"A black man named Garrett Morgan invented the traffic light in 1923. He decided to find a way to save lives. If it weren't for Garrett everyone would be probably hurt every day. This meant he cared for safety, happiness of others. The lesson I learned is that Garrett Morgan saved lives by inventing the traffic light so people could know when to stop, go, or slow-down. I also learned that Garrett Morgan did not only do this for the blacks he also did this for the world." (Ferdinand Nunery, Jr.)

Right at this moment while you are reading this, on the crossroads all over the world milions of men, women and children are looking at the red light, waiting for the green one, a sign to run, to go to the other side, to the rest of the day, to the rest of their lifes, safely.

LESSON LEARNED To illustrate the point, James Woolsey, former head of the CIA cited the case of the British monarch, Henry II. "He did not give the order to murder Thomas Beckett, the Archbishop of Canterbury, but he went to the trouble of surrounding himself with people who would understand his intentions. I do not know if Henry II gave a green light or a strong flash of a yellow light, but it was enough to eliminate the Archbishop," he said.    (Full text)

But, at the same time, somewhere in the darkness of his criminal mind, someone is also waiting for a "green light". Stopped by the "red light" of the national and international law, internationaly recognized human rights, solemny proclaimed charters and conventions and ethic codes, and above all, by the permanent threat of world's "big powers", their alliances, their arms and weapons, or at least by economic sanctions, someone is just waiting for "the green light" to start the aggression, the war, the killings, atrocities, and "ethnic cleansing" ( what a cute "green" euphemysm for the genocide!).

Usualy, it is a silent but clearly recognizable "green light", easy to deny afterwards, the day after, when it is to late to clearify "it was misunderstood as a green light".

There is always somebody who gave that "green light", but he is never goiing to appear at the International Criminal Tribunal. Just for a while the world shall remember them as the honest people of a good will, so "dissapointed" and even "sad" for being so "missunderstood".

There were even more "green lights" in the history of the secret diplomacy, there are some to come and I know this web page shall forever remain "under construction", but it's significant that the history of green lights in international relations keeps repeating itself: It always turned to be something as beckoning to a blind man. We experienced so many cases denied to be "the green light" but just "understood as a green light".

Robert Gelbard message to Milosevic 1998 is a cute "deja vu" of Baker's messages to Milosevic 1991. "Baker gave no "green light" to Milosevic and the army to attack Croatia and Slovenia, any more than he had given a "green light" to the two republics to secede. Nor did he give a "red light": he didn't say that aggressive action by Serbia or the Yugoslav army would provoke a Western military reaction. The failure of the United States to arrest the trend toward breakup and violence was not attributable to the messages conveyed. The failure was in the fact that the United States didn't, and probably couldn't, credibly threaten force to back up its objectives." Warren Zimmermann wrote In his Memoir of the Collapse of Yugoslavia.

" To Milosevic and (indirectly) the army, Baker made clear that the United States strongly opposed any use of force, intimidation, or incitement to violence that would block democratic change. Yugoslavia could not be held together at gunpoint. In his encounter with Milosevic -- the most contentious of the nine meetings -- Baker hammered the Serb leader on his human rights violations in Kosovo..."

But, Zimmermann aded, "The secretary of state's visit would undoubtedly have been more useful if he had come six months earlier. One major reason why he did not was that he had been fully preoccupied with preparations for the Gulf War. A great power should be able to handle more than one crisis at a time; in reality this is harder than it appears. Baker's approach was crafted at the State Department and the NSC. The Defense Department was not yet playing a role -- another indication that force options were simply not on the radar screen."

So, probably U.S. special Balkans envoy Robert Gelbard was also "fully preoccupied with preparations for the Gulf War" during his conversation with Milosevic (by the way, known as "a Balkan version of Saddam Hussein - but much smarter") who speaks good English and understood very well what was told.

Just trying to keep them from the world's oblivion, I collected and archived here the press clippings of "green light" cases of our recent history, of course, just those known so far.

