Friday, December 1, 2006

Robert Fisk: Like Hitler and Brezhnev, Bush is in denial

Robert Fisk

Published: 01 December 2006

More than half a million deaths, an army trapped in the largest military debacle since Vietnam, a Middle East policy already buried in the sands of Mesopotamia - and still George W Bush is in denial. How does he do it? How does he persuade himself - as he apparently did in Amman yesterday - that the United States will stay in Iraq "until the job is complete"? The "job" - Washington's project to reshape the Middle East in its own and Israel's image - is long dead, its very neoconservative originators disavowing their hopeless political aims and blaming Bush, along with the Iraqis of course, for their disaster.

History's "deniers" are many - and all subject to the same folly: faced with overwhelming evidence of catastrophe, they take refuge in fantasy, dismissing evidence of collapse as a symptom of some short-term setback, clinging to the idea that as long as their generals promise victory - or because they have themselves so often promised victory - that fate will be kind. George W Bush - or Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara for that matter - need not feel alone. The Middle East has produced these fantasists by the bucketful over past decades.

In 1967, Egyptian president Gamel Abdul Nasser insisted his country was winning the Six Day War hours after the Israelis had destroyed the entire Egyptian air force on the ground. President Carter was extolling the Shah's Iran as "an island of stability in the region" only days before Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamic revolution brought down his regime. President Leonid Brezhnev declared a Soviet victory in Afghanistan when Russian troops were being driven from their fire bases in Nangahar and Kandahar provinces by Osama bin Laden and his fighters.

And was it not Saddam Hussein who promised the "mother of all battles" for Kuwait before the great Iraqi retreat in 1991? And was it not Saddam again who predicted a US defeat in the sands of Iraq in 2003? Saddam's loyal acolyte, Mohamed el-Sahaf, would fantasise about the number of American soldiers who would die in the desert; George W Bush let it be known that he sometimes slipped out of White House staff meetings to watch Sahaf's preposterous performance and laugh at the fantasies of Iraq's minister of information.

So who is laughing at Bush now? Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, almost as loyal a retainer to Bush as Sahaf was to Saddam, receives the same false praise from the American president that Nasser and Brezhnev once lavished upon their generals. "I appreciate the courage you show during these difficult times as you lead your country," Bush tells Maliki. "He's the right guy for Iraq," he tells us. And the Iraqi Prime Minister who hides in the US-fortified "Green Zone" - was ever a crusader fortress so aptly named? - announces that "there is no problem". Power must be more quickly transferred to Maliki, we were informed yesterday. Why? Because that will save Iraq? Or because this will allow America to claim, as it did when it decided to allow the South Vietnamese army to fight on its own against Hanoi, that Washington is not to blame for the debacle that follows? "One of his frustrations with me is that he believes that we've been slow about giving him the tools necessary to protect the Iraqi people." Or so Bush says. "He doesn't have the capacity to respond. So we want to accelerate that capacity." But how can Maliki have any "capacity" at all when he rules only a few square miles of central Baghdad and a clutch of rotting ex-Baathist palaces?

About the only truthful statement uttered in Amman yesterday was Bush's remark that "there's a lot of speculation that these reports in Washington mean there's going to be some kind of graceful exit out of Iraq [but] this business about a graceful exit just simply has no realism to it at all." Indeed, it has not. There can be no graceful exit from Iraq, only a terrifying, bloody collapse of military power. The withdrawal of Shia ministers from Maliki's cabinet mirror the withdrawal of Shia ministers from another American-supported administration in Beirut - where the Lebanese fear an equally appalling conflict over which Washington has, in reality, no military or political control.

Bush even appeared oblivious of the current sectarian map of Iraq. "The Prime Minister made clear that splitting his country into parts, as some have suggested, is not what the Iraqi people want, and that any partition of Iraq would only lead to an increase in sectarian violence," he said. "I agree." But Iraq is already "split into parts". The fracture of Iraq is virtually complete, its chasms sucking in corpses at the rate of up to a thousand a day.

