2007.09.23 Politics and National Defense Roundup
Contributed by Bill Faith
Snatched: Israeli commandos ‘nuclear’ raid
Uzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv, Sarah Baxter, Washington, and Michael Sheridan
(H/T: Clarice Feldman)
ISRAELI commandos from the elite Sayeret Matkal unit – almost certainly dressed in Syrian uniforms – made their way stealthily towards a secret military compound near Dayr az-Zawr in northern Syria. They were looking for proof that Syria and North Korea were collaborating on a nuclear programme.
Israel had been surveying the site for months, according to Washington and Israeli sources. President George W Bush was told during the summer
that Israeli intelligence suggested North Korean personnel and nuclear-related material were at the Syrian site.
Israel was determined not to take any chances with its neighbour. Following the example set by its raid on an Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak 1981, it drew up plans to bomb the Syrian compound.
But Washington was not satisfied. It demanded clear evidence of nuclear-related activities before giving the operation its blessing. The task of the commandos was to provide it.
Today the site near Dayr az-Zawr lies in ruins after it was pounded by Israeli F15Is on September 6. ...
See also:
Below the fold:
- 25 Held in Slaying Of Iraqi Sunni Chief
- N.Y. Times admits Petraeus ad sold to Moveon.org at 1/2 off
- Dan Rather's Colleagues Must Be Part Of The Conspiracy
- Missteps in the Bunker: How Nuclear Warheads Made Unplanned Flight
Quick hits:
Do or die
A fellow soldier was impaled by a live RPG. For medics and a helicopter crew, there was only one choice -- By Gina Cavallaro - Military Times staff writer (Hat tip: William Page)
Spc. Channing Moss should be dead by all accounts. And those who saved his life did so knowing they might have died with him.
Watch the video
March 16, 2006. Southeastern Afghanistan. A fierce ambush and bloody firefight. It was over in a flash and Moss was left on the verge of death.
He was impaled through the abdomen with a rocket-propelled grenade, and an aluminum rod with one tail fin protruded from the left side of his torso. ...
25 Held in Slaying Of Iraqi Sunni Chief
Suspects Include Head of Security Detail
BAGHDAD, Sept. 22 -- The U.S. military on Saturday confirmed the arrests of 25 suspects in the assassination of a tribal leader who had allied himself with the United States and unified Sunni groups against the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq.
The suspects were detained by the Iraqi police and include the head of the security detail that was supposed to protect Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, who was killed in a bombing Sept. 13, according to Lt. Col. Jubeir Rashid, an Iraqi police officer in Anbar province. ...
N.Y. Times admits Petraeus ad sold to Moveon.org at 1/2 off
Rich Shapiro
The old gray lady has some explaining to do.
Officials at the New York Times have admitted a liberal activist group was permitted to pay half the rate it should have for a provocative ad condemning U.S. Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus.
The MoveOn ad, which cast Petraeus as "General Betray Us" and attacked his truthfulness, ran on the same day the commander made a highly anticipated appearance before Congress.
But since the liberal group paid the standby rate of $64,575 for the full-page ad, it should not have been guaranteed to run on Sept. 10, the day Petraeus warned Congress against a rapid withdrawal of troops from Iraq, Times personnel said.
"We made a mistake," Catherine Mathis, vice president of corporate communications for The Times, told the newspaper's public editor.
*** Betraying Its Own Best Interests
Clark Hoyt, NYT Public Editor
FOR nearly two weeks, The New York Times has been defending a political advertisement that critics say was an unfair shot at the American commander in Iraq.
But I think the ad violated The Times’s own written standards, and the paper now says that the advertiser got a price break it was not entitled to. ...
Did MoveOn.org get favored treatment from The Times? And was the ad outside the bounds of acceptable political discourse?
The answer to the first question is that MoveOn.org paid what is known in the newspaper industry as a standby rate of $64,575 that it should not have received under Times policies. The group should have paid $142,083. The Times had maintained for a week that the standby rate was appropriate, but a company spokeswoman told me late Thursday afternoon that an advertising sales representative made a mistake.
The answer to the second question is that the ad appears to fly in the face of an internal advertising acceptability manual that says, “We do not accept opinion advertisements that are attacks of a personal nature.” Steph Jespersen, the executive who approved the ad, said that, while it was “rough,” he regarded it as a comment on a public official’s management of his office and therefore acceptable speech for The Times to print. ...
*** Times Admits It Violated Policies in "Betray Us" Ad
John Hinderaker
This morning, Clark Hoyt, Public Editor of the New York Times, acknowledged that the paper had violated its own advertising policies by giving MoveOn.org a discounted rate for the ad that accused General Petraeus of being a traitor. Hoyt also said that in his judgment, the ad should not have been approved under the paper's policy that states, “We do not accept opinion advertisements that are attacks of a personal nature.”
I think it is a reasonable inference that someone in the Times' advertising department collaborated with MoveOn.org to get the ad into the paper on the critical morning when General Petraeus's testimony began, while charging the group the paper's discounted "standby" rate, because the Times employee shared MoveOn's desire to smear Petraeus. It is revealing, too, that the Times employee who is charged with enforcing the policy against "attacks of a personal nature" didn't see anything out of bounds about calling our commanding general in Iraq a traitor. Hoyt was a little more sensitive on this point: ...
See also:
Dan Rather's Colleagues Must Be Part Of The Conspiracy
Ed Morrissey
Dan Rather's lawsuit at CBS achieved its first purpose; it's put Dan Rather back in the spotlight. After having disappeared into the black hole of HDNet, Rather once again has become noteworthy enough to get an invitation on Larry King Live and the rest of the talkshows. However, if he had hoped to resurrect his reputation with the lawsuit, his colleagues have not been impressed: ...
Missteps in the Bunker:
How Nuclear Warheads Made Unplanned Flight
By Joby Warrick and Walter Pincus
Just after 9 a.m. on Aug. 29, a group of U.S. airmen entered a sod-covered bunker on North Dakota's Minot Air Force Base with orders to collect a set of unarmed cruise missiles bound for a weapons graveyard. They quickly pulled out a dozen cylinders, all of which appeared identical from a cursory glance, and hauled them along Bomber Boulevard to a waiting B-52 bomber.
The airmen attached the gray missiles to the plane's wings, six on each side. After eyeballing the missiles on the right side, a flight officer signed a manifest that listed a dozen unarmed AGM-129 missiles. The officer did not notice that the six on the left contained nuclear warheads, each with the destructive power of up to 10 Hiroshima bombs.
That detail would escape notice for an astounding 36 hours, during which the missiles were flown across the country to a Louisiana air base that had no idea nuclear warheads were coming. ...
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