Just Foreign Policy News
December 22, 2009
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Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) Contenders in the Illinois primary for U.S. Senate are sharply divided over the war in Afghanistan, the Chicago Tribune reports. "It is time to take care of America again and time to bring our troops home," said Democratic Senate contender Cheryle Jackson, a former president of the Chicago Urban League. "Until we stop spending hundreds of billions on wars, we will not have the focus or money to solve the challenges we face at home." Jackson’s call for an end to the war was joined by Democratic contender Robert Marshall. Democrat David Hoffman expressed concern about a "broad" and "open-ended mission," which was "likely to be very costly in lives and dollars." But Democratic Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias said he fully supported Obama’s strategy for Afghanistan and Democrat Jacob Meister said he was satisfied that Obama "has clearly defined the mission’s objectives, set a timetable for completion and outlined a responsible exit strategy." Mark Kirk and other Republicans said that while they backed Obama’s strategy, even more military personnel should be sent.
2) Amnesty International and Oxfam said the world has "betrayed" civilians in Gaza by failing to end the Israeli blockade, AFP reports. The groups said that Israel had allowed only 41 truckloads of construction materials into Gaza since the war launched by Israel last December 27. "Little of the extensive damage the offensive caused to homes, civilian infrastructure, public services, farms and businesses has been repaired" because of the shortages, the groups’ report said.
3) More than 50,000 people are expected to take to the streets of Gaza on Dec. 31 for a march designed to send a message to the U.S. that the situation in Gaza violates international human rights laws, Inter Press Service reports. According to statistics compiled by the UN, there are more than a million refugees in living in impoverished conditions in Gaza. The blockade has created a situation where often even basic supplies of medicine and food cannot pass through Israeli checkpoints.
4) Princeton University Yemen expert Gregory Johnsen says a series of U.S.-assisted air and ground assaults that shook pockets of Yemen last week, which appears to have resulted in a number of civilian casualties, would ultimately prove counterproductive, Time Magazine reports. Reports of a U.S. role, and mass civilian casualties at the sites of the attacks, have sparked a public outcry and added to anti-American sentiments across the country, Time says. "They ended up killing a number of women and children in the strike on Abyan," Johnsen says. "So now you have something where there are all these pictures of dead infants and mangled children that are underlined with the caption ‘Made in the USA’ on all the jihadi forums. Something like this does much more to extend al-Qaeda."
5) Experts told the Senate last week that to supply troops in Afghanistan, the US is relying on short-term relationships with dictatorial nations in Central Asia without factoring any long-term strategy for the region, Walter Pincus reports in the Washington Post. Stephen Blank of the Army War College told a subcommittee that the nations along the route "are authoritarian states in which we see manifestations of despotism, clan/familial rule, nepotism, [and] suffocation of autonomous space for political action." The countries’ leaders also think their political opposition is "inherently extremist, terrorist and fundamentalist, which leads to the self-fulfilling prophecy" that their opponents tend "to crystallize around an Islamic radical vocabulary," Blank said.
6) Germany’s mission in Afghanistan is turning into a political liability for Angela Merkel amid fresh signs that the political consensus in favour of the country’s military presence is collapsing, the Financial Times reports. On Monday the foreign minister became the latest senior politician to voice doubts about raising the number of fighting troops in Afghanistan beyond the ceiling of 4,500 authorised by parliament. A decision to raise the number of German troops would meet with resistance from the public and from the Social Democrats, the main opposition party.
7) US Special Forces have conducted multiple clandestine raids into Pakistan’s tribal areas as part of a secret war in the border region where Washington is pressing to expand its drone assassination program, the Guardian reports. "The Pakistanis were kept entirely in the dark about it," said a former NATO officer. Until now, the US has heeded Pakistani objections to drone strikes in Balochistan, the Guardian says. But that could change, if troop casualties mount, a former senior US official warned. "We could get tired and say ‘you know what, we are sending in Predators to take out Mullah Omar and his gang in Quetta’. And then we’ll see what happens."
Israel/Palestine
8) Israel has delivered a response to Hamas demands for the release of 1,000 Palestinians in exchange for Sgt. Gilad Schalit, AP reports. Israeli media reports said Israel would approve a swap if Hamas agrees that some Palestinian prisoners will be deported rather than sent back to the West Bank. Hamas’ stock could soar if it can claim credit for the largest prisoner release in years, AP says. Hamas might use a swap to defend its claim that armed struggle is the only way to pry concessions from Israel. That argument could further undercut Hamas’ main rival, Abbas, who has had little to show for years of peace efforts.
