Dems divided over Webb’s proposal requiring approval for attacking Iran

By Elana Schor

April 18, 2007

Supporters of requiring President Bush to secure congressional approval for any preemptive strike on Iran are regrouping for a new push, presaging a difficult vote for Democratic leaders and presidential hopefuls alike.

Democrats hailed the Iraq withdrawal language attached to the emergency supplemental as a signal of a newly assertive Congress, even though the House removed a mandate for authorization of attacks on Iran from early drafts of the bill. The reversal quieted some Democrats’ concerns that reining in Bush on Iran could endanger Israel’s security in the Middle East.

Iran is likely to reappear on the agenda this spring, however, as Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) considers adding his language on the issue to the defense authorization bill and House Democrats hold their leadership to a promise for a roll-call vote.

“There is no hand-tying here. We’re not taking options off the table,” Webb spokeswoman Jessica Smith said. “He offered this piece of legislation to restore the proper balance between the executive and legislative branch. This is a bill to empower Congress.”

For many Democratic base voters, Webb’s Iran language is also a litmus test for presidential candidates. White House assertions that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is tied to Iraqi insurgent groups makes opposition to a possible war with Iran as crucial as opposition to the Iraq war for Democrats running in 2008.

Tom Andrews, the former Democratic lawmaker now leading the anti-war group Win Without War, said the party’s White House hopefuls should see Webb’s plan as a no-brainer.

“The idea that you could not support prohibiting a military strike, given the conditions that are on [Webb’s measure] … certainly raises serious questions in our community,” Andrews said.

Former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) and Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) are the only 2008 Democrats on record as backing Webb’s effort. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) took the Bush administration to task on Iran in a Feb. 14 floor speech, supporting the spirit of Webb’s effort, if not his specific language.

“It would be a mistake of historical proportion if the administration thought that the 2002 resolution authorizing force against Iraq was a blank check for the use of force against Iran without further congressional authorization,” Clinton said.

When asked whether Clinton would vote for Webb’s language, a spokesman for the New Yorker took a wait-and-see approach, saying it depends on the format in which it reaches the floor.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has also kept mum on Webb’s language, which includes multiple exceptions in case of an attack on Iran or Iranian hostility in Iraq. But Obama took an interest in Webb’s push during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing last month with Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns.

Obama asked whether Bush believes he has presumptive authority to attack Iran, to which Burns responded: “It’s the position of our government that the president obviously has the constitutional duty to protect the American people … and as commander in chief has to be able to exercise that authority as he sees fit.”

“I think you meant, ‘it’s the position of our administration’ as opposed to ‘our government,’” Obama replied.

Iran’s recent saber-rattling detention of a British naval crew, which ended in the soldiers’ safe release, appears to have sparked less escalation than expected between Bush and Ahmadinejad. But pro-Israel stalwarts such as Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) see any curb on U.S. action against Iran as a potential handcuff in Iraq.

“What if the president decides, at the request of General Petraeus, that we have to take action to take out [an Iranian] base?” Lieberman said yesterday. “I wouldn’t want to have to go through a month-long debate in Congress before you could do that.”

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Washington’s most influential pro-Israel lobbying group, held its capital policy conference just after the House removed Iran authorization language from its version of the supplemental. AIPAC Executive Director Howard Kohr told members there that any legislative attempt to limit U.S. options in Iran would be harmful and signal weakness.

In addition to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) support, Webb has the public backing of Appropriations Chairman Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). In the House, Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) said through a spokesman that he would hold Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to her vow for a recorded vote on Iran authorization language.

“I think it will pass because there isn’t a thinking person in the world that believes the President when he says won’t launch a military strike against Iran,” McDermott said. “Even conservative Republicans are worried about the president’s lack of credibility.”

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) echoed McDermott’s intentions.

“The Bush administration has already misled our nation into one unnecessary preemptive war under false pretenses, and Congress needs to make it perfectly clear that he does not have the authority to take us down the same road with Iran,” Lee said in an e-mail.

The multilateralist group Just Foreign Policy marshaled supporters of the Webb amendment during the supplemental debate last month. Antiwar groups including Peace Action and United for Peace and Justice joined in by organizing grassroots call-ins to Senate offices urging a vote on the Webb language.

“The Senate is going to feel the pressure to pass this provision soon,” Robert Naiman, national coordinator of Just Foreign Policy, wrote on the group’s website. Among its board members are Julian Bond, chairman of the NAACP, and Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future.

Deleted e-mails could prompt obstruction of justice charges for Rove, other White House officials

CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan featured on CNN's The Situation Room discussing millions of emails missing from official White House email systems ... learn more about CREW at http://www.citizensforethics.org

UK National Union of Journalists votes to boycott Israeli goods

I guess journalists aren't so bad, after all. :)
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NUJ votes to boycott Israeli goods
Stephen Brook
Friday April 13, 2007
MediaGuardian.co.uk

Jeremy Dear: general secretary of the NUJ. Photo Stefano Cagnoni

The National Union of Journalists has voted at its annual meeting for a boycott of Israeli goods as part of a protest against last year's war in Lebanon.

Today's vote was carried 66 to 54 - a result that met with gasps and a small amount of applause from the union delegates present.

The vote came during a series of motions on international affairs and reads: "This ADM [annual delegate meeting] calls for a boycott of Israeli goods similar to those boycotts in the struggles against apartheid South Africa led by trade unions and the TUC [Trades Union Congress] to demand sanctions be imposed on Israel by the British government and the United Nations."

The motion was originally brought by the union's South Yorkshire branch and opposed by the Cumberland branch, which said it was too political and was not tied closely enough to journalistic matters.

After a show of hands twice failed to give a clear result, union scrutineers were called in and the doors to the conference room closed.

The vote on the motion was taken after it was split from a larger motion that condemned the "savage, pre-planned attack on Lebanon by Israel" last year.

This motion, known as Composite B in Order Paper 4, was carried by a large majority and also condemned the "slaughter of civilians by Israeli troops in Gaza and the IDF's [Israeli Defense Forces] continued attacks inside Lebanon following the defeat of its army by Hezbollah".

The motion called for the end of Israeli aggression in Gaza and other occupied territories.

The union's national executive committee has been instructed to support organisations including the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, Jews for Justice in Palestine and the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding.

· To contact the MediaGuardian newsdesk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 7239 9857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 7278 2332.

· If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".

In this mission impossible, politics kills soldiers

Carole Whelan

Tuesday, April 3, 2007 - Bangor Daily News

The Maine Chapter of Military Families Speak Out (MFSO) has been providing DVDs and articles to members of Congress to help them understand our increasing concerns about the safety and mission of our soldiers.

Two of the articles are by Gen. William Odom: "Why America Must Get out of Iraq Now" and "Victory is not an Option." Gen. Odom was head of Army intelligence and director of the National Security Agency under Ronald Reagan. Everyone who wants to understand what is at risk should read these articles.

The present commander in Iraq, Gen. Petraeus, recently said there is no military solution in Iraq. A political solution may someday be possible, but it is too late for what he says is the primary task of any counter-insurgency: Ensuring the security and well-being of the civilian population. The most recent poll showed 78 percent of Iraqis want the U.S. out and are in favor of targeting U.S. troops, who are seen as occupiers. Two million Iraqis are refugees, and almost that many are displaced within Iraq.