Even Hitler must chuckle at this bloodbath, he who claimed in April 1945 that Germany would still win the Second World War, boasting that his enemy, Roosevelt, had died - much as Bush boasted of Zarqawi's killing - while demanding to know when General Wenck's mythical army would rescue the people of Berlin. How many "Wencks" are going to be summoned from the 82nd Airborne or the Marine Corps to save Bush from Iraq in the coming weeks? No, Bush is not Hitler. Like Blair, he once thought he was Winston Churchill, a man who never - ever - lied to his people about Britain's defeats in war. But fantasy knows no bounds.

Troops out on streets as Beirut prepares for massive protest

Copyright (c) 2006 The Daily Star

Friday, December 01, 2006
The Messages on the protest banners

Daily Star Online edition staff

Scores of soldiers, using barbed wire and metal barriers, cordoned off the complex housing the government's offices in the downtown area. Less than 30 metres away, the crowds gathered, waving red-and-white Lebanese flags under banners demanding a government of national unity.
"We want a clean government," one banner read.

Hezbollah deputy chief Sheikh Naim Kassem said the protests would not end until Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's cabinet fell.

"This government will not take Lebanon to the abyss. We have several steps if this government does not respond but I tell them you will not be able to rule Lebanon with an American administration," he told Hezbollah's al-Manar television.

Christian opposition leader and Hezbollah ally Michel Aoun was scheduled to address the protest. Hezbollah has repeatedly criticised Siniora's cabinet over what it says was its failure to back Hezbollah during a July-August war with Israel.

Different quotes were gathered from the crowd: "We're here to bring down the government. We, the resistance, don't want any influence from the United States," a member of the protest said.

"We're protesting so that the government knows that nobody wants Siniora," said Hamzi Mesheh, 18, a university student from Baalbek, who had a Lebanese flag tied around his head.

SINIORA DEFIANT The anti-Syrian politicians who control the cabinet say that Hezbullah and its allies want to stage a coup. Siniora said on Thursday his government would not stand down.

The government was weakened last month by the resignation of six opposition ministers and the Nov. 21 assassination of anti-Syrian Christian cabinet minister Pierre Gemayel.

His funeral drew tens of thousands into central Beirut, with many mourners accusing Damascus of being behind the killing.

Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, the most prominent anti-Syrian leader, urged supporters to remain calm and avoid street confrontations.

"Very calmly, we will remain steadfast," he told a news conference on Friday. "We will confront (the opposition) calmly. We will remain in our houses and fly the Lebanese flags... We will wait for a month, for two months... and watch them." Many Lebanese fear large protests could turn violent.

Ethnic Cleansing and Israel’s Racist Discourse

Ramzy Baroud, Aljazeera.net English.

“The term ethnic cleansing refers to various policies of forcibly removing people of another ethnic group. At one end of the spectrum, it is virtually indistinguishable from forced emigration and population transfer, while at the other it merges with deportation and genocide.”

According to this definition, and others including those emerging in the 1990s, following the ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, Palestinians have been and remain victims of a determined and unwavering ethnic cleansing policy that began in 1947-48 and continues until today.

However, it is important that when we examine the subject of ethnic cleansing in Palestine, we take into account its various dimensions, one of which is the accompanying racist discourse, which has become part and parcel of Israel’s ethnic cleansing policies.

Any act of collective punishment — whether ethnic cleansing or genocide or any other — is often preceded and or adjoined by a racist discourse that dehumanizes the victim and justifies the crime on baseless grounds, a concoction of lies and fibs that may appeal to national or religious psyches, but fails the test of law, morality or basic human norms and expectations.

Without such discourse, which depicted the original inhabitants of Palestine as cancerous, subhuman and a nuisance in the face of civilization and progress — as defined by the founders of the Zionist movement — it would not have been possible to carry out a systematic campaign of murder and ethnic cleansing in 1947-48, which saw the killing of an estimated 13,000 Palestinians, the forcible eviction of 850,000 and the depopulation and subsequent destruction of nearly 500 villages and localities. Without such a racist discourse it would have been difficult, to say the least, to carry out scores of preempted massacres, including Deir Yassin, Tantoura, Abbasiyya, Beit Daras, Bir Al-Saba’, Haifa and so forth.

