Oil Bucks

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I’m a determined skeptic about broadcast "accidents." But for the life of me, I can’t understand the precise goal of allowing a discussion about not discussing the falling dollar at the OPEC summit to be caught on tape. Here’s the Financial Times’ version of events–which depicts it as disagreement about the underlying issue. 

In a landmark summit, leaders of the Organisation of the PetroleumExporting Countries are meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, were dividedover how they should respond to the weakness of the US dollar, whichhas fallen 16 per cent this year against a basket of leading currencies.

Thedollar has dropped 44 per cent against the euro since Opec leaders lastmet in Caracas, Venezuela in 2000. Opec members are also divided aboutwhether the group should seek to play a greater role in world politicsas well as in the oil market.

The disagreement was revealed whena ministerial meeting Friday afternoon, supposed to be in closedsession, was accidentally broadcast live to reporters for about 30minutes, before Saudi officials cut off the transmission.

But look atBloomberg’s version:

Saudi Arabia, the world’s largestcrude oil exporter, rejected a proposal by Iran and Venezuela todiscuss the weak dollar at this weekend’s OPEC summit in Riyadh,saying it didn’t want the U.S. currency Read more →

“This problem will not be discussed in public”

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I do intend to return to my planned series on Matt Bai and the Serious People. But for now, David Sanger asks a question that really needs to be asked: what is going to happen to Pakistan’s nukes? Before I look at the answer Sanger offers, let me point to this one line in the story.

“It’s a very professional military,” said a senior American officialwho is trying to manage the crisis and insisted on anonymity becausethe White House has said this problem will not be discussed in public.“But the truth is, we don’t know how many of the safeguards areinstitutionalized, and how many are dependent on Musharraf’s guys.” [my emphasis]

Understand: the threat that Al Qaeda could get nukes was the single most important driving force behind the Iraq war. And now, because BushCo has seen fit to put Cheney in charge of its Pakistan policy, and Cheney has seen fit to make a spokesperson one of the main architects of that policy, there is a very real possibility that our "ally" Pakistan will provide nukes to the guys that hit us on 9/11. And the White House’s response is to dictate that, "this problem will not be discussed in public."

All the more reason to discuss it in public, I say.

And Sanger’s discussion is none too optimistic.

Pakistan and the Serious People, One

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I’m going to do a series on Pakistan–and how the blindness of the "serious people" got us into big trouble there. I’m going to use Matt Bai’s inaccurate slam on me as a foil to show how the serious people allowed themselves to get distracted from a brewing crisis that carries real consequences. I’ll start, then, by showing you the slam, and explaining what Matt got wrong. MissLaura (who wrote an insightful review of this exchange) sent along this excerpt from Matt’s book; I haven’t read the book, so if you have, let me know if there’s more to this. [Update: This exchange happened at a post-keynote bloggers chat with former VA Governor and likely future VA Senator Mark Warner.]

Marcy Wheeler, who blogged as "emptywheel" on Daily Kos, jumped infirst.  Why, she wanted to know, had Warner pointed to Iran as such abig threat to national security?  Wasn’t Pakistan a bigger problem?After all, they already had nukes.

Warner had been spending hours in private tutoring sessions on foreignpolicy, and he talked confidently about Iran’s president, MahmoudAmahdinejad, and his "whole approach toward regional hegemony."  Thismade him dangerous, Warner said.

"On what grounds?" Marcy demanded.  She had short hair and glasses anda serious demeanor.  Read more →

A Brilliant Case Officer

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There’s an amusing line in Jonathan Landay’s article on the Bush Administration’s discovery that Vladimir Putin has no soul.

Bush and his aides "grossly misjudged Putin," considering him "agood guy and one of us," said Michael McFaul of Stanford University’sHoover Institution.

The former KGB officer created that illusionpartly by appearing to share Bush’s political and religiousconvictions, standard tradecraft employed by intelligence officers torecruit spies, he said.

"Putin . . . is a brilliant caseofficer," said Carlos Pasqual, a former senior State Departmentofficial now at The Brookings Institution, a center-left policyorganization in Washington.

What many experts regard as the realPutin — a hard-line, derisive Russian nationalist — was on displayFriday as he greeted visiting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice andDefense Secretary Robert Gates ahead of talks that failed to break theimpasses over missile defense and other key security issues.

