Lazlo Toth : Wired For Terror, Part One

Friday, August 31, 2007

Wired for Terror: On the Trail of the “Men” Who Brought Down the Towers
PART ONE: General Introduction and Survey of the Criminal Landscape


Dr. Lazlo Toth | August 20, 2007

“Of all the forms of murder, none is more monstrous than that committed by a state against its own citizens... The homicidal state shares one trait with the solitary killer -- like all murderers, it trips on its own egoism and drops a trail of clues which, when properly collected, preserved and analyzed are as damning as a signed confession left in the grave.”
-- Forensic anthropologist Clyde Snow, speaking before the May 1984 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

"9/11 is the apparent work of a demonic consciousness associated with the pursuit of commercial profit and materialistic power.” (From ''The Execution of 9/11 Shows the Criminal Tendencies of a Nazi Clique" by Iain Mackenzie in “The Canadian,” April 26, 2007)

During an argument between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, at a well-attended cabinet meeting held on October 3, 2001, twenty-two days after the 9/11 attacks on America, Peres said that Israel’s policies of continued violence might "turn the U.S. against us." To this, Sharon retorted: "Every time we do something, you tell me Americans will do this and will do that. I want to tell you something very clear – Don’t worry about American pressure on Israel; we, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it."
-- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (IAP News)

Although this may come as a surprise to many people, including some in the 9/11 Truth Movement itself, on September 11, 2001 there was absolutely no need for any hijackers to actually be involved in the operation. The “Arab hijackers,” Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehi, etc., were all a part of the “false flag” element of the operation. They formed a part of the “back-story,” a diversionary element used to cover the real operators and methods of the operation, and in the operation’s cover-up phase, they were used to support and give substance to the fake story of 9/11 that the perpetrators and participants within the government presented to the compliant, and at the top, complicit corporate media.

Mohamed Atta, or rather the person playing the part of “Mohamed Atta,” was in fact not a fanatical, religiously devout, suicidal, “jihadi” Muslim “terrorist.” According to research articles published just after 9/11 in such mainstream publications as The Wall Street Journal, Atta was, surprisingly, a drunk, cocaine snorting, pork-eating playboy who enjoyed visiting the strip clubs in south Florida, and loved to loudly and drunkenly brag to everyone about how he was either a commercial pilot or a CIA agent. What he actually was, as will be illustrated later in this article, is a “patsy,” a bit actor playing a role, for either American or Israeli intelligence, in a false flag terror operation that was to be officially blamed on “Muslim terrorist hijackers” working under the direction of a long-time CIA military-intelligence asset known as Usama bin Ladin.

As their U.S. flight instructors have pointed out to several journalists, Atta and his other party-boy patsy actors were incapable of even competently operating a basic, two-seater Cessna aircraft. However, the official 9/11 mythic narrative, crafted by Philip Zelikow, would have us believe that these fake Muslim, drunk-ass, doped-up party boys, working under either CIA or Mossad “handlers,” were able to commandeer Boeing 757 and 767 jumbo jets with either box cutters or plastic knives, turn off their respective plane’s transponder, and then fly and navigate these huge aircraft with trained, military pilot-like accuracy and expert handling. These men, two of whose flight instructors used to privately refer to them as “dumb” and “dumber,” were supposedly able to consecutively hit two towers from a distance, at high speed, using large, lumbering commercial aircraft, on their very first tries, without even so much as a single simulator rehearsal. To understand the serious real-world physics vs. real-world skills problem here, think of a man, who has only thrown a football a couple of times in his life, and not very well either. Suddenly, he steps into a live pro game as the starting quarterback, and right out of the gate, he throws two back-to-back 60 yard touchdown passes, both times hitting his receivers with the ball right in their hands while running at high speed. A few days after 9/11, a professional commercial airline pilot and instructor who later became a founder of pilotsfor911truth.com had his already highly trained students get inside a professional Boeing 757 flight simulator for a little experiment. He loaded the New York skyline, with the twin towers visible in the distance, and had each of his students try to fly their Boeing 757s into either of the WTC towers. After ten tries each, none of them could hit either tower. They kept repeatedly missing their targets, although a couple of them came fairly close. In other words, they could not put the ball, thrown or flown from a distance, into the pass receiver’s hands. After each of his students failed to hit the towers, the flight instructor, a man with 20 years experience as a professional, commercial pilot flying Boeing 757s, tried to hit the towers like the “Arab terrorists” with only rudimentary Cessna training did, and it took him ten tries. After each failure, he, of course, had the luxury of adjusting his pass, I mean, his flight path. On the tenth attempt, he was able to finally get a hit.

When pilots of large commercial aircraft land on an airport’s runway, they are electronically guided in, especially so in bad weather, so in the case of the WTC towers, it could be technologically assumed that for either of those two planes (AA11 or UA175), without any prior rehearsals, to be able to consecutively hit both towers dead-on, without a miss, something at the points of impact in both twin towers, or in WTC7, was sending out an electronic guidance signal, and, because no competent, suicidal Arab hijackers with Boeing 757 flying experience were on hand, it could also be technologically and operationally assumed that some type of aeronautical remote control system using pre-programmed GPS target coordinates was involved in all four “hijacked” flights on 9/11. Later on in this article, a previous Israeli prototype of just such an operation will be briefly examined. Employing technology in such a way, as was done by the men behind the 9/11 operation, these four planes were still technically “hijacked,” but not by anyone physically on board the flight.

Although this four-part article is primarily about putting together an interrogation into the subject of who are the most likely planners, facilitators, and operators behind the controlled demolition of the “Twin Towers” and WTC7 on September 11, 2001, one of our “persons of interest” in this criminal case happens to be someone who is a colleague of some of these other gentleman involved, fully shares their geo-political agendas, and, interestingly enough, also happens to have free access to one of the most sophisticated aeronautical remote control systems on the planet. This fact, I’m sure, most likely acted as a deciding factor in his not being interviewed by the “9/11 Philip Zelikow Commission.” Zelikow had a strict policy of not bringing his friends in for interviews. It is thus important to understand the ways in which the actual conspirators behind 9/11 are connected -- logistically, financially, and ideologically -- and that the people who handled the aeronautical remote-control aspect of 9/11 were also intimately connected to the people handling the remote controlled demolition of structures on 9/11. In the timing sequence of:
1) large sub-basement explosion followed one second later by
2) airplane crashing into the top of the tower, as experienced by 9/11 hero William Rodriguez, we see evidence of this operational coordination being executed by two separate operating groups within a single operation.

Why the understanding of the 9/11 operation as one of “controlled demolition” and “remote-controlled aircraft” is being so fiercely fought by the perpetrators through their media whores is because it completely takes down the False Flag Element (FFE) of the entire operation. The flag comes right down off the pole. The “Ayraabz” didn’t “do 9/11.” There were no Arabs involved in the actual terror attacks (the “Operation”). There was, however, an elite cartel of Arabs and Muslims cooperatively involved in the creation and maintenance of the “al-Qaeda Back-Story” in order to get a piece of the global pie, and that is where Saudi and Pakistani Intelligence (ISI), the Carlyle Group, the Bin Ladin family, and the Karachi pipeline deal all come into the picture. Operationally though, what this means is that “Arab hijackers” and fake CIA/ISI-controlled terror shell-organizations like al-Qaesadilla are completely taken out of the picture. This means that someone else was financially, ideologically, and operationally behind these attacks and had worked very hard to make sure they were blamed on “al-Qaeda” and the Arab/Muslim world in general. In this four-part article we will take a look at who that might have been. We will look at those who would benefit the most from these attacks and who would have the means and opportunities to wire for demolition three New York skyscrapers without any detection whatsoever. We will look at who would have the technological means to pull off this operation with its sophisticated digitally controlled demolitions and aeronautical remote control systems. But before we look at the means and opportunities, we must initially look at the element of “Motive” in its larger historical and documentary context, for without understanding the possible motives involved, the “modus operandi,” the nature of the operation, and the criminal logic of its true participants cannot at all be properly understood.

In this article, we will finally move beyond all the bravely and expertly confirmed and detailed scientific research into the September 11, 2001 controlled demolitions of World Trade Center buildings One, Two, and Seven, and take a look at who would actually have had the political and financial Motives, the Means, and the Opportunities to wire-for-demolition three high-security, steel-framed skyscrapers in New York City. Professional, high-profile, Arab “jihadi” demolition crews working for the CIA/ISI military-intelligence asset known as “al-Qaeda” [“the (data)base”] can be completely ruled out of this operation for obvious reasons. The usual problems people have with adding or fitting this idea of pre-planned, controlled demolitions into their adopted views of 9/11 events is the admittedly difficult idea of imagining how some type of al-Qaeda demolition group was -- prior to the aerial events of 9/11 -- able to wire up three gigantic steel-frame skyscrapers and then remotely control the sequential timing of the demolitions throughout the day (~10:00 am, ~10:30 am, and ~5:30 pm). If one is to admit controlled demolition as an element in the 9/11 attacks, yet at the same time continue to maintain the view that al-Qaeda operatives were involved, then you have a story truly akin to the wildest, craziest imaginings of the type of paranoid individual people usually refer to when they use the term “conspiracy theorist.” The story then becomes -- Arab terrorists, despite proving themselves clueless, incompetent Cessna pilots, not only hijacked and expertly piloted four large commercial aircraft, hitting 75% of their targets, but also slipped through WTC security for several weeks and somehow expertly wired three World Trade Center buildings for massive demolition.

