Feces Change the Face of Gaza

At IPSnews.net, Mohammed Omer reports:

A stream of dark and putrid sludge snakes through Gaza's streets. It is a noxious mix of human and animal waste. The stench is overwhelming. The occasional passer-by vomits.

Over recent days this has been a more common sight than the sale of food on the streets of Gaza, choked by a relentless Israeli siege.

Hundreds of thousands of Gazans, almost all of its able male adults among a population of 1.5 million, crossed over into Egypt last week to buy essential provisions - and a new lease of life. That has staved off starvation. But streets continue as sewers.

The rain has not helped. The sludge has spread, and the stench with it. Starved of timely income and essential supplies, municipal services have all but ceased.

"The smell," says Ayoub al-Saifi, 56, grimacing as he holds a handkerchief over his nose and mouth. "The stench of the sewage ... my wife has asthma, and she can't breathe."

Saifi lives next to what has become a newly formed pool of waste. This used to be the street leading to home. "It's getting worse day by day," says neighbour Said Ammar, an engineer, and father of four.

The sewage treatment plant in al-Zaytoun neighbourhood in Gaza City requires 20,000 litres of fuel a day. Last week Israel ceased delivery of all fuel and supplies to Gaza. The consequences have been catastrophic.

Without fuel to pump it away, the waste backs up, flooding the streets and clogging the plumbing. The local ministry of health has declared this an environmental catastrophe.

Doctors have warned that a medical catastrophe could follow by way of spread of cholera and other diseases. That is at a time when not even life-saving medical services are on offer any more.

"We have to choose between cutting the electricity on babies in the maternity ward, cutting it to heart patients, or shutting down our operating rooms," says Dr. Mawia Hasaneen, director of emergency at al-Shifa Hospital, the largest in Gaza.

The World Health Organisation released a statement Jan. 22 warning of serious health difficulties arising in Gaza Strip, isolated by the Israeli siege, the Egyptian border and the Mediterranean Sea.

"Frequent electricity cuts and the limited power available to run hospital generators are of particular concern, as they disrupt the functioning of intensive care units, operating theatres, and emergency rooms," the WHO said. "In the central pharmacy, power shortages have interrupted refrigeration of perishable medical supplies, including vaccine."

Christine McNab, acting director in the communications department in Geneva adds that "our current concerns are about the supply of electricity to health facilities, the ability to move medical supplies into the region, and the ability of people to seek care outside of Gaza."

McNab notes that even if the full blockade is lifted, additional measures would need to be taken by the international community against any further disruptions.

Israel has blocked off fuel and supplies to Gaza because it says it faces rocket attacks from the Palestinian area, which elected Hamas, the Palestinian party that does not recognise Israel.

Official Israeli sources say that about 150 homemade rockets have been fired from Gaza into Israel since Israel commenced this latest raid. Two Israelis have been slightly wounded and several others treated for shock.

Israel has retaliated with firing from tanks and attacks by F-16 aircraft firing Hellfire missiles into Gaza's neighbourhoods. At least 76 Palestinians have been killed, and another 293 injured since Jan. 1, officials here say.

Through the suffering, many Palestinians still do not blame Hamas.

"Hamas has never been the problem. The occupation has always been the big problem," says Ammar. He instead blames Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who administers the West Bank Palestinian area, and who has been in talks with Israel.

"Abbas doesn't deserve one percent of the respect that (former Palestinian leader Ysser) Arafat earned. Israel will never find someone as good as Arafat. He gave them a historical chance at two states. Yet despite this, they (Israel) laid siege to him."

Rajaa Shalil, 38, and mother of four in Rafah at the Egyptian border, says "my respect for Hamas has increased more than ever. I love them for their empathy for the weak."

But not all of Gaza's residents feel this way. "Both Israel and Hamas are the reason for this," says resident Abu Mohammed. "Before, we were all in better conditions, but since Hamas took over Gaza they have been unable to handle it."

In The Mideast, America Casts An Imperial Shadow

Yankee, Go Home

In the Washington Post, Rashid Khalidi* writes:

Most Americans think that our role as a world power began with World War II, the "good war," and then continued with the similarly noble Cold War. We like to think that the United States acts in the world exclusively in the name of ideals such as freedom and democracy.

So it may come as a bit of a shock to learn that the United States has had an uninterrupted military presence in the Middle East for 65 years, dating to 1942. Most Americans would also bristle at the idea that this presence, from the arrival of GIs in North Africa onward, has essentially become a continuation of nearly a century and a half of European military adventures in the region. But history shows a disturbing continuity between what the European colonial powers did in the Middle East, starting with Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798, and what the United States is now doing in Iraq and elsewhere. Indeed, the United States has managed in a few short years to do more damage in the region than did the hated colonial powers that were finally driven out only a few decades ago.

Of course, the European powers did not stint in their use of force in the Middle East. As Juan Cole of the University of Michigan has shown, Napoleon's troops savagely repressed Egyptian resistance even while the French proclaimed the ideals of their Revolution. Aerial bombing of civilians was pioneered by the Italians in Libya in 1911, perfected by the British in Iraq in 1920 and used by the French in 1925 to level whole quarters of Syrian cities. Home demolitions, collective punishment, summary execution, detention without trial, routine torture -- these were the weapons of Europe's takeover.

But Britain and France understood that naked power was not enough to achieve lasting imperial control. They learned that they also needed expertise, a knowledge of local languages and culture, and some form of indirect rule that eventually removed their military forces from direct contact with the local population. And although they faced decades of stubborn resistance in an arc running from Morocco to Iran, they managed to hold onto the reins until World War II shattered their economies and unleashed the changes that brought independence to all these countries.

During the Cold War, neither superpower crossed a red line by deploying large numbers of troops or by occupying parts of the region outright -- until the Kremlin made the fatal, foolish mistake of invading Afghanistan in 1979. That was the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union, and of the Cold War era.

But since 2000, no one in a position of power in Washington seems to have bothered to read any history. Believing that the demise of the Soviet Union meant an end to checks and balances at home and to limits abroad, and seduced by the blandishments of shallow-minded theorists who believe that the rules that applied to all previous great powers do not apply to the United States, the current administration has plunged into not one but two land wars in Asia.

Once upon a time, after Korea and Vietnam, the words "land war in Asia" might have inspired caution in Washington. But slaying the "Vietnam Syndrome" that limited the executive branch's power to act abroad was an uncontrollable obsession for the clique that has surrounded several presidents since Richard M. Nixon, including such notables as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. These were men who, by and large, had never seen combat, knew little of war and scorned history, geography and expertise based on personal experience. Some of them were probably unaware that Iraq was in Asia, and would not have cared if they knew.

Thus armed with the conviction that theirs were the noblest of purposes and buoyed by the popular support that a president always receives after an attack (particularly one as dastardly as 9/11), President Bush and his advisers ignored 200 years of Middle Eastern history and invaded Iraq, supposedly to spread democracy to the entire region.

As a general rule, democracy does not grow out of the barrel of a gun. Moreover, few prologues are as unpropitious for the establishment of democracy as war, invasion and occupation. Apologists for the Iraq invasion have suggested ahistoric parallels between Iraq and postwar Japan and Germany, ignoring the fact that the latter had been two of the world's most highly developed industrial powers, with large middle classes and established, generations-old traditions of parliamentary government before they gave way to dictatorship in the 1930s.

We are told that Iraq is a recently created, artificial state; and it is, like scores of other states that colonialism carved across three continents. One would think that that would be all the more reason to keep in place the institutions that held Iraq together, but the arrogance of those in charge of the Pentagon and in Baghdad was as limitless as their ignorance, and they swept away the entire Iraqi governmental structure, putting in its place an overstretched American army of occupation to control a vast, devastated country of more than 25 million people with a history of resistance to foreign control.

After the first shock of the invasion wore off, what people in Iraq and all over the Middle East remembered was two centuries of Western powers attempting to bring their countries under imperial control through military force. They recalled decades of Western petroleum companies controlling their oil. And unsurprisingly, the United States quickly became as unpopular as the European colonial powers had ever been.

Iraq has changed everything. In Washington, a city obsessed with the present, it was easy to forget that as recently as a few years ago, the United States was not particularly disliked in the Middle East and that al-Qaeda was a tiny underground organization with almost no popular support. It was equally easy to forget that in the last phases of the Cold War, the United States had managed to protect its interests in the Middle East with no land forces on the ground, through an over-the-horizon presence.

Today, al-Qaeda in Iraq threatens the security of entire districts of the country; policymakers hint at a "South Korean" model of an indefinite U.S. military presence in Iraq; the Pentagon is weighing long-term plans for U.S. bases all over the region; and Washington seems to assume that U.S. national interests require our troops to fight their way across West Asia and North Africa to stop "the terrorists," failing which we will find them crawling up the beaches of Miami and Long Island.

This is madness. People in the Middle East are angry at the United States not because of our values, many of which they share: democracy, free enterprise, even many of our cultural values such as love of family and respect for religion. They are angry at us, essentially, because our forces are doing things in their back yard that we would never tolerate from foreign troops in our own region.

