Trials of Guantanamo suspects begin without a LAWYER or reporter in sight

Trials of Guantanamo suspects begin without a lawyer or reporter in sight

By Andrew Buncombe in Washington

Published: 08 March 2007

Campaigners have condemned the Bush administration's plan to proceed with secret proceedings against 14 "high-value" terrorism suspects currently being held at Guantanamo Bay. The suspects include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accused of organising the 11 September 2001 attacks.

The military tribunals, scheduled to begin tomorrow, will take place behind closed doors and away from the scrutiny of the media. Hundreds of previous hearings held to determine the formal status of the prisoners have been open to reporters. None of the suspects will be able to have a lawyer present.

The Pentagon has said that the so-called Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) are being held in secret to prevent the possible leaking of classified information. But legal campaigners said the decision had been taken to prevent the revelation of information embarrassing to the Bush administration.

"They're not going to let anybody close," said Clive Stafford Smith, of the UK-based group Reprieve, which represents several dozen Guantanamo prisoners, though none of the 14. "They are trying to stop anyone saying anything about the way they have been abused or which countries they were abused in."

The 14 men - three Pakistanis, two Yemenis, two Saudis, two Malaysians, a Palestinian, a Libyan, a Somali, an Indonesian and a Tanzanian - were transferred to Guantanamo Bay last September from secret US "black site" facilities around the world. At the time of their transfer, Mr Bush claimed: " These are dangerous men, with unparalleled knowledge about terrorist networks and their plans of new attacks. The security of our nation and the lives of our citizens depend on our ability to learn what these terrorists know."

In addition to Mr Mohammed, the prisoners include two other alleged senior al-Qa'ida figures - Abu Zubaydah and Ramzi Binalshibh. Mr Mohammed was described in the official US investigation into the September 11 attacks as their "principal architect" and is also accused of involvement in the murder of the journalist Daniel Pearl.

But campaigners insist that without a fair trial and access to lawyers it is impossible to assess what the men may or may not be guilty of. Wells Dixon, a lawyer with the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, which represents one of the men due to go before a CSRT, Majid Khan, said: " This is a system designed to obtain a pre-determined result."

Mr Dixon said that Mr Bush had admitted the 14 men had been subjected to " enhanced interrogation" techniques which he said was a euphemism for torture. He added that under the CSRT rules the government could use information obtained under torture. He added: "You don't know what is true until you have given them a fair trial."

Mr Khan, 26, who was living in Baltimore, travelled to Pakistan in 2002 and was seized by the authorities a year later. The US has accused Mr Khan of having links to Mr Mohammed but his father last year told The Washington Post: "He's a terrorist, my son? No. I don't accept this."

The Pentagon has said that transcripts of the proceedings will be made available though they will be edited to remove information it deemed " dangerous to national security". Spokesman Bryan Whitman said: " [Security concerns exist] given the nature of these individuals and the information that will be necessary as a part of these combatant status review tribunals."

The hearings are part of a process established by the Bush administration as a means of complying with a provision of the Geneva Conventions that requires a prisoner's status to be assessed by a "competent tribunal" . Many campaigners argue that the CSRTs, involving a panel of three military officers and a government-provided representative, do not constitute a competent tribunal.

It was originally assumed the hearings would be open to the media, providing the first public appearance of Mr Mohammed and the other prisoners since before their arrests. The only independent visitors to have seen the men are observers from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). An ICRC spokesman, Simon Schorno, said the organisation was bound not to speak about the circumstances of the individuals, but added: "We don't believe there is an appropriate legal framework for these detentions. The lack of a clear legal framework has clearly had an impact on [the prisoners'] mental health."

Campaigners have long been fighting for the prisoners to be brought to trial or else released. They appeared to have won a victory last summer when the Supreme Court ruled that they had the right to challenge their detention. However, the Bush administration passed new legislation to circumvent the ruling.

There are currently 385 prisoners being held at Guantanamo, around 80 of whom have been cleared for release. While Mr Bush says he would like to close the prison his administration pushed ahead with the building of a $30m (£15.5m) maximum-security prison block, Camp 6, which opened last autumn. Just 10 prisoners have been formally charged.

