WarSclerotic

‘Syrian residents fight back gov’t troops … JPost – Middle East.

  Syrian residents on Monday fought back for the first time against government troops in a two-month-old uprising against the rule of President Bashar Assad, The Associated Press reported Tuesday.

According to the report, residents used automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades to fend off advancing troops, raising fears that the uprising may turn into a “Libya-style” armed conflict.

Until Monay’s battle, Syrian opposition groups have taken to the streets unarmed, although authorities have claimed the fighting has been led by armed gangs.

Activists said that residents of Talbiseh and Rastan, in the central Syrian province of Homs, decided to go on the offensive against Assad’s forces, in a clash that killed at least four civilians, AP reported.

“They felt that they cannot sit back anymore and pray for God to help them,’’ a Homs resident was quoted as saying by AP.

Meanwhile, another two bodies were discovered yesterday in the area of Bab Amro cemetery, putting the death toll from the crackdown in the country’s center at 15, a local rights group said.

“The army is facing armed resistance and is not able to enter the two towns,’’ another Homs resident was quoted as saying.

Other activists confirmed residents had fought back, but noted that individuals were trying to protect themselves, as opposed to mobilizing into an organized armed resistance, AP said.

Also on Monday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillaysaid that the brutality and repression in Syria and Libya against anti-government protesters is “shocking.” She urged the Syrian government to permit a UN-fact finding mission to enter the country.

Our World: Where Obama is leading… JPost – Opinion – Columnists.

Photo by: REUTERS

By CAROLINE B. GLICK 
05/30/2011 23:13

Since his policy speech, president has taken a series of steps that only reinforce sense that he is most hostile US leader Jewish state has ever faced.

  In the aftermath of US President Barack Obama’s May 19 speech on the Middle East, his supporters argued that the policy toward Israel and the Palestinians that Obama outlined in that speech was not anti-Israel. As they presented it, Obama’s assertion that peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians must be based on the 1967 lines with agreed swaps does not mark a substantive departure from the positions adopted by his predecessors in the Oval Office.

But this claim is exposed as a lie by previous administration statements. On November 25, 2009, in response to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s acceptance of Obama’s demand for a 10-month moratorium on Jewish property rights in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, the State Department issued the following statement: “Today’s announcement by the Government of Israel helps move forward toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

We believe that through good-faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements.”

In his speech, Obama stated: “The United States believes… the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.”

That is, he took “the Palestinian goal” and made it the US’s goal. It is hard to imagine a more radically anti-Israel policy shift than that.

And that wasn’t Obama’s only radically anti-Israel policy shift. Until his May 19 speech, the US agreed with Israel that the issue of borders is only one of many – including the Palestinians’ rejection of Israel’s right to exist, their demand to inundate Israel with millions of foreign Arab immigrants, their demand for control over Israel’s water supply and Jerusalem – that have to be sorted out in negotiations. The joint US-Israeli position was that until all of these issues were resolved, none of them were resolved.

The Palestinians, on the other hand, claim that before they will discuss any of these other issues, Israel has to first agree to accept the indefensible 1967 boundaries as its permanent borders. This position allows the Palestinians to essentially maintain their policy of demanding that Israel make unreciprocated concessions that then serve as the starting point for further unreciprocated concessions.

It is a position that is antithetical to peace. And on May 19, by stipulating that Israel must accept the Palestinian position on borders as a precondition for negotiations, Obama adopted it as US policy.

SINCE THAT speech, Obama has taken a series of steps that only reinforce the sense that he is the most hostile US president Israel has ever faced. Indeed, when taken together, these steps raise concern that Obama may actually constitute a grave threat to Israel.

Friday’s Yediot Aharonot reported on the dimensions of the threat Obama may pose to the Jewish state. The paper’s account was based on administration and Congressional sources. The story discussed Obama’s plans to contend with the Palestinian plan to pass a resolution at the UN General Assembly in September endorsing Palestinian statehood in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

According to Yediot, during his meeting with Obama on May 20, Netanyahu argued that in light of the Palestinians’ automatic majority support at the General Assembly, there was no way to avoid the resolution.

Netanyahu reportedly explained that the move would not be a disaster. The General Assembly overwhelmingly endorsed the PLO’s declaration of independence in 1988.

And the sky still hasn’t fallen.

Obama reportedly was unconvinced. For him, it is unacceptable to be in a position of standing alone with Israel voting against the Palestinian resolution. Obama’s distaste for standing with Israel was demonstrated in February when a visibly frustrated US Ambassador Susan Rice was forced by Congressional pressure to veto the Palestinians’ Security Council draft resolution condemning Israel for refusing to prohibit Jews from building in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.

Yediot’s report asserts that Obama refused to brief Netanyahu on the steps his administration is taking to avert such an unpalatable option. What the paper did report was how George Mitchell – Obama’s Middle East envoy until his resignation last week – recommended Obama proceed on this issue.

According to Yediot, Mitchell recommended that Obama work with the Europeans to draft a series of anti-Israel resolutions for the UN Security Council to pass. Among other things, these resolutions, which Mitchell said would be “painful for Israel,” would include an assertion that Jewish building in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria is illegal.

That is, Mitchell recommended that Obama adopt as US policy at the Security Council past Palestinian demands that Congress forced Obama to reject just months ago at the Security Council. The notion is that by doing so, Obama could convince the Palestinians to water down the even more radically anti-Israel positions they are advancing today at the UN General Assembly that Congressional pressure prevents him from supporting.

Since General Assembly resolutions have no legal weight and Security Council resolutions do carry weight, Mitchell’s policy represents the most anti-Israel policy ever raised by a senior US official. Unfortunately Obama’s actions since last week suggest that he has adopted the gist of Mitchell’s policy recommendations.

First there was his speech before AIPAC. Among other things, Obama used the international campaign to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist as a justification for his policies of demanding that Israel capitulate to the Palestinians’ demands, which he has now officially adopted as US policy.

As he put it, “there is a reason why the Palestinians are pursuing their interests at the United Nations. They recognize that there is an impatience with the peace process – or the absence of one. Not just in the Arab world, but in Latin America, in Europe, and in Asia. That impatience is growing, and is already manifesting itself in capitals around the world.”