Mario Profaca

In early 1977, an anti-American faction within the Ethiopian military took over and Moscow sharply increased its arms aid to Addis Ababa, judging that Ethiopia was a far bigger prize than Somalia. President Carter cut U.S. aid to Ethiopia, citing human rights abuses, but moved to build ties to Somalia, telling his advisers that he wanted them "to move in every possible way to get Somalia to be our friend."<3>

In June 1977, Carter relayed a secret message to Barre, reportedly telling him that whatever he did in the Ogaden was his own business, but if he dropped his claims to Kenya and Djibouti, Washington would sympathetically consider his "legitimate" defensive needs. A few days later, Carter told the Somali ambassador that although the United States couldn't at that time provide military aid, Washington would encourage its allies to help Somalia maintain its defensive strength. The next month, Carter approved in principle a decision to cooperate with other countries in arming Somalia, and on July 25 the Somali ambassador was notified that the United States would provide weapons.<4> Not surprisingly, Barre took this as a green light to proceed with his invasion of the Ogaden.

It was in the context of Milosevic's move against the Yugoslav presidency and its Croatian president-designate, Croatian actions against the jobs and property of Serbs in Croatia, growing violence between Serbs and Croats, and the threat by both Slovenia and Croatia to withdraw from Yugoslavia at midyear that Secretary of State James Baker arrived in Belgrade on June 21, 1991.

During his one-day visit Baker had nine consecutive meetings: with the Albanian leaders from Kosovo, with all six republican leaders, and twice with Yugoslav Prime Minister Ante Markovic and Foreign Minister Budimir Loncar. Listening to Baker deal with these complex and irascible personalities, I felt that I had rarely, if ever, heard a secretary of state make a more skillful or reasonable presentation. Baker's failure was due not to his message but to the fact that the different parts of Yugoslavia were on a collision course.

Baker expressed the American hope that Yugoslavia would hold together behind the reformist Markovic, who by that time was seen increasingly as a figurehead or, even worse, a fig leaf. Baker said that it was up to the people of Yugoslavia to determine their future governing structures; the United States would support any arrangement on which they could peacefully agree. Baker told Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and Slovene President Milan Kucan that the United States would not encourage or support unilateral secession; he hoped they would not secede, but if they had to leave, he urged them to leave by negotiated agreement. He argued that self-determination cannot be unilateral but must be pursued by dialogue and peaceful means. To Milosevic and (indirectly) the army, Baker made clear that the United States strongly opposed any use of force, intimidation, or incitement to violence that would block democratic change. Yugoslavia could not be held together at gunpoint. In his encounter with Milosevic -- the most contentious of the nine meetings -- Baker hammered the Serb leader on his human rights violations in Kosovo, urged his acquiescence to a looser constitutional arrangement for Yugoslavia, and pressed him to stop destabilizing the Yugoslav presidency.

Never was a green light given or implied to Milosevic or the army to invade the seceding republics, as has since been alleged in some press accounts. But was there a red light? Not as such, because the United States had given no consideration to using force to stop a Serbian/JNA attack on Slovenia or Croatia. Nor, at that point, had a single member of Congress, as far as I know, advocated the introduction of American military power. Baker did, however, leave a strong political message. He said to Prime Minister Markovic, a conduit to the army, "If you force the United States to choose between unity and democracy, we will always choose democracy."

Baker's message was the right one, but it came too late. If a mistake was made, it was that the secretary of state had not come six months earlier, a time that unfortunately coincided with the massive American preparations for the Persian Gulf War. By June 1991, Baker was making a last-ditch effort. Even so, it is not clear that an earlier visit by Baker would have made a difference. The aggressive nationalism emanating like noxious fumes from the leaders of Serbia and Croatia and their even more extreme advisers, officials, media manipulators, and allies had cast the die for disintegration and violence.

SENATE SELECT INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE
REPORT ON THE CIA AND NATIONAL SECURITY

SEN. SPECTER: Director Deutch, turning now to the issue of the transfer of Iranian arms to Bosnia under an arrangement made out -- made up with the State Department and the National Security Council, where they pursued the issue under the categorization of a "no instructions" policy, given by Ambassador Galbraith and Ambassador Redman to Croatian President Tudjman, which was identified by Ambassador Galbraith to Deputy Secretary Talbott as a "green light" or a "perceived green light," and these arms were made available to the Bosnians, which was in violation of the United Nations arms embargo and was done at a time when the Congress was considering, in very heated debate, whether to change the arms embargo, and the information about the "no instructions" policy or "perceived green light," which was arranged, as I say, between Mr. Talbott -- and Mr. Lake was involved as national security councilor -- was never told to the director of Central Intelligence, James Woolsey, who testified before this committee to that effect, nor was it told to Secretary of Defense Perry or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Shalikashvili, who imparted that information to Senator Kerrey and me.