We are the greatest power in world history. But that will make not a whit of difference to the outcome in Iraq. We will not -- we cannot -- force the Iraqis to do what we want, any more than the British could toward the end of their own attempt to rule Iraq, although they managed to hold on for much longer than our doomed occupation will.

Our political leaders must recognize that force does not solve the problem of terrorism. The real terrorists -- those blowing up civilians in marketplaces and office towers, as opposed to Iraqis resisting U.S. occupation -- can be dealt with only by means far more subtle than military might. Dealing effectively with this elusive enemy requires patience and a far more precise, carefully targeted and politically sophisticated toolkit than the mighty bludgeon of the U.S. armed forces.

No true U.S. interest has been served by the invasion, destruction and occupation of Iraq. We have done incalculable harm to that tragic country and to our position in the world. Perhaps we can limit the damage if we substitute a little humility for the blind hubris that led us into this disaster -- an understanding of the limitations of armed force and "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind," especially those whose hearts we hope to win.


*Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said professor of Arab studies at Columbia University. His latest book is "The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood."

Transcript: White House Press Briefing with Dana Perino

Transcript:

MS. PERINO: Good afternoon. I do not have anything to start with, so we can go to questions.

Deb?

Q Just generally, does the administration -- does the President believe that head-slapping and simulated drowning are necessary tactics to use against suspected terrorists to keep America safe?

MS. PERINO: Let me take a step back. In the days after 9/11, when we were getting a steady stream of intelligence about potential new attacks, the President faced a lot of challenges. And he asked his national security team to make sure that we designed and made sure that within the laws we had all the tools that we needed in order to keep this country safe and to prevent another attack.

In this new war, which is an unprecedented war, facing an enemy unlike we've ever faced before, sometimes -- oftentimes the best information that you get is from the terrorists themselves. They know where the other terrorists are hiding and what the other terrorists are planning. And to win the war on terror we must be able to detain them, interrogate them, question them, and when appropriate, prosecute them -- in America -- when we capture them here in America and on battlefields around the world. The policy of the United States is not to torture. The President has not authorized it, he will not authorize it.

But he had done everything within the corners of the law to make sure that we prevent another attack on this country, which is what we have done in this administration. I am not going to comment on any specific alleged techniques. It is not appropriate for me to do so. And to do so would provide the enemy with more information for how to train against these techniques. And so I am going to decline to comment on those, but I will reiterate to you once again that we do not torture. We want to make sure that we keep this country safe.

And I think another thing that everyone should keep in mind is that here in this country, it's quite a testament that even though we have a sworn enemy of the United States that has declared war on us and has acted upon that and killed thousands of our own citizens here just seven -- six years ago, we are still having a debate to talk about how we should make sure that we treat people, and that we don't torture them. That is quite a testament to this country. And the President is very proud to lead it.

Q Some of the members of Congress are already upset that they weren't aware of these second memos that are classified, and have asked for the administration to release them. What's the administration's position on why a briefing was released about what they are about?

MS. PERINO: Well -- I would have to refer you to Department of Justice and also the Central Intelligence Agency. As I understand it, appropriate members of Congress have been briefed. Releasing classified information is not prudent, it is not a smart thing to do. So I -- let me refer you to them to talk about the procedures that they went through to talk to members of Congress.

Q Dana, in September of last year the President told the country about what had been a classified program of CIA prisons in other countries around the world. At that time, he said all the terrorists who were held -- or alleged terrorists -- who were held in those sites were no longer there. Today, do those prisons still exist and are there alleged terrorists being held?

MS. PERINO: The President said that a small number of suspected terrorist leaders and operatives captured during the war had been held and questioned outside the United States, in a separate program that was run by the CIA. The President also at the time said that we were not going to -- while we had talked about the people that had been held -- people, I should say terrorists that were held, they were then transferred to Guantanamo Bay -- that we were not going to tell you every time that that happened.

I think there was an instance last spring when someone was transferred to Guantanamo Bay, and there was a public release of that information, but he said, and General Hayden has said, that we are not going to do a press release every time we have somebody. And one of the reasons for that is that you want to have these individuals isolated, and you don't want to send signals that might trigger an attack or send a signal to -- back to the other operatives that want to attack America.

Q Without referring then to specific individuals who may be held in these sites in countries outside the United States operated by the CIA, are they still actively operational?

MS. PERINO: I'm not going to comment on that. If the CIA decides to comment, I'll let them. What I can tell is that any procedures that they use are tough, safe, necessary, and lawful.

Q Is it reasonable to assume if those prisons were closed, that the President would have deemed that something to tell the country, and in the absence of that, we should assume they are still working?

MS. PERINO: I'm not going to comment whether or not -- and I -- the President said that while he -- on September 6, 2006, when he disclosed that information in a speech in the East Room, that we would not get in the habit of doing press releases every time we had a prisoner. It's not smart. It's not a good way to do national security.

Q It's been more than a year now. And, as you know, countries who -- especially in Europe -- had raised concerns with the President about those locations of prisons outside the U.S. So it has been a diplomatic issue as well. So it's been more than a year. So hardly --

MS. PERINO: What I can tell you is that this program has prevented attacks on this country and in countries of our allies. And Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Advisor Steven Hadley work very closely with their counterparts overseas to make sure we're sharing information. Again, they were safe, necessary and lawful -- these techniques -- and they've helped save American lives and those of our allies. But I'm not going to comment as to whether or not there are individuals that are being held in prisons at the moment.

Martha.

Q In a conference call in July, a senior administration official said that they would no longer -- or wouldn't use extreme temperatures of heat and cold. Is that true?

MS. PERINO: I don't know. I don't -- I wasn't on -- I don't recall.

Q I guess the point is that if the senior administration official told us on a conference call that these methods wouldn't be used, why won't you say whether or not head-slapping, waterboarding, would be used?

MS. PERINO: I don't believe that I -- I'm not in a position to be able to do that. I am not going to comment on specific techniques. And if there's -- I don't know who that individual was, and maybe you can follow up with them and get more.

Q But your point is that you're giving away things to the enemy, but it was okay for someone to do it, but not okay for you to do it? Or are you just --

MS. PERINO: I don't know. I don't know. I don't know who was on the conference call. I don't -- what I -- I know what I know, which is that techniques that we use are classified, and classified for a reason. To the extent that there was one ruled out, then so be it. But I'm not going to comment on others.

Q And you won't say whether waterboarding is being ruled out, or head-slapping has been ruled out?

MS. PERINO: I'm not going to comment on those.

Q What is your definition of "torture?"

MS. PERINO: Well, that's clearly spelled out in the -- in the Detainee Treatment Act, and interpreted under the December 2004 opinion that governs, and has governed -- and if you look at the footnote from that opinion, governs all subsequent opinions that have been made by the Justice Department.

Q And has -- have any attacks been averted since President Bush revealed the existence of his program, because terrorism suspects have been held in the program?

MS. PERINO: I don't know, Toby. It's not -- I can tell you that General Hayden and Fran Townsend, the President's National -- Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor, have said that this program continues to save lives. When we can, we declassify information so that we can provide it to you. But right now I don't have any to provide.

Elaine.

Q Dana, you talk about being within the corners of the law. But are you satisfied that there's enough clarity, in sort of the definition --

MS. PERINO: Very. I'm very satisfied that this country is following the laws, and that American personnel, no matter where they are in the world, are held to that standard.

Q My question is approaching it from a different way, though. I mean, are you satisfied that the U.S.'s position on what torture is is clear enough to other countries so that if an American were --

MS. PERINO: I am. We follow our laws and our -- we meet our international obligations, absolutely.

Q But in terms of another country, then, you feel that there is enough clarity in the definition that the administration has put forward that they wouldn't be able to look at something and say, well --

MS. PERINO: I'm not saying that reasonable people couldn't disagree on complex questions. That's possible.

Q But doesn't it open the door, doesn't the sort of --

MS. PERINO: No, I think that this country meets its -- meets the laws of our nation and meets its international obligations. We share information. We have helped prevent attacks in countries that we consider to be our allies. And we have prevented attacks here.

Now, if there were an attack on this country, all of the questions in here would be very different. You would be asking me, how did you allow this to happen? And what I am telling you is that within the law, we are making sure that we are doing everything we can to prevent it from happening again.

Q But what's to stop another country from then taking their own definition and interpretation based on the administration's --

MS. PERINO: As I understand it, under the Geneva Conventions, every country was supposed to interpret it for themselves, and now we have.

Q You don't think there's any ambiguity there in the definition of torture for other countries to abuse Americans if they are captured?

MS. PERINO: No, I think that the countries that we deal with that are our allies, that are a party to the Geneva Conventions, follow that, and they follow their laws. And obviously, if any American was tortured anywhere, we would have big problems with that.

Q You just said something, Dana --

MS. PERINO: I'm going to go to Mark. Go ahead.

Q Is it your view that disclosure of this memo and the level of detail --

MS. PERINO: Is disturbing?

Q Has it -- well, yes, harmed American security --

MS. PERINO: I think any time anything that is classified that is -- you know, it's secret for a reason. It's not secret just because we want it to be a secret. It's secret because it is classified, and classified for the reasons to protect the country from terrorists who are determined to attack us. And we live in a society where we have a free press, and if classified information gets out into a free press and that organization decides to publish it, that's their decision to make.

