NYT: Anti-American sentiment grows on the streets of Tehran:

"The events in the Middle East will have a negative impact on democracy in Iran,” said Ibrahim Yazdi, secretary general of Freedom movement, an opposition political group. “Some might ask Hezbollah why it took those two soldiers hostage. Based on what kind of predictions did it take such a measure?

“But no one can deny the large-scale invasion of Lebanon by Israel and the destruction of its infrastructure and the crimes it is committing against civilians, women and children. Such acts strengthen Ahmadinejad’s position.”

The widespread destruction in Lebanon may help the president turn the tide of public opinion toward his vision of this being Iran’s war. But more immediately, political analysts said, it helps to win him support in a more crucial arena: Iran’s inner circles of power.

Aluf Benn: "Olmert wants to take another stab at a decisive conclusion before the UN Security Council blows the final whistle. That's why he convened the cabinet on Monday to approve a wide-scale ground operation targeting villages used by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Olmert is fighting the battle over public opinion, both at home and abroad. He wants people to see the war as a victory, not a draw. It was this attitude that led Olmert to tell a conference of mayors on Monday that the operation is continuing despite the unfortunate deaths of dozens of Lebanese civilians in Qana Sunday. [...] Olmert promised to continue fighting until the international army takes control of positions and villages that Hezbollah had been using until the war." Benn expresses astonishment that the goal of this campaign from Olmert's perspective has turned into getting a more effective international force into southern Lebanon. But one wonders, why is "internationalizing" the Hezbollah problem potentially good for Israel? If it's German soldiers and French soldiers on the border, does that eliminate the rocket problem? Or change the consequences for Hezbollah and its sponsors for some threshhold of action? For all the potential constraints put on its future action in southern Lebanon with a more effective international presence there, has Israel helped in a more immediate way turn its Hezbollah problem, its Syria problem, its Iran problem, into NATO's problem?

Ha'aretz: "The security cabinet voted in the early hours of Tuesday morning to expand Israel's ground operation in south Lebanon."

Reuters: "An Iranian student has died in jail while on a hunger strike aimed at persuading authorities to release him, Justice Minister Jamal Karimirad said on Monday. Akbar Mohammadi, arrested for taking part in pro-democracy demonstrations in 1999, was the first political dissident known to have died in prison in Iran for many years."

NYT: Israeli Strikes Resume After Brief Halt in Lebanon:

Despite the halt to its broad aerial campaign, Israeli bombs and rockets hit several targets today. A rocket fired by an Israeli drone plane killed a Lebanese soldier riding in a car near the city of Tyre this morning. Israeli officials apologized, saying they had believed the car was carrying a senior Hezbollah official, news services said. Israeli warplanes also conducted airstrikes this morning near the village of Taibe in southern Lebanon. Israeli officials said those attacks were in support of ground forces in the area.

And Israel’s defense minister, Amir Peretz, made it clear in a speech to the Knesset today that Israel intends to “expand’’ its ground operations against Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon.

Ha'aretz: "Olmert: There will be no cease-fire in coming days."

Really interesting - and surprisingly optimistic -- speech by Shimon Peres at CFR just now.

WP: "The U.N. Security Council passed a resolution today that gives Iran until Aug. 31 to suspend its uranium enrichment and nuclear fuel reprocessing activities or face possible economic sanctions. The resolution, which passed by a vote of 14-1, was weaker than the threat of immediate sanctions originally sought by the United States and its Western allies. But it marks the first time that the Security Council has made legally binding demands on Iran, with a threat to consider sanctions, regarding its nuclear program."

Ha'aretz editorial envisages outlines of a future Israel-Syria dialogue emerging.

Reuters: Rice statement on Israel-Hezbollah truce terms.

Ha'aretz: "Senior source: Despite IAF curbs, there is no ceasefire."

The government source said that the IAF had been told to continue acting against "targets that present a threat to Israel and its troops, including rocket launchers, vehicles transporting ammunition, Hezbollah fighters, weapons stores and Hezbollah assets."

The term "Hezbollah assets" refers to people identified with the organization, including those who do not pose an immediate threat. "If they are identified with Hassan Nasrallah, we will hit them," the source said.

Regarding the instructions to the IAF, the source said, however, "there will be no attacks on buildings that had not been identified" as part of efforts to strike Israel, and held, for example, ammunition, Hezbollah fighters or their commanders."

This is interesting too:

The suspension of IAF activity was first suggested in a meeting Sunday between Rice and Olmert, during which the secretary of state asked that Israel open a 24-hour "corridor" for residents to leave south Lebanon, effective immediately.

After hearing Olmert's explanations for the attack at Qana, Rice asked the prime minister what steps would be taken to prevent such an incident from happening again, in order to avoid having an impact on the war effort. Rice said that when such incidents occurred in Iraq, the operations were suspended until the completion of an investigation.

Following the meeting, the bureaus of the prime minister and Defense Minister Amir Peretz decided to limit the aerial activity until the completion of the investigation. The announcement was supposed to have been made by the Israeli military, but due to a misunderstanding, it actually came from the American side.

Wonder what that misunderstanding was.

Meantime, Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz is calling to expand the war, the AP reports, and the Israeli cabinet is meeting today about expanding ground operations:

Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz made clear in a speech to parliament that Israel would not agree to an immediate cease-fire and had plans to expand its operation in Lebanon.

“It’s forbidden to agree to an immediate cease-fire,” Peretz told parliament, as several Arab legislators heckled him and demanded an immediate halt to the offensive. “Israel will expand and strengthen its activities against the Hezbollah.” ...

Israel’s top ministers were to discuss expanding the army’s ground operation at a meeting later Monday, while thousands of reserve soldiers trained for the possibility that they will be sent into Lebanon to participate in the battle, now 20 days old.

It was unclear whether the senior ministers would approve a broader ground assault at their meeting, defense officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. ...

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Rice over the weekend that Israel would need 10 to 14 more days to finish its offensive, and Justice Minister Haim Ramon told Army Radio on Monday that he did not think the fighting was over yet.

“I’m convinced that we won’t finish this war until it’s clear that Hezbollah has no more abilities to attack Israel from south Lebanon. This is what we are striving for,” Ramon said.

Meantime, thousands of Lebanese civilians are taking advantage of reduced air operations to flee south Lebanon and aid convoys are getting in.

Via Ha'aretz, Human Rights Watch determines that the IAF bombing in Lebanon is 'indiscriminate.' From HRW letter: "Even if the IDF claims of Hezbollah rocket fire from the Qana area are correct, Israel remains under a strict obligation to direct attacks at only military objectives, and to take all feasible precautions to avoid the incidental loss of civilian life. To date, Israel has not presented any evidence to show that Hezbollah was present in or around the building that was struck at the time of the attack." ... "Human Rights Watch has also documented Hezbollah’s deliberate and indiscriminate firing of Katyusha rockets into civilian areas in Israel, resulting in 18 civilian deaths to date. These serious violations of international humanitarian law are also war crimes."

Meantime, Hezbollah does not appear to be honoring any temporary truce on its end.

Scanning the front pages of tomorrow's papers, there's an ominous lack of clarity about what exactly Israel has agreed to do in the next 48 hours, by way of halting air attacks in southern Lebanon in order to investigate what happened at Qana. The State Department says the attacks will be halted in southern Lebanon for 48 hours, and in addition, remaining civilians will have 24 hours to evacuate southern Lebanon (why they couldn't use the whole 48 hours of suspended air attacks isn't clear). Top Israeli military writer Ze'ev Schiff contends it's in Beirut the air strikes will be halted. It's not clear if his piece was written before the State Department announcement. Whatever the case, one wonders, given the next two days of continued furious diplomacy at the UN Security Council and affected capitals, how hard it will be to resume a widespread air campaign on Tuesday after two days of suspension. Two days from now is Tuesday, and Rice had hoped for some sort of resolution by as early as Wednesday. If Israel halts its assaults, does it calculate that it will be harder to resume again? Presumably, even if an agreement is signed this week, it will still be weeks before an international force of 10,000 to 30,000 peacekeepers could be assembled and deployed. What is interesting: all the signs are that it was Washington that pressured Israel into suspending air strikes in certain areas. That it was described as being in order to allow an investigation into what happened at Qana seems a way to call it anything else but a temporary partial ceasefire. One that there is hardly a word directly from Israel to explain. State did very little to disguise that Israel's agreement to suspend air operations was written hastily on State Department stationery. What's the suggested subtext? I'm just guessing but it seems Rice may genuinely be disturbed that her repeated calls for restraint to avoid civilian casualties were not heeded, and Israel is not happy about what it has been asked to agree to.

DK:

... You can disagree about what reality should be. That is the essence of democracy. But when the instruments of state power, including the President's bully pulpit, are used to attack the effort--within government, but especially without--to identify, describe, and analyze what reality is, then we have run right up against the limits of what democracy can withstand. It is the abandonment of the Enlightenment in favor of a dark and uncertain future.

CNN Breaking News: "Israel agrees to suspend air operations over southern Lebanon for 48 hours to investigate strike on Qana, a U.S. State Dept. spokesman said." More from the AP and from Ze'ev Schiff and Amos Harel: "Israel has agreed to suspend its aerial bombardment of southern Lebanon for 48 hours, effective immediately, to allow for an investigation into Sunday's bombing that killed 54 civilians, a U.S. State Department official said early Monday. Israel will also coordinate with the United Nations to allow a 24-hour window for residents of southern Lebanon to leave the area if they wish, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told a briefing in Jerusalem."

Here's the announcement from the State Department's Adam Ereli:

Israel has agreed to a 48-hour suspension of aerial activity in South Lebanon while it investigates today's tragic incident in Qana. Israel has, of course, reserved the right to take action against targets preparing attacks against it.

During this time, Israel will coordinate with the UN to allow a 24-hour period of safe passage for all residents of South Lebanon who wish to leave. Humanitarian convoys remain in effect. We expect that Israel will implement these decisions so as to significantly speed and improve the flow of humanitarian aid.

The United States welcomes this decision and hopes that it will help to relieve the suffering of the children and families of Southern Lebanon.

Seems likely that the US doesn't just welcome this decision, but demanded it.

A bleak and ominous assessment of the new Middle East conflict -- one not about territory and borders, but existence and a convergence of agendas -- from Newsweek:

There is another, even larger reality this time around: today the battle is not just over some hardscrabble hillsides in southern Lebanon, but for public opinion in a far more polarized and interconnected world. In that world, Hizbullah's patron, Iran, is plotting to develop nuclear weapons. Al Qaeda is trying to turn the conflict to its advantage. At least some Palestinians who began as Hizbullah's sworn enemies now vow not to make a separate peace in Gaza, leaving Israel with a two-front war. Perhaps most worrisome of all, Iraq's American-backed government is taking time out from its bitter civil warring to align itself with Hizbullah and make its anger over American support for Israel very clear indeed.

No one denies that Hizbullah started the fight, with its unprovoked incursion into Israel, and no one doubts that Israel can win it, at least in conventional terms. But that's not what matters as much as public perceptions, and the impact those perceptions have from Tehran to Cairo. The conflagrations in Gaza, Lebanon and Iraq risk converging, if not on the ground, then in that virtual reality—on satellite television and the Web—where Al Qaeda and Hizbullah find recruits for their global networks. Israel can bomb Lebanon's infrastructure all it wants, but Hizbullah, which operates beyond the limits of a state, ultimately has no infrastructure. Hizbullah's own rockets and missiles can miss nearly all their targets, with comparatively little loss of life, but so long as they keep firing, they shatter the myth of Israeli invincibility and win friends and admirers in a radicalized Muslim world. [...]

Underlying the Bush administration's concern about Lebanon was a realization that Hizbullah could win simply by [not] losing. Already Israel's incursion has lasted longer than the Yom Kippur War or the Six Day War. Though Israeli officials said publicly that they had expected the stiff resistance Hizbullah guerrillas showed, other Israeli analysts were more skeptical. "It's not going well," says historian Tom Segev. "It should never have started." Bush officials, who earlier had been confident the Iranian-backed militia could be crippled quickly by Israel's military, were "freaked out" by Hizbullah's resilience, says one senior U.S. official who didn't want to be named expressing skepticism about policy. "It is a very, very dangerous situation," said another, who requested anonymity for the same reason. "The more Hizbullah resists, and the more Israel hits back at them, the more open-ended this is."

CNN's John King with Rice in Israel: US-Israel tensions emerging. US official says Israel "stalling." More on those tensions from Ha'aretz's Shmuel Rosner: "For the first time during the talks between the Americans and their Israeli counterparts, there is some tension. Israel is not delivering the goods: a quick and convincing victory over Hezbollah, and in its actions Israel is making it more difficult for the Americans to block the international tide in favor of a cease-fire. As such, in different parts of the Bush administration there is a growing realization that the time is approaching when it will be necessary to 'cut and bolt with whatever is at hand,' as one Washington source said Sunday. Perhaps this will be sooner than Israel expects. Still, the White House is not the State Department. It is less sensitive to the cries from Europe and a lot more attuned to the domestic political scene, where Israel has the advantage for the time being."

Bluster?

Fareed Zakaria on ABC's This Week: Hezbollah, which feeds off resentment, hatred, emotions, is getting stronger. More from Eric Umansky.

Gideon Levy: Days of darkness.

Qana. AP: "Israeli missiles hit several buildings in a southern Lebanon village as people slept Sunday, killing at least 56, most of them children, in the deadliest attack in 19 days of fighting. ... The missiles destroyed several homes in the village of Qana as people were sleeping. Rescue officials said at least 50 people were killed, and the bodies of 27 children were found in the rubble. ... Jordan's King Abdullah II condemned 'the ugly crime perpetrated by Israeli forces in Qana,'' calling it 'a blatant violation of the law and all international conventions.''' British Foreign Secretary Margaret Becket, responding to ...[the strike that killed 37 children] said Sunday that the attack was "absolutely dreadful" and "quite appalling." AP: "[Israeli prime minister Ehud] Olmert expressed 'great sorrow' for the airstrikes but blamed Hezbollah guerrillas for using the area to launch rockets at Israel."

WP: Rice cancels trip to Beirut after airstrike. "In Beirut, following the attack, Lebanese government officials said Rice was not welcome. Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said he would not hold talks with Rice until a ceasefire is called. ... Appearing defensive and somewhat shaken, Rice told reporters traveling with her in Jerusalem that she had called Siniora to delay her visit in light of events." In Beirut, "Protesters angry over an Israeli air strike in Qana that killed up to 50 refugees broke into the main UN building in the Lebanese capital Sunday, burning UN and American flags. ...[Protesters] pushed through police barricade, smashed windows and broke inside the building. Outside, demonstrators chanted slogans against Israel and the United States and denounced Arab governments for not doing enough to stop Israel's 19-day bombardment of Lebanon."

Ha'aretz: "Qana was the scene of an April, 1996, in which Israeli shelling of a base of United Nations peacekeepers in Qana killed more than 100 civilians sheltering there during Operation Grapes of Wrath. The international outcry over the 1996 Qana village shelling effectively ended the operation."

The Qana tragedy comes as the IDF has reportedly been ordered to accelerate its offensive and expand its target list as the diplomatic clock ticks down:

The deal being put forth by Rice is for the deployment in Lebanon of an "international stabilization force" comprising 10,000 to 30,000 troops in return for Israel's withdrawal from the controversial Shaba Farms, on the western slopes of Mount Hermon. ...

Rice did not ask Olmert during their meeting to end the fighting at this stage, but it is assumed at the Defense Ministry that the Israel Defense Forces has 7 to 10 days to continue its operation in Lebanon.

By Wednesday the U.S. would like to gain approval for a new Security Council resolution that will call for an end to hostilities.

Israel sources estimate the U.S. will allow a few more days for mopping up operations by the IDF.

According to the sources, the General Staff has received orders to accelerate its offensive on areas close to the border in order to deepen any possible attack on the Hezbollah before the declaration of a cease-fire.

Update: WP: Rice abandons Middle East negotiations.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was forced to cancel a trip to Beirut Sunday after an Israeli airstrike killed more than 50 people, mostly women and children, in the southern Lebanese town of Qana in the bloodiest attack since the hostilities began between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah militia. But she did not call for an immediate ceasefire.

Rice will abandon her Middle East negotiations at least temporarily to return to Washington Monday, U.S. officials said Sunday. Rice will shift her diplomatic efforts to the United Nations, aides say. The U.N. Security Council is planning an emergency session this morning. [...]

A senior U.S. official traveling with Rice told reporters that the United States is making "very clear to the Israelis our distress at this incident." He said Rice was "looking to wrap things up and move things to New York," where the United Nations Security Council is expected this week to try to pass a resolution on terms to end hostilities.

UN Security Council emergency meeting in session now. Rice seems to be staying in Israel overnight for more meetings with Olmert. Israeli ambassador Dan Gillerman at the UN today: civilians killed at Qana victims of Hezbollah. NBC's Richard Engel, asked why the Qana civilians had not left the town when Israelis dropped leaflets telling civilians to leave: Qana victims "poorest of the poor." No cars, no taxi service, no place to go. Had fled their homes for shelter in the basement of the houses where they had been hit.

Observer: Cabinet in open revolt over Blair's Israel policy.

The timing of the revolt is awkward for Blair, forcing him to choose whom to upset: his colleagues back home or his two main hosts on the five-day trip to the US. President Bush and Rupert Murdoch both back the Israeli military action. The Prime Minister is due to make a major speech in California today at a conference hosted by Murdoch. He is expected to argue that his Washington talks with Bush were geared towards an 'urgent cessation of hostilities'. ...

Blair won a concession in the Washington talks - an apology from President Bush for having failed to ask permission for a plane carrying bombs bound for Israel to land at Prestwick airport, near Glasgow. But yesterday, the civil aviation authorities announced that permission had been granted for two similar refuelling stops by US aircraft carrying 'hazardous' cargo to Israel.

US orders non essential staff to evacuate Beirut embassy.

Dafna Linzer reports on the continued delay of the Senate Select Intelligence committee phase II investigation -- until after the 2006 elections, this time. Credit Linzer for reporting on this tricky series of interrelated subjects: it's not easy to report on something that doesn't happen, on oversight that doesn't exist, on something that isn't, etc.

AP: "Israel brought a UN observer into an IDF control room Saturday to help oversee the transfer of aid to south Lebanon, the army said, amid growing criticism that Israel was not doing enough to ensure the protection of civilians trapped in the war zone. Aid workers in Lebanon have complained that it was not safe to travel south under Israel's forceful aerial bombardment, and civilians take their chances of being hit when they try to escape the area. ... After an aid convoy was hit in south Lebanon on Friday, IDF spokesman Jacob Dallal told The Associated Press that Israel was committed to the safe passage of convoys, but said they must be coordinated in advance." Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Post reports two more UNIFIL observers were wounded Saturday when missiles hit their post.

Analysis by Ha'aretz's Ze'ev Schiff:

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is the figure leading the strategy of changing the situation in Lebanon, not Prime Minister Ehud Olmert or Defense Minister Amir Peretz. She has so far managed to withstand international pressure in favor of a cease-fire, even though this will allow Hezbollah to retain its status as a militia armed by Iran and Syria.

As such, she needs military cards, and unfortunately Israel has not succeeded to date in providing her with any. Besides bringing Hezbollah and Lebanon under fire, all of Israel's military cards at this stage are in the form of two Lebanese villages near the border that have been captured by the IDF.

If the military cards Israel is holding do not improve with the continuation of the fighting, it will result in a diplomatic solution that will leave the Hezbollah rocket arsenal in southern Lebanon in its place. The diplomatic solution will necessarily be a reflection of the military realities on the ground.

Ha'aretz: Rice hopes for ceasefire by Wednesday:

Rice's plan to stop the fighting envisages the deployment of a multinational force in southern Lebanon, the disarming of Hezbollah and the return of abducted Israel Defense Forces soldiers, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the discussions.

Rice welcomed as a "positive step" the agreement by Hezbollah cabinet members to seek an immediate cease-fire that would include the disarming of militias.

In Beirut, Hezbollah politicians signed on to a proposed peace package that includes strengthening an international force in south Lebanon and disarming the guerrillas, the government said.

The agreement, reached at a cabinet meeting, was the first time Hezbollah had agreed to a proposal for ending the crisis that includes the deploying of international forces.

So the point of the last three weeks' violence is to get .... this?

There were indications of a new flexibility regarding on the characteristics of the multinational force that the Bush administration and its allies want to deploy in Lebanon. U.S. officials have in the past argued for a robust force willing to take on Hezbollah if necessary to remove the Shiite militia's threat to Israel.