The ever-growing body of scientific and documentary evidence indicating controlled demolition as being an element of the terror plan orchestrated within the context of the 9/11 attacks is now proving to be rather difficult to further ignore, and the real conspirators behind these attacks may have to somehow creatively adopt CD into their “official story” to avoid the fate of the gallows which surely awaits the treasonous. The difficulty, of course, in admitting the presence of controlled demolition into the official paradigmatic view that 9/11 was a “surprise attack,” planned and conducted by Arab “jihadis,” falls under two problem categories, one concerning ‘Means’, the other, that of ‘Opportunity’. As will be evident, the element of controlled demolitions being employed as a part of the terror operations of 9/11 is the single most important signature element of the “inside job” characteristic of a “false flag” operation. The “NORAD stand-down” evidence is a timeline argument that can be argued endlessly, deceptively, and often subjectively using the old incompetence excuse. Controlled demolition involves the proof of hard physics and visual empiricism.

For the criminals involved in these false flag terror attacks against the people of the United States of America to maintain their official cover story, they must at all costs keep the masses of the general public from understanding the reality of those controlled demolitions that occurred in New York City on September 11, 2001. Controlled demolitions clearly indicate that 9/11 was an operation planned, executed, and covered up by high-level American “insiders” and their international military-intelligence “business” associates. In order for all these men to avoid swinging from the gallows and being pelted with bags of burning dog shit by a furious citizenry in full armed revolution, the controlled demolition theory must, by every means, be collectively ridiculed and severely derided through highly managed, compliant media personalities and corrupted, often threatened, government scientists. This is because the trail of breadcrumbs that leads through the questions pertaining to who really would have the undetected means and opportunity to wire for demolition those three World Trade Center buildings, guides the researcher into areas of secrecy and investigation, the concealment of which are of the utmost concern for those who were involved in this whole affair.

This elimination of Arab demolition crews being a part of 9/11, unfortunately, leaves us with only one other logical group of suspects or “persons of interest” -- a group who most Americans naively believe to be among those counted upon as our “friends” and “allies,” although, as this article will clearly demonstrate, September 11, 2001 was certainly not the first time we have been covertly and viciously attacked by this particular political entity in order to provoke us to attack THEIR “enemies” on their behalf.

On the evening of September 11, 2001, after he was finished making clown faces and joking around off-camera before delivering an artificially solemn speech, we were told by our newly and illegitimately elected “president” that America was attacked on that horrific Tuesday morning because a group of nineteen young, crazed, suicidal Saudi Arabians, working for an old Wahabi shaykh who lived in a cave in Afghanistan, just happened to hold a deep grudge against the freedoms possessed by Americans and Westerners in general. At that time, we were, of course, not informed by Mr. Bush that this “Muslim terror attack” would be used to legitimize an outrageously expensive, multi-trillion dollar colonial conquest of the Muslim Middle East and its natural resources; and that the primary geo-political, financial, and military beneficiary of this preemptive set of conquests would, in fact, not be the U.S., but the State of Israel, an “ally” who would, in the U.S. conquest of the Middle East, expend no lives, no money, and suffer only a minimal loss of prestige, yet reap the benefits of an oil pipeline out of Iraq to the Israeli city of Haifa.

At this point, and after that last sentence, you may begin to feel very angry with me, or fearfully apprehensive that the conclusions of six years of arduous, soul-searching research into the events of 9/11 that I will begin to present to you in this paper, seek to unfairly, and unjustly, place the blame for the 9/11 attacks on “the Jews.” I must immediately reply to you that nothing could be further from the truth. To claim that millions of innocent Jewish people are involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America is just sheer lunacy, and only a complete idiot would even contemplate making such a statement. However, to point a prima facie finger at a small, very powerful, elitist minority of fanatical, virulently racist, right-wing Israeli Zionists and their cadre of treasonous supporters working at the highest levels inside the U.S. government will, by historical and documentary evidence, be shown in this four-part article to be not as “crazy” and “irrational” as you might initially think. If I say that all the members of the Cosa Nostra are Italian or of Italian decent, does that mean that all Italians are in the Cosa Nostra, or all Italians are engaged in organized criminal activities? Please, folks, calm down...

If -- as is the case with a majority of Americans and Canadians -- one knows absolutely nothing about the history of the modern Middle East, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and is wholly unfamiliar with the doctrines, development, and geopolitical agendas of the secular ideology of “Zionism,” there is no possible way to logically and rationally understand the statement that -- Behind every Dov Zakheim-connected, System Planning Corp. remote-controlled aircraft used on 9/11 to simulate an attack by “Arab hijackers,” and behind every thermate cutter-charge and piece of dynamite used to bring down, at the free-fall speed of gravity, three gigantic, steel-framed buildings in New York City, there exists the unmistakable “modus operandi” fingerprint of those intelligence operatives who swear a fanatical allegiance to the modern, apartheid State of Israel and its near century-old geo-political Middle Eastern agenda.

To make fully understandable to the general reader the “Motives” section of my circumstantial and prima facie case of high treason and mass murder charges against such figures as Lawrence Silverstein, his World Trade Center lease partner Frank Lowy, and the former chairman of the NY-NJ Port Authority, Lewis Eisenberg, it will be necessary for the reader to first understand the historical and documentary background of a utopian, socio-political ideology known as Zionism. In the interests of fairness and justice to the innocent, it will also be necessary for the reader to understand the fundamental and diametric differences between the modern, secular, atheistic ideology of Zionism and the ancient, monotheistic religious faith of Judaism. It will also be essential for our complete comprehension of this case to be able to understand the ideological evolution of “Zionism,” from its late 19th century germination in the mind of Theodor Herzl as a plan to provide the Jewish people a utopian homeland and shelter from European anti-Semitic persecution, to its later “Jabotinskyite” development into something Dr. Albert Einstein and twenty-seven of his American Jewish colleagues in a December 2, 1948 letter to the New York Times called, the “latest manifestation of fascism.”

For the innocent, almost virginal (information-wise) Jews and non-Jews of the Western world, the information in this four-part article may come as a severe psychological, trauma-like shock, and I am truly sorry to be one of the people morally charged to reveal this to you, but as a devotee of universal divinity, truth, and justice, it is my unfortunate duty to do so at this moment in history. If you are actually a real Jew, or a real Christian, or a real Muslim, and you really care about the integrity of your people and your ancient faiths, you must help bring the psychopathic criminal minority behind the 9/11 attacks to justice. It is your moral human duty and it is your duty to this planet.

The Jews DID NOT “do 9/11”
By stating that Dr. Shyam Sunder of NIST (the National Institute for Scientific Treason) is involved in aiding and abetting the cover-up of the 9/11 crimes on behalf of the actual conspirators involved in those events, does not in any way imply that “the Indians” or “the Hindus did 9/11.” Pointing out that Donald Rumsfeld, General Richard Myers, General Ralph Eberhard, and the Busch (Bush) family are involved in these 9/11 operations in various significant ways, likewise, does that imply that “the Germans or the Christians did 9/11.” In the same way, by pointing out the operational involvement in the 9/11 Conspiracy of right-wing Zionists connected both to the Bush administration and certain sections of the Israeli government does not, by any stretch of the imagination, imply that “the Jews did 9/11.” Such a statement (“the Jews did 9/11”), of course, is ludicrous, untrue, and impossible, as those who subscribe to the racist, totalitarian political ideology of Zionism are much more philosophically closer to those who advocate the views of Nazism or Fascism than they are to people of the Jewish faith. Besides, the total global population of millions of Jews, Christians, Hindus, or Muslims could not possibly take part in an operation that involved only a treasonous, miniscule minority of psychopathic criminals.

The deliberate and illegitimate conflation of Zionism with Judaism is, of course, an emotion-based propaganda tool used by defamatory scoundrels, such as the Anti-Defamation League’s Abe Foxman, to both cover-up and somehow legitimize their theft, by force of arms, of another people’s land, and their continual genocidal crimes against the Arab world in order to maintain that theft.

If I stole your car or house at gunpoint and refused to give it back, wouldn’t you fight me for it? If I then asked you to compromise with me, giving you the back seat (or the cellar) while I drive and occupy the front seat, wouldn’t you still fight me for your property? This, in a nutshell, is the real historical situation in Palestine. The Zionist-owned, dominated, and controlled corporate media want you to think that it is a very, very complicated situation. It is not. They are simply lying to you, as they have been for many decades now. It is real estate theft accompanied by racist apartheid and genocide, pure and simple. Period. End of story. The Zionist power structure has very cleverly inculcated the notion amongst Jewish and non-Jewish people alike that if you criticize the real and historical human rights crimes of the “State of Israel,” you are an anti-Semitic racist or a self-hating Jew. Again, the real meanings of the terms ‘Semite’ and ‘anti-Semite’ are also deliberately covered over by the Zionists in order to further their colonial agenda, and to deflect and shut down all criticism, analysis, and discussion of their political maneuverings and military actions over the past eighty-eight years since the end of WWI (1919-2007). That’s right, folks, the Jews and Arabs of the Middle East have not been fighting each other for thousands of years as the historically ignorant/complicit news personalities of FOX and CNN, etc. would have you believe. In fact, it was the Muslim rulers of the Middle East who gave shelter and protection to the European Jews who were suffering from the brutal, racist pogroms of the medieval Christian Crusaders and the Catholic monarchy of Spain. Zionism only started in 1898, and didn’t really begin to get up to speed until after the signing of the Versailles Treaty in 1919, at the close of the First World War. Thus, the original utopian idea of a Jewish State, devised by Theodor Herzl in the late 19th century, had nothing to do with the later phenomenon of Hitler and Nazism, as many have been led to believe. Even the first prime minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, wrote in his memoirs, “I have already gone exhaustively into the reason for our being here, reasons that I as a pioneer of 1906 can affirm have nothing to do with the Nazis! ... Nazism and our history of martyrdom abroad do not concern our presence in Israel directly.”