Q You've said that you don't want these methods to be disclosed because that would tip off potential terrorists. Don't you think that they know about this kind of stuff already and have been training against head-slapping and waterboarding?

MS. PERINO: I think that it's classified for a reason, because our professionals, who know what they're doing when it comes to interrogation techniques and fighting the global war on terror, have it classified for a reason. And I trust them.

Q I just wonder to what extent has information about this program or these memos been shared with the Attorney General nominee, Mukasey? And do you --

MS. PERINO: I would have to check. I would assume -- I would have to check. I don't know.

Q And is the President concerned at all that the Mukasey hearings will become, in essence, a forum for a discussion of these --

MS. PERINO: Well, if at his hearings the members of the Senate want to have a conversation about whether or not this country follows its laws when it comes to interrogation techniques, we could have that discussion. Obviously Judge Mukasey is there to have a confirmation hearing and to see if, on the merits, he should be the Attorney General of the United States. We think he should be. And the senators are free to ask him whatever questions they want.

Q His views about this program will be probably a central issue of those hearings. Is the White House prepared to --

MS. PERINO: I'm not going to speculate on that. And I think that across the country people will be -- are grateful to the federal government and the men and women that we have across the intelligence community and in law enforcement, that are working to apply the laws of the United States -- which is not to torture -- and to make sure that we prevent attacks on this country. And if they want to have a conversation with that, with Judge Mukasey, I think that'd be fine.

Q When you say, I'm not disputing there can be legal disagreements between reasonable people, do you mean disagreements on whether specific interrogation techniques amount to torture?

MS. PERINO: I wasn't thinking of that in particular, but that could be true as well.

Q And when you say that if we had just had an attack, the questions would be very different, what then would you say to someone like Senator McCain, who feels that harsh interrogation techniques are not more effective in generating valuable information?

MS. PERINO: Well, I think -- I think what we'd say to Senator McCain is that we appreciated the work he did on the Detainee Treatment Act, and the President was proud to sign it into law, that we don't torture, and that we appreciate his attention to this effort and to this issue, and that we follow the law as he would want us to.

Q But if there can be reasonable disagreements on what amounts to torture, then what you are actually saying is, we don't believe what we do is torture.

MS. PERINO: Look, under the United States' interpretation and -- we -- in that December 2004 opinion that is publicly available at the Justice Department for everyone to see, we believe that we are following our laws and that we are meeting our international obligations in order to prevent attacks on Americans and our allies. And we're meeting that.

Peter.

Q Dana, to what extent has the President been personally involved in deciding what is tough, safe, and legal?

MS. PERINO: I don't know. I think those decisions are made at the -- at a level where they have lawyer -- individuals like Steven Bradbury, who's discussed in the article, at the Office of Legal Counsel. But I am not aware of presidential involvement.

Q So he doesn't necessarily sign off on these then?

MS. PERINO: No, I don't think so. But I --

Q The Attorney General does though, right?

MS. PERINO: I would guess. Can I refer you to the Justice Department, because I just don't know what their chain of command is.

Olivier.

Q Dana, a couple. First, would you like Syria to attend, or to send a representative to the Middle East conference in the United States?

MS. PERINO: Well, one of the things that we're looking at is -- for that Middle East conference that's going to take place at the end of November -- Syria is a part of the Arab League follow-up committee, and as a member of -- that committee is going to be invited. They are a member of that, and I think the State Department has said that they would be there for that meeting, that committee would be.

Q And in the comments in the responses on North Korea, on the Koreas summit, you all emphasized the six-party process -- there's an agreement that's coming out of this, there's a process. Do you show that the Korea summit has in any way sidetracked, undermined, changed that process? Are you worried that now your --

MS. PERINO: I've not heard that. I've not heard that that has derailed any effort or cast a pall on them. Obviously, Ambassador Chris Hill was just here the other day. The President signed -- told him that he could instruct the other capitals in Beijing that the President had signed off on the agreement, and you have the President's public statement from yesterday. And we're going to hold the North Koreans to account for dismantlement of Yongbyon, and then leading to the dismantlement by the end of the year. That's the action-for-action priority that the President has laid out. And we'll hold their feet to the fire on it.

Q Senator Clinton said that she had changed her view on torture and the possibilities after talking with the generals. Are those not the same generals that you've been talking to or that the White House has been talking to?

MS. PERINO: I have to say, I just have no idea who Senator Clinton spoke to. I don't know.

Keith.

Q Representative Conyers has requested copies of the legal opinions that Justice issued, the secret legal opinions. Should he get those?

MS. PERINO: Well, I'll let him have that conversation with the Justice Department.

Q Does the White House believe that he should, even if it's -- I mean, do you have an opinion on that, whether they should be released, even if they're secret?

MS. PERINO: As I said, appropriate members of Congress were provided the information. I understand that there is a desire by some of the individuals who are on the Judiciary Committees in both the House and the Senate. And that has been a conversation that's been going on over time. That is not -- I don't believe that's a new request.

Q About these particular opinions?

MS. PERINO: I don't think it's a new request.

Q And will the Justice Department solely make that decision about whether these are released, or will the White House have some input into what they do?

MS. PERINO: Well, I -- obviously that we work closely with our agencies, and we'll take a look at it. I know that that -- as I said, Keith, I don't think that that's a new request. And we've been -- Fred Fielding has been working with both the House and the Senate Judiciary Committees.

April.

Q Back on Elaine's question about clarity, you said something that if there's a problem with understanding, it's left up to the countries to try to decipher --

MS. PERINO: As I understand it, I believe that the Geneva Conventions, that every country could interpret for themselves what those -- what that language meant. I'm recalling that from the debate that we had in this country from a year and a half ago.

Q Paraphrasing what the Geneva Conventions said, it said that --

MS. PERINO: Not paraphrasing.

Q No, I'm --

MS. PERINO: You're going to paraphrase?

Q Yes.

MS. PERINO: Okay.

Q Paraphrasing what it said, it basically says that if there is some kind of a problem with clarity it is supposed to be taken to an international crimes court. So --

MS. PERINO: Which we are not going to do.

Q Why not?

MS. PERINO: I don't think it's necessary, April. We have clarified in the Detainee Treatment Act and in this December 2004 opinion that the United States does not torture. And outside of some individuals suggesting that we do, I think that our allies are comfortable -- especially because of the protection that we're affording them, as well.

Q Well, Dana, for many years now this administration -- this issue has come up over and over and over again, it's gone to the Hill, it's gone to courts, it's gone everywhere. And it seems to me that there is a problem with clarity. Maybe the people who put the Geneva Conventions together would be the ones to be able to help you out.

MS. PERINO: I don't think we're seeking their help. I don't think they're offering it. I think that we, here in the United States, are a proud country that is working within our laws to make sure that we are going about protecting the country from al Qaeda and other terrorists that want to attack us.

Q If an American citizen, whether they be a member of the intelligence community or the armed forces, were taken essentially hostage by one of our enemies and they were subjected to waterboarding or head-slapping or loud music, or subjected to extreme temperatures, would the U.S. government consider that to be torture?

MS. PERINO: Look, you're asking me a hypothetical situation about somebody possibly being taken into custody. I'm just not going to go there.

Q Don't you think it's important that the U.S. government draw a line in the sand and say -- to our enemies, essentially -- hey, if you do these things, we consider that torture?

MS. PERINO: I think our enemies would understand what our response would be to any type of attack on an American citizen.

Q And that attack being waterboarding, head-slapping --

MS. PERINO: I'm not going to go there.

Les.

Q Thank you, Dana. Two questions. What is the President's opinion of Congressman Obey's proposal for a surtax to pay for Iraqi military operation?

MS. PERINO: We made it clear the other day that the President won't support a war tax, we don't think it's necessary. And we think that that is just a standard reaction by the Democrats when they want to raise taxes.

Q In California there's a proposed measure to apportion electoral votes by congressional district, which could give the Republican nominee some 20 of the state's 55 electoral votes. My question: The President supports this proposal for minority rights, doesn't he?

MS. PERINO: I haven't asked him about it. Let me go up here to Helen.

Q Well, could you ask him? I mean --

MS. PERINO: No, I'm not -- I'll see. If I see him I'll ask him.

Helen. Let's go to Helen.

Q I have a question on Lebanon. Lebanon has asked Israel for maps to where they planted the cluster bombs in Southern Lebanon, so kids -- some of the cluster bombs are in shapes of toys or candy bars. And also, the task force on Lebanon has made the same request. Do we back up that request?

MS. PERINO: I have to say that I have not heard about that. Can I check on it?

Q Did it come up at all?

MS. PERINO: It may have. Gordon Johndroe was in there, so let me see if I can get some more information for you. It could have -- and Helen, it could have come up before, and let me just check. I'll find out.

Q Okay.

Q Dana, is the President at all concerned that despite his repeated assurances that the U.S. does not engage in torture, that there are persistent concerns and questions raised? Does this suggest he is just not credible when he says the United States --

MS. PERINO: Absolutely not. And I actually think that the people around the country understand that there are things that are secret and classified for a reason, and it's for their protection. And I know that they place trust in this federal government to make sure that a 9/11 doesn't happen again.