The president promised almost two years ago that "when the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down," but the Iraq Study Group reported that, in spite of the billions spent, there was never any provision to adequately fund training an Iraqi army. More recently, it has been revealed that Saudi Arabia, home of Osama Bin Laden, is funneling funds to terrorists — fellow Sunnis — to increase ethnic violence against Shiites, and that the U.S. administration promoted this!

The recycling of troops back into combat, the high rate of post traumatic stress disorder, serious combat injuries, and the neglect in treating them, demonstrate that the needs of our military personnel are not being properly considered before, during or after their service. The military has reached the breaking point in manpower and equipment. Add to this the growing revelations of mismanagement, fraud and war profiteering and it is easy to understand that the supplemental funding does not "support the troops".

The funding has most benefited the weapons industry, whose CEO income has skyrocketed to an average of over $7 million per year! The value of Cheney’s Halliburton stock options has not merely doubled or tripled but multiplied by a factor of 32! We ask Congress, and every American, why should anyone get rich off the blood of our soldiers?

A U.S. Marine Corps maxim is "Never reinforce failure." It is a betrayal of our military to demand further sacrifice while condemning them to planned failure! So why is Congress still funding this disaster instead of showing leadership?

Rep. Tom Allen announced his intention to approve more war funding, once again failing to back up his claim to be "against the war." The funding issues a blank check, with no accountability. More ominously, an amendment requiring the president to consult Congress before making war against Iran was removed.

Democrats call it "Bush’s war", but it never could have happened without the consent of Congress, and they will own it lock, stock and gun barrel with the passage of another funding bill. Both Republicans and Democrats have shown higher loyalty to their parties than anything else, and so, it is politics that kills our soldiers! It’s past time for Congress to show some of the courage they blithely demand of our troops.

Gen. Odom says it is already too late for some 2008 presidential candidate to retrieve the situation. "If Congress cannot act, it, too, will live in infamy. Will they continue to fund the occupation and profiteering instead of the safe withdrawal of our troops? We urge our senators to truly support our troops by refusing to fund a mission that has never been defined, never been justified and so, cannot be accomplished.

Not one more day, not one more dollar. Bring them home now and take care of them.

Carole Whelan is the Maine state coordinator of the Maine Chapter of Military Families Speak Out

By BDN Staff

Betrayed!

March 24, 2007

By Cindy Sheehan

THE DEMOCRATS ARE FUNDING IRAQ ESCALATION: The Democratic leadership has proposed $100 billion of supplemental funding for an increased troop presence in Iraq. The leadership opted for the "slow bleed" policy over a month ago. This extends the occupation for at least another 18 months, and allows permanent placement of troops thereafter for “training” or “combating terrorism”. It also will permit the Bush Administration to initiate a war with Iran without Congressional oversight. The surge of 20,000 troops recently increased to 30,000 and will likely increase to 100,000 by year-end. Will the hapless Democrats then claim, “If only I knew then what I know now” as they have for the past year?

The “slow bleed” policy has some toothless requirements for presidential assertions of progress like those we’ve heard for the past four years from the Administration; these reporting requirements allow “slow bleed” proponents to make the preposterous claim they are “ending the war” by funding it. Amendments that would require withdrawal of US forces this year, the policy overwhelming favored by Americans, and the troops themselves, are not even being allowed for a vote by the leadership! The shameless short-term purpose of the Democratic policy is to embarrass Republicans with a Senate filibuster of the supplemental, or a presidential veto, and the longer-term aim is to help Democrats in the 2008 election by saddling the Republicans with intervention in an untenable civil war.

In 2002 the Democrats authorized Bush to invade Iraq (or any other country he deemed to support terrorism, for example Iran) in hope he would become involved in an unpopular war which would produce a Democratic White House. The Democrats 2007 policy is equally political, and may have the paradoxical effect of producing Republican victories in 2008. The prolongation of the occupation is now opposed by two-thirds of all Americans; we want our troops safely home by this Christmas, not political chicanery. As a consequence Americans now think even more poorly of Congress than ever; the failure to withdraw from Iraq dropped Democratic support of Congress from 44% to 33% according to the latest Gallup poll. The Democrats failure to stem what has become a Democrats war will be a factor in the 2008 elections.

A year ago 72% of the troops in Iraq said all troops should come home in 2006 but politicians did not heed their message. How much better we would be if our support included listening to them. Not another drop of blood should be spilled to protect cowardice by both political parties.

AMERICANS WANT TROOP WITHDRAWAL: The Democratic leadership has disregarded national polls showing that 60% of all Americans and 80% of Democratic voters oppose the increase troop levels in Iraq. Grassroots progressive organizations overwhelmingly oppose the occupation of Iraq and the recent escalation. One group closely allied to the Democratic leadership, MoveOn, has used antiwar sentiment to triple both its membership and fundraising, but has been AWOL from antiwar activity; its members are prohibited from demonstrations, and only vigils for the war dead are posted as events on their website. A month ago I wrote that MoveOn began efforts to support "slow bleed" while antiwar forces actively opposed it. Recently MoveOn fabricated a biased push-poll in which “85%” of respondents supported “slow bleed”; however, the 96% of the MoveOn members who favor withdrawal, and who were not offered a vote on that option, refused to participate in a sham. Congressional sources report that the spurious MoveOn poll, together with intensive bullying and bribing, was used to erode the principled opposition of congressional progressives.

A reliable poll conducted by True Majority, another group with progressive membership, found that only 24% favored the “slow bleed” policy while 76% favored immediate or near-term withdrawal. A Zogby poll sponsored by CODEPINK found that 90% of progressives/liberals favored near-term withdrawal. 96% of progressives question the push-poll used by MoveOn that gave such contrary results. Antiwar groups that fought for withdrawal (United for Peace and Justice, Progressive Democrats of America, US Labor Against the War, After Downing Street, Democrats.com, Peace Action, Code Pink, Democracy Rising, True Majority, Gold Star Families for Peace, Military Families Speak Out, Backbone Campaign, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Voters for Peace, Veterans for Peace, the Green Party) are irate at the MoveOn duplicity.

MoveOn is now raising funds from antiwar supporters to attack Senate opposition to the supplemental., but the activist community is now aware that MoveOn is not the cathartic needed to address Democratic Party constipation. There is at least one Democratic senator, Russ Feingold, who could oppose the funding farce. eli@moveon.org, Namrita.Chaudhary@gmail.com , tom@moveon.org, and you can unsubscribe! You also can refuse to lend them your name (their petitions are mainly for fund-raising), your efforts, and your money, and instead join with one of the many active progressive and antiwar organizations (check out United for Peace and Justice- UFPJ for a detailed listing of local and national groups, which incidentally does not include MoveOn). None of the MoveOn leadership has served their country in the armed forces; like Dick Cheney and 95% of Congress they had more important things to do, which did not and do not include supporting the troops that are in harms way. MoveOn is an autocratic organization run by a small group of elitist wannabe power-brokers; it cannot be reformed, but you can let their politburo know your feelings

The “slow bleed” strategy favored by the Democratic leadership and MoveOn is an immoral political calculation that will cause more heartache and disaster in Iraq. That leadership should understand that being perceived as “weak on principle” is much worse politically than being “weak on defense”. Democratic politicians need to vote their conscience on the supplemental. On November 7^th we voted for an antiwar, anti-Bush policy; make that vote count for peace.

Please tell the Democratic leadership: Bring Our Troops Home Now!