From AIPAC, Obama moved on to Europe. There he joined forces with European governments in an attempt to gang up on Israel at the G8 meeting.

Obama sought to turn his embrace of the Palestinian negotiating position into the consensus position of the G8. His move was scuttled by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who refused to accept any resolution that made mention of borders without mentioning the Palestinian demand to destroy Israel through Arab immigration, Israel’s right to defensible borders, or the Palestinians’ refusal to accept Israel’s right to exist.

If Harper had not stood by Israel, the G8’s anti-Israel resolution endorsing the Palestinian negotiating position could have formed the basis of a US-sponsored anti-Israel Security Council resolution.

Israelis planning their summer trips should put Canada at the top of their lists.

THE FINAL step Obama has taken to solidify the impression that he does not have Israel’s best interests at heart, is actually something he has not done. Over the past week, Fatah leaders of the US-backed Palestinian Authority have made a series of statements that put paid any thought that they are interested in peace with Israel or differ substantively from their partners in Hamas.

At the Arab League meeting in Qatar on Saturday, PA President Mahmoud Abbas said the Palestinian state “will be free of all Jews.”

Last week the US-supported Abbas denied the Jewish connection to the land of Israel and claimed absurdly that the Palestinians were 9,000 years old.

Equally incriminating, in an interview last week with Aaron Lerner from the IMRA newsgathering website, Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath said that now that Hamas was the co-leader of the PA with Fatah, responsibility for continuing to hold IDF St.-Sgt. Gilad Schalit hostage devolved from Hamas to the PA. And the PA would continue to hold him hostage.

Shaath’s statement makes clear that rather than moderating Hamas, the Fatah-Hamas unity deal is transforming Fatah into Hamas.

And yet, Obama has had nothing to say about any of this.

Obama’s now undeniable antipathy for Israel and his apparent willingness to use his power as American president to harm Israel at the UN and elsewhere guarantee that for the duration of his tenure in office, Israel will face unprecedented threats to its security. This disturbing reality ought to focus the attention of all Israelis and of the American Jewish community. With the leader of the free world now openly siding with forces bent on Israel’s destruction, the need for unity has become acute.

MADDENINGLY, HOWEVER, at this time of unprecedented danger we see the Israeli media have joined ranks with Kadima in siding with Obama against Israel in a joint bid to bring down Netanyahu’s government. Yediot Aharonot, Maariv, Haaretz, Channel 2, Channel 10, Army Radio and Israel Radio’s coverage of Netanyahu’s visit and its aftermath was dominated by condemnations of the prime minister, and praise for Obama and opposition leader Tzipi Livni, who called for Netanyahu to resign.

The fact that polling data showed that only 12 percent of Jewish Israelis regard Obama as pro-Israeli and that the overwhelming majority of the public with an opinion believes Netanyahu’s visit was a success made absolutely no impression on the media. The wall-to-wall condemnations of Netanyahu by the Israeli media lend the impression that Israel’s leading reporters and commentators are committed to demoralizing the public into believing that Israel has no option other than surrender.

Then there is the American Jewish leadership. And at this critical time in US-Israel relations, the American Jewish leadership is either silent or siding with Obama. Right after Obama’s shocking speech on May 19, the Anti-Defamation League released a statement endorsing it. Stand With Us congratulated Obama for his AIPAC speech.

With the notable exceptions of the Zionist Organization of America and the Committee for Accuracy in Middle Eastern Reporting in America (CAMERA), leaders of American Jewish organizations have refused to condemn Obama’s anti-Israel positions.

Their silence becomes all the more enraging when placed against the massive support Israel receives from rank-and-file American Jews. In a survey of American Jews taken by CAMERA on May 16-17, between 75% and 95% of American Jews supported Israel’s position on defensible borders, Jerusalem, Palestinian “refugees,” Palestinian recognition of Israel’s right to exist and the right of Jews to live in a Palestinian state.

The refusal of most American Jewish leaders, the Israeli media and Kadima to condemn Obama today makes you wonder if there is anything the US president could do to convince them to break ranks and stand with Israel and with the vast majority of their fellow Jews. But it is more than a source of wonder. It is a reason to be frightened. Because Obama’s actions over the past two weeks make clear to anyone willing to see that in the age of Obama, silence is dangerous.

caroline@carolineglick.com

Stuxnet attack forced Britain to rethink the cyber war | Politics | The Guardian.

Virus uniquely programmed to attack Iran’s nuclear facility showed power of cyber-weapons had reached chilling new level

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (second left) walks past centrifuges at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility in 2008. Stuxnet sent some of Natanz’s centrifuges spinning out of control. Photograph: Reuters

The pieces of the puzzle began to take shape, and then fall into place, on 17 June last year, when Sergey Ulasen was emailed by a dealer in Tehran about an irritating problem some of his clients were having with their computers.

Ulasen works in the research and development department of a small company called VirusBlokAda in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, which has been giving advice about computer security since 1997.

“These computers were constantly turning off and restarting,” Ulasen told the Guardian. “It was very strange. At first we thought maybe it was just a problem with the hardware. But when they said that several computers were affected, not just one, we understood that it was a problem with the software the computers were running.”

Ulasen was given remote access to one of the malfunctioning machines, but he soon realised he needed help. He roped in a colleague, Oleg Kupreyev, the firm’s senior analyst, and they spent a week unravelling samples of the computer virus they had “captured” which was affecting the Iranian machines.

The longer they looked, the more they realised they had uncovered an extraordinary piece of engineering, unlike anything either of them had come across before. Ulasen published his findings on a few online message boards and gave the virus a name, TmpHider.

Months later, a clearer picture emerged.

Ulasen, 28, was unaware that the computers that had gone on the blink were among those being used by Iranian scientists involved in efforts to enrich uranium as part of the country’s nuclear programme. The malware that had disrupted their work turned out to be so fiendishly clever that Iran accused the US and Israel of developing it. And the virus itself had been given a new name: Stuxnet, which may go down in history as the cyber-weapon that changed the face of modern warfare.

The story of Stuxnet is complicated, not least because the false trails laid by those trying to conceal conventional espionage become nearly impossible to follow when they are in the virtual world of computer codes and software design.