Were it not for a decided campaign of institutionalized racism that occurred on such a large scale and which is maintained until today, it would have been impossible and implausible to gun down scores of innocent people after lining them up against the crumbling wall of the old Tantura mosque in May of 1948, or to bulldoze the home of a crippled man in Jenin in April 2002 without giving his mother the chance to evacuate him. Or to describe as a “great success” the killing of 14 civilians, including children when a one-ton Israeli bomb slammed into their apartment building in the Zeitun neighborhood in Gaza in July 2002. Or the wanton murder of 19 people, most of them women and children of the same extended family in Beit Hanoun earlier this November. But according to Israeli officials, every other method has been tried, and failed. “With murderous, bloodthirsty terrorism that wants to wipe you off the map, you have to respond accordingly: Wipe it out,” as Ben Caspit commented following the brutal massacre of Beit Hanoun.

But if what purely motivates Israel is the fear of its own annihilation, then, how can the Zionist state’s morally flexible supporters explain Israel’s continuous colonization of the West Bank and Jerusalem? According to a 2004 Foundation for Middle East Peace report, the total settler population in the West Bank and East Jerusalem has neared 420,000: 220,000 settlers in the West Bank and 200,000 in East Jerusalem. Expectedly, the number stands at a much higher figure.

New settlements are being erected while existing settlements are ever-expanding. According to a recent report drafted by the PLO’s Negotiations Affairs Department, Israel approved tenders for 690 new settlement units in two major east Jerusalem settlements: Ma’aleh Adumim and Beit Illit. The housing units could accommodate up to 2,800 new Jewish settlers.

If the idea was indeed to shield Israel from Palestinian attacks, then why is 80 percent of the wall being built on ethnically cleansed Palestinian land? Why encircle the Palestinian population of the West Bank from east and west, and those of Qalqilia from all directions? Why do thousands of Palestinian schools kids have to stand for hours in front of their gated villages to acquire permission from an Israeli soldier to allow them access to their schools and back?

Ethnic cleansing is indeed back on the Israeli political agenda, as Avigdor Lieberman, an Israeli politician who has for long advocated the ethnic cleansing of the Arab inhabitants of Palestine, was recently appointed as Israel’s new deputy prime minister. One of his early ideas since the new post, aside from sending Palestinians packing, was the killing of the entire leadership of the elected Palestinian government. “They...have to disappear, to go to paradise, all of them, and there can’t be any compromise,” he told Israeli radio last week.

The unfortunate reality is that Israel’s campaign of ethnic cleansing, though it might have changed tactics and pace throughout the years, has never stopped and is now more active than it has been for decades. It’s also clear that the adjacent racist discourse that made such a policy sustainable for six decades is also at work, making advocates of war crimes heroes in the eyes of most Israelis.

Moreover, amid unabashed American backing of such policies and almost total silence or helplessness of the international community, Israel knows that the success of its colonial project in the West Bank is dependent on the element of time.

What’s even more disheartening is the fact that Palestinian infighting is distracting and wasting energies that should be put to work to provoke and sustain an international campaign against Israeli atrocities. Infighting over governments that have no sovereignty, the lacking of any national cohesion or consensus or a clear political program that unifies Palestinians at home and in diaspora around one political and national agenda, will certainly ensure the success of the Israeli program and further contribute to the racist discourse that sees Palestinians as incapable of taking on the task of leadership and self-determination.

— This article is based on a speech delivered by the author at a London conference entitled: “Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine: Methods and Consequences” and broadcast by Al-Jazeera television.

Iraq Panel to Urge Pullout Of Combat Troops by '08

By Peter Baker and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, December 1, 2006; A01

The bipartisan Iraq Study Group plans to recommend withdrawing nearly all U.S. combat units from Iraq by early 2008 while leaving behind troops to train, advise and support the Iraqis, setting the first goal for a major drawdown of U.S. forces, sources familiar with the proposal said yesterday.

The commission plan would shift the U.S. mission in Iraq to a secondary role as the fragile Baghdad government and its security forces take the lead in fighting a Sunni insurgency and trying to halt sectarian violence. As part of major changes in the U.S. presence, sources said, the plan recommends embedding U.S. soldiers directly in Iraqi security units starting as early as next month to improve leadership and effectiveness.

The call to pull out combat brigades by early 2008 would be more a conditional goal than a firm timetable, predicated on the assumption that circumstances on the ground would permit it, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the commission's report will not be released until next week. But panel members concluded that it is vital to set a target to put pressure on Iraqi leaders to do more to assume responsibility for the security of their country.