Afterkeeping the U.S. officials waiting for 40 minutes, Putin mocked theirmission in front of reporters and television cameras. [my emphasis]

The suggestion, of course, is that wily Vladimir fooled the poor unsuspecting Bush cronies by misrepresenting who he was.

It’s a nice excuse, I guess. But IMO there is nothing that Putin is currently doing that isn’t utterly consistent with who he was in 2001, when Bush looking into Read more →

Afri … um EuroAfriCom

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Scout prime has been tracking something I’ve been watching, too. The new AfriCom military command? Well, the entire continent of Africa has told us, "no, thanks."

The Pentagon’s plan to create a US military command based in Africahave hit a wall of hostility from governments in the region reluctantto associate themselves with the Bush administration’s "war on terror"and fearful of American intervention.

A US delegation led by RyanHenry, principal deputy under-secretary of defence for policy, returnedto Washington last week with little to show for consultations withdefence and foreign ministry officials in Algeria, Morocco, Libya,Egypt, Djibouti and with the African Union (AU). An earlier round ofconsultations with sub-Saharan countries on providing secure facilitiesand local back-up for the new command, to be known as Africom and dueto be operational by September next year, was similarly inconclusive.

The Libyan and Algerian governments reportedly told Mr Henry that theywould play no part in hosting Africom. Despite recently improvedrelations with the US, both said they would urge their neighbours notto do so, either. Even Morocco, considered Washington’s closest northAfrican ally, indicated it did not welcome a permanent militarypresence on its soil.

"We’vegot a big image problem down there," a state department officialadmitted. "Public opinion is really against getting into Read more →

Who Owns the UN’s Computer Systems?

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Via ThinkProgress, USA Today reports that the cheat sheet for Bush’s speech got placed on the UN website today.

Apparently, a marked-up draft of the president’s speech popped up onthe U.N.’s website as President Bush delivered his remarks this morningbefore the General Assembly, USA TODAY’s David Jackson reports. Thedraft included phonetic spellings of some names and countries, and thecellphone numbers for Bush speechwriters.

Press secretary Dana Perino downplayed the incident, and saidphonetic spellings are used to help interpreters. Asked if thepresident has trouble pronouncing some country’s names, Perino deemedit "an offensive question."

"There was an error made," Perino said, noting it was not a final draft.

"It was taken down and there’s nothing more to say about it."

Apparently, Bush spent his time with Sarkozy in Maine drunk or something, because the French President’s name is one of the ones included in Bush’s pronunciation guide.

  • Kyrgyzstan [KEYR-geez-stan]
  • Mauritania [moor-EH-tain-ee-a]
  • Harare [hah-RAR-ray]
  • Mugabe [moo-GAH-bee]
  • Sarkozy [sar-KO-zee]
  • Caracas [kah-RAH-kus]

Now, Dana Peroxide says it was a mistake. But I’m reminded of another little technical gaffe that Bush had once at the UN. In September 2002, after Powell and Blair (on one side) and Cheney and Rummy (on the other) had been arguing for a month over whether Bush should call for a UN resolution on Iraq or whether the US should just bypass the UN process altogether. In the end, Bush agreed to include a call for a new resolution. But mysteriously, when Bush read the speech from the teleprompter, that line had been removed. From Woodward’s Plan of Attack:

The Israeli Bombing Run in Syria

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Glenn Kessler and Robin Wright have the most comprehensive story, to date, on the mysterious bombing run Israel did in Syria on September 6. They confirm the story that had been floating around–that Israel’s target was a suspected nuclear site, supplied by North Korea. The story is interesting mostly for the exchange of intelligence it portrays. The Israelis first came with intelligence, yet Bush was chill to the attack.

Israel’s decision to attack Syria on Sept. 6, bombing a suspected nuclear site set up in apparent collaboration with North Korea, came after Israel shared intelligence with President Bush this summer indicating that North Korean nuclear personnel were in Syria, U.S. government sources said.

The Bush administration has not commented on the Israeli raid or theunderlying intelligence. Although the administration was deeplytroubled by Israel’s assertion that North Korea was assisting thenuclear ambitions of a country closely linked with Iran, sources said, the White Houseopted against an immediate response because of concerns it wouldundermine long-running negotiations aimed at persuading North Korea toabandon its nuclear program.