Please visit the Gold Star Families for Peace Website

U.S. groups mount grass-roots battle over Iraq

By Carey Gillam Sun Mar 11, 9:54 AM ET

Tomas Young was 22 years old and working as a waiter for a Kansas City-area eatery in 2001 when attacks on the World Trade Center spurred him to a patriotic act.

"I wanted to go to Afghanistan to exact some retribution on the people who attacked us," said Young, who joined the Army days after the September 11 attacks.

Today, the 27-year-old is paralyzed from the chest down because of a bullet he took in Iraq, not Afghanistan. He spends his days trying to convince others not to enlist -- part of a growing movement of Iraq war veterans, military family members and others determined to stop a war they see as ill-advised and possibly illegal.

As Congress and the Bush administration wrangle over how and when to bring an end to the U.S. war in Iraq, war supporters are also active. They describe opponents as "leftist propagandists" hurting military morale and undermining the U.S. mission.

Both sides are writing letters, lobbying Congress and holding rallies. On the March 17-18 weekend they will march on Washington to mark the fourth anniversary of the invasion.

The anti-war movement has yet to reach the scale of the Vietnam War protests of the 1960s and 1970s. Most fledgling Iraq war activists say they are speaking out because the war is affecting so many soldiers' family members and friends.

GROWING MEMBERSHIP

Groups such as Military Families Speak Out and Families of the Fallen for Change, founded by parents of soldiers sent to Iraq, say they have been adding members rapidly, particularly since President George W. Bush announced in January plans to send thousands of additional troops to Iraq.

"The ongoing death and destruction and wrong direction that this war is leading in is causing more and more military families to speak out and say bring the troops home now," said Nancy Lessin, stepmother of a U.S. soldier and co-founder of Military Families Speak Out, which has 3,300 members.

Rebecca Davis of Brewer, Maine, is also a military mom, with three sons who have served in Iraq. She has formed "Military Families Voice of Victory" with a counter view.

"Everybody in the world worries that their son or daughter needs to be safe. ... But you don't try to pull them out because their job is too hard," she said. "We want to see them succeed."

Soldiers themselves, both active-duty and veterans, are increasingly engaging in the debate.

More than 1,700 active duty, reserve, and guard service members have signed a petition to Congress called "An Appeal for Redress," started last year to urge a "prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq."

On the flip side, at least 1,500 soldiers are supporting an "Appeal for Courage" asking Congress to "fully support our mission in Iraq and halt any calls for retreat."

Jason Nichols, a navy lieutenant stationed in Baghdad, said he started the petition last month.

"We feel premature calls for withdrawal hurt our mission and increase our risk," Nichols said.

TAKING STANDS ON BOTH SIDES

Other soldiers and former soldiers also are taking stands. One group, Iraq Veterans Against the War, has been touring U.S. cities warning young people of the dangers of joining the military, and a group called Move America Forward launched on Thursday its own cross-country caravan in support of the war with the slogan "These Colors Don't Run."

Gathering of Eagles, another group supporting the war, is planning its own protests in Washington March 17.

Karen Cunningham, assistant professor of applied conflict management at Kent State University, said people who typically stay away from politics are being spurred to action as deaths, injuries and questions about the war mount.

"People are now speaking up, forming groups, getting involved ... who might not normally have been involved in these sorts of things," Cunningham said. "That tends to happen as things hit closer to home."

According to a new Zogby International poll, an estimated 45 percent of Americans know someone affected by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ten percent said their family has been personally affected by the death or injury of a soldier.

For Meghan Geshel, 26, the war hit home in December when her husband of five years was deployed to Iraq. She is not sure when their 2-year-old will see her father again.

"We never should have gone into Iraq," said Geshel, who plans to pass out anti-war buttons and pamphlets at a protest rally this month. "The world is more dangerous today because of the mistakes we've made in Iraq. I'm trying to do my part to make things safer for my family and the world."

U.S. Policy on Palestine a Local Issue

Viewpoint

By Victoria Zyp

Tuesday, February 6, 2007

In his column, Farooq Tirmizi claimed that “Students for Justice in Palestine Misses the Point” (THE HOYA, Jan. 30, 2007, A3). One thing that Mr. Tirmizi’s criticism makes clear is that he is uninformed about the nature of SJP at Georgetown and about the movement at large around the country.

Students for Justice in Palestine is not a religious or ethnically based group. Georgetown’s SJP has members from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds, both Muslim and non-Muslim, Palestinian and non-Palestinian. I have been an active member of the group for two and a half years, and I am neither Muslim nor Arab. The mission of SJP is to promote human rights, adherence to international law and basic justice in dealings with the Palestinian people.

Tirmizi seems to argue that Muslims in the United States should engage in politics and civic life in their role as citizens of that country. Personal faith will always inform one’s convictions and beliefs about what is just, but faith is not a political platform. The decisions about whether American Muslims should concentrate their civic efforts on domestic or foreign policy issues is one the community must make for itself, and not an area in which I as a non-Muslim American or Mr. Tirmizi as a non-American Muslim really have a place to speak.

Furthermore, it would be inaccurate to say that Muslims in the United States do not spend a great deal of energy advocating for domestic policy issues. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil liberties advocacy group, promotes action on a host of domestic issues, including immigration reform, civil liberties for Muslims living in the United States and providing citizen-law education.

Recently, CAIR highlighted racially motivated violence against three Palestinian students by three American students at Guilford College in Greensboro, N.C. Encountering and countering racism in the United States is a fundamentally domestic issue in which all Americans should be engaged.

While I agree with Mr. Tirmizi’s assertion that different peoples should resolve their own problems and conflicts, my interest in the Palestinian issue has to do with its place on the U.S. foreign policy agenda and the role the United States has played and continues to play in the conflict. It is not my place to dictate how the Palestinians should organize their national government or react in the face of occupation. But it is my place as an American citizen to tell my government that I do not think it should be providing military and diplomatic aid to Israel, a nation I believe to be responsible for human rights abuses against Palestinians.

It is my civic duty to raise the awareness of my fellow citizens and tell them that — despite the State Department’s annual human rights report criticizing the actions of the Israeli occupation — the Israelis continue to construct illegal settlements on Palestinian land in the West Bank with the assistance of loan guarantees of the American people.

Such settlement construction is an injustice done in our name with our money. The nature of our democracy is one in which all citizens are ultimately responsible for the policies of their government. If we are silent about that which we can speak out against, then we are complicit in the government’s misdeeds.

Human rights abuses happen throughout the world. Sometimes the actions of the U.S. government give invaluable support to national struggles for justice and self-determination, but at other times they are not so helpful. When people criticize activism about Palestine in the United States, I think about the brave American activists in the 1980s — many of them veterans of the civil rights movement in this country — who insisted that the U.S. government stop its support for the South African apartheid government. Brave activists, including students on Georgetown’s campus, stood up and insisted that U.S. trade and aid policy stand on the side of human rights and justice.

There are many civic issues which deserve our attention as Americans, and no citizen should be criticized for the desire to hold his or her government accountable for its foreign and domestic policies.

Victoria Zyp is a graduate student at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and a member of Students for Justice in Palestine.

Attacking Iran would be disaster, report says(with full text)

Matthew Tempest and agencies
Monday February 5, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Photograph: AP.

Tony Blair was under pressure today to open direct talks with Tehran over its alleged nuclear weapons programme, as a coalition of UK charities, religious bodies and thinktanks warned that an attack on Iran would be a "disaster".

