WarSclerotic

Iran president blames Israel for ‘instability,’ calls for peace… – YouTube.

By F. Brinley Bruton, Staff Writer, NBC News

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani blamed Israel for causing “injustice to the people” of the Middle East during an exclusive interview with NBC News in which he also called for peace, saying Iran is not “looking for war.”

Unlike his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Rouhani struck a moderate tone on many issues, but he deflected a question from NBC News’ Ann Curry about whether he believed that the Holocaust was “a myth.”

“I’m not a historian. I’m a politician,” he replied. “What is important for us is that the countries of the region and the people grow closer to each other, and that they are able to prevent aggression and injustice.”

Rouhani’s comments came in his first interview with a U.S. news outlet since his June election. The interview was broadcast Thursday on TODAY.

David Lom / NBC News

NBC News’ Ann Curry speaks with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday. It was Rouhani’s first interview with a U.S. news outlet since being elected.

When asked by Curry about the fact that Ahmadinejad had people believing that Iran wanted to wipe Israel off the map, Rouhani replied: “What we wish for in this country is rule by the will of the people. We believe in the ballot box.”

Curry also asked Rouhani to respond to comments by Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu, who has called him a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

Rouhani described Israel as “an occupier and usurper government” that “does injustice to the people of the region, and has brought instability to the region, with its warmongering policies.”

He added Israel “shouldn’t allow itself to give speeches about a democratically and freely elected government.”

Netanyahu has previously hinted at the possibility of Israeli military strikes on Iran over the country’s controversial nuclear program if Western sanctions and diplomacy fail.

However, Rouhani also said it was important that countries across the Middle East learn to peacefully coexist.

“We are not seeking … and looking for war with any nations. We are seeking peace and stability among all the nations in the region,” Rouhani said.

In an exclusive interview with NBC’s Ann Curry, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said his country is asking for peace, stability and the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction.

Rouhani replaced Ahmadinejad who had been quoted as describing the Nazi Holocaust as “a myth” while in office. In 2009, Ahmadinejad dropped language from a speech at a U.N. conference on racism that branded the Holocaust “ambiguous and dubious.”

Rouhani’s comments underscored the shift in tone since he was elected with just over 50 percent of the vote. During his inaugural address, the new president spoke of engagement with the West to end bruising sanctions over his country’s controversial nuclear program.

Rouhani also appeared to pledge his support for increasing Iranians’ access to the Internet and other political and social freedoms.

“We want the people, in their private lives, to be completely free, and in today’s world having access to information and the right of free dialogue, and the right to think freely, is the right of all peoples, including the people of Iran,” he said.

When asked whether his government would stop censoring the Internet, Rouhani said “a commission for citizens’ rights” would be established.

“Does that mean that people in Iran will have access now to Twitter and to Facebook?” Curry asked.

“The viewpoint of the government is that the people must have full access to all information worldwide,” Rouhani replied. “Our opinions on this should based on protection of our national identity and on our morals.”

Officials in Washington, D.C., say the time is right for Iran, which wants a deal to get out from sanctions that are crippling its economy. NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reports.

In the interview with Curry, Rouhani also said his country will never develop nuclear weapons and that he has the clout to make a deal with the West on the disputed atomic program.

“In its nuclear program, this government enters with full power and has complete authority,” he said, adding that Iran has repeatedly pledged that “under no circumstances would we seek any weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, nor will we ever.”

Rouhani, who earned a Ph.D. from a Scottish university, was the only non-conservative in the field during the election to replace Ahmadinejad. He got more than 18 million votes while five conservative candidates combined garnered just under 18 million.

Rouhani also discussed how he and President Barack Obama have exchanged letters in which they traded views on “some issues.”

“From my point of view, the tone of the letter was positive and constructive,” Rouhani said of the note he got from the White House congratulating him on his election.

The two countries severed diplomatic ties in 1980 after students supporting the Iranian revolutionaries who overthrew the U.S.-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.

“It could be subtle and tiny steps for a very important future,” Rouhani told Curry. “I believe the leaders in all countries could think in their national interest and they should not be under the influence of pressure groups. I hope to witness such an atmosphere in the future.”

Rouhani’s is due to appear next Tuesday at the U.N. General Assembly — where Western diplomats regularly walked out during Ahmedinejad’s fiery speeches.

NBC News’ Tracy Connor and Henry Austin contributed to this report.

