02 Jul 2009 06:39:16 GMT
Source: Reuters
* Saddam feared inspectors would identify weakness to Iran
* Interviews show Iraqi leader saw bin Laden as "zealot"
* Told questioners he saw North Korea as ally in a crunch
By JoAnne Allen
WASHINGTON, July 2 (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein believed Iran was a significant threat to Iraq and left open the possibility that he had weapons of mass destruction rather than appear vulnerable, according to declassified FBI documents on interrogations of the former Iraqi leader.
"Hussein believed that Iraq could not appear weak to its enemies, especially Iran," FBI special agent George Piro wrote on notes of a conversation with Saddam in June 2004 about weapons of mass destruction.
He believed Iraq was being threatened by others in the region and must appear able to defend itself, the report said.
The FBI reports, released on Wednesday, said Saddam asserted that he was more concerned about Iran discovering Iraq's weaknesses and vulnerabilities than the repercussions of the United States for blocking the return of UN weapons inspectors who were searching for WMD.
"In his opinion, the UN inspectors would have directly identified to the Iranians where to inflict maximum damage to Iraq," according to the documents obtained and released by the National Security Archive, a nongovernmental research institute.
Saddam began a bloody border war with Iran in 1980 that lasted until 1988, during which Iraq used chemical weapons.
Former U.S. President George W. Bush launched the Iraq war in 2003, citing a threat of weapons of mass destruction from Saddam's government, but no such weapons were ever found.
FBI special agents carried out 20 formal interviews and at least five "casual conversations" with the former Iraqi leader after his capture by U.S. troops in December 2003, according to the documents.
Saddam, identified as "High Value Detainee #1," shared Bush's hostility towards the "fanatic" Iranian mullahs, according to the FBI records of conversations from February through June 2004 between Saddam and Arabic-speaking agents in his detention cell at Baghdad International Airport.
Saddam also denied any connections to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who he called a "zealot," and cited North Korea as his most likely ally in a crunch, according to the documents.
He also takes personal responsibility for ordering the launching of SCUD missiles against Israeli targets during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, because he blamed Israel and its influence in the United States for "all the problems of the Arabs," the reports said.
During the interviews, Saddam rejects some examples of what he viewed as myths, like his purported use of body doubles. According to the notes, Saddam said he could recall using the telephone only twice since March 1990 and that he communicated primarily through couriers.
Saddam was executed in December 2006 after being convicted of crimes against humanity by an Iraqi court for the killing of 148 Shi'ite men and boys following a 1982 assassination attempt. (Editing by Eric Walsh)
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Iranian Police Forcibly Disperse Women's Rights Protest In Tehran
6/14/06
By Golnaz Esfandiari
PRAGUE, June 13, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Iranian police violently dispersed a women's rights gathering in one of Tehran's main squares on June 12.
Activists said afterward that police forces detained more than 50 people shortly after the gathering started. One former reformist legislator, several students, and women's rights activists are reportedly among the detainees. Several activists were arrested and summoned to court ahead of the announced gathering.
Police beating women deomonstrators
photo by Arash Ashoorinia, Kosoof.com
Activists say several hundred demonstrators of both genders attended the peaceful gathering, which was held to protest legal obstacles for women.
They were planning to remain in front of a nearby park for one hour and voice their objections to discriminatory laws.
According to the interpretation of Islamic laws applied in Iran, a woman's testimony in court is worth half of a man's. Women's divorce rights are negligible compared with those for men. And women need the permission of their father or husband to travel.
Activists planned to call for equal legal rights in marriage, divorce, child custody, inheritance, and other areas.
They also said that they would read aloud a statement claiming that despite efforts to achieve equal status, women's most basic rights "have been ignored in the Iranian civil and penal codes."
Authorities Were Prepared
But shortly after the gathering started, participants faced tough action by police forces, who dispersed the gathering within about an hour.
Keyvan Rafi, the spokesman of a newly founded group that calls itself Human Rights Activists In Iran, told RFE/RL that police and security forces outnumbered protesters.
He said they resorted to force to crush the protest.
"[Police] forces -- especially armed female officers with batons -- suppressed the protest," Rafi said. "Between 70 and 80 people were arrested -- former MP Mussavi Khoinia, women's rights activist from Amir Kabir University Leila Mohseninejad, and also members of Daftare Tahkim Vahdat [major reformist student organizations] are among those arrested -- in addition to many women whose name we have not been able to obtain yet."
Despite the clashes, some protesters managed to chant slogans urging that laws against women be abolished.
Some bloggers claiming to have witnessed the scene accused authorities of dragging women on the ground by their hair and savagely beating others. They say pepper gas was used against the activists.
Police confronting women deomonstrators
photo by Arash Ashoorinia, Kosoof.com
Pattern Of Repression
The June 12 protest came exactly one year after more than 1,000 women's rights activists staged a protest in front on Tehran University. They called for legislative change to guarantee equal rights for women. That demonstration was also forcefully dispersed by police.
But activists have vowed to continue their peaceful protests until their demands are met.
Three months ago, on March 8, they held another gathering in Tehran to commemorate UN-sponsored International Women's Day. That assembly was also broke up by security forces, who detained several people.
Activist Fariba Davoudi Mohajer -- who was among those summoned to court ahead of the June 12 gathering -- told Radio Farda on June 8 that activists are ready to pay a price for their efforts.
"Women have a common discourse that is based on demands for equality," Mohajer said. "We have reached the conclusion that we have to work together, and this is a very positive development in the history of Iran's women's movement. This is a continuous movement with [solid] roots. The community of Iranian women has also accepted the costs [women] must pay for their actions. They have accepted that a social movement has its price, and they have to pay for it."
photo by Arash Ashoorinia, Kosoof.com (more photos)
Nobel Appeal
Last week, during a meeting in Vienna, outspoken Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi said that Iranian women should not tolerate legal discrimination.
"The discriminatory laws are applied in a country whose women are better educated than its men," Ebadi said. "More than 65 percent of our university students are girls. Naturally, a society where its women are so cultivated and so well-educated cannot tolerate evident gender discrimination in the laws."
On Ebadi's initiative, four fellow female Nobel Peace Prize laureates expressed public support for the June 12 gathering in Tehran.
Guatemala's Rigoberta Menchu, America's Jody Williams, Kenya's Wangari Maathai, and Northern Ireland's Betty Williams joined Ebadi in saying they support Iranian women in their continued struggle for equal rights.
Ahead of the ill-fated demonstration, Amnesty International also called on the Iranian government to end discrimination against women. The London-based rights watchdog said Iranian officials should take prompt action to address laws that continue to deny women basic rights.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright (c) 2006 RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org
© Copyright 2006 NetNative
(All Rights Reserved)
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
US have 700 bases in 190 countries i/c Iraq
I am going to kind to you because I am going to tell you the awful and total truth.