As the prime minister dropped a broad hint that he would work on the Middle East peace process after retiring this year, a report warned that an attack on Iran would expose British troops to attack, civilians to terrorism and release radiation in Iran.

---

---

The report by 15 organisations - backed by Britain's former ambassador to Iran - comes as the US appears to be upping the ante in an increasingly hostile war of words with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president.

The previous foreign secretary, Jack Straw, has said that military action against Iran would be "inconceivable". Margaret Beckett, his successor, has also insisted that no one is planning action against Tehran.

Today's report, entitled "Time to Talk: The Case for Diplomatic Solutions on Iran", comes from the Foreign Policy Centre, backed by trade unions, Muslim and Christian groups and Oxfam.

It says that the UK could prove the vital catalyst between the EU and US on reopening talks with Iran.

Launching the document, Sir Richard Dalton, the British ambassador to Iran until last year, said that a pre-emptive strike on Iran would be "a disaster for Iran, the region and quite possibly the world".

He said that patience and diplomacy were key to securing a successful outcome.

"But both sides should work for a resumption. It is vital that the US becomes fully involved in creative diplomacy," he told the BBC.

The former Labour minister Stephen Twigg, director of the Foreign Policy Centre, said: "The consequences of military action against Iran are not only unpalatable, they are unthinkable.

"Even according to the worst estimates, Iran is still years away from having a nuclear weapon."

Last May the Iranian president wrote an open letter to US president, George Bush, offering talks, but this was rejected.

In recent weeks Mr Bush has accused Iran, in addition to its nuclear ambitions, of supporting the insurgency in neighbouring Iraq.

But another former Labour MP, who is now chief executive of the British-Israel Communications and Research Centre, warned that time was running out to stop Iran become a nuclear power.

Lorna Fitzsimons told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "What we are talking about here is Iran reaching the ability on an industrial scale to manufacture highly-enriched uranium.

"IISS [International Institute for Strategic Studies] and many others prophesise that that is going to happen between nine to 11 months from today.

"That is the watershed. There is no return from that point. You can't get the genie back in the bottle technologically once they have sorted out the problem they currently have with their centrifuges."

The Tories urged keeping all options "on the table", while the Liberal Democrats welcomed the report's call for new talks with Tehran.

The FPC report warns that military action could further destabilise the region and provoke retaliatory attacks against British forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It could also undermine the war on terror by fuelling anti-western sentiments, while strikes against nuclear facilities risk unleashing radioactive contamination.

"Military action is not likely to be a short, sharp engagement but could have a profound effect on the region, with shock waves felt far beyond," the report says.

"The UK government is well positioned to articulate objections to military action. Military action against Iran would work against the interests of the UK."

The report says that Mr Blair is among several world leaders who are keeping military force on the table.

"Opposition to military action is currently widespread, though key leaders (notably Tony Blair and Angela Merkel [the German chancellor]) have refused to rule it out, believing the threat to be an important negotiating tool," it says.

Separately, in an interview broadcast today with BBC Radio 1, Mr Blair promised to retain an interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "in the years to come".

The prime minister has already pledged, in his conference speech last year, to devote much of his remaining time in office to the problem, but today appeared to go further, suggesting that he would work on the issue after leaving No 10.

In the pre-recorded interview, Mr Blair said that world leaders were agreed that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the single most important issue for world peace.

He added: "Our obligation is to put forward a peace process that can work and try and take that forward.

"And over the next few weeks I think there will be some real movement there."

Asked whether he will continue to work in the Middle East post-Downing Street, Mr Blair said: "I will retain a huge interest in the peace process in Israel and Palestine in the years to come of course because it's so important.

"That's the reason why I've spent so long in my time in office [concentrating on the Middle East] and, incidentally, I am in the end optimistic that this thing can be done.

"But it requires a lot of hard work, a lot of commitment and it requires the international community as a whole to recognise that there is no more important issue for us to resolve than Israel-Palestine."

· Read the full report here

Attacking Iran would be disaster, report says(with full text)

Matthew Tempest and agencies
Monday February 5, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Photograph: AP.

Tony Blair was under pressure today to open direct talks with Tehran over its alleged nuclear weapons programme, as a coalition of UK charities, religious bodies and thinktanks warned that an attack on Iran would be a "disaster".

As the prime minister dropped a broad hint that he would work on the Middle East peace process after retiring this year, a report warned that an attack on Iran would expose British troops to attack, civilians to terrorism and release radiation in Iran.

---

---

The report by 15 organisations - backed by Britain's former ambassador to Iran - comes as the US appears to be upping the ante in an increasingly hostile war of words with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president.

The previous foreign secretary, Jack Straw, has said that military action against Iran would be "inconceivable". Margaret Beckett, his successor, has also insisted that no one is planning action against Tehran.

Today's report, entitled "Time to Talk: The Case for Diplomatic Solutions on Iran", comes from the Foreign Policy Centre, backed by trade unions, Muslim and Christian groups and Oxfam.

It says that the UK could prove the vital catalyst between the EU and US on reopening talks with Iran.

Launching the document, Sir Richard Dalton, the British ambassador to Iran until last year, said that a pre-emptive strike on Iran would be "a disaster for Iran, the region and quite possibly the world".

He said that patience and diplomacy were key to securing a successful outcome.

"But both sides should work for a resumption. It is vital that the US becomes fully involved in creative diplomacy," he told the BBC.

The former Labour minister Stephen Twigg, director of the Foreign Policy Centre, said: "The consequences of military action against Iran are not only unpalatable, they are unthinkable.

"Even according to the worst estimates, Iran is still years away from having a nuclear weapon."

Last May the Iranian president wrote an open letter to US president, George Bush, offering talks, but this was rejected.

In recent weeks Mr Bush has accused Iran, in addition to its nuclear ambitions, of supporting the insurgency in neighbouring Iraq.

But another former Labour MP, who is now chief executive of the British-Israel Communications and Research Centre, warned that time was running out to stop Iran become a nuclear power.

Lorna Fitzsimons told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "What we are talking about here is Iran reaching the ability on an industrial scale to manufacture highly-enriched uranium.

"IISS [International Institute for Strategic Studies] and many others prophesise that that is going to happen between nine to 11 months from today.

"That is the watershed. There is no return from that point. You can't get the genie back in the bottle technologically once they have sorted out the problem they currently have with their centrifuges."

The Tories urged keeping all options "on the table", while the Liberal Democrats welcomed the report's call for new talks with Tehran.

The FPC report warns that military action could further destabilise the region and provoke retaliatory attacks against British forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It could also undermine the war on terror by fuelling anti-western sentiments, while strikes against nuclear facilities risk unleashing radioactive contamination.

"Military action is not likely to be a short, sharp engagement but could have a profound effect on the region, with shock waves felt far beyond," the report says.

"The UK government is well positioned to articulate objections to military action. Military action against Iran would work against the interests of the UK."

The report says that Mr Blair is among several world leaders who are keeping military force on the table.

"Opposition to military action is currently widespread, though key leaders (notably Tony Blair and Angela Merkel [the German chancellor]) have refused to rule it out, believing the threat to be an important negotiating tool," it says.

Separately, in an interview broadcast today with BBC Radio 1, Mr Blair promised to retain an interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "in the years to come".

The prime minister has already pledged, in his conference speech last year, to devote much of his remaining time in office to the problem, but today appeared to go further, suggesting that he would work on the issue after leaving No 10.