The main suspects

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

Allegedly al-Qai'da's number three, Mohammed is accused of being the architect behind the September 11 attacks. A playboy and a committed jihadist, he has been in US custody since 2003. Raised in Kuwait, the US says he was involved in the 2002 Bali bomb attacks and the murder of the US journalist Dan Pearl.

Ramzi Binalshibh

The nephew of Khaled Sheikh Mohammed is also regarded as one of the key plotters of the September 11 attacks. A former bank clerk from Yemen, he was the first person to be publicly identified as the "20th hijacker". He shared a room with the hijacker leader Muhammad Atta in Germany and was apprehended in Pakistan in 2002.

Abu Zubaydah

Already sentenced to death in absentia in Jordan, Zubaydah was allegedly one of Osma bin Laden's key lieutenants and al-Qa'ida's chief of operations in the late 90s. A Saudi national, Zubaydah has been implicated in the planning of numerous terrorist plots, including the 2000 attack on the USS Cole. He was captured in Pakistan in 2002.

Video: Interview with child taken by Israeli Army as human shield

Video: Interview with child taken as human shield in Nablus
Video, Research Journalism Initiative and A-Films, 7 March 2007

On 28 February 2007, during the Israeli invasion of Nablus, the IOF kidnapped 11-year-old Jihan Tahdush from her home in the Old City of Nablus. She was used as a human shield while Israeli forces conducted door-to-door searches in the Old City. Jihan says of the incident: "They gave me biscuits to persuade me to talk to them, but I didn't tell them anything. When I brought them to the house they told me not to be afraid because they were with me. When I asked to go back to my mom, they said, 'We have to keep you a bit longer.'" This video-interview was produced by the Research Journalism Initiative and the Anarchist Film Collective "A-Films".

Related Links

BY TOPIC: Israel Attacks Nablus: "Operation Hot Winter" (25 February 200

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This short interview was conducted in the aftermath of the Israeli Occupation Forces' operation "Hot Winter" in the West Bank city of Nablus.

The 11-years-old girl Jihan Tahdush was kidnapped by IOF troops and repeatedly forced to serve as a human shield for soldiers in their house-to-house searches in the Old City.

The full interview in better quality can be downloaded at:
https://video.indymedia.org/en/2007/03/7 67.shtml

This short clip is a co-production of a-films and RJI. The authors can be contacted at a-films@no-log.org and ripplescross@yahoo.com.

Under VA Chief, Effort to Aid Wounded Vets Stalled, Ex-Employee Charges

A proposal to keep seriously wounded vets from falling through the cracks of the bureaucracy was shelved in 2005 when Jim Nicholson took over as the secretary of the Veterans Affairs Department, according to the former VA employee who was responsible for tracking war casualties.

As a result, seriously wounded veterans continued to face long delays for health care and benefit payments after being discharged from the military, says former VA program manager Paul Sullivan.

The program, called the Contingency Tracking System, had been approved by Nicholson's predecessor but died once Nicholson took over the VA, Sullivan told ABC News.

Sullivan said he was told the cost of the system -- less than $1 million to build and requiring a handful of staff to maintain -- was prohibitive.

When asked about the Contingency Tracking System at the White House Wednesday, Nicholson told ABC News, "I'm not sure I know what program you're referring to." He added that "when the VA gets patients...we instantly create an electronic medical record for them."

In testimony before Congress today, a VA official confirmed that its current tracking system still depends on paper files and lacks the ability to download Department of Defense records into its computers, a key flaw originally identified as leading to veterans getting lost between the cracks.

Throughout 2004, the new program sat on a shelf while returning veterans struggling with serious brain injuries, psychological trauma, paralysis or worse spent weeks and months fighting the VA bureaucracy to receive the benefits they deserved after being discharged from the armed services, veterans advocates say.

"In that gap...people find themselves not being able to pay for their car, their mortgage, they may have marital problems because they can't pay their bills," said Steve Robinson, director of veterans' affairs for the advocacy group Veterans for America. "You find suicide, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, domestic violence."