But specialists from GCHQ, the Ministry of Defence, and independent analysts agree on this: Stuxnet was ingeniously complex, probably took several people many years to develop, and has opened the eyes of every government to the destructive possibilities of a new type of covert attack.

Though there is no conclusive proof, and there may never be, the circumstantial evidence about its origins suggests that Iran was probably right. Very few countries had the motive, the money or the capability to create Stuxnet.

This virus was not a blunt instrument. It was designed to disable specific control systems running 9,000 Iranian centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium, causing some of them to spin out of control. It also covered its tracks by fooling operators into believing that the equipment was working as usual.

Infecting these computers was a work of mind-boggling enterprise. According to Symantec, one of the world’s leading security firms, the operation to introduce the virus into the Iranian network would have involved old-school theft and an unwitting insider at the Iranian facility, as well as daring and skill.

To start with, its creators needed to know exactly the sort of computer configuration that the Iranians were using to run the centrifuges at their underground uranium-enrichment plant at Natanz. They found this out by stealing the blueprints they needed, using, of course, a virus. Traces of an early version of Stuxnet have been found that show the virus went on a reconnaissance mission in mid-2009, infiltrating the network, scanning the systems and recording what it found.

This would have given the developers the layout they needed; it showed Iran was using certain types of program logic controllers to run the centrifuges – PLCs are used in all sorts of businesses and industries to help machines run automatically.

To test the updated virus that would cause the sabotage, its creators must have built a mirror image of the Iranian facility, computers and all, allowing them to practise and refine their targeting. Because PLCs are so common, they programmed Stuxnet to ignore any PLC that was running a machine at slow speed; it needed to hunt down the PLCs that were running motors at high speed, because they were more likely to be controlling the centrifuges. The New York Times reported earlier this year that this testing phase might have taken place at Israel’s Dimona complex, in the Negev desert.

Wherever it happened, this task alone would have taken 10 developers at least six months, Symantec estimates. But even then, the job was barely half done.

The new Stuxnet still had to be introduced back into the Iranian network without raising alarm. So they hid the virus in a driver file built into a standard Microsoft Windows program being used by the Iranians. In normal circumstances, the Windows software would automatically raise the alarm that a new, potentially unauthorised file had been installed as soon as a computer was switched on. But Stuxnet’s authors got round this. They stole two genuine digital certificates from companies in Taiwan, and used the details on them to fool the Windows program into thinking the new files had been properly authorised.

Even then, Stuxnet had to be downloaded at Natanz, a massive and well-protected nuclear site in the middle of the desert near Kashan in central Iran. In all likelihood, a contractor working at the site, probably using a laptop on which the Windows program was installed, plugged into the system to conduct routine work. Who that was and exactly when it happened, nobody knows.

Unknown flaws

Once connected, Stuxnet was designed to proliferate aggressively. And it went unnoticed for so long because it was able to exploit four previously unknown flaws in the Windows program.

To find one flaw – or “zero-day” vulnerability – in a programme is regarded as rare. To find four would have required a monumental research effort. Over several months, Stuxnet surreptitiously tracked down the right PLCs and started to vary the speeds of the motors spinning the centrifuges, making some of them go wildly out of control.

Analysts who unravelled Stuxnet noted that the virus bookmarked what it was doing, using the figure 19790509. That could be a random number. Or it could be a nod to 9 May 1979 – the date a Jewish-Iranian businessman called Habib Elghanian was executed in Iran. He was accused of spying for Israel.

A 67-page Symantec report concludes: “The real world implications of Stuxnet are beyond any threat we have seen in the past. Stuxnet is the type of threat we hope to never see again.”

There are conflicting reports about how many centrifuges were affected, and how much damage was done, and the Iranians have understandably tried to play down its impact. Don’t be fooled, warns Ilias Chantzos, a Symantec director. He believes that Stuxnet is forcing governments to re-evaluate “the way we understand threats to critical infrastructure and national security”.

“It is the first virus that was designed to achieve a kinetic effect. It was not designed to steal data or to deny access. It was designed to manipulate an industrial control system to operate outside its intended instructions. Someone had the intent to weaponise a virus. Before Stuxnet the possibility to attack [a control system] using cyber was explored theoretically but was more seen as in the realm of cinema and creative science-fiction-thriller writing. Now it is a real-life scenario.”

Claire Yorke, an expert in cyber-security at the thinktank Chatham House, says: “Although the origin of the virus is still unknown, its sophistication and complexity suggests it would have required significant time and resources beyond the capability of non-state actors. The virus used several secretive ‘back doors’ into the Iranian computer networks and would likely have taken months to have been developed and tested to a level at which it could achieve the intended results.”

She adds: “While viruses such as Stuxnet are a rare occurrence and sit at the leading edge of the technical spectrum, they could be seen as evidence of future modes of attack.”

The UK’s response to such threats, and to the broader and much more prosaic issues of security online, was set out in last year’s strategic defence and security review, which gave £650m to beef up the country’s cyber-defences. The coalition made cyber-security a tier one priority – the highest – and a new infrastructure across government is being created to tackle a problem that has been growing, and mutating, for more than 20 years.

The Cabinet Office has traditionally taken the lead on this, with Neil Thompson, one of the country’s leading intelligence specialists, now heading the over-arching Office of Cyber Security and Information Assurance. This includes the Cyber Security Operations Centre, based at GCHQ, which already has about 30 staff, drawn from different government departments.

One measure of the importance now attached to this work is that Thompson’s colleagues say he is in almost daily contact with Howard Schmidt, the US’s cyber-security co-ordinator, who was appointed by Barack Obama after the president declared that cyber was a strategic priority for the White House.

The difficulty for GCHQ, and for all the other agencies with an interest in the subject, is that the spectrum of potential threats is very broad, and state-on-state attacks – while potentially devastating – probably account for only a fraction of it. Cyber-security includes the activities of fraudsters, other criminals and, to a far lesser extent, terrorists, who all all operate online and attempt to use cyber-tools to steal information or disrupt everyday services.

Most of what GCHQ sees involves systematic efforts to break through or sneak round the firewalls put around the computer systems run by government departments, banks and big business.

