March 30, 2005
Rep. Mark Kirk Stands By Pakistan Account
As I wrote yesterday in the New York Sun's Foreign Desk Editorial Staff column:
"WASHINGTON - From the podium, a State Department deputy spokesman, Adam Ereli, attacked a story that appeared in the Monday edition of The New York Sun."
"Mr. Ereli said the story that chronicled the then-ambassador to Pakistan's efforts to shut down a program to distribute materials designed to elicit information leading to the capture of Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders as "unfair" and "untrue."
Mr. Ereli did not cite any specific facts or allegations that were untrue.
The lawmaker at the center of The New York Sun's exclusive yesterday stands by his account. Rep. Mark Kirk, a Republican of Illinois, who sits on the appropriations subcommittee that funds the State Department, faulted Ambassador Nancy Powell's decision to impound wanted posters, matchbooks, and other items translated into local languages.
Asked for comment yesterday, Mr. Kirk declined to elaborate further, adding that the hunt for Mr. bin Laden has been invigorated by the replacement of Ms. Powell by veteran diplomat Ryan Crocker.
Yesterday, Mr. Ereli said the decision to discontinue the program was made before Ms. Powell arrived in Islamabad - a point attributed to a senior State Department official in Monday's edition.
When asked yesterday by the Sun to comment on Mr. Kirk's statements, Mr. Ereli declined to direct criticism at the lawmaker. Instead, he told the Sun, "I would say suggestions by anyone that Ambassador Powell, our mission in Islamabad, or the Department of State lacks commitment to the war on terror or the hunt for bin Laden are a disservice to the courage and commitment to everyone who works here." The New York Sun article stated no such allegations.
- Richard Miniter"
Posted by Richard Miniter at 10:35 PM
March 29, 2005
The Empire Strikes Back
So the State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli decided to fire back at me for my article on the front-page of the New York Sun on Monday. What is interesting is that baseless charges ("untrue and unfair"!) are thrown around so freely. I wonder if he actually read the entire article. Mr. Deputy Spokesman raises a number of objections, as you can see below. All of the points he makes are mentioned in the original story. His complaint amounts to arguing that the State Dept. view is buried too far into the story. I guess he wants to play editor...
Of course, there will be a response in the Tuesday editions of the New York Sun.
From the state department press briefing on Monday:
QUESTION: There's a report out that between 2002 and 2004, the then-Ambassador to Pakistan refused to allow the distribution of wanted posters, matchbooks and other items advertising the $25 million reward for the capture of Usama
bin Laden. Can you confirm if this occurred and, if it did, what effect that had on the hunt for Mr. Bin Laden and the Rewards for Justice program?
MR. ERELI: Yeah. That report is untrue and unfair. It's untrue because the decision with regard to the materials in question was made before the Ambassador ever got to post. It was made by the -- it was made, again, previous to her arrival at post. That's number one.
It's unfair because the article somehow suggests that this Ambassador and the Embassy in Pakistan was lackadaisical and unenthusiastic about their pursuit of Usama bin Laden and their commitment to the war on terror. And that's unfair because those people are in the line of fire every day, they have suffered casualties in the war on terror, and to suggest that they lack commitment and courage and sacrifice strikes a raw nerve over here.
Now, to get to the facts of the story, the fact is that the decision
on whether to make use of a particular tool in the war on terror, such as matchbooks or printed material, is based on a number of factors, including whether it's useful, whether it's accomplishing its purpose, or what other methods are there available. The decision is made by a number of entities, including the Ambassador, but also our counter-terrorism professionals from different agencies and other parts of the State Department. The decision to suspend this particular program was made in June 2002 and it was felt that at the
time there were other programs, there were other activities, where our efforts, I think, were better devoted.
Second of all, the article also suggests that somehow counterterrorism was just one of six priorities. Counter-terrorism was the number one priority. The mission was dedicated to it, the U.S. Government was dedicated to it, and whether or not you have a matchbook program is not the measure by which one should judge the commitment to counterterrorism. The measure by which one should judge commitment to counterterrorism is the resources that you're deploying across the board, the diplomatic efforts you're making internationally, the actions you're taking with the government in the
host country. And by all those measures Ambassador Powell and her team, from the day she arrived to the day she left—and the day she left was on normal rotation cycle, not because of some pressure or decision elsewhere—all her actions, from the day she got there to the day she left, were taken with that number one goal in mind.