In the pre-recorded interview, Mr Blair said that world leaders were agreed that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the single most important issue for world peace.

He added: "Our obligation is to put forward a peace process that can work and try and take that forward.

"And over the next few weeks I think there will be some real movement there."

Asked whether he will continue to work in the Middle East post-Downing Street, Mr Blair said: "I will retain a huge interest in the peace process in Israel and Palestine in the years to come of course because it's so important.

"That's the reason why I've spent so long in my time in office [concentrating on the Middle East] and, incidentally, I am in the end optimistic that this thing can be done.

"But it requires a lot of hard work, a lot of commitment and it requires the international community as a whole to recognise that there is no more important issue for us to resolve than Israel-Palestine."

· Read the full report here

Iran strike 'would be disastrous'

Related
Grassroots worries growing over Iran
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Last Updated: Monday, 5 February 2007, 09:15 GMT

The report's authors want Tony Blair to put pressure on the US Blair on Middle East

A coalition of charities, faith groups and unions has warned Tony Blair that any military action against Iran would have "unthinkable" consequences.

The organisations are urging the prime minister to put pressure on the US to enter talks with Tehran.

The US has refused to rule out military action if Iran does not halt its nuclear activities.

Former Labour MP Lorna Fitzsimons warned that time was "running out" to stop Iran becoming nuclear-armed.

Criticism

The US and its Western allies suspect Iran of using its nuclear energy programme as a cover to produce atomic weapons. Tehran denies this claim.

Recent criticism by President George Bush of alleged Iranian support for insurgency in Iraq has increased concerns that his administration is contemplating an attack.

The consequences of military action against Iran are not only unpalatable, they are unthinkable Former Labour minister Stephen Twigg

In the report, Time to Talk: The Case for Diplomatic Solutions on Iran, the coalition accuses Mr Blair of using the prospect of military action as a negotiating tool.

Launching the report, former Labour minister Stephen Twigg, director of the Foreign Policy Centre, said: "The consequences of military action against Iran are not only unpalatable; they are unthinkable.

"Even according to the worst estimates, Iran is still years away from having a nuclear weapon.

"There is still time to talk and the prime minister must make sure our allies use it."

Coalition

The charity Oxfam, unions Unison, GMB and Amicus, have been joined by the Muslim Parliament and Christian Solidarity Worldwide in signing the report.

HAVE YOUR SAY Iranians like America, However, that can change overnight if the US attacks Iran David, Minneapolis/Tehran

They warn that a strike against Iran would continue to destabilise the region and provoke further attacks against British forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Military action is not likely to be a short, sharp engagement but could have a profound effect on the region, with shock waves felt far beyond," the report says.

It goes on to say the British government is "well positioned to articulate objections to military action" and that it should "not lose this opportunity to advocate for direct US engagement".

But Ms Fitzsimons, chief executive of the Britain-Israel Communications and Research Centre, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "What we are talking about here is Iran reaching the ability on an industrial scale to manufacture highly enriched uranium."

'Watershed'

International Institute for Strategic Studies and others were predicting this would happen within 11 months, she added.

Ms Fitzsimons said: "That is the watershed. There is no return from that point.

"You can't get the genie back in the bottle technologically once they have sorted out the problem they currently have with their centrifuges.

"I don't think you can stop it. You might be able to disrupt it. It's a question of looking at how far you can go down the line where you lose the ability to disrupt it."

Sir Richard Dalton, the British ambassador to Iran until last year, backed the calls for increased diplomacy.

"Recourse to military action - other than in legitimate self-defence - is not only unlikely to work but would be a disaster for Iran, the region and quite possibly the world," he said.

Military warnings

Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Michael Moore said: "This is a timely and significant report.

"It highlights the need for the international community to be more aware of the potentially disastrous consequences of military action against Iran."

But the Conservatives said it was important to "keep all options on the table".

Shadow defence secretary Liam Fox said: "We cannot give them the comfort of believing that there is any weakness in the western alliance or that there is a chance that they might be able to divide and rule."

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A VILLAGE IS DIVIDED BY A WALL?

U.K. Channel 4 Video

Events in Bil'in

Bimkom is the social justice group mentioned in the report.

Israel Colonization is the Primary Obstacle to Peace

Editor's note: Join me over at the other blog(see new articles below first).
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Friday, February 2, 2007
Commentary

By Matthew Taylor

It is heartening to learn that many readers of the Daily Planet understand the reality of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Others say they plan to approach Jimmy Carter’s new book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, with an open and inquisitive mind. Below, I respond to Dan Spitzer’s and Rachel Neuwirth’s criticisms of my Jan. 9th op-ed on the subject.

Mr. Spitzer’s letter is littered with ad hominem attacks, in which he insinuates that I am not one of “the sharpest nails in the shed,” that I smoke opiates, and that former President Carter is a “Peanut Brain.” I fail to see how such comments are useful or relevant.

Mr. Spitzer’s letter does not respond in any substantive measure to the central thesis of both Mr. Carter’s book, and my op-ed: that “the primary obstacle to peace is Israel's unending colonial project.”

The closest Mr. Spitzer comes to a response is his inaccurate assertion that I “parrot Palestinian propaganda without any substantiation.” Perhaps Mr. Spitzer might choose to re-read my op-ed, in which I offer a specific, personally witnessed instance of Israel’s oppression of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. I saw Israel’s army bulldoze a Palestinian man’s home for one reason: in order to build a road only Israeli colonizers are allowed to access. In one fell swoop, this action combines the crimes of land theft (colonization) with forced dislocation of the inhabitants (ethnic cleansing) and the building of Jewish-only public works projects (Apartheid).

Such home demolitions are systemic Israeli policy, and are extensively documented by Israeli watchdogs such as Rabbis for Human Rights (http://rhr.israel.net). Home demolitions are a key part of the stated plan of many Israeli political leaders past and present: to confiscate as much of the West Bank as they can get away with.

Here’s what Arik Asherman of Rabbis for Human Rights had to say about a recent such home demolition in December of 2006:

“Little Yousef is again homeless, and shortly his sister will again come home from school to discover that the home she left in the morning is now rubble…. This time the family was all alone with their tears. I was not there to stand in front of the bulldozers and nobody from the RHR staff was able to get through the cordon of border police protecting the demolition…. I have promised Ahmed Musa Dari that this is not the end. We will not abandon him and his family. If we simply express our anger, the Mayor [of Jerusalem] will still have succeeded and will continue to harden his heart. He will have been mistaken if you leave the message not only that you are outraged but that you are contributing to the rebuilding of 10 homes and demanding that your country’s officials take action.”

Asherman requests letters and phone calls to the mayor of Jerusalem, and donations to help rebuild homes. Visit the RHR website for more information at: http://rhr.israel.net/darkness-has-struck-again

Other instances of Israel’s ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and colonization project in the West Bank have been documented ad nauseam by Israeli human rights organizations such as B’Tselem (www.btselem.org) and Machsom (“Movement Barrier”) Watch (www.machsomwatch.org). To find out more about the Palestinian women who have given “birth” to stillborn babies at movement barriers because they are denied the ability to travel to a hospital, simply visit B’Tselem’s website, listed above, and type in the search terms: Palestinian pregnant checkpoint. Similarly, B’Tselem reports that “The shortage of drinking water [for Palestinians] can cause dehydration and the inability to maintain proper hygiene and thus lead to illness,” whereas Israelis have enough to fill swimming pools.

