Street Battles by 2 Factions Leave 5 Dead in Gaza
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By GREG MYRE
Published: December 20, 2006
JERUSALEM, Dec. 19 — Street battles between rival Palestinian factions, including a shootout on the grounds of Gaza City’s main hospital, continued Tuesday, leaving at least five people dead and nearly 20 wounded.
After another chaotic day in the Gaza Strip, security chiefs from the feuding groups, Hamas and Fatah, said Tuesday night that they had reached a new agreement to remove gunmen from the streets. But it is not clear whether that deal will be more successful than a cease-fire announced Sunday night.
On the diplomatic front, Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, made a surprise trip to Jordan for talks with King Abdullah II on the prospects for reviving peace talks with the Palestinians. Mr. Olmert traveled by helicopter and took only a few aides for the two-hour meeting, Israeli officials said.
In a statement released afterward, the king urged Mr. Olmert to “engage in negotiations with the Palestinians so that an appropriate framework could be found to relaunch the peace process.” Israel and the Palestinians have not held full-fledged peace talks in almost six years, and none are on the horizon.
The statement also said Abdullah was willing to mediate between Hamas and Fatah. Tensions between the groups are high as the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, has called for new elections to break the political gridlock between them — a plan that Hamas, which controls the legislature, rejects.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/20/world/middleeast/20mideast.html?hp&ex=1166590800&en=ad552959e92ed63e&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Iraqi ‘insurgents’ made strategic gains: US
By Anwar Iqbal
WASHINGTON, Dec 19: The day new US Defence Secretary Robert Gates took office, the Pentagon issued a quarterly report acknowledging that ‘insurgents’ in Iraq had achieved a ‘strategic success’ by unleashing a spiral of sectarian killings.
The 50-page report, mandated quarterly by Congress, paints a bleak picture, warning that increased violence threatens the political institutions that United States has set up since 2003 when it invaded Iraq.
The rapid spread of violence this year has thrown the government's future into jeopardy, Pentagon officials said. Unlike previous reports, the Pentagon’s latest assessment of the situation on the ground omitted any explicit statement that Iraq is not in a civil war.
The report on “Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq” cites a 22 per cent increase in attacks, to nearly 1,000 per week. It says two thirds of the attacks are aimed at coalition forces, but that the remaining attacks, on Iraqi security forces and civilians, are much more deadly.
Attack levels in Iraq hit record highs in all categories nationwide but Iraqi civilian casualties have increased manifold. Since January, ethno-sectarian executions rose from 180 to 1,028 in October, and ethno-sectarian incidents rose from 63 to 996 over the same period.
The number of US and coalition casualties surged 32 per cent from mid-August to mid-November, compared with the previous three months, the report said. Over the same period, the number of attacks per week rose 22 per cent, from 784 to 959.
The Pentagon says that most of the violence is limited to Baghdad and three other provinces -- Anbar, Salah a-Din and Diyala -- but that 37 per cent of the Iraqi people live in those areas.
The report blames sectarian militias for most of the violence, singling out the Mahdi Army of Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr for having what it calls "the greatest negative effect on the security situation in Iraq
http://www.dawn.com/2006/12/20/top14.htm
Cheney Will Testify in C.I.A. Leak Case
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By DAVID JOHNSTON
Published: December 20, 2006
WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 — Vice President Dick Cheney will be summoned as a defense witness in the trial of his former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr., on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, a defense lawyer said Tuesday in federal court. A spokeswoman for Mr. Cheney signaled that he would not resist the request for his testimony.
Skip to next paragraph
Haraz N. Ghanbari/Associated Press
I. Lewis Libby Jr., the vice president’s former chief of staff.
Timeline of a Leak
Dick Cheney
Click for more events.
All Dick Cheney EventsView All Events
Blog
The Caucus
Kate Phillips and The Times's politics staff are analyzing the midterm elections and looking ahead to 2008.
More Politics NewsThe decision to call Mr. Cheney was announced by Theodore V. Wells, a lawyer for Mr. Libby, whose trial is scheduled to begin next month.
“We’re calling the vice president,” Mr. Wells said at a hearing before Judge Reggie B. Walton in Federal District Court.
