paid for the whole trip. We paid the travel fees to begin with and once we got to Iran they refunded us. They paid for our food, our mobile phone cards, any expenses,” said the Ghazni commander.

At one camp, a cluster of low tents erected in the shadow of a mountain, the Taliban fighters conducted live firing exercises, physical training and mountain assaults under the watchful eye of the plain-clothes Iranians, the commander said.

During a course lasting three months, the Iranian instructors worked in groups of two to five men. Their programme was split into three parts, each taking a month to complete.

For the first month, the recruits were taught how to launch complex ambushes on moving convoys. They learnt where to set up firing positions, when to trigger the ambush and how to escape before the enemy had time to respond.

“They were strong on the planning side. We would sit in the tents and they would take us through things like where the best escape routes were, making sure we had good cover and where to place our lookouts,” the commander said.

The second month was spent learning how to plant the roadside bombs that are responsible for most of the deaths of British soldiers in Helmand province. The insurgents were taught to use carefully positioned secondary and tertiary devices to kill or wound rescuers organising medical evacuations.

During the third month, the instructors taught the Taliban how to storm fixed enemy positions, climbing mountains in formation to launch attacks on checkpoints and bases.

“We were told ambushing was a very useful tool compared with a straightforward attack. They taught us how to select a good hiding position and how to limit the enemy’s response to our attacks by laying well- positioned mines,” said the commander. “We can kill a lot of our enemies this way.”

Both commanders said Iran also supplied them with weapons, often paying nomads to smuggle ammunition, mines and guns across the desert and mountain passes between Iran and Afghanistan’s western provinces. The nomads used donkeys, camels and horses to carry the military supplies into provinces such as Ghazni and Wardak, the commanders said.

Although the commanders believed that, after years on the battlefields of Afghanistan, they already possessed some of the skills that were taught in Iran’s camps, they agreed the training had improved their ability to launch more sophisticated attacks.

“I found some elements of the training in Iran very useful, especially the escape and evasion techniques I was taught,” said the commander from Wardak as he showed me video footage of his men patrolling on motorbikes with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenade launchers slung over their shoulders.

The commanders gave no indication of precisely who was behind the training. Late last year General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander of foreign troops in Afghanistan, accused Iran’s al-Quds force — an elite wing of the Revolutionary Guard — of undermining the efforts of the Afghan government and Nato forces.

“The problem with dealing with the Iranian regime is knowing to what extent these initiatives are conducted by local commanders and to what extent they are backed by the government,” said a western defence source. He added that, although he had seen no direct evidence, the accounts of Taliban training camps in Iran were “credible”.

American officials believe Iran’s support for the Taliban has reached “troubling” proportions, although it is not on the same scale as its backing for Shi’ite insurgents in Iraq. The commanders’ accounts suggest the number of Taliban fighters trained in Iran may already have reached the hundreds.

Taliban militants still receive much of their training in neighbouring Pakistan. Elements of the ISI, Pakistan’s secret service, are known to train, equip and fund the Taliban. But a recent crackdown on Taliban safe havens in Pakistan has forced many insurgents to look to Iran for support.

“The military is pressuring the Taliban in Pakistan. It is certainly harder to reach places that were once easy to get into. I think more of my fighters will travel to Iran for training this year,” said the Ghazni commander.

Two weeks ago Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, said of the Iranians: “They want to maintain a good relationship with the Afghan government. They also want to do everything they possibly can to hurt us, or for us not to be successful.”

Days later, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran insisted he wanted to rebuild Afghanistan and criticised the presence of foreign troops.

The Taliban commander from Ghazni province said he had no doubt Iranian police and intelligence services knew about the training camps, however. “The government is not sleeping,” he said. “You just have to wiggle your ears in Iran and they will know about it.”

Source:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article7069817.ece

The Iranian regime threatens to suppress people during Fire Festival (Chaharshanbeh Souri, March 16)

The Mullahs regime fearing another mass anti-regime uprising during the annual Fire Festival celebration (Chaharshanbeh Souri, March 16), has given special guidelines to its repressive forces to stop students’ participation in the festivity.

Some of their actions reported:

- Summoning parents of students to schools to put pressure on them to prevent their children from going out on the day of festivity.  Regime's authorities are warning them that if their children were to be arrested, they will not be released until the last day of Iranian New Year holidays in April.

- Members of Bassij force in schools have been told to write essays about the dangers associated with Fire Festival.  Prizes will be given to 150 Bassij members for writing such essays.