To clarify: according to Carter, Apartheid applies only to Israel’s policies in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories: East Jerusalem, West Bank, and Gaza Strip. However, for at least some Palestinians in pre-1967 Israel, the term is quite relevant. A significant number of Palestinian villages inside Israel are “unrecognized” and are officially denied “any basic services such as running water, electricity, proper education and health services and access roads—constituting a gross violation of human rights.” (See the “Association of 40” at www.assoc40.org.) They don’t even appear on a map. Further, Bedouins have been subjected to the worst forms of Israeli oppression, including on Jan. 9 of this year the destruction of an entire Bedouin village, Tawil Abu Jarwal in the Negev, documented by the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions (www.icahd.org).

Mr. Spitzer makes a number of inaccurate claims, including that I cite a “fabricated quote.” Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s statement imploring the colonizers to “grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements” appears in Carter’s book—Agence France Presse is the source. It is a matter of extensive public record that Sharon was a fervent supporter of Israel’s illegal colonies during his entire career.

Mr. Spitzer refers to Israel’s wall, which unilaterally steals Palestinian land. The International Court of Justice has ruled that the wall is illegal and must be dismantled. If its purpose were Israel’s security, it would be built on the 1967 border—but it cuts deep into the West Bank and has permitted, for example, Mod’in Illit to expand at a furious pace on stolen Palestinian farmland.

Mr. Spitzer’s claim that the West Bank and Gaza are “Palestinian ruled” are patently false. Both are under a nearly 40-year-old Israeli military occupation! The Palestinian Authority cannot possibly “rule” (or even govern) a land over which it has no real sovereignty. Gaza is now the world’s largest open-air prison, and the Israeli air force bombs civilian population centers at will, killing 200 civilians in November 2006 alone, half women and children. The West Bank is being sliced up into territorially discontiguous “Bantustans,” a Swiss cheese surrounded by a sea of illegal Israeli colonies.

Mr. Spitzer attempts to change the subject and avoid dealing with the realities of Israel’s systematic dispossession of the Palestinian people by raising the specter of the election of Hamas, a movement that arose in 1988 as a response to 21 years of illegal occupation and colonization. While Hamas’ tactics are deplorable, they are also comprehensible as a desperate and misguided response to oppression. Mr. Spitzer’s comments are a misleading “blame the victim” approach. Statements by Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya indicate that Hamas appears inclined to recognize Israel in exchange for a full withdrawl to the 1967 borders and a two-state resolution to the conflict.

To backtrack for a moment, it would undoubtedly have been best for all involved parties had Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon listened to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ repeated pleas following Abbas’ election in January of 2005 to meet and negotiate a final status agreement. However, Sharon refused to do so because his intention was not to achieve a just peace, but to steal as much West Bank land as he could—which is precisely what he did. By refusing to meet with Abbas, Israel helped guarantee the election of Hamas a year later, the outcome it claims it least desired. But does that give Israel the political cover it needs to further ignore Abbas as a partner for peace and steal more land?

In short, Israel has chosen—and continues to choose—colonization instead of peace. Uri Avnery’s analysis at Gush Shalom (www.gush-shalom.org) is well worth a read.

One development that offers tremendous hope is Combatants for Peace, a group of former Israeli and Palestinian warriors who have set down their guns and are working together to end the occupation and all forms of violence. Read about their movement at www.combatantsforpeace.org and in the latest issue of PeacePower, available online at www.calpeacepower.org.

Perhaps Mr. Spitzer, and interested readers, might wish to spend time researching the matter first-hand by visiting both Israelis and the Palestinians in the West Bank. For American Jews, Birthright Unplugged is a Jewish-led organization that offers guided tours of the West Bank (www.birthrightunplugged.org). Or visit Holy Land Trust in Bethlehem, a Palestinian nonviolent activism organization that offers opportunities to live with Palestinian families (www.holylandtrust.org). In film, John Pilger’s insightful documentary “Palestine is Still the Issue” is now available online at www.youtube.com.

I find Rachel Neuwirth’s commentary quite unsettling. She is the President of Middle East Solutions, which proposes a “win-win peaceful outcome” to the conflict: the ethnic cleansing (“resettlement”) of Palestinians from historical Palestine, and their removal to a new “Palestinian state” in Saudi Arabia. This “Plan for Arab-Israeli Reconciliation,” as she puts it, is outlined at www.middleeastsolutions.com.

Ms. Neuwirth’s claim that I did not engage “in the slightest effort at fact finding” is obviously false—as mentioned, I have seen Israel’s Apartheid activities with my own eyes. Neuwirth changes the subject from Israel’s current oppression of Palestinians (the main point of Carter’s book) to interpretations of a colonial document issued ninety years ago. She neglects to mention that the document in question specifically states: “Nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.” Her assertion that the entirety of Palestine “was exclusively allocated to the Jewish nation by international law” could not be more inaccurate—the mandate called for a “homeland” for the Jewish people, but not one that was “exclusive” (or one that would involve the expulsion or mistreatment of the current population).

Finally, Mr. Spitzer and Ms. Neuwirth both attack UC Berkeley’s Peace and Conflict Studies program (PACS). Mr. Spitzer claims that it is “laughed at” by “most responsible UCB professors.” I’m not sure which UCB professors he has spoken to, or what his criteria is for determining whether or not a professor is “responsible,” but I perceive our program to be held in extremely high esteem. Students have initiated several well-regarded projects recently, including PeacePower, a nominee for UTNE Reader’s “Best New Publication of 2006,” and the Conflict Resolution and Transformation Center (http://conflict.berkeley.edu), a student-led program that addresses student conflict on campus. I am a co-founder of both.

PACS has been described as a “mission major,” akin to the Department of Public Health. Just as Public Health seeks to eradicate all forms of disease, PACS seeks to eradicate all forms of violence. As Susan Collin Marks of Search for Common Ground says, “violent conflict destroys everything.” Someday, Palestinian children and Israeli children will grow up together, love each other, and be sisters and brothers together. It is up to us to start a nonviolent movement to make that possible, is it not? As Yonatan Shapira of Combatants for Peace has said, we must liberate Palestinians from Israel’s occupation, and free Israel from its role as an occupier.

Matthew Taylor is a fifth-year Peace and Conflict Studies student at UC Berkeley, editor of PeacePower magazine (www.calpeacepower.org), and Jewish.

Stop the escalation

VoteVets.org is joining organizations such as MoveOn.org, SEIU (Service Employees International Union), and Center for America Progress as founding members of Americans Against Escalation in Iraq. ... (more)

Israeli NGO vows Amazon boycott over Carter review

Related
Carter's book is long overdue
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Jonny Paul Jerusalem Post correspondent, THE JERUSALEM POST

Jan. 18, 2007

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LONDON - The Israeli Committee against House Demolitions (ICAHD) has opened a campaign to censor on-line retailer Amazon.com following the posting of a critical review of former US president Jimmy Carter's book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.

The group said the article, written by a customer, was "hostile" to Carter's viewpoint and had been placed in the wrong section of the Web page on the book.

In an e-mail, ICAHD said it was "deeply disturbed" by the treatment of Carter's "important new book" and had issued an ultimatum demanding Amazon move the negative review and "restore a semblance of balance" by giving "comparable space and prominence to a more positive evaluation" of the book.