The matter may not have received the kind of high-level attention that it would have under other circumstances, because there were many, including this senator, who thought that we ought to not have the arms embargo. And there was a question as to the seriousness of the situation and the importance of that arms flow to keep Bosnia on its feet, although the Defense Department has said that that really wasn't so.

But a central issue, aside from some of the very broad policy ramifications of not telling Congress, involved the executive branch policy of not informing the CIA director. My first question to you is, do you agree with former Director of Central Intelligence James Woolsey that the Central Intelligence Agency should have been told by Mr. Talbott and Mr. Lake that the United States had given this perceived green light that Iranian arms could be transmitted to Bosnia through Croatia?

MR. DEUTCH: Mr. Chairman, I think I have already testified on numerous occasions that I believe that in situations like this, that the director of central intelligence and the secretary of defense should be informed. So there's not a question in my mind that I believe that in such a matter the secretary of defense and the director of central intelligence should be informed.

In this particular case I don't know what all the different views are, but it's my understanding that there is a difference in view about whether the director of central intelligence actually was told and when he was told, Jim Woolsey at that time, by Undersecretary Talbott. But let me make it clear that under -- in general circumstances like occurred here, in my view the director of central intelligence and the secretary of state -- secretary of defense should be informed.

SEN. SPECTER: Well, Mr. Woolsey was emphatic that he was not told. Mr. Talbott testified that there was a miscommunication. But it is plain that the Intelligence Committee was not informed. And it is also plain that the Congress was not informed. When I say the Intelligence Committee was not informed, the Intelligence Committee was not informed that the United States had this no-instructions policy for the communication by Galbraith and Redman, Ambassador Galbraith and Ambassador Redman to President Tudjman, which was a perceived green light, nor was the Intelligence Committee informed that Ambassador Galbraith had contacts with the CIA to try to have the CIA carry out some of this policy.
Now, I notice your -- a quizzical look on your face. Do you want to comment about that?

MR. DEUTCH: Well, I'm trying -- what is worrying me is we've had this discussion before. I've forgotten whether we did it in open session or in closed session. But I want to make a point --

SEN. SPECTER: We have not had this discussion in open session.

MR. DEUTCH: Okay. Well, let --

SEN. SPECTER: We had a number of witnesses in. But since this was not on your watch, we have not put this on the record with you.

MR. DEUTCH: Right. But let me be clear about something. It is my judgment that the -- this event was not an intelligence matter. It was a diplomatic matter. So had I been there, it would not -- you know, if Congress were informed, the question is, it was a diplomatic matter, if -- which is the appropriate committee? I do believe it was a diplomatic matter, not an intelligence matter, that exchange between Ambassador Galbraith and Deputy Secretary Talbott. So I don't think it was an intelligence matter.

SEN. SPECTER: Well, the Intelligence Committee concluded that it was not a traditional diplomacy and that it was a matter which should have been transmitted to the Intelligence Committee. But however it is interpreted it wasn't transmitted to the Congress at all. If it's a diplomatic matter, to go to the committee on foreign relations, that was not done, either.

Well, my red light just went on, but I want to pursue this with you in the next round. And I believe it does bear -- you have given your endorsement to Mr. Lake, and I can understand that. But I want to pursue the question as to Mr. Lake's participation with respect to his sensitivity to keeping this committee currently and fully informed, which it was not on the Bosnian issue, nor was the Congress informed. As our distinguished vice chairman has said on a number of occasions, we don't have to get our information from the Washington Times. And perhaps I've gone too far in giving publicity to news sources which I have a question that I raised with you about.
Senator --

MR. DEUTCH: I think that you will find that Tony Lake fully understands the need to keep this committee fully and currently informed on intelligence activities. You will have no difficulty there, in my opinion.    (Full text)

