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Bring on the Inquiry:
"Peace Activists" in the Middle East: Out of Their Depth?
Judy Lash Balint

Jerusalem, Israel
The news that a senior Islamic Jihad terrorist, Shadi Sukiya, was captured by an elite anti-terror unit of the Israel Defense Forces while hiding out in the Jenin offices of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) did not make a ripple in the flood of coverage from the Iraqi front last week.

Just eleven days earlier, the ISM did make world headlines when Rachel Corrie, a 23 year old ISM member, was run over by an Israeli bulldozer in Rafah and died of her injuries.

Maybe the fact that a "peace" organization was found defending terrorists twice in a two-week period will factor into the inquiry called by several Washington state congressional representatives into the circumstances of Rachel Corrie's death. But don't be surprised if the revelation that two Kalashnikovs and a handgun were found along with a terrorist in the Jenin ISM office will hardly feature in the search for the truth about Rachel Corrie.

Only one thing is certain about the circumstances surrounding the death of International Solidarity Movement (ISM) protestor Rachel Corrie: she died in Rafah, on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip.

But is Israel responsible for her death, or do the doctors at the Arab hospital where she was taken still alive after the accident bear any responsibility? What about the ISM that organizes protests in a closed military zone and harbors known terrorists in their field offices? How she died, exactly where she passed her last moments and who should take the blame for Rachel Corrie's death are questions that demand answers.

The congressional inquiry called for by Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA) will have to sort it all out, but the inconsistencies in the eyewitness testimonies raise doubts about the simplistic conclusions already being drawn.

By all accounts, Rachel Corrie was one of a group of protestors attempting to disrupt the work of two IDF bulldozers leveling ground to detonate explosives in an area rife with terrorist activity. The bulldozers moved to a different area to avoid the protestors, and Corrie became separated from the group. Some of the agitators stood with a banner, while Corrie picked up a bullhorn and yelled fruitlessly at the driver encased in the small cabin of the 'dozer. This went on for several hours on the afternoon of March 16. It's the kind of activity favored by the young pro-Palestinian types who make up the ISM.

There wasn't enough action for Corrie. According to a fellow Evergreen State College student, Joseph Smith, 21, who was at the site, Corrie dropped her bullhorn and sat down in front of one of the bulldozers. She fully expected that the driver would stop just in front of her. "We were horribly surprised," Smith told me by phone from Rafah the day after the incident. "They had been careful not to hurt us. They'd always stopped before," he said.

As the 'dozer plowed forward heaping up a pile of dirt and sand, Corrie scrambled up the pile to sit on the top, screaming slogans at the driver. Smith says she lost her footing as the bulldozer made the earth move beneath her feet. "She got pulled down," he says. "The driver lost sight of her and continued forward. Then, without lifting the blade he reversed and Rachel was underneath the mid-section of the 'dozer-she wasn't run over by the tread."

Capt. Jacob Dellal of the IDF spokesperson's office confirms what Smith says about the driver: he lost sight of Rachel. Inside the cab some 8' off the ground, visibility is very restricted. The protestors should have known that and kept within the driver's line of sight to avoid getting hurt, Dellal asserts.

The strange thing about this part of the story is the discrepancy over the photos given to the press and posted on several pro-Arab websites.

As Smith describes to me his version of events, I ask about the series of photos printed in an Arab newspaper I picked up that morning in Jerusalem's Old City. "They aren't of the actual incident," he states firmly. "We'd been there for three hours already, we were tired-we already had a lot of pictures."

Yet these are the pictures used on the ISM website, www.palsolidarity.org to document the before and after of Rachel's interaction with the bulldozer. The same pictures are featured as a photo-essay on the site of Electronic Intifada, (http://electronicIntifada.net/v2/article1248.shtml) where they're even attributed to Joseph Smith.

There are several shots of the back of a woman with a blond ponytail facing a bulldozer. She's standing in an open field, wearing an orange fluorescent jacket, holding a megaphone.