Much of the original criticism of the Zionists’ philosophy and their actions did not come from the world of the Gentiles, but from orthodox Jewish rabbis, as well as from Jewish scientists and philosophers such as Albert Einstein and Martin Buber, who were both gravely concerned about the moral preservation of their religious heritage and culture as it was being co-opted by militant secularists and political extremists. Because of the concerted efforts of the educational system and corporate mass media, the general populace of Western countries does not know that there are extreme differences between Zionism and Judaism, nor does it possess any understanding of the modern history of Palestine and the Middle East, or the fact that Zionist military organizations based in Palestine, such as LeHI and Irgun offered their armed support in 1941 to Hitler against the British during WWII, and that the World Zionist Congress aided in the concentration camp deaths of many innocent Jews. In 1941, Hitler offered the World Zionist Congress the opportunity, via ransom of gold, to remove to Palestine all the Jews held in his detention camps. The World Zionist Congress interviewers, however, were only interested in importing European Jews to Palestine in order to swell the minority Jewish population there. Anyone in the camps who expressed to these interviewers their desire to go to Palestine was freed, per agreement with the German Reich, and deported to Palestine. Any Jewish concentration camp prisoners who said they would rather be deported to England or the U.S. were simply left in the camps by the Zionist interviewers to die or starve. Thus, those who know this history and its many more details understand that Zionism is the greatest enemy of Judaism and the Jewish people. The Zionist is truly a wolfowitz in sheep’s clothing and always has been. Most people do not understand that Arabs are also a Semitic people, which means, if one advocates the systematic, genocidal eradication of the Arab peoples, as Zionism does, this makes the Zionist the greatest of all anti-Semites. Abe Foxman’s ADL, for example, will decry in a loud wail any discrimination or hatred shown towards Jews, but he and his “anti-defamation” organization have no problem whatsoever with hatred towards Arabs or their systematic, genocidal extermination as a people. It is also not widely understood that the majority of Semitic peoples in the world are in fact Arabs, yet the Zionist propagandists want to take full possession and ownership of the ethnic designations of ‘Semite’ and ‘Semitic’ in order to further cover-up and carry out their program of slow-but-sure genocide against the Arab world. The immense and wide-spread ignorance of all these things on the part of the so-called “educated” Western audience, both Jew and Gentile alike, is promoted, cultivated, and nourished by design, and on purpose, by the triple powers of Zionist funded, dominated, and controlled education, mass media, and government. You have been lied to for at least a century, and post-9/11, it is high time to WAKE UP before it is too late; before the next Zionist false flag attack, which will most assuredly be blamed on the final Big Piece in their colonial “take-down” puzzle – Iran. The Zionist Neo-Con cabal whined and screamed about Iraq for a decade, and now that that job is supposedly over, they want us to take out Iran for them. The Persian empire will not fall without a fight whose passion we can never hope to match.

MOTIVE:

The Documentary Evidence of Motive and Agenda
In response to an incredulous question by someone on DIGG.com as to why in the world the Israelis and their dual-national moles and sympathizers inside the U.S. government would be involved as conspirators in the operations of 9/11, we will examine in this article, through a set of public documents, the clearly stated, and long-held, Middle Eastern geo-political agenda of the Zionist state and how an event like “9/11” would be to its advantage. Some of these major documents to be examined, documents which nakedly reveal the imperial agenda and operational models upon which the 9/11 attacks were based, are as follows:

1) “The Personal Diary of Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett” (1954-55).

2) “Operation Northwoods” – L.L. Lemnitzer (1962).

3) The 1980s and 1990s writings and speeches of Binyamin Netanyahu, the father of the “War on Terror.”

4) “A Clean Break – A New Strategy for Securing the Realm” – (twice-convicted Israeli spy) Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, David and Meyrav Wurmser, et al. (1996).

5) “Catastrophic Terrorism: Imagining the Transforming Event” – Philip Zelikow (Zionist myth-maker behind the bogus 9/11 Commission Report), Ashton B. Carter, and John M. Deutch (1998).

6) “Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century” – Paul Wolfowitz, Rabbi Dov Zakheim, I. Lewis Libby (Irving Lewis Liebowitz), William Kristol, Dan Goure, Donald, Fred, and Robert Kagen, Abram Shulsky, Eliot Cohen, et al. (2000).

HISTORICAL PRECEDENCE

Israeli False Flag Terrorists: Enemies of Britain and America
In order to understand, in the context of 9/11, the sixty-year historical precedence of Israeli false-flag terror operations (i.e., “Israeli-engineered operations where the goal is to frame the Arabs for the attack”) launched against Great Britain and America – operations executed to provoke us to attack the Arabs, i.e., those people who keep complaining about Israeli real estate theft and human rights abuses – we will examine in the third part of this four part paper a series of terror events, many involving Israeli military and intelligence organizations, such as Menachem Begin’s Irgun, Avraham Stern’s LeHI, Sayaret Matkal, Shin Bet, and Mossad, being caught “red-handed,” i.e., Israeli operatives, dressed as Arabs, apprehended while planting explosives in a commercial or government building, a synagogue, or a mosque. As we will see, by examining only a small sampling from the history of Israeli false flag attacks launched against British and American citizens and soldiers, their favorite tactic is to blow up buildings with people inside them, and then try to blame the operation on Palestinians or Arabs. Another favorite tactic is to either dress up as Arabs and do the job themselves, or employ Arab patsies to hijack a commercial aircraft like Air France Flight 139 in 1976, or a cruise ship, such as the Achille Lauro in 1985. Their employment of remotely controlled aircraft, however, such as in the 9/11 operation, is a relatively new variant in their modus operandi. This wholly evil and darkly ingenious method allows the perpetrators to arrest and control in mid-flight a properly, electronically outfitted commercial aircraft, or fly such an aircraft (commercial or military) into buildings on a pre-programmed target path, using a system like Rabbi Dov Zakheim’s FTS (Flight Termination System) module, which gives these high-tech terrorists the power to create the impression, or illusion, that the attacks are being carried out by fanatically devout Muslim “suicide pilots.” The big problem, of course, with the so-called 9/11 hijackers, aside from the fact that almost a third are still alive, is that these Mossad-controlled patsies were all revealed to be cocaine-snorting, pork-eating alcoholics who loved visiting strip clubs in Florida and Las Vegas, and getting into bar fights – not exactly what you would expect from devoutly religious “shaheedoun” or Muslim martyrs. Also, none of them possessed the skills required to even fly a paper airplane, what to speak of a huge Boeing 757 or 767. As former Mossad katsa (case officer), Victor Ostrovsky has mentioned in his book “By Way of Deception,” the Mossad hires Arab patsies to play these parts all the time, but it is hard to get truly devout Muslims to cooperatively work for Mossad, so they usually end up recruiting characters like Atta and his crew -- the “useful idiot” crowd.

To understand the behavioral patterns and historical precedence of fanatical Israeli Zionists repeatedly using false flag terror operations against us so that we will become their proxies and attack and eliminate the Arabs or Persians for them, as we do now in the bogus “War on Terror,” we will, in Part Three of this paper, look at the following highlights from the sequential history of Israeli-connected, false flag terrorist operations –

July 22, 1946 – The King David Hotel Attack:
The Irgun bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem where British officers were headquartered during the British Mandate period. Ninety-one people lost their lives. The bombers were caught, and as would become a familiar modus operandi, they turned out to be militant, extremist Jews dressed as Arabs.

August 1946 – The Plot Against British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin:
The attempted assassination by Irgun of British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, who was not a big fan of the Zionist project to begin with, and who infuriated the Zionists by announcing that the British government had decided that the land dispute between the Jews and Arabs in Palestine should be decided by the United Nations.

June 1949 to September 1950 -- Operation Magic Carpet:
Amongst a host of tactics, Mossad-planted explosives and bombs were used to blow up synagogues in Iraq and Yemen. These attacks were, of course, blamed on Yemeni and Iraqi Arabs, and were used to inspire the Jewish populations of Iraq and Yemen to emigrate to Israel out of fear of further “Arab attacks.” The operation was quite successful.

July 1954 – The Lavon Affair:
Explosives and bomb attacks, some using phosphorus, directed against British and American interests in Egypt were to be blamed on Egypt and Gamal Abdel Nasser. A thirteen-member terror cell of Israeli saboteurs, engaging in what they called “Operation Susannah,” is caught red-handed by Egyptian security personnel, and Israeli Defense Minister Pinhas Lavon is forced to resign over the revelations of Israeli involvement. In 2005, Israel officially admitted responsibility for the attacks.

November 22, 1963 – The Kennedy Assassination:
The Meyer Lansky (Majer SuchowliƄski) Zionist crime syndicate was implicated in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy for his threats to shut down the Zionist-controlled Federal Reserve Bank and put a halt to Israel’s nuclear weapons program, the technology for which was stolen from the U.S. through the work of Israeli espionage agents.

June 9, 1967 – Attack on the U.S.S. Liberty:
A vicious aerial and naval attack on an American military ship by the Israeli Air Force and Israeli torpedo boats on the fourth day of Israel’s preemptive “Six Day War.” The attack on the U.S.S. Liberty was to have been blamed on Egypt if the Israelis had been able to fully sink the ship and kill all of its sailors. They were not able to finish their mission, and only 34 American sailors were killed and 171 others wounded by our psycho “friends” and “allies.”