But a U.S. official said the Bush administration has not rejected the idea of a force that is both endorsed and directed by United Nations. Such forces generally avoid direct combat roles, and some U.S. officials have in the past opposed that approach for this mission. A 2,000-member U.N. force already in southern Lebanon is regarded by many as a failure.

The U.S. official, who declined to be identified at this delicate stage of negotiations, said: "Our view is that whatever is decided should be guided by [the goal that such a force] should be deployed quickly." He said that the mission of the international force would not be to disarm Hezbollah, but to give the Lebanese army, which is smaller than the Hezbollah militia, "the spine" to do such a job.

This view would put the U.S. closer to European governments, which have said they would not want to contribute troops to the peacekeeping force if it took on a high-risk combat role. U.S. officials, who have ruled out participation by U.S. forces, previously said that they don't expect the peacekeepers to "shoot their way" into Lebanon.

So some sort of international force goes into south Lebanon and most likely does everything it can to avoid gettting its troops killed by rattling Hezbollah's cage and hangs around til the Lebanese army arrives. Update: A sense of bewilderment voiced by Ha'aretz at what has been achieved.

Information Withheld from Congress. So says a new federal audit. NYT: USAID, "the State Department agency in charge of $1.4 billion in reconstruction money in Iraq, used an accounting shell game to hide ballooning cost overruns on its projects in Iraq and knowingly withheld information on schedule delays from Congress, a federal audit released late Friday has found. ... In March 2005, USAID asked the Iraq Reconstruction and Management Office at the United States Embassy in Baghdad for permission to downsize some projects to ease widespread financing problems. In its request, it said that it had to 'to absorb greatly increased construction costs” at the Basra hospital, and that it would make a modest shift of priorities and reduce' contractor overhead” on the project. The embassy office approved the request. But the audit found that the agency interpreted the document as permission to change reporting of costs across its program. ... The [Basra] hospital’s construction budget was $50 million. By April of this year, Bechtel had told the aid agency that because of escalating costs for security and other problems, the project would actually cost $98 million to complete. But in an official report to Congress that month, the agency was reporting the hospital project cost as $50 million,' the inspector general wrote in his report. The rest was reclassified as overhead, or 'indirect costs.' According to a contracting officer at the agency who was cited in the report, the agency 'did not report these costs so it could stay within the $50 million authorization.'”

More on the administration allegedly delaying giving information to Congress, this time on Indian companies selling missile technology to Iran, from the Post today: "The Bush administration will impose sanctions on two Indian firms for selling missile parts to Iran, government officials said yesterday, acknowledging privately that the secret decision should have been shared with the House before it voted this week to support U.S. plans to sell nuclear technology to New Delhi. ... Administration officials said they briefed selected lawmakers on the impending sanctions. But Democratic lawmakers accused the White House of deliberately concealing the information until the House voted Wednesday overwhelmingly in favor of the U.S. plan to supply India, for the first time, with sensitive nuclear technologies."

Hassan Nasrallah: "The Israelis are ready to halt the aggression because they are afraid of the unknown. The one pushing for the continuation of the aggression is the U.S. administration. Israel has been exposed as a slave of the U.S."

Anthony Shadid:

The word went out -- there was refuge in a Christian village -- and thousands came.

In a pilgrimage of fear, Shiite Muslims from the towns most ravaged along the Lebanese border fled for Rmeish, a hilltop hamlet along a road where Israeli shells fell, at times, every 15 seconds Friday. Here, they escaped to a church, and at the church, a basement lit by soft shafts of sunlight. In it were the wretched of this war: children with dirty feet and a pregnant woman who feared giving birth in squalor, an 85-year-old man whose donkey, his sole possession, was killed by a bomb and hundreds of others among the at least 10,000 who arrived in Rmeish, some drinking from a fetid pool and walking the streets in search of food and goodwill. ...

In a country fractured by faith, torn asunder by 15 years of civil war, they found refuge among the Lebanese Christians they once fought. Their politics often diverged -- over support for Hezbollah, their views of today's conflict -- but they shared a plight. And in a common misery wrought by war, less than a mile from the Israeli border, there was fleeting coexistence rather than talk of strife.

"Everyone is opening their doors to anyone who comes," said Tannous Alem, a 43-year-old resident of Rmeish with a cross around his neck, who had brought 120 people into his home over 12 days. "We're all the same in times like these."

Update: Reader G writes in response to the Shadid piece, "I'd recommend that you entitle that Shadid except 'A new Mid-East being born.' I'm involved with moving refugees out of Turkey (Cyprus overflow), and it really is impressive how evacuees of all stripes are get along so well together and are moving down the road with amazing resilience and good spirits, in spite of what they've gone through, and what's happening to their country."

AP: "The five permanent members of the UN Security Council on Friday circulated a resolution that would give Iran until the end of August to suspend uranium enrichment or face the threat of economic and diplomatic sanctions. The latest draft is weaker than an initial proposal from Britain, France and Germany, with U.S. backing. While the earlier version would have made the sanctions threat immediate if Iran did not comply, the latest draft would essentially give Iran another chance later on to come around. That was a victory for Russia and China, which argue that the resolution is not an ultimatum but a new request for Iran to accept a deal that would give it various incentives if it suspends uranium enrichment and reprocessing."

Ha'aretz: Bush apologizes to Blair for arms shipments to Israel via U.K. "British media reported on Wednesday that aircraft carrying 'bunker-busting' bombs from the United States to Israel refuelled at Prestwick airport in Scotland over the weekend. The United States denied on Thursday that it had broken British air transport procedures after London complained about U.S. flights through a Scottish airport taking bombs to Israel. ... [Foreign Minister Margaret] Beckett said on Wednesday she had complained to Washington because the United States had not followed procedure for flying cargo loads of bombs bound for Israel through British airports."

Via the Post's Dan Froomkin by email, six criteria define modern civil war, according to Harvard political science professor Monica Toft, and Iraq meets all of them.

IDF chief of staff Dan Halutz hospitalized, says he feels unwell. (He'aretz headlines).

Italy.

Gareth Evans and Robert Malley in Slate: "What if Israel can't win militarily?":

The Bush administration assumes that time is on Israel's side: As the military campaign unfolds, Hezbollah will decline. It should know better. Not only is there little evidence of any knockout blow, but such wars tend to augment what they seek to decrease, in this case Hezbollah's domestic influence and militancy among the Lebanese. In contrast, Prime Minister Siniora's government is getting steadily weaker, its capacity to assert authority or impose necessary changes once the violence dies down getting feebler. The United States repeatedly broadcasts its wish to bolster the prime minister. Why, then, does it ignore his most pressing demand, an immediate cessation of hostilities?

Washington and Tel Aviv must confront the reality that this war cannot be won militarily, even stretching to the limit and beyond the constraints imposed by international humanitarian law. The only way out is diplomatic and political. It begins with an immediate cessation of hostilities, followed by a prisoner exchange and, under appropriate conditions, the dispatch of an international force to South Lebanon. Given Lebanon's history and its fragile political-sectarian balance, any such force must be contemplated with extreme caution. It has to be agreed to by all parties—Hezbollah included—authorized by the U.N. Security Council, and be a confidence builder, not an enforcer. Understandable as the desire of Israel and the United States may be to have a force with full disarmament powers, if it is viewed as threatening Hezbollah or taking sides in the confessional battles it could plunge the country into a new round of civil strife.

More from Newsweek's John Barry and Slate's Fred Kaplan ("There are Worse Things than the Status Quo").

Ha'aretz: For first time, Hezbollah fires long range rockets, with a 90 km range. 'Israel Air Force warplanes on Friday took out the launchers used by Hezbollah to fire a new kind of missile at the Afula area, the furthest south that the guerilla group has reached since it began battering the north of Israel more than two weeks ago. The initial investigation revealed that the missile has a range of 90 kilometers. The northern district police said that this kind of missile had not landed in the area before. The level of damage caused by the missile impact and the size of the warhead is also unprecedented, suggesting that it could have weighed up to 100 kilograms."

This interesting too: "The heads of two Israeli intelligence agencies disagree over how much the Israel Defense Forces assault has damaged Hezbollah, although both say the group has been weakened. The Mossad intelligence agency says Hezbollah will be able to continue fighting at the current level for a long time to come, Mossad head Meir Dagan said. However, Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin disagrees, seeing Hezbollah as having been severely damaged. The IDF believes that at least 200 Hezbollah operatives have been killed since the fighting began more than two weeks ago, a military source said Friday. Both intelligence chiefs agree that Hezbollah remains capable of command and control and still holds long-range missiles in its arsenal, they said at a security cabinet meeting Thursday."

Fix to topline/Update: From reader JR: "I noticed in your last post you've copied an error from the Ha'aretz reporting into your own: the use of the phrase 'long range missile'. 'Long range' is a pretty subjective term, but the word 'missile has come to mean any rocket booster with a guidance system and a warhead. The Katyusha, Fajr, and Zelzal rockets being used by Hezbollah aren't guided, so the right term for any of them is 'rocket'. There's nothing wrong with calling them 'long range rockets.' For a ballistic missile, however, long range is usually considered anything over 5,000km -- a far cry from the artillery rockets being used by Hezbollah. Given that Iran routinely states its intention to develop and field 'long range missiles,' I think it's important to use precise language." Many thanks, noted and corrected.

On the attack on the UN base, from an international acquaintance in the international law world, very sympathetic to the UN: "The last time this happened was at Quaana. There, HB [Hezbollah] did a 'shoot and skoot' tactic, firing from close to the base and encouraging the Israelis to do 'counter-battery' fire. The Israelis got the coordinates wrong and landed on the compound. The UN report was more scathing but I have seen parts of the Israeli report and tend to accept it. This is more difficult but it doesn't make sense. Why should Israel ask for a strong NATO led force and then do the one thing that would scare them away!" More: " ... When incoming fire is received, the coordinates of the firing position can be immediately calculated and thus they can bring down what is known as counter battery fire. The temptation therefore is to fire from the cover of a protected object (church, mosque, UN position) - illegal - and then vanish before the return fire comes in. The PR machine then swings in accusing the opposition of 'indiscriminate attacks' on protected objects. This is a common guerilla tactic and thus it is imperative that artillery units and others have accurate maps with protected objects marked on them. It is another example of the difficulties of fighting by the rules against an enemy who doesn't." If that's the case, it seems the question is, if a country knew that Hezbollah was firing from virtually alongside a UN position, would it have a responsibility not to strike that position?

A good piece by Megan Stack on the misery of the UN mission in southern Lebanon. If the impotence of their mission was so striking for so long, it's a demonstration that the international community wasn't serious about disarming Hezbollah until the latest flare up. And even now, one wonders how serious is the determination? How much force will it take NATO to achieve that, without Hezbollah's political masters agreeing to it in principle? As one peacekeeper tells Stack, "If you flatten the country and make it a parking lot, then you will disarm Hezbollah." Update: The UN is withdrawing observers from the border area.

As one demonstration of how hard it is to make headway against Hezbollah's influence and infrastructure, Jay Solomon and Mariam Fam report on how despite experiencing direct air strikes at several points, Hezbollah's al-Manar TV has managed to stay on the air:

... Israel first attacked Al-Manar's headquarters on July 13, one day after Hezbollah sparked the latest hostilities by taking two Israeli soldiers hostage. Al-Manar had already devised emergency plans. Exits had been identified and the staff had been drilled on how to get out if the building came under attack.

When the big Israeli air attack came on July 16, Al-Manar had only a skeleton staff of 15 working at the headquarters in Haret Hreik, a Hezbollah stronghold in southern Beirut, station officials say. When the bombing began, staffers called their bosses and cars dispatched to the building whisked them to safety. Two employees were injured slightly and were treated on the way to alternative locations that had been readied so that the channel could continue broadcasting. At one of these secret locations, other staffers quickly got the channel up and running, Al-Manar officials say.

A team of 10 engineers called "Al-Manar's fedeyeen," or loyal fighters, try to keep Al-Manar on the air. The team includes specialists in broadcast transmission and in handling studio equipment. Engineers, some of them Western-educated, are on call around the clock. "They are always ready with alternatives for the transmission towers," says Mr. Kassir, Al-Manar's general manager. "They prepare alternative places in case our main studios are attacked. They work to repair any damage. They use all technical means to keep the broadcast going."

When Al-Manar reappeared on the air after its headquarters building was flattened, Israel tried to jam its signal, says Mr. Kassir. There were short-term problems, he says, and teams are working on ways to neutralize future jamming.

Al-Manar officials won't say where its broadcasts now originate. Some Lebanese intelligence officials say the company employs mobile transmitters operating from cars or trucks. "Al-Manar's staff is now spread out in different locations," says Mr. Kassir. "Not everyone knows where the others are."

Tom Friedman:

... Condoleezza Rice must have been severely jet-lagged when she said that what’s going on in Lebanon and Iraq today were the “birth pangs of a new Middle East.” Oh, I wish it were so. What we are actually seeing are the rebirth pangs of the old Middle East, only fueled now by oil and more destructive weaponry.

Some of the most primordial, tribal passions, which always lurk beneath the surface here — Sunnis versus Shiites, Jews versus Muslims, Lebanese versus Syrians — but are usually held in check by modern states or bonds of civilization, are exploding to the top. ...

America should be galvanizing the forces of order — Europe, Russia, China and India — into a coalition against these trends. But we can’t. Why? In part, it’s because our president and secretary of state, although they speak with great moral clarity, have no moral authority. That’s been shattered by their performance in Iraq.

The world hates George Bush more than any U.S. president in my lifetime. He is radioactive — and so caught up in his own ideological bubble that he is incapable of imagining or forging alternative strategies.

In part, it is also because China, Europe and Russia have become freeloaders off U.S. power. They reap enormous profits from the post-cold-war order that America has shaped, but rather than become real stakeholders in that order, helping to draw and defend redlines, they duck, mumble, waffle or cut their own deals. ...

NYT: Tide of Arab Opinion Turns to Support for Hezbollah.

On a conference call today, Israeli ambassador to the UN Dan Gillerman was asked about the state of the investigation into the attack on the UN base two days ago. The points he made: the Israeli investigation is thorough and ongoing, and its findings will be made public. He deeply regrets the loss of life and it was a tragedy. Statement by Annan was "unfortunate, premature, hasty, deplorable and appalling." In general, Hezbollah has historically operated very closely -- "inches" away -- from UNIFIL positions and compounds. And that may have been the case a couple days ago. And that UNIFIL, whose third initial, he reminded listeners, stands for "interim," has been around for 28 years, and is "impotent, inefficient and counterproductive." No interest in a joint investigation with the UN. More here.

Ha'aretz is reporting that a Kuwaiti newspaper is reporting that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, dressed in civilian clothes instead of his usual clerical garb, is in Damascus. And who is he supposed to meet there? Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani. Ha'aretz seems to heap a heavy dose of skepticism on the Kuwaiti newspaper report. "Al-Seyassah, known for its opposition to the Syrian regime, said the meeting was designed to discuss ways to maintain supplies to Hezbollah fighters with 'Iranian arms flowing through Syrian territories.' The paper said it learned of the meeting from 'well-informed Syrian sources' it did not identify. According to the newspaper, Nasrallah was moving through Damascus with Syrian guards in an intelligence agency car. [...] There was no mention of Larijani's travels in Iranian state-run media. None of the reports could be independently confirmed."

Ha'aretz: Israeli security cabinet decides against expanding Lebanon ground operation. "'It was decided to continue the offensive with the same strategy, using pinpointed ground incursions and air strikes, not to bring in massive forces,' said a source [in] Jerusalem. 'At the moment the army is not bound by time, it can act as long as needed.' [...] It appears that the army is gradually moving away from its previous tactic of raids targeting specific positions along the border, in favor of one of capturing and temporarily holding a security zone whose aim would be to push the rocket launchers further north." This interesting too: "Officials have expressed concerns that expanding the operation would be misinterpreted by Syria as preparation for an attack against it, even though Israel has repeatedly stated that it has no plans against Damascus."

AP: Irish Foreign Ministry: Irish Officer Warned Israel on Threat to UN staff six times yesterday. Also, a reader sends this, from the State Department August 26, 2003, "The U.N. Security Council August 26 unanimously adopted a resolution [1502] declaring attacks on humanitarian workers war crimes and urging nations to prosecute perpetrators of such attacks."

Has anyone seen/heard Sec. Rice comment on the case? I am curious what the reaction is at State and in the USG. Meantime, Canadian prime minister Harper said something interesting. "The prime minister also said he wants to know why the post was still manned even though it was in the middle of an obvious war zone."

Via Kevin Drum, Marc Lynch on the mood of the Arab streets moving predictably and dramatically against the US in the past two weeks:

... America is totally alone on this. And more than most Americans might realize, America is being blamed for Israel's actions. The shift in Arab public discourse over the last week has been palpable. For the first few days, the split between the Saudi media and the "al-Jazeera public" which I wrote about at the time. Then for a few days, horror at the humanitarian situation, fury with the Arab states for their impotence, speculation about the endgame, and full-throated condemnation of Israeli aggression. But for the last few days, the main trend has been unmistakable: an increasing focus on the United States as the villain of the piece. (That the Israeli bombing of Beirut stopped just long enough for Condoleeza Rice's photo op certainly didn't help.)

While there's disagreement as to whether Israeli acted on behalf of an American project, there is near-consensus about American responsibility for not stopping what al-Jazeera is now calling "the sixth [Arab-Israeli] war"....

Worth reading the rest. Watch what they do, not what the say, was the bumper sticker summary of a new paper on Arab anti-Americanism released yesterday by the Washington Institute's Rob Satloff. But another official there speaking not for attribution said another question worth understanding is what happens when there is a widening gap between public attitudes in a certain country, and the actions of its government.

Ha'aretz: Canadian-Israeli professor arrested by Israelis as suspected spy for Hezbollah:

Professor Ghazi Falah was arrested while touring the Rosh Hanikra area, on July 8, four days before the outbreak of the current conflict in Lebanon. ...

He was approached by individuals who identified themselves as security officials, and who instructed him to stop photographing. Falah refused, and after an argument, was arrested.

Falah, a professor of geography at the University of Akron, said he had taken the pictures as part of his acadmic research.

Before Wednesday, Falah had not been permitted to speak to his lawyer, Hussein Abu Hussein. The police and the Shin Bet security service repeatedly refused to lift the gag order placed on this case, despite wide publicity in media sources in Canada, U.S., and Britain.

According to security officials, Falah is suspected of "spying for hostile sources, with the goal of harming state security," in reference to his alleged connections with Hezbollah and Iranian intelligence.

They said Falah was allegedly sent by Hezbollah and Iran to various locations to photograph and report where rockets have landed in Israel. Security officials said Falah was photographing a military antenna in Rosh Hanikra. He recently took a trip to Beirut, and two years before visited Iran, where the Shin Bet believes he established contacts with Iranian intelligence officials.

Falah has denied all suspicions against him, claiming the purpose of his trip to Beirut had to been to organize an international conference on geography in the Arab world. Fatah said his trip to Tehran had been in the company of Alex Murphy, former head of the American Geography Asscociation, and was solely for acadmic purposes.

Here's a website created by his supporters. More from the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal and his University of Akron website. Meantime, Lebanon has detained 36 people suspected of spying for Israel.

Jordan gets the first plane into Beirut's airport in two weeks. More from the Guardian.

Jerusalem Post: Precision-guided missiles hit UN post.

UN military personnel on the ground along the Israel-Lebanon border say the munitions that hit the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) position early Wednesday were precision-guided, a UN source told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

Furthermore, the source added, the strike came after repeated requests by UNTSO commanders to the IDF not to strike that specific position. The IDF spokesman told The Jerusalem Post that the army was looking into the allegations and that it deeply regretted the "tragic death" of the UN personnel.

"Very senior and experienced military personnel report that the UN position was hit by a precision-guided missile. This attack comes at a time when the international community is in discussions with countries about donating troops to form a new force [to send to south Lebanon]. This attack plays very badly into that. At the same time as donor countries have to justify to their electorate the idea of sending their sons to this region to put their lives on the line, Israel blows up a UN observation position and kills four of its personnel," the source said, adding that Israel was "shooting itself in the foot, and sending a very bad signal" to the international community. [...]

The bomb made a direct hit on the building and shelter of the observer post in the town of Khiyam near the eastern end of the border with Israel, said Milos Struger, spokesman for the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon known as UNTSO.

Rescue workers were trying to clear the rubble, but Israeli firing "continued even during the rescue operation," Struger said.

If that location was attacked deliberately, why? Was it mistaken for something other than a UN post? Was it a Chinese embassy in Belgrade type mistake? e.g. the location was targeted deliberately, but it was not known by those firing at the time it was a UN post (even if it was known by others in the IDF), as was the case when NATO hit the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999, not knowing apparently it was the Chinese embassy? Or not? How does it work with precision guided weapons? Do you type a coordinate into a computer? And why were they firing even as the rescue operation was underway?