In addition to the worldwide confrontation between Iran and the U.S. over international terrorism, there is a direct confrontation in the area between Bosnia and Baghdad. A strategic aim of both countries is to extend their authority in this geopolitical sphere. This "region" is the only area in the world where American military forces are on the increase. U.S. military operations are conducted in support of Bosnian and Afghani Muslims. Tehran interprets the American military presence on behalf of the Muslims under siege as a direct threat to its own authority. As the presumed leader of an emerging Islamic Empire, Tehran believes that it also has the responsibility to protect Muslims. Rather than acknowledging the American contribution to Muslim security, Tehran berates Washington as the "Great Satan," who acts on behalf of "Little Satan," Israel.

ARMS SUPLIES TO CROATIA AND BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA (Mario's local page)

Yet, in two Muslim wars, Washington and Tehran had a tacit alignment. Both sponsored the Islamic mujahadeen in Afghanistan against the Soviet occupation. And both supported the Bosnian Muslim regime against Christian Orthodox Serbia and Bosnian Serbs. In Afghanistan, the CIA provided covert assistance to Islamic rebels fighting against the Soviets. So did Iran. In the former Yugoslavia, the U.S. supported the Bosnian Muslims. So did Iran. Washington gave a green light for Zagreb to receive arms from Tehran en route to Sarajevo. Despite rejecting the American role in Afghanistan and Bosnia, Iranian Revolutionary Guards and their Saudi brethren fought in Muslim wars against the Soviets in Afghanistan and against the Serbs in Bosnia.

At a press conference following the Iraqi annexation of Kuwait, Bush was asked whether the U.S. policy against the annexation of captured lands in the Middle East was an across- the-board policy. Bush evaded the question.<68> He had to do this, because if international law or the United Nations were to become the basis for determining when international aggression has occurred then the United States would not be able to undertake its own invasions or arrogate to itself the right to judge international behavior on the basis of U.S. interests. So, for example, while Washington agrees with the UN condemnation of Iraq's aggression, it took a much more benign view of Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon. There is considerable evidence that the Reagan administration gave Israel a "green light" for that invasion.^* In the Security Council the U.S. supported a resolution which called for an Israeli withdrawal without criticizing the invasion; two days later, the U.S. vetoed a resolution condemning Israel's non-compliance.

Prior to August 2, 1990, the US and its allies found Saddam Hussein an attractive partner. In 1980, they helped prevent UN reaction to Iraq's attack on Iran, which they supported throughout. At the time, Iraq was a Soviet client, but Reagan, Thatcher and Bush recognized Saddam Hussein as "our kind of guy" and induced him to switch sides. In 1982, Reagan removed Iraq from the list of states that sponsor terror, permitting it to receive enormous credits for the purchase of US exports while the US became a major market for its oil. By 1987, Iraq praised Washington for its "positive efforts" in the Gulf while expressing disappointment over Soviet refusal to join the tilt towards Iraq (Tariq Aziz). US intervention was instrumental in enabling Iraq to gain the upper hand in the war. Western corporations took an active role in building up Iraq's military strength, notably its weapons of mass destruction. Reagan and Bush regularly intervened to block congressional censure of their friend's atrocious human rights record, strenuously opposing any actions that might interfere with profits for US corporations or with Iraq's military build-up.

Britain was no different. When Saddam was reported to have gassed thousands of Kurds at Halabja, the White House intervened to block any serious congressional reaction and not one member of the governing Conservative Party was willing to join a left-labor condemnation in Parliament. Both governments now profess outrage over the crime, and denounce those who did protest for appeasing their former comrade, while basking in media praise for their high principle. It was, of course, understood that Saddam Hussein was one of the world's most savage tyrants. But he was "our gangster," joining a club in which he could find congenial associates. Repeating a familiar formula, Geoffrey Kemp, head of the Middle East section in the National Security Council under Reagan, observed that "We weren't really that naive. We knew that he was an SOB, but he was our SOB."