Even Michael Shaikh, the ISM media coordinator, won't confirm that these are pictures of Corrie taken the day she died. "I'm fairly sure" they're of the incident, he tells me by phone from his Bethlehem office. In the same conversation, Shaikh asks me not to contact Joe, Greg or Tom, the Rafah ISM eyewitnesses again directly: "They're still in trauma…"

The pictures should have raised all kinds of questions to photo editors, but all the major newspapers and wire services chose to run the photos regardless. If there are pictures of Rachel before and after, why didn't the same photographer consider it important to document the act of the bulldozer running her down?

Where is the mound of earth Rachel clambered up and was buried in? The woman shown lying bleeding from her nose and mouth is lying on a flat piece of ground, and she's not covered in sand.

So Corrie was either knocked down by the 'dozer, or fell in front of it. ISMers assume that she was intentionally run over, but there's no proof that was the driver's intent.

The real issue is was Rachel alive when she was taken by Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance to Martyr Mohammed Yousef An Najar Hospital? In other words, where did she die? Were adequate efforts made to save her in the hospital?

Again, there are conflicting stories. Joseph Smith tells me in a telephone interview the day after the tragedy, "She died in the hospital or on the way to the hospital." CNN also reported that Rachel died there. ("Israeli bulldozer runs over 23-year-old woman." CNN, Monday, March 17, 2003)

In his account posted on www.arabia.com, ISMer Tom Dale has a slightly different story. On March 17 he writes: "I ran for an ambulance, she was gasping and her face was covered in blood from a gash cutting her face from lip to cheek. She was showing signs of brain hemorrhaging. She died in the ambulance a few minutes later of massive internal injuries."

But Dr. Ali Mussa, director of Martyr Mohammed Yousef An Najar Hospital where Corrie was taken isn't so clear. On the day of the event, Dr. Mussa tells AP Gaza reporter Ibrahim Barzak that Rachel died in the hospital. ("American Killed in Gaza" AP. March 16, 2003)

One week later, in a telephone interview with me, Dr. Mussa states definitively that Rachel died at the scene, "in the soil," as he puts it. "The main cause of death was suffocation," Mussa asserts. There were no signs of life, no heartbeat or pulse when she arrived at the hospital, he says. Mussa states that Rachel's ribs were fractured, a fact determined by X-rays. (Is it normal procedure to X-ray a dead body?)

Doesn't quite jive with the photo essay on the pages of the Electronic Intifada website for March 16, 2003. (Photo story: Israeli bulldozer driver murders American peace activist by Nigel Parry and Arjan El Fassed, The Electronic Intifada, 16 March 2003. http://electronicIntifada.net/v2/article1248.shtml)

A caption under one photo of doctors leaning over a female patient reads: "Rachel arrived in the Emergency Room at 5:05 p.m and doctors scrambled to save her. By 5:20 p.m, she was gone. Ha'aretz newspaper reported that Dr. Ali Mussa, a doctor at Al Najar, stated that the cause of death was "skull and chest fractures." Dr. Mussa told me he was one of the treating physicians-yet he alone maintains that Rachel was dead before she was put into the ambulance. To further complicate matters, on that same website, a report from the Palestine Monitor is cited. Here, the writer says that Rachel fractured "both her arms, legs and skull. She was transferred to hospital, where she later died."

Just who is Dr. Ali Mussa? Clearly a man in favor with the Palestine Authority hierarchy. Dr. Mussa's views are aired on the official website of the PA's Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation: (January 27, 2003)

There, Dr. Mussa accuses Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's "terrorist government" of "deliberately killing Palestinian children in Rafah."

A few days after the incident, ISM Media Coordinator Michael Shaikh tells me by phone from Rafah that three ISMers, Tom, Alice and Greg were in the ambulance with Rachel. "She died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital," says Michael. But Greg Schnabel, 28, who is quoted in numerous wire service and newspaper stories, never says he witnessed the death of his comrade in the ambulance. In his account published a few days later on the ISM website, he carefully states that she died twenty minutes after arriving at the hospital.

What happened to Rachel's body after her death? Depends who you ask. Dr. Mussa says it was kept for 24 hours at the hospital before a Red Crescent ambulance transported it "to the US Embassy in Tel Aviv," via the border where an Israeli ambulance took over. Michael Shaikh says "we lost track of it (her body) after she died." Three ISMers tried to escort the body, but only one was permitted on the ambulance on the Israeli side. According to his account, the ambulance drove straight to the Israeli Forensic Institute at Abu Kabir, where an autopsy was performed. "The Israelis are trying to say she died from a blow to the head by a rock," Shaikh recounts.