I am going to tell you the future. I am going to tell you so you can understand the past and look at what is certainly going to come. With no lies and no illusions.
Iraq is a major producer of something more valuable than Gold and Diamonds. Those things are luxuries, not necessities. Iraq has a world NECESSITY, Oil.
Fagan has always been right in that respect although he ignores that that isn't what average Americans believe or are motivated to lay down their lives to obtain. The average American believes in Freedom and Justice and opportunity and a host of other ideals which he enjoys and the rest of the world have never had. The American soldier is proud of his competence and arms and his training and his capacity. He is ready to defend the weak and lift up the oppressed. He is willing to die for that.
What he doesnt realize and the vast bulk of the American people dont realize either is that the United States consumes 87% of the worlds resources and has only about 23% of the worlds population and they dont give a rats ass about seeing their "way of life" cut back so the rest of the world's population can move into their refrigerator and sleep in their beds.
The average American believes with all his Jesus loving soul that if the whole dirty stinking world would simply do it the American way and wipe their ass twice and smile they TOO could own a dachshund(A small dog of a breed developed in Germany for hunting badgers and having a long body, a usually shorthaired brown or black and brown coat, drooping ears, and very short legs.
) and run around in Nikes. That will never happen and the average American is not going to share his Cheetoes.
Iraq is at present the cutting edge of the pie for Oil. The whole of the Middle East is now "Indian Country" and Cochise((1810?-74) legendary Chiricahua Apache chief, born probably in southeastern Arizona. Cochise participated in raids on Mexican settlements in the 1830s and 1840s, and became the principal chief of the Chokonen band in 1856. During the mid-1850s he alternated allegiances between the United States and Mexico.) and Sitting Bull are going to get the shi7 kicked out of their Islamic buffalo because the Capitalist red white and Blue is railroading through every Mosque in town and headed right up Fatimah's collective ass.
And you donkey poop Moslems are in the way and you dont have a chance in hell of stopping us. Its already too late. Iraq was invaded and we took it and NOW its going to get royally tubed and I will tell you how.
It began two whole generation ago, back sixty years ago. The United States won the Second World War and we then decided we would rebuild the world in our own advantage. We started the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe and we started institutions worldwide like the World Bank.
The Capitalist System started the containment of Communism and the Cold War... and we won that TOO ! Russian and China today are being incorporated. They will just be within OUR system as units in that system and no matter what happens Russia and China will become just like US. We will compete but ideologically we will still eat with the same fork. Do you understand that?
Islam is going to be castrated and their culture and way of life is going to be gutted like a dead pig. They will survive in a manner we determine and its already too late.
The raw resources of the Middle East are going to be consolidated in a system dominated by the ideology of the West...China and Russia included. Over this next Century China and Russia will be in on the deal..
The central Asian matrix will be a Capitalist NEXUS. And the Middle East from end to end top to bottom and throughout its little twisted arteries and guts will be Corporatized and Allah will get what we give him which will probably be minimum wage.
In Iraq there will be billions of dollars put forward for the Iraqi infrastructure and for the the Iraqi people ( ostensibly)..but in reality it will all flow through the pockets of elites in Iraq. Elected by you quite "democratically". Iraq will get huge LOANS and the money will go ( not to the Iraqi people) but to the Corporations who will buy your politicians and your Generals and your elites and the money will be directed to construction and engineering and ( guess what?) the Corporations will be paying THEMSELVES. Electric Power, Clean water Sanitation, supermarkets and irrigation, highways, freeways, industrial parks, airports...and in return .....we get your Oil.
You will get Universities and Rayban sunglasses and Calvin Klein Jeans and Madonna tits and pornography and reruns of Dallas on TV. And Islam will get the best whiskey money can buy and all the whores they can climb. Your children will be educated in the best new schools with a free milk program and textbooks approved by the Jews and printed in your own language.
The World Bank and its International Monetary Fund sibling are not interested in the love of Allah. There are 184 member countries and they all vote with the United States and Japan usually...and China and Russia get a big cut too. Iraq is going to be OWNED.
The United States is headed for FULL SPECTRUM DOMINANCE over the whole world over the rest of this Century. They are going to achieve it too.
The West comprises 23% of the worlds population and the United States comprises 5% of that. The United States consumes five TIMES more than its population's share of what the world produces. And inside of this century it will dominate everything on the Planet.
The United States maintains the LARGEST and most sophisticated military the human race has ever seen. It is TEN times bigger that everything else in the world...combined. We have over 700 military Bases all around the world in 190 countries. Iraq has now been added to that list and we will be IN IRAQ for the next 99 years.
Your government has our weapons and our backing because we are sure you arent going to give us any problem with the OiL. We are going to make damn sure that stays that way. Your politicians and your elites work for who pays them. Economically you are in our pocket. And your leaders understand that if they buck us we will send our military in and have them removed in hours.
You speak our language, you use our computers, you carry our weapons and we own your Generals and politician...we are in YOUR yard and you arent in ours.
We do not tax your country directly and the dollar has not replaced your currency, but your currency is backed by OURS and the gold reserves of Iraq are only convertible in US dollars.
the large Corporations and Oil Companies have 100,000 mercenary troops guarding your OiL fields and patrolling your pipelines. They are not elected, they control the Media and no matter who is elected President in Iraq OR the United States they will tell you what to do and when to do it.
By the end of this Century the United States will control Mecca and appoint a caretaker to run it.
Its inevitable. It will happen , is happening, will continue to happen. Nothing can stop it. I intend to make a profit all my life and have sons after me to inherit. Somebody win and somebody loses.
take a look around you. Somebody is going to take it ALL.
BUT It aint gonna be Allah.
The Jews are going to rebuild the Great Temple and there is going to be one helluva big war. And when its over the United States and Israel are going to go to the Stars.
Fallujah is what happens to monkeys who dont join the winning side.
Like Wounded Knee the dogs come in after dark and eat your face if you lost.
You cant win.... anymore than the Palestinians can avoid pissing and hiding.
We are going to take it all.
Seraph
I am going to tell you the future. I am going to tell you so you can understand the past and look at what is certainly going to come. With no lies and no illusions.
Iraq is a major producer of something more valuable than Gold and Diamonds. Those things are luxuries, not necessities. Iraq has a world NECESSITY, Oil.
Fagan has always been right in that respect although he ignores that that isn't what average Americans believe or are motivated to lay down their lives to obtain. The average American believes in Freedom and Justice and opportunity and a host of other ideals which he enjoys and the rest of the world have never had. The American soldier is proud of his competence and arms and his training and his capacity. He is ready to defend the weak and lift up the oppressed. He is willing to die for that.