The group is asking people to write to Jeff Bezos, Amazon's CEO, and to boycott the company. The e-mail says: "You insist on running the complete, 20-paragraph, 1,636-word text of a review unabashedly hostile to Carter's viewpoint.

"You have refused to add information shoppers should have in evaluating this review: the fact that the reviewer, Jeffrey Goldberg, is a citizen of Israel as well as the US, and that he volunteered to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces, for which he worked as a guard at a prison for Palestinian detainees.

"And you have refused to balance his negative review by giving comparable space to a favorable assessment of the book, even though positive reviews by qualified experts have appeared in many reputable publications."

The ICAHD said it was "not interested in supporting a corporation that uses its power in the marketplace in such a biased and unconstructive way on such an important issue."

An ultimatum is then delivered: "If you do not, by January 22, remove the Goldberg review, move it to the more appropriate 'See all Editorial Reviews' page, or restore a semblance of balance by giving comparable space and prominence to a more positive evaluation of Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, we... pledge to stop shopping at Amazon... and encourage our friends, family and associates to do likewise."

In a March 2005 brief, NGO Monitor, part of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, described the Committee against House Demolitions as "a well-funded, blatantly political and ideological one-man NGO, which couches its radical anti-Israel agenda and demonization in the rhetoric of human rights."

The brief continues: ICAHD coordinator Jeff "Halper routinely uses terms such as 'apartheid' and 'war crimes' to refer to Israeli policy against Palestinian terror, supports a 'one state solution,' and advocates sanctions and boycotts."

NGOs to sue US over WMD claims

• From correspondents in Niamey
• January 14, 2007

SOME 30 non-governmental organisations in Niger said overnight they are going to sue the United States for nearly two billion dollars for "unfairly accusing" Niger of selling uranium to the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

"Our lawyers are about to file a lawsuit against the US calling for damages of about 1000 billion CFA francs ($2.42 billion dollars) for the harm suffered" by the country, Moustapha Kadi, president of the Collective of organisations in Niger defending the right to energy (CODDAE).

The lawsuit by the collective will be filed at either French or Belgian courts, Kadi added.

In January 2003, US President George W. Bush accused Saddam of having bought uranium from Niger to make weapons of mass destruction.

The Niger collective said in a statement that investigations by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), world media and US officials, all concluded that it was a "false accusation" against Niger.

That false information was used by Bush "to invade Iraq," said the collective's statement, which also called for support from Niger's President Mamadou Tandja, who back in 2003 said the US allegations were "harming Niger's image".

Niger is the world's third-largest producer of uranium with about nine percent of the global market, according to 2003 figures.

The country's two uranium deposits have been mined for 40 years by the French group Areva, number one in civil nuclear energy.

Powerful Interests Ally to Restructure Agriculture Subsidies

By Dan Morgan, Sarah Cohen and Gilbert M. Gaul
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, December 22, 2006; A01

There may be no better sign of the changing debate over the nation's farm subsidies: A Midwestern governor running for president calls for cuts in a system that has steered hundreds of millions of dollars a year to his state.

"I didn't get much of a reaction from farmers," said Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack (D), "because deep down most of them know the system needs to be changed."

Politicians such as Vilsack have joined a host of interest groups from across the political spectrum that are pressing for changes in government assistance to agriculture. They want the money moved from large farmers to conservation, nutrition, rural development and energy research. Vilsack, for example, favors programs that improve environmental practices on farms.

Bread for the World, an anti-hunger organization, has brought religious leaders to Washington to lobby for cuts in subsidies, which they argue can lead to a glut on world markets that hurts poor farmers abroad. The Republican-leaning Club for Growth says subsidies stand in the way of a global trade deal that would help U.S. business. A politically potent coalition of unsubsidized fruit and vegetable growers from California and Florida want their share of the pie. Even the National Corn Growers Association, with 33,000 members, advocates an overhaul.

But these groups will be going up against one of Washington's most effective lobbies as Congress takes up a new farm bill next year.

The farm bloc is an efficient, tightknit club of farmers, rural banks, insurance companies, real estate operators and tractor dealers. Many of its Washington lobbyists are former lawmakers or congressional aides. Harnessed to dozens of grass-roots groups, such as the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Cotton Council and the USA Rice Federation, farm-state lawmakers -- the "aggies," as they call themselves -- fight with the fervor of the embattled.

About 1.2 million farmers and farmland owners got $15 billion in income support or price guarantees in 2005, according to a Washington Post analysis of Agriculture Department payment records. The benefits are heavily tilted to large commercial farmers growing a few row crops in a handful of states. But the money also is widely distributed to a middle group of more than 130,000 farms, each receiving $25,000 to $100,000. The federal dollars ripple through local economies, adding to purchasing power at stores and businesses -- and creating a political constituency for the programs.

The farm bloc, says former congressman Cal M. Dooley (D-Calif.), now an executive with a food industry trade group, is "committed and focused."

Opening Loopholes

Ever since subsidies began in the New Deal, Farm Belt politicians from the Dakotas to the Gulf of Mexico have worked to expand the payments. They have repeatedly thwarted efforts to scale subsidies back by trading political favors, manipulating the USDA or strong-arming opponents.

In 1987, for example, Congress tried to close loopholes that allowed larger farms to exceed the limit on how much each could receive in annual federal payments. Some set up complex legal structures, such as dividing a single farm into many paper corporations, each eligible for the maximum payment. Congress decided that to get the money, a farmer or partner would have to be "actively engaged" in farming.

Lawmakers left it to the USDA to define active engagement. It proposed a standard of 1,000 hours a year spent managing the farm. But the language was drastically watered down after an objection from Rep. Thomas J. "Jerry" Huckaby (D-La.), then head of the subcommittee overseeing the rice program.

"We got direction from the author of the bill that what we were putting in the regulations was not what they intended," said former USDA official William Penn, referring to Huckaby. At the USDA, Penn drafted rules for complying with the legislation.

Huckaby, now president of a McLean real-estate company, explained his 1988 action in a recent e-mail: "The thinking was probably that you could make all the management decisions of a farming operation in significantly less time" than 1,000 hours.

The softer language meant that the structured corporate farms could continue almost unabated. In 2004, the most recent year available, at least 1,900 of these organizations collected $312 million more than they would have if their farms were held to strict limits, the Washington Post analysis shows.

Republicans critical of big government frequently tried to pare back the subsidies, with little success until the GOP gained control of the House and Senate. In 1996, Congress passed a landmark bill, nicknamed "Freedom to Farm." It was intended to wean growers off some traditional subsidies. But a couple of years later, when crop prices dropped, farm-bloc lawmakers earmarked billions of dollars for supplemental payments to farmers.

Then in 1999, Congress and the USDA, lobbied by Southern cotton interests, opened another loophole enabling farmers to keep unlimited proceeds under the government's main price-support program. An analysis of payment records shows that cost taxpayers more than $500 million for the 2004 crop, the most recent full crop year for which data are available.

Combest's Bill

One of the most remarkable examples of the farm lobby's power came in 2001 and 2002, when the existing farm bill was written, expanding payments again over the opposition of the White House and key lawmakers. Reformers see it as a cautionary tale.

The architect of the legislation was Rep. Larry Combest, an aggie through and through, a West Texas Republican who came from three generations of cotton farmers and who took control of the House Agriculture Committee in 1999.