- The state-run radio and TV station have been ordered to broadcast series of programs with the theme of “enlightening and warning” families and the young general in the run-up to Fire Festival. To this end a 90-minute program has been recorded that shows the dangers of fire crackers and Fire Festival ceremonies in addition to another 30-minute program that introduces the Fire Festival in a way approved by the regime. These two pieces are going to be shown widely by various TV channels, which are all run by the regime.

Common theme in messages and contacts received from people in Iran is very obvious people are not going to be intimidated and lured by such ploys and are going to continue with their uprising by chanting “Down with Khamenei” and “death to the principle of velayat-e faqih (absolute rule of clergy).”

Source:
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran- NCRI

Unleash the Opposition to Sanction Iran

By: Roger Gale

The Huffington Post - Ever since the 2002 revelations by an Iranian opposition group detailing Tehran's clandestine nuclear program, Iran has been the foreign policy nightmare which has baffled United States Presidents and Secretaries of State. Sidelined by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Iran's nuclear defiance was ignored at times as other crises in the region took precedence. Now, as Tehran forges ahead with its nuclear program, there can be little doubt that the single largest policy decision the current President must take is how to deal with the threat posed by the Iranian regime.

In the lead up to his election, President Obama long advocated a policy of engagement with rogue states, and his strategy in dealing with the Iranian threat has centered on dialogue and diplomacy. Many believe that the President had pinned his hopes on a conviction that in the June 2009 Iranian Presidential elections Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would be replaced by elements within the regime that had a greater interest in listening to proposals put forward by the US.

The President's belief may well have been based on sound foreign policy. However, the election of less radical elements within the regime never materialized in an election overshadowed by allegations of widespread fraud, and the President has found himself face to face with a man who has conclusively stated that Iran's nuclear program is not up for negotiation.

The days, weeks and months that have passed since that hotly contested presidential election have meant that Obama is faced with an Iranian regime whose hardcore element has rallied around its own President as widespread protests amongst the Iranian population call for an end to the rule of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Whether negotiations, diplomacy and engagement were ever tools which could have convinced Tehran's leaders to step back from their nuclear ambitions is questionable, but internal developments in Iran have meant that this regime will not and simply cannot negotiate if it wants to survive in its current form.

The Iranian people's widespread protests calling for an end to the rule of the Iranian leadership has in a strange twist of fate forced Tehran's leadership to show their cards on the nuclear front, cards which have indicated to the international community that engagement and incentives will have no impact on their nuclear ambitions and continued nuclear defiance.

The question now raised is whether the international community is willing to impose the further financial sanctions that may bring the present Iranian regime to its knees in the coming months.

Such sanctions must clearly play a role in any policy developed towards Iran, but we must couple this with the one thing that the Iranian regime fears most, the democratic desires of the Iranian people and the Iranian opposition movement.

The Mujahedeen e Khalq (MEK) has been at the heart of Iran's opposition movement for years. Blacklisted in the US, the group has faced pressure from authorities intent on not allowing anything to hinder their ambitions to engage Tehran. As the Iranian people gear up for further widespread protests on the 31st anniversary of the overthrow of the Shah, they will be looking to the world for support.

Sanctions are measures that will play their course in the coming months, but today and now the President should unfetter the Iranian opposition by removing the ban on the MeK and allowing the Iranian opposition movement to forge ahead towards democratic change.

Roger Gale is a Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom and a former Vice Chairman of the Conservative Party.

Source:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/roger-gale/unleash-the-opposition-to_b_457353.html?view=print

Iranian opposition and authorities draw battle lines

By TARSEM KING

LONDON, Feb. 9 (UPI) -- Ever since Iran's revolution which saw the Shah ousted on Feb. 11, 1979, its anniversary has been celebrated by the Iranian regime by way of a show of force.

However, this year promises to be a totally different affair. Only last year Western media was provided direct access to the events of Feb. 11, 2009, in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave a rousing speech to the militant core of the Iranian regime.

As the militant element of Iran chanted in a disturbingly systematic fashion in support of its leader, no one then could have imagined that 12 months on the Iranian regime would be preparing itself for widespread anti-government demonstrations on the anniversary of the revolution which could shake the entire foundations of the regime.