Q Is there a sense that because we are talking about suspected terrorists that perhaps the American public would have a different view of how they should be treated, as opposed to accepting these enhanced measures that this administration --

MS. PERINO: Different from who?

Q From other kinds of detainees that might be found around the world.

MS. PERINO: Well, the bottom line is that we do not use torture. And so I think -- I don't think there's a reason to have a distinction.

Q The President does use the phrase "enhanced techniques." Can you add further definition to what that --

MS. PERINO: I can't beyond what is publicly available. But I would just remind you that the most important source of information we have on where the terrorists are hiding and what they are planning is the terrorists themselves, and that's why you have to interrogate them.

Peter.

Q Dana, do you know if the President has talked to Senator Domenici since Domenici made the --

MS. PERINO: Yes, I believe that Senator Domenici spoke to the President day before yesterday -- the day before he made the announcement. And obviously the President has fondness for Senator Domenici. He is a wonderful American who has served the state of New Mexico and his country for many years, and he wishes him the best.

Q What do you think the effect of his departure and the other Republicans who are leaving is going to be on --

MS. PERINO: Well, we'll see. We have good candidate recruitment, and we'll have to see how it goes.

Q Dana.

MS. PERINO: Goyal.

Q Two quick questions. One, please. Thousands of protesters, mostly monks, in Burma have disappeared, and they're -- nobody can see them anywhere. The President believes in God and he's a religious person, and I hope he will protect and not to be killed.

MS. PERINO: Do you have a question?

Q How can he protect that no more monks are being killed or we can --

MS. PERINO: Well, Goyal, let me answer it this way. The President and Mrs. Bush are very concerned about the people in Burma, what they've gone through under this brutal regime. And they have placed a demand on them that -- on the regime -- that they release all political prisoners, including those monks that you mentioned.

Q And second. October 2nd, the United Nations was marked as the non-violence Mahatma Gandhi day around on the globe, and Sonia Gandhi of India was there, and many world leaders. What does President Bush think now, this non-violence day at the United Nations, a great person who believed in non-violence throughout his life?

MS. PERINO: The President supports non-violence and non-violence protests, and appreciates the people who support that, as well.

Paula.

Q Dana, the President has said he's willing to consider an extension -- extended time, perhaps, for the CHIP program. But if he's opposed to a tobacco tax for the existing funding, how would he fund -- what would he support to fund an extended program?

MS. PERINO: That's not quite accurate. First of all, first and foremost, the President wants to expand S-CHIP by 20 percent in the next five years, with an additional $5 billion. So the President doesn't need to raise taxes in order to expand it and to get it beyond five years.

Q But Senator Lott proposed a 33 percent increase and an 18-month extension. So there is a difference --

MS. PERINO: Well, what we said is that the President -- and the President said it yesterday, he wants to try to reach common ground and find an agreement with the Democrats and with other members of -- other members of the Republican Party besides Senator Lott. There's going to be people that come forward with ideas.

One of the things the President wants to do is make sure that the children who are eligible for Medicaid and S-CHIP, who aren't currently enrolled, are served first, that they go to the front of the line. And that he's willing to talk about -- if people that that $5 billion is not going to be able to serve that population, he's willing to talk about, well, then what number would be? But that's the population he wants to serve first.

Q Finally, the tobacco tax rationale. I don't quite understand why the administration would oppose a tax that would discourage poor people or even -- either to cut back, or to cut smoking altogether, if that's -- that would be the result --

MS. PERINO: But the government --

Q -- of the funding for the program --

MS. PERINO: The Bush administration and the government is actively trying to get people to quit smoking. But we also don't think --

Q But this is an opportunity to do that.

MS. PERINO: Let me finish. We also don't think that raising taxes on a product is smart fiscal policy, especially when in the years 2011 and -- through 2014, this program would take, under their proposal that the President vetoed yesterday, a 65 percent cut. So then what taxes are they going to raise after that? And that's the President's position, is that taxes do not need to be raised to expand this program and to take care of the poorest children first.

Q But what's more important though, fiscal policy or encouraging -- taking a step that would encourage poor people to either cut back or quit smoking altogether?

MS. PERINO: The President is actively working to get people to quit smoking. But I would also say to you, what's more important and what's more compassionate is making sure that those 750,000 children who aren't currently covered under programs they're eligible for go to the front of the line before we give money to middle-class families to pay for a government-sponsored health care.

Q Thank you, Dana.

MS. PERINO: Thank you.

Transcript: White House Press Briefing with Dana Perino

Transcript:

MS. PERINO: Good afternoon. I do not have anything to start with, so we can go to questions.

Deb?

Q Just generally, does the administration -- does the President believe that head-slapping and simulated drowning are necessary tactics to use against suspected terrorists to keep America safe?

MS. PERINO: Let me take a step back. In the days after 9/11, when we were getting a steady stream of intelligence about potential new attacks, the President faced a lot of challenges. And he asked his national security team to make sure that we designed and made sure that within the laws we had all the tools that we needed in order to keep this country safe and to prevent another attack.

In this new war, which is an unprecedented war, facing an enemy unlike we've ever faced before, sometimes -- oftentimes the best information that you get is from the terrorists themselves. They know where the other terrorists are hiding and what the other terrorists are planning. And to win the war on terror we must be able to detain them, interrogate them, question them, and when appropriate, prosecute them -- in America -- when we capture them here in America and on battlefields around the world. The policy of the United States is not to torture. The President has not authorized it, he will not authorize it.

But he had done everything within the corners of the law to make sure that we prevent another attack on this country, which is what we have done in this administration. I am not going to comment on any specific alleged techniques. It is not appropriate for me to do so. And to do so would provide the enemy with more information for how to train against these techniques. And so I am going to decline to comment on those, but I will reiterate to you once again that we do not torture. We want to make sure that we keep this country safe.

And I think another thing that everyone should keep in mind is that here in this country, it's quite a testament that even though we have a sworn enemy of the United States that has declared war on us and has acted upon that and killed thousands of our own citizens here just seven -- six years ago, we are still having a debate to talk about how we should make sure that we treat people, and that we don't torture them. That is quite a testament to this country. And the President is very proud to lead it.

Q Some of the members of Congress are already upset that they weren't aware of these second memos that are classified, and have asked for the administration to release them. What's the administration's position on why a briefing was released about what they are about?

MS. PERINO: Well -- I would have to refer you to Department of Justice and also the Central Intelligence Agency. As I understand it, appropriate members of Congress have been briefed. Releasing classified information is not prudent, it is not a smart thing to do. So I -- let me refer you to them to talk about the procedures that they went through to talk to members of Congress.

Q Dana, in September of last year the President told the country about what had been a classified program of CIA prisons in other countries around the world. At that time, he said all the terrorists who were held -- or alleged terrorists -- who were held in those sites were no longer there. Today, do those prisons still exist and are there alleged terrorists being held?

MS. PERINO: The President said that a small number of suspected terrorist leaders and operatives captured during the war had been held and questioned outside the United States, in a separate program that was run by the CIA. The President also at the time said that we were not going to -- while we had talked about the people that had been held -- people, I should say terrorists that were held, they were then transferred to Guantanamo Bay -- that we were not going to tell you every time that that happened.

I think there was an instance last spring when someone was transferred to Guantanamo Bay, and there was a public release of that information, but he said, and General Hayden has said, that we are not going to do a press release every time we have somebody. And one of the reasons for that is that you want to have these individuals isolated, and you don't want to send signals that might trigger an attack or send a signal to -- back to the other operatives that want to attack America.

Q Without referring then to specific individuals who may be held in these sites in countries outside the United States operated by the CIA, are they still actively operational?

MS. PERINO: I'm not going to comment on that. If the CIA decides to comment, I'll let them. What I can tell is that any procedures that they use are tough, safe, necessary, and lawful.

Q Is it reasonable to assume if those prisons were closed, that the President would have deemed that something to tell the country, and in the absence of that, we should assume they are still working?

MS. PERINO: I'm not going to comment whether or not -- and I -- the President said that while he -- on September 6, 2006, when he disclosed that information in a speech in the East Room, that we would not get in the habit of doing press releases every time we had a prisoner. It's not smart. It's not a good way to do national security.

Q It's been more than a year now. And, as you know, countries who -- especially in Europe -- had raised concerns with the President about those locations of prisons outside the U.S. So it has been a diplomatic issue as well. So it's been more than a year. So hardly --

MS. PERINO: What I can tell you is that this program has prevented attacks on this country and in countries of our allies. And Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Advisor Steven Hadley work very closely with their counterparts overseas to make sure we're sharing information. Again, they were safe, necessary and lawful -- these techniques -- and they've helped save American lives and those of our allies. But I'm not going to comment as to whether or not there are individuals that are being held in prisons at the moment.

Martha.

Q In a conference call in July, a senior administration official said that they would no longer -- or wouldn't use extreme temperatures of heat and cold. Is that true?

MS. PERINO: I don't know. I don't -- I wasn't on -- I don't recall.