Yesterday, President Bush put VA Secretary Nicholson in charge of an interagency task force to determine what can be done to deliver benefits and health care now to thousands of wounded vets who have struggled to receive care.

The announcement came almost exactly two years after Nicholson had received the newly designed system, itself the result of an internal VA task force studying how to make sure wounded soldiers were "seamlessly" transitioned from military service to veteran status with the care and benefits they'd earned.

Despite Nicholson's apparently cool reception to the inexpensive solution, others thought the system had merit. "It was a great idea," said Cynthia A. Bascetta, a congressional expert on veterans' health care who was briefed on the project just prior to its completion. After the briefing, she said, she didn't hear any more about it.

Newspaper exposes in 2004 prompted former VA Secretary Principi to come up with a plan to fix the problem of wounded vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and not receiving timely care and benefits.

"You read a story about someone who was caught in between and I said, 'Wait a minute. We have to do better than that,'" Principi, now a lobbyist for the Pfizer pharmaceutical company, told ABC News.

Sullivan and his team designed the "Contingency Tracking System" (CTS), a secure online database that would capture Department of Defense data on soldiers wounded on the battlefield and track their status through their medical care and treatment at both Defense and VA facilities.

To keep costs down, he said, he cadged computer hardware from other offices which weren't using theirs.

CTS would record each vet's diagnosis and help VA staff make sure he or she received all of the dozens of benefits they might qualify for as soon as possible, from rehabilitative care to disability payments, vocational training and more.

"Before the CTS, VA had no nationwide system for tracking casualties from the battlefield," Sullivan said. Instead, the department relied on a haphazard system of casualty records manually kept on spreadsheets at several locations, which sometimes did not match up with Defense Department casualty records. That process hampered vets' timely access to medical care and other benefits after discharge, Sullivan said.

Sullivan left the VA in March 2006; he is now an advocate for improving care for veterans. He reacted with dismay at yesterday's announcement that Nicholson would be leading the new effort to make sure wounded veterans get the care and benefits they deserve.

"I don't think it's a good idea for the people responsible for the problem to be in charge of fixing it," he told ABC News.

In a written response to ABC News, the VA said a new tracking system "very near deployment" would allow them to track casualties soon after they left the battlefield, much the way CTS was designed to do in 2004.

This post has been updated.

March 7, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (34)

Islamist party quits Maliki coalition

By Steve Negus, Iraq correspondent

Published: March 7 2007 20:22 | Last updated: March 7 2007 20:22

A Shia Islamist party formerly allied to Nouri al-Maliki, prime minister, withdrew from Iraq’s ruling coalition on Wednesday, declaring itself ready to join other groups to form a cross-sectarian alliance.

The move by the Fadila or Virtue party does not represent an immediate challenge to Mr Maliki’s government, whose United Iraqi Alliance is still the largest bloc by far in parliament and is in close alliance with the second largest, the Kurdistan Alliance.

But it does indicate the long-term weakness of Mr Maliki, who is accused both of running a government that only looks out for Shia sectarian interests, and of selling out the Shia under pressure from the US and Sunni community.

Fadila spokesman Nadim al-Jabiri told a news conference that it would “sit in parliament as an independent bloc awaiting moves from other political blocs to launch a patriotic agenda”.

“We consider the first step of saving Iraq is to dismantle these blocs and to prevent blocs forming on a sectarian basis,” he said in remarks reported by Reuters.

Fadila is a branch of the radical Sadrist movement built by the venerated cleric Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr in the 1990s, but does not acknowledge the leadership of his son, Moqtada al-Sadr, to whom the majority of Sadrists are at least nominally loyal.

Fadila holds 15 seats in the 275-member parliament as it was one of the half-dozen main partners on the list of the United Iraqi Alliance, which won 140 seats in the December 2005 elections. Its members also head the local government of Basra, a major port in the south.