June 27 to July 4, 1976 – The Entebbe Incident:
The hijacking of Air France 139, an Airbus A300, by Israeli Shin Bet-controlled Arab and German patsies. Some one hundred passengers were held for eight days by the hijackers after they landed the hijacked flight at Entebbe International Airport in General Idi Amin’s Uganda. Shin Bet’s connection to this hijacking is detailed in newly declassified British government documents as reported in the June 3, 2007 Jerusalem Post.

February to April 1986 -- Operation Trojan:
(As told by former Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky)
An operation involving the February 1986 installation of a Mossad-controlled transmitter (“the Trojan”) in Tripoli used to send out interceptable, fake Libyan intelligence communications in order to trick Ronald Reagan into bombing Libya. The April 5, 1986 bombing of a West Berlin dance club called La Belle, a popular nightspot frequented by U.S. military personnel, was blamed on Libya by the Mossad through their “Trojan” transmitter sending out fake Libyan messages about how Qaddafi ordered the nightclub bombing. Finally, on April 14, 1986, one hundred and sixty American aircraft dropped over sixty tons of bombs on Libya. Operation Trojan, ordered by Israeli PM Shimon Peres, was an evil success, and clearly illustrates why the motto of the Mossad is – “By way of deception, thou shalt do war.”

October 7, 1985 & July 11, 1988 – The Twin Cruise Ship Attacks:
Jordanian and French intelligence, and even PLO sources, pointed out at the time, that the Abu Nidal “Palestinian” terrorist organization, responsible for over a hundred vicious attacks during the years it operated, was a completely Mossad-controlled asset. Off the coast of Egypt on October 7, 1985, the attack on the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro, where Leon Klinghoffer, a 69-year-old Jewish American in a wheelchair, was murdered by throwing him overboard to drown, was the work of the Abu Nidal organization, and was designed to portray Palestinians as terrorist animals, thugs and cut-throats. Just over two and a half years later, on July 11, 1988, this same Mossad-directed terror group attacked the Greek cruise ship “City of Poros,” leaving nine dead and eighty wounded. This attack was seen by analysts as a move by Israel to damage the sympathetic relationship that had developed between Greece, its prime minister, Andreas Papandreou and the Palestinians. This attack damaged the Greek tourist trade and helped bring about the fall of the Papandreou government.

The October 1985 "Palestinian terrorist" hijacking of the Achille Lauro was reported to have been directly ordered and funded by the Mossad. This is detailed by former Israeli Defense Force (IDF) arms dealer Ari Ben-Menashe in his 1992 book, “Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network.”

February 26, 1993 – The Bombing of the World Trade Center:
Zionist-controlled, FBI-directed False Flag Attack on the WTC blamed on blind Shaykh Omar and his followers. This attack was used to set up the precedent that “Arab terrorists” had their eyes on bringing down the World Trade Center. The example of this 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, with explosives being provided by the FBI, would be used later on in 2001 to provide a fake historical targeting precedence for the “al-Qaeda-directed” 9/11 attacks. This type of operation involves the strategy of, over several years, executing a series of attacks to set up the “back-story” for a much larger attack. Each time, the attacks are to be blamed on the Arabs, so that when the “big attack” happens, it will seem logical to the public that the “Arabs did it.” In such operations, setting up “the enemy” is an integral part of the job, and such events as the filming and publicizing of CIA asset Usama bin Ladin’s 1998 fake “fatwa” and declaration of war against America was, likewise, strategically used to help build up and legitimize the “al-Qaeda back-story” to 9/11.

August 8, 1999 – The African Embassy Bombings:
U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania executed by local Mossad operatives and blamed on CIA operative and asset, Usama bin-Ladin. This Mossad operation was used to build up Bin Ladin’s and al-Qaeda’s mythic terrorist credentials in the public mind in order to set him and his organization up as the “logical perpetrator” of the next big al-Qaeda attack.

October 31, 1999 – Remote controlled takeover and crashing of Egypt Air 990:
Blamed on one of Egypt Air’s finest pilots, who all of a sudden, out of the blue, went “suicidal” while co-piloting Egypt Air 990, a Boeing 767, over the Atlantic. On this fateful flight were thirty-three Egyptian military officers, including two Major Generals from the Army and two Brigadier Generals from the Air Force. Many investigators look at this event and see it as a possible early test run for the same Israeli-developed remote control technology that was most probably used for the 9/11 operation -- the FTS system of Rabbi Dov Zakheim’s System Planning Corporation.

September 11, 2001 – The Attacks Against America:
1) Usage of remote-controlled planes to simulate multiple suicide hijacks.

2) Thermate cutter charges, military-grade explosives, and radio controlled bombs placed in three World Trade Center buildings to provide the illusion that the crashing of the remote-controlled planes into the buildings were the cause of their collapse. The third building, WTC7, was an “evidence hut” and had to be destroyed.

3) Anthrax attacks and murders by mail just after 9/11, made to appear to be the work of Arab Muslims, but ended up being discovered to actually be a project engineered by a former Fort Detrick employee, Dr. Lt. Col. Philip Zack, a rabid and devoutly racist Zionist.

All 9/11 events were blamed on Saudi Arabians working for a fake Islamic terror group called al-Qaeda, whose “top leaders” all individually work as contractors for the American CIA, Israeli Mossad, British MI6, or Pakistani ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence). In case you were interested to know, the full name for Israeli Intelligence is “Ha Mossad, le Modiyn ve le Tafkidim Mayuhadim” (Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations).

October 10, 2001 – The Plot to Blow up the Mexican Parliament:
Foiled terrorist bomb plot on the Mexican Parliament building, briefly mentioned for a single second by CNN, and given front-page coverage by papers such as El Diario. Two terrorists -- a Mexican Jew named Salvador Gerson Sunke and a Mr. Sar ben Zui, discovered to be a Colonel with Israeli Special Forces -- were caught red-handed inside the Mexican Parliament building with a machine gun, nine hand grenades, and a sizable cache of C-4 plastic explosives. The terrorists were deported back to Israel with a hand slap and given pardons by a Mexican official named Jorge Gutman.

July 7, 2005 – The London Tube and Bus Bombings:
Most probably executed by operatives working through the Israeli-owned security company which handles security for the London Underground -- ICTS (International Consultants on Targeted Security), headquartered in London’s Tavistock House South. These attacks, of course, could not have been pulled off without the assistance of the British intelligence agency MI6 and moral support from former Israeli PM and Father of the “War on Terror,” Binyamin Netanyahu, who, as on the morning of 9/11 in New York, was also remarkably present in London on the morning of the London tube and bus bombings.

Remember a few weeks ago, when the Israeli Director of U.S. Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, mentioned in his warning about upcoming terror attacks on America that “the terrorists” always like to stage their attacks in the Summer? I invite you, as an interesting experiment, to go back and review the dates of the above Israeli false flag terror attacks.

MEANS AND OPPORTUNITIES:

Israeli or Dual-National Zionists at Every Crucial Point of Operational Influence or Control
This paper will also discuss, through a case-by-case analysis of public dossiers and government departmental org charts, many of the major and minor players, some of whom were involved in the development of the 9/11 operation over the period of nearly a decade. We will examine the operationally crucial points of influence, control, and cover-up protection that these men occupied within the operation’s structure, and the organizational influences and social connections between the major players will also be examined to understand how all of these often overlooked pieces of the 9/11 puzzle ideologically, financially, and operationally fit together.

Operationally, as a “point of control,” we will also look at the Israeli security firm and the Bush-connected security firm that handled the “security” of American Airlines, United Airlines, Boston’s Logan International Airport, Washington’s Dulles International Airport, and Newark International in New Jersey. He who handles security is one who will have the clandestine opportunity, for example, to facilitate the installation of radio remote control modules onto all the planes, or allow demolition technicians into a building at night to do their work. Thus, the security firms sit in the catbird’s seat as far as being in a position of operational control and influence.

Methods and Agents: The Operational Level
Last, but not least, we will discuss some of the hypotheses now being entertained by several demolition technicians and engineers on the nuts and bolts of the demolition operations, and the evidence which points to a wave of terror, intimidation, and espionage that was being attempted by nearly two hundred Israeli agents who were found to be operating in the continental U.S. before, during, and just after 9/11. The nests and cells of spies and terrorists were all deported back to Israel with a slap on the wrist and a stern warning from Michael Chertoff. The Lewis Eisenberg-authorized, Port Authority-directed “wiring projects” and elevator shaft projects which were underway in the WTC towers just before 9/11 will be looked at in this paper, along with pre-9/11, Port Authority-directed shutdowns and evacuations of the World Trade Center Towers. Information concerning possible “explosive tenants” of the Twin Towers, and the New York-New Jersey activities of Mossad front-companies, such as Urban Moving Systems based in Weehawken, New Jersey, will also be examined and revisited again.