What he doesnt realize and the vast bulk of the American people dont realize either is that the United States consumes 87% of the worlds resources and has only about 23% of the worlds population and they dont give a rats ass about seeing their "way of life" cut back so the rest of the world's population can move into their refrigerator and sleep in their beds.
The average American believes with all his Jesus loving soul that if the whole dirty stinking world would simply do it the American way and wipe their ass twice and smile they TOO could own a dachshund(A small dog of a breed developed in Germany for hunting badgers and having a long body, a usually shorthaired brown or black and brown coat, drooping ears, and very short legs.
) and run around in Nikes. That will never happen and the average American is not going to share his Cheetoes.
Iraq is at present the cutting edge of the pie for Oil. The whole of the Middle East is now "Indian Country" and Cochise((1810?-74) legendary Chiricahua Apache chief, born probably in southeastern Arizona. Cochise participated in raids on Mexican settlements in the 1830s and 1840s, and became the principal chief of the Chokonen band in 1856. During the mid-1850s he alternated allegiances between the United States and Mexico.) and Sitting Bull are going to get the shi7 kicked out of their Islamic buffalo because the Capitalist red white and Blue is railroading through every Mosque in town and headed right up Fatimah's collective ass.
And you donkey poop Moslems are in the way and you dont have a chance in hell of stopping us. Its already too late. Iraq was invaded and we took it and NOW its going to get royally tubed and I will tell you how.
It began two whole generation ago, back sixty years ago. The United States won the Second World War and we then decided we would rebuild the world in our own advantage. We started the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe and we started institutions worldwide like the World Bank.
The Capitalist System started the containment of Communism and the Cold War... and we won that TOO ! Russian and China today are being incorporated. They will just be within OUR system as units in that system and no matter what happens Russia and China will become just like US. We will compete but ideologically we will still eat with the same fork. Do you understand that?
Islam is going to be castrated and their culture and way of life is going to be gutted like a dead pig. They will survive in a manner we determine and its already too late.
The raw resources of the Middle East are going to be consolidated in a system dominated by the ideology of the West...China and Russia included. Over this next Century China and Russia will be in on the deal..
The central Asian matrix will be a Capitalist NEXUS. And the Middle East from end to end top to bottom and throughout its little twisted arteries and guts will be Corporatized and Allah will get what we give him which will probably be minimum wage.
In Iraq there will be billions of dollars put forward for the Iraqi infrastructure and for the the Iraqi people ( ostensibly)..but in reality it will all flow through the pockets of elites in Iraq. Elected by you quite "democratically". Iraq will get huge LOANS and the money will go ( not to the Iraqi people) but to the Corporations who will buy your politicians and your Generals and your elites and the money will be directed to construction and engineering and ( guess what?) the Corporations will be paying THEMSELVES. Electric Power, Clean water Sanitation, supermarkets and irrigation, highways, freeways, industrial parks, airports...and in return .....we get your Oil.
You will get Universities and Rayban sunglasses and Calvin Klein Jeans and Madonna tits and pornography and reruns of Dallas on TV. And Islam will get the best whiskey money can buy and all the whores they can climb. Your children will be educated in the best new schools with a free milk program and textbooks approved by the Jews and printed in your own language.
The World Bank and its International Monetary Fund sibling are not interested in the love of Allah. There are 184 member countries and they all vote with the United States and Japan usually...and China and Russia get a big cut too. Iraq is going to be OWNED.
The United States is headed for FULL SPECTRUM DOMINANCE over the whole world over the rest of this Century. They are going to achieve it too.
The West comprises 23% of the worlds population and the United States comprises 5% of that. The United States consumes five TIMES more than its population's share of what the world produces. And inside of this century it will dominate everything on the Planet.
The United States maintains the LARGEST and most sophisticated military the human race has ever seen. It is TEN times bigger that everything else in the world...combined. We have over 700 military Bases all around the world in 190 countries. Iraq has now been added to that list and we will be IN IRAQ for the next 99 years.
Your government has our weapons and our backing because we are sure you arent going to give us any problem with the OiL. We are going to make damn sure that stays that way. Your politicians and your elites work for who pays them. Economically you are in our pocket. And your leaders understand that if they buck us we will send our military in and have them removed in hours.
You speak our language, you use our computers, you carry our weapons and we own your Generals and politician...we are in YOUR yard and you arent in ours.
We do not tax your country directly and the dollar has not replaced your currency, but your currency is backed by OURS and the gold reserves of Iraq are only convertible in US dollars.
the large Corporations and Oil Companies have 100,000 mercenary troops guarding your OiL fields and patrolling your pipelines. They are not elected, they control the Media and no matter who is elected President in Iraq OR the United States they will tell you what to do and when to do it.
By the end of this Century the United States will control Mecca and appoint a caretaker to run it.
Its inevitable. It will happen , is happening, will continue to happen. Nothing can stop it. I intend to make a profit all my life and have sons after me to inherit. Somebody win and somebody loses.
take a look around you. Somebody is going to take it ALL.
BUT It aint gonna be Allah.
The Jews are going to rebuild the Great Temple and there is going to be one helluva big war. And when its over the United States and Israel are going to go to the Stars.
Fallujah is what happens to monkeys who dont join the winning side.
Like Wounded Knee the dogs come in after dark and eat your face if you lost.
You cant win.... anymore than the Palestinians can avoid pissing and hiding.
We are going to take it all.
Seraph
Regime Change in Iran: Why did CIA’s Green Revolution failed
Farhat Quaem Maquami
It is unfortunate that again we are witnessing the Mass Media in US, Left, Right and Center instead of analyzing facts and informing the public based on their intellectual assessment of a situation are beating on whatever is fed to them by the Intelligence community. The media feeding frenzy about Iran election sounds similar to the same sudden see of slavish approval of Bush’s plan of attack on Iraq. Let me put it pure and simple in both cases Media’s instead of being an independent observer of facts became Washington mouth piece and promoter of “imbedded” journalism.
Atrocities in Abu Ghareib, and holding innocents without bail in GITMO , torture, assassination, devastating Palestinian Refugee Camps in Gaza by phosphors bombs, making millions of Muslim families refugees in Iraq Afghanistan and Pakistan, has desensitized people. What happens in Iran. What is happening is child play compare to atrocities committed in GAZA Concentration Camp , Iraq and Afghanistan and millions of people uprooted during the same period in Pakistan during the past two weeks alone, without being mentioned in the Media. Ask yourself what makes an Iranian life more newsworthy than thousands of other life wasted in the Middle east alone during the same period.! Iranian protesters are protesting in your virtual world while atrocities committed elsewhere are real!