Update: The Chinese embassy scenario "makes no sense," writes a reader, "given the intimate familiarity of IDF with the area, with the UNIFIL mission, and Annan's personal appeal to Olmert before this happened." It doesn't make any sense. It's hard not to believe the IDF is extremely familiar with all of these posts in southern Lebanon. Which makes the whole question of what happened here more troubling. If Israel didn't want the UN observers there, is there any way they could have asked them to leave? JTA has an interesting and kind of strange line at the end of their brief on the issue, "UNIFIL personnel have stayed on in southern Lebanon despite running battles there between Hezbollah guerrillas and Israeli troops." Annan said in Rome today that the shelling of the base started early in the morning and went on until 7pm.

More from the BBC:

UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon contacted Israeli troops 10 times before an Israeli bomb killed four of them, an initial UN report says.

The post was hit by a precision-guided missile after six hours of shelling, diplomats familiar with the probe say. [...]

The four unarmed UN observers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland, died after their UN post was hit by an Israeli air strike on Tuesday.

The UN report says each time the UN contacted Israeli forces, they were assured the firing would stop.

More from Benny Avni at the UN, "Military sources said the incident occurred during an air and artillery attack near Khiyam, at the eastern region of southern Lebanon, where the IDF was preparing a large ground assault meant to create a Hezbollah-free buffer zone on the area north of Israel's border." Avni also points out, "Israeli officials say they have an interest in avoiding targets that, if hit, would lead to widespread international pressure to end the campaign before Hezbollah's military capabilities are significantly reduced."

Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki and his Dawa party have deeper ties to the Hezbollah leadership than has surfaced in recent reporting on his visit to the White House, emails Mark Perry. "Maliki went to school with the Hezbollah leadership ... Hezbollah in mid 1980s worked to free 'the Dawa 17' -- arrested by Kuwait for a suicide bomb that killed three Americans in the US embassy in Kuwait. Now Dawa is the ruling party in Iraq and allied to the US and their leader visits the White House." According to news reports, Maliki headed the Dawa party's Jihad office in Damascus in the 1980s.

Some history on the connections between Dawa and Hezbollah here. "Following Hezbollah's 1983 strikes against the U.S. Embassy and the Marine barracks in Beirut, a closely related Shiite organization in Kuwait carried out a series of attacks -- including a truck bombing targeting the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait City. Kuwaiti authorities later arrested and convicted 17 Shia for involvement in that plot. This group became known as the 'Kuwaiti 17' or the 'Dawa 17.' Among its members was Mustafa Youssef Badreddin, a cousin and brother-in-law of senior Hezbollah operative Imad Mugniyah, who has been described alternately as the head of Hezbollah's security apparatus, as the group's chief of intelligence and as its chief of special operations. .... Demands for the freedom of the Dawa 17 became standard in Hezbollah's hijackings and other activities. "

This 1991 State Department presser with Richard Boucher on the Dawa 17 allegedly escaping to Lebanon during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait is also interesting.

Q & A with Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs David Welch, en route to Rome:

(Welch): ... In Israel, the Secretary pressed the case on humanitarian needs of Lebanon, observing to the Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and her colleagues that there were serious issues that needed to be handled because of the fighting that happened. We did talk to the Israelis about the need to open up these humanitarian corridors to Lebanon and within Lebanon. Work has been underway on that for some days now. Happily today, the Israeli Government was able to announce that they are prepared to open these up and facilitate some that were not previously operating. In particular, Beirut International Airport will be available for humanitarian flights. Obviously that would change the situation at the airport considerably once that starts happening. ...

I hope also that in Rome we will be able to address, because everybody will be there and we can all talk amongst each other, about this issue of the cease-fire. ...

Why don't I stop there and take some questions.

QUESTION: If I could just say so there's something slightly Orwellian about this whole thing because it seems what you are laying the groundwork for sort of a sustainable condition for continued war. I mean, the Israelis are bombing one side; the Lebanese are shooting missiles into Israel and you're bringing --opening humanitarian corridors there and the Saudis are giving money. But I don't -- there doesn't seem to be any movement at all towards this sustainable cease-fire. Is that right? I mean is there anything that you can point to that shows that any progress has been made in the last few days towards a sustainable cease-fire as opposed to providing food for people that are being bombed?

AMBASSADOR WELCH: Well, Neil, there isn't cease-fire right now. The Hezbollahis are attacking Israel and Israel's trying to defend itself. That objectively is true. That doesn't mean that we don't seek one and that we aren't trying to build one, but the question is how. ....

More from Dana Milbank's sketch: "Nadia Bilbassy of al-Arabiya television wondered if there was a contradiction between Bush hastening both humanitarian aid to Lebanon and shipments of missiles and bombs to Israel, which will drop them on Lebanon. 'No, Bush said, 'I don't see a contradiction in us honoring commitments we made prior to Hezbollah attacks into Israeli territory.'"

Interesting Amos Harel piece.

Talk to Syria, says Friedman.

NYT: "As the war between Israel and Hezbollah continued, four unarmed United Nations observers were killed when an Israeli airstrike hit their observation post near the Israeli border, United Nations and Lebanese officials said. The Israeli Foreign Ministry said that Israel 'regrets the tragic death' of the observers, and that it would investigate thoroughly."

WP: "In a statement, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said he was 'shocked and deeply distressed by the apparently deliberate targeting' of the 'clearly marked U.N. post at Khiyam.' Annan said that Olmert had given him 'personal assurances' that U.N. posts would not be targeted and that the UNIFIL commander had been in 'repeated contact with Israeli officers throughout the day on Tuesday, stressing the need to protect that particular U.N. position from attack.'"

Ha'aretz: "The victims included observers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland, UN and Lebanese military officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information to the media."

The four observers were killed after a bomb directly struck the building and shelter of an Indian patrol base from an observer force in the town of Khiyam near the eastern end of the border with Israel, said Milos Struger, spokesman for the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, UNIFIL.

"There are casualties among the observers. UNIFIL immediately despatched a rescue and medical team and they're currently on the location but unable to clear the rubble," Struger said.

At UN headquarters in New York, UN chief Kofi Annan said he was "trying to get the details" of the attack.

Annan said there were 14 other incidents of Israeli gunfire directed at the targeted area Tuesday afternoon. "The firing continued even during the rescue operation," he said.

Update: Not clear if two, three or four UN observers were killed. The latest report from the AP says bodies of three UN observers have been recovered.

Ken Silverstein discovers another Weldon offspring benefitting from defense contractors close to the congressman.

Via Democracy Arsenal's Michael Signer, a truly depressing Iraq National Security Index, from the Democratic Policy Committee:

Number of Iraqis who had access to potable water before invasion: 13 million
Number of Iraqis who have access to potable water, according to the April 2006 SIGIR report: 8 million
Number of Iraqi physicians registered prior to the invasion: 34,000
Number of Iraqi physicians who have been murdered or fled the country since the invasion: 14,000
Infant mortality rate in Iraq: (Middle East average is 37, sub-Saharan Africa average is 105): 102

Average number of daily attacks by insurgents in June 2004: 45
Average number of daily attacks by insurgents in June 2006: 90

Rank of Iraq on the “failed states” index: 4
Rank of Afghanistan on the “failed states” index: 10
Rank of Iraq among all nations as a training ground for terrorists: 1

WP's Reliable Source at jury duty:

This is why God created BlackBerrys, folks! Yesterday was shaping up as a routinely dull day in the jury pool holding pen at D.C. Superior Court until a clerk called a couple dozen names into the courtroom of Judge Rafael Diaz. Two immediately greeted each other.

"Hello, Karl," said Madeleine Albright .

"Hello, Madame Secretary," said Karl Rove .

Then everyone in the room dived for their portable communication devices. "It reminded me of why I moved to Washington!" one witness gasped to us from a courthouse broom closet.

The Bush strategist was in a lightweight olive-green suit, cell glued to ear, and looked like he had lost weight. He was heard telling Albright that Omaha (which just won a surprising chunk of anti-terror funds) is a target because all the phone lines cross there. In the waiting room, he passed time with homework (notes on the Iraqi prime minister's visit, a draft op-ed on American workers, a PowerPoint on Social Security reform, an article on "Candidate Giuliani," bullet points on Gulf Coast reconstruction). When another juror started snoring, he quipped, "We need to get that guy some sinus surgery." Once in the courtroom (a cocaine distribution case), Rove was quickly excused, prompting a wave of huffy our jobs are as important as his! whispers. But, explained White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, "He knew the judge socially": Their kids graduated from high school together. Said another juror: "Somehow I thought his next court appearance would be less mundane."

The former secretary of state wore a brown unconstructed blazer-and-culottes ensemble, a blue tee and low-heeled loafers. Another potential juror was glad to see that Albright hasn't been dismissed yet: "That may work for us. Don't they ask if you know anybody in the room? We all know you!" Replied Albright: "That didn't work for me."

Very Seinfeldian. "Hello, Newman" ...

WP: Administration knew, but did not inform Congress, about Pakistani plutonium reactor.

Ha'aretz's Reuven Pedatzur calls for an external investigation into whether the IDF may have not taken adequate measures to prevent its soldiers from being kidnapped:

... It is puzzling that, after an in-depth examination of the events surrounding the abduction of Cpl. Gilad Shalit produced a grave report by Maj. Gen. (res.) Giora Eiland - which concluded that the whole affair was an "operational failure" - no one was found responsible for it. Eiland's hint that he "does not think any of the commanders needs to be dismissed, especially since these officers are now participating in fighting in the Gaza Strip," only deepens the sense of unease. After all, once the fighting is over, no one will deal with the failures of the past, and it will be argued that the focus must now be on the future.

An even more troubling message was sent when the army appointed Brig. Gen. Avi Ashkenazi, who commands a reserve division in the Northern Command, to examine the ambush of an IDF patrol was ambushed by a Hezbollah force, in which two soldiers were abducted and a tank that subsequently entered Lebanon was destroyed by a large mine, killing its crew of four. One cannot expect an officer whose troops serve in the north and who is partly responsible for that front, to be able to carry out an objective and comprehensive examination of the functioning of his fellow officers, or that of his immediate superiors.

Ashkenazi's appointment is reminiscent to large extent of that of an investigative officer in the Kafr Kana affair - in which an IDF shell, during Operation Grapes of Wrath in 1996, killed more than 100 Lebanese civilians. Who was then appointed to examine that operational failure? Brig. Gen.Dan Harel, head of the Artillery Corps, commander of the soldiers who fired the deadly shell.

Senior IDF officers are not accustomed to criticism originating outside the army's ranks, and normally enjoy great immunity from having to take responsibility for their failings. But there have been too many shortcomings and failures in recent weeks for them to be ignored. It is possible that this has been a matter of bad luck, but until the incidents are examined seriously by elements external to the IDF, there is an unpleasant feeling of a whitewash operation going on - and concern that something fundamentally bad is going on in the army.

Because what began at Kerem Shalom repeated itself on the Lebanese border: The IDF was again caught off guard, this time in a well-planned Hezbollah ambush. The intelligence failure and the complacency of the men in the patrol and of their officers had grave results. ...

Ha'aretz:

Nabih Beri, Lebanon's parliament speaker and Hezbollah's de facto negotiator, rejected proposals brought by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday, inisisting a cease-fire must preceed any talks about resolving Hezbollah's presence in the south, an official close to the speaker said.

Rice's talks with Prime Minister Fouad Siniora also appeared to have been tense. Siniora told Rice that Israel's bombardment was taking his country "backwards 50 years" and also called for a "swift cease-fire," the prime minister's office said.

An official close to Beri said his talks with Rice failed to "reach an agreement because Rice insisted on one full package to end the fighting."

The package included a cease-fire, simultaneous with the deployment of the Lebanese army and an international force in south Lebanon and the removal of Hezbollah weapons from a buffer zone extending 30 kilometers from the Israeli border, said the official. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks were private.

Beri rejected the package, proposing instead a two-phased plan. First would come a cease-fire and negotiations for a prisoner swap. Then an inter-Lebanese dialogue would work out a solution to the situation in south Lebanon, said the official.

The United States has insisted that no cease-fire can take place without dealing what it calls the root cause of the violence - Hezbollah's domination of the south along the Israeli border. Israel has rejected any halt in the fighting until two soldiers captured by the guerrillas are freed and the guerrillas are forced back.

NYT in 1984:

''We're all pro-American and hawkish,'' said Midge Decter, executive director of the Committee for the Free World, describing the 200 people who met here this weekend to discuss such questions as ''What's Going on Out There?'' and ''Can the Political System Respond?''

Among those offering answers for this election year were Irving Kristol, editor of Public Interest, who has been called the ''godfather'' of neoconservatism; Norman Podhoretz, editor of Commentary magazine; Eugene V. Rostow, Sterling Professor of Law at Yale University and former director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and Thomas Sowell, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

The three-year-old Committee for the Free World, which sponsored the meeting, is the closest thing that neoconservatism has to a foreign affairs wing. The group says it has about 2,500 members.

Except for the appearance at a welcoming reception of Edwin Meese 3d, the White House counselor and President Reagan's nominee for Attorney General - ''Just waving the flag,'' said Miss Decter - political figures were not in evidence. ''We don't give endorsements, and anyway politicians don't feel comfortable speaking out the way we do,'' Miss Decter added.

'Adversary' Attitudes Criticized

The committee's last annual meeting, held in New York on a snowy weekend in February 1983, was devoted largely to criticisms of American writers, academics and journalists for their ''adversary'' attitudes toward American society. A similar theme ran through this year's discussions.

Mr. Kristol led off with the asssertion that a ''liberal bias in the media'' is preventing people from getting an accurate picture of what is happening. According to Mr. Kristol, the nation is experiencing ''a conservative revival,'' exemplified by the resurgence of such values as patriotism and the quest for excellence.

He attributed the revival to public recognition that liberals have no programs to deal with such problems as crime, the increase in illegitmate births among teen-agers and a growing dependency on welfare.

Mr. Kristol predicted increasing political polarization as conservatives become more conservative and liberals become more liberal. ...

Ben J. Wattenberg, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and co-editor of Public Opinion, cited public opinion polls showing that most Americans were ''extremely patriotic'' and ''tough-minded'' about dealing with the Soviet Union. Only the ''elites,'' he said, are not in accord with this spirit.

But he disagreed with Mr. Kristol on the issue of polarization, and said, ''The Democratic and Republican parties are both moving to the center.''

Mr. Podhoretz, serving as moderator, remarked, ''Somebody, I guess, must be wrong.''

Mr. Wattenberg, who identifies himself as a Democrat in the tradition of Senator Henry M. Jackson of Washington and is chairman of the Coalition for a Democratic Majority, which favors a strong military and foreign policy, took exception to the prevailing assumption at the conference that only conservatives were interested in freedom. ''It does not serve the conservative movement well,'' he said, ''to characterize liberals as anti-freedom.''

The audience received his reprimand cooly, reserving its enthusiasm for charges from the floor that a ''radical intelligentsia'' in influential positions in the universities, news media and Congressional committees was engaged in ''a constant assault on the moral basis of American foreign policy'' and that Democrats were ''falling over each other to capitulate, appease and surrender Central America to the Communists.'' ....

Michael Novak, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, urged Republicans to champion the cause of an antisocialist ''liberal revolution'' in poor countries.

Professor Rostow emphasized the need for coalitions of democratic nations to maintain a world balance of power, and warned against American ''unilateralism.''

Mr. Silberman seemed to capture the mood of his audience best when he urged the Republican Party to shake off its fears of being charged with ''McCarthyism'' and appeal to voters on the ground that Soviet leaders would rather have Walter F. Mondale as President than Ronald Reagan.

While some of his fellow panelists spoke up for ''civility of discourse,'' Mr. Silberman said, ''Bipartisanship in foreign policy comes about after you beat the other side into submission.'' ...

Norman Podhoretz on Reagan, in the Weekly Standard in 1998:

...Reagan had said that he expected the "evil empire" to break up some day from within, and now, suddenly, he was presented with an enormous opportunity to further and hasten that process. There was not even any risk involved in seizing this opportunity. He did not have to threaten to send troops, let alone send them. All he had to do was to stop helping the Soviets and their Polish surrogates through the various forms of economic aid they had been getting from us and other Western countries. This alone would have undermined their ability to put down the rebellion they had brought upon themselves through the depredations of the Communist system. Amazingly, however, right after martial law had been declared in Poland and while it was still in effect, Reagan threw his weight behind the bankers who insisted on rolling over the Polish loans that were just then coming due, and even helped the Poles pay the interest on those loans.

Part of my reaction to this incredibly perverse combination of action and inaction was stated in the article through quotations from two other equally shocked commentators. One was a mordant observation by the historian Walter Laqueur. According to Laqueur, not even Lenin, who allegedly predicted that one day we capitalist countries would out of the lust for profits compete to sell the Communists the rope with which to hang us, could ever have imagined that we would rush to give them the money to buy the rope. The other came from no less fervent a supporter of Reagan than George F. Will, who declared in one of his columns that the president was evidently running an administration that loved commerce more than it loathed communism.

But my own take on this disheartening turn of events was that it also involved more than the love of commerce. What it showed was that Reagan, despite his visionary rhetoric about the disintegration of the "evil empire," was in reality cooperating tacitly with the Soviet Union to stabilize that empire rather than encouraging its breakup from within. The standard rationale for such cooperation -- known as the "Sonnenfeldt Doctrine" -- was that the breakup of the Soviet empire carried with it the risk of military confrontations that (as happened with Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968) could only paralyze us out of the fear that they might escalate into a nuclear war. It was therefore in our own interest to join with Moscow in keeping things quiet throughout East Europe. Reagan had always explicitly rejected and even derided this rationale as the dishonorable face of detente. Nevertheless here he was, operating under the same grim imperatives.

I ended my article with the hope that he would recognize how deeply he had been unfaithful to his own principles and that he would return to them again. ...

Sound familiar?

Interesting Beirut diary at Slate by an American staying put there for now:

... The after-party for 50 Cent was typical over-the-top Beiruti, held at city's most decadent nightclub, Crystal. Lamborghinis and Ferraris crowded the parking lot; plasticated Lebanese girls in short skirts and spike heels danced on tables as waiters navigated the dance floor balancing trays laden with sparklers and magnums of champagne for high-rolling Saudi tourists, while Fiddy free-styled and openly smoked a joint. ...

The contrast between Beirut today and Beirut two weeks ago is so stark, it would be unbearable if it weren't so surreal. This isn't my Beirut. This isn't anyone's Beirut. The frantic, vibrant city has shrunk into a sleepy town, with empty streets and only a handful of restaurants, bars, and shops open for business. ...

Nicholas Blanford on civilians being killed in air strikes after obeying instructions to flee southern Lebanon:

A UNIFIL officer said that the Israelis had told them they would not hinder cars travelling north on main roads. But the overwhelming evidence Sunday suggested that cars were being attacked regardless of their occupants and direction of travel.

"They have been hitting civilian cars all over the place," said Peter Bouckart of Human Rights Watch, who had just returned to Beirut from Tyre. "I have been in many war zones, but this is one of the most dangerous places I have seen."

AP: Rice arrives in Beirut for talks with Prime Minister. More detail on the visit from the Post.

Top Italian telecom security official involved in Abu Omar rendition case commits suicide in Naples. Adamo Bove's expertise was mobile telecom surveillance. "According to testimony by Bove's ex-colleagues in Milan, it was Adamo Bove who helped the Milan magistrates identify and reconstruct the mobile phone traffic during the kidnapping of Abu Omar in Milan on February 17, 2003. It was this crucial investigative work that led to arrest warrants for 26 American agents and many of their Italian accomplices." More. Corriere's Guido Olimpio notes that Bove's Greek telecom security official counterpart also was found dead recently, in a case that was covered by the WSJ and the Observer. More here. These cases are about not just domestic surveillance, but the intersection of Washington's war on terror with secret factions inside companies and countries involved with domestic surveillance, and secrecy, it would seem, is at a premium.

Egyptian intel guiding US strategy re: driving a wedge between Syria and Iran? From deep in this AP piece: "Speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensititity of talks, Egyptian diplomats told the AP in Cairo that the American readiness to engage Syria grew in part out of a visit to Washington last week by Egypt's chief of intelligence Omar Suleiman and Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit where they met with Rice and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. 'The two officials told the administration that the best way to solve this problem is through isolating Syria from Iran, the two main backers of Hezbollah and Hamas,' said one diplomat. 'The interests of those countries are not always compatible, and if Syria is given a carrot it could help solve the crisis, leaving Iran in the shadows.'"