Iran
9) In Iran, an estimated 850,000 kidney, heart and cancer patients are facing a race against time, the Washington Post reports. Although these patients are in need of post-surgery treatment with nuclear medicine, doctors and nuclear scientists here say domestic production will dry up when a research reactor in Tehran runs out of fuel, perhaps as soon as this spring. At the heart of the looming shortage of nuclear medicine is a continuing controversy over Iran’s nuclear program, notably a dispute over a deal with world powers that would supply fuel for the research reactor. A Jewish Iranian-American who recently had a kidney transplant in Iran said he would write U.S. officials to oppose the sanctions. "I don’t believe in these sanctions," he said. "They hurt normal people, not leaders. What is the use of that?"
Colombia
10) The Pentagon has declined to comment on Venezuelan accusations that a U.S. drone aircraft violated Venezuelan airspace, AP reports. Colombian officials denied that Colombian aircraft were involved, but did not address where U.S. aircraft from Colombian bases might have been involved, AP notes.
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Afghanistan Divides U.S. Senate Contest
Illinois U.S. Senate race: Democratic candidates torn over President Barack Obama’s Afghanistan strategy
GOP hopefuls for Sen. Roland Burris’ seat say president failed to go far enough Rick Pearson, Chicago Tribune, December 21, 2009
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/elections/chi-dem-senate-afghanistan-21-dec21,0,1793877.story
The Democratic contenders for the nomination to fill Barack Obama’s former U.S. Senate seat all pledge to strongly back their home-state president’s agenda, but they are sharply divided when it comes to his strategy for the war in Afghanistan.
Responding to a Tribune survey on foreign affairs, Republicans seeking the Feb. 2 Senate nomination generally say they believe Obama did not go far enough in promising to increase U.S. military strength in Afghanistan.
This month, Obama announced plans to deploy an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan, along with setting July 2011 for the start of a military withdrawal. Obama’s strategy has caused divisions among Democrats, some of whom want to see the president announce a quick end to the war.
"It is time to take care of America again and time to bring our troops home," said Democratic Senate contender Cheryle Jackson, a former president of the Chicago Urban League. "Until we stop spending hundreds of billions on wars, we will not have the focus or money to solve the challenges we face at home." Jackson’s call for an end to the war was joined by Democratic contender Robert Marshall.
[…]
Democrat David Hoffman, a former Chicago inspector general, was skeptical of Obama’s troop buildup. "My concern is that the mission of securing all of Afghanistan is very broad, expands our core mission of protecting us from al-Qaida, is a potentially open-ended mission, and is likely to be very costly in lives and dollars," Hoffman said.
But first-term state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, a Democrat, said he fully supported Obama’s strategy for Afghanistan and indicated that those who oppose it are engaging in wishful thinking. "In a perfect world, our troops would be at home with their families and this war would be over," he said. "But we are not dealing with a perfect world. We are dealing with perhaps the most complex, dangerous region in the world … where nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of fanatics and terrorists."
Chicago attorney Jacob Meister, another Democratic contender, said he was satisfied that Obama "has clearly defined the mission’s objectives, set a timetable for completion and outlined a responsible exit strategy."
Among Republicans, North Shore U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk, who served a tour as a naval reservist in Kandahar, and contenders Patrick Hughes and Kathleen Thomas said that while they backed Obama’s strategy, even more military personnel should be sent in line with the 44,000-troop surge recommended by the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal.
Hughes, a Hinsdale developer, said Obama’s decision not to fully comply with the general’s request "raises the question of his confidence in Gen. McChrystal’s vision and strategy."
At the same time, Hughes and Republican contender John Arrington of Harvey criticized Obama for setting a date for withdrawal. Arrington said the July 2011 date, "gives the Taliban time to wreak havoc on the country prior to the date so our troops may be required to stay longer."
Another Republican contender, former judge Donald Lowery, of Golconda, said any increase in troop strength should be "accompanied by a lifting of the restrictions on the rules of engagement and pursuit."