CIA attempt at Regime Change in Iran did not work because of failure of Intelligence!
Just like their debacle in Iraq they relied too much on Mujahedin, who are despised by every one.
in Iran as traitors, they relied too much on the Iranians ex-patriots organizations expert advice( just like they relied on Chalabi in Iraq), they fall into Mullah Rafsanjani’s MAFIA trap by supporting his candidate a mass murderer turned reformist, and finally too much reliance on Twiters and the Virtual world of internet which could not be sustained when confronted by Mullahs sheer control of their system and their mass followers.
Now CIA needs to resort to a more traditional method of subversion that it has perfected in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan! Mujaheddin are going to used to subvert Iran.
Obviously “ Failure of Intelligence” is not as dismal as Iraq, no assets were lost! Iranians loss of life was nothing compare to thousands of Muslims life that is wasted daily by American supported dictators and troops every day.
What works in prosperous America cannot work in Iran. In America it was possible to forge a candidate out of nowhere, represent him as candidate of “Change you can believe in”, make a revolution by blackberries, Twitters, and text messaging. “Yes you Can” win an election but it cannot make a “Regime Change.” Obama has followed policies set by Bush in every stage of the way because in American democracy personality and demagogy counts! In Iran they wants some “heads” on the table, not teleprompter speeches.
If you are wondering where the 270 billion of dollars Oil Revenue of Iran, in the past 4 years alone , have gone then look at Rafsanjani’s investment outside, in Canada. That is why all Media is supporting his candidate Mousavi!
US has decided to crack the ceiling of the Islamic Republic, which was neither Islamic nor a republic, and Iranians should fastened their belts, as there is no hope inside. out fear of reprisal and every one is keeping his silence, as no one knows how the ceiling would fall, where it falls and who is going to fix it. All we know that Disaster Capitalism is at work. But, Iran is controlled not by its Government but by Rafsanjani Mafia who does not want to dislodge and has convinced that his Candidate Mousavi has a chance! But, Rafsanjani, a British agent and CIA protégé is not a reformist but a gangster Mullah who is more than anybody else responsible for economic downfall of Iran.
If you are a residents of the West first and foremost admit you are not Iranian simply because you were born there or you speak Farsi! Iranians are only those suffering masses who live in Iran and face the Mafia Gang of Mullah Rafsanjani everyday, are suffering form 25 percent inflation, face daily corruption by Gangs of Mullahs, have been forced into drug and prostitution by Mullah Rafsanjani, are facing 25 per cent inflation and 25 percent unemployment and your assets are being transferred to the West by Mullahs. Please leave Iran to the real Iranians and they must change the regime on their own, if and when they decide. Ex patriots have no right of return, you are now part of a different planet.
However, all Iranians outside who feel for Iran and want to support Democracy in Iran, should start telling their government, instead of lip service to Democracy in support of a Mass Murderer like Mousavi, who is supported by Rafsanjani’s Criminal Enterprise, request your immigration Departments not to admit Mullahs, or Mullahs offspring, who are admitted routinely with $500 thousands of dollar stolen money from Iran. Start investigating Rafsanjani’s investments in Canada, Australia, Dubai and elsewhere ! Expose Rafsanjani and all Mullahs who are stealing the life blood of Iranians daily via their different foundations and stashing it into numbered corporations and offshore accounts! Let people of Iran invent their own heroes, their own leaders, their own revolutionaries and do not re-invent anyone from the past and any turn coats Mullahs, refurbished kings, used revolutionaries, armchair philosophers, ctitics , and the sea of snake oil salesmen who are on the payroll of CIA, BBC, Radio America, Ppersian Newspapers and TV personalities outside. Iranians need to create their own home grown heroes and you can not forge an Iranian Idol, similar to the production of the American Idol! Iran needs and would produce their own revolutionaries from inside! When it comes respect their choice!
Stop supporting a mass murderer and a corrupt persons like Mousavi who was there to preserve the Corrupt Rufsanjani Mafia which has ruined Iran. You want to help Iran expose Mullahs who transfer assets, expose Mullahs whose families and investments are outside, expose Mullahs who are involved in Drug and Human trade like Muklah Rafsamjani!
Tell your Government to follow all the investments of the head of Iranian Mafia in Iran in Toronto, Vancouver. building projects by Rafsanjani's Daughter, highway 7 tollway by Rafsanjani’s Spanish registered corporation, Condo projects of Rafsanjani Mafia in Canada. There are billions of dollars of Iranian assets which are transferred to Canada from 30 years back, which must be returned to Iran.
Now the same thieves are crying Foul because their candidate Mousavi did not get elected.
The Regime of Islamic Republic operates like Casa Nostra, they have at least 7 million informant, 200 thousands Mullahs, many different, yet united force of Mullahs who became the owners of means of production.
They control all branches of government. In addition, Rafsanjani Mafia operates and controls all illicit trades such as human trades, sending prostitute to Emirates, Import and export of drugs, any sort of smuggling and the control of black market.
Now, the same corrupt on Earth has been asked to investigate the election irregularities, what a farce!
If Democracy is good then encourage your government to get out of Afghanistan.
If you are killing the Resistance forces in Afghanistan, then Iranian can kill as many rioters who are paid by the CIA as they like, and they would have done it if they were united, but now there is thousands of cracks in the glass ceiling.
I understand you are not in moral high ground in anything anymore. If your government has permitted and has admitted Mullahs and drug dealers from Afghanistan and Iran to bring what they have stolen from their countries here you are an accomplice and facilitators of crime against these people.
Tell your Government start investigating Mullah's assets in Canada and do what you are doing to North Korea, freeze all Mullah Rafsanjani Family in Canada and take a lead in helping the struggle to get rid of Islamic Mafia in Iran.
Without action your tears for Iran means nothing for the suffering masses who have been forced into addiction by the Opium farms you cultivated, protected and marketed in Afghanistan and transported it via Rafsanjani Mafia to the West!
Mullahs were put in power by the US and now the US has ordered the Melt-down, so everybody is doing his best, so they can sake refuge in the West, they were nobody’s pushed on Iran by British Intelligent services and they have to create a person who they put in Iran to run it according to their design! The Masses have been manipulated for centuries in Iran, this would not be the last time!.
Mosharraf Zaidi: A broken election in a broken Iran
Posted: June 25, 2009, 2:00 PM by NP Editor
Mosharraf Zaidi
What is happening in Iran is not a CIA conspiracy to destabilise the Middle East. It is simply more evidence of the incapability of Muslim societies to competently conduct their affairs within the confines of an agreed set of rules. The Great Satan is not in Washington DC, or at the CIA headquarters. The Great Satan is the unfettered and dysfunctional state.
In Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and almost everywhere else where Muslims make up a majority of the population, this Great Satan is feeding monsters that are always a few speeches away from being out of control. It is not unnatural that the United States should applaud some of these monsters (like those in Iran) and not others (like the millions of Pakistanis that, for two years, protested for the restoration of the judiciary). Iran’s democrats are more convenient for U.S. foreign policy than Pakistani democrats. The United States is a rational animal, and the U.S. state, as problematic as it may be, is not the unfettered and dysfunctional beast that mullahs in every corner of the Muslim world pretend it is.
Many contest the use of the term Muslim world, and perhaps there are good reasons to do so. There continue to be enough reasons however not to get rid of the term. At the top of that list is the collective inability of Muslim societies to construct viable and sustainable states that work. At the top of the list of examples of states that don’t work is Iran. And at the top of the list of examples of how it doesn’t work is the June 12 election.
Iran’s post-election riots and instability are the products of public policy dysfunction. The fuel that is being added to the fire may very well be the product of Fox News’ intense desire to see the back of Ahmedinejad, but the fire itself is all-Persian, all-Islamic republic, and all too avoidable.
Since Iran does not allow for the free and unfettered expression of political opinions, public opinion polls from within the country have no credibility. So those that are interested in Iran depend on opinion polling conducted by external actors. This year for example, between May 11 and May 20, The Centre for Public Opinion at Terror Free Tomorrow, the New America Foundation, and KA Europe SPRL conducted a nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians. Thirty-four per cent of all respondents said they would vote for Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, fourteen per cent said they would vote for Mir Hussein Moussavi, two per cent said they would vote for Mehdi Karroubi, and one per cent said they would vote for Mohsin Rezaee. A staggering 27 per cent said they did not know who they would be voting for, but that they would indeed vote. However, of those 27 per cent, more than 60 per cent planned to vote for a reformist candidate (which would mean either Moussavi or Karroubi). The poll therefore suggested that there would be a two-way race that would pit Moussavi and Ahmedinejad in a close race for president — with Ahmedinejad holding a small but significant lead.
The official elections result, when announced, sparked almost immediate protests because it came out to be 63 per cent for Ahmedinejad, 34 per cent for Moussavi, two per cent for Rezaee and one per cent for Karroubi. That two-to-one margin for Ahmedinejad was bad news for Iran, because it ran against the grain of established political wisdom, and did not reflect, in any way, the expected closeness of the race.
On June 17, as the protests began to engulf more and more of the airwaves, the fabrications, counter-fabrications and propaganda began in earnest. Already rocked by a crisis of confidence in the system, the Iranian people began to get bombarded with different kinds of versions of the truth. One of the most popular ones, reported on by Robert Fisk, in The Independent, was an allegedly secret letter, whose copies are being distributed all over Tehran and in the countryside. This secret letter, written by Minister of Interior Sahdeq Mahsuli to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, states that the actual results were nothing like what has been officially declared, and that in fact, Moussavi took 50 per cent of the vote, Karroubi took 35 per cent, Ahmedinejad took only 15 per cent and Rezaee took less than 0.2 per cent.
Fisk and other commentators make cases both for and against the validity of this letter. But the veracity of the letter is a train that left the station a long, long time ago. The real issue here is that if Robert Fisk is reporting on an allegedly secret letter, then it has newsworthiness within the context of the Iranian election. If people believe that Iran has been duped by President Ahmedinejad, then all the nutty speeches in the world, by him or by his best friend, the equally incorrigible Hugo Chavez, won’t do him any good. The viability of the best statesman, or the worst tyrant, is rooted not in the mechanics of elections or public opinion polls but in the quantum of credibility afforded to the processes involved.
The truth of this should be most apparent to Pakistanis, who have now endured almost a full year with President Asif Ali Zardari — a president who is legitimate because the process that produced his victory was credible, even though he, as a political entity, really was not.
That an election result should generate both such wildly different versions of the truth and such dramatic and sustained civil disobedience in Iran is most ironic. Iran has developed a credible elections process, though it does not conform to democratic convention, and does not really represent a free choice of the people (given the vetting of candidates by unelected clerics). The most telling nugget of the electoral system’s credibility in Iran is the voter turnout. Iranian elections regularly produce 50 per cent voter turnout, but in 1997, on the cusp of ushering in the Khatami era, voter turnout peaked to more than 80 per cent. In the 2005 election, when Ahmedinajad ran against Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the turnout was above 60 per cent. This year, according to the official result, turnout was over 85 per cent.
Voter turnout may be the only place where there is any kind of agreement between the TFT opinion poll, the official result and the alleged real result in the secret letter to Khamenei. In all three, voter turnout is said to be in excess of 80 per cent.
Why is voter turnout so important? Because citizens that really believe in the system tend to engage with it. Iranians may not agree with one world view or another, but they have repeatedly expressed, with their votes, an unusual degree of confidence in the expression of their voice as an important one in shaping the leadership of their country.
The contested election result is structurally damaging for the Islamic Republic and for the Khomeini Revolution because it has dramatically eroded confidence in the Iranian system. This confidence was not just demonstrated by Iranian citizens in election after election, but even by its adversaries, who never liked the post-revolution Iran, but rarely questioned the legitimacy of its regimes. This does not mean that the state is about to fall apart, or that Iran won’t continue to operate within the framework of the revolution of 1979. It simply means that the fragility of that framework is dramatically greater than it was before this election.
The susceptibility of the Iranian system to a single contested election is the typical behaviour of a weak and ineffective state. The weakness and ineffectiveness of states is not a commodity that can be bought, even by the mighty CIA. Foreign powers, no matter how resourceful, cannot mine the political and institutional capacity of any country to the extent of immobilising them. Conversely, neither can state effectiveness and strength be bought, even by the mighty USAID. A corollary that may be useful for Iran’s most important and perhaps even more dysfunctional neighbour to the east.
Mosharraf Zaidi is a public policy advisor and columnist who writes for the Egyptian newspaper, and the International News in pakistan. He can be reached through his website www.mosharrafzaidi.com
Photo: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad waves as he tours the Mehr petrochemical facility during the its inauguration ceremony at the Asaluyeh petrochemical plant, 1,200 kms south of Tehran, on Thursday. Ahmadinejad warned his US counterpart Barack Obama to stop meddling in Iran's affairs as the regime clamped down further on the opposition despite growing global concern. ARASH KHAMOUSHI/AFP/Getty Images
Mosharraf Zaidi
What is happening in Iran is not a CIA conspiracy to destabilise the Middle East. It is simply more evidence of the incapability of Muslim societies to competently conduct their affairs within the confines of an agreed set of rules. The Great Satan is not in Washington DC, or at the CIA headquarters. The Great Satan is the unfettered and dysfunctional state.
In Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and almost everywhere else where Muslims make up a majority of the population, this Great Satan is feeding monsters that are always a few speeches away from being out of control. It is not unnatural that the United States should applaud some of these monsters (like those in Iran) and not others (like the millions of Pakistanis that, for two years, protested for the restoration of the judiciary). Iran’s democrats are more convenient for U.S. foreign policy than Pakistani democrats. The United States is a rational animal, and the U.S. state, as problematic as it may be, is not the unfettered and dysfunctional beast that mullahs in every corner of the Muslim world pretend it is.
Many contest the use of the term Muslim world, and perhaps there are good reasons to do so. There continue to be enough reasons however not to get rid of the term. At the top of that list is the collective inability of Muslim societies to construct viable and sustainable states that work. At the top of the list of examples of states that don’t work is Iran. And at the top of the list of examples of how it doesn’t work is the June 12 election.
Iran’s post-election riots and instability are the products of public policy dysfunction. The fuel that is being added to the fire may very well be the product of Fox News’ intense desire to see the back of Ahmedinejad, but the fire itself is all-Persian, all-Islamic republic, and all too avoidable.
Since Iran does not allow for the free and unfettered expression of political opinions, public opinion polls from within the country have no credibility. So those that are interested in Iran depend on opinion polling conducted by external actors. This year for example, between May 11 and May 20, The Centre for Public Opinion at Terror Free Tomorrow, the New America Foundation, and KA Europe SPRL conducted a nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians. Thirty-four per cent of all respondents said they would vote for Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, fourteen per cent said they would vote for Mir Hussein Moussavi, two per cent said they would vote for Mehdi Karroubi, and one per cent said they would vote for Mohsin Rezaee. A staggering 27 per cent said they did not know who they would be voting for, but that they would indeed vote. However, of those 27 per cent, more than 60 per cent planned to vote for a reformist candidate (which would mean either Moussavi or Karroubi). The poll therefore suggested that there would be a two-way race that would pit Moussavi and Ahmedinejad in a close race for president — with Ahmedinejad holding a small but significant lead.
The official elections result, when announced, sparked almost immediate protests because it came out to be 63 per cent for Ahmedinejad, 34 per cent for Moussavi, two per cent for Rezaee and one per cent for Karroubi. That two-to-one margin for Ahmedinejad was bad news for Iran, because it ran against the grain of established political wisdom, and did not reflect, in any way, the expected closeness of the race.
On June 17, as the protests began to engulf more and more of the airwaves, the fabrications, counter-fabrications and propaganda began in earnest. Already rocked by a crisis of confidence in the system, the Iranian people began to get bombarded with different kinds of versions of the truth. One of the most popular ones, reported on by Robert Fisk, in The Independent, was an allegedly secret letter, whose copies are being distributed all over Tehran and in the countryside. This secret letter, written by Minister of Interior Sahdeq Mahsuli to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, states that the actual results were nothing like what has been officially declared, and that in fact, Moussavi took 50 per cent of the vote, Karroubi took 35 per cent, Ahmedinejad took only 15 per cent and Rezaee took less than 0.2 per cent.
Fisk and other commentators make cases both for and against the validity of this letter. But the veracity of the letter is a train that left the station a long, long time ago. The real issue here is that if Robert Fisk is reporting on an allegedly secret letter, then it has newsworthiness within the context of the Iranian election. If people believe that Iran has been duped by President Ahmedinejad, then all the nutty speeches in the world, by him or by his best friend, the equally incorrigible Hugo Chavez, won’t do him any good. The viability of the best statesman, or the worst tyrant, is rooted not in the mechanics of elections or public opinion polls but in the quantum of credibility afforded to the processes involved.
The truth of this should be most apparent to Pakistanis, who have now endured almost a full year with President Asif Ali Zardari — a president who is legitimate because the process that produced his victory was credible, even though he, as a political entity, really was not.
That an election result should generate both such wildly different versions of the truth and such dramatic and sustained civil disobedience in Iran is most ironic. Iran has developed a credible elections process, though it does not conform to democratic convention, and does not really represent a free choice of the people (given the vetting of candidates by unelected clerics). The most telling nugget of the electoral system’s credibility in Iran is the voter turnout. Iranian elections regularly produce 50 per cent voter turnout, but in 1997, on the cusp of ushering in the Khatami era, voter turnout peaked to more than 80 per cent. In the 2005 election, when Ahmedinajad ran against Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the turnout was above 60 per cent. This year, according to the official result, turnout was over 85 per cent.
Voter turnout may be the only place where there is any kind of agreement between the TFT opinion poll, the official result and the alleged real result in the secret letter to Khamenei. In all three, voter turnout is said to be in excess of 80 per cent.
Why is voter turnout so important? Because citizens that really believe in the system tend to engage with it. Iranians may not agree with one world view or another, but they have repeatedly expressed, with their votes, an unusual degree of confidence in the expression of their voice as an important one in shaping the leadership of their country.
The contested election result is structurally damaging for the Islamic Republic and for the Khomeini Revolution because it has dramatically eroded confidence in the Iranian system. This confidence was not just demonstrated by Iranian citizens in election after election, but even by its adversaries, who never liked the post-revolution Iran, but rarely questioned the legitimacy of its regimes. This does not mean that the state is about to fall apart, or that Iran won’t continue to operate within the framework of the revolution of 1979. It simply means that the fragility of that framework is dramatically greater than it was before this election.
The susceptibility of the Iranian system to a single contested election is the typical behaviour of a weak and ineffective state. The weakness and ineffectiveness of states is not a commodity that can be bought, even by the mighty CIA. Foreign powers, no matter how resourceful, cannot mine the political and institutional capacity of any country to the extent of immobilising them. Conversely, neither can state effectiveness and strength be bought, even by the mighty USAID. A corollary that may be useful for Iran’s most important and perhaps even more dysfunctional neighbour to the east.
Mosharraf Zaidi is a public policy advisor and columnist who writes for the Egyptian newspaper, and the International News in pakistan. He can be reached through his website www.mosharrafzaidi.com
Photo: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad waves as he tours the Mehr petrochemical facility during the its inauguration ceremony at the Asaluyeh petrochemical plant, 1,200 kms south of Tehran, on Thursday. Ahmadinejad warned his US counterpart Barack Obama to stop meddling in Iran's affairs as the regime clamped down further on the opposition despite growing global concern. ARASH KHAMOUSHI/AFP/Getty Images
US Bases in Iraq by the number
Opening three US military bases
Sulaimaniyah, Erbil, Duhok, Kurdistan region (Iraq)
Although it is expected that today responsibility for security will be handed over to the Kurdistan authorities, exclusive military sources have told Hawlati that the US forces intend to open three huge US military bases in the Erbil, Duhok, and Sulaimaniyah areas. Meanwhile, senior peshmerga forces' officials expressed their pleasure at such a move.