Iain Lobban, the director of GCHQ, said that more than 20,000 malicious emails were found on government networks each month, and 1,000 of them were specifically targeted. In a rare public speech last autumn, Lobban also conceded that some computer worms have successfully burrowed their way in and caused “significant disruption”.

“Cyberspace is contested every day, every hour, every minute, every second,” he said. “I can vouch for that from the displays in our own operations centre of minute-by-minute cyber-attempts to penetrate systems around the world.”

GCHQ estimates that 80% of these kinds of attacks can be dealt with by better computer “hygiene”: more care being taken with passwords, for instance. Five hundred people in the organisation’s Cheltenham HQ are involved in giving advice to Whitehall and industry about the threats and how best to counter them.

Obsession

Anxiety about valuable data being stolen without anyone noticing is shared across all sectors. It is an obsession for banks and corporate giants in the City of London, who would argue that the theft of intellectual property is a much more pressing concern for the UK economy than a Stuxnet-style raid on one of Britain’s nuclear plants. The Cabinet Office agrees, which is why Lobban has been trying to encourage a more holistic approach to cyber-security, encouraging firms to share information about the threats they have identified.

Once-niche security firms that struggled to make ends meet in the 1990s now find themselves feted and providing advice to the UK’s top companies. They also have hundreds more analysts than the government, and databases at least as rich as any owned by the state. Symantec, for instance, can monitor one-third of the world’s entire email traffic every minute of the day from hubs it has set up around the globe.

But while the cyber-security industry in the UK blossoms, GCHQ’s real value is in looking at the 20% of threats that cannot be dealt with by ordinary means – seeking out those that might threaten the national infrastructure by, say, crippling energy companies, or the communications systems run by the emergency services.

Some Whitehall officials have drawn solace from Stuxnet, saying that the analysis of the virus “has shown how difficult it is to do this stuff”. But they also recognise that the cyber-domain is particularly attractive to some states because of the low bar for entry. State-sponsored cyber-activity is growing, and will continue to do so, said one official, because it is still a comparatively cheap means of warfare compared with buying warships and fighter jets. “You don’t need much money, and you don’t need many people,” said the official. “You could put two students in a room, give them computers and let them have a go.”

At the very top end of such capability are targeted weapons such as Stuxnet. But there are other, cruder methods for causing mass disruption.

So called “denial of service” attacks have become quite common, though not on the scale that crippled parts of Estonia in 2007 at the height of a diplomatic row with Russia. During that episode, the country’s main computer systems were bombarded with requests for information by other computers which had been ordered to do so after being infected with malicious software – malware. The network of “bad” computers (“botnet”) that launched the attack came from all over the world, including the US, Brazil and Canada.

The attack crippled Estonia’s parliament, banks and main businesses for up to a fortnight. Russia was assumed to have been behind it.

National Security

Experts have long thought that the UK would be, and probably should be, working up its own range of cyber-weapons, and last year the government hinted this was now a priority. The strategic defence and security review said: “Over the last decade the threat to national security and prosperity from cyber attacks has increased exponentially … We will also work to develop, test and validate the use of cyber capabilities as a potentially more effective and affordable way of achieving our national security objectives.”

Now ministers have openly acknowledged the need to develop new offensive weapons, new questions need to be answered – and not just those about the protocols and legal basis for using them.

One senior defence official noted that traditional arms manufacturers had “smelt the money” and were now diversifying to include cyber-capabilities, recasting the military-industrial complex. Three years ago, Britain’s biggest arms manufacturer, BAE Systems, bought Detica, an established and well-respected technology firm. Earlier this year, the firm worked with the Cabinet Office to publish a cost of cybercrime report – but some independent experts, such as Professor Peter Sommer, who lectures at the LSE, regarded Detica’s involvement in an independent report as a mistake.

He said the Cabinet Office had to show it had “the independence to repel the lobbyists” if it was to retain its credibility. There was another key issue. “One of the things the major software companies don’t want us to discuss is the huge number of flaws in their software. The flaws provide countless opportunities for criminals and other attackers and they exist because the software houses are more interested in revenue from selling us new gimmicks in their products than testing them so that they are solidly safe to use.”

Much better to spend much more money on “the basics of looking after your computer, the way you use it and how sensibly to assess cyber-related risks,” Sommer said.

“That’s why I want to see significant government funding going to organisations such as GetSafeOnline rather than on exotic experimental kit from the big international armaments companies.”

In truth, officials acknowledge that the UK will need to both spend at the low end, and at the high end, to keep ahead on cyber-security.

“Cyber is not for geeks any more,” said one official. “It’s for everyone. The threats are here and now.”

Ya’alon: Pre-Emptive Strike on Iran Could be Necessary – Politics & Gov’t – Israel News – Israel National News.

Israel’s Minister for Strategic Affairs, Moshe Ya’alon said on Monday that the civilized world must take joint action to avert the Iranian nuclear threat, and that action should including a pre-emptive strike if necessary.

Ya’alon made the comments in an interview with Russia’s Interfax news agency, ahead of his visit to Moscow.

“We strongly hope that the entire civilized world will come to realize what threat this regime is posing and take joint action to avert the nuclear threat posed by Iran, even if it would be necessary to conduct a pre-emptive strike,” Interfax quoted Ya’alon as saying.

Though he would not discuss who might deal the strike, he stressed that the entire world and not just Israel, must be concerned about the danger posed by a nuclear-armed Iran.

“An Iran possessing nuclear weapons would be a threat to the entire civilized world,” he was quoted as saying.

Ya’alon’s spokesman later clarified to The Associated Press that the minister was simply repeating Israel’s position that all options are on the table regarding Iran, and that he was not calling for anybody to attack the Islamic Republic.

Ya’alon has previously said about Iran that it “is a threat to regional stability and is pulling strings behind the scenes. They are provoking Shi’ite leaders to challenge Arab regimes and stir the pot in Afghanistan and Iraq. The problem is not just the Iranian nuclear program, but the Iranian regime’s behavior. Iran should not have a military nuclear capability. This regime should not continue its terrorist activities without paying a price.”

Pentagon: Online Cyber Attacks Can Count as Acts of War – WSJ.com.

Pentagon Sets Stage for U.S. to Respond to Computer Sabotage With Military Force

By SIOBHAN GORMAN And JULIAN E. BARNES

WASHINGTON—The Pentagon has concluded that computer sabotage coming from another country can constitute an act of war, a finding that for the first time opens the door for the U.S. to respond using traditional military force.