[…]
2) World Has Betrayed Gaza Civilians: Rights Groups
AFP, Tue Dec 22, 4:20 am ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091222/wl_afp/mideastconflictgazarightsamnestyoxfam_20091222092424
Amnesty International UK release: "Gaza’s civilians still unable to rebuild one year after ‘Operation Cast Lead’," 22 December 2009
http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=18552
Full report:
http://www.amnesty.org.uk/uploads/documents/doc_20012.pdf
Jerusalem – The world has "betrayed" civilians in the Gaza Strip by failing to end a blockade of the Hamas-run enclave, 16 rights groups, including Amnesty International and Oxfam, said Tuesday. "The international community has betrayed the people of Gaza by failing to back their words with effective action to secure the ending of the Israeli blockade which is preventing reconstruction and recovery," said the report.
Israel and Egypt have allowed only vital humanitarian aid into the territory since the Islamist Hamas seized power there in June 2007. "It is not only Israel that has failed the people of Gaza with a blockade that punishes everybody living there for the acts of a few," said Jeremy Hobbs, executive director of Oxfam International. "World powers have also failed and even betrayed Gaza’s ordinary citizens. They have wrung hands and issued statements, but have taken little meaningful action to attempt to change the damaging policy that prevents reconstruction."
The groups said that Israel had allowed only 41 truckloads of construction materials into Gaza since a devastating 22-day war launched by the Jewish state nearly a year ago ended with mutual ceasefires on January 18. "Little of the extensive damage the offensive caused to homes, civilian infrastructure, public services, farms and businesses has been repaired" because of the shortages, the report said.
Some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed during the war, which flattened portions of Gaza, an impoverished territory where the vast majority of the population relies on foreign aid. Israel controls all but one of Gaza’s border crossings, the Rafah terminal with Egypt, which Cairo rarely opens.
[…]
3) Gaza March Puts Spotlight on Civilian Suffering
Andrea Bordé, Inter Press Service, Dec 22
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49785
United Nations, – More than 50,000 people are expected to take to the streets of Gaza on Dec. 31 for a mass march designed to send a message to the United States, a key supporter of Israel’s army, that the situation in Gaza violates international human rights laws.
[…] The three-mile march from Gaza to the Erez Crossing in Israel intends to bring together 51,350 people from 43 nations, of whom 50,000 are Palestinians. Each participant has signed a code of conduct committing to non-violence during the march.
[…] According to statistics compiled in 2008 by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), there are 1,059,584 refugees in living in impoverished conditions in Gaza. The blockade has created a situation where often even basic supplies of medicine and food cannot pass through Israeli checkpoints.
[…]
4) Despite U.S. Help, Yemen Faces Growing Al-Qaeda Threat
Abigail Hauslohner, Time Magazine, Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2009
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1949324,00.html
With Yemen apparently on the verge of becoming the world’s next failed state and a regional base for al-Qaeda, a series of U.S.-assisted air and ground assaults that shook pockets of Yemen last week might have seemed like a positive development in the troubled country’s otherwise downward spiral. But the dramatic action, which appears to have resulted in a number of civilian casualties, may not right the situation at all. "The U.S. has been growing very concerned about al-Qaeda in recent years, but it seems as though the U.S. is coming rather late to the party," says Princeton University Yemen expert Gregory Johnsen, who contends last week’s attacks would ultimately prove counterproductive.
Immediately after 9/11, a combined U.S.-Yemeni effort to decapitate the Islamist group’s leadership in the country and dismantle its infrastructure met with considerable success, Johnsen says. But since 2006, al-Qaeda has managed to regroup and grow stronger as Yemen’s government struggles to hold on to its territory amid multiple rebellions and rising poverty. Now, Johnsen adds: "You can’t just kill a few individuals and the al-Qaeda problem will go away."
At least 34 people died last week, when Yemeni forces hit suspected al-Qaeda targets in the southern governorate of Abyan and in Ahrab, a district northeast of the Yemeni capital Sana’a. Western and Yemeni media outlets reported that the United States provided Yemen with key intelligence and firepower to carry out the strikes, but to what extent is unclear. Yemeni state media reported that President Obama phoned Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to congratulate him on a job well done, and ABC News said that U.S. cruise missiles had been used.