Now, as we enter the last days before D-Day on Feb. 11, 2010 -- Thursday -- both sides are drawing their battle lines in preparation for what promises to be a historic day for the Iranian people. Historic to such an extent that whispers among the opposition movement indicate a belief that following on from unprecedented anti-government demonstrations during the holy Shiite festival of Ashura in December, protests on the anniversary of the revolution will shake the core of the regime beyond repair.

There are clearly similar concerns among the Iranian leadership that these whispers could become reality and in a strange twist of fate 31 years on from the 1979 revolution, the day that symbolizes this regime will this year mark the beginning of its end. With this undoubted fear in mind the Iranian regime has set about taking drastic action to try to limit protests.

The regime has now turned its attention to execution as its latest tool to attempt to maintain control over a population seeking change.

Following the expedited execution of two individuals accused of taking part in demonstrations, nine others have been sentenced to death for being "mohareb" (an enemy of God) due to their ties to the main democratic opposition group People's Mujaheddin of Iran. As Iran's judiciary chief vowed to have "no mercy against mohareb grouplets," the regime has conclusively indicated that anyone who gathers Thursday for anti-government demonstrations can expect execution as their punishment.


In defining Moharebeh as "(waging war on God) through supporting the PMOI and having links with it; organizing gatherings and collusion with the intention of committing offenses against the security of the country … publicity activities against the state establishment and in favor of the enemies," the Iranian regime has made clear that it fears the PMOI, Iran's largest organized opposition, most of all.

The Iranian people have shown at recent demonstrations in which there were direct calls for an end to the supreme rule of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, they no longer fear this regime or its suppressive measures. Death is something that the Iranian protesters now see as a price that must be paid for freedom and democracy.

In the lead up to Feb. 11 the international community must show support for the Iranian people's democratic ambitions and human rights. Whether one feels that direct support for the protesters is constructive or not, silence against the crimes committed by the Iranian regime is simply unacceptable. World leaders must very publicly show their support for the Iranian people's democratic demands while condemning the executions of supporters of the PMOI.

The Iranian people can bring about democratic change. Now rather than legitimize the crimes of the Iranian leadership by continuing dialogue and diplomacy, we must end ties with the Iranian regime and instead build relations with the real future of Iran, the Iranian people and their opposition movement.
--
Tarsem King, of West Bromwich, England, is a member of the British House of Lords and also a member of the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom.

Source:
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Analysis/2010/02/09/Outside-View-Iranian-opposition-and-authorities-draw-battle-lines/UPI-58501265751527/

Calif. seeks full divestment of insurers from Iran

(AP) – SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California's insurance regulator plans to take steps Wednesday to pressure insurance companies into ending any financial relationship they have with Iran.

A state law that took effect last year outlaws direct investments in Iran by California-based companies. An insurance department review released in December found no such investments by any insurance company doing business in California.

However, the insurance department is taking a further step by requiring companies to disclose even indirect investments in Iran. The U.S. lists the country as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Starting April 1 in California, companies will no longer be permitted to count those indirect investments toward the surpluses and reserves they must maintain to be considered financially sound.

Seven Myths About Iran

How long will it take for the lesson to stick?

By BRET STEPHENS

The Wall Street Journal -  'We have been trying to negotiate [with the Iranians] for five, six years. We've tried everything. We have met every Iranian. We have tried to open every possible channel. We've had new ideas and the result is this: nothing."


Thus did a senior Western diplomat recently describe to me his country's efforts to reach a negotiated settlement with Tehran over its nuclear programs. In doing so, he also finally disposed of the myth, nearly a decade in the making, that Iran was ready to abandon those programs in exchange for a "grand bargain" with the West.

Let's dispose of a few other myths—and hope it doesn't take years for the lesson to stick:

(1) Military strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities would accomplish nothing.
That's the argument made by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who last year told a Senate Committee that "a military attack will only buy us time and send the program deeper and more covert."

Maybe so, but what's wrong with buying time? Israel's 1981 attack on Iraq's Osirak reactor also bought time while driving Saddam's nuclear programs underground. But it ensured that it was a non-nuclear Iraq that invaded Kuwait and threatened Saudi Arabia nine years later, a point recognized by then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney when he thanked the Israeli commander of the Osirak operation for making "our job much easier in Desert Storm."

(2) A strike would rally Iranians to the side of the regime.
The case would be more persuasive if the regime had any remaining claims on Iranian patriotism. It no longer does, if it ever did. It also would be more persuasive if the nuclear program were as broadly popular as some of the regime's apologists claim. On the contrary, one of the more popular chants of the demonstrators goes, "Iran is green and fertile, it doesn't need nukes."