The Pentagon’s first formal cyber strategy, unclassified portions of which are expected to become public next month, represents an early attempt to grapple with a changing world in which a hacker could pose as significant a threat to U.S. nuclear reactors, subways or pipelines as a hostile country’s military.

In part, the Pentagon intends its plan as a warning to potential adversaries of the consequences of attacking the U.S. in this way. “If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks,” said a military official.

Reuters

The Pentagon is studying when cyber attacks justify military action. An Air Force security center in Colorado.

Recent attacks on the Pentagon’s own systems—as well as the sabotaging of Iran’s nuclear program via the Stuxnet computer worm—have given new urgency to U.S. efforts to develop a more formalized approach to cyber attacks. A key moment occurred in 2008, when at least one U.S. military computer system was penetrated. This weekend Lockheed Martin, a major military contractor, acknowledged that it had been the victim of an infiltration, while playing down its impact.

The report will also spark a debate over a range of sensitive issues the Pentagon left unaddressed, including whether the U.S. can ever be certain about an attack’s origin, and how to define when computer sabotage is serious enough to constitute an act of war. These questions have already been a topic of dispute within the military.

One idea gaining momentum at the Pentagon is the notion of “equivalence.” If a cyber attack produces the death, damage, destruction or high-level disruption that a traditional military attack would cause, then it would be a candidate for a “use of force” consideration, which could merit retaliation.

The Pentagon’s document runs about 30 pages in its classified version and 12 pages in the unclassified one. It concludes that the Laws of Armed Conflict—derived from various treaties and customs that, over the years, have come to guide the conduct of war and proportionality of response—apply in cyberspace as in traditional warfare, according to three defense officials who have read the document. The document goes on to describe the Defense Department’s dependence on information technology and why it must forge partnerships with other nations and private industry to protect infrastructure.

The strategy will also state the importance of synchronizing U.S. cyber-war doctrine with that of its allies, and will set out principles for new security policies. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization took an initial step last year when it decided that, in the event of a cyber attack on an ally, it would convene a group to “consult together” on the attacks, but they wouldn’t be required to help each other respond. The group hasn’t yet met to confer on a cyber incident.

Pentagon officials believe the most-sophisticated computer attacks require the resources of a government. For instance, the weapons used in a major technological assault, such as taking down a power grid, would likely have been developed with state support, Pentagon officials say.

The move to formalize the Pentagon’s thinking was borne of the military’s realization the U.S. has been slow to build up defenses against these kinds of attacks, even as civilian and military infrastructure has grown more dependent on the Internet. The military established a new command last year, headed by the director of the National Security Agency, to consolidate military network security and attack efforts.

The Pentagon itself was rattled by the 2008 attack, a breach significant enough that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs briefed then-President George W. Bush. At the time, Pentagon officials said they believed the attack originated in Russia, although didn’t say whether they believed the attacks were connected to the government. Russia has denied involvement.

The Rules of Armed Conflict that guide traditional wars are derived from a series of international treaties, such as the Geneva Conventions, as well as practices that the U.S. and other nations consider customary international law. But cyber warfare isn’t covered by existing treaties. So military officials say they want to seek a consensus among allies about how to proceed.

“Act of war” is a political phrase, not a legal term, said Charles Dunlap, a retired Air Force Major General and professor at Duke University law school. Gen. Dunlap argues cyber attacks that have a violent effect are the legal equivalent of armed attacks, or what the military calls a “use of force.”

“A cyber attack is governed by basically the same rules as any other kind of attack if the effects of it are essentially the same,” Gen. Dunlap said Monday. The U.S. would need to show that the cyber weapon used had an effect that was the equivalent of a conventional attack.

James Lewis, a computer-security specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who has advised the Obama administration, said Pentagon officials are currently figuring out what kind of cyber attack would constitute a use of force. Many military planners believe the trigger for retaliation should be the amount of damage—actual or attempted—caused by the attack.

For instance, if computer sabotage shut down as much commerce as would a naval blockade, it could be considered an act of war that justifies retaliation, Mr. Lewis said. Gauges would include “death, damage, destruction or a high level of disruption” he said.

Culpability, military planners argue in internal Pentagon debates, depends on the degree to which the attack, or the weapons themselves, can be linked to a foreign government. That’s a tricky prospect at the best of times.

The brief 2008 war between Russia and Georgia included a cyber attack that disrupted the websites of Georgian government agencies and financial institutions. The damage wasn’t permanent but did disrupt communication early in the war.

A subsequent NATO study said it was too hard to apply the laws of armed conflict to that cyber attack because both the perpetrator and impact were unclear. At the time, Georgia blamed its neighbor, Russia, which denied any involvement.

Much also remains unknown about one of the best-known cyber weapons, the Stuxnet computer virus that sabotaged some of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges. While some experts suspect it was an Israeli attack, because of coding characteristics, possibly with American assistance, that hasn’t been proven. Iran was the location of only 60% of the infections, according to a study by the computer security firm Symantec. Other locations included Indonesia, India, Pakistan and the U.S.

Officials from Israel and the U.S. have declined to comment on the allegations.

Defense officials refuse to discuss potential cyber adversaries, although military and intelligence officials say they have identified previous attacks originating in Russia and China. A 2009 government-sponsored report from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission said that China’s People’s Liberation Army has its own computer warriors, the equivalent of the American National Security Agency.

That’s why military planners believe the best way to deter major attacks is to hold countries that build cyber weapons responsible for their use. A parallel, outside experts say, is the George W. Bush administration’s policy of holding foreign governments accountable for harboring terrorist organizations, a policy that led to the U.S. military campaign to oust the Taliban from power in Afghanistan.