But regardless of who did what, a primary target in the attacks – Qasim al-Raymi, the al-Qaeda leader who is believed to be behind a 2007 bombing in central Yemen that killed seven Spanish tourists and two Yemenis – is still at large. And reports of a U.S. role, and mass civilian casualties at the sites of the attacks, have sparked a public outcry and added to anti-American sentiments across the country. "They missed that individual," says Johnsen of the targeted al-Qaeda chief. "And at the same time, they ended up killing a number of women and children in the strike on Abyan. So now you have something where there are all these pictures of dead infants and mangled children that are underlined with the caption ‘Made in the USA’ on all the jihadi forums. Something like this does much more to extend al-Qaeda."
Indeed through the backlash that followed, the attacks have started to look like more of a boon than a bust for Yemen’s al-Qaeda revival, as well as for other opponents of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s regime. Iran – which Yemen accuses of backing the Shi’ite Houthi rebellion in the north – headlined the attacks on its state-sponsored Press TV with: "Obama ordered deadly blitz on Yemen."
"The al-Qaeda threat in Yemen is real, but now after this operation, it will be greater," says Mohammed Quhtan, a member of Yemen’s opposition Islamist al-Islah party. "Al-Qaeda will be able to recruit a lot more young people, at least from the tribes that were hit. And it will have reasonable grounds to attract more people from Abyan governorate, and from the Yemeni population in general."
That’s a frightening prospect for a country on the brink of collapse. Yemen’s economy is in tatters; its population complains of neglect and development woes; and Yemeni children suffer from a 50% malnutrition rate. Observers warn that poverty and unemployment are prime recruitment factors for al-Qaeda, something they say the U.S. government and other foreign powers should have done more to address. "If you’re going to carry out [an attack] like this, you have to have done a great deal of field work, where you’ve sort of undermined al-Qaeda through development and aid so that when something like this happens, al-Qaeda can’t easily replace the individuals that it has lost," says Johnsen. "But if you don’t take those steps then the pool of recruits just starts to multiply exponentially."
[…]
5) A short-term approach to Afghanistan
Walter Pincus, Washington Post, Tuesday, December 22, 2009; A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/21/AR2009122103302.html
To supply troops in landlocked Afghanistan, the United States is relying on short-term relationships with dictatorial nations in Central Asia without factoring any long-term strategy for the region, according to testimony delivered last week to senators.
"The Department of Defense’s primary goal in Central Asia is to support the war in Afghanistan," David S. Sedney, a deputy assistant secretary of defense, told the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Near Eastern and South and Central Asian affairs. "Secondly, we continue to, as we have for years, assist the sovereign countries of Central Asia in maintaining their own security in ways they find acceptable."
Containers bearing supplies for troops in Afghanistan get there via what is called the Northern Distribution Network – through countries such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and, at times, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. They travel over Chinese-built roads, on Russian-built rails, through an Iranian-built tunnel and over U.S.-built bridges along the way, according to Sedney.
Stephen J. Blank of the Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute told the subcommittee that the nations along the route "are authoritarian states in which we see manifestations of despotism, clan/familial rule, nepotism, [and] suffocation of autonomous space for political action." The countries’ leaders also think their political opposition is "inherently extremist, terrorist and fundamentalist, which leads to the self-fulfilling prophecy" that their opponents tend "to crystallize around an Islamic radical vocabulary," Blank said.
"There is a [U.S.] strategy for the Northern Distribution Network," Blank said, "but there is no strategy [for Central Asia] that ties together . . . Afghanistan [and] domestic issues, and no commensurate investment of U.S. resources, either private or public, in these states to the degree that it is growing."
[…]
6) Merkel Faces Growing Dissent On Afghanistan
Bertrand Benoit, Financial Times, December 21 2009
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/26088b6c-ee60-11de-944c-00144feab49a.html
Germany’s mission in Afghanistan is turning into a political liability for Angela Merkel amid fresh signs that the political consensus in favour of the country’s military presence is collapsing.
Chancellor Merkel faces problems on two fronts: mounting scepticism, including among political allies, about whether to increase the number of German troops on the ground and a parliamentary investigation into a German-ordered air strike that caused many civilian casualties.
On Monday, Guido Westerwelle, Ms Merkel’s foreign minister and vice-chancellor, became the latest senior politician to voice doubts about raising the number of fighting troops in Afghanistan beyond the ceiling of 4,500 authorised by parliament.