Speaking about the autopsy, one of Rachel's ISM trainers, Iowa native LeAnne Clausen, a fieldworker for the Christian Peacemaker Team based in Beit Sahour, tells me: "The general sentiment within ISM is that the Israelis are trying to suggest perhaps Rachel was on drugs."

In reality, IDF spokesperson Dellal says that initial Israeli investigation results indicate that the cause of death was most likely a blow to the head and chest by a blunt object-possibly a chunk of cement dug up by the bulldozer.

In keeping with ISM sympathies, Rachel received a "shaheed" (martyr) procession in Rafah, the day after her death. But here again, there's confusion between reality and photo opp. Some accounts noted that her coffin draped in an American flag was paraded through the streets. Yet a picture on the site of her college town's peace movement, the Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace (www.omjp.org/rachelphotos.html) shows Arab women holding a coffin covered by a Palestinian flag with the caption: Palestinian funeral for Rachel.

Confusion and obfuscation seem to be a trademark of the ISM. Last May, a number of ISMers raced past Israeli soldiers into the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where dozens of Palestinian terrorists had holed up to evade capture by the IDF outside. After an agreement was reached, the ISM members refused to leave the church, holding up the solution. Then they charged that they were mistreated by clergy, who claimed the ISMers desecrated the church by smoking and drinking alcohol.

Another revealing ISM action took place shortly before the Bethlehem incident, when a number of protestors managed to make their way past IDF barricades into Yasser Arafat's Ramallah compound to "protect" the terrorist leader.

Last week's Rafah activity falls into the same category of ISM defense of Arab terrorists. IDF efforts in Rafah are concentrated on preventing the flow of arms and explosives over the border from Egypt into the terrorist's dens that riddle the area. Less than a week after Rachel died defending terrorists, Israeli tanks moved into Rafah, surrounded several houses, and arrested two Hamas members. IDF spokesperson, Dellal calls Rafah "the most dangerous area in the West Bank and Gaza, and decries the "provocative protests" of ISM. "There's nothing wrong with civil disobedience, but these people crossed the line of what was safe for everyone," Dellal says.

So, while the memorial services laud and remember Rachel Corrie as a "peace activist" "murdered by Israeli occupation forces," the truth lies elsewhere.

An Israeli bulldozer injured Corrie as she tried to prevent it doing its job of protecting Israeli civilians, but she was alive when she was taken to An Najar Hospital, according to at least three eyewitnesses. Only Dr. Mussa, a man intent on accusing Israel of child killing, claims otherwise. None of Rachel's comrades have stated they were with her in the hospital when she died.

The Corrie episode in Rafah may end up being ranked with the "murder" of 12-year-old Muhammad al-Dura by Israeli forces in a firefight at nearby Netzarim in September 2000. Months after the event, the official IDF inquiry and a German TV report revealed that there was little doubt that al-Dura was hit by Palestinian fire. An independent French journalist, Gerard Huber, claims that the entire incident was fabricated for press consumption. ('Contre-expertise d'une mise en scene,' Editions Raphael, Paris).

And all the while, the ISM continues to encourage misguided young people like Rachel Corrie from around the world to spend time in the Middle East providing cover for terrorists.

Bring on the inquiry.

Judy Lash Balint is a Jerusalem based writer and author of Jerusalem Diaries: In Tense Times (Gefen) www.jerusalemdiaries.com.

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Interview with The Director of IDF Intelligence: " . . .  Iraq Has Non-Conventional Weapons"
Smadar Peri
Military Correspondent, Yediot Aharonot

-- Where is Saddam Hussein? Is he alive or dead? What became of his sons? Where is he hiding the missiles and launchers? What are the "sensitive things" that Saddam's associates in Baghdad handed over to Assad's associates in Syria?