Fadila’s criticism of the Maliki government as “sectarian” may be an attempt to reach out to other groups, such as the Sunni-led Iraqi National Dialogue Front (which won 11 seats in 2005) and the Iraqi National List of former prime minister Iyad Allawi (which won 25 seats), both of which characterise themselves as non-sectarian.

But with radically different core constituencies there is little indication that the groups could agree on a common platform, let alone attract enough allies to form a majority.

Copyright The Financial Times

Democrats stumble when their turn on Iraq arrives

A consensus on how to influence the war is elusive, especially in the House.

By WES ALLISON
Published March 7, 2007

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WASHINGTON - Running against the war in Iraq was easy. Deciding how far Congress should go to run the war is not.

After a quick string of successes and strong party unity on bills raising the minimum wage, expanding stem cell research and other popular measures, Democrats in the House are at ideological loggerheads on how to exert their new power over the president's handling of the war in Iraq.

Democrats in the Senate are foundering, too, unable to agree on a course of action that will accommodate their moderate and liberal wings, as well as draw enough Republicans to pass.

But it is in the House where the internal battle is raising fundamental questions about the Democrats' ability to influence the most pressing issue of their time, and how much ownership of the war - and its outcome - they really want.

"To some extent, the Democratic majority is on trial here," said Rep. Jane Harman, a moderate Democrat from California.

"We made promises in the election, and we have to deliver. But finding the position that best represents our new majority is hard."

President Bush has asked Congress for an additional $100-billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush has made such supplemental requests throughout the war, and in the past the Republican-led Congress had simply approved them.

This is the first request with the Democrats in charge, and a large contingent of liberals dearly wants to use the opportunity to reduce troop levels or set a date for pulling out of Iraq. They say the elections proved this is what Americans want.

Many conservative Democrats, however, would rather just fund the president's request and continue their aggressive oversight of war spending and troop readiness. "We're all very nervous about plans that would have us play general," said Rep. Allen Boyd, D-Monticello, who is a leader of the conservative Blue Dog Coalition.

The Republicans have spent the past two weeks portraying the Democrats as ready to cut funding for troops in the field, leaving them vulnerable.

Many Democrats are terrified that characterization will stick. Their antidote has been to promise repeatedly that the spending bill will fully fund the troops.

At the same time, the pocketbook is the only power Congress holds over the president's ability to wage war.

"They're grasping the pistol but they don't want to put their finger on the trigger," said Ross K. Baker, a congressional scholar at Rutgers University.

"The political consequence of it, I think, is all too apparent - the blame would shift from a mismanaged war and the administration to them, for pulling the rug out from under the soldiers."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and other leaders are discussing a compromise that would fund the president's request but attach conditions stating he could use the money only to send troops to Iraq who meet the military's own standards for equipment, training and time between deployments.

Many troops do not meet those standards now.

Then, to attract members uneasy about limiting the commander-in-chief's power, Democratic leaders also want to add a provision that would allow Bush to waive those requirements.

Such waivers may be used in the interest of national security, provided the administration explains the reasons.

If that doesn't keep the president from sending more troops to Iraq, Democrats say, it at least will force Bush to misrepresent troop readiness - fodder for more embarrassing hearings - or acknowledge he's sending troops to battle unprepared.

But large numbers of conservatives and liberals don't like it. Boyd and other Blue Dogs say Congress would still be meddling with how the president wages war.

"We got our constituents out there losing lives, losing limbs," said Boyd, who led a rifle platoon in Vietnam. "This is too important to play chicken with."

And liberals say giving Bush a waiver would declaw the measure. "If we're not willing to use the power of the purse, all the rest of it's just going to be talk," said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., co-chairwoman of the antiwar Congressional Progressive Caucus.

The Progressives say they hope to introduce their own measure to require the president to use the $100-billion solely for withdrawing the troops from Iraq.

The defection of either the 44-member Blue Dogs or the 71-member Progressive Caucus would doom the passage of any plan, unless it draws strong Republican support.

But GOP leaders say they will urge their members to oppose any bill that restricts Bush's authority.