Mr. Cheney has been a looming presence in the C.I.A. leak case from the start, and his appearance as a defense witness would keep the vice president and the White House in the foreground of Mr. Libby’s trial. Mr. Libby is the only person charged with a crime as a result of an investigation into whether anyone in the Bush administration intentionally leaked the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency officer.
After the announcement at Tuesday’s hearing, Lea Anne McBride, Mr. Cheney’s spokeswoman, said: “We’ve cooperated fully in this matter and will continue to do so in fairness to the parties involved. And as we’ve stated previously, we’re not going to comment further on the legal proceedings.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/20/washington/20leak.html?hp&ex=1166590800&en=4c7afdb56f54bfa2&ei=5094&partner=homepage
O.K. from a declining America?
By Gideon Samet
Behind Ehud Olmert's fuzzy talk about hewing to the American opposition to negotiations with Syria hides a sorry pretext used by an agenda-free prime minister, but also one of the most important issues for the future of Israel.
Not only "bloated putzes in the media," as Olmert so rudely put it recently, are criticizing the prime minister for refusing to talk with Damascus and for waiting for the O.K. from Washington. Amos Oz, for example, joined them yesterday. And it is not true that Olmert has no agenda. He has a full agenda, stuffed to bursting with "no"s. No, to Syria, following his no to talking with the Palestinian leadership, no to removing outposts that laugh at the law, no to any measures that would reduce the suffering of the entire population in the Gaza Strip, no and no again to changing the prime minister's arrogant style.
Together with all these negatives is one big yes: Olmert, nodding in agreement with George Bush's no-no's. With Syria, Olmert grasps the pretext, because he will not admit the real reason: He does not want to come down from the Golan Heights. In one of his recent awkward declarations, Olmert stated that "as long as I'm prime minister, the Golan Heights will remain in our hands for eternity." We will find out soon enough just how eternal is Olmert's rule. In the meantime, he will avoid getting caught up in a political move that poses such danger to him, such as agreeing to evacuate tens of thousands of in the north and withdrawing to Lake Kinneret.
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Yet, unlike Olmert, however, the U.S. is not what it once was, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion immediately to leave Sinai in 1957; when Secretary of State Henry Kissinger declared, in 1975, a "reassessment" of U.S. policy on Israel because of its refusal to agree to an interim arrangement in Sinai; when President Bill Clinton dragged Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization to Camp David. In the past decade, bookshelves and columns of top commentators have been filled with descriptions of the weakening of the American giant. It has become almost banal to talk about the decline of the Empire.
Discussing this historical process, illustrated pointedly by the abortive attempt to reeducate the Middle East, aimed at proving that the world's only superpower can no longer act unilaterally, because its power has waned too much. In his 2002 masterpiece, "The Paradox of American Power," Professor Joseph Nye, Dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, foresaw serious consequences for the U.S. internationally and domestically if it insisted on an "unrealistic imposition" of schedules and of forceful intervention.
As in Israel, despite the differences, critics of declining American imperialism point to an overly narrow focus on the national interest. This is also the claim of the Baker-Hamilton Report. The U.S. is still motivated by some sense of being divinely chosen, which is rooted in the moralistic thinking of the country's early history. There is opposition even within the national consensus to this impulse toward hegemony and a unipolar world that is leading the U.S. to disasters. Among other things, this impulse deepens the hatred of American culture. Some here might compare this by-product with the rise in anti-Semitism in the West as a result of the Israeli occupation.
I once suggested, in these pages, that the power-drunk behavior of the Bush era be termed the "Israelization of America." Now Olmert believes he will be doing a favor to Israel by means of its Americanization. It won't work. The "illusion of control" and the "end of the American epoch" - key terms to the critical discussion of the past several years in the West - require sensitive Israeli attention. Equally to be noted is the almost obsessive talk in the U.S. of the imminent end (again, as happened six and a half years ago) of the bull market on Wall Street.