Write to Siobhan Gorman at siobhan.gorman@wsj.com

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Special Report May 31, 2011, 9:54 AM (GMT+02:00)

Tags:  Gaza   Egypt   Israel   Hamas   missile attacks 

A 120mm mortar shell smuggled into Gaza

According to updates reaching debkafile‘s military sources, the number of missiles Hamas has managed to stockpile in Gaza passed the 10,000 mark in early May – despite Israel’s partial blockade of the Gaza Strip. It is growing at the rate of some 30 new projectiles of many types smuggled in every two weeks. On April 9, the Palestinian fundamentalists shot 133 rockets at seven Israeli cities before Israel granted a ceasefire in lieu of an operation for smashing this arsenal.
Firing at the rate of 150 missiles a day, Hamas is currently capable of keeping southern Israel under constant attack for 66 days running.
When Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee May 30 about the Palestinian Hamas’s expanding control of Egyptian Sinai, he omitted to mention the arms smuggling tunnels which openly flout Israel’s blockade. The interaction between the Gaza Strip and Sinai and the effect it has of undermining Egypt’s sovereign control of the strategic peninsula, which he also mentioned, is an old story going back years.

What has changed since Hosni Mubarak’s ouster in February is that the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoot Hamas have both gained traction in Egypt proper.

But Israel and its military continue to hold back from stemming the arms flow, now including anti-tank and anti-air missiles, into the Gaza Strip, just as they never interfered with Hizballah’s acquisition of thousands of advanced rockets from Iran and Syria.
Before the current ceasefire, Hamas demonstrated in a single day, Saturday, April 9, that its improved missiles could hit the fringes of Kiryat Gat 21 kilometers from Gaza and Rishon Lezion, double that distance.
The country, all parts of which are covered by the two Hamas-Hizballah missile arsenals, was not informed by the prime minister, Defense Minister Ehud Barak or Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz about the deal which induced Hamas to hold its fire for now.

While Hamas was presented simply as scared off by the threat of a major IDF operation, debkafile‘s intelligence sources disclose that it was the consequence of a quiet deal offered Jerusalem by Egypt’s military rulers at a time that scores of rockets were raining down.
Those rulers asked the Netanyahu government if they could assure Hamas there would be no big Israeli operation as a means of persuading them to accept a ceasefire: A four-point plan for the Gaza Strip’s immediate future was attached to the  Egyptian proposition:

1. Egypt would broker a reconciliation pact between the warring Palestinian factions, Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah and the extremist Hamas. And indeed this pact was signed a month later on May 4;

2.  Egypt would gradually relieve Israel of responsibility for keeping the enclave supplied with fuel, foodstuffs, medicines and other essentials. This contradicts the official claim that the opening of the Rafah crossing from Gaza to Sinai Saturday, May 28, is to be restricted to persons not goods.

3.  Egypt will maintain a large intelligence center inside the Strip. This means Cairo is going back to controlling security in and for the Gaza Strip, a function which lapsed under Hosni Mubarak. Hamas will therefore profit twice: once from an Egyptian-guaranteed Israeli pledge to refrain from attacking the Gaza Strip plus an Egyptian military shield for the territory.
4.  Cairo will tell Hamas that its handling of intra-Palestinian affairs is contingent on two Hamas commitments: a total stoppage of missile fire on Israel and the restart of negotiations for the release of Gilead Shalit, the Israeli soldier it has held captive for five years.
The Netanyahu government was assured that the ceasefire would go into effect the instant this deal was accepted. The prime minister decided to accept the Egyptian package, thereby initiating a period of calm for the eight-day Passover festival and his four-day trip to Washington – even though Hamas had never directly undertaken any commitment toward Israel and Cairo alone was party to the truce.
The upshot of this deal is that, after firing an anti-tank missile April 7 at an Israeli school bus – and so causing the death of a 16-year old Israeli boy – and terrorizing a million civilians in their homes week after week, Hamas comes out clean as a whistle and safe from Israeli retribution. It can also keep on smuggling arms to the Gaza Strip through its Sinai tunnels because the military rulers in Cairo avoided any commitment to combat this illegal flow.
All in all, Hamas’ prospects in Egypt are bright. The Muslim Brotherhood has every chance of rising to power in the parliamentary and presidential elections taking place in three months. Israel has no guarantee that the new rulers will honor the April 2011 commitments offered Israel by the provisional military rulers.

The only fly in Hamas’s ointment is internal: Its unity accord with Fatah is stalled for now by a huge row between Hamas-Gaza and Hamas-Damascus over who gives the orders. This dispute is also a function of the Gaza faction’s growing assertiveness under Cairo’s protection and the Muslim Brotherhood’s wing.
And if letting Hamas off the hook were not enough, Brinks vans continue to carry roughly $13 million in cash from Israel into the Gaza Strip every month to avoid censure for starving the Gazan economy of cash, even though the money besides lining the pockets of its rulers finances the smuggling tunnels through which arms reach the enclave and which also provide them with a second source of profit.
Hamas is not just gaining momentum in Egypt but most of all in the Gaza Strip itself.

Eleven protesters killed and scores wounded in wider military push into central Syria.

Al Arabiya

Monday, 30 May 2011

A Syrian woman living in Jordan shout slogans during a demonstration against Syria’s President Bashar Al-Assad outside the U.N. office in Amman. (File Photo

Iranian Ayatollah Approves Killing Israeli Civilians, including Children | Terrorism Right Side News.

Iranian Ayatollah Affirms Legitimacy of Suicide Operations, Approves Killing Israeli Civilians –Including Children

The issue of martyrdom operations and their religious legitimacy has been repeatedly discussed by Iranian ayatollahs.[1] In a recent fatwa posted on his website in response to an online inquiry, Iranian Ayatollah Taqi Mesbah-e Yazdi ruled that martyrdom operations were not only legitimate but were a duty incumbent upon every Muslim.

The inquirer asked whether such operations were considered suicide and were therefore forbidden, and whether Israeli civilians, especially children, were to be regarded as illegitimate targets, like civilians elsewhere.

In his reply, Ayatollah Mesbah-e Yazdi expressed regret that the inquirer had apparently bought into the propaganda of the enemies of Islam, which presented martyrdom operations as suicide, and that the inquirer was wasting his time on this issue instead of focusing on “uprooting the Zionist regime” and its supporters. The Ayatollah ruled that when defending Islam and the Muslim ummah necessitated martyrdom, it was not considered suicide.

Regarding the question about Israeli civilians, he ruled that it was forbidden to harm them only if they had openly declared their opposition to their government. He said it was even permissible to target Israeli civilians used as human shields and in other cases when fighting “the aggressors,” i.e. Israel, necessitated it.