Yet even if the nuclear program enjoyed widespread support, it isn't clear how Iranians would react in the event of military strikes. Argentine dictator Leopoldo Galtieri whooped up a nationalist fervor when he invaded the Falklands in 1982, but was ousted from office just a week after Port Stanley fell to the British. When a regime gambles its prestige on a single controversial enterprise, it cannot afford to lose it.

(3) Sanctions don't work, and usually wind up strengthening the regime at the expense of its own people.
That's only true when the sanctioned regimes have strong internal controls, relatively pliant populations, and zero interest in international respectability. It's also true that sanctions alone are never a silver bullet. But as Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies points out, they can be "silver shrapnel," particularly when the target country is as politically vulnerable as Iran is now, and when it is also critically reliant on the consumption of imported gasoline.

That's why the House was right when it overwhelmingly approved the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act in December, and when the Senate unanimously passed a similar bill (against the administration's objections) last Thursday. Over time, the regime will surely find ways to skirt the sanctions, which prohibit companies that do business in Iran's energy sector from also doing business in the U.S. But in the critical short term, these sanctions might provoke the kind of mass unrest that could tip the scales against the regime.

(4) The world can live with a nuclear Iran, just as we live with other nasty nuclear powers.
Assume that's true. (I don't.) Can we also live with nuclear Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey? The problem with the "realist" view is that it fails to take account of the fears a nuclear Iran inspires among the status quo regimes in its neighborhood. Containment was complicated enough during the Cold War. Now imagine a four- or five-way standoff among Arabs, Persians, Turks and Israelis, some religiously fanatic, in the world's most volatile neighborhood.

(5) The Iranian regime is headed for the ash heap of history. The best policy is to do as little as possible until it crumbles from within.
Communist regimes were also destined for the ash heap. Unfortunately, it took them decades to get there, during which they murdered tens of millions of people. It matters a great deal to Iran's people, and its neighbors, that the regime go quietly. But it also matters that it go quickly, and waiting on events is not a policy.

(6) The more support we show Iran's demonstrators, the more we hurt their cause.
This was the administration's view after the June 12 election, as it walked on tiptoes to avoid the perception of "meddling." The regime accused the U.S. of meddling all the same.

But protest movements like Iran's (or Poland's, or South Africa's) are sustained by a sense of moral legitimacy that global support uniquely conveys. When will American liberals get behind Iranian rights, as they have, say, Tibetan ones? Maybe when President Obama tells them to.

(7) Israel will ultimately dispose of Iran's nuclear facilities.
The more policy makers fall for the first six myths, the less mythical the seventh one becomes.

Source:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107204575038971915808294.html?mod=rss_Today's_Most_Popular

Iraq inquiry: Tony Blair ‘lied’ and misled Parliament, claims Clare Short

Tony Blair 'lied' to his Cabinet and misled Parliament over the war in Iraq, Clare Short, the former international development secretary has said.
By Rosa Prince, Political Correspondent

The Telegraph - UK -Giving evidence before the Chilcot Committee into the war, she repeatedly accused the former prime minister of personally “misleading” and “conning” her, and of being “deceitful” with Cabinet, Parliament, and the public.

Miss Short claimed that Mr Blair broke the ministerial code by misleading Parliament, and accused Lord Goldsmith, the former attorney general who gave the “green light” to war, of failing to tell the Cabinet the truth of his reservations about the legality of an invasion.

“I think he misled the Cabinet,” she said. “He certainly misled me. I think for the Attorney General to come and say there's unequivocal legal authority to go war was misleading."

When she tried to ask questions in Cabinet, Miss Short was “jeered” at, and Mr Blair told her to “be quiet”.

By then, Miss Short said, Cabinet government had broken down, and ministers were reduced to having “little chats.” She rejected a claim by the ex-prime minister, who gave evidence last week, that “substantive” discussions had taken place, or a formal Cabinet “endorsement” given for the war.

Miss Short disclosed that after deciding to quit in protest at the failure to secure UN support for the invasion, she had booked time with the Speaker of the House of Commons to deliver a resignation statement to Parliament.

But before she could resign, she was talked round by Mr Blair, who did not want her to quit on the same day as the late Robin Cook, the then-Leader of the House.

Two months later, she claimed, she realised that she had been “conned” by Mr Blair, who had assured her that he had persuaded United States President George W Bush to make progress on the Palestine issue, and involve the United Nations in post-conflict planning.