All in all, there is a lot of information and many details to be covered in this multi-part article, which could very easily be turned into a 400-page book. This is a research project that one would certainly not want to attach the word “fun” to. It is an extremely important investigation, but it is also very saddening and gravely horrifying at the same time. As I said, “not fun.” Some people in the 9/11 Truth Movement, bless their souls, are under the impression that understanding that Bush and Cheney are involved in the 9/11 attacks is equivalent to taking the Matrix-movie “red pill.” But I must honestly say that an understanding of the real and deeper machinations behind 9/11, and this event’s connections to Israel, is the real “red pill” of 9/11 Truth. I am afraid that after I assemble this ten thousand piece jigsaw puzzle, at the end, it will reveal a picture showing that, with the assistance of treasonous “insiders,” America was attacked on 9/11 by operatives working on behalf of one of our “allies,” a country that we, and the rest of the world’s nations, really need to reconsider the nature of our relationship with, and this “ally,” in the 9/11-generated bogus “War on Terror,” is now using our taxpayer dollars, our international prestige, whatever may be left of it, and the lives of our soldiers to have us fight, as a proxy army on their behalf, bloody wars for the furtherance of their regional “security”/colonial agendas. We have been sold the gravest of lies by our Zionist-owned media, and we have been attacked and murdered by our own government, a government which, as Ariel Sharon pointed out, is owned and controlled by the State of Israel. The Zionists and their puppets and moles high inside the U.S government, as they continually warn us, are now planning to do this 9/11 thing again in order to get us to drop nuclear weapons on Iran for Israel. It is time for the people of the still-free world to digest all of this information, identify and understand the real culprits, the real terrorist enemy, and place all of them in Federal Prison on death row for national treason and mass murder. This is our duty to men like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, who founded a democratic and free republic in a new world. The traitors to this republic must be brought before Justice and before the American People to stand trial for their grave crimes against humanity and freedom. We must bravely stand as citizens of a dying, once free nation, and tell them -- One more attack and the gloves come off for good.

Prison Planet : How the Government Staged the London Bombings in Ten Easy Steps

Friday, August 31, 2007

How the Government Staged the London Bombings in Ten Easy Steps

Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet | July 13 2005

Ten Step Method To Staging a Terrorist Attack

1) Hire a Crisis Management firm to set up an exercise that parallels the terrorist attack you are going to carry out. Have them run the exercise at the precise locations and at the very same time as the attack. If at any stage of the attack your Arabs get caught, tell the police it was part of an exercise.

2) Hire four Arabs and tell them they're taking part in an important exercise to help defend London from terrorist attacks. Strap them with rucksacks filled with deadly explosives. Tell the Arabs the rucksacks are dummy explosives and wouldn't harm a fly.

3) Tell four Arabs to meet up at London Underground and disperse, each getting on a different train. Make sure Arabs meet in a location where you can get a good mug shot of them all on CCTV which you can later endlessly repeat to drooling masses on television.

4) While four Arabs are in London, plant explosives in their houses in Leeds. Plant some explosives in one of their cars in Luton for the police to later discover. Remember that Qu'ran and flight manual in the hijackers' car? Ha ha, they fell for that one hook, line and sinker. No need to change tactics on this one.

5) Before the bombings take place, make sure you warn any of your buddies who are scheduled to be anywhere near where the bombs go off. If this gets leaked to the press, just deny it.

6) 4th Arab goes out partying in London night before and ends up getting out of bed late. No worries, the 9/11 'hijackers' did the same thing but that didn't cause us a big problem. 4th Arab catches bus to see if other Arabs are waiting for him. 4th Arab starts hearing about explosions in the London Underground. 4th Arab comes to the realization that this he is being set up and freaks out. 4th Arab starts fiddling in his rucksack. 4th Arab sets bomb off and is blown up.

If you hired any additional Arabs and they also got wind of the set up, make sure tere are GPS locators in the rucksacks so you can have police snipers ready to kill them before they can blow the whistle.

7) After the bombs go off, put out a story for over an hour that the explosions are a simple electrical fault. This gives you cover time to make sure the lazy bus Arab is dead and any other hired Arabs who reneged are also dead. Make sure any CCTV footage that doesn't support your official story is either seized or destroyed.

8) A few hours after the bombings, have one of your boys post an 'Al-Qaeda statement' claiming responsibility. Don't worry about the whole 'misreferencing the Qu'ran' thing, these idiots don't have the attention spans to figure it out.

9) After you have made sure that all the Arabs are dead and you are managing the story accordingly, wait for four days until the police piece together the story and find the explosives you planted in Leeds and in the car in Luton. Remember that Qu'ran and flight manual in the hijackers' car? Ha ha, they fell for that one hook, line and sinker. No need to change tactics this time either. The time delay will convince the gullible public that a real investigation is taking place. Create a background of the hired Arabs being militant Muslims. The drooling masses, as was the case with the '9/11 hijackers,' will ignore stories of neighbours saying they were the quiet, educated types who liked children and playing sports.

BBC excerpt: One local resident described him as "a nice lad".

"He liked to play football, he liked to play cricket. I'm shocked."

Another resident said he was just a "normal kid" who played basketball and kicked a ball around.

10) Sit back and enjoy as Blair and his minions grandstand in front of television cameras about staying the course in the war on terror. The pay raise, extra agency funding, and power to strip more freedoms and liberties made the ten easy steps to staging a terrorist attack a worthwhile venture. The dozens of dead people were necessary collateral damage. This is a dirty war, we need to be less moral than the terrorists to defeat them.

And that's how the government staged the bombings in ten easy steps.

Granted, you can interchange different pieces of the puzzle. The bombers could be real terrorists that knew exactly what they were doing. All you would need to do is control the 'mastermind' behind the attack and make sure his boys carried out the job in the way you wanted. Voila.

Related: London Bombing Archive

SMH : We've sent al-Qaeda into a spin, says army chief

Thursday, August 30, 2007

We've sent al-Qaeda into a spin, says army chief

Miranda Devine from Baghdad | August 31, 2007

DAVID PETRAEUS, the US military commander in Iraq, has given a preview of his forthcoming report to Congress, citing a dramatic reduction in violence in Baghdad and foreshadowing a "gradual" reduction in the number of troops in Iraq.

The Herald interviewed General Petraeus in Baghdad on Wednesday after he had a 90-minute meeting with the Defence Minister, Brendan Nelson, and Chief of the Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston.

General Petraeus revealed the thinking behind his report, due on September 10, on President George Bush's "surge" strategy of increasing the number of US troops in Iraq, and divulged several measures of progress.

"We say we have achieved progress and will do all we can to build on that progress, [and] that al-Qaeda is off balance and we are certainly pressuring them," General Petraeus said.

"Our objective, with all the Coalition forces is … to gradually bring the surge down. Obviously we have some more months with the surge forces [still in place]."

His optimistic view contradicts a report prepared for Congress, which was leaked on Wednesday. The report, by the US Government Accountability Office, says progress in Iraq has stalled, and only three of 18 benchmarks for political and military progress have been met.

General Petraeus said his challenge in gradually cutting US troop numbers was to decide what the battlefield "footprint" in Iraq should eventually look like. The 30,000 additional troops sent to Iraq have brought US troop numbers to 160,000. Australia has 1575 troops in Iraq.

Dr Nelson described his meetings with General Petraeus and the US ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, as "extremely useful". Dr Nelson meets the US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, in Washington today.

Dr Nelson flagged Australia's continued strong commitment to Iraq, saying "we are not looking for any premature withdrawal".

"General Petraeus was very frank, very open in his assessment … we have quite a clear picture now of his thinking on the state of the Baghdad security plan, the surge … [and on] the security environment in Baghdad and in the south and the work being done by us and the British. We now have a much clearer picture of what General Petraeus is going to present to Congress … The message is that this is achievable."

General Petraeus, 54, who commanded the 101st Airborne Division during the Iraq invasion in 2003, was appointed as commander of the Multi-National Force in Iraq in February.

In the interview with the Herald in his office in the US headquarters in a former Saddam Hussein presidential palace, he used as a benchmark of progress the number of "ethno-sectarian deaths", which have fallen steadily since December in Baghdad and in the rest of Iraq and have "come down for eight of the last 11 weeks to a level lower than for a year".

In Baghdad, the monthly death toll has fallen by more than two-thirds. In the rest of Iraq, such deaths have dropped by more than 50 per cent, but General Petraeus said they were "still too high".

"This is very much a work in progress," he said. "We are a little over two months into the so-called surge."

Having an extra combat infantry brigade, aviators and a marine expeditionary unit has been "very important", he said. "It has enabled us to start offensives [and] go after the al-Qaeda sanctuaries. We see them as public enemy number one … That is not to say that militant extremists supported by Iran are not a … growing concern."

He also cited success in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province. "It was like Stalingrad," he said, an al-Qaeda stronghold and the most violent place in Iraq at the beginning of the year, but now peaceful after Coalition and Iraqi forces mounted an offensive in March and local Sunnis turned against the terrorists. He said al-Qaeda was also being forced out of strongholds in Baghdad and Diyala.

General Petraeus attributed much success to the "phenomenon of locals saying 'would it be OK if we pointed our weapons at al-Qaeda and not at you"'.

Another measure of progress was the increasing number of al-Qaeda members captured and killed - more than 1500 a month, as well as a significant reduction in the number of homemade bombs, "the biggest killer on our battlefield".

But there had been an increase in the number of more sophisticated bombs, which can blast armoured vehicles, and which the US Government says Iran has been supplying to insurgents.

General Petraeus spoke of the "malign involvement" of Iranian agents who had "trained, equipped and funded and in some cases directed" attacks on Coalition forces.

"This is not a pretty picture," he said, pointing to fighting between Shiites and to the fact al-Qaeda was still unleashing suicide bombers.

He paid tribute to Australia and its troops, who are "the epitome of professionalism … extraordinarily capable. Australians 'get it'," he said. "That is the highest praise."

He singled out for praise Australian Army Lieutenant Colonel David Kilcullen, his chief adviser on counterinsurgency operations, who rewrote General Petraeus's counter-insurgency handbook this year.