Update: It's hard not to notice that the countries the US is hoping to lean on for help with its diplomatic efforts on Lebanon -- Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan -- are the leading members of the extraordinary rendition outsourcing club, and not exactly pillars of representative democracy. When push comes to shove, Washington values regimes on its side, willing to resist their streets, and cooperate on intel and diplomatic matters. More from McClatchy's Warren Strobel and William Douglas on this point:

-Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia. These three Western-leaning governments have been unusually outspoken in their criticism of Hezbollah.

That illustrates concern over the growing role of Shiite Muslim Iran, Hezbollah's main patron, in the Arab world. Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia are led by Sunni Muslims.

But public opinion in those nations strongly favors Hezbollah's challenge to Israel. That could prompt those governments to impose restrictions to avoid protests, a further blow to the Bush administration's drive to expand democratic freedoms in the region.

"They may be forced to become more repressive," [Shibley] Telhami said. "When they become more oppressive, democracy and freedom become casualty No. 1."

South Asian nuclear arms race. WP: "Pakistan has begun building what independent analysts say is a powerful new reactor for producing plutonium, a move that, if verified, would signal a major expansion of the country's nuclear weapons capabilities and a potential new escalation in the region's arms race. Satellite photos of Pakistan's Khushab nuclear site show what appears to be a partially completed heavy-water reactor capable of producing enough plutonium for 40 to 50 nuclear weapons a year, a 20-fold increase from Pakistan's current capabilities, according to a technical assessment by Washington-based nuclear experts."

ABA determines Bush signing statements a threat to the Constitution and the rule of law. NYT: "The American Bar Association said Sunday that President Bush was flouting the Constitution and undermining the rule of law by claiming the power to disregard selected provisions of bills that he signed."

Cunningham's black budget corruption. From the AP, via TPM reader DK:

An independent investigation has found that imprisoned former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham took advantage of secrecy and badgered congressional aides to help slip items into classified bills that would benefit him and his associates.

The finding comes from Michael Stern, an outside investigator hired by the House Intelligence Committee to look into how Cunningham was able to carry out the scheme. Stern is working with the committee to fix vulnerabilities in the way top-secret legislation is written, said congressional officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the committee still is being briefed on Stern's findings. [...]

Stern has told the committee that Cunningham's efforts to steer business to friends and associates were far worse in the spending bills written by the House Appropriations Committee than those written by the House Intelligence Committee, congressional officials say. But the intelligence panel that draws up the blueprint for spending by the government's spy agencies was not immune to his misdeeds.

Hoekstra said Stern, as a final step, wants to interview Cunningham in prison to find out more about how he influenced the system. The Justice Department is resisting because it has other potential prosecutions pending in the case, so Hoekstra is considering subpoenaing the former lawmaker. ...

DK's additional concerns noted here.

Matthew Kalman:

... More than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to U.S. and other diplomats, journalists and think tanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail. Under the ground rules of the briefings, the officer could not be identified.

In his talks, the officer described a three-week campaign: The first week concentrated on destroying Hezbollah's heavier long-range missiles, bombing its command-and-control centers, and disrupting transportation and communication arteries. In the second week, the focus shifted to attacks on individual sites of rocket launchers or weapons stores. In the third week, ground forces in large numbers would be introduced, but only in order to knock out targets discovered during reconnaissance missions as the campaign unfolded. There was no plan, according to this scenario, to reoccupy southern Lebanon on a long-term basis.

Israeli officials say their pinpoint commando raids should not be confused with a ground invasion. Nor, they say, do they herald another occupation of southern Lebanon, which Israel maintained from 1982 to 2000 -- in order, it said, to thwart Hezbollah attacks on Israel. Planners anticipated the likelihood of civilian deaths on both sides. Israel says Hezbollah intentionally bases some of its operations in residential areas. And Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has bragged publicly that the group's arsenal included rockets capable of bombing Haifa, as occurred last week.

Like all plans, the one now unfolding also has been shaped by changing circumstances, said Eran Lerman, a former colonel in Israeli military intelligence who is now director of the Jerusalem office of the American Jewish Committee.

"There are two radical views of how to deal with this challenge, a serious professional debate within the military community over which way to go," said Lerman. "One is the air power school of thought, the other is the land-borne option. They create different dynamics and different timetables. The crucial factor is that the air force concept is very methodical and almost by definition is slower to get results. A ground invasion that sweeps Hezbollah in front of you is quicker, but at a much higher cost in human life and requiring the creation of a presence on the ground."

The advance scenario is now in its second week, and its success or failure is still unfolding. Whether Israel's aerial strikes will be enough to achieve the threefold aim of the campaign -- to remove the Hezbollah military threat; to evict Hezbollah from the border area, allowing the deployment of Lebanese government troops; and to ensure the safe return of the two Israeli soldiers abducted last week -- remains an open question. Israelis are opposed to the thought of reoccupying Lebanon. ...

"With foxes we shall play the fox." Yossi Melman: What next? (read past the front page, to the interview with "G.," recently retired from Mossad, on the psychological goal of the Israeli campaign).

(Melman): But we have lost the psychological battle in any event, haven't we?

"Not necessarily. It depends on whether we will be able to implement effective psychological warfare that will generate 'spontaneous' internal opposition to the ruling leadership in Hezbollah and lead to their physical liquidation or their exile to Iran."

How can that be accomplished?

"We must conduct a crafty, sophisticated campaign. With foxes we shall play the fox. Our ability to decide this campaign, and perhaps future campaigns, too, depends in part on guile, which is the art of hiding our flaws and of revealing and cultivating the weakness of our enemy. The creation of disinformation. The creation of a real or imaginary feeling in an organization that took pride in compartmentalization and in cohesion, that in fact, it is as full of holes as a sieve. To make even Nasrallah watch his guards suspiciously. To create a feeling of physical insecurity and loneliness for the hierarchy of the organization and their families, because loneliness is the mother of all fears. To foment internal disputes and an atmosphere of betrayal, because there is no knife as sharp and poisoned as betrayal."

Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad:

Parents dare not let their children wander the dangerous streets of Baghdad alone, but until a few days ago they could give them a treat by taking them to al-Jillawi's toyshop, the biggest and best in the city, its windows invitingly filled with Playstations, Barbie dolls and bicycles.

They go there no longer. Today the shop on 14 Ramadan Street in the once-affluent al-Mansur district is closed, with a black mourning flag draped across its front. The three sons and the teenage grandson of the owner, Mehdi al-Jillawi, were shutting down for the evening recently, bringing in bicycles and tricycles on display on the pavement in front of the shop. As they did so, two BMWs stopped close to them, and several gunmen got out armed with assault rifles. They opened fire at point-blank range, killing the young men. ...

More people are dying here -- probably more than 150 a day -- in the escalating sectarian civil war between Shia and Sunni Muslims and the continuing war with US troops than in the bombardment of Lebanon. ...

Iraqis are terrified in a way that I have never seen before, since I first visited Baghdad in 1978. Sectarian massacres happen almost daily. The UN says 6,000 civilians were slaughtered in May and June, but this month has been far worse. In many districts it has become difficult to buy bread because Sunni assassins have killed all the bakers who are traditionally Shia.

Baghdad is now breaking up into a dozen different hostile cities, Sunni or Shia, heavily armed and living in terror of the other side. .... I never expected the occupation of Iraq by the US and Britain to end happily. But I did not foresee the present catastrophe. Baghdad has survived the Iran-Iraq war, the 1991 Gulf War, UN sanctions, more bombing and, finally, a savage guerrilla war. Now the city is finally splitting apart, and -- most surprising of all -- this disaster scarcely gets a mention on the news as the world watches the destruction of Beirut so many miles away.

If this British tabloid report is true, the obvious question is, who was the sender? Secondly, why should the UK be allowing exports of anything to the Iranian Ministry of Defense? Civilian sector trade aside, it seems a bit odd. (And perhaps, phony?) More here and here. The Iranian Defense Department would seem to be on the list of end users for which the UK normally restricts exports.

Former State Department Mid East intel analyst Wayne Wight: "There is no question in my mind that the widespread perception that Iran was involved somehow in Hizballah's unusually aggressive cross-border kidnapping raid, Hizballah's subsequent use of Iranian-manufactured long-range rockets, and the irresponsible anti-Israeli rhetoric of Iranian Pesident Ahmadinejad in past months will reinforce the impression among the Europeans, Japan, many regional players, etc. that Iran is a dangerously destabilizing actor on the greater Middle East stage. This probably will cause governments working the Iranian nuclear issue to redouble their efforts to prevent Iran from having unfettered access to a nuclear fuel cycle that potentially could be exploited to fashion nuclear weapons." Cited with permission, from an email.

Rami Khouri on policy being created on the basis of faulty analysis:

I have carefully read and considered US President George W. Bush's words to British Prime Minister Tony Blair that were inadvertently caught on an open microphone during the G-8 Summit in Russia last weekend: "See the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hizbullah to stop doing this shit and it's over" - and I respectfully conclude that Bush doesn't know shit about shit.

Bush's comment is worth analyzing because it is very telling of many things, all of them problematic for the United States and the Middle East region. In that single phrase of his, the American president compressed into two dozen words the cumulative negative consequences of Washington's unusual capacity to forge a self-defeating and counter-productive Middle East policy on the basis of a faulty analysis, in turn built on misreading local realities and not speaking to the main actors. [...]

The real irony in Bush's statement is that he wants others to pressure Syria to pressure Hizbullah to change its policies - at a moment when the central pillar of Washington's Middle East policies appears to be a refusal to speak to some of the most important political groups in the region. The US has no relations or known contacts with Iran, Hamas and Hizbullah, and is not on speaking terms with Syria, which it has mildly sanctioned.

Bush ignores at his own peril the fact that Islamist political sentiments and resistance movements are the fastest growing sector of national life in the Middle East. For the US to be squarely opposed to and unable to speak with this large part of the public spectrum is foolish enough; it is even more reflective of amateur American foreign policy-making that Washington's policies in the region are an important contributor to the expansion of such Islamist sentiments and organizations.

Shmuel Rosner in Ha'aretz:

"There is no green light" from America for the Israeli operation, David Welch managed to hiss, while answering the cellphone urging him to cut short his meetings with the press and get back to the office.

Here's an official who is not to be envied: On Monday he returned from a long Mideast trip, including a stop in Israel, and today he is departing for another one. Israel, Rome, and Israel again. "He's exhausted," says an Israeli colleague who knows him well. Is it any wonder that the Assistant Secretary of State for the Middle East is angry at Hezbollah? The folly of their action got the whole area jumping - Welch included. He gestures dismissively when asked if "the occupation" is responsible for the outbreak of violence. "I don't see how the occupation is connected to this," he states. After all - there is no Israeli occupation in Lebanon. Plain and simple. "And it's not me saying that, it's the UN."

Formally there may not be a green light, but it is hard to interpret the American approach otherwise. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice rejected without batting an eye the initiatives for an immediate cease-fire. If there's a crisis - then let it go all the way. Let it do some good. The U.S., from the get-go, spotted the potential inherent in the outbreak, and decided to grab the bull by the horns and has not backed down. Not when faced by the French, nor UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. As of the weekend, the U.S. seems to have succeeded. The world grasped that without American, it will not be able to stop the Israeli operation, and changed course - from complaining to talking. ...

This whole piece is worth reading. This too: US looking for ways to shape new order in Lebanon.

U.S. Embassy Urges Americans Who Wish to Depart Lebanon to Do So Now:

Media Notice
Released by the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon

The U.S. Embassy, with support from the Department of State and the Department of Defense, has helped more than 10,000 persons depart Lebanon since July 16, 2006. At this time there is no wait for U.S. Government-assisted boat transport out of Lebanon, and all persons who are able to travel by ship are encouaged to do so. Those requesting helicopter transport may experience a wait of a number of days due to the scarcity of available slots.

These assisted departures will continue on Sunday, July 23. Americans traveling should proceed directly to the departure processing center at Dbayeh Bridge in Beirut. Processing will take place at the Mobile Forces Barracks (Marina Khoury facing the water station pump near Dbayeh Port. As large numbers of people may gather at the departure processing center, Americans should be prepared for a long wait. They should bring supplies of food and water and wear comfortable shoes and protection from the sun.

The U.S. Department of State believes the majority of American citizens who wish to leave Lebanon have already departed. After Sunday, July 23, the opportunity to leave with the assistance of the U.S. government will diminish.
American citizens should not delay if they wish to depart Lebanon. The U.S. Embassy in Beirut is in contact with some American citizens in the South Lebanon who have had difficulty in getting to Beirut. These citizens should remain in contact with the U.S. Embassy for further guidance. ...

Americans wishing to depart Lebanon should monitor the local radio 105.5 FM and the U.S. Embassy Beirut internet website, http://lebanon.usembassy.gov/ for the latest on assistance in departing Lebanon. ...

Update: U.S. Embassy urges departing Americans to proceed directly to Dbayeh processing center.

Harpers: Negroponte blocking new CIA NIE on Iraq. "'What do you call the situation in Iraq right now?' asked one person familiar with the situation. 'The analysts know that it's a civil war, but there's a feeling at the top that [using that term] will complicate matters.' Negroponte, said another source regarding the potential impact of a pessimistic assessment, 'doesn't want the president to have to deal with that.'” No NIE on Iraq since 2004.

NYT's Hassan Fattah: In the end, numbers become names again.

“If you speak the truth here you are called a traitor,” Mr. Abdullah said. “But we all know that this is a war between Iran and America. I am paying part of the price for it.” Then he suddenly grew pensive as he stood at the edge of the trench.

“That’s my daughter, No. 9,” he said, pointing at a coffin coming out of the truck as. “It’s a nice number, don’t you think? And No. 7, it’s a nice number, too. It’s my wife. And there’s No. 10. I hope they will be lucky.”

NYT: US rushes precision guided bombs to Israel. "The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration, the officials said. Its disclosure threatens to anger Arab governments and others because of the appearance that the United States is actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign in a way that could be compared to Iran’s efforts to arm and resupply Hezbollah. ... An arms-sale package approved last year provides authority for Israel to purchase from the United States as many as 100 GBU-28’s, which are 5,000-pound laser-guided bombs intended to destroy concrete bunkers. The package also provides for selling satellite-guided munitions. ... The Bush administration announced Thursday a military equipment sale to Saudi Arabia, worth more than $6 billion, a move that may in part have been aimed at deflecting inevitable Arab government anger at the decision to supply Israel with munitions in the event that effort became public." More background here, here (pdf), here and here.

Irania. Here's an after-action report on the gathering of Iran pro democracy activists at the White House Thursday (see here for my original post). Michael Ledeen and Amir Abbas Fakhravar, a 30 year old Iranian student activist and former political prisoner, got shut out, because they were 15 minutes later coming from testifying at a Senate Homeland Security and Government Reform committee hearing on Iran's nuclear impasse. Richard Perle, who did attend the White House gathering hosted by the NSC's Elliot Abrams and State's Nicholas Burns, tried to help get them in but the Secret Service at the Eisenhower Building wouldn't budge, those there say. Also among those who attended, Bijan Kian, a Los-Angeles-based Iranian American Republican organizer and businessman who has sought a position on Iran policy in the Bush administration; Manda Zand Ervin, of the Alliance of Iranian Women; Manda Shahbazi, a Los Angeles-based supporter of Fakhravar; Sam Kermanian, a Los Angeles-based Iranian American Jewish community leader and businessman; Rahim Shahbazi, an Iranian Azeri separatist who spoke at an event on Iran’s ethnic minorities at AEI last year, causing a firestorm with what some perceived as anti-Persian comments; an Arab Iranian community activist; and an Iranian Kurdish human rights leader and journalist. Several other Iranian pro-democracy figures, including most notably Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former shah, and Akbar Ganji, a leading Iranian dissident and former political prisoner currently on a US tour, declined the White House invitation. Kermanian summarized for the NY Sun the message from the US administration officials yesterday: "The administration's line was that this was not the policy of the United States to engage in regime change in different countries, even if they did not like the policies of that country. They said they hoped the people of Iran would achieve their goal of a democratic Iran."

Correction: Manda Shahbazi was, along with Fakhravar, delayed coming from his testimony on the Hill, and, while they got past the gate to the Eisenhower building, was not allowed into the meeting by the Secret Service because they were late. Perle and Ledeen were not at the meeting. Apologies for the mistake.

Agent Provocateur? WP: "Waterboarding is torture and torture is wrong" post gets CIA contractor's internal blog removed from Intelink, the contractor fired and security clearance yanked. Is it naive to wonder how such an ordinary sentiment would be so threatening to a US federal agency? After all presumably people at the CIA read the newspapers and know that an overwhelming majority of the Senate has voted to outlaw torture a couple times. Is this the kind of thing that has to be whispered in the hallways of Langley, for fear of provoking offense? Or perhaps more likely, is this about a contractor, BAE, that doesn't want to risk losing its CIA contracts?

Anyhow, now that the news has spread to the Washington Post, the New York Times and God forbid, Wonkette, it seems that the CIA and BAE may have invited more headaches for having fired the contractor than if they'd let the (after all) internal post go, where it most likely would have been quickly forgotten into the ephemera of blog posts about CIA cafeteria cuisine? More: Interesting comments at her open blog.

AP: UN-run observation post on Lebanese-Israeli border took a direct hit Friday. "The Israeli army said Hezbollah rockets hit the U.N. post near Zarit, just inside Israel, but a U.N. officer said it was an artillery shell fired by the Israeli Defense Force. The facility was severely damaged, but nobody was injured as the Ghanian troops manning the post were inside bomb shelters at the time of the strike, the U.N. official said."

Israel appears to have decided that a large-scale incursion across the border was the only way to push Hezbollah back after 10 days of the heaviest bombardment of Lebanon in 24 years failed to do so. But mounting civilian casualties and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Lebanese could limit the amount of time Israel has to achieve its goals, as international tolerance for the bloodshed and destruction runs out.

Top Israeli officials met Thursday night to decide how big a force to send in, according to senior military officials. They said Israel won't stop its offensive until Hezbollah is forced behind the Litani River, 20 miles north of the border _ creating a new buffer zone in a region that saw 18 years of Israeli presence since 1982.

Emergency UN Security Council meeting today in NY.

Ha'aretz: Israeli Army to call up thousands of reservists. "The decision comes on the heels of a significant expansion of the ground operations in the north, as the IDF sent thousands of troops into southern Lebanon on Thursday. Three reserve battalions have already been called up. The reservists sent to Gaza will free up soldiers doing their compulsory service to go to the north. The additional soldiers in the north will be deployed to villages in southern Lebanon. [...] In the upcoming days, the IDF plans to expand ground operations in southern Lebanon. Next week, more units will be moved to the north, which will enable broader operations against villages throughout the south. Still, General Staff officers maintain that there is no intention to take and hold ground permanently, and insist that the operations will be clearing raids."

Just out. Check out my short piece at Tapped, about an invitation to the White House today that several Iranian pro democracy activists turned down, and why:

Leading Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji is sitting on something many people would only dream of: a personal invitation to the White House today to meet with top U.S. officials overseeing the United States policy toward Iran, including the National Security Council’s Elliot Abrams and State Department’s Iran nuclear negotiator Nicholas Burns. It's even been dangled before him that President Bush may drop by the afternoon meeting of Iranian opposition activists. But Iran's most famous former political prisoner, who arrived in Washington earlier this week for a month long U.S. tour after six years in Iranian prison says, while tempted, he's not going to accept the invitation. And he’s not the only Iranian pro-democracy activist choosing not to go: among the others are former Iranian Revolutionary Guard founder-turned-dissident Mohsen Sazegara; student leaders Akbar Atri and Ali Afshary; Iranian American human rights activist Ramin Ahmadi; and Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former shah. Their demurrals hint at the complexity of the relationship between those Iranians seeking democracy and regime change and the American administration that says it has the same goals there.

“Democracy is not machinery that can be exported,” Ganji told me, through a translator, at a ceremony Monday night where he was the recipient of a press freedom award. [...]

Ganji does have a message for the Bush administration, but it’s one he’s asking the press to convey for now. “I advocate change of the regime in Iran,” he says. “But that regime needs to be changed by Iranians themselves.”

Latest word is that so many decided not to come, the whole meeting was cancelled. One can't fault the administration for trying to ask the activists directly how Washington should help. For Iranian dissidents like Ganji who plan to go back to Iran, the question perhaps is whether they can afford to be seen meeting with them.

Those in Washington DC who'd like to see Ganji can find him tonight at Georgetown's Healy building, at 5pm, where he'll be delivering a short speech through a translator.