"I don't think we can make decisions that affect the battlefield," said Rep. C.W. Bill Young of Indian Shores, the top Republican on the subcommittee that oversees military spending.

Democrats met for nearly two hours Tuesday to haggle, and Hoyer said they'll keep talking until they find consensus on how to proceed.

That may take time. The Appropriations Committee was to consider the spending bill - and any restrictions - Thursday, but the meeting was pushed to next week.

"What we're trying to do ... is make policy, not just make points," Hoyer said. "To make policy, we need something that will pass."

Wes Allison can be reached allison@sptimes.com.

Is the Bush surge already failing?

U.S.: Iraqi insurgent attacks intensifying; US general calls for talks with militants
Libby's Lies, Cheney's Lies: Juan Cole calls for impeachment
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The president just gave a rosy assessment of his plan, but insurgents have adapted and Iraqis continue to be slaughtered.

By Juan Cole

Mar. 08, 2007 | On Tuesday, President Bush said that "even at this early hour, there are some encouraging signs" that the so-called surge is working in Iraq. In fact, three weeks into what the president refers to as the "surge" and what Iraqis call the "new security plan," it's already clear that Bush's last-gasp bid for victory faces challenges that can't necessarily be surmounted by a few thousand additional troops.

With plenty of warning of the U.S. escalation, the Shiite Mahdi Army is lying low. Meanwhile, the Iraqi army and the much better equipped and trained U.S. military have made no appreciable progress against the real drivers of the country's civil war, Sunni Arab guerrillas, who have so far adapted successfully to the new deployments. And perhaps most important, a new spate of massive and deadly bombings has spread insecurity and further compromised the Iraqi government.

The neo-Baathists, Iraqi nationalists and Muslim fundamentalists who make up the insurgency have responded in several ways to the U.S. decision to put extra troops into Anbar Province and Baghdad. First, they have stood their ground, refusing to cede these two pieces of territory to the Americans or the Iraqi government, and they have changed their military tactics.

The Sunni Arab fighters appear to have made a tactical decision to target U.S. helicopters, and perhaps they have recently gotten hold, in the shadowy global arms market, of more sophisticated shoulder-held missile launchers. They have shot down eight U.S. helicopters in the past two months, several of them after the new security plan began. This tactic has made it more difficult for the U.S. to give American and Iraqi troops close air support, and has forced the U.S. to deploy bombers from greater altitudes against suspected guerrilla safe houses. In turn, bombing from a distance increases the likelihood that the U.S. will make a mistake and hit a house full of civilians, providing Iraqi, Arab and European media with heartbreaking footage of children being dug out of the rubble.

The guerrillas have not ceased their attacks in Anbar Province, a key focus of the escalation, where the U.S. military is adding some 4,000 extra troops. Guerrillas have bombed police stations and other sites in major cities like Ramadi and Tikrit on more than one occasion, sometimes killing and wounding dozens of people at a time. On Feb. 24 in Habbaniya, another town in Anbar, guerrillas used a truck bomb to attack a Sunni mosque that was cooperating with the Americans, killing 45 and wounding 110. They have killed a number of U.S. soldiers and Marines.

At the same time that some cells have refused to fall silent or go underground in Baghdad and Anbar, the Sunni Arab guerrillas have shifted some of their attacks to Diyala and Ninevah Provinces, which have Sunni Arab majorities but are not included in the new security arrangements. On Monday, they used a roadside bomb to kill six U.S. troops in Salahuddin Province, and another three in Diyala Province. In February, attacks on U.S. troops were up 70 percent in Diyala, according to the Associated Press. Diyala has a Sunni Arab majority, but because the Sunnis boycotted the last provincial elections, the provincial government, the police and the federal troops are all predominantly Shiite. Locally, American forces are seen primarily as enablers of the Shiite fundamentalist Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. It is not just Diyala. Guerrillas in recent months have driven thousands of Kurds from the large northern city of Mosul, and they have resorted to death squad tactics, often leaving half a dozen bodies in the street at night.