Dr Nelson this week also visited Australia's 1000 troops in Afghanistan and met the President, Hamid Karzai.

He had planned to deliver a letter from the Prime Minister, John Howard, to the embattled Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, but Mr Maliki had to fly to Kerbala after an eruption of violence in the city, and was unable to attend a meeting with Dr Nelson to receive it.

The letter also wanted to reiterate to Mr Maliki "that it's very important in this difficult environment … that the Government govern … The patience of open-hearted Australians should not be excessively tested."

After meeting General Petraeus, Dr Nelson said: "We will continue to do what we believe is right. While we understand support for our continuing involvement in Iraq is a minority position … we have a moral responsibility not just to Iraqis and the nations of the Middle East but also to people suffering under terrorism, and … to our allies US and Britain."

NYT : Musharraf’s Aides Deny a Deal With Bhutto

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Musharraf’s Aides Deny a Deal With Bhutto

By CARLOTTA GALL | August 31, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Aug. 30 — Pakistani government officials denied Thursday that the country’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, had agreed to resign as army chief before presidential elections, contradicting statements a day earlier by Benazir Bhutto, an exiled former prime minister.

Nawaz Sharif, a former premier, said Thursday that he would return to Pakistan on Sept. 10.

A presidential spokesman, Rashid Qureshi, said that no decision had been made in negotiations between the sides in London and that no presidential announcement was imminent. “It is an ongoing dialogue,” he said. “If there is an announcement, I will be the first to tell you.”

Ms. Bhutto, who has been in talks with aides to General Musharraf for months to work out a power-sharing deal, said Wednesday that he had agreed to a crucial concession: giving up the post of army chief of staff before standing for re-election. The same day, Pakistan’s minister of railways, Sheik Rashid Ahmed, said that the issue “had been settled” in a deal that was “80 percent done.”

But on Thursday, government officials pushed back, denying that a deal had been made and accusing Ms. Bhutto of grandstanding.

Mr. Qureshi said that General Musharraf had until Nov. 15, when his current term ends, to decide whether he would give up one of his posts, president or chief of army staff.

“He has not given a date,” Mr. Qureshi said in a telephone interview. “He wants to keep that to himself.” He said that the president would not be pressed into making any decision and that the railways minister had been speaking personally, not officially.

The minister of state for information, Tariq Azim Khan, said that the president could remain as army chief until Dec. 31, which is when a constitutional amendment allowing him to retain the dual roles expires. And he quoted General Musharraf as saying, “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”

The power-sharing deal under negotiation would allow Ms. Bhutto to return from self-imposed exile and run for prime minister, and would allow General Musharraf to run for another term as president. The United States supports the deal as a way to keep an ally in the presidency and shore up his domestic support.

But each side needs serious concessions from the other.

Ms. Bhutto wants corruption cases against her dropped and a ban on prime ministers running for a third term lifted. She was elected in 1988 and 1993, but both terms were cut short amid accusations of corruption.

General Musharraf, severely weakened by months of protests over his four-month suspension of the popular Supreme Court chief justice, faces challenges on the constitutionality of his running again and holding the dual posts of army chief and president.

He expects a new political challenge from the powerful former prime minister he ousted in a bloodless 1999 coup, Nawaz Sharif, who was cleared by the Supreme Court last week to return from exile. From Ms. Bhutto, the general needs support in Parliament, where her Pakistan People’s Party is strong.

But there is some strong opposition within the governing party, the Pakistan Muslim League, which backs him, to making a deal with Ms. Bhutto, because of fears that, fueled by her return, her party could make big gains in parliamentary elections.

Ms. Bhutto said Wednesday that most of the deal had been negotiated and that General Musharraf’s agreement to run as a civilian would allow her party to accept his re-election.

Another key element to a deal is his agreement to hold off his presidential bid until a new and more independent Parliament is elected at the end of the year. Under the Constitution, Parliament and provincial assemblies elect the president.

But on Thursday, state-run media reported that General Musharraf insisted that his election would be held while the current Parliament was sitting. “My election should be held between 15 September and 15 October,” he said on a weekly television program, according to a news report.

At the same time, Mr. Khan, the information minister, said the government was opposed to freeing Ms. Bhutto from corruption cases, including two convictions she is now appealing. He said the government also opposed her demand to remove the president’s right to dissolve Parliament. The measure, he said, was still needed in Pakistan, where democracy was not fully functional.

Meanwhile, government officials expressed irritation at Ms. Bhutto’s comments, in particular her warning that General Musharraf should make an announcement by the end of the month to complete the agreement.

Mr. Khan suggested that Ms. Bhutto was trying to win political points with an inflated announcement. General Musharraf “may take off the uniform before the elections or afterwards, unless Parliament allows him to continue,” Mr. Khan said. “But it is no thanks to Benazir Bhutto. She is making out she forced him to that; that is not the case.”

In a news conference in London on Thursday, Mr. Sharif, now another likely candidate for prime minister, said that he would return to Pakistan on Sept. 10 to prepare for the elections. Mr. Sharif is opposed to General Musharraf’s continued rule in any form and described Ms. Bhutto’s efforts to win concessions from the military ruler as “too little, too late.”

He said he would return with his brother to the capital, Islamabad, and then make the four-hour drive to his hometown, Lahore. Similar well-publicized road trips taken by the chief justice during his suspension became marathon cavalcades, with tens of thousands of supporters cheering him along his route.

Reuters : Judge allows Saddam link in Wyatt oil trial

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Judge allows Saddam link in Wyatt oil trial

By Christine Kearney | August 30, 2007

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. judge ruled on Thursday that prosecutors can introduce evidence in the trial of Oscar Wyatt that suggests the Texas oil tycoon tipped off Iraq about the impending 2003 U.S. invasion.

On the eve of Wyatt's trial in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal, U.S. District Judge Denny Chin also allowed evidence that defense lawyers said unfairly suggested payments made by Wyatt to Iraq's state oil marketing organization were bribes passed on to Saddam Hussein.

Wyatt goes on trial September 5 at federal court in Manhattan, accused of paying millions of dollars in kickbacks to Iraq to win oil contracts and corrupting the oil-for-food program.

Wyatt, 83, has pleaded innocent to all charges.

The U.N. oil-for-food program was set up in the 1990s to let Iraq sell oil to buy civilian goods for its people living under U.N. sanctions imposed over the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

It administered some $67 billion worth of oil, and U.S. and U.N. investigations have found that lobbyists, U.N. and Iraqi officials enriched themselves through kickbacks and bribery.

Wyatt's former company, the Coastal Corporation, dealt in Iraqi oil and Wyatt had traveled a number of times to Iraq, meeting senior officials including Saddam.

Wyatt's defense also objected to evidence showing portions of a diary of a former Iraqi state oil agency employee. It includes suggestions Wyatt provided the Iraq government with information about when the United States would invade and bomb Iraq and how many troops would be sent.

But the judge agreed with prosecutors who said the diary was needed to show Wyatt's close ties with Iraqi officials from the early 1990s right up until the end of the program in 2003 after the U.S. invasion.

"It shows Mr. Wyatt was trying extremely hard to get additional (oil) allocations," the judge said. "Why was the Iraq government treating Mr. Wyatt so well? Why did he get the first (oil) allocation? ... This is further evidence of that relationship."

The judge said he would instruct the jury that Wyatt is not accused of treason.

Another diary entry the government may introduce includes evidence Wyatt convinced U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Democrat from Massachusetts, to deliver a speech against the war in Iraq -- an allegation a spokesperson for Kennedy has said is untrue, arguing Kennedy publicly opposed the war early on.

© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.

Reuters : Petraeus says Iraq "surge" working: paper

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Petraeus says Iraq "surge" working: paper

August 30, 2007

CANBERRA (Reuters) - The U.S. troop surge in Iraq has thrown al Qaeda off balance and led to a reduction in sectarian violence and bombings, the U.S. commander in Iraq was quoted on Friday by an Australian newspaper as saying.

"We say we have achieved progress, and we are obviously going to do everything we can to build on that progress and we believe al Qaeda is off balance at the very least," General David Petraeus told the Australian in an interview after briefing Australia's defense minister, Brendan Nelson, in Baghdad.

Petraeus and U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker will testify before the U.S. Congress on either September 11 or 12.

Their reports on Iraq's security and political situation could prompt a shift in U.S. President George W. Bush's Iraq policy amid calls from opposition Democrats and some senior Republicans for U.S. troops to start leaving Iraq.

Bush urged coalition allies to make pullout decisions based on security conditions on the ground.

"Failure in Iraq would lead to, in my judgment, turmoil, chaos in the Middle East, and other attacks on the United States and other nations," Bush told Sky News Australia in an interview broadcast on Friday ahead of the next week's 21-member Asia-Pacific leaders summit in Sydney.

"What matters is success and I believe we can be successful."

Bush said two forms of extremism had converged on Iraq, counting Sunni extremists inspired by al Qaeda and Shi'ite extremists fostered by Iran.

"We need all our coalition partners. Whether it be Afghanistan or Iraq, we've got more work to do, the free world has got more work to do."

Petraeus told the Australian that there had been a 75 percent reduction in religious and ethnic killing since last year, while the number of al Qaeda "kills and captures" was on the rise.

Coalition deaths from roadside bombings were also declining since Bush sent an extra 30,000 troops to Iraq, he said, according to the newspaper.

Nelson said he had received a frank assessment of progress during a 90-minute meeting with Petraeus and said "the message is that this is achievable".