Q I guess the point is that if the senior administration official told us on a conference call that these methods wouldn't be used, why won't you say whether or not head-slapping, waterboarding, would be used?

MS. PERINO: I don't believe that I -- I'm not in a position to be able to do that. I am not going to comment on specific techniques. And if there's -- I don't know who that individual was, and maybe you can follow up with them and get more.

Q But your point is that you're giving away things to the enemy, but it was okay for someone to do it, but not okay for you to do it? Or are you just --

MS. PERINO: I don't know. I don't know. I don't know who was on the conference call. I don't -- what I -- I know what I know, which is that techniques that we use are classified, and classified for a reason. To the extent that there was one ruled out, then so be it. But I'm not going to comment on others.

Q And you won't say whether waterboarding is being ruled out, or head-slapping has been ruled out?

MS. PERINO: I'm not going to comment on those.

Q What is your definition of "torture?"

MS. PERINO: Well, that's clearly spelled out in the -- in the Detainee Treatment Act, and interpreted under the December 2004 opinion that governs, and has governed -- and if you look at the footnote from that opinion, governs all subsequent opinions that have been made by the Justice Department.

Q And has -- have any attacks been averted since President Bush revealed the existence of his program, because terrorism suspects have been held in the program?

MS. PERINO: I don't know, Toby. It's not -- I can tell you that General Hayden and Fran Townsend, the President's National -- Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor, have said that this program continues to save lives. When we can, we declassify information so that we can provide it to you. But right now I don't have any to provide.

Elaine.

Q Dana, you talk about being within the corners of the law. But are you satisfied that there's enough clarity, in sort of the definition --

MS. PERINO: Very. I'm very satisfied that this country is following the laws, and that American personnel, no matter where they are in the world, are held to that standard.

Q My question is approaching it from a different way, though. I mean, are you satisfied that the U.S.'s position on what torture is is clear enough to other countries so that if an American were --

MS. PERINO: I am. We follow our laws and our -- we meet our international obligations, absolutely.

Q But in terms of another country, then, you feel that there is enough clarity in the definition that the administration has put forward that they wouldn't be able to look at something and say, well --

MS. PERINO: I'm not saying that reasonable people couldn't disagree on complex questions. That's possible.

Q But doesn't it open the door, doesn't the sort of --

MS. PERINO: No, I think that this country meets its -- meets the laws of our nation and meets its international obligations. We share information. We have helped prevent attacks in countries that we consider to be our allies. And we have prevented attacks here.

Now, if there were an attack on this country, all of the questions in here would be very different. You would be asking me, how did you allow this to happen? And what I am telling you is that within the law, we are making sure that we are doing everything we can to prevent it from happening again.

Q But what's to stop another country from then taking their own definition and interpretation based on the administration's --

MS. PERINO: As I understand it, under the Geneva Conventions, every country was supposed to interpret it for themselves, and now we have.

Q You don't think there's any ambiguity there in the definition of torture for other countries to abuse Americans if they are captured?

MS. PERINO: No, I think that the countries that we deal with that are our allies, that are a party to the Geneva Conventions, follow that, and they follow their laws. And obviously, if any American was tortured anywhere, we would have big problems with that.

Q You just said something, Dana --

MS. PERINO: I'm going to go to Mark. Go ahead.

Q Is it your view that disclosure of this memo and the level of detail --

MS. PERINO: Is disturbing?

Q Has it -- well, yes, harmed American security --

MS. PERINO: I think any time anything that is classified that is -- you know, it's secret for a reason. It's not secret just because we want it to be a secret. It's secret because it is classified, and classified for the reasons to protect the country from terrorists who are determined to attack us. And we live in a society where we have a free press, and if classified information gets out into a free press and that organization decides to publish it, that's their decision to make.

Q You've said that you don't want these methods to be disclosed because that would tip off potential terrorists. Don't you think that they know about this kind of stuff already and have been training against head-slapping and waterboarding?

MS. PERINO: I think that it's classified for a reason, because our professionals, who know what they're doing when it comes to interrogation techniques and fighting the global war on terror, have it classified for a reason. And I trust them.

Q I just wonder to what extent has information about this program or these memos been shared with the Attorney General nominee, Mukasey? And do you --

MS. PERINO: I would have to check. I would assume -- I would have to check. I don't know.

Q And is the President concerned at all that the Mukasey hearings will become, in essence, a forum for a discussion of these --

MS. PERINO: Well, if at his hearings the members of the Senate want to have a conversation about whether or not this country follows its laws when it comes to interrogation techniques, we could have that discussion. Obviously Judge Mukasey is there to have a confirmation hearing and to see if, on the merits, he should be the Attorney General of the United States. We think he should be. And the senators are free to ask him whatever questions they want.

Q His views about this program will be probably a central issue of those hearings. Is the White House prepared to --

MS. PERINO: I'm not going to speculate on that. And I think that across the country people will be -- are grateful to the federal government and the men and women that we have across the intelligence community and in law enforcement, that are working to apply the laws of the United States -- which is not to torture -- and to make sure that we prevent attacks on this country. And if they want to have a conversation with that, with Judge Mukasey, I think that'd be fine.

Q When you say, I'm not disputing there can be legal disagreements between reasonable people, do you mean disagreements on whether specific interrogation techniques amount to torture?

MS. PERINO: I wasn't thinking of that in particular, but that could be true as well.

Q And when you say that if we had just had an attack, the questions would be very different, what then would you say to someone like Senator McCain, who feels that harsh interrogation techniques are not more effective in generating valuable information?

MS. PERINO: Well, I think -- I think what we'd say to Senator McCain is that we appreciated the work he did on the Detainee Treatment Act, and the President was proud to sign it into law, that we don't torture, and that we appreciate his attention to this effort and to this issue, and that we follow the law as he would want us to.

Q But if there can be reasonable disagreements on what amounts to torture, then what you are actually saying is, we don't believe what we do is torture.

MS. PERINO: Look, under the United States' interpretation and -- we -- in that December 2004 opinion that is publicly available at the Justice Department for everyone to see, we believe that we are following our laws and that we are meeting our international obligations in order to prevent attacks on Americans and our allies. And we're meeting that.

Peter.

Q Dana, to what extent has the President been personally involved in deciding what is tough, safe, and legal?

MS. PERINO: I don't know. I think those decisions are made at the -- at a level where they have lawyer -- individuals like Steven Bradbury, who's discussed in the article, at the Office of Legal Counsel. But I am not aware of presidential involvement.

Q So he doesn't necessarily sign off on these then?

MS. PERINO: No, I don't think so. But I --

Q The Attorney General does though, right?

MS. PERINO: I would guess. Can I refer you to the Justice Department, because I just don't know what their chain of command is.

Olivier.

Q Dana, a couple. First, would you like Syria to attend, or to send a representative to the Middle East conference in the United States?

MS. PERINO: Well, one of the things that we're looking at is -- for that Middle East conference that's going to take place at the end of November -- Syria is a part of the Arab League follow-up committee, and as a member of -- that committee is going to be invited. They are a member of that, and I think the State Department has said that they would be there for that meeting, that committee would be.

Q And in the comments in the responses on North Korea, on the Koreas summit, you all emphasized the six-party process -- there's an agreement that's coming out of this, there's a process. Do you show that the Korea summit has in any way sidetracked, undermined, changed that process? Are you worried that now your --

MS. PERINO: I've not heard that. I've not heard that that has derailed any effort or cast a pall on them. Obviously, Ambassador Chris Hill was just here the other day. The President signed -- told him that he could instruct the other capitals in Beijing that the President had signed off on the agreement, and you have the President's public statement from yesterday. And we're going to hold the North Koreans to account for dismantlement of Yongbyon, and then leading to the dismantlement by the end of the year. That's the action-for-action priority that the President has laid out. And we'll hold their feet to the fire on it.

Q Senator Clinton said that she had changed her view on torture and the possibilities after talking with the generals. Are those not the same generals that you've been talking to or that the White House has been talking to?

MS. PERINO: I have to say, I just have no idea who Senator Clinton spoke to. I don't know.

Keith.

Q Representative Conyers has requested copies of the legal opinions that Justice issued, the secret legal opinions. Should he get those?

MS. PERINO: Well, I'll let him have that conversation with the Justice Department.

Q Does the White House believe that he should, even if it's -- I mean, do you have an opinion on that, whether they should be released, even if they're secret?

MS. PERINO: As I said, appropriate members of Congress were provided the information. I understand that there is a desire by some of the individuals who are on the Judiciary Committees in both the House and the Senate. And that has been a conversation that's been going on over time. That is not -- I don't believe that's a new request.

Q About these particular opinions?

MS. PERINO: I don't think it's a new request.

Q And will the Justice Department solely make that decision about whether these are released, or will the White House have some input into what they do?

MS. PERINO: Well, I -- obviously that we work closely with our agencies, and we'll take a look at it. I know that that -- as I said, Keith, I don't think that that's a new request. And we've been -- Fred Fielding has been working with both the House and the Senate Judiciary Committees.

April.