In attempting to suppress the Sunni militants, American troops are not receiving much help from the Iraqi army. The Iraqi brass have had trouble just convincing their troops to come to Baghdad from the provinces to fight. Several battalions have arrived at less than full strength, some of them only 42 percent filled. If troops will not obey a simple order to deploy several hundred miles away from their hometowns, it is difficult to see in what way they can defend the government in Baghdad. Nor had the units from the largely Shiite south managed to establish security in their home regions. As for the two Kurdish units, their deployment against the Arabs of Baghdad is controversial and likely to exacerbate ethnic tensions in the north.

The other problem with Bush's talk of "encouraging signs" is the steep increase in civilian casualties. Since the security plan began, the guerrillas have pulled off a whole series of horrific bombings right in downtown Baghdad, within spitting distance of the Green Zone, where the U.S. and the Iraqi government planned out the new security arrangements.

On Tuesday, the same day Bush gave his rosy assessment of the surge, Sunni Arab guerrillas bombed processions of Shiite pilgrims commemorating the martyrdom of the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, al-Husayn. They killed some 115 pilgrims. News of the pilgrims' deaths undermined the American claims to be able to provide security, and will certainly eventually result in reprisal killings. Many Shiites believe that the Mahdi Army did a much better job of providing security for the religious processions, and that for the U.S to disarm them this year was a deadly mistake. Since these attempts to target the pilgrims were predictable, it is difficult to understand why the al-Maliki government and the U.S. did not forestall them.

A day earlier, guerrillas set off a car bomb on the famed al-Mutanabbi Street, home of numerous bookshops, on the shelves of which sat rare books and manuscripts that were emblematic of Iraq's deep culture. The explosion killed 38 people and wounded 105, destroying automobiles and setting shops ablaze, sending charred pages of poetry spattered with blood into the sky like leaves in a hurricane. The street has a sentimental value for educated Iraqis and news of the blasts reminded some of them of the predations of bloodthirsty Mongol Gen. Hulagu Khan in 1258.

The previous Monday, Feb. 26, someone blew up government offices during a visit by Iraq's Shiite vice president, Adil Abdul Mahdi, killing 10 persons and wounding many others, including a cabinet secretary. The bruised and scratched vice president barely escaped with his life. Abdul Mahdi angrily accused high officials of his own government of complicity in the assassination plot, without naming names. The day before that, guerrillas bombed offices at the al-Mustansiriya University, killing 41 persons, mainly students, and wounding a similar number. It was the second time the university students were targeted in as many weeks.

This string of major bombings has shaken to the core the confidence of the Iraqi people in the new security plan. Most days there are three or four bombings or mortar attacks in Baghdad. The police corpse patrol in the capital comes upon fewer bodies each day now than last December, but it is not unusual for them to find 15 to 30 bodies every morning, hardly a reassuring figure.

The U.S. strategy assumes that if violence can be dramatically reduced in Baghdad and Anbar, that will give the al-Maliki government breathing room and allow it to assert itself more forcefully. But so far the government hasn't been afforded much relief from the horrific attacks that daily undermine its credibility with the public and provoke destabilizing tribal and religious feuds. That matters, because if Iraqis do not feel that their government can protect them from violence, they will turn again to guerrillas and militiamen. These paramilitary forces, based in the neighborhoods, in turn carry out ethnic cleansing and attacks on police, and further undermine the authority of the central government.

Last summer, Bush explained of Iraq that "victory means a free government that is able to sustain itself, defend itself; it's a government that will be an ally in the war on terror. It's a government that will be able to fight off al-Qaida and its desires to have a safe haven."

There is still no good evidence that the Iraqi government can achieve "freedom" or that it can sustain or defend itself anytime soon. On Tuesday, the Iraqi parliament failed to convene because it could not garner the requisite quorum. The stony-faced prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is speaking darkly of having parliamentarians arrested for involvement in death squad activity, and of dismissing from his cabinet members of the Shiite bloc of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr that helped elect him in the first place. As a parliamentary democracy, Iraq is broken.