Late Update: A colleague at the White House midday press briefing today sends word that Tony Snow said, "The Iranian event I talked about in the gaggle actually is taking place today." Stay tuned. Latest word: It's on.

More: Meeting report here.

On the likelihood that some of you out there have already done this, a question. Is there an easy way to move Outlook Express email folders from one computer to another? So that, when I move onto the other computer, the old emails are there and accessable? And if so, what is it? Drop me a line. Update: It's surprisingly complicated. Will try to summarize the advice at some point, for those who've written they've struggled with this too. Quickest solution, some say: get someone who knows what they're doing to do it. Late Update: Many thanks to foreign policy/blog/tech guru Dave Meyer who spent four hours Friday helping me out with this.

Former NSC official Steven Simon, in a piece on the current Middle East crisis worth reading:

... Once the crisis began, immediate American involvement might also have prevented the violence from escalating. This, however, would have required the lines of communication and leverage with the warring parties that the administration's policies had systematically dismantled.

The perfect storm was made by everything going wrong at once: the sudden thaw of freeze-dried revolutions; multiple, concurrent blunders; resurgence of Shiite activism, and a mutually reinforcing lack of American attentiveness and dwindling influence. To survive the gale, therefore, everything has to go right at once, or more plausibly, in a tight, compelling sequence.

The violence must be brought under control, the captive soldiers returned, verifiable arrangements for Hezbollah's disarmament put in place, Lebanese army control over the south established, a modus vivendi between Israel and the Palestinian Authority negotiated, and infrastructure rebuilt. Even one or two of these measures would be a massive achievement. To accomplish all seems fantastic.

One thing, however, is certain. These things will not happen spontaneously. They will require the careful blend of planning, pressure and inducement that only a focused administration can supply.

WP: "The United States faces growing tensions with allies over its support of Israel's military campaign to cripple Hezbollah, amid calls for a cease-fire to help with the mounting humanitarian crisis. European allies are particularly alarmed about the disproportionately high civilian death toll in Lebanon. They are also concerned that the U.S. position will increase tensions between the Islamic world and the West by fueling militants, playing into the rhetoric of Osama bin Laden and adding to the problems of the U.S.-led coalition force in Iraq. ... European nations and U.N. officials are eager for a cease-fire or 'pause' to allow Lebanese civilians to move to safer areas and investigate diplomatic avenues, as well as prevent other Middle East hot spots from becoming inflamed, European envoys said." One in eight Lebanese now displaced.

Almost 100 degrees in London.

Chris Nelson: "A concerned Loyal Reader offers this personal analysis":

“The reaction of the Arab states to the situation in Lebanon is related to the situation in Iraq. The Saudis and Jordanians are worried that Iran will soon wield the same power or influence in Iraq that it does in Lebanon, a scenario that King Abdullah of Jordan famously (infamously?) called ‘the Shi'ite crescent.’ Both countries live in the shadow of Iraq, and Saudi Arabia itself has a large, disenfranchised Shi'ite minority.

“As for Egypt, President Ahmadinejad of Iran seems to have inherited the mantle of Nasser as regional demagogue-troublemaker, and today appears to be more popular in Egypt than President Mubarak. There, too, it's the same old story, with Israel seemingly fighting the battle of the Arab conservatives against the radical forces in the region, today consisting of Iran, Syria, and Iran's Arab Shi'ite allies. Seeming to hide behind Israel or America won't boost the legitimacy of regimes that have precious little of it to begin with. But it turns out that they're not content to let Iran corner them. Speaking out against Hezbollah, even if not by name, involves some risk for them and therefore demands some courage.

“It may not have been Israel's goal to defang Hezbollah at first, but if not, after the rocket fire reached Haifa and beyond, and Hezbollah demonstrated the use of a high-tech anti-ship cruise missile, they may have been persuaded that there's no alternative. Olmert has top cover from Bush to prosecute the war without outside interference, at least for the time being, and has made a public ‘we're not gonna take this anymore’ declaration. The real limit may be the endurance of the Israeli public in the towns of the far north, increasingly confined to blast shelters. And, of course, there is always the possibility of an off-track bomb killing a large number of civilians and putting the Israelis in a difficult position, as happened ten years ago in southern Lebanon. This might happen in southern Beirut, where the Israelis seem to be trying to locate and destroy underground Hezbollah weapons storage and leadership targets.

“Hezbollah's strategy, for its part, seems to be to try to exact as high a price from Israel as it can, either to compel them to come to the bargaining table, or perhaps to entice them to return to Lebanon in force on the ground” and to face both a war of attrition, and increasing international criticism, even intervention.”

Ha'aretz's Amos Harel: "Despite its losses, whose extent is debatable, and the destruction of its headquarters, the Shi'ite organization [Hezbollah] is far from feeling defeated. Apparently Iran is encouraging it to go on fighting, while Israel's only real weapon is military pressure. Once Israel eases the pressure, Hezbollah will have no reason to reach an agreement. Deploying the Lebanese Army, a multinational force or both along the border, is in Israel's interest and perhaps Lebanon's, but not Hezbollah's and certainly not Iran's.

"European diplomats believe Israel has maneuvered itself into a trap. It cannot stop the operation without having real political achievements to show its public, but prolonged fighting will seriously try its citizens' fortitude and will not guarantee the expected achievements."

McClatchy's Hannah Allam:

Israel claimed Wednesday that it had wiped out half of Hezbollah's arsenal, but many of the targets Israeli warplanes have hit in their week-long bombardment of the Lebanese capital have no obvious military value.

Among them: a tissue factory, a dairy, and a pair of construction vehicles.

Those targets offer few clues about how much success Israel has had in crippling the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which is holding two captured Israeli soldiers and firing rockets into Israel.

But traveling the streets of Beirut leaves one clear impression: Lebanese believe that not a single inch of their country is beyond the whir of Israeli warplanes, the hiss of a falling bomb or the devastating explosion when one hits. [...]

The wartime rhythm was interrupted Wednesday by an unusual attack in the Christian neighborhood of Achrafieh, far from any known Hezbollah position. An Israeli strike took out a pair of trucks mounted with what appeared to be drills used to dig wells. No one was killed in the strike.

At sundown, locals arrived to gawk at the charred shells of the trucks, but no one could figure out what threat two vehicles in a back lot posed. Israel's precision with weapons is well known here, so few were willing to believe that the trucks' drills had been mistaken for rocket launchers.

A more sinister notion emerged - that Israel deliberately struck a Christian neighborhood to cause a backlash against Hezbollah and its leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah.

Two friends who arrived on a motorbike to survey the damage snapped photos of the burned trucks with their cell phone cameras and tried in vain to figure out why the trucks had been attacked.

Charbel Oueiss, 24, is Christian and has reservations about Hezbollah. On the same bike was a pro-Hezbollah Muslim friend who declined to give his name.

"We live in Achrafieh, so why? This is Christian country," Oueiss said. "Maybe it's because two weeks ago, Hassan Nasrallah was on TV and said . . ."

His friend interrupted: "Don't you say anything about Nasrallah. My love is Hassan Nasrallah."

Oueiss started to answer, but his friend cut him off again. "Criticize him and I'll fire a Katyusha rocket at you!"

The friends laughed, climbed back on their motorbike and left for home.

Tyre, Lebanon:

They came here by the hundreds on Wednesday morning — men, women and children from all over south Lebanon, chasing a rumor that an evacuation ship would come, and braving roads made deadly by heavy bombardment for even a slim chance to board.

While thousands of people have been evacuated from Beirut, that city remained an unattainable destination for most in the south, cut off by repeated, continued Israeli air and artillery strikes. And so Tyre, a seaside town in the thick of the combat zone, has become the port of last hope for many.

United Nations staff members and some vacationing Europeans were told a few days ago that a ferry would come to Tyre for them and that they should meet at the Rest House resort for boarding. But word quickly spread, and suddenly refugees from towns throughout the area flooded the hotel, where they gathered for any chance to get on the boat, turning the resort into a makeshift refugee center.

Read the rest. More here.

WP:

Shayna Silverstein and her friends jumped into expensive taxis and sped from Beirut to Damascus, preferring to dodge bombs and bribe border officials than wait for the United States government to evacuate them. Ann Ainslay Chibbo said she desperately phoned friends back home, urging them to contact the State Department to get her name onto an evacuation list. She said she couldn't get through by phone to the U.S. Embassy in Beirut.

The U.S. government evacuated hundreds of Americans from Lebanon yesterday by ships, helicopters and planes, the start of what officials said would become a massive effort to remove thousands of U.S. citizens to safety and, then, back home. The first 150 evacuees are scheduled to arrive at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport this morning.

But the evacuations come amid growing criticism that the United States has lagged behind other nations in evacuating its citizens, as many Americans were forced to flee the violence by their own means.

Ha'aretz:

At least 54 civilians and a Hezbollah militant were killed when Israel Air Force aircraft bombed targets in Lebanon on Wednesday, witnesses said. Thus the death toll in Israel's military operation in Lebanon has risen to over 300.

At least 12 people, including several children, were killed and 30 wounded in the strike that destroyed several houses in the southern village of Srifa, residents said.

They said more people were feared buried under the rubble of about 10 houses flattened by the strike on the village.

At least 34 other civilians were killed Wednesday in air strikes on other parts of south and east Lebanon, security sources said. Hezbollah said one of its fighters was killed in the strikes.

Most of the fatalities are civilians killed in IAF bombardments, in Balbek and the southern Lebanon town of Nabatiya.

The IDF said that in Wednesday's raids dozens of targets across Lebanon were attacked, including a launcher of a long-distance Zilzal missile, as well as Hezbollah-linked financial establishments in Beirut and Nabatiya.
Navy gunships also shelled the Christian Beirut suburb of Asharfiya, which is not held to be a Hezbollah stronghold. The shelling destroyed two trucks carrying construction drills that were probably mistaken for rocket launchers.

Speaking today at the Washington Institute, Ltn. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, former chief of staff to the IDF, said the reason Israeli casualties have been so low is people follow the instructions of their Home Security office for staying in doors or in bomb shelters, and that the 700 rockets Hezbollah has launched into Israel are not very accurate. He also said that the current operation is not only about militarily degrading Hezbollah's capabilities, but showing the high cost that will be paid for harboring Hezbollah and Hezbollah's provocations.

Katrina-style evacuation of US citizens from Lebanon? Other countries are getting their nationals out faster, and the US has done it much faster in the past. What's up with this?

When I witnessed several hundred to a few thousand Americans evacuated from Albania in 1997, there were streams of Marine helicopters moving people to a US aircraft carrier in the sea non stop for three days until everybody was out. The evacuation began just a few days after Tirana airport was shut down by civil strife. It was all over in three days. This hadn't even begun til more than a week after Beirut airport was incapacitated and most major roads destroyed in air strikes. Other countries have organized ships for their nationals days earlier. From the Post:

On a sweltering day, Norwegian, Swedish, Greek and British ships pulled into Beirut's harbor, most of them trying to load their passengers before nightfall. From a helipad at the U.S. Embassy overlooking Beirut, the dull thud of rotors announced the arrival of helicopters, which ferried passengers to the island of Cyprus, taking 30 people on each trip. Other U.S. citizens waited, growing more frustrated over having to endure another day of a conflict that has begun to impose a wartime logic in the city.

Why does the US seemingly lag behind? It's hard to comprehend. It seems more a matter of will, organization and attention than capabilities, given its past performance in other such evacuation operations has been so much swifter, more efficient and outright impressive. Is the situation in Lebanon now more dangerous than in Albania in 1997? No doubt. All the more reason for Uncle Sam to have moved into action a bit more rapidly with more energy to protect some 23,000 nationals there, one might think? Even now, far as I understand, the cruiseship they've recruited holds some 1000 people, and takes 5 hours each way to Cyprus. That's 1000 people over 10 hours, with as many as 10,000 Americans who have called the US embassy asking for help getting out. If it runs the ship day and night, along with a few helicopters, the US will get out approximately 2,000 people a day; that means at least another five days to get those 10,000 out. Twelve days under air strikes, with about 30 civilians killed a day, has got to feel like a long time. Maybe they can put a few more ships online?

Update: AP - they'll move a 1,000 people out a day, 8,000 have indicated they want to leave, the embassy will stay open. Embassy says they don't have the capacity to organize the evacuation themselves, fortunately "the US government" does.

More from Garance Franke-Ruta, whose sources tell her the "'public diplomacy' issues raised by evacuating under Israeli assault are so complicated." Hence perhaps the US ambassador to Beirut's message in the AP piece above that so many Americans plan to stay in Lebanon and the embassy is staying open for business? And the Europeans were perhaps less sensitive to those public diplomacy concerns?

"In Beirut, a mother stayed as her children evacuated." Credit: Ali Haider/European Pressphoto Agency, NYT.

John Judis: "Needed: American Diplomacy. Help Wanted."

AP: 6000 Iraqi civilians slain in May, June.

I know that's the simple addition of an estimated 100 civilians killed a day over 60 days, but it's a staggering number.

Guardian: "The US is giving Israel a window of a week to inflict maximum damage on Hizbullah before weighing in behind international calls for a ceasefire in Lebanon, according to British, European and Israeli sources."

Update: NYT: "The outlines of an American-Israeli consensus began to emerge on Tuesday in which Israel would continue to bombard Lebanon for about another week to degrade the capabilities of the Hezbollah militia, officials of the two countries said. Then, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would go to the region and seek to establish a buffer zone in southern Lebanon and perhaps an international force to monitor Lebanon’s borders to prevent Hezbollah from obtaining more rockets with which to bombard Israel. American officials signaled that Ms. Rice was waiting at least a few more days before wading into the conflict, in part to give Israel more time to weaken Hezbollah forces."

NYT: US and Israel blindsided by sophistication of Hezbollah's arsenal. More from the Post on Israel, Hezbollah and Hamas fighting for the first time primarily a missile war. LAT: Israel's goal three-pronged: "in southern Lebanon ...to undermine Hezbollah's ability to launch rockets" into northern Israel; in the eastern Bekaa Valley, to destroy Hezbollah's logistical weapons supply network from Syria; and in the southern suburbs of Beirut, "the chief targets are the symbols of Hezbollah's power."

Meantime, as civilian casualties mount in Lebanon, the LAT writes some observers think that's no accident: "Attacks on roads and bridges are generally described by the Israeli military as intended to impede the movement of weaponry, but some observers also see them as meant to punish and demoralize the Lebanese population for having granted Hezbollah so great a share of political power." More here.

NYT: Iraqi death toll rises to above 100 per day.

Tom Friedman declares Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah good for Arab dictators. "What both Hamas and Nasrallah have done — by dragging their nations into unnecessary wars with Israel — is to prove that Islamists will not be made more accountable by political power. Just the opposite; not only will they not fix the potholes, they will start wars, whenever they choose, that will lead to even bigger potholes."

This Newsweek interview with former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak is illuminating:

NEWSWEEK: In 2000, when three Israeli soldiers were kidnapped on your watch by Hizbullah militants, you let the incident slide. Why?

Ehud Barak: When the abduction of the soldiers happened, we were totally uncertain about their whereabouts, and whether they were alive. Basically, the situation was different, and we avoided [an attack] because of this need to maximize the chances that the abducted soldiers would come back alive. Of course, it was a different [political] context. [The soldiers were later killed, and their bodies returned to Israel as part of a prisoner exchange.]

Do you think Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has made the right decision to respond forcefully this time?
Hamas and Hizbullah left the Olmert government with no choice but to respond. You have to. I fully rely on the considerations of our military command and the judgment of the government. Basically Olmert is doing the right thing. Any sovereign would have done the same under the circumstances.

Some Israeli hawks accuse you of "escapism" for withdrawing from Lebanon in 2000. How would you respond to those critics?
It's ridiculous. It's distorted logic. Only our pullout from Lebanon put an end to the tragedy that took place there for two decades. Only because I pulled out from Lebanon to the last inch [does] Israel occupy the moral high ground, and can now enjoy the international legitimacy for its responses. When we entered Lebanon … there was no Hizbullah. We were accepted with perfumed rice and flowers by the Shia in the south. It was our presence there that created Hizbullah.

He also speaks out against extending the current campaign to Syria, saying he thinks the international community should deal with it.

NPR: Ralph Reed concedes defeat in Georgia GOP primary race for Ltn. Governor.

Zvi Bar'el:

After all that has taken place so far in Lebanon, nothing has succeeded in altering the basic equation: Any diplomatic solution will have to pass through the Lebanese political grinder and gain Hezbollah's agreement. ...

The question is not only what will stop Israel's onslaught but also what will the conditions be that will allow Hassan Nasrallah to nod approvingly. Mediators heard about what may work in a meeting with Nabih Berri, a "contact person" to Hezbollah, the speaker of Lebanon's parliament and head of Amal, another Shi'ite group. According to Berri, even if the United Nations decides to deploy a "significant" force to south Lebanon, it will need Nasrallah's approval, otherwise such a force will be involved in incessant fighting and Israel will continue to suffer missile attacks.

If Hezbollah will be asked to lay down its arms, Nasrallah will have to approve this since there is not a single political power in Lebanon on Tuesday that is capable of carrying out the group's disarmament. In fact, the idea of a disarmed Hezbollah is so far-fetched to senior Israel Defense Forces officers and Israeli politicians that they are willing to make do with a "significant weakening" of the group. ...

At the end of the day, Nasrallah aspires to his original aim: talks for a prisoner exchange without any changes to the political and military status quo in Lebanon.

This also striking:

Military pressure on Lebanon has not affected Lebanon's willingness to change its terms or see the issue of disarmament as anything but an internal Lebanese matter. Several days prior to the attack on Israel's border and the abduction of the two soldiers, Nasrallah agreed in principle that if his preconditions were met he would keep the border peaceful. As part of these understandings, Nasrallah also agreed in principle to allow the Shaba Farms to be liberated through diplomatic means.

God, how awful.

"A woman injured in an Israeli air attack in Tyre, Lebanon, was comforted on Tuesday by her brother. Her mother and other family members were killed in the strike." Credit: Tyler Hicks, NYT.

Hmm. In 1997 when several hundred Americans were evacuated by the Marines from Albania, me among them, we also had to sign something saying we would pay if Uncle Sam ever decided to bill us. He never did. I suspect this is SOP. Update: State Department rescinds requirement of payments for evacuations.

NYT: Foreigners flee Lebanon as Israelis see fight that lasts weeks.

AP: "Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Tuesday that President Bush personally blocked Justice Department lawyers from pursuing an internal probe of the warrantless eavesdropping program that monitors Americans' international calls and e-mails when terrorism is suspected." Update: Via TPMMuckraker, Murray Waas reports senior DOJ officials stunned by the revelation of who blocked the DOJ investigation of the NSA domestic surveillance program.

Ha'aretz: Diplomatic process underway.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni hinted Tuesday that Israel would not object to a temporary international force in south Lebanon, despite earlier an outright Israeli rejection of such a plan.

Speaking after a meeting with a United Nations delegation headed by special envoy Vijay Nambiar, Livni said that while Israel would prefer the deployment of the Lebanese army in the south of the country, "we will consider other solutions put forward." [...]

The Israeli and UN teams disagreed over the order in which the steps should be implemented. According to the plan, the three soldiers abducted by Hezbollah and Hamas would be freed, rocket fire on Israel would end, Israel would halt its Air Force strikes on Lebanon and withdraw its troops from Gaza and the Hamas lawmakers.

Israel is demanding that the three soldiers be returned first, before the attacks on Lebanon stop. Livni also indicated that Israel could agree to put off the disarmament of Hezbollah, provided that Lebanon immediately deploy its own troops along the border. [...] Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Tuesday that he expected European troops to join a proposed stabilization force in Lebanon. [...]

But the NYT reports that Israeli sources are saying the Lebanon offensive will last weeks:

A top Israeli general said today that Israel’s offensive in Lebanon would last another few weeks, and he said that the use of large numbers of ground forces had not been ruled out. [...]

Israel’s deputy chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Moshe Kaplinski, told Agence France-Presse: "The operation will last for at least another week. The international pressure on Israel will allow us to continue for another week at least.”

Jamie Tarabay's NPR report on the Iraqi security forces is revealing. A Pittsburgh-native American soldier tries to encourage the local police force to go out on patrol. After half an hour, he can only round up two Iraqi police officers, who claim not to have any vehicles. They are wearing baseball caps and memorabilia showing allegiance to Muqtada al-Sadr. The town they are going on patrol in is Sunni.

Canadians are telling the CBC of their efforts to evacuate Lebanon to safety; and the family members they have left behind. More than 200 civilians killed in Lebanon, and some 24 Israelis, half of them civilians.