The left-wing MP eventually resigned in May 2003, two months after the invasion, in protest at a “feeble” UN resolution approving aid for Iraq secured by the British and Americans.

Nine months earlier, during a visit to Mozambique, Miss Short said that Mr Blair had “misled” her by denying that he had made preparations for war in Iraq. In fact, the inquiry has heard, he had already held talks with advisers in July of that year.

She said: "He told me in Mozambique 'I haven't had a presentation, I will come back to you, don't worry.' Clearly that was one of the many misleading things that were said."

Later, once the decision had been taken to stop seeking a fresh UN mandate for the war, Miss Short said that the then-prime minister and his advisers put the word out that the French had been planning to veto any resolution.

She added: "That was in my view a lie, a deliberate lie. It was one of the big deceits."
 
Source:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/7137863/Iraq-inquiry-Tony-Blair-lied-and-misled-Parliament-claims-Clare-Short.html

Iran executes two dissidents accused of being Mohareb (enemies of God) and sentences to death nine more

Iran delivered a chilling message of intent to the country's dissident movement today when it hanged two men accused of being Mohareb (enemies of God) by participating in protests following last year's disputed presidential election and sentenced to death nine more.

The predawn executions of Arash Rahmanipour and Mohammed Reza Alizamani were the first since tens of thousands of ordinary Iranians poured onto the streets to challenge the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president.

Grappling with the country's greatest political crisis since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran's hardliners further indicated their unwillingness to brook dissent after the regime announced that death sentences had been passed on nine other government critics.

Yesterday's hangings mark a new watershed following months of intimidation and harassment designed to crush the spirit of Iran's uprising for change.

Last August a mass show trial of reformists accused of trying to orchestrate a revolution was staged in a Tehran courtroom.

Among the senior figures paraded on state television were the two hanged men, convicted, prosecutors said yesterday, for being "enemies of God".

Abbas Dolatabadi, Tehran's prosecutor general, told state television. "During their trials they confessed to plan to topple the Islamic Republic of Iran.

According to former prisoners and human rights activists, confessions are regularly extracted, especially during politically-tinged trials, through torture and sleep deprivation.

According to his lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, Rahmanipour was detained two months before June's election protests and confessed only after his torturers threatened to harm his family if he held out.

Like many other people, Mrs Sotoudeh was convinced that the execution of the two men was primarily intended to deter further street action by the opposition.

"An execution with this speed and rush has only one explanation," she said. "The government is trying to prevent the expansion of the current (opposition) movement through the spread of fear and intimidation."

British Foreign Secretary David Milliband said I am "appalled" by the reported hanging of two men in Iran convicted of being Mohareb (enemies of God).  He added, "The trials and now these subsequent executions undermine Iran's claimed commitment to justice, human rights and democratic values."

The White House also "strongly" condemned the executions and said this act marked a new low in Tehran's "ruthless crackdown" on peaceful dissent. Deputy White House spokesman Bill Burton added, "Murdering political prisoners who are exercising their universal rights will not bring the respect and legitimacy the Islamic Republic seeks.”

So far, the tactic does not appear to be working. Messages circulated on the internet have called for fresh rallies on Feb 11, when Iran marks the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution – one of the most emotive dates in the state's calendar.

It is unclear whether the Iranian regime will seek to reinforce its message of intolerance for dissent before then by carrying out further executions. Yesterday's announcement that there nine other dissidents bound for the gallows came as a surprise and there were conflicting accounts as to when they may have been sentenced.

Iran's leaders are increasingly aware of the fragility of their power base, observers say, a recognition that was reinforced by violent crackdown of protests on the Shia holy day of Ashura in late December in which at least eight demonstrators died.

In what appeared to be a sign of desperation, Iranian officials this week claimed the Ashura protests had been orchestrated by two German intelligence officers identified as "Yogi" and "Ingo".

Planning legislation to reduce subsidies for the poor, Iran's leaders are more nervous about further protests than ever, analysts say.

Despite the executions, the mass population who want change sense an opportunity to cause further damage to this illegitimate government.

All our inquiries pointed to Iran's role in the abductions

Maggie O'Kane, editorial director Guardian Films, Mona Mahmood, and Guy Grandjean

The journey to find the truth behind the kidnapping of the five British men kidnapped in Iraq in May 2007 has been a long one. We at Guardian Films set out to find out why they had become the forgotten hostages. Was it because they were security men and a computer programmer working for private military companies in Iraq? Was it just because they lacked the glamour and profile of the BBC's Alan Johnson, Terry Waite or John McCarthy? Or was there another reason?