The three bases will be located in Qaradagh (south of Sulaimaniyah), Zakho area (north of Duhok), while the third one will be based near Erbil. There is also a possibility that the Incirlik base in Turkey, opened in 1992, will be transferred to the Kurdistan Region, which is heralded as an important achievement by Kurdistan regional government military officials who said they would welcome such requests from the coalition forces.
However, some officials said the issue was not mentioned and thought to be a remote possibility.
A few months ago, US infantry and air force surveyed villages near Qaradagh administrative sub-district for a day, throughout which they neither allowed the locals to approach them nor allowed local officials to visit them.
----
US Bases in Iraq by the number
There may be a cooling spell between the US and Iran for Iraq does not mean an easing of the cold war between Tehran and Washington, a war which on the American side involves its GME allies like Turkey and the Sunni Arab world including the 6+2+1. A new turn in this is coming from Iraqi Kurdistan, which has offered the US to base its forces in its territory for AS LONG as Washington wishes, and the Baghdad government is said to back the Kurdish proposal.
The main forces behind this idea are Kurdistan President Mas'oud Barzani and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd. Talabani had made the proposal to President Bush during his recent visit to the White House. The idea was welcomed on July 21 by Obama who was then on a visit to Baghdad. Gulf News on July 23 reported its source as saying Obama believed the presence of US combat forces in Kurdistan did not pose any real danger to the lives of American troops and therefore it would be appropriate to redeploy these troops there in the future. Gulf News said the US troops would be based there PERMANENTLY".
There are no major military airports or airbase installations in any of the three provinces in Kurdistan. It may take two to three years to have the required bases to be built, as well as to clear US forces from Iraqi cities.
Gulf News quoted Jabar al-Yawer, spokesman for the Protection Forces of the Kurdistan Region, as saying: "A permanent US military presence in...Kurdistan...is welcome and is necessary to defend Iraq from internal and external risks and is important to protect the region, but this presence must be within an Iraqi-Kurd-American agreement". It quoted 'Emad al-Hamadani, an Iraqi army officer, as saying: "Permanent US forces remain in the al-Hurria Air Base in the province of Kirkuk and the al-Gizlani Air Base in Mosul", close to Kurdistan.
However, Hamadani said: "this will not be a solution because such a permanent presence in those cities is fuelling the armed [Neo-Salafi/Ba'thist] resistance. I therefore believe that the relocation of US forces inside the [the Kurdish] region is the solution". Gulf News added: "While US and Kurdish sources denied any intention of building a US air base near the town of Halabja in the governorate of Sulaymaniya, near Iran, some independent Kurdish sources said if the US decides to establish a permanent presence in the Kurdistan Region they will certainly be closer to the Iraqi-Iranian border".
Gulf News quoted analyst 'Abdul-Razzaq al-Sa'di as saying: "Kurdish leaders are among the most prominent US allies in Iraq and the region, and with this permanent US presence not one neighbouring country would dare to threaten the sovereignty of the region and its federal experience, and the Kurdish population will not take up arms against the [American] presence if this happens, because much of them have a message of thanks and gratitude for the Americans".
Yet an APS source in Baghdad on July 26 said the US would insist on maintaining most of its main bases in Iraq, most of which being in the Sunni Arab Triangle. These include the BALAD facility, a huge air base in the north-eastern province of Diyala which borders with Iran. Many Sunni Arab politicians of the Iraqi Accordance Front (AIF) - the largest Sunni Arab bloc in parliament - favour keeping these bases under US control.
The US will have Bases in Iraq for the next 99 years. The deal is signed. We just move our troops out of the cities and the big Oil Corporations hire 100,000 private mercenaries to patrol the Oilfields and Pipelines. We also keep the big Base out on the Jordanian border next to Syria so we can land armored Divisions and Infantry Brigades in case the mexican democracy in Iraq ever gets in trouble. Plus we sell everything Iraq uses in their military and that's a whole lot of money sent back to Uncle Sam year after year. It pays for the Bases and the CIA too.
Sulaimaniyah, Erbil, Duhok, Kurdistan region (Iraq)
Although it is expected that today responsibility for security will be handed over to the Kurdistan authorities, exclusive military sources have told Hawlati that the US forces intend to open three huge US military bases in the Erbil, Duhok, and Sulaimaniyah areas. Meanwhile, senior peshmerga forces' officials expressed their pleasure at such a move.
The three bases will be located in Qaradagh (south of Sulaimaniyah), Zakho area (north of Duhok), while the third one will be based near Erbil. There is also a possibility that the Incirlik base in Turkey, opened in 1992, will be transferred to the Kurdistan Region, which is heralded as an important achievement by Kurdistan regional government military officials who said they would welcome such requests from the coalition forces.
However, some officials said the issue was not mentioned and thought to be a remote possibility.
A few months ago, US infantry and air force surveyed villages near Qaradagh administrative sub-district for a day, throughout which they neither allowed the locals to approach them nor allowed local officials to visit them.
----
US Bases in Iraq by the number
There may be a cooling spell between the US and Iran for Iraq does not mean an easing of the cold war between Tehran and Washington, a war which on the American side involves its GME allies like Turkey and the Sunni Arab world including the 6+2+1. A new turn in this is coming from Iraqi Kurdistan, which has offered the US to base its forces in its territory for AS LONG as Washington wishes, and the Baghdad government is said to back the Kurdish proposal.
The main forces behind this idea are Kurdistan President Mas'oud Barzani and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd. Talabani had made the proposal to President Bush during his recent visit to the White House. The idea was welcomed on July 21 by Obama who was then on a visit to Baghdad. Gulf News on July 23 reported its source as saying Obama believed the presence of US combat forces in Kurdistan did not pose any real danger to the lives of American troops and therefore it would be appropriate to redeploy these troops there in the future. Gulf News said the US troops would be based there PERMANENTLY".
There are no major military airports or airbase installations in any of the three provinces in Kurdistan. It may take two to three years to have the required bases to be built, as well as to clear US forces from Iraqi cities.
Gulf News quoted Jabar al-Yawer, spokesman for the Protection Forces of the Kurdistan Region, as saying: "A permanent US military presence in...Kurdistan...is welcome and is necessary to defend Iraq from internal and external risks and is important to protect the region, but this presence must be within an Iraqi-Kurd-American agreement". It quoted 'Emad al-Hamadani, an Iraqi army officer, as saying: "Permanent US forces remain in the al-Hurria Air Base in the province of Kirkuk and the al-Gizlani Air Base in Mosul", close to Kurdistan.