Q Back on Elaine's question about clarity, you said something that if there's a problem with understanding, it's left up to the countries to try to decipher --

MS. PERINO: As I understand it, I believe that the Geneva Conventions, that every country could interpret for themselves what those -- what that language meant. I'm recalling that from the debate that we had in this country from a year and a half ago.

Q Paraphrasing what the Geneva Conventions said, it said that --

MS. PERINO: Not paraphrasing.

Q No, I'm --

MS. PERINO: You're going to paraphrase?

Q Yes.

MS. PERINO: Okay.

Q Paraphrasing what it said, it basically says that if there is some kind of a problem with clarity it is supposed to be taken to an international crimes court. So --

MS. PERINO: Which we are not going to do.

Q Why not?

MS. PERINO: I don't think it's necessary, April. We have clarified in the Detainee Treatment Act and in this December 2004 opinion that the United States does not torture. And outside of some individuals suggesting that we do, I think that our allies are comfortable -- especially because of the protection that we're affording them, as well.

Q Well, Dana, for many years now this administration -- this issue has come up over and over and over again, it's gone to the Hill, it's gone to courts, it's gone everywhere. And it seems to me that there is a problem with clarity. Maybe the people who put the Geneva Conventions together would be the ones to be able to help you out.

MS. PERINO: I don't think we're seeking their help. I don't think they're offering it. I think that we, here in the United States, are a proud country that is working within our laws to make sure that we are going about protecting the country from al Qaeda and other terrorists that want to attack us.

Q If an American citizen, whether they be a member of the intelligence community or the armed forces, were taken essentially hostage by one of our enemies and they were subjected to waterboarding or head-slapping or loud music, or subjected to extreme temperatures, would the U.S. government consider that to be torture?

MS. PERINO: Look, you're asking me a hypothetical situation about somebody possibly being taken into custody. I'm just not going to go there.

Q Don't you think it's important that the U.S. government draw a line in the sand and say -- to our enemies, essentially -- hey, if you do these things, we consider that torture?

MS. PERINO: I think our enemies would understand what our response would be to any type of attack on an American citizen.

Q And that attack being waterboarding, head-slapping --

MS. PERINO: I'm not going to go there.

Les.

Q Thank you, Dana. Two questions. What is the President's opinion of Congressman Obey's proposal for a surtax to pay for Iraqi military operation?

MS. PERINO: We made it clear the other day that the President won't support a war tax, we don't think it's necessary. And we think that that is just a standard reaction by the Democrats when they want to raise taxes.

Q In California there's a proposed measure to apportion electoral votes by congressional district, which could give the Republican nominee some 20 of the state's 55 electoral votes. My question: The President supports this proposal for minority rights, doesn't he?

MS. PERINO: I haven't asked him about it. Let me go up here to Helen.

Q Well, could you ask him? I mean --

MS. PERINO: No, I'm not -- I'll see. If I see him I'll ask him.

Helen. Let's go to Helen.

Q I have a question on Lebanon. Lebanon has asked Israel for maps to where they planted the cluster bombs in Southern Lebanon, so kids -- some of the cluster bombs are in shapes of toys or candy bars. And also, the task force on Lebanon has made the same request. Do we back up that request?

MS. PERINO: I have to say that I have not heard about that. Can I check on it?

Q Did it come up at all?

MS. PERINO: It may have. Gordon Johndroe was in there, so let me see if I can get some more information for you. It could have -- and Helen, it could have come up before, and let me just check. I'll find out.

Q Okay.

Q Dana, is the President at all concerned that despite his repeated assurances that the U.S. does not engage in torture, that there are persistent concerns and questions raised? Does this suggest he is just not credible when he says the United States --

MS. PERINO: Absolutely not. And I actually think that the people around the country understand that there are things that are secret and classified for a reason, and it's for their protection. And I know that they place trust in this federal government to make sure that a 9/11 doesn't happen again.

Q Is there a sense that because we are talking about suspected terrorists that perhaps the American public would have a different view of how they should be treated, as opposed to accepting these enhanced measures that this administration --

MS. PERINO: Different from who?

Q From other kinds of detainees that might be found around the world.

MS. PERINO: Well, the bottom line is that we do not use torture. And so I think -- I don't think there's a reason to have a distinction.

Q The President does use the phrase "enhanced techniques." Can you add further definition to what that --

MS. PERINO: I can't beyond what is publicly available. But I would just remind you that the most important source of information we have on where the terrorists are hiding and what they are planning is the terrorists themselves, and that's why you have to interrogate them.

Peter.

Q Dana, do you know if the President has talked to Senator Domenici since Domenici made the --

MS. PERINO: Yes, I believe that Senator Domenici spoke to the President day before yesterday -- the day before he made the announcement. And obviously the President has fondness for Senator Domenici. He is a wonderful American who has served the state of New Mexico and his country for many years, and he wishes him the best.

Q What do you think the effect of his departure and the other Republicans who are leaving is going to be on --

MS. PERINO: Well, we'll see. We have good candidate recruitment, and we'll have to see how it goes.

Q Dana.

MS. PERINO: Goyal.

Q Two quick questions. One, please. Thousands of protesters, mostly monks, in Burma have disappeared, and they're -- nobody can see them anywhere. The President believes in God and he's a religious person, and I hope he will protect and not to be killed.

MS. PERINO: Do you have a question?

Q How can he protect that no more monks are being killed or we can --

MS. PERINO: Well, Goyal, let me answer it this way. The President and Mrs. Bush are very concerned about the people in Burma, what they've gone through under this brutal regime. And they have placed a demand on them that -- on the regime -- that they release all political prisoners, including those monks that you mentioned.

Q And second. October 2nd, the United Nations was marked as the non-violence Mahatma Gandhi day around on the globe, and Sonia Gandhi of India was there, and many world leaders. What does President Bush think now, this non-violence day at the United Nations, a great person who believed in non-violence throughout his life?

MS. PERINO: The President supports non-violence and non-violence protests, and appreciates the people who support that, as well.

Paula.

Q Dana, the President has said he's willing to consider an extension -- extended time, perhaps, for the CHIP program. But if he's opposed to a tobacco tax for the existing funding, how would he fund -- what would he support to fund an extended program?

MS. PERINO: That's not quite accurate. First of all, first and foremost, the President wants to expand S-CHIP by 20 percent in the next five years, with an additional $5 billion. So the President doesn't need to raise taxes in order to expand it and to get it beyond five years.

Q But Senator Lott proposed a 33 percent increase and an 18-month extension. So there is a difference --

MS. PERINO: Well, what we said is that the President -- and the President said it yesterday, he wants to try to reach common ground and find an agreement with the Democrats and with other members of -- other members of the Republican Party besides Senator Lott. There's going to be people that come forward with ideas.

One of the things the President wants to do is make sure that the children who are eligible for Medicaid and S-CHIP, who aren't currently enrolled, are served first, that they go to the front of the line. And that he's willing to talk about -- if people that that $5 billion is not going to be able to serve that population, he's willing to talk about, well, then what number would be? But that's the population he wants to serve first.

Q Finally, the tobacco tax rationale. I don't quite understand why the administration would oppose a tax that would discourage poor people or even -- either to cut back, or to cut smoking altogether, if that's -- that would be the result --

MS. PERINO: But the government --

Q -- of the funding for the program --

MS. PERINO: The Bush administration and the government is actively trying to get people to quit smoking. But we also don't think --

Q But this is an opportunity to do that.

MS. PERINO: Let me finish. We also don't think that raising taxes on a product is smart fiscal policy, especially when in the years 2011 and -- through 2014, this program would take, under their proposal that the President vetoed yesterday, a 65 percent cut. So then what taxes are they going to raise after that? And that's the President's position, is that taxes do not need to be raised to expand this program and to take care of the poorest children first.

Q But what's more important though, fiscal policy or encouraging -- taking a step that would encourage poor people to either cut back or quit smoking altogether?

MS. PERINO: The President is actively working to get people to quit smoking. But I would also say to you, what's more important and what's more compassionate is making sure that those 750,000 children who aren't currently covered under programs they're eligible for go to the front of the line before we give money to middle-class families to pay for a government-sponsored health care.

Q Thank you, Dana.

MS. PERINO: Thank you.

Netanyahu Confirms Secret Attack on Syria

The Guardian reports:

Israel's opposition leader, Binyamin Netanyahu, has given the first confirmation from his country of a mysterious air strike on an unknown target deep in Syria earlier this month - fuelling frenzied speculation about exactly what happened.

The leader of the rightwing Likud party said he had given the prime minister, Ehud Olmert, his backing for the attack, which Damascus said took place on September 6. Before that, the Israeli government had enforced a news blackout on the story.

Asked during a TV interview, Mr Netanyahu said: "When a prime minister does something that is important and necessary to Israel's security ... I give my backing." He refused to give further details.

Syria protested to the UN about the "flagrant violation" of its airspace. Officials in Damascus have reported that their air defences forced Israeli F15 jets to flee, dropping "munitions" and fuel tanks in the desert near the Turkish border.

US and other officials have claimed that Israel hit Syrian targets that may have had links to North Korean nuclear arms - dismissed by Damascus as "a big lie".