"I don't know," "maybe," "probably." These are the words that IDF Intelligence Director Maj. Gen. Aharon Zeevi-Farkash repeats again and again. The director of Military Intelligence does not know? His nuanced phrasing suggest that he knows more than he wants to say, beyond the situation assessments that he provides to the senior echelons of the security establishment. On one subject he is clear and succinct: Saddam Hussein, the concealment wizard, has non-conventional weapons. Have some patience, and they will be found.

Question: Maj. Gen. Zeevi-Farkash, what is your interpretation of the pictures that we saw this week on Iraqi television? Iraqi television promises a speech from Saddam Hussein, and the information minister appears in his stead. Saddam's close bodyguard, who never leaves his side, pops up all of a sudden behind the information minister. Pictures of Saddam and his two sons are shown, but their voices are not heard.

"I see that they are under pressure. In the military arena, since the middle of the week we have been seeing a break in the defenses around Baghdad, critical blows to the Republican Guards and armored divisions. People here did not really notice that the Iraqis abandoned the second most important area in the country, the oil fields of Rumeila in the north. That is a sign that things are breaking down. Because of the pressure, they moved the elite Nebuchadnezzar and Adnan divisions away from Tikrit, Saddam's stronghold, and brought more infantry divisions from the regular army to defend Baghdad."

Question: Who is holding Baghdad today?

"We don't know. Probably parts of the leadership close to Saddam Hussein, and maybe Saddam himself, if he is alive. There is no question that Saddam and his two sons, Udai and Kusai, have not yet managed to prove that they are alive."

Question: Let's get back to the pictures that show Saddam Hussein speaking, after the beginning of the offensive.

"Regarding Saddam Hussein at least, the assessment is that it was him, in a taped performance, despite the fact that here, too, there are exceptional signs: He usually speaks standing up. The two speeches he gave after the attempt to assassinate him were given sitting down. It is likely that he cannot stand. Saddam also never speaks with a military beret. This time he wore one. In the first speech he read from a notebook. He always spoke without glasses, and looked right at the camera.

"Every speech is printed for him in large letters. And when he speaks, there are usually two eagle emblems on either side. After the assassination attempt the eagles disappeared. In the second appearance they tried to use a crooked symbol. You could see that it was improvised. We even saw that behind him was a sheet that was quickly sewn to serve as a backdrop. I have not seen such a backdrop in the past. There is usually a flower arrangement next to him. It too was absent this time.

"There is a string of indications that they organized things in a hurry in order to prove that Saddam is alive. It is certainly possible that he is wounded, and it is also possible that his condition has worsened. The fact is that for more than a week he has not appeared."

Question: And his two sons?

"They have not appeared at all."

Question: We saw pictures of them around Saddam's table. "We did not hear their voices."

Question: If Saddam is wounded and his sons do not exist, who will run the battle for Baghdad?

"We think that perhaps some of his associates, because apparently not all of them were killed, and those people who are very loyal to him, who understand that in any case they will pay with their lives."

Question: If you are asked for your assessment, as director of Military Intelligence-is Saddam alive or dead?

"I must say with all duemodesty that I do not know. If I have to guess, I would say that there is a greater possibility that his sons are dead, or that they cannot function."

Question: Is it still possible that we will see Saddam in an appearance that will convince everyone beyond any doubt that he is alive and functioning?

"If he did not appear on Tuesday, despite the fact that they promised, and despite the fact that the matter is so significant-to convince the army and the people to join the jihad-I do not think that we will be seeing him soon. There is a connection between everything that happened in the middle of the week, the indications that the Americans are advancing well, and Saddam's absence. His palaces are under attack, his offices are under attack. The Republican Guards are crying for help. Something happened.

"If he has not appeared until now, we must relate with skepticism to the claim that he is alive and functioning. It is hard for me to guess to what degree he can accurately assess the situation in which is currently finds himself. If the break is real, he will use tapes and will not appear. Even if he is planning a surprise, or the use of chemical weapons, he will not do it through the media.

"But there is a possibility that he is trying to do something else: To find shelter and disappear. We might be closer than ever to the time when Saddam will move from a strategy of survival to a strategy of suicide or disappearing."

Question: For how much time can he disappear inside Iraq without being found? "I imagine that he knows Iraq better than foreigners."

Question: How many people are in his close circle? "In the closest group, between 30 and 40. In the wider group, between 70 and 100."