AP: "Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday that the fighting in Lebanon would end when two Israeli soldiers were freed, rocket attacks stopped and the Lebanese army deployed along the border. But he appeared to scale back from previous demands for Hezbollah to be dismantled. ... Israeli officials said earlier Monday that Olmert had conveyed Israel's position to Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, who is attempting to broker the cease-fire deal."

EU's Javier Solana: Cease-fire out of reach; hoping for a de-escalation. Blair/Kofi Annan calling for international peacekeepers to the Lebanese/Israeli border. Israel opposes that, wants Lebanese army troops on the border.

Ha'aretz:

A senior Israel Defense Forces officer told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday that IDF troops had leveled land inside Lebanese territory extending up to one kilometer from Israel's northern frontier.

The objective is to prevent the reestablishment of Hezbollah guerilla posts along Israel's border.

Earlier Monday, Defense Minister Amir Peretz said that Israel intends to create an unmanned buffer zone in south Lebanon, from where Hezbollah has been pounding Israel with rockets for the past six days. [...]

The IDF chief reiterated that the IDF has no plans to send ground troops into Lebanon, and expressed the hope that this would not change.

Bush and Blair, unplugged. This little microphone snafu always seems to happen in Russia.

Ze'ev Schiff: Next two days are the most critical.

Thanks, but no thanks. Speaking in New York, a leading Iranian dissident, Akbar Ganji, rejects US intervention or financial assistance to assist Iran's pro democracy movement; wants moral support.

Worth reading: Jo-Ann Mort from Israel, looking for US leadership:

But, I would suggest to all those reading these posts, to differentiate between what is happening on Israel's two borders. The attacks on Israel's north are going deep into Israel, covering the entire north of the country. It's interesting now that even the Arab League could not come up with a unified statement opposing Israel's actions because Hezbollah has knowingly put the Lebanese gov't --and people--at risk. The U.S., mired down in Iraq, appears impotent to deal with any of these fires in the region--not Iraq,not Hezbollah, not Syria, not the Palestinians and Israel--and certainly not Iran, which is arming Hezbollah. In the end, none of this will be resolved militarily-there needs to be a diplomatic horizon--but only the U.S. can offer it.

More on the Arab League reaction here.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana to Beirut for talks.

Hezbollah rockets reach 50 km into Israel:

Hezbollah also warned that if the Israel Air Force continues its strikes on Beirut strikes, it would target petrochemical plants in Haifa.

The group said it intentionally avoided hitting petrochemical installations in Haifa, which houses Israel's major oil refinery, according to a statement read on Al-Manar.

"But the next time, it [Hezbollah] will not spare anything in Haifa and its surroundings," the statement said.

The senior IDF officer cited in this piece from the Jerusalem Post predicts the current Israeli operation will end in the middle of next week:

About 25 percent of Hizbullah's capabilities have been hit, a high-ranking IDF officer estimated on Sunday night at the end of the fifth day of Operation Just Reward.

According to the officer, the group's chain of command is still functioning. He estimated that the Lebanese group would not be annihilated when the dust settles, only severely damaged.

The officer predicted that the operation would end in the middle of next week.

Not clear what is happening with recent signs of a possible ground incursion:

Earlier, the IDF mobilized a reserve infantry division in preparation for a possible ground incursion into south Lebanon, The Jerusalem Post has learned. The move was intended as the beginning of a new effort to push Katyusha rocket launching cells away from the Israel-Lebanon border.

The division was setting up command posts along the northern border, while tanks and armored personnel carriers were being transported northward.

[...]

IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz insisted on Sunday afternoon that the IDF was not going to invade south Lebanon as yet.

Ha'aretz:

Israel Air Force jets attacked ten rocket launching sites in southern Lebanon on Sunday. According to the Israel Defense Forces, a mobile Hezbollah missile battery was hit in the strike.

The Israel Defense Forces on Sunday warned the residents of southern Lebanon to leave their homes within two hours, ahead of Israel Air Force attacks that would follow shortly after the deadline expires.

"We want to say to the population in the south of Lebanon, we want to avoid innocent victims, so we recommend them to leave their villages and homes and go to the north of the country and let us work in the south of Lebanon, because in two or three hours we are going to attack the south of Lebanon heavily," said GOC Northern Command Major General Udi Adam.

Italy being used as a "postman" to communicate messages between Israel and Lebanon:

Lebanon's government said Sunday that Italy has relayed Israeli conditions to stop its assault on Lebanon: release the two captured Israel Defense Forces soldiers and pull Hezbollah back from the Israeli border.

Information Minister Ghazi Aridi briefed reporters on the conditions after an emergency Cabinet meeting. He said Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi spoke to Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, and relayed the conditions made by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Aridi said Prodi told Saniora that "Premier Olmert has two conditions for a cease-fire: handover of the captured soldiers and Hezbollah's withdrawal beyond the Litani (River)." He said Prodi relayed Olmert's conditions to Saniora as part of a "personal initiative."

"Nothing is official because the real negotiations have not started yet," Aridi said.

The Litani River is about 30 kilometers (18 miles) north of Israel's coastal border with Lebanon. Israel invaded Lebanon in 1978 to push back Palestinian guerrillas beyond the Litani, to prevent rocket attacks on Israel's northern communities. Israel again invaded in 1982 and occupied Beirut, but withdrew gradually under guerrilla fire to a border buffer zone in 1985. That security zone was abandoned altogether in 2000.

After Siniora called on Saturday for the state's authority to extend over southern Lebanon, Hezbollah's senior representative in the Lebanese cabinet criticized him for the implicit recognition of Israel's demand for the implementation of UN resolution 1559, calling for Lebanese authority to extend to its south, now ruled by the militant group.

Worth reading: the NY Times' "The Real Agenda.

Robin Wright:

Israel, with U.S. support, intends to resist calls for a cease-fire and continue a longer-term strategy of punishing Hezbollah, which is likely to include several weeks of precision bombing in Lebanon, according to senior Israeli and U.S. officials.

For Israel, the goal is to eliminate Hezbollah as a security threat -- or altogether, the sources said. A senior Israeli official confirmed that Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah is a target, on the calculation that the Shiite movement would be far less dynamic without him. [...]

Specifically, officials said, Israel and the United States are looking to create conditions for achieving one remaining goal of U.N. Resolution 1559, adopted in 2004, which calls for the dismantling and disarming of Lebanon's militias and expanding the state's control over all its territory. [...]

If Lebanon as a first step takes over Hezbollah's stockpiles, which included more than 12,000 rockets and missiles before the current strife began, then cease-fire talks could begin, the Israeli official said.

"The only way a cease-fire will even be considered is if 1559 is fully implemented," said the senior Israeli official. Lebanese troops must be deployed to take over positions in Hezbollah's southern Lebanon strongholds to ensure that there are no more cross-border raids or rocket barrages into northern Israel.

So Lebanese government troops to the border, Hezbollah pushed back from the border ... and eventually demilitarized - including through some sort of integration into the Lebanese army?

Terrific Robert Wright essay on foreign policy in Sunday's New York Times. Its subject: the false choice between foreign policy idealism and realism.

Just Out. Check out my interview at The American Prospect with Mark Perry, an American who, with an ex-MI6 colleague, runs a Beirut-based nongovernmental group, Conflicts Forum, that has been hosting a dialogue with representatives of Hezbollah and former senior US and British policymakers for the past three years. In that capacity, he speaks with Hezbollah frequently, and has some insights into both Hezbollah's actions and statements, and those coming from Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert. Asked how he thought this would play out, he responded:

The first thing, the current prime minister in Israel [Ehud Olmert] is a very capable guy. And he is a realist. … But he isn’t Ariel Sharon. He’s not a warrior. He has a genetic mistrust of the uses of bombs and airplanes to conduct foreign policy.

But when you are attacked you respond, and he did. And he has been very clearly signaling that there are limits here. While Condi Rice and George Bush talk about Syria and Iran, Olmert has taken Syria and Iran off the table, put them back on, and then taken them back off.

When Hezbollah attacked Haifa Thursday, first Hezbollah said, “We didn’t do it.” Then they said, “We didn’t target Haifa.” No one picked up on it. Here’s what they meant to say: “We understand hitting Haifia is a major escalation, and we didn’t mean to do that.”…

Olmert responded, “You get Haifa, we’ll take down Beirut,” and he went after Beirut. So far as I can tell, since then, Haifa has been off limits.

Now so far as I can tell, there are rules here. And the rules are, you take down our major cities and we’ll make life very uncomfortable for you. And Olmert put Damascus back on the table as a clear warning. And I think [Syrian president Bashar al-] Assaad probably called Hezbollah ... and said, “Did you hear that signal or not?” And they got it.

So now we’re in a game. … I expect we’ll see an escalation here over the next two days, but what I would expect to find after that is that both sides climb down off the ladder.

The rest of the interview is here.

In the few hours since this interview was done, another source who has worked for the US in the region, says he thinks Israel is going to try to destroy Hezbollah, and compared the current Israeli operation to when they chased the PLO out of Lebanon in '82. He says the Israelis have moved artillery to the border, hit Hezbollah leader Nasrallah's headquarters, and taken out almost all of the infrastructure rebuilt since the civil war save for one birdge. Or perhaps the intention is more what Sy Hersh suggested yesterday -- to push Hezbollah back from the border some 20-25 miles to put Israeli towns beyond Katyusha rocket range?

More: Some observations from Haggai, including some of the different circumstances between '82 and now. Ha'aretz has ongoing coverage, including that Hezbollah leader Nasrallah claims the organization was responsible for attacking an Israeli naval ship with an explosives-laden drone off the Lebanese coast tonight.

Update II: After talking with sources in the region again today, Perry sends an analysis with this point:

-- I am quite surprised by Israel's claim that its goal is the disarmament of Hezballah. That simply will not happen, and it seems to me publicizing that as a goal is a miscalculation. I would think that that stated goal will only lengthen the conflict, and there are signs already that the Lebanese political environment is rallying behind Hezballah. That was not the case 48 hours ago. ...

-- In fact, the goal of the Israeli government is much more modest: the appearance of the Lebanese Army on the border and a retreat of Hezballah forces to a position well back from the border. If Israel can accomplish this it will be a major victory. But doing this will take mediation and a clear exchange of messages, no matter how indirect. A perfect person to do this would be the late Philip Habib -- who understood how to ratchet down conflicts. Sadly, the US administration is not even thinking of mediating, believing that Israel can accomplish this goal on its own. Why is that? It is not simply the result of lack of creative thinking on the part of the Americans, it is an acknowledgement that they know they are incapable of doing so.

On this last point, he later elaborates, "The US proposed, very quietly at the beginning of this year, that the [Lebanese Army] put a small patrol and a commander in with the UNIFIL headquarters on the border -- a stalking horse for such a proposal. It was the first instance I could determine of the US thinking ahead. I think a nominal force of Lebanese soldiers (after all the LA can never hope to be an actual deterrance to Hezballah) might be enough to end the fighting with a face saving gesture on both sides. That said, the real resolution of this crisis will not be the disarming of Hezballah, or even their retreat from the border, but their 'demilitarization' -- their integration into a Lebanese Army (which is mostly Shia) with a larger contingent of Shia officers." More here. For background on Conflicts Forum, check out this piece from the NY Sun.

Check out the latest from the Balt Sun's Siobhan Gorman about the tragicomic turf battle over information sharing between the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland. What's the issue this time? Semantics.

No rush: Italian parliamentary intelligence oversight committee to investigate whether Sismi controlled journalists for disinformation and espionage purposes, and whether the Italian services participated in the Abu Omar rendition. And an article on a document written by Sismi director Nicolo Pollari's press advisor on efforts to find out what investigative journalists were working on in advance, to protect Sismi's interests.

Saturday Update: Sismi director Nicolo Pollari questioned by the Milan magistrate. Detailed analysis from EuroTrib's DeGondi.

WP: Lebanon to send its army to Hezbollah-controlled southern Lebanon?

Lebanese leaders began talks Thursday evening that might extend government control to the southern border with Israel. Currently, Hezbollah fighters operate freely in the south. In a statement, the cabinet said only that the government had a right and duty to implement its power over all Lebanese territory. But officials speaking on condition of anonymity said sending the Lebanese army to the southern border was a possibility. Hezbollah, which is often dismissive of the Lebanese army's ability, has opposed such a move.

Michael Young, opinion editor of Beirut Daily Star, writing in the NYT, on the Lebanese domestic aspect of Hezbollah's decision to kidnap two Israeli soldiers three days ago:

By unilaterally taking Lebanon into a conflict with Israel, Hezbollah sought to stage a coup d’état against the anti-Syrian parliamentary and government majority, which opposes the militant group’s adventurism.

Hezbollah holds seats in the 128-member Parliament but has an uneasy relationship with the majority, which has been on the defensive as Syria has tried to reassert control over Lebanon after its military withdrawal last year. Hezbollah hoped to humiliate the anti-Syrian politicians by forcing them to endorse the kidnappings and showing how little control the government has over the party.

Israel wants Lebanon to pay an onerous price for its ambiguity on Hezbollah...

What's his prescription? UN-ordered gradual Hezbollah disarmament, written guarantees Israel would respect Lebanon's sovereignty, and prisoner releases on both sides: "It would be far smarter for Israel, and America, to profit from Hezbollah’s having perhaps overplayed its hand. The popular mood here is one of extreme anger that the group has provoked a conflict Lebanon cannot win. .... While the United Nations has been ineffective in its efforts toward Middle East peace, it may be the right body to intervene here, if only because it has the cudgel of Security Council Resolution 1559, which was approved in 2004 and, among other things, calls for Hezbollah’s disarmament."

WSJ's Yochi Dreazen: Mideast violence darkens Bush's legacy. "With Iraq plagued by relentless violence," administration-cited success stories in Afghanistan, Palestinian territories, Lebanon, now collapsing into chaos.

Ha'aretz: Rocket fired from Lebanon hits central Haifa. No reported casualties. Hezbollah denied firing it. Israeli ambassador tells reporters in Washington strike represents major escalation by Hezbollah:

The Israel Defense Forces confirmed that several rockets landed some 15 kilometers south of the border with Lebanon on Thursday morning, signaling that Hezbollah is becoming increasingly successful in expanding the reach of the crude projectiles. This is the furthest that Hezbollah rockets have managed to penetrate inside Israel.

Hezbollah has declared it has over 10,000 rockets to use against Israel.

The government is working on the assumption that Hezbollah will use rockets with a longer range than they have previously had to strike civilians areas in Israel. Should that happen, the IDF will then consider sending ground troops into Lebanon.

In another report, Ha'aretz intel correspondent Amos Harel reports that Israel fears Hezbollah will move the captured Israeli soldiers to Iran.

"Israeli concerns that the soldiers might be moved out of Lebanon are a prime reason for its efforts to blockade the country and prevent air traffic, [a senior Israeli foreign ministry official Gideon] Meir said later," the NYT reports. Israel hit all three runways and fuel storage tankers at Beirut international airport, "two Lebanese Army bases, Hezbollah’s Al Manar television station and ... the main highway between Beirut and Damascus, Syria," and imposed a naval blockade on Lebanon. "The Lebanese government said 53 Lebanese had died since Wednesday."

A source who runs a Beirut-based dialogue with groups including Hezbollah says that the timing of the abduction yesterday was not planned in advance, but was more a target of opportunity. "It is not as if they chose today to do it," emailed Mark Perry, of Conflicts Forum. "Hezballah continually monitors the Israeli border to determine Israeli vulnerabilities. This morning, Israel's guard was down, and Hezballah moved. Why this morning? It would be better to ask Israel. The internal Israeli debate on this is not about Hezballah, but why was it that this morning, of all mornings, they screwed up. It is just the way it turned out... If it had been the case four weeks ago, they would have done it four weeks ago."

"God help us," he adds.

A colleague at the lunch with Israeli ambassador Ayalon today says it was all "Iran, Iran, Iran."

As Sy Hersh said at a talk today, and I'm paraphrasing, sometimes big wars get started almost by accident. He also said based on conversations with his Israeli and Lebanese sources this morning, that Israel's goal may be more limited -- carving out a 20 - 25 mile buffer or free fire zone into southern Lebanon, to prevent Hezbollah from striking into Israel.

Update: Ha'aretz's Ze'ev Schiff: "Syria: A Possible Third Front." More from Marc Perelman, and Jefferson Morley.

A colleague knowledgeable about the region writes, "I have a hard time believing it can get much worse, mostly because of the imbalance of power, even if Israel decides to strike a few targets in Syria. I think there will be a lot of calls for the US to step in and do more than issue statements, dispatch Condi or something... The administration has a big dilemma with Lebanon because they support the government which Israel is accusing of the violence ... The Israelis claim this is all planned by Iran and Syria via Hamas and Hezbollah. And the fact is that both groups have said that they were not responding to the recent killing of civilians in Gaza but that their elaborate kidnapping plots were in the works for months, which the Israelis claim dates to a summit between Assad and Ahmadinejad in Damascus in January. This might be a little too neat but expect the drumbeat against Tehran's terrorism sponsoring to escalate as the nuke issue heats up..."

Plame/Wilson civil suit.

Here's Spencer Ackerman's piece on the latest WMD in Iraq claims promoted by House intelligence committee chairman Peter Hoekstra, Rep. Weldon, and Sen. Santorum -- and the Bush administration intelligence bureaucrats who won't go along with them.

The former young British diplomat Rory Stewart who has written books about walking across Afghanistan and governing Iraq's marsh land for a time has an oped in the NYT today saying what the essence of the American problem in Iraq and Afghanistan is today:

The American-led coalitions’ lack of trust in local politicians. Repeatedly the Western powers, irritated by a lack of progress, have overruled local leaders, rejected compromises and tried to force through their own strategies. But the Westerners’ capacity is limited: they have little understanding of Afghan or Iraqi politics and rely too heavily on troops and money to solve what are fundamentally political and religious problems.

The coalitions cannot achieve political change in the absence of strong local support. And when they try to do so, they undermine their local allies. Iraqi and Afghan national and regional leaders have a far better understanding of the limits and possibilities of the local political scenes; they are more flexible and creative in finding compromises; and unlike the coalition officials, they are elected. They must be given real power and authority. This may seem an obvious prescription — but in fact the coalitions are not allowing it to happen.

He's probably right, but this is just so typical a British observation of American pushiness and running roughshod over the locals while the British tend to kind of go with the flow. Update: Slate's Fred Kaplan writes to say I've got Rory Stewart wrong. "He criticizes Brits as well as Americans. Read his books."

Jay Solomon and Andrew Higgins write on one of my favorite topics, Ghorbanifar. (They even credit the Prospect.) Here's the most interesting graph for me:

Mr. Ledeen says he was skeptical that the White House would sanction a meeting with Mr. Ghorbanifar because of his history. He says he suggested the meeting anyway to Stephen J. Hadley, then deputy national security adviser in the White House. The White House signed off on a Rome meeting, which Mr. Ledeen says surprised him. Mr. Hadley said it was worthwhile if it could save American lives, Mr. Leeden recalls. ... Mr. Hadley, through a spokesman, declined to comment.

In a letter to the editor of the Washington Monthly a couple years back, Douglas Feith actually said as much - that the White House not only signed off on the meeting, but that the Pentagon's involvement in the Rome meeting was initiated from the White House. From my recent MoJo piece:

As Douglas Feith, the Pentagon’s undersecretary for policy, noted in a 2004 letter to the Washington Monthly, the initiative did not come from the Pentagon. “DoD learned from the White House that there were some Iranians who had information about terrorist threats to U.S. forces in Afghanistan and who wanted to defect,” Feith wrote. “It turned out that the Iranians did not want to defect, but they did want to share information directly with the U.S. Government. The Iranians did not, however, want to deal with the CIA.”

So Gorba calls Ledeen, Ledeen calls Hadley, Hadley tasks the Pentagon, and voila. (How Gorba really got hooked up with Weldon is another matter). Meantime, there's something about both handoffs that kind of echo in the latest Weldon-Hoekstra-Santorum Iraq in WMD claims. Check out Spencer's piece.

NYT: Administration urges Congress to give detainees fewer rights, after all:

A day after saying that terror suspects had a right to protections under the Geneva Conventions, the Bush administration said Wednesday that it wanted Congress to pass legislation that would limit the rights granted to detainees.

The earlier statement had been widely interpreted as a retreat, but testimony to Congress by administration lawyers on Wednesday made clear that the picture was more complicated.

Israel strikes Beirut international airport runways and Hezbollah's al-Manar television.

Chris Nelson:

Events are happening in the US/China/Russia negotiations on Iran and N. Korea faster than analysts can keep up...but clearly there is something which may amount to a “grand bargain” now in play. Whether either the Iranians or N. Koreans are IN on the play remains to be seen, of course...and immediate US, and Japanese reaction to the N. Korea part of the ploy is mixed.