Obama may hold direct meeting with Rouhani | The Times of Israel.

Washington indicates it ‘remains ready to engage’ with Tehran ‘on the basis of mutual respect’ to resolve nuke issue

( Mutual respect?  More like “honor among thieves.” – JW )

US President Barack Obama (photo credit: AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais/File)

Three days after top Obama administration officials indicated the US president had no plans to meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, senior officials in Washington said Obama was open to a direct meeting with his counterpart in Tehran.

“We remain ready to engage with the Rouhani government on the basis of mutual respect to achieve a peaceful resolution to the nuclear issue,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said Wednesday.

Earlier Wednesday, Rouhani appeared on NBC News, saying in an interview that he was “empowered” by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to reach a deal on the nuclear issue, adding that Tehran had no intention of developing nuclear arms.

“We have time and again said that under no circumstances would we seek any weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, nor will we ever,” he said.

He added that the tone of the letter Obama had sent him was “positive and constructive.”

Meanwhile Wednesday, US-educated Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif indicated his interest in high-level meetings with US officials.

“Zarif has been communicating his hopes for a number of meetings,” The Wall Street Journal quoted a senior US official as saying.

On Monday, Carney indicated that Obama had no current plans to meet with his Iranian counterpart at the United Nations General Assembly next week, in a carefully worded statement that did not fully rule out such a meeting. The comments came a day after the president revealed that he had exchanged letters with the recently elected Rouhani.

Carney said Monday afternoon that the Obama administration continues to “hope that this new Iranian government will engage substantively to achieve a diplomatic solution” and that the United States “remains ready to engage with the Rouhani government on the basis of mutual respect to achieve a peaceful resolution.”
The two leaders will overlap for two days at next week’s United Nations General Assembly in New York, with Obama expected to address the plenum on Tuesday morning, and Rouhani to address the same forum for the first time on Tuesday afternoon.

Obama’s comments plus the chronological overlap had seemed to some to signal that the two might meet, unofficially, on the sidelines of the annual meeting. “We currently have no plan for Obama to meet with his Iranian counterpart next week,” Carney said.

Carney’s carefully worded statement did, however, appear to leave the possibility open for a hurriedly arranged or “chance” meeting between the two leaders in the halls of the United Nations building.
All eyes now are on the UN General Assembly next week. Even if there is no “chance” encounter between Obama and Rouhani, Zarif is scheduled to meet with EU top diplomat Catherine Ashton to discuss nuclear policy and to set up future meetings of the P5+1 working group.

On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal quoted a senior Obama administration official as saying that even if no direct exchange occurs between Obama and Rouhani, the “tone of confrontation” between Washington and Tehran has “significantly diminished.”

Other officials reportedly said they would be watching Rouhani’s General Assembly speech closely to “see how forward-leaning” it is.

Negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program have hit a deadlock concerning the future of the 20% enriched uranium being produced at the formerly secret Fordo plant. Iran wants to simply agree to a freeze in enrichment in exchange for having the stringent sanctions placed against Tehran lifted. The United States wants the plant to be dismantled altogether, and wants Iran to hand over all of its highly enriched uranium.

Uranium for civilian energy purposes requires 5% enrichment, whereas weapons-grade uranium is considered to be 20% enriched or greater.

Washington does not see Iranian suspension of enrichment as meeting its demands, but as a confidence-building measure.

The Obama administration has indicated that it would be willing to consider discussing relaxing some sanctions if enrichment is suspended. It has not publicly signaled how conciliatory it is willing to be.
Michael Adler, a public policy scholar and expert in Iranian nuclear policy at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center, says that there are a number of options for conciliatory steps that the administration can take.

Among the options for the US would be to offer a road map that would delineate what Iran gets to keep in the end, a gradual relaxation of sanctions, and statements specifying the degree to which the US could answer Iran’s concerns regarding continuing a civilian nuclear program.
Adler says that Obama’s correspondence with Rouhani was a step toward returning to the table in that it “shows respect and a willingness to talk.”

Conditions, he says, could be ripe for a resolution to the impasse. “The US has been trying to hold serious talks. The Iranians say they want talks, they have a different team in place, and the president is following up on it.”

Adler noted that Rouhani was the chief Iranian nuclear negotiator during the period in which parts of Iran’s nuclear program were voluntarily suspended a decade ago. Rouhani, Zarif, and Atomic Energy Organization of Iran chief Ali Akbar Salehi are all seen in Washington as relative moderates who may prove amenable to negotiation.