The meeting came as the Washington Post reported that Iraq had only met three out of 18 goals set by Washington for political and security progress, according to a draft of another major report being prepared for Congress.

Nelson planned to write to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki about the paralysis in his administration and warn him that the "patience of open-hearted Australians should not be excessively tested".

Australia, a close U.S. ally, was an original coalition member in Iraq and still has around 1,500 troops in and around the country, although with a election looming and support for the war low, the government is under pressure to withdraw.

A survey by the foreign policy think tank Lowy Institute this week found 57 percent of Australians believed the country should not continue to have troops in Iraq, while 37 percent said Australian troops should remain.

Australia's Labor Party opposition, ahead in opinion polls with elections due by the end of the year, has said it would withdraw about 500 combat troops from Iraq if it wins power.

© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.

Reuters : Kenya consecrates conservative U.S. clerics as bishops

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Kenya consecrates conservative U.S. clerics as bishops

By Wangui Kanina | August 30, 2007

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya's Anglican Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi consecrated two conservative American priests as bishops on Thursday to lead U.S. congregations who have split from the Episcopal Church over its stand on homosexuality.

William Atwood and William Murdoch are among a growing number of conservative U.S. clerics pledging allegiance to African bishops who take a tough line against homosexuality.

"The gospel is clear on which relationships correspond to God's order of life ... homosexual practice violates the order of life given by God in the Holy Scripture," said Archbishop Drexel Gomez of the West Indies, in a sermon at Nairobi's All Saints Cathedral attended by hundreds of worshippers.

Atwood and Murdoch will be in charge of 30 congregations in the United States who have asked for leadership from Kenya.

"As a bishop...you are to maintain the Church's discipline, guard her faith and promote her mission in the world, "Nzimbi told the two men.

The 77 million-strong Anglican Communion has been divided since the Episcopal Church, its 2.4 million member U.S. branch, consecrated Gene Robinson as Anglicanism's first openly gay bishop four years ago.

At the service, where traditional Anglican hymns were sung to African beats, they vowed to "serve the international interests of the Anglican Church of Kenya, to serve clergy and congregations in North America under the Kenyan jurisdiction".

The five-hour service was attended by several primates from the "Global South", made up of churches in Africa, Asia and Latin America who support traditional Anglicanism.

"HARDLY A RENEGADE ACT"

"Today's ceremony is not about making a political statement. It is about the gospel of Jesus Christ and caring for people," Atwood said. "There are 52 million Anglicans worldwide and the fact that the leaders of 40 million of them are here shows that it is hardly a renegade act."

Homosexuality in Africa is denounced as immoral and is outlawed in many countries on the continent.

"These people are here (in the congregations) but we cannot appoint them as lay leaders, priests or bishop because that would be condoning wrong, and we cannot do that," Nzimbi told Reuters earlier.

Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola raised a storm in May when he consecrated Martyn Minns as bishop in the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, which is linked to the Church of Nigeria, despite being asked not to by the Anglican spiritual head Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

On Sunday, Ugandan Archbishop Henry Orombi will consecrate John Guernsey from Virginia in Uganda.

The U.S. Church has accused Africans of invading their territory by consecrating Americans. But conservative Africans say they only want to provide refuge for orthodox believers who are at odds with liberal views.

Murdoch is rector of the All Saints Episcopal Church in West Newbury, Massachusetts, while Atwood is general secretary of the Ekklesia Society, a global group promoting orthodox Anglicanism.

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the spiritual head of the Communion but does not have powers equal to those of Pope Benedict in the Catholic Church. The gay clergy row has sapped his influence and brought the Communion close to schism.

The Communion is discussing proposals for a so-called Anglican Covenant that could strengthen the Archbishop of Canterbury's authority, but opinions on it are deeply divided.

© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.

IHT : West would back deal between Bhutto and Musharraf

Thursday, August 30, 2007

West would back deal between Bhutto and Musharraf

ISLAMABAD: Sharif viewed by U.S. as worst of 3 figures

By Carlotta Gall and Salman Masood | August 30, 2007

A reported power-sharing deal between Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, and the exiled former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, would have the support of the U.S. and European governments, who see Musharraf as an important ally in fighting terrorism but also want to encourage moderate political forces in Pakistan to counter religious extremists.

Bhutto said Wednesday that Musharraf had agreed to resign as army chief as part of a nearly completed deal that would allow him to serve another term as president if he is re-elected and allow her to return to Pakistan to run for prime minister.

"Our understanding is that he will contest elections as a civilian," Bhutto said in a telephone interview from London, where she has been in negotiations with the general's emissaries.

Talks between Bhutto and Musharraf gained urgency last week after Pakistan's Supreme Court ruled that Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister Musharraf ousted in a 1999 coup, could return to Pakistan. Like Bhutto, Sharif wields significant power within the country, but he is seen by the Bush administration as less friendly to its interests. He is opposed to the general continuing in power in any capacity and has vowed to oppose his re-election. Sharif could well run for prime minister, and such a rivalry could further roil Pakistani politics.

For the United States, a power-sharing deal between Musharraf and Bhutto would be the best outcome among several bad options. Bush officials want to keep Musharraf in the presidency, because he is viewed as a crucial ally in the fight against terrorism, a U.S. official said. But Musharraf's plummeting popularity in Pakistan has left American officials worried that he could lose the election if he refuses to share power with Bhutto, or, worse, find himself overthrown in the same kind of army coup that brought him to power.

U.S. officials also worry that Sharif is more critical of the United States than either Bhutto or Musharraf.

Although Bhutto's comments suggested a deal was imminent, she added that a second central question - whether Musharraf would run for election with the sitting Parliament voting this fall, or wait until a new and more independent one is formed after elections in January - was "still under discussion."

The agreement remained a "cliffhanger," she said. "A lot has gone right, but still there are a couple of issues to be hashed out."

There was no immediate confirmation from Musharraf, who has suffered a series of blows in recent weeks to his six-month struggle to retain both his military and political leadership posts. But his minister of railways, Sheik Rashid Ahmed, said at a news conference covered by Reuters: "There is no more uniform issue. It has been settled and the president will make an announcement." Asked later if Musharraf would take off his uniform before standing for re-election, he said, "Maybe."

On Thursday, Musharraf's spokesman said the president rejected "any pressure or ultimatum" to decide whether to quit as army chief, The Associated Press reported. But the spokesman, Rashid Qureshi, in a faxed statement, did not either deny or confirm Bhutto's account.

Foreign policy experts in the United States and administration officials cautioned that it remained unclear whether the power-sharing deal would be enough to stave off further political crises in Pakistan and an eventual ouster of Musharraf.

On Wednesday, in an interview published by The Financial Times, Sharif said he would return within two weeks. A spokesman for Sharif, Nadir Chaudhri, reached by telephone, said Sharif would announce details of his plans at a news conference on Thursday.

Bhutto laid out the parameters of the discussions on a deal in an interview late Wednesday. She said her Pakistan People's Party had offered the general different options, involving passing a constitutional amendment, either by the current Parliament or the next one, to resolve his ineligibility for re-election. (According to some interpretations, he has already served the maximum two consecutive terms in office, because he seized power in 1999 and won a referendum in 2002.) She said the party position was that he should stand for re-election after the next Parliament was seated.

Another issue still under discussion was the balance of power between the president and the Parliament, and in particular the presidential powers to dissolve Parliament. "Parliament needs to be independent, not subservient to a privy council or handmaiden of the presidency," she said.

Musharraf began his re-election campaign in August with an eye to a vote of national and provincial assemblies between Sept. 15 and Oct. 15. But growing opposition to the breadth of his rule - which gained momentum after he suspended the Supreme Court's chief justice in March - has presented him with mounting difficulties. The possibility that the chief justice, reinstated in July, might rule his re-election unconstitutional, helped drive him into the talks with Bhutto.

IHT : Former Pakistan leader Nawaz Sharif says he will return home Sept. 10

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Former Pakistan leader Nawaz Sharif says he will return home Sept. 10

The Associated Press | August 30, 2007

LONDON: An embittered former prime minister promised Thursday to return to Pakistan next month to fight what he called a battle against dictatorship and thwart President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's bid to extend his rule.

Nawaz Sharif's comeback would set up a three-cornered fight for power, also involving rival ex-premier Benazir Bhutto, in a front-line state for the war against terrorism.

Sharif vowed to return on Sept. 10 after seven years in exile to formally start his campaign to oust the military leader.

"The battle lines in Pakistan are clearly drawn: on one side you have the people loyal to democracy ... on the other side are the forces of a dying dictatorship," Sharif told a packed news conference at a west London hotel.

Sharif condemned an agreement that Benazir Bhutto, another exiled former premier, said she was close to finalizing with Musharraf that could see them share power. Bhutto has said she will return by December.
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Bhutto claimed Musharraf had agreed to step down as head of the army, ending military rule eight years after the general ousted Sharif in a bloodless coup. Musharraf, however, said Thursday he had made no such decision.

Sharif said he would lead lawmakers in opposing any agreement that prolongs Musharraf's regime.

"Musharraf's uniform is not an issue. The real issue is his illegitimate rule," Sharif said. "This man Musharraf is on his way out. No one should try to rescue him."

The Supreme Court ruled last week that the conservative, secularist Sharif, who has been in exile since 2000, and his politician brother could return to Pakistan.

However, Pakistani government officials have said that Sharif, who insists Musharraf must be removed from both the government and the army, could be re-arrested upon reaching Pakistani soil on charges dating to the 1999 coup.