Meanwhile, Mr Olmert last night confronted critics within his centrist Kadima party who fear he may concede too much to Palestinians, and urged them to seize an opportunity to make peace after 60 years of conflict. Mr Olmert said he would free more Palestinian prisoners as part of "measured gestures" toward President Mahmoud Abbas as they try to agree terms for a US-sponsored peace conference.

U.S. Official Confirm Israel Strike on Syria

Reuters reports:

U.S. officials on Wednesday confirmed Israel launched air strikes against Syria last week and said they were to target weapons Israel believes were headed for the militant group Hezbollah.

One defense official dismissed speculation Israel had aimed for any nuclear-related target. Two others said the target included weapons Israeli and U.S. officials have said Iran provides to Hezbollah through Syria.

"They saw a weapons flow," one official said, referring to weapons caches intended for Hezbollah, which fired thousands of rockets into Israel during a 36-day conflict last year.

It was still unclear whether Israel hit its targets in the September 6 air strikes.

Israel has declined comment on the strikes. Syria says the munitions dropped by Israel did no damage.

One U.S. defense official, speaking only on condition of anonymity, said the significance of the strikes was not whether Israel hit its targets, but rather that it displayed a willingness to take military action.

Syria has protested to the United Nations about the air strikes. On Wednesday, Syria's U.N. ambassador said Israel's motive was to torpedo peace moves.

SYRIA AT U.N.

"We think the Israeli purpose behind such an aggressive act is to torpedo the peace process, to torpedo the idea of holding an international conference," Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari told reporters.

Asked about Hezbollah's weapons, Ja'afari said, "This is blah, blah. This is nonsense, this is an unfounded statement. It is not up to the Israelis or anyone else to assess what we have in Syria."

"There was no target," he added. "They dropped their munitions. They were running away after they were confronted by our air defense."

Israeli public radio stations, which like all media in the country are under military censorship, led morning news bulletins with a New York Times report that U.S. officials had said Israel carried out the strikes -- and that U.S. officials believed Syria may have obtained nuclear material.

While some officials speculated that Syria and North Korea had opened some form of cooperation on nuclear weapons, other U.S. officials and former intelligence officials told Reuters that seemed unlikely and technically difficult.

A European diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity told Reuters satellite surveillance of an alleged nuclear site in Syria had been inconclusive due to poor weather. However, he said monitoring of this site would continue.

Israeli jets last struck in 2003 across a border that remains tense but quiet 34 years after the last war between the two neighbors ended in an edgy ceasefire. In June last year Syrian guns opened fire on Israeli aircraft over Syria.

Israel has urged Syria to stop supporting militant Palestinian groups and the Lebanese movement Hezbollah.

Some Israeli intelligence officials also have suggested Syria's government might be ready to try to take by force parts of the Golan Heights captured by Israel in the war of 1967.

Syrian officials have said Syria was seeking peaceful means to recover the Golan, although some also have suggested force remained an option if diplomacy failed. Israeli-Syrian peace efforts have been stalled for seven years.

Syria Accuses Israel of Bombing Its Territory

Reuters reports:

Syria accused Israel of bombing its territory on Thursday and said it could respond to the Jewish state's "aggression and treachery."

Israel declined to comment on the charge by Syria, which said no casualties or damage were caused. The Syrian accusation was partly responsible for triggering a rise in world oil prices of more than $1.40 a barrel.

"It appears that the Israeli planes were on a reconnaissance mission when they got caught by Syrian defenses and were forced to drop their bombs and extra fuel tanks," said a Western diplomat in Syria's capital Damascus. He declined to be named.

After months in which talk of reviving long-stalled peace negotiations between neighboring Israel and Syria has been mixed with speculation on both sides that the other was preparing a surprise attack, Syrian officials hit out.

"This shows that Israel cannot give up aggression and treachery," Syrian Information Minister Mohsen Bilal told Al Jazeera television.

Another Syrian official said: "They dropped bombs on an empty area while our air defenses were firing heavily at them." The official news agency SANA said Syria "reserves the right to respond according to what it sees fit."

The Israeli military spokesman's office said in a statement: "It is not our custom to respond to these kinds of reports."

The office has typically commented on such charges, but a security source said the government had imposed a news blackout on the issue. A spokeswoman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said there would be no comment beyond the military statement.
In Washington, the White House declined to comment.

Russia urged Israel to respect international law.

"The reports have caused extreme concern in Moscow," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement. "Particularly troubling is that this is the Middle East, a region already heavy with serious conflicts and tension."
Iran again criticized its foe Israel.

"The aims of that ... provocative move by the Zionist regime was to shift its domestic crisis into areas other than Palestine, spreading insecurity in the region and covering up its failure in the 33-day war against Lebanon," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini.

Iran's ambassador to Damascus had contacted Syrian security officials and said that "Iran is ready to provide every kind of assistance to Syria," the official IRNA news agency reported.

RECONNAISSANCE FLIGHTS

It is more than a year since Syrian guns opened fire on Israeli aircraft and Israeli jets last struck in 2003 across a border that remains tense but largely quiet 34 years after the last war between the two neighbors ended in an edgy ceasefire.

Military analysts said Israel has conducted reconnaissance flights over Syria to probe its defenses.

Witnesses said several planes crossed deep into Syrian territory and flew over the oil centre of Deir al Zor on the Euphrates river.

Residents in the Tal al-Abiad area on Syria's border with Turkey said they spotted several fuel tanks.

Turkish and Israeli officials denied a report from an Israeli military source that the Israeli air force had trained in Turkey as recently as this week. The last exercises concluded last month, officials in Ankara said.

Tensions between Israel and Syria have been high in the past few months.

Some Israeli intelligence officials have suggested Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government might be ready to try to take by force parts of the Golan Heights, which Israel captured in the war of 1967 and held on to in fighting in 1973.

Syrian officials have said Syria was seeking peaceful means to liberate the territory, although some have also suggested force remained an option if diplomacy failed.

Some Israeli military officials have expressed alarm at what they say are reinforcements of Syrian posts and arms purchases.

But Olmert, who launched his forces against Syrian-allied Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon a year ago, has been at pains to say he has no hostile intentions toward Damascus.

He has also said he would like to reopen peace negotiations that have been stalled for seven years. Syrian officials too have said they would like peace. But there has been little sign of any concrete steps towards rapprochement.

Beyond Disaster

Chris Hedges, the former Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times, spent seven years in the Middle East. He was part of the paper’s team of reporters who won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of global terrorism. He is the author of “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning.” His latest book is “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.”

For TruthDig, Chris Hedges writes:

The war in Iraq is about to get worse—much worse. The Democrats’ decision to let the war run its course, while they frantically wash their hands of responsibility, means that it will sputter and stagger forward until the mission collapses. This will be sudden. The security of the Green Zone, our imperial city, will be increasingly breached. Command and control will disintegrate. And we will back out of Iraq humiliated and defeated. But this will not be the end of the conflict. It will, in fact, signal a phase of the war far deadlier and more dangerous to American interests.

Iraq no longer exists as a unified country. The experiment that was Iraq, the cobbling together of disparate and antagonistic patches of the Ottoman Empire by the victorious powers in the wake of World War I, belongs to the history books. It will never come back. The Kurds have set up a de facto state in the north, the Shiites control most of the south and the center of the country is a battleground. There are 2 million Iraqis who have fled their homes and are internally displaced. Another 2 million have left the country, most to Syria and Jordan, which now has the largest number of refugees per capita of any country on Earth. An Oxfam report estimates that one in three Iraqis are in need of emergency aid, but the chaos and violence is so widespread that assistance is impossible. Iraq is in a state of anarchy. The American occupation forces are one more source of terror tossed into the caldron of suicide bombings, mercenary armies, militias, massive explosions, ambushes, kidnappings and mass executions. But wait until we leave.

It was not supposed to turn out like this. Remember all those visions of a democratic Iraq, visions peddled by the White House and fatuous pundits like Thomas Friedman and the gravel-voiced morons who pollute our airwaves on CNN and Fox News? They assured us that the war would be a cakewalk. We would be greeted as liberators. Democracy would seep out over the borders of Iraq to usher in a new Middle East. Now, struggling to salvage their own credibility, they blame the debacle on poor planning and mismanagement.

There are probably about 10,000 Arabists in the United States—people who have lived for prolonged periods in the Middle East and speak Arabic. At the inception of the war you could not have rounded up more than about a dozen who thought this was a good idea. And I include all the Arabists in the State Department, the Pentagon and the intelligence community. Anyone who had spent significant time in Iraq knew this would not work. The war was not doomed because Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz did not do sufficient planning for the occupation. The war was doomed, period. It never had a chance. And even a cursory knowledge of Iraqi history and politics made this apparent.

This is not to deny the stupidity of the occupation. The disbanding of the Iraqi army; the ham-fisted attempt to install the crook and, it now turns out, Iranian spy Ahmed Chalabi in power; the firing of all Baathist public officials, including university professors, primary school teachers, nurses and doctors; the failure to secure Baghdad and the vast weapons depots from looters; allowing heavily armed American units to blast their way through densely populated neighborhoods, giving the insurgency its most potent recruiting tool—all ensured a swift descent into chaos. But Iraq would not have held together even if we had been spared the gross incompetence of the Bush administration. Saddam Hussein, like the more benign dictator Josip Broz Tito in the former Yugoslavia, understood that the glue that held the country together was the secret police.