Hatred of Jews :: Gatestone Institute.

No matter how hard or how often we Muslims try, we are never able finally to end the connection our lives seem to have with the lives of the Jews.

Watching Arab and Islamic television, especially during the holy month of Ramadan, brings the viewer to the inescapable conclusion that we have no real lives of our own, no unity and no value: our only motivation is having the Jews as a common enemy, with our lives dependent on them. We treat the Jews the way the rabid Christian anti-Semites treated them in the Middle Ages, blaming them for every illness, tragedy and misfortune. We blame them for the failures of Islam while only we are at fault for the catastrophes that befall us.

Almost no Ramadan evening goes by without tedious “historical” dramas on Al-Jazeera and the other Arab TV channels, whose objective is to brainwash viewers with anti-Semitic propaganda. They deal with the Jews’ denial of the Prophet Muhammad’s message, Jewish attempts to poison him and their betrayal of him at the Battle of the Trench in Al-Medina. Almost all the series’ end on the same note: the message is always that the fate of the Jews in the Palestine they stole from the Arabs will be the same as that Muhammad wreaked on them at Khybar, they will be slaughtered and their women and children will be sold into slavery.

A still shot from the anti-Semitic TV miniseries “Khaybar”. (Image credit: MEMRI)

That kind of incitement lends the Jews a Satanic power, it makes us think they can manipulate events around the world and are historically responsible for planning and carrying out every evil that exists. In reality, however, all it does is glorify their capabilities and achievements to the extent of turning them into a self-important legend. Thus we ourselves construct the myth of the genius of the Jews, their intellectual might and creative talents, while personally I am not entirely sure they deserve the reputation: they are mere mortals like everyone else, and often less.

In my opinion, the situation has reached such proportions within the nation of Islam that it is now a national mental illness, a collective obsession for which I see no cure. We accuse the Jews of wanting to rule the world, but one of the causes of our illness is that we expect Islam to take over the world.

Regression and the lack of social and governmental flexibility, along with poverty and ignorance, perpetuate the impotence of the nation of Islam and make it impossible for us to change, develop and progress — a frustrating, ugly situation. While we have dreams of ruling the world, we wallow in disease and poverty, and we are behind the times in all the modern fields of endeavor. Our various regimes enjoy religious and tribal backing, that is why they are anti-democratic and cannot be saved. We find comfort only in recklessly bringing untold masses of children into a world with nothing to offer them.

The countries of western Europe were all lucky enough, or wise enough, to cast off the political rule of fanaticism in the Middle Ages and to separate church and state. Today Christianity is a normative social value, a matter of personal conscience, and it dictates and practices enlightenment rather than violence and oppression. The separation of church and state made it possible for Europeans – and Americans – to progress, and it gave them a tremendous advantage over the rest of the world. We, on the other hand, are still living in the Dark Ages.

The Christians’ enlightened, moderate attitude toward the Islamic communities in European cities, which is partially a function of fear, causes our extremist Muslim brothers to escalate their violence toward the communities hosting them, mistakenly assuming that Christian moderation is the result of the weakness of Western society. The result is that as time passes Islamophobia grows greater.

Despite the new Enlightenment, many Europeans, among them the leaders of the European Union, are still fundamentally and militantly anti-Semitic. Instead of attacking the Jews head-on the way their ancestors did — by simply passing discriminatory laws, forcing them to live in ghettoes and killing them — they now politically correctly attack Israel, pretending that Israelis are not Jews.

Beneath their political correctness their ancient, inbred anti-Semitism still smolders. For some Christians, as for the Muslims, hatred of the Jews is built on an ancient religious foundation, a legacy from the Middle Ages, and it is so basic and so well rooted that they are willing to support the Muslims in almost anything, as long as it harms the Jews in some way.

The result is that we Muslims make the mistake of thinking Europeans really care about them, especially the Palestinians. We are wrong: Europeans simply hate the Jews more than they hate and fear us.

The bitter truth is that the Europeans usually intervene in a crisis only if it gives them the opportunity for Jew-bashing. When hundreds of thousands, even millions, of Muslims are slaughtered – by other Muslims, such as the massacre in Syria and the recent upsurge of violence in Darfur – the apathetic European leadership does not lift a finger.

At the same time, the European Union is obsessed with its need to condemn, sanction and boycott the Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. It does not even mention Syria, with its hundred thousand civilians murdered by the government and its millions of refugees, or the atrocities being committed in the Arab-Muslim world, the rapes of women and children, the beheadings and the wanton cruelty and murder, to say nothing of exploitation, discrimination, slavery and other crimes against humanity.

To my great sorrow, everywhere in the world where there are Muslims there is murder, mass bloodshed and terrorist attacks. We should leave the Jews alone, they are not responsible for our tragedies and hating them will not cure the nation of Islam or bring it successfully into the 21^st century.

WH: Obama tells Rohani sees way to resolve nuclear issue – Israel News, Ynetnews.

In exchange of letters, US president tells Iranian counterpart that Washington is ready to resolve its nuclear dispute with Tehran

Reuters

President Barack Obama has told Iran’s President Hassan Rohani in an exchange of letters that the United States is ready to resolve its nuclear dispute with Iran in a way that allows Tehran to show it is not trying to build weapons, the White House said on Wednesday.

“In his letter the president indicated that the US is ready to resolve the nuclear issue in a way that allows Iran to demonstrate that its nuclear program is for exclusively peaceful purposes,” said White House spokesman Jay Carney.

“The letter also conveyed the need to act with a sense of urgency to address this issue because, as we have long said, the window of opportunity for resolving this diplomatically is open, but it will not remain open indefinitely,” Carney said.

The White House spokesman noted that Prime Minister Benjamin “Netanyahu said yesterday that the way to end the Iranian nuclear process was for Iran to stop enriching uranium, to ship out uranium that it has enriched… and to stop plutonium activity. The president yesterday said in his interview that the way for it to end would be for Iran not to weaponize its nuclear program.

“Any resolution would have to come through a verifiable compliance and a verifiable commitment by Iran to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions. That has long been our position. So, again, we’re ready to talk in the P-5 plus one as well as bilaterally with Iran, if Iran is willing to engage substantively on this matter.”

The White House comments are another sign of a potential thaw between the West and Iran on nuclear issues. The United States and its allies have imposed sanctions aimed at stopping Iran from seeking a nuclear weapons capability, but Iran has long insisted its program is for civilian purposes.

Rohani told NBC News on Wednesday that his administration will never develop nuclear weapons and that he has full authority to make a deal with the West on the disputed atomic program. According NBC, the Iranian president noted he had received a “positive and constructive” letter from Obama congratulating him on his election.

“It could be subtle and tiny steps for a very important future,” NBC quoted Rohani as saying.

Since Rohani was elected as president in June, he has called for “constructive interaction” with the world. The head of Iran’s nuclear energy organization said on Wednesday he saw “openings” on the nuclear issue.

Shaul Chorev, head of Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission said Wednesday: “The picture that the Iranian representatives are portraying regarding openness and transparency of their nuclear program … stands in sharp contradiction with Iran’s actual actions and the facts on the ground.”

The issue was not whether Iran has “modified its diplomatic vocabulary … but whether it is addressing seriously and in a timely manner outstanding issues that have remained unresolved for too long,” Chorev told the annual meeting of member states of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Chorev accused Iran of “deception and concealment, creating a false impression about the status of its engagement with the agency … with a view to buy more time in Iran’s daily inching forward in every aspect of its nuclear military program”.

Chorev accused Arab states of using the IAEA meeting to “repeatedly bash” Israel and he urged members to reject an Arab-sponsored draft resolution calling on Israel to join a global anti-nuclear weapons pact.

Obama said on Tuesday that he is willing to test the willingness of Rohani to discuss the nuclear issue.

“There is an opportunity here for diplomacy,” Obama told Spanish-language network Telemundo in an interview. “And I hope the Iranians take advantage of it.”

Both Obama and Rohani plan to be in New York next week for the UN General Assembly, but the leaders do not currently have plans to meet, Carney said.

Iran’s Rouhani says he has full authority to negotiate a nuclear deal with the West | JPost | Israel News.

Iran’s Leaders Signal Effort at New Thaw – NYTimes.com.

TEHRAN — A series of good-will gestures and hints of new diplomatic flexibility from Iran’s ruling establishment was capped on Wednesday by the highest-level statement yet that the country’s new leaders are pushing for a compromise in negotiations over their disputed nuclear program.

“They’re putting stuff out faster than the naysayers can keep up,” said Gary Sick, an Iran expert with Columbia University. “They dominate the airwaves.”

Mr. Rouhani, preparing for a trip to New York next week for the annual gathering of the United Nations, kept up the dizzying pace on Wednesday in an interview with NBC News in which he declared that Iran would never “seek weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons” and that he had “full power and complete authority” to make a nuclear deal with the West.

There is plenty of skepticism in the West over the new tone emanating from Tehran, and Iran veterans have seen previous thaws in the diplomatic climate disappear seemingly overnight. Mr. Obama has spoken of testing Mr. Rouhani’s seriousness.

But Iran experts, citing the apparent end to Iran’s ideological taboo against direct talks with the United States as well as the apparent concurrence of the supreme leader, say that this new moderation seems different.

Tehran’s turnaround is all the more startling in view of the eight, often bizarre, years of Mr. Rouhani’s Holocaust-denying predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who relished every opportunity to ruffle the feathers of Western leaders. But Mr. Ahmadinejad’s bellicose nationalism drove Iran into a diplomatic isolation that left it with Venezuela and Syria for allies and saddled it with debilitating economic sanctions over its nuclear program, analysts said.

Those sanctions have more than halved Iran’s oil sales, from 2.4 million barrels a day in 2011 to less than 1 million now, and inflation has spiked; the currency, the rial, has fallen by half. It was the danger of falling even deeper into this economic abyss, possibly threatening their hold on power, that prompted Iran’s leaders to mend ties not only with the West but with their own people, who desperately want more personal freedoms, analysts say.

“We are now at a unique moment in the Islamic republic’s history,” said Farshad Ghorbanpour, a political analyst close to Mr. Rouhani. “Economic reasons are now justifying political reasons to talk to the U.S.”

The current moment differs significantly from an earlier reform period under President Mohammad Khatami, when the rules on public behavior and freedom of expression were relaxed. But in contrast to the current situation, Mr. Khatami never had the serious backing of the Iranian political establishment. “Our supreme leader, Mr. Khamenei, has given the green light; that means there will be no groups trying to sabotage potential talks like in the past,” Mr. Ghorbanpour said.

When he arrives in New York next week, one expert said, Mr. Rouhani will be bringing along a package of proposals on Iran’s nuclear program, which Tehran says is for peaceful purposes but the West believes is a cover for developing weapons.

“I think he will be able to discuss Iran putting a cap on the number of uranium enrichment centrifuges, the conversion of the stockpile of uranium enriched up to 20 percent into harmless fuel plates or dilute it down to 3, 5 percent,” said Mohammad Ali Shabani, a political analyst based in Tehran who holds moderate views. There could also be talks of Iran accepting more inspections by at some point ratifying an additional protocol to the United Nations’ nuclear nonproliferation treaty, Mr. Shabani said.

The German newsmagazine Der Spiegel reported that Mr. Rouhani might also be ready to close down Fordo, Iran’s highly secure mountain bunker, which is believed to be safe from any Israeli attack. But Mr. Shabani said this would not happen. “This site is Iran’s insurance card in case of a military attack,” he said. “I highly doubt Iran would close that down.”

Mr. Rouhani has also indicated that he prefers to negotiate over the nuclear case with the West on the highest political levels possible, and there was even talk of a meeting next week with Mr. Obama, an event that would have been all but inconceivable only weeks ago.

Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said Wednesday that there were no plans for Mr. Obama to meet with Mr. Rouhani when both leaders are at the United Nations early next week. But he said the president was eager to see whether the issue of Iran’s nuclear program could be resolved.

“As we have long said, the window of opportunity for resolving this diplomatically is open, but it will not remain open indefinitely,” Mr. Carney said.

Mr. Obama, in an interview this week with Noticias Telemundo, mentioned “indications” that Mr. Rouhani “is looking to open dialogue with the West and with the United States in a way that we haven’t seen in the past. And so we should test it.”

Mr. Rouhani, asked in the NBC News interview if he thought Mr. Obama looked weak when he backed off from a threat to conduct a missile strike against Syria over a deadly chemical weapons attack outside Damascus on Aug. 21, replied: “We consider war a weakness. Any government or administration that decides to wage a war, we consider a weakness. And any government that decides on peace, we look on it with respect to peace.”

The diplomatic offensive by Mr. Rouhani and his foreign minister, Mr. Zarif, seems to have been planned months ago. Even as a presidential candidate he was emphasizing that détente with the West was the key to solving Iran’s domestic problems. “You must know that this key can solve the nuclear problem and the sanctions. It will lead to economic growth,” he said in one televised debate in May.

He has long made clear that Iran needs to show more transparency in its nuclear activities, to build trust with the West. “After that we will prevent new sanctions against our country, and gradually they will be lifted so we will be free of all of them,” Mr. Rouhani said.

The recent publicity campaign was probably carefully planned, too, experts said. “Actually it’s kind of a blitz attack that Iran is doing. Their intent is very clear, that is to distinguish themselves — this is the anti-Ahmadinejad,” said Mr. Sick, who was a national security adviser during the Iranian hostage crisis. “I’d say they’re succeeding. They’re also aware there’s a huge degree of skepticism in the West, particularly the United States, and there’s a standard body of opinion that nothing has changed in Iran.”

In the coming weeks and months Iran will be looking for reciprocal steps from the West, analysts say, so that Mr. Rouhani can point to some tangible rewards for his conciliation. Otherwise, nationalist voices in Iran will begin to attack his credibility.

“There has to be some sort of gesture by the U.S.,” Mr. Shabani said. “Iran’s hard-liners will want to see results within six months or so. If not, expect a lot more inflexibility from Iran.”

BBC News – Navy Yard: Swat team ‘stood down’ at mass shooting scene.

( Feds didn’t want the DC police to know who was really doing the shooting? Aaron Alexis may well have been a victim rather than a perp. They may be using him as a patsy to cover for the real 3 attackers. Who could they have been? False flaggers? Islamic terrorists? If we ever find out it will be the END of the police state that has taken over our country. Call me a “conspiracy theory nut.” I don’t care. The story of the one crazed gunman never made ANY sense. – JW )

By Debbie Siegelbaum BBC News, Washington

On Wednesday, investigators continued to process the scene

One of the first teams of heavily armed police to respond to Monday’s shooting in Washington DC was ordered to stand down by superiors, the BBC can reveal.

A tactical response team of the Capitol Police, a force that guards the US Capitol complex, was told to leave the scene by a supervisor instead of aiding municipal officers.

The Capitol Police department said senior officials were investigating.

Aaron Alexis, 34, killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard.

“I don’t think it’s a far stretch to say that some lives may have been saved if we were allowed to intervene,” a Capitol Police source familiar with the incident told the BBC.

Assault weapons ready

A former Navy reservist, Alexis was working as a technical contractor for the Navy and had a valid pass and security clearance allowing him entry to the highly secure building in south-east Washington DC.

About 8:15 local time (12:15 GMT), Alexis entered Building 197, headquarters for Naval Sea Systems Command, which builds and maintains ships and submarines for the Navy, and opened fire.

Armed with a shotgun and a pistol he took from a guard he had shot, he sprayed bullets down a hallway and fired from a balcony down on to workers in an atrium.

He fired on police officers who eventually stormed the building, and was later killed in the shootout.

Multiple sources in the Capitol Police department have told the BBC that its highly trained and heavily armed four-man Containment and Emergency Response Team (Cert) was near the Navy Yard when the initial report of an active shooter came in about 8:20 local time.

The officers, wearing full tactical gear and armed with HK-416 assault weapons, arrived outside Building 197 a few minutes later, an official with knowledge of the incident told the BBC.

‘A different outcome’

According to a Capitol Police source, an officer with the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), Washington DC’s main municipal force, told the Capitol Cert officers they were the only police on the site equipped with long guns and requested their help stopping the gunman.

When the Capitol Police team radioed their superiors, they were told by a watch commander to leave the scene, the BBC was told.

The gunman, Aaron Alexis, was reported killed after 9:00.

Several Capitol Police sources who spoke to the BBC asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal.

Capitol Police Officer Jim Konczos, who leads the officers’ union, said the Cert police train for what are known as active shooter situations and are expert marksmen.

“Odds are it might have had a different outcome,” he said of Monday’s shooting and the decision to order the Cert unit to stand down. “It probably could have been neutralised.”

A spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police Department, which protects the city of Washington DC, said allegations that a Capitol Police Cert team was on scene and later stood down were “not true”.

On Wednesday, the Capitol Police said in a statement its leadership had “opened a preliminary investigation into the allegations”.

“The [Capitol Police] offered and provided mutual support and assistance at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday,” said spokeswoman Lt Kimberly Schneider.

‘A blind eye’

Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Terry Gainer, who oversees the Capitol Police department, confirmed officials were pulling radio logs from Monday’s incident and interviewing the officers involved.