Such sensitivity invites, at the very least, a reshaping and updating of Israeli politics in accordance with what appears to be an obvious Israeli interest: a rational agenda instead of a slothful slouching after a wandering and habitually goring American bull.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/803266.html
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By GREG MYRE
Published: December 20, 2006
JERUSALEM, Dec. 19 — Street battles between rival Palestinian factions, including a shootout on the grounds of Gaza City’s main hospital, continued Tuesday, leaving at least five people dead and nearly 20 wounded.
After another chaotic day in the Gaza Strip, security chiefs from the feuding groups, Hamas and Fatah, said Tuesday night that they had reached a new agreement to remove gunmen from the streets. But it is not clear whether that deal will be more successful than a cease-fire announced Sunday night.
On the diplomatic front, Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, made a surprise trip to Jordan for talks with King Abdullah II on the prospects for reviving peace talks with the Palestinians. Mr. Olmert traveled by helicopter and took only a few aides for the two-hour meeting, Israeli officials said.
In a statement released afterward, the king urged Mr. Olmert to “engage in negotiations with the Palestinians so that an appropriate framework could be found to relaunch the peace process.” Israel and the Palestinians have not held full-fledged peace talks in almost six years, and none are on the horizon.
The statement also said Abdullah was willing to mediate between Hamas and Fatah. Tensions between the groups are high as the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, has called for new elections to break the political gridlock between them — a plan that Hamas, which controls the legislature, rejects.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/20/world/middleeast/20mideast.html?hp&ex=1166590800&en=ad552959e92ed63e&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Iraqi ‘insurgents’ made strategic gains: US
By Anwar Iqbal
WASHINGTON, Dec 19: The day new US Defence Secretary Robert Gates took office, the Pentagon issued a quarterly report acknowledging that ‘insurgents’ in Iraq had achieved a ‘strategic success’ by unleashing a spiral of sectarian killings.
The 50-page report, mandated quarterly by Congress, paints a bleak picture, warning that increased violence threatens the political institutions that United States has set up since 2003 when it invaded Iraq.
The rapid spread of violence this year has thrown the government's future into jeopardy, Pentagon officials said. Unlike previous reports, the Pentagon’s latest assessment of the situation on the ground omitted any explicit statement that Iraq is not in a civil war.
The report on “Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq” cites a 22 per cent increase in attacks, to nearly 1,000 per week. It says two thirds of the attacks are aimed at coalition forces, but that the remaining attacks, on Iraqi security forces and civilians, are much more deadly.
Attack levels in Iraq hit record highs in all categories nationwide but Iraqi civilian casualties have increased manifold. Since January, ethno-sectarian executions rose from 180 to 1,028 in October, and ethno-sectarian incidents rose from 63 to 996 over the same period.
The number of US and coalition casualties surged 32 per cent from mid-August to mid-November, compared with the previous three months, the report said. Over the same period, the number of attacks per week rose 22 per cent, from 784 to 959.
The Pentagon says that most of the violence is limited to Baghdad and three other provinces -- Anbar, Salah a-Din and Diyala -- but that 37 per cent of the Iraqi people live in those areas.
The report blames sectarian militias for most of the violence, singling out the Mahdi Army of Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr for having what it calls "the greatest negative effect on the security situation in Iraq
http://www.dawn.com/2006/12/20/top14.htm
Cheney Will Testify in C.I.A. Leak Case
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By DAVID JOHNSTON
Published: December 20, 2006
WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 — Vice President Dick Cheney will be summoned as a defense witness in the trial of his former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr., on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, a defense lawyer said Tuesday in federal court. A spokeswoman for Mr. Cheney signaled that he would not resist the request for his testimony.
Skip to next paragraph
Haraz N. Ghanbari/Associated Press
I. Lewis Libby Jr., the vice president’s former chief of staff.
Timeline of a Leak
Dick Cheney
Click for more events.
All Dick Cheney EventsView All Events
Blog
The Caucus
Kate Phillips and The Times's politics staff are analyzing the midterm elections and looking ahead to 2008.
More Politics NewsThe decision to call Mr. Cheney was announced by Theodore V. Wells, a lawyer for Mr. Libby, whose trial is scheduled to begin next month.
“We’re calling the vice president,” Mr. Wells said at a hearing before Judge Reggie B. Walton in Federal District Court.