Others on Combest's committee included a cattle rancher and tobacco farmer from Tennessee, a Missouri corn and hog farmer, and a government-subsidized rice farmer from Arkansas. The ranking Democrat, Charles W. Stenholm of Texas, had an ownership interest in cotton farms that got more than $300,000 in subsidies between 2001 and 2005, USDA records show.

With help from a generous mandate from the House Budget Committee -- chaired by Jim Nussle (R-Iowa) -- Combest produced a new farm bill in 2001 authorizing an eye-popping $50 billion, 10-year increase in price supports and income supports for farmers. He boasted that the measure was "a major step away from Freedom to Farm."

For one thing, the bill restored a key pillar of the pre-1996 program: cash payments that compensate for low crop prices. Thousands of farms were eligible even if they never grew crops. Budget officials estimated that change alone would cost $37 billion over a decade.

The Bush White House disliked Combest's bill. Chief political adviser Karl Rove saw it as the antithesis of fiscal responsibility. "We're Republicans," aides remember Rove grumbling. The White House budget office issued a stinging critique, saying the bill was too costly and failed to help farmers most in need.

Combest also faced strong opposition from a disgruntled group of Eastern and Midwestern lawmakers, and from senators who wanted tighter limits on what a farm could collect each year.

But Combest had a strong hand. "He hijacked the process," said a former USDA official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he still deals with Congress.

At a meeting in Rove's office soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Combest delivered a warning, according to several people with knowledge of the session. Unless the administration backed off, Combest warned, he and his farm-bloc allies would sink a top priority of President Bush's: legislation giving the president a free hand to negotiate a global trade treaty strongly favored by big corporations. "You have to ease up," one participant remembers Combest saying.

Over the next several months, the administration laid off its public criticism of Combest's farm bill. Combest withdrew his opposition to trade-promotion authority, and it squeaked through the House by a single vote. He declined to comment for this article.

'$275,000 Is Enough'

In the House, Reps. Ron Kind (D-Wis.) and Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-N.Y.) had 145 signatures for an amendment that would tear up Combest's handiwork and force him to start over. It proposed shifting billions of federal dollars from large farms to conservation programs that could help livestock operations and small farmers.

Among Kind's allies were "green Republicans" such as Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrist (R-Md.) and hunting and fishing groups championed by Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.). But Combest's forces also had big guns behind them: more than 100 groups, such as the U.S. Canola Association and the American Bankers Association.

The Agriculture Committee's control over food-stamp funding -- a top priority for the black and Hispanic caucuses -- provided additional leverage. Combest's supporters "made it known that nutrition would be the victim" if the bill was rewritten, said Rep. Eva Clayton (D-N.C.), a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and the Agriculture Committee. "I encouraged members of the black caucus to vote against" the amendment, she said, "because of the nutrition impact."

Kind's amendment was defeated 226 to 200, with the black caucus providing 10 critical "no" votes. The next day the House overwhelmingly approved Combest's farm bill.

The farm bill passed the Senate, too. But not before an amendment sponsored by Sens. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) was approved 2 to 1. It aimed to close loopholes, including the 1999 provision that enabled Southern cotton planters to escape price-support limits. The same legislation set a hard ceiling of $275,000 annually for a farmer and spouse.

"$275,000 is enough," Grassley, a corn and soybean farmer who never collected more than $35,000 a year, told the Senate.

As House and Senate negotiators met to reconcile the two versions of the farm bill, Combest chaired the meetings. When the final bill emerged, the Grassley-Dorgan changes had all but vanished.

The bill did add a requirement that the USDA begin tracking payments more carefully so that in the future lawmakers could see the effects of changes in payment limits. A review of that data, released this week for the first time, suggests that Grassley's proposed limit would have saved taxpayers about $390 million for the 2004 crop.

"The simple fact of the matter is our Senate leaders let themselves be outmaneuvered," said Grassley, who voted against the final compromise version of the farm bill. "They were run over by Southern forces in the House, and they ended up with what the House wanted."

Grassley was not quite finished. He called the White House to lobby for a veto. "My reason was that the Senate had been sold out on everything," he said.

But White House aides, aware of the importance of the farm-bill money to red states with midterm elections nearing, did not recommend a veto. Before signing the legislation, Bush praised Combest for a "job well done."

Combest's legislative victory turned out to be his last big farm battle. He resigned from the House for personal reasons in 2003. Shortly before he left, the National Cotton Council paid for him and his wife to travel to its annual meeting in Tampa. There Combest was awarded the Harry S. Baker Distinguished Service Award for Cotton for his "invaluable assistance to the U.S. cotton industry."

The New Battle

Combest, now a lobbyist for the USA Rice Federation, has called on Congress to extend the bill he helped write -- which expires Sept. 30, 2007 -- rather than draft new legislation. That is also the position of the American Farm Bureau Federation, which has 5.2 million members. "You have programs that have been in place for 60 years," said the group's president, Bob Stallman, a Texas rice grower. "You have to be careful or you can have very destructive effects in farm country."

The farm groups are counting on the new Democratic chairmen of the Senate and House agriculture committees, Sen. Tom Harkin (Iowa) and Rep. Collin C. Peterson (Minn.), who have long supported the subsidy system.

But a number of political and economic forces have changed since the last farm bill, and those seeking reform think the tide is flowing in their direction.

Corn farmers are making record profits because of their sales to ethanol plants across the Midwest. That calls into question whether it is politically sustainable for them to continue receiving billions of dollars a year in automatic federal allowances.

International pressure also has been building against U.S. subsidies. The World Trade Organization, the Geneva-based supreme court of the global economy, ruled last year that key U.S. cotton subsidies are illegal. The United States must remove the subsidies, or Brazil, which filed the complaint, can retaliate. Other foreign challenges to other subsidies are possible.

Another difference is that money for a new farm bill will be tighter than in 2001 because the government is facing big budget deficits. "Expect a smaller pie," the House Agriculture Committee's chief economist recently told members in a briefing paper.

Vilsack, the Iowa governor, said emerging markets for crops, such as corn-based ethanol, make it more likely there will be sustained demand and good prices "without the necessity of subsidizing crops to the extent we have."

Vilsack, who once represented farmers in his law practice, said many farmers are uneasy about the subsidy system and how it can distort the market for crops and land. "They'll take the checks," he said, "but most would prefer a system where the market sets prices."

Kind and Grassley plan to renew their efforts to cut some subsidies and redistribute others. Kind's new bill would offer incentives to farmers to expand conservation efforts and bring U.S. policy in line with WTO rules.

"It ain't an easy fight," said Rick Swartz, a Washington lawyer who works with the Alliance for Sensible Agriculture Policies, an informal grouping of diverse organizations lobbying for change. "There's a lot of inertia, and you've got ag committee members whose states get the bulk of the money."

Swartz has said the alliance participants, which include the well-heeled Club for Growth, plan to spend about $10 million over the next 18 months lobbying for changes in the farm bill.

The involvement of groups such as Oxfam America and Bread for the World "enables lawmakers who oppose subsidies to use the moral argument" against farm-state members who trot out images of struggling American family farmers, said a senior congressional aide.

Oxfam America President Raymond C. Offenheiser said the group will step up its lobbying. "We think there is a vision for American agriculture that doesn't just deliver benefits to a small group of people," he said.

Offenheiser said Oxfam already has brought farmers from Africa to meet U.S. farmers in the Midwest.

"We wanted to show," he said, "how they're both victims of the last farm bill."

Research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.