[…] Mr Westerwelle said it would be wrong for an international conference on Afghanistan, in London next month, to focus exclusively on increasing the number of fighting troops. Should this be the case, the foreign minister told a German newspaper, "then there is no point attending. . . What we need is a broad political approach."
[…] A decision to raise the number of German troops would meet with resistance from the public and from the Social Democrats, the main opposition party. The party, in government until September, backed past troop increases, but Sigmar Gabriel, SPD chairman, said his party would vote against any further increases. "We need more civilian reconstruction, not a reinforced military presence. The SPD would reject an increase in the number of troops above the authorised ceiling," he told a newspaper on Sunday.
[…]
7) US forces mounted secret Pakistan raids in hunt for al-Qaida
Former Nato officer reveals secret night operations in border region which America kept quiet
Declan Walsh, Guardian, Monday 21 December 2009 21.18 GMT http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/21/us-forces-secret-pakistan-raids
American special forces have conducted multiple clandestine raids into Pakistan’s tribal areas as part of a secret war in the border region where Washington is pressing to expand its drone assassination programme. A former Nato officer said the incursions, only one of which has been previously reported, occurred between 2003 and 2008, involved helicopter-borne elite soldiers stealing across the border at night, and were never declared to the Pakistani government.
"The Pakistanis were kept entirely in the dark about it. It was one of those things we wouldn’t confirm officially with them," said the source, who had detailed knowledge of the operations.
Such operations are a matter of sensitivity in Pakistan. While public opinion has grudgingly tolerated CIA-led drone strikes in the tribal areas, any hint of American "boots on the ground" is greeted with virulent condemnation.
After the only publicly acknowledged special forces raid in September 2008, Pakistan’s foreign office condemned it as "a grave provocation" while the military threatened retaliatory action. The military source said that was the fourth raid of previous years.
[…] In recent weeks Washington has sent a stream of senior officials to Islamabad seeking Pakistani action on at least two fronts: attacks on Sirajuddin Haqqani, a warlord with strong al-Qaida ties based in North Waziristan, and an expansion of the CIA-led drone strikes into the western province of Balochistan. "This is crunch time," said a senior Pakistani official. "The tone of the Obama administration is growing more ominous. The message is ‘you do it, or we will’."
In a recent New York Times article titled Take the war to Pakistan, Seth Jones, a senior civilian adviser to America’s special forces commander in Afghanistan, said the Afghan war was "run and organised out of Balochistan" by the Quetta shura, a 15-man war council led by the Taliban leader Mullah Omar. "Virtually all significant meetings of the Taliban take place in that province, and many of the group’s senior leaders and military commanders are based there," he said.
The US demands have drawn an angry reaction from Pakistan’s military. A senior official with the ISI, Pakistan’s premier spy agency, said it was hunting the Taliban in Balochistan, citing 60 joint operations between the CIA and ISI in the province over the past year. "They are going in for kills, they are apprehending people. CIA and ISI operatives depend on each other for their lives in these operations," he said. The official, who spoke anonymously but with official sanction, said Pakistan’s military were overstretched. "We can’t fight everywhere at once," he said. Since October the army has been at war in South Waziristan, stronghold of the "Pakistani Taliban" whose suicide bombers have killed more than 500 people in cities over the past two months.
US generals say the army is playing a "double game", turning a blind eye to "Afghan Taliban" sheltering in Balochistan because it considers them strategic assets as part of a wider gambit to check Indian influence in Afghanistan.
The ISI official denied such links and accused the US of "scapegoating" Pakistan for its own failures. "During the past year there has been zilch actionable intelligence about the Quetta shura or Haqqani," he said. "If they are so sure Mullah Omar is in Quetta or Karachi, why don’t they tell us where he is?"
[…] Until now the US has heeded Pakistani objections to drone strikes in Balochistan. But that could change, if troop casualties mount, a former senior US official warned. "We could get tired and say ‘you know what, we are sending in Predators to take out Mullah Omar and his gang in Quetta’. And then we’ll see what happens."
Israel/Palestine
8) Israel gives response to Hamas prisoner swap offer
Amy Teibel, Associated Press, Tue Dec 22, 9:53 am ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091222/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians
Jerusalem – Israel said Tuesday that it would not bargain "at any cost" to secure the release of a soldier held by Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, and relayed a list of Palestinian prisoners that it wants to deport as part of a proposed swap between two bitter foes.