By mid-July 1990, our SOB was openly moving troops towards Kuwait and waving a fist at his neighbors. Relations with Washington remained warm. Bush intervened once again to block congressional efforts to deny loan guarantees to Iraq. On August 1, while intelligence warned of the impending invasion, Bush approved the sale of advanced data transmission equipment to his friendly SOB. In the preceding two weeks, licenses had been approved for $4.8 million in advanced technology products, including computers for the Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization, for the Saad 16 research center that was later destroyed by bombing on grounds that it was developing rockets and poison gas, and for another plant that was repeatedly bombed as a chemical weapons factory. The State Department indicated to Saddam that it had no serious objection to his rectifying border disputes with Kuwait, or intimidating other oil producers to raise the oil price to $25 a barrel or more. For reasons that remain unexplained, Kuwait's response to Iraqi pressures and initiatives was defiant and contemptuous.

The available evidence can be read in various ways. The most conservative (and, in my view, most plausible) reading is that Saddam misunderstood the signals as a "green light" to take all of Kuwait, possibly with the intention of setting up a puppet government behind which he would keep effective power (on the model of the US in Panama and many other cases), possibly as a bargaining chip to achieve narrower ends, possibly with broader goals. That was unacceptable: no independent force is permitted to gain significant control over the world's major energy reserves, which are to be in the hands of the US and its clients.

Saddam's record was already so sordid that the conquest of Kuwait added little to it, but that action was a crime that matters: the crime of independence. Torture, tyranny, aggression, slaughter of civilians are all acceptable by US-UK standards, but not stepping on our toes. The standard policies were then set into motion.

Paul Wood, the BBC's former correspondent in the region: ... according to Dejan Anastasievic of the Belgrade newspaper, Vreme, the leadership in Belgrade appears to have decided that it's time to clamp down on those they see as terrorists.

"Now the events in Granica are getting the highest possible profile. President Milosevic himself has sent his condolences to the families of the policemen who were killed. And the ruling Socialist party and its allied parties have Kosovo and demanding harsh measures by the state.

"There will definitely be an outcry considering there were 15 people dead over the weekend. However, we have four dead policemen and the US special representative to the former Yugoslavia, Robert Gelbard, last week in Belgrade very clearly denounced terrorism. I'm afraid Mr Milosevic has assumed this statement gave him a green light to do whatever he wants in Kosovo."

Kosova Serb Information Secretary
Boshko Drobnjak to the Russian TV (NTV):
If the villagers do not report the terrorists
they are terrorists themselves

Prishtinë, 6 March - (ARTA) - The Information Secretary of the Serb authorities in Kosovë, Boshko Drobnjak, declared to Russian TV (NTV) that "if there are even two terrorists in the village that are not reported to the police by the villagers, then the latter are no longer citizens, they are considered terrorists as well". This statement was made following the police offensive on Drenica (40 km west of Prishtina) on 5 March 1988.

The Serb-installed mayor of Prishtina, a Milosevic proxy in Kosova, told a crowd of pro-government ralliers in Prishtina last Saturday the 'Albanian terrorists' had been given a 'green light' to go ahead with the attempt on the life of the Serb rector Radivoje Papovic last Thursday.

Zoran Djindjic, leader of the Democratic Party, accused the Serbian regime, namely its pillars - Milosevic's Socialist Party (SPS) and his wife's Yugoslav Left (JUL) - of belonging to the 'milieu of terrorist groups'. The Serb regime is fater prolonging its hold on power by all means, he said, accusing it of instrumentalizing the last week's car-bomb attempt on the life of the rector of the Serb University in Prishtina, Radivoje Papovic, for its own needs.

The car-bomb explosion in Prishtina could have been used for Serbia to draw support from the international community, "reconfirming once again that Kosova is part of Serbia", Zoran Djindjic told the crowd of protesters in Belgrade Wednesday. The attack on Papovic could have been used "to serve the national and state interests of Serbia", the Albanian-language Bujku newspaper quoted him as saying. The SPS and JUL accused its own citizens (the "Zajedno" coalition, KIC) for the attack, thus transgressing the Serbian national interests, he emphasized.