Question: What good will disappearing be for him? "Such a strategy has advantages for Saddam. His loyalists will continue to do their job out of their fear of Saddam until the coalition forces purify certain sections of Baghdad.

"The demise of the army and of civilians will continue when Saddam cannot or is not interested in showing a sign of life. On the other hand, there are also disadvantages for him, because in the end people will see that he is gone and that will affect their actions towards the Americans."

Question: Where can Saddam disappear to?

"He can disappear into the tunnel system that apparently exists underneath his palaces. He could be smuggled to one of the areas in the north or center of the country. It is possible that he prepared his escape route ahead of time. We know of at least 50-70 palaces, houses, and sites that belong to his family.

"But once again, on the other hand, it is possible that his image will not allow him to do this, and he will want to fight to the end. That is assuming that he was not wounded. If he was wounded, it is possible that he has already decided to initiate a few things that he thinks will cause a turnaround."

Question: Like chemical weapons?

"There is a very problematic point here. Until the assassination attempt, at 4:20 a.m. two weeks ago Thursday, Saddam Hussein's strategy was survival, his goal was to ensure that they would not find any non-conventional weapons: hide them, lie about them, as long as they do not find anything. That also means taking the weapons he has, breaking them down into small parts, and hiding them.

"And then the war started. Now it is not simple for him to take the same weapons that he worked so hard to hide, and use them all of a sudden. Perhaps the Americans are already in some of those places. Perhaps he cannot reach them."

Question: The Americans went to war in order to get rid of Saddam Hussein and to find chemical and biological weapons. What will happen if Saddam disappears and the weapons are not found?

"Patience. Only two weeks have gone by since the beginning of the war. I must compliment the Americans on the way there are operating. I have no doubt that in the end they will find it. I look at the report from the chief of the inspection team, Blix. Only after the war started did he remember to reveal that there were open questions."

Question: Questions that concern you?

"Absolutely. They did not do a good job counting some of the el-Hussein missiles (which are capable of reaching Israel-S.P.) that were destroyed. Fourteen missiles were apparently not destroyed, and neither were between two and eight mobile launchers.

"There is something here that is going unnoticed: Saddam's policy was to conceal things. And when you are concealing, you are not training units but instead taking the weapons apart and hiding them all over the huge country. Perhaps it is also preferable for him not to pull out the chemical weapons, because he has heard the French threat that should he use such weapons they will join the war."

Question: Let us say that the Americans do not manage to find the hidden weapons by themselves. What then?

"If the picture that is now coming together turns out to be accurate, this means that the battle for Baghdad has been decided, and this is the beginning of the point of transition from which we will be able to see how this war will end. The next stage will be critical: Guaranteeing that Saddam and his associates are arrested or killed, and immediately thereafter finding all of the people involved in developing weapons of mass destruction so that they will point out where they are located."

Question: Are you talking about the scientists?

"Scientists, and part of the special Republican Guards. The second they find them, and the fear of Saddam is gone, they will reach the weapons."

Question: Did the inspectors even manage to find something that we did not know about?

"Yes. Before the inspections we did not know about the Sumud-2 missiles that can reach a range of 600 km with a 300 kg warhead. We also did not know about the pilotless aircraft with the range of 500 km. There were enough things that we did not know about."

Understanding the Israeli Soldier

Question: Try to get into Saddam's head, or the head of whoever it is that is leading the defensive battle for Baghdad in his name. How will they stop the Americans from getting in?

"Saddam has already asked all of the civilians to prepare trenches and throw grenades and firebombs. As far as he is concerned, every resident of Baghdad is responsible for fighting for his own home. It is interesting that both sides believe that the war's fate will be decided in the battle for Baghdad."

Question: Why did the Americans believe that they would be greeted with flowers in Iraq?

"This was not our assessment. Ours was that there would be combat, and that in the end the Americans will be able to win. We have known the Middle East for long enough to be able to make these assessments. By the way, I did not hear an American assessment that they would be greeted with flowers and rice. It can be assumed that their assessment was that the resistance would be lighter, as it was in Afghanistan."

Question: Will Baghdad be the Iraqis' Masada?