"It's really about transitioning from a combat to a support role, and basically making very clear that this is no longer an open-ended commitment and we're going to get this done whether the Iraqis like it or not," said one of the sources. "Everybody understands that we're at the end of the road here."

The choice of early 2008 as a goal could also, intentionally or not, change the nature of the debate over the war at the height of the U.S. presidential primary season. If the commission's plan is successful, the war might recede as an issue, as many strategists in both parties hope. But if U.S. commanders do not meet that goal, or if they do but violence only escalates, it may inflame the struggles for both parties' nominations.

Democrats, who captured control of both houses of Congress in last month's midterm elections, and some Republicans have pushed strongly for a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops. But President Bush has firmly resisted such demands, warning that it would amount to surrender and could destabilize Iraq even further.

At a news conference yesterday after a summit with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Amman, Jordan, Bush seemed to douse the idea of withdrawal in response to news reports about the Iraqi Study Group's recommendations. "This business about graceful exit just simply has no realism to it whatsoever," Bush said.

But aides later cautioned against interpreting that as opposition to any change in the U.S. troop posture. "That's not the case," said one senior official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "His position is he's not entering this process with defeat on his mind" for the sole purpose of getting out, the official said. Some options being discussed by the Iraqi Study Group and his own administration's internal policy review, the official said, are "things that he's very open to."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in an interview with CBS News, sounded more open to the concept of drawing down forces. "The whole goal here is to transfer responsibility to the Iraqis and to give them enough capability to take those responsibilities," she said. "Obviously, as those responsibilities are transferred, as the capability improves, then American forces will be less in evidence and less needed. That's a natural outcome."

Maliki, too, signaled that he would be receptive to such a transition in six months. "I can say that Iraqi forces will be ready, fully ready, to receive this command and to command its own forces. And I can tell you that, by next June, our forces will be ready," he told ABC News.

The Iraq Study Group, chartered by Congress and led by former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former congressman Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), concluded its deliberations this week with a draft report about 100 pages long. The report is scheduled to be released next Wednesday and will include a variety of conclusions and recommendations about the region. Among other things, the commission considered proposals to reach out to Iran and Syria and to convene a regional conference to bring all of Iraq's neighbors into the process of stabilizing the country.

The panel included a significant caveat for the 2008 goal for troop withdrawals by recommending that commanders should plan to pull out combat units by then unless "unexpected developments" make them decide that such a move would be unwise, the sources said. Still, they said, the plan would put the onus on U.S. commanders to try to meet the goal or explain why they failed to.

Pulling out combat units would not mean the end of the U.S. military involvement in Iraq, which could continue in a different form for years. The withdrawal would be partially offset by an influx of advisers, trainers and embedded troops. The number of such troops now stands at roughly 5,000 and should be quadrupled to about 20,000, the group's plan says, according to a source. The commission envisions leaving at least several thousand quick-strike U.S. combat soldiers to protect all those other American troops.

Although it was not clear how many U.S. troops would be left in Iraq by 2008, some people knowledgeable about the commission's deliberations have said that it might be possible to reduce the force of 140,000 to half by then. "There'll still be a presence there that will be significant just because of the nature of embedded forces," said one of the sources familiar with the commission's report. "It won't be what we have now, I'll tell you that."

The transition from a combat mission to a support mission would be a radical shift in the nature of the U.S. presence in Iraq, in place more than 3 1/2 years since the invasion that toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power. The commission sees this shift in emphasis as so crucial that it suggests that U.S. commanders begin by reassigning troops directly out of military units already in Iraq, rather than waiting for new advisers to deploy from the United States.

But some military specialists warned that such a transition could result in more violence or even let the country slide into a full-scale civil war. Many U.S. military commanders believe that the American presence is keeping a lid on Iraq's civil conflict. "I think as we pull down troops, the violence is going to get worse -- and that will make it harder to get the Iraqi army stood up," said Frederick W. Kagan, a defense scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Nor would cutting the troop presence increase pressure on Maliki and other Iraqi leaders, a senior U.S. intelligence official contended earlier this week. Rather, he said, it would likely make Iraqi officials feel more endangered and, so, less likely to take risks and make difficult decisions.