First, on Iran, with the G-8 in Russia starting soon, Russia and China seem to have concluded that Tehran’s leadership is dangerous, and that strong action at the UN, as urged by the US and EU, is warranted. Russia and China seem to have agreed to start a process at the UN which could lead to sanctions...if not military action...and so to an absolute reversal of their prior positions, and a clear threat to their previously expressed economic and strategic interests.

But for now, at least, Russia and China apparently are prepared to demand that Iran agree to an immediate freeze of all its nuclear activities...something Iran (confident of being protected from sanctions by Russia and China) has repeatedly said it would not do.

What’s going on behind the curtain?

It may be that Iran is being traded for N. Korea, in the mind of China, at least, if not also Russia. Simultaneously with the stunning announcement in Paris on Iran, Chinese and Russian diplomats in New York, at the UN, announced what on the surface is another major compromise from their past positions...that they now will support a UNSC resolution on N. Korea. ...

NYT: Russia, China Support Sanctions Threat for Iran. "Still, another European official said, the statement was a watershed — 'the first time Russia and China have agreed to go to the Security Council under Chapter 7.'”

CQ: Phase II ETA update.

Yossi Klein Halevi in TNR: "The next Middle East war ... has begun. ... Ultimately, though, Israel's antagonists won't be Hamas and Hezbollah but their patrons, Iran and Syria. The war will go on for months, perhaps several years. ... The goals of the war should be the destruction of the Hamas regime and the dismantling of the Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon. Israel cannot coexist with Iranian proxies pressing in on its borders. ..."

Much anticipation of Spencer Ackerman's forthcoming article at TNR on intelligence committee chairman Peter Hoekstra and his apparent charge that members of the US intelligence community who leak are conspiring with al Qaeda. I have a lot of additional questions on this, including questions about whether Hoekstra is also concerned about the long list of senior US officials who have demonstrated their willingness to leak classified information, including the former ranking Republican on the Senate Intel committee, Richard Shelby (see "Investigators concluded Shelby Leaked Message," Washington Post, August 5, 2004). Does the chairman question Shelby's loyalty to the United States? And if not, why not?

It seems that the situation is escalating terribly and fast in the Middle East. Amos Harel: "Israel prepares for a wide military escalation." More from Greg Djerejian.

Howard Kurtz: Novak acknowledges identifying his confidential sources on Plame. And he had three sources, one who he still won't publicly name, who is described as a "senior administration official," who has never publicly revealed himself.

Syndicated columnist Robert Novak acknowledged for the first time today that he identified three confidential administration sources during testimony in the CIA leak investigation, saying he did so because they had granted him legal waivers to testify and because special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald already knew of their role.

In a column to be published on Thursday, Novak said he told Fitzgerald in early 2004 that White House senior adviser Karl Rove and then-CIA spokesman Bill Harlow had confirmed for him, at his request, information about CIA operative Valerie Plame. Novak said he also told Fitzgerald about another senior administration official who originally provided him with the information about Plame, and whose identity he says he cannot reveal even now.

"I'm still constrained as a reporter," Novak said in an interview. "It was not on the record, and he has never revealed himself as being the source, and until he does I don't feel I should."

There's another angle to this. Guess what is the source of the documents recently promoted by Congressmen Hoekstra, Weldon and Senator Santorum, on the 500 buried, 20 year old chemical munitions in Iraq? The Army National Ground Intelligence Center (the NGIC), where Mitchell Wade's MZM got its start, by, as Walter Pincus has reported, hiring relatives of top NGIC officials, and then the NGIC officials themselves.

From Steve Aftergood's blog today:

... Coincidentally, Michael Sulick, one of the members of the supposed anti-Bush "cabal" at CIA named by Rep. Hoekstra, is the author of a colorful new first-person account of a CIA initiative to establish relations with Lithuania in 1991 when the Soviet Union fell.

See "As the USSR Collapsed: A CIA Officer in Lithuania" by Michael J. Sulick, Studies in Intelligence, vol. 50, no. 2, 2006:

http://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/vol50no2/html_files/CIA_Lithuania_1.htm

AP: "U.S. will give Guantanamo detainees Geneva rights."

The Bush administration said Tuesday that all detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in U.S. military custody everywhere are entitled to protections under the Geneva Conventions.

White House spokesman Tony Snow said the policy, outlined in a new Defense Department memo, reflects the recent 5-3 Supreme Court decision blocking military tribunals set up by President Bush. That decision struck down the tribunals because they did not obey international law and had not been authorized by Congress.

The policy, described in a memo by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, appears to reverse the administration's earlier insistence that the detainees are not prisoners of war and thus subject to the Geneva protections.

Word of the Bush administration's new stance came as the Senate Judiciary Committee opened hearings Tuesday on the politically charged issue of how detainees should be treated. [...]

"It's not really a reversal of policy," Snow asserted, calling the Supreme Court decision "complex."

Snow may not be totally misleading on that point. TNR's Spencer Ackerman writes in an email, "You’ll notice the loophole is *DOD* custody. Nothing about CIA custody. There, in the black sites, there is no Geneva." More here. ReddHedd is liveblogging the Hamdan hearings, now on C-Span 3.

One of Iran's leading dissidents is headed to the US, and he won't be meeting with the Bush administration, the NY Sun reports. Instead, Akbar Ganji hopes to meet Noam Chomsky and Kofi Annan.

More from Italy: Libero's vice director Renato Farina confesses to having worked for Sismi since 1999. He was paid by Sismi 30,000 Euros in two years. Started as an agent in Serbia in 1999 where he apparently negotiated with Milosevic; according to this, he actually helped push for Nicolo Pollari to become Sismi director. Astonishing.

We now have more evidence that Farina's article in August 2004 saying the French ran Niger forgeries middleman Rocco Martino was part of a paid Sismi disinformation campaign. Because Sismi and its director Pollari were truly desperate to keep the truth of Sismi's role in the forgeries from coming out. That desperate. Can you imagine?

Renato Farina

Paul Kiel has solved the mystery of the nature of the administration intelligence programs about which Intel committee chairman Peter Hoekstra has expressed concern about not being briefed. The answer, apparently: Defense Department programs to hunt for Iran-Iraq war-era chemical weapons buried in Iraq. And the whistleblower source who brought the programs to Hoekstra's attention: Congressman Weldon's would-have-been Iraq WMD search partner Dave Gaubatz, until Weldon and Gaubatz reportedly had a falling-out. Why the administration has been reluctant to discuss the programs to Hoekstra's satisfaction is not clear; it's not obvious the intel committee is the proper jurisdiction for oversight of a defense department force protection operation, even if classified and codenamed. According to press coverage from a recent briefing at DNI Negroponte's office, the weapons are leftovers from the Iran-Iraq war which ended in 1988, so the administration probably couldn't score too many political points off of their discovery, if that ever possibly crossed anybody's mind; thirdly, they might pose a risk to US troops in Iraq (and Iraqis), if they got in the wrong hands, according to testimony by the DIA director a couple weeks back (he also indicated whoever handled them would also be vulnerable). Most striking now is it seems the administration would just like this issue to be dropped, while the Russian foreign minister seemed to enjoy teasing Secretary of State Rice about it last month.

Update: Former civilian inspector and Arab linguist Gaubatz tells Paul he's the "whistleblower" who revealed the major program about which Hoekstra had previously been unaware. Hoekstra's spokesperson hints it's not Gaubatz. Talk about twenty questions. Might the congressman have anticipated that his leaked letter to the NYT, the WaPo and appearance yesterday on Fox declaring darkly the White House may be in violation of the law by not reporting certain major intelligence activities, would generate a degree of curiosity and concern?

It's also worth pointing out that a couple weeks back, I was told by a Republican Hill source with direct knowledge that the person who originally brought the "non-governmental source" with the recent "WMD in Iraq" claims to Hoekstra's attention was Barbara Ledeen, the director of coalitions at the National Republican Senatorial committee, headed by Sen. Santorum; calls to Santorum's office inquiring about that were not returned. (The strange thing is, when I spoke to Gaubatz after learning this, he said he had written Hoekstra independently, and first spoken to him by telephone on a conference call that was held in Weldon's office. He couldn't recall Barbara Ledeen at all. Which perhaps bolsters evidence that there's another source on the claims in the mix. Perhaps this fellow, former FBI translator William Tierney, who handed off some tapes to Hoekstra?) I suspect the trail to this whole saga runs through the people behind the "Intelligence Summit" chaired by John Loftus earlier this year, in which Loftus presented Gaubatz's and Tierney's claims as a major find. Several US government-connected people reportedly dropped out of the conference at the last minute, reportedly under the orders of DNI Negroponte, with whom Hoekstra seems to have a continuing gripe. Previous incarnations of the Intel summit have included Barbara Ledeen's husband on the advisory board.

So here's a question worth pursuing. Was one of Hoekstra's sources Mr. Tierney, described in this NY Sun piece as having handed off to Hoekstra tapes of Saddam? (More on Tierney here from the National Review's Byron York, sent by a reader).

And is the administration really such a monolithe in wishing these claims would go away, or are these congressmen with their ranting the administration is keeping them in the dark and ignoring these whistleblowers' claims actually doing some well known personnage in the White House a big favor? Keeping the myth alive among some small percentage of the population that might otherwise stay home come November? Does one doubt for a minute that Rove sleeps better at night for their efforts?

(This post has been updated).

Killing and violence continue today in Baghdad.

Hoekstra on Fox clarifies his concerns about unreported intelligence activities, and only adds to the alarm:

The White House possibly broke the law by keeping intelligence activities a secret from the lawmakers responsible for overseeing them, the House Intelligence Committee chairman said Sunday.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., said he was informed about the programs by whistleblowers in the intelligence community and then asked the Bush administration about the programs, using code names. Hoekstra said members of the House and Senate intelligence committees then were briefed on the programs, which he said is required by law.

“We can’t be briefed on every little thing that they are doing,” Hoekstra said. “But in this case, there was at least one major — what I consider significant activity that we have not been briefed on. I want to set the standard there that it is not optional for this president or any president or people in the executive community not to keep the intelligence committees fully informed of what they are doing,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Tom Maguire is perhaps correct to say it's a leap that this concerns domestic intelligence. Perhaps it does, perhaps not. But what is the "major" "significant" intelligence activity that Hoekstra says he has learned about from whistleblowers, not from the White House? Under what authority was the head of the House intelligence committee not briefed of a major intelligence activity undertaken by the administration? And where are Hoekstra's Senate intel committee counterparts? Jane Harman? Were they briefed? And why is Hoekstra making sure his concerns are coming to light now in the Post, the NYT and Fox? Is something about to break?

More from the Post.

Update: Here's the NYT. "Mr. Hoekstra and other officials would not discuss the nature of the undisclosed intelligence programs. But officials have said he was not referring to the National Security Agency's wiretapping operation or to the Treasury Department's bank monitoring program, both of which he was informed about. Mr. Hoekstra made clear on Sunday that he was particularly troubled by the failure to notify the Intelligence Committee of one particular major program. [...] In talks with the administration, the committee 'asked by code name what some of these programs' were, Mr. Hoekstra said. [...] Officials said in interviews last week that the administration had briefed the House Intelligence Committee at least twice in recent weeks, after Mr. Hoekstra's letter, to discuss details of the previously undisclosed programs. But some committee members say they remain wary that the administration is continuing to withhold information." More speculation here.

Italy wins World Cup 5-3 in the penalty phase. Update: A great piece on the match.

Corriere delicately points out a little inconsistency in journalist-Sismi spy Renato Farina's confession that "I helped Sismi spy on the Milan prosecutor, but I did it to protect Christian Italy from Islamic jihad" defense. That Farina didn't do it for patriotism alone, but for 7,500 Euros in payments from Sismi whose receipts the Italian police discovered in a secret Sismi apartment last week and details of which the Italian papers have now published. So much for love and patriotism, Farina wouldn't do it without $10,000 payment. And as Corriere points out, Farina's defender in Il Foglio publisher and Berlusconi buddy Giuliano Ferrara might look unfavorably if it turned out the journalists publishing stories about the Milan prosecutor's investigation were taking money from him, right? With the exception of Ferrara, even Farina's Italian colleagues on the center-right such as at Corriere don't seem to be sympathetic to his excuses for covertly working on Sismi's payroll while taking his full salary from Libero.

Two calls for the press "to rise to the occasion" in the face of bullying, from the nation's top journalism deans and Frank Rich.

I will say this, it is staggering to see what a press that doesn't pull punches coupled with an independent Milan prosecutor have managed to unearth in Italy -- a full fledged politicized domestic intelligence operation complete with a Roman batcave apartment of archived illegally tapped phone calls and disinformation dossiers, paid spies, and spying on journalists directed against Sismi's and Berlusconi's perceived domestic political enemies. And there too they had a do-nothing parliamentary oversight committee and timid and intimidated politicians, endless invocations of "state secrecy" and national security, and a public that seemed capable of being manipulated, terrorized, and spun into apathy and resignation. But it's all coming unraveled, finally.

Update: eRiposte has a helpful summary of the Italian case revelations so far.

Update II: A commenter at Washington Monthly suggests that, perhaps La Repubblica can open a US branch. We would already appear to have the equivalent of Renato Farina.

Corriere della Sera: Sismi director Nicolo Pollari was informed. And Corriere publishes the transcripts of the wiretaps of Pollari discussing with his press advisor Pio Pompa the use of a "journalist" (Libero's Renato Farina, aka Betulla) to spy on the Abu Omar prosecutor Armando Spataro, in order to direct what seems an all out Sismi conspiracy to obstruct justice. It seems likely that Pollari is not only going to have to resign, but will be indicted.

More here.

NYT:

In a sharply worded letter to President Bush in May, an important Congressional ally charged that the administration might have violated the law by failing to inform Congress of some secret intelligence programs and risked losing Republican support on national security matters.

The letter from Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, did not specify the intelligence activities that he believed had been hidden from Congress.

But Mr. Hoekstra, who was briefed on and supported the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program and the Treasury Department's tracking of international banking transactions, clearly was referring to programs that have not been publicly revealed.

Recently, after the harsh criticism from Mr. Hoekstra, intelligence officials have appeared at two closed committee briefings to answer questions from the chairman and other members. The briefings appear to have eased but not erased the concerns of Mr. Hoekstra and other lawmakers about whether the administration is sharing information on all of its intelligence operations.

A copy of the four-page letter dated May 18, which has not been previously disclosed, was obtained by The New York Times.

"I have learned of some alleged intelligence community activities about which our committee has not been briefed," Mr. Hoesktra wrote. "If these allegations are true, they may represent a breach of responsibility by the administration, a violation of the law, and, just as importantly, a direct affront to me and the members of this committee who have so ardently supported efforts to collect information on our enemies."

He added: "The U.S. Congress simply should not have to play Twenty Questions to get the information that it deserves under our Constitution."

Here's Hoekstra's letter (.pdf) and some analysis from the Next Hurrah's Empty Wheel.

La Stampa. Libero deputy director, Renato Farina: "I confess, I gave a hand to Sismi." But it wasn't quite philanthropy. As Repubblica has reported, in Milan prosecutors' hands are the receipts for the payments from Sismi Farina -- a.k.a. "Fonte Betulla" (birch tree) -- accepted for his covert hand to Italy's military intelligence organization in its efforts to keep tabs on the Milan prosecutor's investigation into the Abu Omar rendition.

What does this mean about Farina's other journalism work? How extensive or longstanding was his arrangement with Sismi? And what was Sismi under Pollari so eager to protect that it needed to employ such tactics, which are illegal in Italy? Was it only Sismi's apparent participation in the Abu Omar rendition? Or other matters?

Here's the top of Farina's open letter on the front page of his paper Libero. More here and here. If I understand half of them, the transcripts in the latter piece seem pretty damning to Sismi director Nicolo Pollari, in terms of documentary evidence of his (Pollari's) being directly involved in the alleged cover up/obstruction of justice, including in the use of Libero's Farina as a paid spy on Milan prosecutor Spataro.

Update: A third Sismi official arrested. A friend in Rome sends 'breaking news':

Mancini’s right hand man, Giuseppe Ciorra, was put under investigation, suspected of having arranged reservations for some of the hit squad. [...]

The Italian government through the Minister of Interior has declared that the State Secrecy Act will not be invoked.

The Minister of Justice, Clemente Mastella, declared that he will not sign any requests for extradition to American authorities. ...

WP: "US and Russia to enter civilian nuclear pact" the top headline announces. (Anyone remember how the last season of 24 began?)

I think Paul Kiel and Justin Rood could have some fun with this (from deep down in today's Post piece about Abramoff's half dozen visits to the White House):

Among those with whom Abramoff met in the spring of 2001 was Cesar Conda, then assistant to the vice president for domestic policy, and Catharine Ryun, executive assistant to the director of the faith-based office and daughter of Rep. Jim Ryun (R-Kan.).

Didn't Paul discover a few months back that Jim Ryun had bought a Capital Hill townhouse under market price from the Buckham's US Family Network charity, and turned it around quickly for a nice little profit? Is Ryun wired into the White House faith based programs in a way we didn't know before? Was it previously known that Ryun's daughter worked for the White House? 'nother question. Did the US Family Network ever get "faith-based" White House/US government funds? How much of a slush fund was it? And just out of curiosity, I'd be interested to know how many close relatives of members of the House and Senate work in the White House. There's got to be more than a few?

If I am reading this right, it looks like Libero deputy editor Renato Farina -- Sismi codename Betulla, "birch tree" -- did take about $10,000 dollars in Euro payment from Sismi. As Repubblica's Carlo Bonini goes through the bank deposit receipts to Betulla (and don't trust my translation too much), he comments, "the vice director of Libero does not do this work for free." The receipts were seized by Italy's Digos in a search earlier this week of an address at Rome's 230 via Nazionale, the mysterious apartment rented by the Sismi director's press advisor Pio Pompa for disinformation and domestic spying operations.

("Cominciamo da due ricevute di pagamento. La prima da 2.500 euro, la seconda da 5.000. Nella firma in calce ai due foglietti, una sigla leggibile: 'Betulla'. Quando si muove, il vicedirettore di 'Libero' non lo fa gratis. Anche per questo, le richieste che arrivano dal Direttore attraverso Pompa sono perentorie. Anche per questo le informazioni che 'Betulla' gira a via Nazionale sono tempestive, sollecite.")

Given some of Farina's other reporting, the extent of his relationship with Sismi is fascinating.

Update: Crooked Timber's and George Washington University's Henry Farrell provides a summary of the Repubblica/Bonini article referenced above:

First paragraphs - a lot of filler about [Sismi director Nicolo Pollari's press advisor] Pio Pompa’s background. The key point that the journalists want to establish is that he was Nicolo Pollari’s man. Pollari had brought him into SISMI proper (he had previously been a consultant and a contract professor at the university of Teramo, which I’ve never heard of). The only person who he spoke to on a daily basis in Fort Braschi was Pollari. While he had taken orders at one point from [arrested Sismi #2 Marco] Mancini, after Mancini’s disgrace he reported solely to the Director (Pollari) and on a regular basis. He reported to Pollari on May 23 that Betulla [the Sismi code name for Libero deputy director Renato Farina] had gone to Milan to be interviewed by the magistrates Monarici and Spataro who were working on the Abu Omar case.

He gave an update the same evening to Pollari, and obtained a list from Pollari of the journalists to meet in his office, or in a restaurant for lunch. These were for innocent geostrategic analyses, or for manipulated information to be used in disinformation campaigns.

There was paper everywhere - newspapers, printed paper, annotated manuscripts, working notes, accounts. The Digos (special police) took fifteen hours to take dozens of boxes of “material of information” in their raid. It will take weeks to figure it out, but two things leap out.

We can begin with two receipts for payment. The first was for 2,500 euro, the second for 5,000. In the carbon copy signatures on the two pieces of paper, there is a readable signature: “Betulla.” When he does something, the vice-editor of “Libero” doesn’t do it for free.

Furthermore, the requests that arrived at the Director through Pompa were peremptory. And to boot, the information that Betulla sent to Via Nazionale was timely and prompt. The last was some weeks ago. Spataro had left Milan to go directly to New York for a conference organized by New York University. For “Betulla,” who didn’t know anything about what was happening, neither that his phone was tapped nor that the arrest warrants for Mancini and Pignero were under review by GIP, this was a signal that the inquiry “was closed.” “Betulla” reported it, Pompa annotated it, Pollari was informed.”