Following are the inquiry and the fatwa, which appeared in the English section of the ayatollah’s website:[2]

Martyrdom Operations Are Not Only Permissible but Obligatory

Q: “Some people say that martyrdom operations are considered suicide and that they are haram [forbidden] because they contradict Islam. They quote Hadiths, such as this one by Imam Ja’afar [Al-Sadeq]: ‘A Muslim may fight and be killed [by the enemy], but will never shed his own blood’ and ayat [Koranic verses] such as: ‘Do not kill yourselves, for Allah is compassionate towards you. Whoever [does,] does so in transgression and wrongfully. We shall roast [him] in a fire, and that is an easy matter for Allah.’ [Koran 4:29-30]

“They say this even about the martyrdom operations against military targets, such as the ones used by Hizbullah [in] Lebanon, or the ones used by the Iranian army against Saddam’s army…

“The question [is whether] martyrdom operations, in which a person detonate[s] himself [in the midst of] enemy [forces], are haram. Is it suicide? Why or why not? Please answer this question, as there is lots of discussion and confusion about this issue.”

A: “It is regrettable that the propaganda of the enemies of Islam has influenced the Muslim ummah so much that Muslims, instead of planning for the uprooting of the Zionist regime and its arrogant supporters, have occupied themselves with questioning and discussing the legitimacy of the Palestinians’ self defense, which is carried out under the most oppressive conditions imaginable.

“[Certainly], when protecting Islam and the Muslim ummah depends on martyrdom operations, it not only is allowed, but is even an obligation (wajib), as many of the [great Shi’ite] scholars and Maraje’ [sources of emulation], including [Ayatollah] Safi Golpayegani and [Ayatollah] Fazel Lankarani, have clearly announced in their fatwas. Consider the rewayah [i.e. tradition about] the prophet of Allah [i.e. Muhammad], who said: ‘Whoever is killed in defense of his belongings, he/she is [a] shahid [martyr]’ (Wasa’il al-Shi’ah, v.15, p.121).”

Only Those Israelis Who Openly Denounce Their Government Are Illegitimate Targets

Q: “Now, about [the] targeting [of] civilians in the Zionist state. Some say that according to the teaching[s] of [Ahl Al-Bayt, i.e. the Prophet Muhammad’s household] and the Koran, it isharam to target civilians in any case. They also say that Israelis are civilians like any other people, while others believe they are settlers and usurpers [rather than] civilians.

“Are the operations [carried out] by Hamas and [Islamic] Jihad against [Israeli] ‘civilians’haram? Why or why not? How about the Israeli children killed in such attacks? If it is not haram, what is the answer to those who quote the Hadith [which forbids targeting] non-combatants.”

A: “Muslims should not attack those civilians of the occupied territories who have announced their opposition to their government’s vicious crimes, except [in] situations in which they are used as human shields and [when] fighting the aggressors depends on attacking those [same] civilians.”

Q: “…Given the fact that [today] there are [weapons of] mass destruction and that it is not always easy to prevent civilian [casualties] in wars [as it was in the past], what would be the ruling about attacks that unintentionally kill civilians in wars (as in the case of the Iran-Iraq war)?

“Also, say we live in a Muslim country, and there is another country which attack[s] one of our cities with nuclear weapons and wipe[s] it out. Then this country announce[s that] it will destroy our cities one by one using nuclear weapons.

“Supposing [this same] country ha[s] all its nuclear weapons in one of their cities – would it be [permissible] for [a] Muslim country to attack this city and destroy the nuclear weapons there before they are used to annihilate the Muslims, even though [this] would [cause civilian casualties] in that city, [if] this [were] the only way to protect the lives of the Muslims?…”

A: “In the case of conflict between two Muslim nations, Muslims should assist the oppressed against the oppressor.

“But before the war is waged, initiating [preemptive attacks] depends on [whether] permission [is granted by the] velayat-e faqih [rule of the jurisprudent].

“With prayers for your success.”

End Notes: [1] For more on Iranian Shi’a’s discussion of martyrdom operations and their religious legitimacy, see MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis Report No.439, “Iranian Women’s Magazine Shut Down for Publishing Investigative Article on Martyrdom Movement,” May 22, 2008,http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/3228.htm.

Those Who Say Israel Should Fear the Wrath of Obama.

Barack Obama delivers a speech at the University of Southern California. Photo: Ari Levinson.

I have no beef with those who argue President Obama did nothing wrong by sliding in a reference to Israel returning to the 1967 borders, albeit with land swaps, in his major address on the Arab pro-democracy movement at the State Department. To be sure, I believe it ruined the President’s otherwise impassioned insistence that America would support the Arab yearning to be free of its tyrannical dictators by inserting an inflammatory and highly controversial distraction that dominated the headlines. Still, the President is entitled to his view even as it remains to be seen if pressuring Israel will lead to a lasting peace. What I do have a problem with is the large number of commentators – the vast majority Jewish – who say that in defying Obama on the ’67 borders Netanyahu has provoked the President’s wrath and Israel will now suffer the consequences.

As an American I have a visceral distaste for anyone arguing that we ought to fear our government or our President. I do not live in Russia. I do not live in Syria. President Obama is nothing but the elected representative of the American people. He has absolutely no power other than that which we, the American people, grant him. He is not a king and he is not an emperor. He cannot pursue his grudges and he cannot avenge his personal honor. He is a servant of the people. The idea that Israel, as a sovereign nation and most trusted ally of the United States, ought to fear the American president for not kowtowing to his every foreign policy whim when it feels he is desperately wrong is distasteful in the extreme.

Worse, it is an incalculable insult to President Obama. What these commentators are implying is that Obama is a man so petty and immature that as pay-back to Netanyahu and Israel for defying him he will throw both under a bus. I do not believe this about Obama. I believe him to be a mature and dignified leader even as I disagree with him profoundly on so many substantive issues of policy.