Speaking to the same crowd of people in Belgrade Wednesday, Vuk Draskovic, another "Zajedno" leader, said there were hints that the commander-in-chief of the "Ushtria ^lirimtare e Kosov&s" (U^K) is Kundak. According to the Nasa Borba daily, he went on to say: "I do not know his first or second name, whoever is he, he is Kundak, and our movement is against all kundaks in Serbia". The allusion for all who have a basic knowledge of the situation in Serbia is that Kundak [Serbian, "butt-end"] is the nickname of Zoran Todorovic, the close friend of Milosevic's wife Mira Markovic and a senior and influential member of her JUL.

Jim Hooper of the Balkan Institute said Friday: "I think Holbrooke played into Milosevic's hands by bringing him carrots and giving the stick to the Kosovo Albanians. Milosevic took those concessions as a green light to proceed, and cracked down harder on the Kosovars and in Serbia itself, withdrawing autonomy from universities and moving against independent media."

The Americans had pushed European allies to suspend sanctions on Milosevic, who agreed to meet with Albanian separatists but then unleashed the largest assault since the Bosnian war ended in 1995.

The Europeans, in particular the British and the Germans, felt that Milosevic had manipulated the Americans, promising to open a dialogue but not promising it would lead to any results.

Friday a senior American official did not dispute that judgment, saying: "There is a perception that Milosevic is using the talks as a device to continue his campaign and not using them as a means to find a peaceful solution to the problem. So the trend away from sanctions has now been reversed."

British officials said that London had already concluded that a stronger policy is needed to try to deter further violence by Milosevic against the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

Last month Holbrooke persuaded Milosevic to engage in talks with ethnic Albanian leaders from Kosovo who favor independence through peaceful means. In exchange, Washington convinced the Europeans to suspend the implementation of an investment freeze on Yugoslavia, angering many of its European allies who had reluctantly agreed to go along with sanctions and who thought they were being suspended too easily.

Jim Hooper of the Balkan Institute said Friday: "I think Holbrooke played into Milosevic's hands by bringing him carrots and giving the stick to the Kosovo Albanians. Milosevic took those concessions as a green light to proceed, and cracked down harder on the Kosovars and in Serbia itself, withdrawing autonomy from universities and moving against independent media."

Ivo Daalder, a National Security Council official in the first Clinton term who is now at the University of Maryland, said that Holbrooke had erred.

"I think Richard Holbrooke has a special rapport with Milosevic and used it to great effect in Dayton and at other times," he said. "But in this case I think he misread Milosevic, who had no interest in real dialogue. The suspension of the sanctions in return for a procedural victory was ineffective, as the escalation of the past week has shown."

Holbrooke, who works in the private sector, was not immediately available for comment.

A huge crackdown by Milosevic's forces on the mainly ethnic Albanian population of Kosovo has killed dozens of people, caused thousands of refugees to flee into Albania and has displaced as many as 40,000 people, Western diplomats said.

By far the most detailed and complete document to have been produced as a potential settlement to the Kosovo conflict was the Interim Agreement for Peace and Self Government in Kosovo (Feb. 23). This was the document that the Contact Group (the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, and Russia) tried to impose upon both the Serb and Kosovar Albanian parties that met at the Chateau Rambouillet outside Paris from Feb. 6 to 23 of this year. But the Rambouillet "negotiations" really weren't negotiations at all. They were so-called "proximity" talks in which the two parties to the conflict were kept in separate rooms from each other, with Contact Group mediators moving back and forth between the parties, thus denying them the chance to hold face-to-face negotiations of their own. By the time the talks ended on Feb. 23, neither party was willing to accept the Rambouillet terms: The Kosovar Albanians because Rambouillet would have granted Kosovo nothing more than a limited degree of autonomy within Serbia rather than full independence, while continuing to recognize the "sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" (Ch, I, Art. 2); and the Serbs because Rambouillet would have turned the whole of Yugoslavia into a zone of occupation by the powers of the Contact Group, with "free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the [Federal Republic]" (Appendix B, Art. 8), and full legal immunity from Yugoslav law (Art. 6-7). One week before the talks at Rambouillet began, NATO's Permanent Council had authorized its Secretary General Javier Solana to initiate airstrikes against Yugoslavia, if the Contact Group decided that a negotiated settlement wasn't in the cards. "This is a green light for action," a senior NATO diplomat told AP at the time. "No one country has a veto now. Solana makes the judgment." In more real terms, however, NATO's activation order to Solana meant that one, and only one, country held the key over the eventual use of force: the United States.