Contrary to what the president says, there is so far no reason to believe that the new security plan has made a big difference in the lives of Iraqis. The massacre of the Shiite pilgrims this week is among the more ominous developments. Protecting the pilgrims was the most important thing the government could have done. That so many were killed is no harbinger of progress. Three weeks into the surge, the Sunni Arab guerrillas are running rings around both al-Maliki's forces and those of the U.S. How some extra troops for half a year will change that remains about as clear as Baghdad's sky during a spring sandstorm.

Hardline Pastor Gets Prime AIPAC Spot

Related
AIPAC speaker hopes US gets nuked after Israel provokes war with Russia
Cheney keynoting at AIPAC
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(03/09/2007) Hardline Pastor Gets Prime AIPAC Spot

Rev. John Hagee�s appearance drawing criticism on eve of policy conference. James D. Besser - Washington Correspondent

Growing ties between pro-Israel forces and a controversial, hardline �Christian Zionist� movement will move into the national spotlight at next week�s policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the pro-Israel lobby.

One keynoter at the event, which annually draws hundreds of lawmakers, administration officials, diplomats and political hopefuls, will be Pastor John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), author of several books about biblical prophecy and an opponent of new territorial concessions to the Palestinians on biblical grounds.

Rev. Hagee, who will speak at a Sunday plenary, was also a leading backer of a controversial Christian broadcast venture in Israel that critics charge sought to convert Jews.

And a time when pro-Israel forces are being accused of beating the drums for war with Iran, Rev. Hagee seems to believe such a conflict is both inevitable and necessary. In his apocalypse-oriented book �Jerusalem Countdown,� he predicted a nuclear showdown with Iran and said, �The end of the world as we know it is rapidly approaching ... rejoice and be exceedingly glad, the best is yet to be,� according to a Wall Street Journal report posted on the CUFI Web site.

Last year, Rev. Hagee told the Jerusalem Post that �I would hope the United States would join Israel in a military pre-emptive strike to take out the nuclear capability of Iran for the salvation of Western civilization.�

Israeli historian Michael Oren will also speak at Sunday�s plenary.

Giving Rev. Hagee such prominence at the premier pro-Israel gathering of the year � he attended last year�s conference � troubles some AIPAC supporters.

Rabbi Barry Block of Temple Beth El in San Antonio�the home of the John Hagee Ministries and to his 18,000-member Cornerstone Church�said he hopes the minister�s presence will be balanced by �Christians who support Israel but who do not share the �end of days� theology and extremist anti-Palestinian positions and anti-Muslim prejudice so often spewed by Pastor Hagee.�

Rabbi Block, who said he is an �AIPAC supporter� and participates in local activities of the lobby, added that �there are those I love and respect in my community who believe we should work with Pastor Hagee on the important concern we share�the welfare of the state of Israel. However, despite what may be good intentions, I don�t think Pastor Hagee�s activism is good for Israel.�

Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak, cofounder of a We site that opposes Christian right church-state policies, said that Hagee�s AIPAC appearance will mark a �decisive point when the costs of a relationship with Hagee couldn�t be clearer. AIPAC has to know that Hagee�s push for an attack on Iran is not based on a logically constructed policy but on cherry-picked biblical verses. And it is only the first step to the end-times scenario that Hagee enthusiastically predicts will engulf Israel in a devastating war.�

A former AIPAC official said giving Rev. Hagee a key speaking slot represents one more step toward an AIPAC embrace of the Evangelicals that began more than two decades ago, and warned that it has political risks.

�This sends out a message of an endorsement by AIPAC at a time when these Christian groups seem to be losing power in Congress�and when the Democrats, who have long opposed this cozying up to the religious right, are now in power,� this activist said.

But many pro-Israel leaders believe Rev. Hagee and other Christian Zionists, representing a growing political force, are a critical addition to the pro-Israel coalition � especially as �mainline� Protestant churches continue to castigate Israel for its West Bank policies.

But Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League and a strong critic of many Christian right groups, said he is not alarmed about Hagee�s role in the policy conference.