Sharif said he was not afraid of Musharraf's government trying to imprison him again, adding that, in jail, he might become a powerful symbol for the country's opposition.

"I will go to Pakistan. I will launch my struggle, irrespective of if he arrests me or doesn't ... We are not scared of what will happen to us — we have seen enough of it," he said.

The former prime minister plans to fly to Islamabad shortly before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, accompanied by senior members of his party and a contingent of mostly foreign journalists. From there, he plans to travel by road to his power base in the east, Lahore.

In downtown Lahore, dozens of Sharif supporters danced and distributed candies to celebrate his announced return. Activists earlier paraded a chained lion — one of his political symbols — and chanted "Go, Musharraf, go!"

In comments aired Thursday evening but recorded earlier, Musharraf said he was "confident that we will be able to maintain political stability."

"My election and the election for the National Assembly must be held on time, and there should be no disturbance," he said on state-owned Pakistan Television.

But he also alluded to his emergency powers.

"Martial law or emergency are not the future of Pakistan, but Pakistan comes first," Musharraf said.

Musharraf had vowed to prevent both Bhutto and Sharif from entering Pakistan again, blaming them for corruption and economic problems that nearly bankrupted the country in the 1990s, when each had two turns as prime minister.

But with his support eroding, Musharraf has edged toward an alliance with Bhutto and her moderate Pakistan People's Party so he can be re-elected as a strong civilian president backed by a friendly parliament.

Under the proposed pact, the government would drop corruption cases against Bhutto to allow her to return home and abolish regulations that prevent her from serving a third term as prime minister.

But Sharif's return could trigger political turmoil and upset their calculations.

Sharif controls one of the three main political groupings gearing up for year-end parliamentary elections.

A coalition of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party and the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League-Q could emerge victorious.

However, Sharif's PML-N would form the core of an antagonistic opposition bloc able to mobilize sizable street protests.

Sharif had poor relations with Washington when in office in the 1980s — he authorized Pakistan's first nuclear tests in 1998 — and is now aligned with Islamist parties who accuse Musharraf of betraying Pakistan's national interests for turning against the Taliban after the 9/11 attacks.

While Bhutto has said that the confidence Musharraf enjoys in the international community and the Pakistan army makes him a factor for stability, Sharif has denounced him as a dictator who has led Pakistan into crisis.

NYT : West would back deal between Bhutto and Musharraf

Thursday, August 30, 2007

West would back deal between Bhutto and Musharraf

ISLAMABAD: Sharif viewed by U.S. as worst of 3 figures

By Carlotta Gall and Salman Masood | Published: August 30, 2007

A reported power-sharing deal between Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, and the exiled former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, would have the support of the U.S. and European governments, who see Musharraf as an important ally in fighting terrorism but also want to encourage moderate political forces in Pakistan to counter religious extremists.

Bhutto said Wednesday that Musharraf had agreed to resign as army chief as part of a nearly completed deal that would allow him to serve another term as president if he is re-elected and allow her to return to Pakistan to run for prime minister.

"Our understanding is that he will contest elections as a civilian," Bhutto said in a telephone interview from London, where she has been in negotiations with the general's emissaries.

Talks between Bhutto and Musharraf gained urgency last week after Pakistan's Supreme Court ruled that Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister Musharraf ousted in a 1999 coup, could return to Pakistan. Like Bhutto, Sharif wields significant power within the country, but he is seen by the Bush administration as less friendly to its interests. He is opposed to the general continuing in power in any capacity and has vowed to oppose his re-election. Sharif could well run for prime minister, and such a rivalry could further roil Pakistani politics.
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West would back deal between Bhutto and Musharraf

For the United States, a power-sharing deal between Musharraf and Bhutto would be the best outcome among several bad options. Bush officials want to keep Musharraf in the presidency, because he is viewed as a crucial ally in the fight against terrorism, a U.S. official said. But Musharraf's plummeting popularity in Pakistan has left American officials worried that he could lose the election if he refuses to share power with Bhutto, or, worse, find himself overthrown in the same kind of army coup that brought him to power.

U.S. officials also worry that Sharif is more critical of the United States than either Bhutto or Musharraf.

Although Bhutto's comments suggested a deal was imminent, she added that a second central question - whether Musharraf would run for election with the sitting Parliament voting this fall, or wait until a new and more independent one is formed after elections in January - was "still under discussion."

The agreement remained a "cliffhanger," she said. "A lot has gone right, but still there are a couple of issues to be hashed out."

There was no immediate confirmation from Musharraf, who has suffered a series of blows in recent weeks to his six-month struggle to retain both his military and political leadership posts. But his minister of railways, Sheik Rashid Ahmed, said at a news conference covered by Reuters: "There is no more uniform issue. It has been settled and the president will make an announcement." Asked later if Musharraf would take off his uniform before standing for re-election, he said, "Maybe."

On Thursday, Musharraf's spokesman said the president rejected "any pressure or ultimatum" to decide whether to quit as army chief, The Associated Press reported. But the spokesman, Rashid Qureshi, in a faxed statement, did not either deny or confirm Bhutto's account.

Foreign policy experts in the United States and administration officials cautioned that it remained unclear whether the power-sharing deal would be enough to stave off further political crises in Pakistan and an eventual ouster of Musharraf.

On Wednesday, in an interview published by The Financial Times, Sharif said he would return within two weeks. A spokesman for Sharif, Nadir Chaudhri, reached by telephone, said Sharif would announce details of his plans at a news conference on Thursday.

Bhutto laid out the parameters of the discussions on a deal in an interview late Wednesday. She said her Pakistan People's Party had offered the general different options, involving passing a constitutional amendment, either by the current Parliament or the next one, to resolve his ineligibility for re-election. (According to some interpretations, he has already served the maximum two consecutive terms in office, because he seized power in 1999 and won a referendum in 2002.) She said the party position was that he should stand for re-election after the next Parliament was seated.

Another issue still under discussion was the balance of power between the president and the Parliament, and in particular the presidential powers to dissolve Parliament. "Parliament needs to be independent, not subservient to a privy council or handmaiden of the presidency," she said.

Musharraf began his re-election campaign in August with an eye to a vote of national and provincial assemblies between Sept. 15 and Oct. 15. But growing opposition to the breadth of his rule - which gained momentum after he suspended the Supreme Court's chief justice in March - has presented him with mounting difficulties. The possibility that the chief justice, reinstated in July, might rule his re-election unconstitutional, helped drive him into the talks with Bhutto.

Reuters : Iraq says making progress ahead of key reports

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Iraq says making progress ahead of key reports

By Ahmed Rasheed | August 30, 2007

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's foreign minister said on Thursday the government had made progress in responding to U.S. goals for improved security and political reconciliation ahead of key reports soon to be delivered to the U.S. Congress.

The U.S. commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, and U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker will testify before Congress on either September 11 or 12.

Their reports on Iraq's security and political situation could prompt a shift in U.S. President George W. Bush's Iraq policy amid calls from opposition Democrats and some senior Republicans for U.S. troops to start leaving Iraq.

"The whole world is waiting anxiously to see what these reports will indicate," Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari told a news conference.

Zebari said there had been a "great deal" of progress on the security front in Iraq, while an agreement at the weekend by the country's top five Shi'ite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish leaders to boost national reconciliation was a "significant move".

Skeptics have questioned how much of that deal -- which included consensus on easing curbs on former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party returning to government jobs -- will translate into action given the paralysis gripping the Shi'ite-led administration of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

The deal also called for the release of many detainees held across Iraq. Both issues are at the heart of complaints from disaffected minority Sunni Arabs, once dominant under Saddam and whose community makes up most of the detainees.

"I am hopeful that come September 11 or 12 you will see more political progress along these lines," Zebari said.

But while he expressed optimism, the Washington Post reported that Iraq had only met three out of 18 goals set by Washington for political and security progress, according to a draft of another major report being prepared for Congress.

The findings by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, are at odds with a more positive assessment by the White House in July that Iraq had met eight out of 18 benchmarks, the newspaper said.

"STRIKINGLY NEGATIVE"

The report, which the Post described as "strikingly negative", is due to be delivered to Congress on Tuesday, a week before the testimony by Petraeus and Crocker.

"While the Baghdad security plan was intended to reduce sectarian violence, U.S. agencies differ on whether such violence has been reduced," the draft obtained by the Post said.

U.S. commanders in Baghdad say sectarian violence has fallen since Bush sent 30,000 extra troops to Iraq. In particular, they say sectarian death squad killings in the capital have halved.

Some of the violence has been blamed on the Mehdi Army militia of anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

On Wednesday, Sadr suspended all armed action by the militia after gunbattles in the city of Kerbala killed dozens.

But Ahmed al-Shaibani, a senior Sadr aide, warned U.S. forces not to take advantage of the order. Another senior aide said it might only last a week if American and Iraqi forces did not stop detaining the cleric's followers.

"We say to the Americans, don't be happy. The resistance does not end," Shaibani said without elaborating when asked if the order meant there would be no attacks on U.S. forces.

In Washington, Iraq is sure to fare poorly on the legislative front in the reports to Congress, with its parliament yet to pass any laws Washington regards as vital to healing the sectarian divide between Shi'ites and Sunni Arabs.

Those laws include the measure on de-Baathification and a law that will equitably share the country's vast oil wealth.

Zebari urged lawmakers to work faster when parliament reconvenes on September 4 after a summer break. Lawmakers complain the government has yet to submit the key laws to parliament.

(Additional reporting by JoAnne Allen in Washington)

© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.