QUESTION: Were these tools reinstated later? Is that part accurate?
MR. ERELI: Yeah. Well, as we announced very publicly a new campaign to get the word out among previously—get the word out was initiated a few months ago. But what we did in 2005 is very different from what we were doing in 2002. We're doing it in local languages, in areas that hadn't been reached before, in ways we hadn't reached them before, and it was based on what we learned between the previous efforts and these efforts. So it was very much refined, I think very much more focused, and based on the kinds of wide-ranging consultations and discussions and thinking throughout the administration, not just one ambassador but throughout the administration, you come up with a plan that you think is going to work.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 07:49 PM
March 28, 2005
Miniter on TV
I will appear on Fox & Friends at 8:50 AM Tuesday morning, to discuss this front-page story in the New York Sun.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 11:26 PM
March 27, 2005
One more sign that Bush might be right
Dr. Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansar, former dean of the Faculty of Shari'a and Law at the University of Qatar, recently gave an interview to the Qatari daily Al-Raya—and his remarks would earn him a death sentence in many parts of the Arab world. In a wide-ranging conversation, translated into English by MEMRI.org, the onetime dean says that Muslims should be free to move among its various traditions or even from Sunni to Shia and back; that history should be fairly taught and that the unjust Arab rulers of the past should not be able to cloak their crimes in the guise of religion, that Arab states should protect the rights of all including non-Muslims and so on.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 06:36 PM
March 26, 2005
An Exception to the Bush Doctrine?
Caroline Glick, my favorite columnist at the Jerusalem Post, raises an important point in this week's column: Why does Bush's roadmap to peace in the Middle East require all of the concessions and surrenders to terrorists that Bush criticizes with respect to al Qaeda, North Korea, Iran et cetera?
Posted by Richard Miniter at 06:56 PM
March 25, 2005
Torturing Terrorists on TV--in Iraq
Okay, this is almost too strange to be true. But a new program has appeared on Iraqi television called "Terrorists in the Grip of Justice." In the episode talked about in the link above, a Syrian intelligence officer—or someone who plays one on tv—confesses to supervising terrorist attacks on Iraqis. But the popularity, even the existence, of this show suggests that Abu Ghraib was not so shocking on the "Arab street."
Posted by Richard Miniter at 03:24 PM
March 24, 2005
Bloggers v. dictators
Syria Exposed is a new blog, apparently written from inside Syria. The English is imperfect, but the view is interesting. Some of his comments ring true, becuase they sound like things that Arabs in region have privately told me over the past few years, such as refering to the 1960s era intellectuals as "the failure generation." Again, this is the web. We don't really know who this blogger is or if he is for real. But sure seems like it.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 04:56 PM
March 17, 2005
Proud to Have Been an American
Ron Dermer was an American citizen—until the State Department made him renounce his citizenship. His patriotic response is worth reading. But Dermer is too polite to raise the larger issue: Why is the State Department telling foreign governments that it cannot appoint Americans to high-level posts at its embassies, unless they give up their U.S. passports? The U.S. government has long allowed dual citizenship with Israel, Ireland and a few other nations.Why can't diplomats be dual citizens too?
Posted by Richard Miniter at 09:16 AM
Power of the Internet on Closed Societies
This is a fascinating piece of reportage about the power of the internet on Syria and, by extension, other closed societies. The anecdote on Hafiz Assad, the current dictator, asking the secret police (mukhabarat) to log onto the web is worth the click through by itself. And check out some of the Syrian dissident web sites.
Attention editors! What's really missing is a good comprehensive piece on pro-reform web sites across the Arab world. What role do sites and viral e-mail lists have on driving demonstrators to the streets in Beirut? Will Iraq become a beacon of unregulated Arabic language for the Muslim world? Just how do they regulate the web in Baghdad? Are there hundreds of sites in Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia and so on that we don't know about? What about Afghanistan? Is there anything the Western powers can do to promote free speech online in the Middle East? Would the Bush doctrine of spreading democracy be possible without the web?
Posted by Richard Miniter at 09:06 AM