Israeli leaders are under immense domestic pressure to resolve the case of 23-year-old Sgt. Gilad Schalit, captured in a 2006 cross-border raid. Hamas, the target of Israel’s devastating offensive in isolated Gaza a year ago, sees Schalit as a rich source of leverage for political and even economic gain.
Intense talks among Israel’s top Cabinet ministers and security chiefs had raised hopes that a deal was close, but there were signs that differences remained. Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Israel’s top priority was to bring Schalit home, "not at any cost, but in every possible and appropriate way."
On Tuesday, Israeli media reported that Israel had delivered a response to Hamas demands for the release of 1,000 Palestinians, many of whom were involved in attacks. Without identifying sources, the reports said Israel would approve a swap if Hamas agrees to the deportation of some prisoners.
An Israeli government official said the question of whether certain prisoners would return to the West Bank or be deported was "clearly" an issue. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release details of the talks.
A Palestinian official said that in addition to seeking to deport about 100 prisoners, Israel also refuses to free seven of those involved in the most violent attacks on Israelis, including bombing masterminds. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the talks.
A senior Hamas official, who also declined to be named, confirmed receipt of the Israeli answer. The Hamas government was holding its weekly meeting Tuesday, and the deal was expected to be on the agenda.
[…] Prisoners have near-iconic status in Palestinian society because nearly every family has had relatives in Israeli jails, so Hamas’ stock could soar if it can claim credit for the largest prisoner release in years. Hamas might use a swap to defend its claim that armed struggle is the only way to pry concessions from Israel. That argument could further undercut Hamas’ main rival, Abbas, who has had little to show for years of peace efforts.
[…]
Iran
9) In Iran, nuclear issue is also a medical one
Thomas Erdbrink and William Branigin, Washington Post, December 20, 2009; A20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/19/AR2009121902171.html
Tehran – Ruhollah Solook, a retired electrician living in Santa Monica, Calif., was in a desperate bind. He urgently needed a kidney transplant, as well as a series of radiation therapy diagnoses and treatments. The nuclear medicine was available in the United States, but the kidney was not.
Solook, 78, an Iranian Jew who emigrated decades ago, never expected to find both in his native country. But there he was this month, recovering in an isolated room in Tehran’s oldest hospital with a new kidney donated by a friend. "They have saved my life here," he said. "Now I hope they can cure me."
In Iran, an estimated 850,000 kidney, heart and cancer patients are facing a race against time. Although these patients are in need of post-surgery treatment with nuclear medicine, doctors and nuclear scientists here say domestic production will dry up when a research reactor in Tehran runs out of fuel, perhaps as soon as this spring.
"We have thousands of patients a month at our hospital alone," said Gholamreza Pourmand, a specialist who treated Solook using technetium-99, a nuclear medicine used for diagnosis by body scanners. "If we can’t help them, some will die. It’s as simple as that."
At the heart of the looming shortage of nuclear medicine is a continuing controversy over Iran’s nuclear program, notably a dispute over a deal with world powers that would supply fuel for the research reactor.
Like many other aspects of the program, the specifics regarding nuclear medicine are in dispute. Iran asserts that U.N. Security Council sanctions aimed at curtailing its uranium-enrichment activities also effectively target its medical sector. For example, Iranian officials say they are not allowed to import modern U.S.- and European-made body scanners, which can detect cancer tumors, because some of the parts might assist the nuclear program, and they assert that sanctions in 2007 barred Iran from importing medical isotopes.
U.S. and United Nations officials say Iran remains free to buy the isotopes it needs; a Security Council exemption allows imports of nuclear-related items "for food, agricultural, medical or other humanitarian purposes." They suggest Iran wants to produce its own medical isotopes to ensure a cheaper and more reliable supply in view of recent global shortages.
In any case, after the imports stopped in 2007, Iran fully powered up a 40-year-old, U.S.-supplied nuclear research reactor in Tehran. Initially operated half a day a week for tests, the reactor now is almost continuously in use.
In June, Iran informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that fuel obtained from Argentina in 1993 would run out by the end of 2010 – a projection now apparently moved up. But the U.N. sanctions prevent Iran from buying more fuel on the world market.
