From: My Lebanese American friend whois the widow
of an American Diplomat to Irag who served in that post in
the fifties.

To: bronwinpeel@hotmail.com
Subject: RE: Another Must Read Article by Seymour Hersh
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2007 17:28:35 -0500


I personally believe that U.S funded special forces (Mossad, South
American, etc) are arming and funding both sides in order to
regionalize Iraq in order to control its resources.

However, just remember, no country or organization, anywhere, can
do this without the cooperation of some of the native inhabitants
----and Arabs, as history proves, are for sale, e.g. Palestine,
Iraq, etc. Wherever there are greedy, unscrupulous people for
sale----even here, witness our Congress, any country shall know
suffering, killing and unending misery.

America has become a military economy, and therefore needs wars to
sell our weapons. When our men are needed, we send the poor and
uneducated---not at all what our Lady Liberty had in mind: "give
me your poor, your hungry masses, yearning to breathe free, the
wretched refuse of your teaming shores, send me the homeless,
tempest tossed, I lift my lamp beside the golden door..

>From: bronwinpeel@hotmail.com
>To: My Lebanese American Friend
>Subject: Another Must Read Article by Seymour Hersh
>Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2007 08:49:48 -0800 (PST)
>
>Hersh: U.S. Funds Being Secretly Funneled To Violent
>Al Qaeda-Linked Groups >

New Yorker columnist Sy Hersh says the “single most
>explosive” element of his latest article involves an
>effort by the Bush administration to stem the growth
>of Shiite influence in the Middle East (specifically
>the Iranian government and Hezbollah in Lebanon) by
>funding violent Sunni groups.
>
>Hersh says the U.S. has been “pumping money, a great
>deal of money, without congressional authority,
>without any congressional oversight” for covert
>operations in the Middle East where it wants to “stop
>the Shiite spread or the Shiite influence.” Hersh says
>these funds have ended up in the hands of “three Sunni
>jihadist groups” who are “connected to al Qaeda” but
>“want to take on Hezbollah.”
>
>Hersh summed up his scoop in stark terms: “We are
>simply in a situation where this president is really
>taking his notion of executive privilege to the
>absolute limit here, running covert operations, using
>money that was not authorized by Congress, supporting
>groups indirectly that are involved with the same
>people that did 9/11.” Watch it:
>
>
>Hersh added, “All of this should be investigated by
>Congress, by the way, and I trust it will be. In my
>talking to membership — members there, they are very
>upset that they know nothing about this. And they have
>a great many suspicions.”
>
>Digg It!
>
>Transcript:
>
>BLITZER: Near the end of your article, you have this
>explosive point in there about John Negroponte, who is
>now going to be the deputy secretary of state, as
>opposed to the head of U.S. intelligence.
>
>You write this: “I was subsequently told by the two
>government consultants and the former senior
>intelligence officials that the echoes of Iran-Contra
>were a factor in Negroponte’s decision to resign from
>the National Intelligence directorship and accept the
>position of deputy secretary of state.”
>
>Explain what you were hearing, because that is
>obviously a very explosive charge.
>
>HERSH: Yes. It is probably the single most explosive,
>if you will, or depressing — or distressing sort of
>thing I discovered in the last few months, which is
>simply this. This administration has made a policy
>change, a decision that they are going to put all of
>the pressure they can on the Shiites, that is the
>Shiite regime in Iran, the Shiite — and they are also
>doing everything they can to stop Hezbollah — which is
>Shiite, the Hezbollah organization from getting any
>control or any more of a political foothold in
>Lebanon.
>
>So they essentially, I quote the — I saw Nasrallah,
>the head of Hezbollah, and he described it this way,
>as “fitna (ph),” the Arab word for “civil war.” As far
>as he is concerned, we are interested in recreating
>what is happening in Iraq in Lebanon, that is Sunni
>versus Shia. And in looking into that story, and I saw
>him in December, I found this. That we have been
>pumping money, a great deal of money, without
>congressional authority, without any congressional
>oversight, Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia is putting up
>some of this money, for covert operations in many
>areas of the Middle East where we think that the — we
>want to stop the Shiite spread or the Shiite
>influence.
>
>They call it the “Shiite Crescent.” And a lot of this
>money, and I can’t tell you with absolute certainty
>how — exactly when and how, but this money has gotten
>into the hands — among other places, in Lebanon, into
>the hands of three — at least three jihadist groups.
>There are three Sunni jihadist groups whose main claim
>to fame inside Lebanon right now is that they are very
>tough. These are people connected to al Qaeda who want
>to take on Hezbollah. So this government, at the
>minimum, we may not directly be funneling money to
>them, but we certainly know that these groups exist.
>
>My government, which arrests al Qaeda every place it
>can find them and send — some of them are n Guantanamo
>and other places, is sitting back while the Lebanese
>government we support, the government of Prime
>Minister Siniora, is providing arms and sustenance to
>three jihadist groups whose sole function, seems to me
>and to the people that talk to me in our government,
>to be there in case there is a real shoot-’em-up with
>Hezbollah and we really get into some sort of serious
>major conflict between the Sunni government and
>Hezbollah, which is largely Shia, who are basically —
>or as you know, there is a coalition headed by
>Hezbollah that is challenging the government right
>now, demonstrations, sit-ins.
>
>There has been some violence. So America, my country,
>without telling Congress, using funds not
>appropriated, I don’t know where, by my sources
>believe much of the money obviously came from Iraq
>where there is all kinds of piles of loose money,
>pools of cash that could be used for covert
>operations.
>
>All of this should be investigated by Congress, by the
>way, and I trust it will be. In my talking to
>membership — members there, they are very upset that
>they know nothing about this. And they have great many
>suspicions.
>
>We are simply in a situation where this president is
>really taking his notion of executive privilege to the
>absolute limit here, running covert operations, using
>money that was not authorized by Congress, supporting
>groups indirectly that are involved with the same
>people that did 9/11, and we should be arresting these
>people rather than looking the other way…
>
>BLITZER: And your bottom line, Sy…
>
>HERSH: … and could lead to a real mess…
>
>BLITZER: Your bottom line is that Negroponte was aware
>of this, obviously, and he wanted to distance himself
>from it? That is why he decided to give up that
>position and take the number two job at the State
>Department?
>
>HERSH: He — that is one of the reasons, I was told.
>Negroponte also was not in tune with Cheney. There was
>a lot of complaints about him because he was seen as
>much of a stickler, too ethical for some of the
>operations the Pentagon wants to run.
>
>Filed under: Middle East, Iran, Iraq
>
>