Others in Washington cautiously welcomed the emerging report. "I think that the Baker report is . . . going to change the debate in this country," Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) told CNN.

Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), speaking on MSNBC's "Hardball," said that "I suspect there may be a growing bipartisan support in this country for what Jim Baker, Lee Hamilton, the other members of that commission have put together."

Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), the incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, offered a careful assessment: "It's a welcome change in course, although it's not as specific, or it's not as pointed, or it's not as clear as I would like."

White House Fears ACLU Campaign

SPIEGEL ONLINE - November 30, 2006, 06:21 PM

THE MASRI CASE

By Georg Mascolo in Washington

Khaled El-Masri was innoncently detained in a secret CIA prison. Now US civil liberties advocates are helping him take the intelligence service to court. His chances of winning the trial are slim -- but his case is stirring up negative publicity for the Bush administration.

German national Khaled el-Masri claims he was tortured in Afghanistan after being kidnapped by the CIA as a suspected terrorist. He's an innocent man and now he wants justice and an apology.

The lawyers of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) were nervous until the very last moment. Director Anthony Romero was visibly relieved when he was finally able to present his star guest to the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Khaled el-Masri, formerly the victim of a CIA kidnapping operation in Macedonia and now the claimant in an international trial against US President George W. Bush's anti-terrorism policies, has finally made it to the USA. He was supposed to visit the country last year, but US authorities turned him back at the airport without further explanation. This time the ACLU took the precaution of applying for Masri's visa.

Now he's sitting there, just one block away from the White House, dressed in a single-breasted, gray three-piece suit and a tie, his long and impressively voluminous hair tied straight back. The sign in front of Masri reads "Rendition Victim." A translator whispers into his ear. "We're proud to represent this man," says Romero.

A dozen camera teams have arrived, sent by the major TV channels and the most important US daily papers. The Washington Post has just devoted another full page to his case. The story of the family man who landed in one of the CIA's notorious secret prisons for terror suspects -- has been a public relations debacle for the Bush administration.

The ACLU has succeeded in legally representing two victims from the CIA's shadow realm until now: Masri and Canadian citizen Maher Arar. Arar was deported to Syria in September of 2002 and tortured there. His innoncence has since been established, just like Masri's. That's just what makes the two cases so valuable for the ACLU -- and so dangerous for the White House.

For months now, a legal skirmish has been going on in the federal courts. Backed by the ACLU, Arar and Masri are suing top CIA officials. Citing national security concerns, the Bush administration has so far been successful in stalling any trial. On Monday, Masri and his lawyers traveled to Richmond, Virginia, where the ACLU experts appeared before the federal appeals court in order to press once more for the continuation of the trial.

George W. Bush confirmed the existence of secret CIA prisons in September, out of tactical considerations in the run-up to the Congressional midterm elections. His admission has become the strongest argument wielded by the ACLU: Something the president has openly admitted can't just be reclassified the next day, Romero argues, adding that the whole world knows what happened to Masri. The ACLU lawyers are using this argument to try to lure Washington into admitting Masri was detained and possibly tortured.

Fear of a legal watershed

And while that may sound harmless, it isn't. The White House fears it could prove to be a legal watershed, and the US Department of Justice is watching the attack mounted by the civil rights activists with growing concern. Charges have been brought against Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defense Secretary who recently resigned but remains in office, before a German federal court. Italy has initiated police investigations into a number of CIA agents following a kidnapping in Milan. The Munich court that is investigating Masri's case could possibly make the same decision. US President Bush and the members of his administration fear they may all find themselves in court one day.

When Masri's innocence was conclusively established, his release was ordered by then National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice. Were the decisions as to who should be detained made in her office as well? Washington's policy is to confirm or concede nothing. Masri is demanding clarification "and an apology." He doesn't want money, only justice.

His chances aren't very good. In a Kafkaesque move, the Justice Department is now trying to muzzle even those former detainees at the so-called "black sites" who have since been moved to Guantanamo and keep them from speaking openly about their experiences. The Justice Department is going so far as to try to prevent them from discussing the top-secret interrogation techniques even with their lawyers, claiming that the interrogation techniques are classified infromation. Thus, torture victims have become carriers of state secrets.

