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.

Averting a U.S.-Iran clash

Outside View

By PYOTR GONCHAROV
UPI Outside View Commentator

MOSCOW, March 7 (UPI) -- Iran is unwilling to obey the demands of the world community to slow down uranium enrichment. Under Article 41 of the United Nations Charter's Chapter VII, it can resort to additional measures to influence Iran without the use of force. While the Iranian Six have been deliberating a new draft resolution, emotions are running high around Iran itself.

By tradition, on the eve of the U.N. Security Council's regular March session on Iran's nuclear program, Iran and the United States exchanged "preemptive" strikes to show mutual resolve to achieve their goals militarily, if need be.

Iran staged large-scale exercises of its elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, successfully tested its new missiles, and declared that it would continue its nuclear program despite the world community's demand of a moratorium on uranium enrichment and to defend it at all costs, including war with the United States.

In turn, Washington launched a massive media onslaught on Iran. The New Yorker published the Pentagon's plan for air strikes at Iran-based facilities, the British Daily Telegraph reported on Israel's talks with the United States on Israeli aircraft flights over Iraqi territory, and U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney said that no options have been taken off the table. This gives one a feeling of deja-vu -- February 2006 was much the same.

Until now, U.S.-Iranian military confrontation was largely perceived as a bluff. Now that the United States is deploying powerful attack groups of "political pressure" -- to use its own explanation -- both sides seem to be threatening each other for real. Any military mechanism, created for "political pressure," is effective as long as it yields results. Otherwise, it is reduced to an instrument of trivial blackmail, and is militarily devalued. What will the United States do if Iran does not yield to its "political pressure"?

Fighting will be the only option since U.S. prestige is at stake.

Under the circumstances, the United States is not likely to avoid war with Iran. Their regional policies as regards each other and Tehran's attitude to Israel are making this war practically inevitable. In order to avoid it without dramatic changes, one of the sides will have to make huge concessions. The United States will have to give up its interests in the region, whereas Iran will have to curtail its nuclear program and forget about its regional ambitions.

Both sacrifices are unlikely, but a compromise is possible. Iran will have to place its nuclear program under tough International Atomic Energy Agency control; make major adjustments to its policy in Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine; and give up its anti-Israeli rhetoric. The United States will have to accept Iran's key role in the region with all the ensuing privileges. Neither side seems to be ready for this.

Meanwhile, in Tehran different political forces have lashed out against the country's nuclear program and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's policy. Addressing the president, the leader of the reformist Islamic Iran Solidarity Party wrote in the prestigious daily Etemad-i Melli that "the brakes are designed to make sure the train arrives at its destination safely, and in time."

These words seem all but a goodwill gesture. In his virtual polemics with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Ahmadinejad said that like a train, the Iranian nuclear program did not have a reverse gear. She replied that it needed "a stop button" rather than a reverse gear.

Maybe, slowing down will help the sides find a compromise?

(Pyotr Goncharov is a political commentator with the RIA Novosti news agency. The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti. This article is reprinted by permission of RIA Novosti.)

Israeli MP predicts attack on Iran

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Effie Eitam - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Knesset Member, Effie Eitam
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Israeli MK predicts attack on Iran

By PAUL LUNGEN
Staff Reporter

Israeli Knesset member Effie Eitam has a reputation as a hawk, but on the question of Iran and its nuclear program, he believes he speaks for the country’s mainstream strategic thinkers.

Diplomatic and political manoeuvres to rein in the Islamic state are feckless and doomed to fail, leaving Israel, with or without the co-operation of the United States, no alternative but to use military force to put an end to the nuclear threat, he says.

“Israel is preparing and will definitely take action,” Eitam predicted. “We will not live under that shadow for our children and grandchildren. Israelis survived the Holocaust not to live under that threat again.”

Eitam delivered his sobering assessment of Israel’s strategic place in the Middle East prior to a public address last week at Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda Synagogue. He was speaking at a fundraiser in support of Aid to Disabled Veterans of Israel, Beit Halochem Canada, a charity that provides rehabilitation, counselling and recreational services to wounded Israeli soldiers. Eitam said the charity is dear to him, as many of his military comrades benefit from its services.

Prior to visiting Toronto, Eitam was in Washington, where he met with U.S. senators and congressmen and spoke at four think tanks about the current Mideast situation. He also spoke last week in Montreal.

Eitam told The CJN that Israel may have to act alone against Iran within “a window” to two to three years, but he suggested Israel would move before Bush leaves office.

Neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama, the leading Democratic presidential candidates, have the stomach to tackle Iran militarily, Eitam said, and he wasn’t sure how Republican contenders Rudy Giuliani and John McCain would act.

Eitam said a pre-emptive attack would be justified under the principle of self defence, and at any rate, Israel can’t afford to wait until Iran actually possesses a nuclear device.

He said that with American co-operation – Israeli planes would have to fly over Iraq en route to Iran – the mission would be a success. Israel would enjoy total air domination, would be able to avoid anti-aircraft defences and over time destroy the nuclear facilities.

He said Israel could handle Iranian retaliation, including Hezbollah missile attacks, especially after internal Israel Defence Forces reviews of the Lebanon war and the removal of senior IDF officers.

Eitam predicted the United States would support Israel’s attack – as would other democratic nations, including Canada. The alternative would mean “the genie was out of the bottle.”

What if a suitcase device was smuggled into Toronto and the Canadian government was threatened with a nuclear attack if it didn’t hand over $3 billion to terrorists? “Let’s see what the Canadian government would do then,” he said.

Faced with that sort of threat, many countries will support an Israeli strike against Iran, he said.

And if they don’t? “We are dealing with a nuclear weapon in the hands of Ahmadinejad, who’s already said the bomb is to deal with Israel. So who cares what the Europeans will say?”

As for the United States, Eitam said the rationale for going to war in Iraq – to stop a madman from acquiring weapons of mass destruction – applies exactly to Iran. “It would be a strategic tragedy if the United States stabilizes Iraq, but is so weakened by that operation that the credibility of the president is so low that they couldn’t strike Iran.”

Turning to the Palestinian front, Eitam dismissed the Mecca accord between Hamas and Fatah that created a unity government. “We should be realistic. The Mecca agreement is more false hope, another step of deception designed to save the Hamas government and end the sanctions.”

Eitam, a career military man who led a commando unit during the 1976 Entebbe rescue operation, left the IDF as a brigadier general in 2000 to join the National Religious Party. He split with that party over its support for the Gaza pullout and co-founding the Renewed Religious National Zionist Party.

He attracted controversy late last year when he called for the removal of most West Bank Palestinians and when he called Israeli Arabs a fifth column and traitors.

Eitam said Hamas had not given up any of its core principles, including its goal of destroying Israel.

“It’s not about territory. It’s not about recognition. They’re not interested in any state, and no land will satisfy them. They’re totally recruited by the Islamic revolution and are the spearhead of the Islamic revolution.”

Furthermore, Palestinian culture has deteriorated to such an extent that it is considered legitimate to indoctrinate suicide bombers from the age of six.

“It will take a long time – decades, maybe centuries – to bring Arabic and Islamic culture back to normalcy,” he said.

In the meantime, Israel must remain behind its security barrier, which has produced relative quiet. He predicted that over time, Palestinians’ daily lives would improve as they get an independent road system, roadblocks would disappear and commerce improve.

“It’s not paradise, but it’s a containment situation that in the end will bring more life, hope and respect between the two parties,” he said.