Mr. Cheney has been a looming presence in the C.I.A. leak case from the start, and his appearance as a defense witness would keep the vice president and the White House in the foreground of Mr. Libby’s trial. Mr. Libby is the only person charged with a crime as a result of an investigation into whether anyone in the Bush administration intentionally leaked the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency officer.
After the announcement at Tuesday’s hearing, Lea Anne McBride, Mr. Cheney’s spokeswoman, said: “We’ve cooperated fully in this matter and will continue to do so in fairness to the parties involved. And as we’ve stated previously, we’re not going to comment further on the legal proceedings.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/20/washington/20leak.html?hp&ex=1166590800&en=4c7afdb56f54bfa2&ei=5094&partner=homepage
O.K. from a declining America?
By Gideon Samet
Behind Ehud Olmert's fuzzy talk about hewing to the American opposition to negotiations with Syria hides a sorry pretext used by an agenda-free prime minister, but also one of the most important issues for the future of Israel.
Not only "bloated putzes in the media," as Olmert so rudely put it recently, are criticizing the prime minister for refusing to talk with Damascus and for waiting for the O.K. from Washington. Amos Oz, for example, joined them yesterday. And it is not true that Olmert has no agenda. He has a full agenda, stuffed to bursting with "no"s. No, to Syria, following his no to talking with the Palestinian leadership, no to removing outposts that laugh at the law, no to any measures that would reduce the suffering of the entire population in the Gaza Strip, no and no again to changing the prime minister's arrogant style.
Together with all these negatives is one big yes: Olmert, nodding in agreement with George Bush's no-no's. With Syria, Olmert grasps the pretext, because he will not admit the real reason: He does not want to come down from the Golan Heights. In one of his recent awkward declarations, Olmert stated that "as long as I'm prime minister, the Golan Heights will remain in our hands for eternity." We will find out soon enough just how eternal is Olmert's rule. In the meantime, he will avoid getting caught up in a political move that poses such danger to him, such as agreeing to evacuate tens of thousands of in the north and withdrawing to Lake Kinneret.
Advertisement
Yet, unlike Olmert, however, the U.S. is not what it once was, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion immediately to leave Sinai in 1957; when Secretary of State Henry Kissinger declared, in 1975, a "reassessment" of U.S. policy on Israel because of its refusal to agree to an interim arrangement in Sinai; when President Bill Clinton dragged Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization to Camp David. In the past decade, bookshelves and columns of top commentators have been filled with descriptions of the weakening of the American giant. It has become almost banal to talk about the decline of the Empire.
Discussing this historical process, illustrated pointedly by the abortive attempt to reeducate the Middle East, aimed at proving that the world's only superpower can no longer act unilaterally, because its power has waned too much. In his 2002 masterpiece, "The Paradox of American Power," Professor Joseph Nye, Dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, foresaw serious consequences for the U.S. internationally and domestically if it insisted on an "unrealistic imposition" of schedules and of forceful intervention.
As in Israel, despite the differences, critics of declining American imperialism point to an overly narrow focus on the national interest. This is also the claim of the Baker-Hamilton Report. The U.S. is still motivated by some sense of being divinely chosen, which is rooted in the moralistic thinking of the country's early history. There is opposition even within the national consensus to this impulse toward hegemony and a unipolar world that is leading the U.S. to disasters. Among other things, this impulse deepens the hatred of American culture. Some here might compare this by-product with the rise in anti-Semitism in the West as a result of the Israeli occupation.
I once suggested, in these pages, that the power-drunk behavior of the Bush era be termed the "Israelization of America." Now Olmert believes he will be doing a favor to Israel by means of its Americanization. It won't work. The "illusion of control" and the "end of the American epoch" - key terms to the critical discussion of the past several years in the West - require sensitive Israeli attention. Equally to be noted is the almost obsessive talk in the U.S. of the imminent end (again, as happened six and a half years ago) of the bull market on Wall Street.
Such sensitivity invites, at the very least, a reshaping and updating of Israeli politics in accordance with what appears to be an obvious Israeli interest: a rational agenda instead of a slothful slouching after a wandering and habitually goring American bull.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/803266.html
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