PRESIDENT Clinton has given the go-ahead for US intelligence agencies and 'black operations' units to assist Iraqi exile groups in coup efforts aimed at toppling Saddam Hussein.

According to congressional and intelligence sources, Clinton decided late last year to adopt a far more muscular policy toward the Iraqi dictator. His decision was prompted by administration fears that Saddam, despite being weakened by defections from his inner circle and a crippling UN trade embargo, still possesses the potential to wreck the troubled Middle East peace process and with it an ability to embarrass the White House in the run-up to the autumn elections.

Details of what covert operations Clinton has agreed are difficult to secure. Sources on Capitol Hill and in the administration adamantly declined to detail exactly what Clinton has endorsed and few were even prepared to acknowledge the president had signed a top secret 'finding' authorising covert US aid to Saddam's rivals.

"We do not comment on presidential findings - it is illegal for us to do so," a National Security Council spokesman told SoS.

Even so, US foreign policy, military and intelligence sources confirmed the president had given the green light for cloak-and-dagger American support of coups in Iraq and they said Clinton had approved in the last six months an intelligence budget submission to fund clandestine action in the Middle East pariah state.

"What to do about Iraq was approved by the president after going through the appropriate review process," said a senior administration official. And Middle Eastern sources believe there are clear signs that a US-engineered destabilisation strategy is already playing out on the ground. They point to a recent wave of car bombings in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities undertaken by the exiled and violent National Accord Party, whose senior members, most of whom are former Saddam cronies, claim CIA backing.

How far advanced US-supported plans are for the toppling of Saddam is not clear. A Washington-based Western diplomat told SoS: "There has been more American activity on the Iraqi front in the last six months than before but I must say I would be surprised to wake up tomorrow morning and read there had been a US-organised coup."

US intelligence sources say contingency plans have been drawn up detailing rapid response options for the protection of Western- friendly neighbouring countries, such as Jordan and Kuwait, from possible retaliation by Saddam. Some of those contingency plans have already been implemented.

According to a congressional intelligence source, the deployment last month of 34 US warplanes to Jordan and their continued presence there had little to do with the enforcement of the Western-imposed no- fly zone over southern Iraq - the official Washington reason for the planes being in the kingdom - and everything to do with ensuring the US has the military punch available to defend at short notice Jordan and King Hussein, who has started to talk openly about 'change' in Iraq. It is the first time King Hussein has permitted US warplanes to use Jordanian territory to patrol the skies of Iraq.

None of the chairmen of the armed services or international relations committees in the House or Senate have been briefed on the change in the administration's Iraq policy. But the chairmen of the select intelligence committees have recently received classified White House briefings on Iraq. Senate majority leader Bob Dole and House speaker Newt Gingrich have received what aides described as "highly sensitive" Iraq briefings.

Clinton's decision to increase pressure on Iraq's strongman has not met with the approval of all his foreign policy advisers, say administration sources. The state department is said to be critical of the covert operations and doubtful that any of the dozens of bickering Iraqi exiled opposition groups are up to the task of ousting the well- protected Saddam. Fears have also been expressed within the administration that a successful US-backed coup would lead to Saddam's death and therefore fall foul of past presidential executive orders banning American-supported assassinations of foreign leaders.

"US involvement in a successful Iraqi coup could be viewed as tantamount to the president having ordered the assassination of Hussein. We must avoid that at all costs," said one senior official. Another adviser who supports the tougher stance disagreed, saying: "We have not ordered a hit on Saddam Hussein; what we have told our friends is that we will assist in whatever ways are possible."

Some intelligence sources are clearly delighted with the new strategy. "Clinton is doing what George Bush would not and could not do," says a high-ranking intelligence officer. "If he is successful, he'll be called a hero. And if he's not, he'll still be out ahead because he would have acted like John Wayne."

But administration supporters of the policy and Iraqi exiles eager for tougher US action dismiss the suggestion that Clinton is trying to mount an "October surprise." "It (the presidential finding) stems from a concern for an orderly transition in Iraq should there be such a thing," a senior US official said.