However, Hamadani said: "this will not be a solution because such a permanent presence in those cities is fuelling the armed [Neo-Salafi/Ba'thist] resistance. I therefore believe that the relocation of US forces inside the [the Kurdish] region is the solution". Gulf News added: "While US and Kurdish sources denied any intention of building a US air base near the town of Halabja in the governorate of Sulaymaniya, near Iran, some independent Kurdish sources said if the US decides to establish a permanent presence in the Kurdistan Region they will certainly be closer to the Iraqi-Iranian border".
Gulf News quoted analyst 'Abdul-Razzaq al-Sa'di as saying: "Kurdish leaders are among the most prominent US allies in Iraq and the region, and with this permanent US presence not one neighbouring country would dare to threaten the sovereignty of the region and its federal experience, and the Kurdish population will not take up arms against the [American] presence if this happens, because much of them have a message of thanks and gratitude for the Americans".
Yet an APS source in Baghdad on July 26 said the US would insist on maintaining most of its main bases in Iraq, most of which being in the Sunni Arab Triangle. These include the BALAD facility, a huge air base in the north-eastern province of Diyala which borders with Iran. Many Sunni Arab politicians of the Iraqi Accordance Front (AIF) - the largest Sunni Arab bloc in parliament - favour keeping these bases under US control.
The US will have Bases in Iraq for the next 99 years. The deal is signed. We just move our troops out of the cities and the big Oil Corporations hire 100,000 private mercenaries to patrol the Oilfields and Pipelines. We also keep the big Base out on the Jordanian border next to Syria so we can land armored Divisions and Infantry Brigades in case the mexican democracy in Iraq ever gets in trouble. Plus we sell everything Iraq uses in their military and that's a whole lot of money sent back to Uncle Sam year after year. It pays for the Bases and the CIA too.
Iran militia wants probe of opposition leader
AP
TEHRAN, July 1 - Iran's Basij militia is calling for an investigation into opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi's role in the street protests that followed last month's presidential election.
The semi-official Fars news agency says the militia has sent Iran's chief prosecutor a letter accusing Mousavi of taking part in nine offences against the state, including "disturbing the nation's security."
That charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment.
The Basiji are known as the street enforcers of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran's regime says 17 protesters and eight Basiji were killed in two weeks of unrest.
Mousavi insists he won the June 12 election. He did not immediately respond to Wednesday's allegations.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad canceled plans to travel to Libya as an observer at an African Union summit, Libyan officials said. It would have been Ahmadinejad's second trip outside Iran since the election.
No reason was given for the last-minute cancellation, but some African officials had complained that Ahmadinejad's presence at the three-day gathering could divert attention from Africa's problems.
Ahmadinejad on Tuesday repeated the claims that post-election street riots were linked to a "soft revolution" aided by foreign powers.
"Enemies, despite overt and covert conspiracies to topple (the ruling system) through a soft overthrow, failed to reach their goals," state television quoted Ahmadinejad as telling Intelligence Ministry officials.
Meanwhile, Iranian authorities have banned a newspaper allied to presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi after he denounced Iran's government as "illegitimate" because of claims of voting fraud in last month's election, a reformist political group said Wednesday.
The closure of the daily Etemad-e-Melli, or National Confidence, is another blow by officials seeking to block media and Web sites critical of President Ahmadinejad, whose disputed June 12 re-election was confirmed this week by Iran's powerful Guardian Council.
Karroubi, a former parliament, received only a fraction of the votes in the results announced by authorities and joined opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi in demanding a new election. Recently, however, Karroubi has stepped up his independent criticism of the election and could emerge as a leading dissident voice against Ahmadinejad.
On Tuesday, he issued a harshly worded statement that blasted Ahmadinejad's government and pledged to continue challenging its authority. Karroubi's political group, the National Confidence Party, said the newspaper was shut down in response.
"I don't consider this government as legitimate," said the statement posted on Karroubi's Wed site. "I will continue the fight under any circumstances and using every means."
It's unclear how many people have been detained during the post-election riots and protests, but at least one group, the Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights, claimed at least 2,000 arrests have been made. Officials place the death toll at 17 protesters and eight security forces, but the figures could be not independently verified because of media restrictions.
Iran's cleric-led government has said Ahmadinejad would be sworn in for a second four-year term as early as July 26.
TEHRAN, July 1 - Iran's Basij militia is calling for an investigation into opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi's role in the street protests that followed last month's presidential election.
The semi-official Fars news agency says the militia has sent Iran's chief prosecutor a letter accusing Mousavi of taking part in nine offences against the state, including "disturbing the nation's security."
That charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment.
The Basiji are known as the street enforcers of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran's regime says 17 protesters and eight Basiji were killed in two weeks of unrest.
Mousavi insists he won the June 12 election. He did not immediately respond to Wednesday's allegations.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad canceled plans to travel to Libya as an observer at an African Union summit, Libyan officials said. It would have been Ahmadinejad's second trip outside Iran since the election.
No reason was given for the last-minute cancellation, but some African officials had complained that Ahmadinejad's presence at the three-day gathering could divert attention from Africa's problems.
Ahmadinejad on Tuesday repeated the claims that post-election street riots were linked to a "soft revolution" aided by foreign powers.
"Enemies, despite overt and covert conspiracies to topple (the ruling system) through a soft overthrow, failed to reach their goals," state television quoted Ahmadinejad as telling Intelligence Ministry officials.
Meanwhile, Iranian authorities have banned a newspaper allied to presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi after he denounced Iran's government as "illegitimate" because of claims of voting fraud in last month's election, a reformist political group said Wednesday.
The closure of the daily Etemad-e-Melli, or National Confidence, is another blow by officials seeking to block media and Web sites critical of President Ahmadinejad, whose disputed June 12 re-election was confirmed this week by Iran's powerful Guardian Council.
Karroubi, a former parliament, received only a fraction of the votes in the results announced by authorities and joined opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi in demanding a new election. Recently, however, Karroubi has stepped up his independent criticism of the election and could emerge as a leading dissident voice against Ahmadinejad.
On Tuesday, he issued a harshly worded statement that blasted Ahmadinejad's government and pledged to continue challenging its authority. Karroubi's political group, the National Confidence Party, said the newspaper was shut down in response.
"I don't consider this government as legitimate," said the statement posted on Karroubi's Wed site. "I will continue the fight under any circumstances and using every means."
It's unclear how many people have been detained during the post-election riots and protests, but at least one group, the Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights, claimed at least 2,000 arrests have been made. Officials place the death toll at 17 protesters and eight security forces, but the figures could be not independently verified because of media restrictions.
Iran's cleric-led government has said Ahmadinejad would be sworn in for a second four-year term as early as July 26.
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