�I think there is a role for him,� Foxman aid. �He has earned a certain recognition with the community because of his support for Israel.�

Foxman said he expects Hagee will get a good reception. �It�s a friendly platform,� he said. �I�m sure an overwhelming majority may be pleased with what he says.�

That reflects an annual conference expected to strike a hawkish note on a number of issues, starting with the threat of a nuclear Iran.

Other keynote speakers will include Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu and�health permitting�Vice President Dick Cheney. The current Israeli government will be represented by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and Ambassador Sallai Meridor.

Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh, several sources said, will tell delegates that increased aid to Palestinian moderates is in Israel�s interests�a call that may conflict with a major AIPAC theme.

In a show of both political clout and bipartisanship that has become routine for AIPAC, the conference will feature speeches by all four top congressional leaders.

AIPAC says �more than 6,000 pro-Israel activists, including 1,200 students representing over 390 campuses� will attend. �Lead by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and both House and Senate Republican leaders all speaking under the same tent, this year�s AIPAC Policy Conference underscores the bipartisan nature of American support for Israel,� according to AIPAC spokesman Josh Block. �The conference schedule also underscores the long history, breadth and diversity of America�s centuries of support for the Jewish homeland in Israel.�

Anxiety about Iran will dominate the conference, and it is a major element in the �action agenda� that, at least in theory, sets the group�s goals for next year. Members of the executive committee will debate and vote on the statement on Sunday.

Proposed new language in the policy statement supports using �all means necessary for the United States, Israel and their allies to prevent Iran and other nations from developing nuclear, biological or chemical weapons and the vehicles for their delivery.�

Lobbying for tougher sanctions legislation will also be a top priority for AIPAC delegates when they blanket Capitol Hill on Tuesday.

Protecting Israel�s big chunk of foreign aid has traditionally been a top AIPAC priority, but this year the group will also emphasize �closely monitoring assistance to countries that are not supporting American objectives in the region.�

At the top of that list: the Palestinian Authority. Congress has frozen an administration request for $86 million in emergency aid to boost Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas� forces.

Pro-peace groups say they will not press AIPAC to soften its language about the Palestinians, as they have done in the past. Morton Klein, national president of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), will come to the executive committee meeting loaded with amendments aimed at toughening them.

The AIPAC conference will be the usual display of political clout, but the group also faces some new challenges, including a new Democratic leadership that remains strongly pro-Israel but less in lockstep with AIPAC than their Republican predecessors.

Congressional observers say AIPAC remains a legislative powerhouse, �but more lawmakers will now feel free to ask questions, especially about routine and nonbinding resolutions praising Israel and criticizing the Palestinians,� said a longtime pro-Israel lobbyist.

But AIPAC�s influence on signature issues like Iran and foreign aid to Israel remains intact despite the partisan shift, said Kean University political scientist Gilbert Kahn.

�AIPAC has successfully maneuvered itself through Democratic and Republican administrations, Democratic and Republican Congresses, and there�s no reason to think they won�t do it again,� he said.

Kahn said AIPAC has also strengthened itself by aggressively �pushing the Orthodox community to engage. You have more and more Orthodox rabbis who are touting AIPAC and touting joining AIPAC. AIPAC understands that if you get the rabbis on board, they in turn will press the community to get involved.�

That �dramatic shift,� he said, may make AIPAC �less representative, but it also strengthens the group as voices on Mideast policy become more diverse.

�It�s a source of strength because this is a community that is comfortable with the direction AIPAC has taken in recent years,� he said.

AIPAC also faces a rising challenge from Jewish groups on both the right and the left that take a different tack on Mideast policy, and that are increasingly active on Capitol Hill.

The Zionist Organization of America on the right and both Americans for Peace Now and the Israel Policy Forum on the left are expanding their lobbying, targeting areas where they feel AIPAC does not represent them.

None can come close to eclipsing AIPAC, although IPF, Washington sources say, is starting to build a network of campaign contributors who also support the group�s perspective on Mideast affairs�a key element in AIPAC�s strength.

Still, on the verge of the 2007 policy conference, they point to a changed lobbying environment for what remains the pre-eminent group on the pro-Israel scene.