For the past seven years, Guardian Films has specialised in Iraq and over those years we have built up extensive contacts within the Iraqi intelligence service.

We began with that network on the search for the man who held the file on the taking of the five British hostages. He had become a political refugee in a European city. We set about persuading him to tell us all he knew of the kidnapping. It was during a four-hour interview that he revealed his men had witnessed the hostages being handed over at a remote brick factory near the Iranian border at Mehran.

But his vivid account was only one man's claims. We knew the only way to verify his testimony that the men had been taken to Iran was to find a source within Iran's al-Quds Force who would be prepared to testify for our film.

The search took us to another European city where we found a man with close links to Iranian intelligence. We believe that he would not have spoken were it not for his personal disillusionment with the regime following its bloody crackdown after last June's election .

He said that he had taken part in kidnappings and knew those involved in the abduction of the five Britons. He also agreed to reveal to us how al-Quds Force operates.

The interview took place in a hotel room and lasted two hours . He revealed to us that the kidnapping of the British men had taken place following the failure of a similarly audacious attempt, by al-Quds Force, to kidnap five American soldiers from a fortified US base in Karbala, southern Iraq. That attempt took place three months before they came for the Britons in Baghdad.

The attack on the American base at Karbala in January 2007 ended with al-Quds Force killing the five American soldiers they intended to take hostage.

The murders of the five soldiers were brutal. The grotesque nature of their deaths was one reason the Americans were loth to release the man who masterminded the attack on Karbala and the leader of all the Iranian "special groups" operating in Iraq: Qais al-Khazali. Unfortunately for the five British hostages their fate rested on his release.

During our investigation we also obtained copies of two internal documents from the kidnapped men's employers, GardaWorld and Bearing Point, both private military security companies operating in Iraq. Both these internal documents concluded that the men could have been taken to Iran.

As part of the 18-month investigation we were also scouring Arabic websites, including that of the Iranian proxy militia group the Righteous League, for any traffic or information on the fate of the British hostages.

In March we came across a report on a Saudi-based and funded website called Elaph that gave details about the kidnap negotiations.

The author clearly knew more than anyone else writing about the kidnapped men. He also appeared to have inside knowledge of the attempts being made to persuade the Americans to release their prize captive, Khazali

The author of the report specialised in Iraqi militia groups and said he could reach people who had taken part in the kidnap. It was not until August that he finally made contact with one of the kidnap team.

They denied Iran's involvement in the operations and insisted the Righteous League had worked alone, but his account was contradicted by several other sources.

The strongest confirmation that we were on the right track regarding al-Quds Force's involvement in the kidnapping came one Sunday morning in June in an elegant suburban house in London during a meeting with an Iraqi government minister who had taken part in the hostage negotiations and was himself closely connected to Iran. "The kidnapping of the British was the work of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

"You don't think that Iraqis from Sadr City [a Shia district of Baghdad] are capable of carrying out an operation like that," he told us.

During the last six months of the investigation the information from our sources in Iraqi intelligence pointed to the fact that a breakthrough was expected. They were convinced that the Americans, as they were preparing their exit strategy from Iraq, would finally release Khazali.

But the kidnappers had one final card to play before he would be released. They still had Moore.

In November the chief Iraqi negotiator, Sami al-Askari, told us the process was moving in the right direction and asked us to pass a message on to Moore's mother, Avril Sweeney, "that her son is alive and she will see him soon". Moore, unlike three of his four colleagues, survived. The fate of the fourth hostage, Alan McMenemy, is unconfirmed.

The news that Askari is denying any Iranian involvement in their kidnapping comes as no surprise to those of us that have been investigating the case. During the 18 months we spent on the investigation, the fact that the kidnapping was masterminded by al-Quds Force, has been something that anyone close to the current government in Iran has consistently denied.

Askari spent many years in exile in Iran as a political opponent of Saddam Hussein. He was selected as a negotiator precisely because of his closeness to the Iranian government.

For him to deny al-Quds Force's involvement in the murder of three British citizens, Alec Maclachlan, Jason Swindlehurst, and Jason Cresswell, and the cruel detention of Peter Moore and Alan McMenemy is to be expected.

Source:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/31/guardian-films-irans-role-abductions/print