"I am not sure. Entering Baghdad is not the only possible scenario. There is the option of imposing a closure, there is the option of blockade. Assassinations. Special operations. The Americans are testing the ground. They are more experienced now than they were two weeks ago."

Question: You are using terms familiar to us from home: closure, blockade, targeted killing.

"I now hear them in the American media. There is gradually more understanding for the soldier at the Israeli checkpoint who cannot tell the difference between an ambulance and a dangerous car. After the Americans lost five soldiers in Najaf, the rules on opening fire changed and then changed again, because innocent civilians were also killed. The Americans learn lessons quickly."

Question: When the Americans prepare for a closure or a blockade and to carry out targeted killings, it is easy to see that they got a few tips from us.

"I cannot get into our relations with other countries."

Question: Still, there is an Israeli angle to this war.

"I hope that this angle stays as it is now, without our involvement. But this conflict has an effect: the US went to war without international legitimacy. Because there are those who tie the Iraqi issue to the Palestinian issue and to the implementation of Security Council resolutions, it is possible that we will have to pay part of the price. We already see the issues related to the 'road map.'"

Question: We heard this week from President Bush that he intends to present the "road map" without allowing either side to make changes. Can you live with that?

"I suggest that we be careful. As I recall, they said that they would be willing to accept reservations. This 'road map' has many dangers for the State of Israel, but there is also a chance of something good happening. Assuming that the 'road map' reflects the realization of President Bush's vision, we can deal with it."

A Chance for Abu Mazen

Question: How do you explain Yasser Arafat's silence, the fact that he has not expressed support for Saddam Hussein? "He understands the war's implications for the Palestinian Authority. That is what led him to give in to the Legislative Council when it established that the prime minister would share Arafat's authorities. Arafat is the one who weakened the system over the past two-and-a-half years of the failed Intifada."

Question: What is his relationship with Abu Mazen?

"I think it is 'respect him and suspect him' from both sides. I would like to see how the 'founding fathers' syndrome' will affect the conflict, the argument and debate between them."

Question: What does Bashar Assad want? He is the only Arab leader who is supporting Saddam Hussein and provoking the Americans.

"It will soon be the third anniversary of his assumption of power, and this is the first time that he is facing a significant experience, one which could get Syria onto the 'axis of evil.' Bashar Assad is brilliantly leading Syria in that direction. It is possible that he is doing it because of the hatred of the West that he suckled at home. He cannot overcome that impulse.

"I think that something happened this week that he could have avoided, and I mean the smuggling of weapons into Iraq. Syria has become Iraq's only oxygen line. It provided Iraq with night-vision equipment, as Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld announced, and apparently also equipment for the T-72 tanks of the Republican Guard.

"We have been dealing with this issue for many months. Last summer, until October or November, we saw that suspicious things were moving from Iraq to Syria under the auspices of central figures in Syria and Iraq."

Question: With the regime's knowledge?

"We believe that if those people who handled them are so central, then the regime apparently does know. If we knew what they passed, that would be excellent. There is no doubt that they passed things they were trying to hide.

"At first we suspected that some of this equipment went to Hizbullah, through Iran. But the more time that passes, the option strengthened that this is equipment from Iraq to Syria and we don't know where it is stored. In any case, I think that Bashar Assad's actions endanger his country. Syria has apparently not internalized the game rules after September 11, that terror is not legitimate just as threatening another country is not, or having non-conventional weapons.

"After being reprimanded by the United States, Bashar must decide whether he is going to continue on this path. We have t be sensitive to what happens and not summarily state that he is on a steep slope from which he will not return."

Question: Assad said this week that Israel is a danger to Syria.

"So he said it. While words do have some weight, I look at actions. The result of the war in Iraq will have a great effect on Syria: if the war goes on for long and ends with a less than decisive victory, he will have to decide."

Sleeps Two-Three Hours a Night

Question: Are you working harder since the war began?

"Absolutely."

Question: How many hours a night?

"In the last two weeks I think there were days I slept two-three hours. We hold intelligence assessments two-three times a day, in which we try to understand the picture. At stake are issues that concern our life in the State of Israel. Missile fire or the question of the Iraqi air force's abilities are critical issues, ones that preoccupy us. We have to be certain that what we say and present to the decision-makers is of the highest reliability."