But then the US corroborated the Israeli intelligence, and the attack went forward.

Ultimately, however, the United States is believed to have providedIsrael with some corroboration of the original intelligence beforeIsrael proceeded with the raid, which hit the Syrian facility in thedead of night to minimize possible casualties, the sources said.

The article raises doubts about the quality of the Israeli intelligence (and who knows whether our intelligence–supposedly used to corroborate the Israeli intelligence–has gotten any better since the Iraq debacle).

The quality of the Israeli intelligence, the extent of North Koreanassistance and the seriousness of the Syrian effort are uncertain,raising the possibility that North Korea was merely unloading items itno longer needed.

Something’s still stinky about this raid. The creepy silence on all parts suggests there was some there there–but perhaps not what Israel claimed it was. I’m actually wondering whether it doesn’t involve a fifth player–perhaps China–that no one is talking about.

 

The NIE: Iraq to Split in Three States

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Okay, that’s not precisely the conclusion the new NIE in Iraq draws. But it is the logical outcome of the key judgments its gives. Here are some key points, taken totally out of the context of the report, but which are otherwise direct quotes:

  • The IC assesses that the emergence of “bottom-up” security initiatives, principally among Sunni Arabs and focused on combating AQI, represent the best prospect for improved security over the next six to 12 months, but we judge these initiatives will only translate into widespread political accommodation and enduring stability if the Iraqi Government accepts and supports them. A multi-stage process involving the Iraqi Government providing support and legitimacy for such initiatives could foster over the longer term political reconciliation between the participating Sunni Arabs and the national government. We also assess that under some conditions “bottom-up initiatives” could pose risks to the Iraqi Government.
  • Such initiatives, if not fully exploited by the Iraqi Government, could over time also shift greater power to the regions, undermine efforts to impose central authority, and reinvigorate armed opposition to the Baghdad government.
  • The polarization of communities is most evident in Baghdad, where the Shia are a clear majority in more than half of all Read more →

DNI McConnell: Not Fighting Them Over There, So We Can Wiretap You Here

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This is our Director of National Intelligence, talking about the threat of Al Qaeda growing stronger in an area nominally controlled by our ally Pakistan:

After the 31st of May we were in extremis becausenow we have significantly less capability. And meantime, the community,before I came back, had been working on a National IntelligenceEstimate on terrorist threat to the homeland. And the key elements ofthe terrorist threat to the homeland, there were four key elements, aresilient determined adversary with senior leadership willing to diefor the cause, requiring a place to train and develop, think of it assafe haven, they had discovered that in the border area betweenPakistan and Afghanistan. Now the Pakistani government is pushing andpressing and attempting to do something about it, but by and large theyhave areas of safe haven. So leadership that can adapt, safe haven,intermediate leadership, these are think of them as trainers,facilitators, operational control guys. And the fourth part isrecruits. They have them, they’ve taken them. This area is referred toas the FATA, federally administered tribal areas, they have therecruits and now the objective is to get them into the United Statesfor mass casualties to conduct terrorist operations to achieve masscasualties. All of those four Read more →

Well, Of Course

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Holden asks:

They’re just thinking of this now?

U.S.military intelligence officials are urgently assessing how securePakistan’s nuclear weapons would be in the event President Gen. PervezMusharraf were replaced as the nation’s leader, CNN has learned.

Key questions in the assessment include who would control Pakistan’s nuclear weapons after a shift in power.

[snip]

The United States has full knowledge about the location of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, according to the U.S. assessment.

Butthe key questions, officials say, are what would happen and who wouldcontrol the weapons in the hours after any change in government in caseMusharraf were killed or overthrown.

Musharraf controls theloyalty of the commanders and senior officials in charge of the nuclearprogram, but those loyalties could shift at any point, officials say.

TheUnited States is not certain who might start controlling nuclear launchcodes and weapons if that shift in power were to happen.

There isalso a growing understanding according to the U.S. analysis thatMusharraf’s control over the military remains limited to certain topcommanders and units, raising worries about whether he can maintaincontrol over the long term.

Well, of course, Holden. They’ve been otherwise occupied. Up until the end of June, after all, they were very busy looking for Iraq’s WMDs.

Though, for a less snarky look at this issue, Arms Control Wonk discusses the difference between knowing where the nukes are and what will happen to them if anything should happen to Musharraf.

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