Iran says it can produce its own fuel, although that could provoke an international furor because it would need to enrich uranium to 19.75 percent – a level technologically closer to weapons-grade material. "We prefer to buy the fuel, in the shortest possible time," said Mohammad Ghannadi, vice president of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI).
From his headquarters protected by antiaircraft guns, Ghannadi overlooks Iran’s only working reactor, its two brown chimneys emitting white smoke. As the head of the AEOI’s research and development department, Ghannadi is prohibited from traveling abroad under the international sanctions.
"We could enrich the fuel ourselves," the British-educated scientist said in an interview. "But there would be technical problems. Also, we’d never make it on time to help our patients."
[…] Under a proposed deal brokered by the IAEA, Iran would hand over 1,200 kilos of the low-enriched uranium it has stockpiled, ostensibly for use as fuel for nuclear power plants. In return, Russia would enrich the uranium to 19.75 percent, and France would turn it into fuel assemblies for the Tehran reactor. The United States would help ensure the safe operation of the aging reactor. World powers fear that unless Iran hands over the stockpile, it could convert it someday into highly enriched uranium, which can be used as fissile material in nuclear weapons.
After initially accepting the proposal in principle Oct. 1, Iran has demanded more guarantees that the reactor fuel would be delivered. Iran also complains that the process would take more than a year – too long, in its view.
Last week, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki proposed swapping small amounts of the uranium in batches rather than all at once. Iran has suggested that the trade take place on Kish Island, an Iranian tourist destination in the Persian Gulf. The Obama administration considers that proposal inconsistent with the U.N. plan.
"If Iran wants to produce those medical isotopes itself, then the best way to do that is to accept the IAEA proposal" and receive the reactor fuel, a senior Obama administration official said. As part of the deal, he noted, the parties pledged to deliver the initial assemblies in time to keep the reactor running.
Ghannadi frames the debate as a humanitarian issue, not a political one. "This is about human beings. . . . When someone is sick, we should give medicine. Give us the fuel; we will make the radiopharmacy," he said, referring to the use of radioactive pharmaceuticals in nuclear medicine.
In the past, Ghannadi said, sanctions have spurred advances in Iranian nuclear medicine, which is offered at 120 hospitals. "When the shipments of medical isotopes stopped," he said, "we were forced to make them ourselves." But for two months, doctors recalled, no patients could be treated, throwing the hospitals into turmoil.
Today, nuclear medicine patients at Tehran’s Shariati Hospital sit in a small waiting room next to a dilapidated German body scanner that needs replacement.
"When they speak of human rights and Iran at the U.N., they should not forget that our patients have rights, too," said Mohsen Saghari, an internist who studied at Johns Hopkins University. "The U.S. now tries to prevent me from using in Iran what I learned in the States," he complained.
Solook, the Iranian-born patient from California, said he plans to write a letter to U.S. health officials, explaining what happened to him in Iran. "I don’t believe in these sanctions," he said, his voice frail after the kidney transplant. "They hurt normal people, not leaders. What is the use of that?"
Colombia
10) Colombia To Chavez: Maybe ‘Spy Plane’ Was Santa
Associated Press, Monday, December 21, 2009; 8:59 PM http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/21/AR2009122103218.html
Bogota – Colombia’s defense chief joked Monday that Venezuelan troops might have mistaken Santa’s sleigh for a spy plane, dismissing accusations by President Hugo Chavez about drones flying over Venezuela.
Chavez on Sunday accused the United States of violating Venezuela’s airspace with an unmanned spy plane and ordered his military to be on alert and shoot down any such aircraft.
The Pentagon has declined to comment on Chavez’s accusations.
Colombian Defense Minister Gabriel Silva and armed forces commander Freddy Padilla told reporters Monday that Colombian aircraft couldn’t fly the kind of espionage mission described by Chavez. "Colombia doesn’t have that capability," said Silva. He quipped that perhaps "Venezuelan soldiers mistook Father Christmas’ sleigh for a spy plane."
Padilla said Colombia has only small, unmanned surveillance planes that it uses to monitor pipelines and other installations against sabotage by rebel groups. "They don’t have any firepower and what they do is observe to prevent attacks on electrical towers," Padilla said.
Silva and Padilla did not discuss U.S. military capabilities at Colombian bases.
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Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
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