The method was always the same, and there is a paper trail for everything. The testimony of “Betulla” to the magistrates provoked hilarity - Betulla pretended not to know who Abu Omar was. Pompa received a written account of the meeting, as well as something from the editor of Libero, Claudio Antonelli. By May 24, the two pieces of paper were in Via Nazionale.

During the examination, a personal dossier on Edmondo Bruti Liberati, who was then secretary of the National Association of Magistrates, and is now joint magistrate in Milan lieped foward. In this dossier were various notes on his orientation and on the possible moves that the magistrates might make as watchdogs of the new Berslusconi government.

In one filing box, four anonymous letters have been kept, of those which flooded the editors’ desks in all the main Italian dailies between March and April. Trash letters composed of little slanders and sometimes little truths, which should have served to redirect the attention of journalists who were following the Abu Omar affair away from the inquiry, and perhaps, contributed to intoxicating them.

In a wardrobe, a little box with the “Nigergate dossier” peeps out. For more than one year, government communiques have claimed that the stories in La Repubblica were false ... The little box demonstrates that SISMI has been obsessed with this affair in which it is embroiled hand and foot, and from which it doesn’t know how to extract itself. This too was a “task” commissioned by the Director. Just like the campaign of attack on La Repubblica that Pompa, as part of his job, conducted and supervised through “friendly” journalists at the Giornale, at Unita, at Libero, at Riformista, at Panorama. All ground out by the disinformation factory at Via Nazionale 230.

The same is true of a false claim on the first of June that there was a EU-US agreement signed by Romano Prodi as President of the Commission that made possible extraordinary renditions, and thus the kidnapping of Abu Omar. It’s going to take a lot of time to go through the monumental heap of dossiers. Might it be that the intercepted telephone calls of Giuseppe D’Avanzo are at via Nazionale? It is for sure that at Via Nazionale, Pompa reported on May 12 that the La Repubblica journalists were staying at Hotel Diana in Milan. When the Milan magistrates monitored the telephones of Marco Mancini, the disinformation factory was no longer a secret. Pompa can surely clear up what happened. On Wednesday, during the initial inquiry, he was said to be ready to “explain everything.” Yesterday morning he had changed his mind and was availing himself of his right to remain silent, according to Spataro.

The LAT focuses on the secret domestic intelligence operations revealed as a side show to the Italian investigation of the Abu Omar rendition. The Eurotribune's take on the exposure of the "deviant parallel service bent on manufacturing false information and dossiers" is worth reading as well. It was run out of a sixth floor rented apartment at 230 via Nazionale, a main street that runs near Rome's Termini train station, near the Piazza della Repubblica. The LAT describes the secret Sismi facility as an "archive" but reports I'm hearing from Rome is that it had an operational component as well.

The Italian press led by Repubblica has been reporting for months, but it is a detail you couldn't make up; that the best friend since childhood of the arrested Sismi #2 Marco Mancini is Giuliani Tavaroli, ex-chief of Telecom Italia security. Quite a useful friendship if your business is wiretapping your political enemies. No joke, Tavaroli is also now under investigation.

Check out Eurotribune's post on the secret SISMI facility in a rented Rome attic apartment that was used to create false dossiers, run disinformation operations, forge documents, etc. which was exposed by the Milan magistrate investigating the Abu Omar abduction yesterday. Eurotrib writes, "....The clandestine base was reportedly discovered, ironically, through wiretaps on a senior Sismi agent, General Gustavo Pignero, and the Chief of Sismi's First Division, Marco Mancino. Marco Mancino's name has turned up in the illegal wiretapping cases that dwarf NSA wiretapping by comparison. [...] According to reports, when the vice director of the Berlusconi daily Libero, Renato Farina, asked for an interview with the Public Ministers, Armando Spataro and Ferdinando Pomarici, over the Abu Omar case, Spataro was warned by the Digos that Farina had been engaged to spy on him by Pio Pompa, Sismi agent in charge of press relations for Pollari. It is Pio Pompa who had rented out the flat in Via Nazionale. It did not take long for the Milan investigators to discover and understand the significance of the flat. ... "

La Stampa reports on the alleged key evidence on the participation in the Abu Omar extraordinary rendition by former Sismi number two Marco Mancini, who was arrested yesterday. Ironically enough, given Mancini's being accused of illegally listening into the phone calls of Repubblica investigative journalists, it is contained in an intercepted phone call in which Mancini reportedly confesses having participated in the operation that until now Sismi and officials from the ex-Berlusconi government have denied knowing anything about.

I can understand just enough of this to see that Repubblica's Giuseppe d'Avanzo makes a case that Sismi under Pollari has become something like a criminal enterprise; a friend summarizes: "It criticizes Pollari for always not knowing about everthing that goes on around him. [Sismi's number two official Marco] Mancini by law was to inform him. If Mancini didn't, Mancini violated the law. If Pollari was informed he violated the law. If Pollari didn't know he has no business being head of the services." It seems that Pollari is likely going to have to offer his resignation; whether Prodi will accept, would be another question.

What intrigues me is the evidence d'Avanzo lays out here that Libero's Renato Farina, Sismi code-name Betulla -- "birch tree" -- was wittingly used as part of a full fledged Sismi disinformation operation, complete with a secret Sismi rented facility at Rome's 230 via Nazionale for that purpose, under the control of Sismi's number two official arrested yesterday, Marco Mancini. "Come di nulla si deve essere accorto, Pollari, dell' 'agenzia di disinformazione e dossieraggio' che un funzionario del Sismi, sotto la supervisione di Marco Mancini (intanto diventato direttore del controspionaggio) ha organizzato in un 'ufficio riservato' al 230 di via Nazionale a Roma. L'appartamento è all'attico. Da quell'attico, il funzionario controlla un giornalista, 'fonte Betulla', che offre 'appunti riservati' sulle indagini di Milano. È illegale, per il servizio segreto, ingaggiare giornalisti." [Translation from Crooked Timber's Henry Farrell: "Just as Pollari must not have noticed anything about the 'disinformation and dossier-making agency' that a SISMI functionary, under the supervision of Marco Mancini (who had become director of counter-espionage in the meantime) organized in a 'secret office' at 230, Via Nazionale in Rome. The apartment was in the attic. From this attic, the functionary supervised a journalist, the 'Betulla source,' who offered 'confidential notes' on the Milan investigation. It is illegal for the secret service to hire journalists. ..."]

Amazing to see the actual alleged extent of the Sismi disinformation and interception operation, details which are now apparently in the hands of Milan prosecutors. Amazing and distracting as those details are, the larger potential implication of this arrangement is important and shouldn't be lost: the official cover story for the Italian government -- one put forward by Sismi, the Berlusconi government and seemingly accepted by the Italian parliamentary services oversight committee -- that the Niger forgeries middleman, ex Sismi agent Rocco Martino, was under the control and run by the French at the time of the forgeries caper, was first promoted by a "journalist" -- Renato Farina -- who the Milan magistrates now have wiretap evidence agreed to help Sismi put out disinformation on the Abu Omar case. The extent of Farina's alleged disinformation operations for Sismi is a matter now under investigation.

Update: And also worth reading what a colleague writes from Italy today, "Do you know that [Repubblica investigative journalist] Giuseppe D'Avanzo was spied by Sismi? It's official (we all imagined it, but now there is an official act of the Milanese court). Incredible." It is incredible. And are there correlaries for the States? When the government finds its biggest preoccupation are the journalists trying to expose the truth, it seems the whole enterprise is pretty shaky.

(This post has been revised).

Via Justin Rood, Virginia Republican Tom Davis has signed off on a House Government Reform committee subpoena of Rumsfeld, concerning a case of alleged retaliation against an Army whistleblower on abuses at Abu Ghraib.

Sismi's #2 arrested. From a note from Crooked Timber's Henry Farrell, I see that La Repubblica is reporting that the Italian military intelligence organization's deputy director and director of the first "foreign" or counterintelligence division Marco Mancini has been arrested in Italy, allegedly for his role in the CIA extraordinary rendition of Egyptian cleric Abu Omar from Milan in 2003. When I was in Rome on a few recent reporting trips, Mancini was the guy who everybody was literally frightened of even saying his name. I mean literally, people just referred to him as Marco. He was highly involved in Sismi's Middle East affairs, as well, apparently, I am hearing from Rome, in several recent cases of illegal wiretapping and illegal domestic spying in Italy. Arrest warrants have apparently been issued in the same Abu Omar case for four more CIA officials as well, including for the former CIA station chief in Rome.

Repubblica and the AP report a second Italian intelligence officer has also been arrested. Repubblica names him as General Gustavo Pignero, and says he was the Sismi officer in charge of operations in northern Italy at the time of the Abu Omar abduction.

This is interesting as well:

Also as part of the investigation, the Milan offices of an Italian daily, Libero, were searched Wednesday by about a dozen police, who seized the computer of the newspaper's deputy editor, Renato Farina.

Farina has covered the case, and the newspaper said police were looking for information they thought had been leaked by the SISMI to the journalist.

In fact, on Sismi's behalf, Farina and Libero led the bogus charge that France was responsible for the Niger forgeries. Farina was also the beneficiary of illegal wiretaps seemingly conducted by friends of Sismi. Interesting times indeed.

From my brief exposure to politics there, I would say Mancini is far more comparable to a Lewis Libby figure than to his ex-CIA deputy director counterpart John McLaughlin, far more wired into the Byzantine politics of the Berlusconi project than a straight intel professional. Although this arrest would seem to be lapping pretty high on the ankles of the ex-Berlusconi administration itself, a friend in Rome writes that it may not go any further, and Prodi is giving indications he may not wish it to, especially as far as Sismi is concerned.

More from Henry Farrell.

Update: A reader in Rome writes that Libero's Farina is "under investigation not for his articles but because he has allegedly been identified as a Sismi source code-named 'Betulla.' ... [Sismi's] Mancini and Pignero are suspected of having studied Abu Omar’s habits and having prepared an initial plan for his abduction which would have the airport of Ghedi as the first destination of Abu Omar after his kidnapping. The plan went otherwise, as Aviano was opted for. They are also accused of spying on Repubblica's Giuseppe D’Avanzo as of May 12th..."

If I understand this and other recent Italian news reports correctly, Mancini was allegedly a liaison to several private Italian dirty tricks intelligence operations. Some of the details of those dirty tricks wiretapping operations are described here. Farrell also translates a bit from today's Repubblica story, "Digos' agents also visited the home and office of a Telecom employee, but they haven't yet said why." One can only guess that extra-legally-ordered wiretapping may be part of the rationale for the visit. Also from the Repubblica piece, "The number two at Sismi, [Mancini], together with another functionary, had listened 'fraudulently' to outgoing calls from the cellphone of La Repubblica journalist Giuseppe d'Avanzo."

McCain/Jeb Bush ticket? So Reed Hundt hears in Aspen.

The much anticipated test of North Korea's intercontinental missile came and went -- sinking with a half-dozen test fired short- and mid-range Scuds into the Sea of Japan -- and as Ashton Carter says, "Hooray if it failed." Now what?

While the test itself was a sign of North Korea's defiance of the United States, for the administration, the outcome was as favorable as officials could have hoped for: the North's capacity was called into question, and the North's enigmatic leader, Kim Jong Il, has now put himself at odds with the two countries that have provided him aid, China and South Korea. [...]

The launching also makes it difficult for the South Koreans to continue their policy of providing aid and investment to the North, a program that has caused deep rifts with Washington. Administration officials said that Christopher R. Hill, the assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the main negotiator with North Korea, would leave for Asia on Wednesday, and that they expected him to use the launchings to try to bring South Korea and China into the fold on imposing some kind of sanctions.

At the same time, the launching is likely to strengthen the hand of hard-liners in the Bush administration who have long argued that the six-party talks were bound to fail. They now have what one American diplomat called "a clear runway" to press for a gradually escalating series of sanctions, which some officials clearly hope will bring down Mr. Kim's government.

But it is far from clear that China — which provides the North with its oil and much of its food — would go along with any move for sanctions. [...]

Wednesday's tests are likely to increase calls inside Japan to strengthen its missile defense efforts with the United States, and could increase support for hawkish candidates in the race to succeed Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who is scheduled to retire in September.

More from the Post.

Allam/Landay: Iran pushing to retain limited enrichment program under IAEA supervision. US not likely to budge.

John Yoo thinks the Supreme Court Hamdan v. Rumsfeld decision is far-reaching, and he is not happy about it.

The whole Meet the Press transcript is worth reading. Also, David Remnick:

...In the era of the Pentagon Papers, a war-weary White House went to the courts to stifle the press. You begin to wonder if the Bush White House, in its urgent need to find scapegoats for the myriad disasters it has inflicted, is preparing to repeat a dismal and dismaying episode of the Nixon years.

Update: Nick Kristof too.

AP: "Western powers will reactivate efforts to punish Iran through possible U.N. Security Council sanctions unless it suspends uranium enrichment and agrees to talks on its nuclear program by July 12, diplomats said Monday."

Waas' latest.

Mahmudiya arrest. "Prosecutors said the defendant was discharged from the Army 'due to a personality disorder' before the March 12 incident came to light. An affidavit filed in connection with the charges raises the possibility that others will be charged, since the document states that 'members' of the 101st Airborne Division killed the Iraqis and that 'the same individuals' raped and killed one of the women."

Check out Siobhan Gorman's piece on the NSA's vulnerability to hacker attacks, and failed efforts to update its information security systems.

Seymour Hersh: the war over the Iran war in the Pentagon.

Meet the Press. Via Crooks and Liars:

emailer: On Meet the Press this morning, Washington Post reporter Dana Priest snap[ped] back at Bill Bennett. She said it is not a crime to disclose classified information and then went on to say that people would like to make casino gambling against the law, but it is not illegal. Bill Bennett, who has previously admitted a gambling problem, sat in stunned silence like he had just been punched hard in the stomach. It was a classic moment...

C&L has the video.

Bloomberg:

The U.S. National Security Agency asked AT&T Inc. to help it set up a domestic call monitoring site seven months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, lawyers claimed June 23 in court papers filed in New York federal court.

The allegation is part of a court filing adding AT&T, the nation's largest telephone company, as a defendant in a breach of privacy case filed earlier this month on behalf of Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. customers. The suit alleges that the three carriers, the NSA and President George W. Bush violated the Telecommunications Act of 1934 and the U.S. Constitution, and seeks money damages.

``The Bush Administration asserted this became necessary after 9/11,'' plaintiff's lawyer Carl Mayer said in a telephone interview. ``This undermines that assertion.'' [...]

The NSA initiative, code-named ``Pioneer Groundbreaker,'' asked AT&T unit AT&T Solutions to build exclusively for NSA use a network operations center which duplicated AT&T's Bedminster, New Jersey facility, the court papers claimed. That plan was abandoned in favor of the NSA acquiring the monitoring technology itself, plaintiffs' lawyers Bruce Afran said.

The NSA says on its Web site that in June 2000, the agency was seeking bids for a project to ``modernize and improve its information technology infrastructure.'' The plan, which included the privatization of its ``non-mission related'' systems support, was said to be part of Project Groundbreaker.

Mayer said the Pioneer project is ``a different component'' of that initiative.

Mayer and Afran said an unnamed former employee of the AT&T unit provided them with evidence that the NSA approached the carrier with the proposed plan. Afran said he has seen the worker's log book and independently confirmed the source's participation in the project. He declined to identify the employee.

So the "NSA warrantless domestic surveillance program" would actually seem to consist of multiple programs, at least some of which were begun months before September 11th. Indeed, from the public request for proposal cited above, some of these programs were begun in 2000, during the previous administration.

The editors of the LAT and NYT defend the recently embattled principle of the public's right to know. And they mention some stories they have chosen to hold. More here and here.

Domestic spying on peace groups in California by the state office of homeland security, the LAT reports. And this interesting detail:

... Past and present members of the attorney general's office said they were troubled by a meeting at the security office last September in which federal and state officials discussed ways to prevent Islamic militants from recruiting prison inmates. In attendance were officials from the FBI, the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and various local law enforcement agencies, according to documents obtained by The Times.

One account of the meeting is provided in a whistle-blower complaint filed by a former high-ranking official in the attorney general's office, Edward Manavian.

The complaint says homeland security information analyst William Hipsley proposed monitoring private conversations in state prisons between inmates and Islamic clergymen and, citing a potential national security threat from Iran, getting a list of Iranians living in California.

State law makes it a felony to eavesdrop on conversations between a person in custody and his attorney, doctor or religious advisor.

This excerpt jumped out at me because in the course of researching various state and local CT programs a few years ago I met Manavian who strikes one as a total law and order type, hardly of the type one would traditionally expect to become a whistleblower. A former cop and counter-narcotics officer, he directed the CATIC (California Anti Terrorism Information Center) out of the California AG's office; the CATIC itself drew criticism for allegedly compiling intel reports on other domestic protests a few years ago. The fact that he's blowing the whistle on these alleged abuses really stands out.

Secondly, the fact that the California homeland security office allegedly considered compiling a database of all Iranians in the state is also striking. Is ethnic background alone enough to warrant such scrutiny by the government? Manavian has gone on the record in the past saying specifically it's not enough to warrant law enforcement scrutiny. From the Oakland Trib in May 2003:

The center [CATIC] draws $6.7 million a year in state funds to prevent terrorism. Analysts must obey one federal rule to limit the intelligence they gather, analyze and disseminate: It must have a criminal predicate, a "reasonable suspicion" that criminal acts will be committed.

"If there's no criminal predicate we would not issue the information on anyone. That's the rules and we abide by that," said CATIC director Ed Manavian.

And Manavian does not seem to be the only one voicing concerns.

Allen Benitez, assistant chief of the attorney general's criminal intelligence bureau, had told one of his bosses in a memo April 18 that the security office was gathering information on "political groups" and protests. He voiced concerns that such tracking "may not be allowed under the law."

(This post has been updated).

Mahmudiya:

Investigators believe a group of U.S. soldiers suspected of raping an Iraqi woman, then killing her and three members of her family plotted the attack for nearly a week, a U.S. military official said Saturday.

Up to five soldiers are being investigated in the March killings, the fifth pending case involving alleged slayings of Iraqi civilians by U.S. troops.

The Americans entered the Sunni Arab’s family home, separated three males from the woman, raped her and burned her body using a flammable liquid in a cover-up attempt, a military official close to the investigation said. The three males were also slain.

The soldiers had studied their victims for about a week and the attack was “totally premeditated,” the official said on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing. [...]

One soldier was arrested after admitting his role in the alleged attack on the family, the official said on condition of anonymity because the case was under way. The official said the rape and killings appeared to have been a “crime of opportunity,” noting that the soldiers had not been attacked by insurgents but had noticed the woman on previous patrols. [...]

One of the family members they allegedly killed was a child, said a senior Army official who also requested anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. The senior official said the alleged incident was first revealed by a soldier during a routine counseling-type session. The official said that soldier did not witness the incident but heard about it.

A second soldier, who also was not involved, said he overhead soldiers conspiring to commit the crimes and then later saw bloodstains on their clothes, the official said.

The alleged rape and massacre of the family occurred in March, a few months before two privates from the same unit allegedly involved, the 502nd Infantry Regiment, were ambushed, kidnapped and beheaded. The WP adds:

Another local resident, Sadeq Muhammed al-Janabi, a farmer, said the woman who was raped and killed was an elementary school teacher.

In mid-June, two other members of the same brigade were abducted, their bodies later found mutilated in the town of Yusufiyah, near Mahmudiyah. The soldiers under investigation for the killings in Mahmudiyah were from the same platoon as those later abducted and killed, the AP reported, citing an account provided by an unnamed official with the unit who said the incidents were unrelated. Platoons usually number about 40 soldiers.

The AP, whose reporter was embedded with the 502nd in early June, also reported Friday that at least one soldier had confessed to involvement in the alleged crimes and was motivated to come forward when his fellow soldiers were kidnapped and murdered.

WP: "Republicans yesterday looked to wrest a political victory from a legal defeat in the Supreme Court, serving notice to Democrats that they must back President Bush on how to try suspects at Guantanamo Bay or risk being branded as weak on terrorism. [...] A senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the issue is still being debated internally, seemed to hint at the potential political implications in Congress. 'Members of both parties will have to decide whether terrorists who cherish the killing of innocents deserve the same protections as our men and women who wear the uniform,' this official said."

WP's Walter Pincus: "Do the 20-year-old Iraqi chemical munitions found by U.S. and coalition forces support the prewar contention that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and justify the invasion of Iraq?" More here. Jane Harman, "The real news here is that this report was essentially declassified on demand. Selective declassification for partisan purposes undermines the integrity, and the safety, of the men and women in the intelligence community. The intelligence community is supposed to speak truth to power. It’s not the IC’s job to provide political cover for the Republican Party."