But there were some of America’s top writers arguing that Bibi had pissed off Obama and now Israel would pay.  Leading the charge was Time magazine’s Joe Klein who titled his attack on Netanyahu, “Bibi Provokes Obama,” and ended his column with these words: “Given his congressional support, Netanyahu may be able to get away with playing so bold a hand — but it is inappropriate behavior for an American ally, and you can bet that Obama won’t forget it.” Won’t forget what? That an Israeli Prime Minister actually had the courage to tell an American President – finally! – that the sovereign State of Israel will not be pushed into compromising its security? And what is Klein suggesting Obama will now do. Retaliate against Israel and spitefully take the position of the Palestinians? Does he really believe Obama to be that frivolous? I most surely do not.

The Bibi-undermined-Israel’s-security-by-getting-on-Obama’s-bad-side argument continued with Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic – normally one of my favorite writers – who titled his piece, “Dear Mr. Netanyahu, Please Don’t Speak to My President That Way.” Goldberg wrote, “And if President Obama doesn’t walk back the speech, what will Netanyahu do? Will he cut off Israeli military aid to the U.S.?

Perhaps Goldberg has confused the American political system with that, say, of Libya. Our President does not give any economic aid to Israel. It is the American people who, in their overwhelming support of the Middle East’s sole democracy, repeatedly elect leaders who share their pro-Israel posture and who in-turn vote to continue foreign aid to Israel. Whatever the tension between Bibi and Obama the American people are not now questioning why we give our must trusted ally $3 billion a year in military aid, but why we gave Pakistan, where Bin Laden was hiding, a total of $20.7 billion in aid from 2002 through fiscal 2011.

Goldberg continues: “Prime Minister Netanyahu needs the support of President Obama in order to confront the greatest danger Israel has ever faced: the potential of a nuclear-armed Iran. And yet he seems to go out of his way to alienate the President.” The inference is that by Netanyahu throwing what Goldberg called ‘a hissy fit,’ President Obama may withdraw his support for Israel on Iran. This is an unwarranted and unjust criticism of our President who knows darn well that a nuclear-armed Iran is as big a threat to the United States as it is to Israel. Last time I checked ‘The Great Satan’ label bandied about by the Iranians was a reference not to Israel but to America.

But the sentiment of Bibi’s foolishness in ‘provoking’ Obama was heard even in major Jewish publications. New York Jewish Week publisher Gary Rosenblatt, one of the most erudite and insightful of all writers on the Jewish scene, said, “This is more than a personal grudge match; it can affect strategic policy and the very future of the Jewish state. Israel, of course, has a lot more to lose here than the U.S., so the onus is on Bibi to make the relationship better…. Bibi has chosen confronting Obama rather than working at restoring their relationship. I hope it’s not a permanent mistake.”

I respectfully disagree. It was Obama who gratuitously threw in the provocative reference to Israel’s 1967 borders without, at the very least, calling on the Palestinians to withdraw the utterly unrealistic right of return. And it was Obama who was forced at AIPAC to dilute his ’67 border comment to the point of meaninglessness because he feared the wrath of American Jewry – one of his most important financial and electoral constituencies – rather than the other way around.

I mean no disrespect. But it seems to me it’s high time we reject the traditional court-Jew mentality that says that we must shimmy-up to powerful leaders in order to gain their protection. America does not support Israel because Jews are friendly or subservient. It does not respect Israel because it is polite or deferential. Rather, America, in its righteous, majestic might supports Israel because its cause is just. And any insinuation to the contrary is an insult both to our President and the American people.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

(Truly sickening…  Hopefully false. – JW)

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report May 29, 2011, 10:56 PM (GMT+02:00)

Big power sorting-out of the Arab Spring

Although 2,300 kilometers separates Libya from Syria, Muammar Qaddafi and Bashar Assad have this in common: Both Arab leaders look like surviving the revolts against them and neither is buckling under the pressures thrown at them by the United States and Europe – albeit in different forms and varying measures.
debkafile‘s military sources report that Sunday, May 29, there were solid signs that Assad and his army was recovering control of most parts of Syria, excepting only the Homs area of central Syria.

Elsewhere, after three months of battling the regime, the opposition is finding it harder to get protesters out on the streets for big rallies. Sunday, Syrian forces backed by tanks and heavy machine guns killed three civilians and wounded scores in the central towns of Talbiseh and Rastan and villages around Homs. Otherwise, most Syrian cities were calm.
This achievement is largely the result of the Syrian president’s iron-fisted crackdown on protest followed by a ruthless purge of opponents to the regime in one area after another. But four more factors played their part:
1. The affluent middle class living in Syria’s biggest towns, Damascus and Aleppo, stood aside from the uprising.
2. Likewise the Druze community which obeyed its leaders to stay out of it on orders coming from the Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt.
3. Syria’s Christians who are the backbone of the country’s business community actively supported the Syrian ruler.
4.  More than 100 Iranian and Hizballah officers placed their active experience in crushing opponents at Assad’s disposal. They brought with them a whole range of manpower and equipment for breaking up demonstrations against which the popular demonstrators were helpless.
Large military units have occupied the southern region of Horan and its capital Daraa, where the uprising first flared, and where a million people live under a reign of terror. Outbreaks in the suburbs of Damascus have been crushed and the port cities of Tartous and Latakia have gone back to normal.
While the protest movement has not been completely extinguished and may continue to raise its head for some time, President Assad has undeniably regained control of his country.

Outside the Middle East, in Washington and Moscow, debkafile‘s sources report word going round that President Barak Obama and President Dmitry Medvedev Friday, May 27, came to an reciprocal understanding on the sidelines of the G8 summit in Deauville about the fate of the Syrian and Libyan rulers.

Obama is reported to have promised Medvedev to let Assad finish off the uprising against him without too much pressure from the US and the West. In return, the Russian president undertook to help the US draw the Libyan war to a close by means of an effort to bring about Muammar Qaddafi’s exit from power – in a word, the two big powers traded Qaddafi for Assad.

According to our sources, neither the US nor Russia sees anyone in the Libyan rebel political or military leadership capable of taking over the reins of power in Tripoli. It is therefore assumed that a member of the Qaddafi clan will be chosen as Libya’s interim ruler.
Obama and Medvedev also quietly agreed, those sources say, that French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron, despite their excessive involvement in the Libyan war, were wasting their time because they had no chance of making Qaddafi leave.
According to the information the Russian president offered Obama, NATO attacks had not disabled a single one of Qaddafi’s five brigades. Obama confirmed this from his own sources.