Question: When you saw the missile that landed in Kuwait this week, did you think of us?

"Yes. And there were incidents during this period, having to do with information, that we could not rest until we refuted them and ruled them out."

Question: For example?

"Surface-to-surface missiles in western Iraq, for example. We have to use all the means we have to ensure that if we say 'there are none,' or 'there are,' that this is well based."

Question: Are there or aren't there missiles in western Iraq?

"So far we haven't found any."

Question: So why are we still carrying around our gas mask kits?

"Because there are still some sites about which there are suspicions that missiles and non-conventional weapons are hidden there. Until we utterly rule this out, we cannot say that the danger has passed."

Question: Would you say that since the war began the danger of missiles has shrunken?

"With every day that passes, the American presence in western Iraq further decreases the chances that it will be possible to fire missiles at Israel from there. The ability to launch missile was greater and it is shrinking, but it is still not zero."

Question: A question that everybody asks themselves: how is it possible that intelligence networks all over the world were unable, to this day, to locate and kill Saddam Hussein?

"Tyrannical regimes have a special defense layer for the dictator and for the small group around him. The special economic conditions that the higher-ups enjoy, creates great dependence. The moment he disappears, the benefits disappear. Like with Mussolini, Stalin and Hitler, fear and terrorization rule and people are willing to give their lives for him.

"You also have to remember that fortunately, Iraq does not border Israel or the US, and our intelligence services cannot get deep inside. The intelligence needed to kill requires a great investment of resources and manpower. Such precise intelligence gathering could not have been obtained in the year and a half that passed since the terror attacks in New York and since war was declared on Saddam."

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Cooperation Between the US and Israel: How to Treat the Phenomenon of Suicide Bombers
Ben Caspit
Correspondent, Maariv

The Americans have recently requested and received Israeli assistance in dealing with suicide bombers.

The efficient system of cooperation between the two countries, which was established here before the war on Iraq, made things easier. All General Charles Simpson's people had to do was walk a few steps from the joint headquarters in the Kirya, say, to the office of Deputy Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, who coordinates the work of the IDF on the subject of suicide bombers, and get all the relevant material from there.

The Prime Minister's Bureau followed developments with satisfaction. No one there rejoices over the deaths of American and British soldiers in Iraq, but there is quite a bit of the kind of satisfaction that is felt by someone when they are suddenly found to be in the right, over the glow of a huge explosion. "It will be interesting to see how the British react, for example," a senior state official said yesterday, "the next time we have a mishap of mistaken fire on a suspicious vehicle at a roadblock."

There is a difference in principle between the plague of suicide bombers that has raged in Israel over the past few years and the phenomenon that coalition forces are encountering in Iraq. Here, most suicide bombers go for civilian targets, in the heart of a civilian population. In Iraq, they blow themselves up at military troops. The profile of the suicide bomber put together here is not relevant to them, but the way to spot a suicide attacker on his way to attack, how to deal with roadblocks, overpowering a suicide bomber or isolating him and all the relevant operations connected with this phenomenon that the IDF and GSS compiled in the past few years can certainly be helpful to what is happening now in Iraq.

Sixteen planning teams worked hard to prepare a plan of operations for the war in Iraq for the Pentagon. You can do that when you're an empire. At the end of the process, the top officials sat down to pick out the best plans and create one winner out of all of them. After that, it turned out that they had to fix it while on the move. So, for example, the Americans had originally intended to use massive air strikes and make do with 50,000 soldiers who would head for Baghdad and gather the spoils. In consultations Pentagon officials held, it turned out that the plan was too optimistic.

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, freshly demobilized from the IDF at the time, stayed at the Washington Institute and was summoned for a few consultations. Mofaz too, like other experts, recommended a great increase in the number of soldiers (from 50,000 to a quarter million), to combine air strikes with broad ground operations, to attack Baghdad from many directions and be careful not to wind up in a death trap inside the city. In the end, the Americans are doing precisely that.