And therein lies the problem: What contributes to national security and what doesn't is not a matter the courts can decide. Even the ACLU seems to have its doubts as to whether it can successfully release the legal emergency brake the US administration has applied. Nevetheless, the balance of power in the USA has shifted following the recent midterm elections. The Democratic victory will bring ACLU supporters back into power in January and Congressional hearings on errors made by the Bush administration are in the planning stages. One of them will be concerned with what Senator Carl Levin calls the " rendition program" -- the system of detention that Masri fell victim to. Masri has to go: Levin's aides are waiting in Congress. They want the CIA victim to tell them his story.

The ACLU has just sent a film called "Outlawed" to all members of Congress. It's a 27-minute indictment of the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies. Masri is the film's main star.

Related SPIEGEL ONLINE links:

Extraordinary Renditions Report: Europe Knew about Secret CIA Flights (11/29/2006)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,451349,00.html

CIA Operations in Germany: Cooperation and Concern from Berlin (12/12/2005)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,390084,00.html

Extraordinary Renditions: El- Masri Testifies Before German Parliament (06/23/2006)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,423199,00.html

Terror and Diplomacy: The US Stands Accused of Kidnapping (02/14/2005)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,341636,00.html

CIA Flights in Europe: The Hunt for Hercules N8183J (11/28/2005)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,387185,00.html

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Video: Olbermann rips Gingrich's 'sinister vision'

0lberm4nn warns of Gingrich 'sinister vision' for The World

08:23

Philippine: Hundreds of people reported dead after volcanic mudslides

388 dead in Philippine mudslides

Staff and agencies
Friday December 1, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

An elderly woman examines her destroyed house after Typhoon Durian hit Batangas, south of Manila, in the Philippines. Photograph: Romeo Ranoco/Reuters

Hundreds of people were reported dead today after volcanic mudslides triggered by a powerful hurricane wreaked havoc in the Philippines.

The Red Cross said at least 388 people had died after rivers of mud as high as rooftops swept through villages surrounding the Mayon volcano, 190 miles south-east of Manila, in Albay province.

"Our rescue teams are overstretched rescuing people on rooftops," the head of the office of civil defence, Glen Rabonza, said.

The muddy wall of volcanic ash and boulders crashing down from the mountain affected at least four villages.

Typhoon Durian smashed into the Philippines with heavy rains and winds gusting up to 165mph, officials said. With power and phone lines downed by powerful winds, helicopters were carrying out aerial surveillance of cut-off areas. Officials estimated that the storm had affected some 22,000 people.

Graciano Yumul, of the department of science and technology, said the storm was particularly damaging because it came ashore yesterday in Catanduanes, an island province with no mountains to break the storm's momentum.

"So it really destroyed the island that it hit," Mr Yumul said. "That is the reason you are seeing the kind of destruction you are seeing right now."

Noel Rosal, mayor of Legazpi city, the provincial capital of Albay, visited nearby Padang, where he said some victims had their clothes ripped off as they were swept away by the mudslide.

"It's terrible. Based on our interviews with residents and village officials, more than 100 were killed or missing," he said. "We now call this place a black desert." Mayon, rising to 2,460 metres above the Albay Gulf, is the most active volcano in the Philippines. Since 1616, it has erupted 47 times.

It erupted in July, depositing millions of tonnes of rocks and volcanic ash on its slopes. A series of typhoons afterwards may have loosened the materials.

Mr Rosal said three of the five communities in Padang, a village of 1,400 people, had been "wiped out", with only the roofs of several houses jutting out of the debris. He said some boulders were as big as cars.

Padang could only be reached by foot or motorcycle, he said, because a bridge linking it to Legazpi, about six miles away, was damaged.

He said the mudslide occurred at mid-afternoon yesterday, when Typhoon Durian lashed the area.

Jukes Nunez of the Albay provincial disaster coordinating council said many communities were still flooded this morning.

"The requests for rescue are overwhelming. The disaster managers are victims themselves," he said.

The typhoon weakened today, as it moved north of Mindoro island, south of Manila, with sustained winds of 94mph and gusts of up to 116mph as it headed toward the South China sea.

CRIMES AND CORRUPTIONS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS