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Posted on 06/25/2002 8:53:17 PM PDT by Pokey78
WASHINGTON, June 25 — President Bush decided to call for Yasir Arafat's removal after receiving intelligence information last week showing that the Palestinian leader had authorized a $20,000 payment to a group that claimed responsibility for the most recent suicide attack in Jerusalem, senior administration officials said today.
As a result, the officials said, the aggressive diplomacy that had originally been expected to follow the president's speech — including an immediate trip to the region by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and a Middle East peace conference — will now be delayed. Instead, officials acknowledged today that they would need a new round of consultations before deciding on their next steps.
Although Arab leaders said President Bush's call for Mr. Arafat's removal had caught them by surprise, most simply chose to ignore the speech's emphasis on replacing the Palestinian leaders. Instead, they offered constructive and cautiously supportive public comments.
Privately, however, they said they were pressing for clarifications on the next steps, including how quickly the administration would urge Israel to withdraw its military forces from the West Bank and Gaza so the process of Palestinian security and government reforms could begin.
An unresolved question that has complicated any short-term plan for travel by Mr. Powell is Mr. Arafat's status between now and the scheduled Palestinian national elections in January. The State Department spokesman, Richard A. Boucher, faced a barrage of questions about whether the secretary could ever talk to Mr. Arafat again.
He replied: "It's not something I can rule in or rule out at this point. It's just not on the table right now."
One Egyptian diplomat, referring to Mr. Bush's recent meeting with President Hosni Mubarak, said: "At Camp David, President Bush said Arafat is not the issue, and we interpreted this to mean that he is not the issue. So why did he make him the issue?"
The answer, administration officials said, lay in part in the intelligence reports received last week that showed Mr. Arafat continuing to finance Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, the group that claimed responsibility for a bus-stop bombing that killed six people, even as he claimed to be cracking down on terror in response to Washington's demands. That information, officials said, hardened Mr. Bush's resolve to replace him.
"That was a key," one senior official said. "It sealed it."
The last-minute intelligence reports also appear to have given the upper hand in shaping the president's speech to Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and their aides. For months they had pressed for a harsher stance against Mr. Arafat, while Secretary Powell had argued that whatever his shortcomings, Mr. Arafat was the designated Palestinian leader.
In broadcast interviews today, Secretary Powell went out of his way to emphasize his full support for the new policy. But he also sounded a plaintive note that the Palestinians were continuing to undermine their own cause, and making it more difficult for the United States to help them.
He was ambiguous about the consequences for the president's new policy, should Mr. Arafat be re-elected in a new and free election as the Palestinian leader, saying, "We will deal with the circumstances as we find them."
Secretary Powell also pleaded for time to work out specifics.
"A number of people want to see the details; how do we get there?" Secretary Powell said in an interview with Radio Sawa, the United States government's station in the Middle East. "These are difficult issues, and I think it's a little unreasonable to expect us to or anyone right now to have a precise road map as to how you get there."
Secretary Powell said he had no immediate plans for travel to the Middle East, or for a planned foreign ministers conference to discuss peace proposals, and said, "I need to take some time now to assess the situation, see if we can get things stabilized," before moving forward. Senior officials said only that Mr. Powell might go within the next few weeks.
In fact, officials acknowledged, Mr. Bush's strong new emphasis on reform of Palestinian government as a virtual precondition for progress toward peace amounted to such a shift in administration policy that it would take some time to settle on the next steps, including how much day-to-day involvement American officials would have on the ground.
"Because there's been a sort of fundamental shift away from `What do we do next?'` to `O.K., we can't do anything next because there's a problem and we have to fix it first'; we're still sorting that out," one official said.
Arab leaders chose to overlook the parts of the speech they did not like to focus on what they did, like Mr. Bush's statement that "peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership." President Mubarak called the speech balanced, wrapping his own support in the fact that the Palestinian Authority endorsed it, while noting that he needed further clarification.
Although President Bush hinged a Palestinian state on the idea that the Palestinians elect a new leadership, Mr. Mubarak noted that he had not heard any explicit call for Mr. Arafat's removal.
"I did not see any indication in the statement that calls for ousting Arafat, just calls for reforming the Authority and finding a new administration, and this has a very wide meaning," Mr. Mubarak said. "We are waiting for Powell to come and explain to us some issues, how to implement these ideas and to learn what is meant by reform."
The government of Jordan also issued a statement lauding the speech as the beginning of the end of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Foreign Minister Marwan J. Muasher, while noting some disappointments, said the president at least gave the Arabs a tangible goal.
"The President was very tough on Arafat and the Palestinians, certainly, but once we look beyond the tough words at the framework he set out, it is a positive framework," Mr. Muasher said in a telephone interview. "We have a goal to end the occupation in three years. It comes with a lot of conditions, sure, but we are ready to take this."
Still, one adviser to a close Arab ally noted that the recent Israeli military action had destroyed much of the Palestinian Authority, leaving it unclear who was responsible for security and political reform in the short term.
Analysts here said everything would depend on what concrete steps the administration took now, and how involved Mr. Bush would be.
"Whether the speech succeeds," said Martin S. Indyk, a former ambassador to Israel now at the Brookings Institution, "depends on the follow through by the president and the secretary of state, and we don't have any indication of what form that will take."
Mr. Boucher, the State Department spokesman, said telephone consultations were already under way, as is restructuring of the Palestinian security force under the guidance of the C.I.A. director, George J. Tenet.
But when a reporter said it was unclear "what tangibly is going on," Mr. Boucher replied: "Good. You don't have a sense of it because it's not set yet."
Having the 'goods' on Arafat like this is usually necessary to convince the bleeding heart Euros. Good thing to have going into G8.
Senior administration officials concede you are correct. One Egyptian diplomat thinks you hit it on the mark. Privately, officials acknowledged you are very perceptive. One adviser to a close Arab ally concurs.
Win the game and your complete registration fees are covered for FRiva Las Vegas.
Report Also Reveals Arafat Suffers from Advanced Prostate Cancer and Cerebral Edema
Ailing Arafat Overhauls His High Terror Command
DEBKAfile Special Report
25 June: Ten days before President George W. Bush told the Palestinians to remove their leaders if they wanted a state (on June 24), an intelligence report landing on his desk informed him that Arafat had jumped the gun on the presidential statement. Instead of instituting democratic reforms, the Palestinian leader had overhauled and recharged his terror command structure in readiness for a savage terrorist offensive intended to reach also US targets in Israel and the Middle East.
In picture r. to l.: Saher Habash, Abu Mazen, Arafat
A Washington source, apprised of the report’s contents, told DEBKAfile that rarely had the US president been so furious.
The Palestinian leader’s reshuffle and re-energizing of his personal terrorist operational staff structure were executed in advance of the Bush speech, accompanied by a deadly series of suicide killings in Israel. In remolding his terror command, Arafat had two objectives:
First, to pack it with terror operatives whose personal loyalty to him is above question;
Second, to make sure the different arms of his terror machine are smoothly synchronized.
Another of the report’s disclosures refers to the serious decline in Arafat’s health in recent months. He is said to suffer from prostate cancer requiring surgery, as well as cerebral edema from the blow he received some years ago when his plane made a forced landing. Aware that he needs hospital care, the Palestinian leader has not decided when or where to receive it. After the Bush speech, he dropped an earlier plan to get himself admitted to the American Mayo Clinic, fearing he would be banned from entering the US, even for medical treatment.
Arafat’s medical chart was assembled for the US intelligence report from the list of medicines Israel was asked to provide when his compound in Ramallah was under Israeli siege, and also from the taped conversations he had with his Jordanian physician, Dr. al-Kurd, during that month, when he came from Amman to examine him.
The fact stressed in this intelligence report is that, from the moment he was faced with demands to reform his administration, the Palestinian leader dropped all the top aides that the American and Israeli media cited as would-be candidates for key roles in the reformed government and security services.
Mohamed Dahlan, head of the preventive security apparatus in the Gaza Strip, was axed after he staged an almost royal public appearance in Gaza. When Arafat saw how an army of bodyguards cleared a two-kilometer square “sterile” area, before his Gazan aide marched up to the platform, he decided Dahalan was too ambitious to be trusted.
Dahlan’s opposite number of the West Bank, Jibril Rajoub, was likewise sacked for his close ties with Americans and Israelis.
Arafat’s personal financial adviser, Muhammed Rashid, possibly the only individual fully privy to the Palestinian leader’s secret accounts and investments, is out of favor, though not dismissed. Questions were asked in early April when Rashid was not included among the favored few whom the Palestinian leader kept with him throughout the Israeli siege of his quarters. Arafat heard that, while he was trapped, Rashid was going around talking to Americans, Europeans and Israelis, and even cracking jokes about his master’s plight. He became deeply suspicious of the get-togethers Rashid and Dahlan were holding in secret, about which neither reported to him. Arafat’s first thought was that the two were plotting to oust him and, worse, to bankroll their putsch by commandeering his private assets.
As soon as the Israeli tanks pinning him down in Ramallah pulled back, Arafat removed Rashid from access to his bank accounts. He cancelled Rashid’s power of attorney, making his Paris-based wife Suha trustee instead.
The followers of Dahlan, Rajoub and the Fatah West Bank secretary arrested by Israel, Marwan Barghouti, were all sacked.
Arafat thus dropped leading members of his terror guard of recent years and replaced them, by and large, with trusted veterans. The key names are revealed here by DEBKAfile’s counter-terror and intelligence sources:
Salim Zaanun, 70: The Palestinian National Council chairman, who lives permanently in Amman.
His new task: Management of Arafat’s connections with the Hamas and Jihad Islami commands in Damascus and Lebanon.
Maher Ghanem, 60: Chef de bureau of Palestinian foreign minister Farouk Kadoumi (who never accepted the Oslo 1993 Accords).
His new task: Zaanun’s operational liaison in Damascus with the radical Hamas, Jjhad Islami, and Ahmad Jibril’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command.
Tayeb Abd a-Rahim, 56 : Palestinian Authority Secretary
His new task: Coordinator between the Gaza Strip and West Bank terror operations of the Hamas, Jihad Islami and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Saher Habash, 75: Head of the multi-group Intifada Committees.
His new task: Supreme coordinator between Salim Zaanun, Maher Ghanem and Tayeb Abd a-Rahim, and the only one reporting directly to Arafat.
Also in charge of Arafat’s most secret terrorist connections, those he maintains with the Lebanese Hizballah.
Feisal Abu Shrah, 65: Commander of Force 17’s terror operations. He is senior to -
Muhamed Damra, 48: Commander of Ramallah contingent of Force 17, Arafat’s personal guard, and the defenses at the Palestinian leaders’ headquarters. Damra is senior officer of the Ramallah government center’s security detail.
His new task: To maintain direct lines of communication between Arafat and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards posted in Lebanon and the Hizballah secretary Hassan Nasrallah.
Damra is also controller of the Hizballah cells operating under cover in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. His direct commander is Saher Habash; he has no access to Arafat.
Col. Tawfiq Tirawi, 49: Arafat’s most trusted terror operative. Pro forma head of general security on the West Bank, Tirawi retains his clandestine duties as chief of the terrorist arm of Arafat’s Fatah organization - al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades - and is the senior connecting link between his boss and Iraqi military intelligence headquarters in Baghdad as well as its agents in Amman, Ramallah and other parts of the West Bank.
Rashid Abu Shbak, 42: Officially, Dahlan’s second in command in the Gaza Strip security service.
His new task: Director of the Gaza Strip joint terror operational command shared by Fatah, Force 17, elements of the various Palestinian “security” services, Hamas, the PFLP and the Jihad Islami.
Bush’s move against Arafat and his regime has an unspoken significance: He has virtually lumped them in with his original “axis of evil”, alongside Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Syrian President Bashar Assad is but a step away from joining this black list. When the US president orders military action in the Middle East to go forward, every regional member of this axis will be targeted by American might.
Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres, the most dedicated Oslo Peace accord partisan, quickly apprehended the clear diplomatic victory the Bush speech signaled for Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon. Twenty-four hours after threatening to resign over the government’s decision to build a security fence dividing Israel for Palestinian terror centers, Peres changed course. He joined the majority of ministers in favor of the 215-mile security barrier project, pulling away from the Palestinian nay-sayers and their European backers.
The European reaction to the Bush speech was surprisingly mild, as it was to Israel’s military incursions this week into seven Palestinian West Bank towns and its preparations for a similar anti-terror offensive in the Gaza Strip. The Bush administration and the Sharon government are plainly operating in harness to counter Arafat’s new terror command and its non-Palestinian affiliates and sponsors. The European governments, which have loyally espoused Arafat’s cause for so long, show signs of feeling they are backing a losing side.
Clearly, the US president is now as determined to remove Arafat is he is to get rid of Saddam Hussein and Nasrallah. Bashar Assad still has a last chance.
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