They were warned by no few local experts not to rely too much on air strikes. The Iraqi regime is much less sensitive to such attacks, the long-suffering population is used to them, the pilots will attack a lot of desert, raise a great deal of dust but not get much closer to the goal. The key is on the ground, in the Republican Guard camps and the regime's bunkers.

It took the Americans a few days, but they got the message and got used to the situation. The attempt to wipe out the regime in one fell swoop on the first night did not succeed (or so it seems). The "shock and awe" attack was reduced in scope and focused, the ground forces were reinforced and the ground operation began, combined with an air operation. The improvement in the weather and the Fourth Division's anticipated arrival (they were not permitted to attack from Turkey) will decide things within the next few days. [ . . . ]

The struggle over "the day after" is at its height. Jerusalem and Washington (two foci), London, New York and Ramallah are the poles of this war. The American administration is torn between two approaches: a minority coalition of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, backed up by George Tenet, that will push for the road map, as Tony Blair would prefer. Opposite them are the vice president's hawks, the Zionists in the Pentagon, Congressional delegates, Jewish money and the president, who have already buried the shabby road map and will not care if they push Blair and Powell too into the same mass grave.

The only person who gained anything this week in this whole affair, meanwhile, was Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom. When Binyamin Netanyahu met with Amir Peretz, Shalom sat in Condoleezza Rice's office and looked at the opening inner door, from which the president himself leaped out. With cowboy boots and a broad smile, Bush Jr. made Condi get up from her chair, sat down in it and had a half-hour conversation with Shalom, during which Bush was the main interlocutor. Outside turned the rotors of the presidential helicopter, which was to take him to an appearance in front of soldiers in Philadelphia, but Bush (who, during the conversation, had promised Israel's security "in any event") had been briefed and knew that an investment in Shalom would pay off.

The new foreign minister was perceived in Washington as a "big guy" who brought quite a bit of political strength to his position, along with a strong desire to acquire international standing. The belief that Shalom could be courted by Washington as it tries to slip the "road map" somehow into Ariel Sharon's sensitive stomach is getting stronger quickly.

A few weeks ago, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon asked his former bureau chief, Uri Shani, to come back home (to the bureau). Shani, happy and lighthearted in his new job, refused. What does he need that trouble now for? In any other given situation, the goings-on in the Prime Minister's Bureau would make fat headlines. Two central facts allow those close to the situation to control the level of the conflict's flame: the war in Iraq on one side and the continued successful developments, despite everything, on the other.

On a third side, Sharon's bureau is a medical miracle. Never was so little done by so few with such surprising success rates. True, nothing really works, no one is really bright, but the business is alive, functioning and sometimes even kicking. That has to do with Sharon's personality, to his fairly organized management, to his easygoing nature, his relative calm and the strange tendency of the prime minister and most of his assistants not to panic over anything. Not when they shouldn't, and also not when they should.

The bureau's most serious mistake, as strange as it sounds, is the prime minister's military secretary, Maj. Gen. Yoav Gallant. He is a much-praised officer, the leader of a commando unit, a good man, in the reasonable sense of the term. [ . . . ] On the other hand, we can't ignore what's happening.

The prime minister's military secretary is an essential component of authority, especially critical in a country like Israel. The military secretary is in on all the secrets and serves as personal military headquarters for one person, the prime minister. The post requires a complicated set of characteristics. Gallant does not have most of them. The way things are going right now, his performance as the unit connecting the prime minister and the army is lacking.

The IDF is furious with him. The bureau regards him with ridicule. The chief of staff summoned him three months ago and warned him of possible dismissal. That's not pleasant. An investigation of the facts and witnesses shows a problematic situation. It is not clear who is correct here, but what is clear is that the prime minister has no full military secretary. Gallant has gotten himself a collection of bitter enemies from almost everywhere. They claim he earned them honestly. He claims it's a matter of settling personal accounts. [ . . . ]

The way things are right now, the prime minister's real military secretary is Dov Weissglass. If it didn't come from us, it would be funny. Weisglass is many things, but a military secretary is not one of them. True, on a good day a joke of his in Yiddish could set the mukataa walls tumbling down, but not every brigade commander in the IDF controls the makeup of the Nazareth District Court. The connection between the prime minister and the military exists today via alternate and usually direct channels. This is not healthy. [ . . . ]

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