“It’s a very serious allegation and inference to indicate that we were on scene and could have helped and were told to leave,” he said. “It crushes me if that’s the case.”

Mr Gainer said that while the department’s primary responsibility was to protect the Capitol complex, which houses the US Congress, that mission did not allow it to turn a “blind eye” when asked for help.

Alexis had a history of mental health problems, previous gun-related brushes with the law, and citations for insubordination.

On Wednesday, US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel acknowledged “there were a lot of red flags” in Alexis’ background that had been missed in the security clearance process which ultimately resulted in his having access to the secure building where he undertook the attack.

“Why they didn’t get picked up, why they didn’t get incorporated into the clearance process, what he was doing, those are all legitimate questions that we’re going to be dealing with,” he told reporters.

Right call?

He said he had ordered the Pentagon to conduct a wide-ranging review of the physical security at all US defence installations across the world and of the security clearance process.

“Where there are gaps, we will close them,” he said. “Where there are inadequacies, we will address them. And where there are failures, we will correct them.”

A Capitol Police officer who heard the Cert request over the radio to engage the gunman reported colleagues within the department felt frustrated they were told to stand down.

The officer described a culture in which emergency responders are instructed to not extend themselves beyond the Capitol grounds for fear of discipline.

“They were relying on our command staff to make the right call,” another Capitol Police officer said. “Unfortunately, I don’t think that happened in this case.”

Russia says it would present UN Security Council with evidence of rebel chemical arms use | JPost | Israel News.

( Now this is interesting.  They wouldn’t be presenting this evidence if it wasn’t at least pretty good.  Given the Al Qaeda forces in the opposition, it’s not beyond credibility that they would have used chemicals.  – JW )

Iran sees ‘opening’ in nuclear debate with the West | JPost | Israel News.

Assad using tunnels to smuggle arms to Hezbollah, Saudi daily claims | The Times of Israel.

Opposition sources claim underground passageways have replaced vegetable trucks as means of getting Syrian chemical weapons to Lebanon

A smuggling tunnel on the Gaza-Egypt border (photo credit: AP Photo/Kevin Frayer, File)

Opposition sources reportedly told a Saudi newspaper that the Assad regime is smuggling chemical weapons to Hezbollah through tunnels connecting Syrian and Lebanese villages.

According to the Wednesday report in the Al-Watan daily, the move is part of a drive by the regime to remove its chemical weapons stockpiles from Syrian territory before the arrival of international observers as part of a Russia-US agreement aimed at stripping Syria of its non-conventional arms.

The Al-Watan report could not be confirmed by other sources and appeared in a Saudi establishment daily staunchly supportive of the Syrian opposition, which has called for a Western military strike against Syria.

The regime has chosen three destinations for its weapons, the daily claimed: Iraq, under the supervision of Iran’s Al-Quds Force and with the agreement of Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki; Hezbollah in Lebanon; and Russian warships docked in Syria. Previously, the transfer of the internationally banned weapons was undertaken using vegetable trucks, Al-Watan reported.

Salim Idris, the commander of the opposition Free Syrian Army, has claimed numerous times over the past week that the Assad regime is busy hiding its chemical weapons in Lebanon, Iraq and in multiple locations throughout Syria.

On Monday, Free Syrian Army spokesman Fahed Al-Masri claimed that the Assad regime completed two transfers of chemical weapons to Hezbollah three months ago, storing the weapons in four locations in northern and central Lebanon.

“We have video recordings and irrefutable documents proving the truth of this,” Al-Masri said.

However, Maj.-Gen. Yair Golan, head of IDF Northern Command, said Wednesday that Israel now believes Hezbollah does not want Assad’s chemical weapons.

Speaking to Yedioth Ahronoth, Golan said that in exchange for sending troops to help Assad against the rebels, Hezbollah requested advanced munitions such as anti-aircraft and ground-to-ground missiles, which could change the balance of power vis-a-vis the IDF, but “as far as we can tell, they don’t want” chemical weapons.

Israel has conducted airstrikes inside Syria at least three times this year, in what sources said were attempts to block shipments of advanced weaponry to Hezbollah.

A UN report published Monday found “clear and convincing” evidence that sarin gas was used in an attack against civilians in the outskirts of Damascus on August 21, but fell short of accusing the Assad regime of perpetrating the attack.

Gavriel Fiske contributed to this report.