Iraq, however, is different from Yugoslavia. Iraq has oil—lots of it. It also has water in a part of the world that is running out of water. And the dismemberment of Iraq will unleash a mad scramble for dwindling resources that will include the involvement of neighboring states. The Kurds, like the Shiites and the Sunnis, know that if they do not get their hands on water resources and oil they cannot survive. But Turkey, Syria and Iran have no intention of allowing the Kurds to create a viable enclave. A functioning Kurdistan in northern Iraq means rebellion by the repressed Kurdish minorities in these countries. The Kurds, orphans of the 20th century who have been repeatedly sold out by every ally they ever had, including the United States, will be crushed. The possibility that Iraq will become a Shiite state, run by clerics allied with Iran, terrifies the Arab world. Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia, the United States and Israel, would most likely keep the conflict going by arming Sunni militias. This anarchy could end with foreign forces, including Iran and Turkey, carving up the battered carcass of Iraq. No matter what happens, many, many Iraqis are going to die. And it is our fault.

The neoconservatives—and the liberal interventionists, who still serve as the neocons’ useful idiots when it comes to Iran—have learned nothing. They talk about hitting Iran and maybe even Pakistan with airstrikes. Strikes on Iran would ensure a regional conflict. Such an action has the potential of drawing Israel into war—especially if Iran retaliates for any airstrikes by hitting Israel, as I would expect Tehran to do. There are still many in the U.S. who cling to the doctrine of pre-emptive war, a doctrine that the post-World War II Nuremberg laws define as a criminal “war of aggression.”

The occupation of Iraq, along with the Afghanistan occupation, has only furthered the spread of failed states and increased authoritarianism, savage violence, instability and anarchy. It has swelled the ranks of our real enemies—the Islamic terrorists—and opened up voids of lawlessness where they can operate and plot against us. It has scuttled the art of diplomacy. It has left us an outlaw state intent on creating more outlaw states. It has empowered Iran, as well as Russia and China, which sit on the sidelines gleefully watching our self-immolation. This is what George W. Bush and all those “reluctant hawks” who supported him have bequeathed us.

What is terrifying is not that the architects and numerous apologists of the Iraq war have learned nothing, but that they may not yet be finished.

The $63 Billion Sham

For the Boston Globe, Derrick Jackson writes:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States wants to send $63 billion in military aid and weapons to the Middle East to "bolster forces of moderation and support a broader strategy to counter the negative influences of Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran."

Talk about wriggling in quicksand. Having destroyed Iraq to save us from horrors that did not exist, Rice now wants to save us from Iran's future nukes by selling American weapons of mass destruction. Over the next decade, the Bush administration wants to give Israel $30 billion in military aid, a nearly 43 percent increase over what that nation received over the last 10 years, according to The New York Times. We want to give $20 billion to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. We want to give Egypt $13 billion.

Do you feel safe?
"This is throwing bad money after worse money," said Frida Berrigan, senior program associate at the Arms and Security Project of the New America Foundation. The program was formerly known as the Arms Trade Resource Center at the World Policy Institute. "You can see the whole arms package as a buyoff of Arab nations for what we've done in Iraq.

"Justifying the sales because these countries feel threatened by Iran doesn't hold water. Iran is five to 10 years away from a nuclear weapon. That gives the United States and its partners more than enough time to come up with diplomatic solutions," Berrigan said. "This is just going to reinforce Iran's desire to have a nuclear weapon."

The United States had already set records for global arms sales. The New York Times reported in November that the Bush administration and American military contractors doubled arms sales from $10.6 billion to $21 billion from September 2005 to September 2006. Berrigan estimates that the latest proposal will increase military aid and weaponry by another 25 percent.

This is a bipartisan craziness that never ended despite the end of the Cold War. Under the dual guise of national security and protecting American jobs, the first President Bush and President Clinton aggressively promoted US arms sales to more than twice their level of the last years of the Cold War.

Lawrence Korb, assistant defense secretary under President Reagan, told the Globe in 1996, "The brakes are off the system. . . . There is no coherent policy on the transfer of arms. It has become a money game; an absurd spiral in which we export arms only to have to develop more sophisticated ones to counter those spread out all over the world. . . . It is a frightening trend that undermines our moral authority in the New World Order."

The absurd spiral did nothing for regional stability, democracy or stop terrorism from spreading to American shores. Saudi Arabia was a big buyer under Clinton. It remained a "problematic ally," according to the 9/11 commission. This week, the US envoy to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, could not decide whether Saudi Arabia was "a great ally" or "undermining" the United States in Iraq.

There is no hint of a coherent policy. Under the president, 80 percent of nations that received arms from America in 2003 were classified by the State Department as being either undemocratic or having a poor human rights record, which covers all the Arab countries in the new deal. Israel is a democracy, but in its 2006 country profile, the State Department cites a source that determined that 322 of 660 Palestinians killed by the Israeli military "were not engaged in hostilities when killed and 141 were minors."

This latest deal is so over the top that Israel is not opposing the $33 billion to Arab states because it gets $30 billion to maintain its military edge. En route to the Middle East this week, Rice denied that the military package was an attempt to buy allies with bombs. She also denied that the United States was relaxing its standards for democracy and human rights.

But a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit said that "the weak response in the Middle East to pressures for democratization, as well as the experience with imported political change in Iraq, is making a mockery of George Bush's 'freedom' agenda." Reuters this week quoted Paul Salem, director of the Middle East Center at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, as saying that the arms deal meant Bush's effort to spread democracy in the region was "more than dead."

Berrigan said, "We've created a black hole in what used to be a country and this is supposed to be the solution? More military aid and more high-tech weaponry? The best case scenario is that Congress exercises its power and keeps this from happening."

U.S. Plans New Arms Sales to Gulf Allies

$20 Billion Deal Includes Weapons For Saudi Arabia

The Washington Post reports:

The Bush administration will announce next week a series of arms deals worth at least $20 billion to Saudi Arabia and five other oil-rich Persian Gulf states as well as new 10-year military aid packages to Israel and Egypt, a move to shore up allies in the Middle East and counter Iran's rising influence, U.S. officials said yesterday.

The arms deals, which include the sales of a variety of sophisticated weaponry, would be the largest negotiated by this administration. The military assistance agreements would provide $30 billion in new U.S. aid to Israel and $13 billion to Egypt over 10 years, the officials said. Both figures represent significant increases in military support.

U.S. officials said the arms sales to Saudi Arabia are expected to include air-to-air missiles as well as Joint Direct Attack Munitions, which turn standard bombs into "smart" precision-guided bombs. Most, but not all, of the arms sales to the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries -- Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman -- will be defensive, the officials said.

U.S. officials said the common goal of the military aid packages and arms sales is to strengthen pro-Western countries against Iran at a time when the hard-line regime seeks to extend its power in the region.

"This is a big development, because it's part of a larger regional strategy and the maintenance of a strong U.S. presence in the region. We're paying attention to the needs of our allies and what everyone in the region believes is a flexing of muscles by a more aggressive Iran. One way to deal with that is to make our allies and friends strong," said a senior administration official involved in the negotiations.

The arms deals have quietly been under discussion for months despite U.S. disappointment over Saudi Arabia's failure to support the Iraqi government and to bring that country's Sunni Muslims into the reconciliation process.

The administration's plans will be announced Monday in advance of trips next week to the Middle East by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, and are expected to be on their agenda in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The administration has a notional list of arms to sell to the Gulf states, but there are no final agreements on quantities and specific models, U.S. officials said.

State Department and Pentagon officials started briefing key members of Congress about their intentions over the past week, U.S. officials said. The initial reception has been positive, said officials involved in those briefings. They acknowledged, however, that some parts of the deal are supported more than others. Arms sales to Gulf countries have often been controversial.

The administration hopes to provide a full rundown this fall for congressional approval.

"We want to convince Congress to continue our tradition of military sales to all six" states, the senior administration official said. "We've been helping Gulf Arabs for years, and that needs to continue."

Sunni regimes in the Gulf region have felt particularly vulnerable since the election of a pro-Iranian Shiite government in neighboring Iraq last year. "There's a sense here and in the region of the need to build up defenses against Iranian encroachment," said a U.S. official familiar with the deals.

The aid packages to Israel and Egypt are further along. A U.S.-Israel agreement, to replace a 10-year arrangement that expires this year, has been under discussion since February, U.S. officials said. The new U.S. package will include strictly military aid and would expand the U.S. contribution 25 percent over the current $2.4 billion per year; economic assistance has been discontinued now that Israel is considered a developed economy, U.S. officials said.

President Bush said last month, after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, that he was strongly committed to a new 10-year agreement that would increase U.S. assistance "to meet the new threats and challenges [Israel] faces." Washington has long promised to help Israel sustain a so-called "qualitative military edge" over other major powers in the region.

Rice is expected to announce Monday that, after her Middle East trip, Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns will finalize the agreements with Israel and Egypt.