The source suggested Washington was being pushed to be more proactive in bringing about the downfall of the Iraqi dictator because of external factors. Turkish anxiety over Iran's expanding influence on the UN-protected Kurds of northern Iraq contributed to Clinton's decision to increase pressure.

Robert Deutsch, the State Department's top expert on the Persian Gulf, and Stephen Grummon, director of Near Eastern affairs in the national security council, flew to Turkey on April 17 en route for northern Iraq. They were tasked to try to find ways of halting the disintegration of the Kurdish regional government and to persuade the fractious Iraqi Kurdish leaders Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani to stop fighting each other. They were also ordered to come up with an assessment of how widespread Iranian influence on the Kurds had become. According to sources in the Iraqi National Congress, Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security has set up half a dozen outposts in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Last month, Abu Amneh Al-Khadami, a self-styled Accord bomb-maker, claimed in a 90-minute video he released to Iraqi opposition leaders in Europe and the Middle East that the CIA had been financing the planting of car bombs and small explosive devices in Baghdad and other cities. Other Iraqi opponents of Saddam Hussein confirmed the Accord was sponsored by the CIA. The agency declined to comment on Accord and would neither confirm nor deny any links with the group.

The CIA's sponsoring of Accord, which is led by Iyad Mohammed Alawi and Adnan Mohammedal-Muri, a former Iraqi brigadier, has drawn criticism from members of the Iraqi National Congress, an umbrella organisation of several anti-Saddam groups, who claim the agency should never have centred its covert designs on the group in the first place.

In his three-year struggle to overthrow President Saddam Hussein and bring democracy to Iraq, Warren Marik of the CIA says he did everything he could think of -- and was permitted to do.

He helped organize flights of unmanned aircraft over Baghdad to drop leaflets ridiculing the Iraqi dictator on his birthday. He organized military training and some small arms supplies to Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq. And he oversaw spending millions of dollars that went to a Washington-based public relations firm to produce radio scripts and videotapes denouncing the regime.

None of it worked. The anti-Saddam campaign that Marik helped run was broken apart by the Iraqi dictator last year with relative ease. And now, partly in frustration, Marik has come in from the cold to tell the story of the CIA's war on Saddam as he saw it.

Marik says he does so partly with the hope of getting the agency to reconsider what he views as a misguided shift of strategy. He criticizes a past shift toward fomenting a quick coup against Saddam, and away from the plan that he tried to carry out aimed at gradually strengthening a "liberated" zone in the country's Kurdish north.

The decision of the 25-year CIA veteran to go public with details of an operation that is still technically ongoing has been strongly influenced by a similar decision by a leading Iraqi opposition figure, Ahmed Chalabi, and his colleagues in the Iraqi National Congress to make a clean break with the agency and start a new political phase in their efforts to bring change to Iraq. Marik and the CIA worked closely in the north with Chalabi and the National Congress, an umbrella group of anti-Saddam activists made up mostly of ethnic Kurds.

"We have learned the hard way that covert action that is not part of a large strategic political program is of no value," Chalabi said here yesterday. "We want to work with the State Department, the National Security Council, or AID. But our involvement with any covert agencies is finished."

Over the next two years a total of about 50 agents rotated in and out, living in a fortified compound in the opposition-controlled town of Salahuddin. Teams composed of four to 10 agents each lived there for an average stay of six weeks. Their formal mission was to monitor the National Congress and gather intelligence.

In fact, they did much more. Marik, who led the first field team into Iraq in late October 1994, put it this way: "Nobody said we should provide military training and provide weapons to the [National Congress] force. But when we did that and reported it back to Washington, nobody said stop it, either."

His time in Iraq was a transforming experience for Marik, a Chicago native who entered the agency after military service in Vietnam. He brushes aside questions about what he did in Afghanistan by answering only "the usual stuff." But on Iraq, he feels passionately that the agency had a winning hand that it threw away.

In late 1994, control of the Iraq Operation Group was taken away from the veterans who had worked out the long-term political program with Chalabi and who, in the words of one agent, "kept the crazy ideas about silver-bullet coups away from the agency leadership."

After that the agency embarked on a "special channel" compartmentalized operation to prepare a quick-strike coup against Saddam. It was to be organized by former army officers and political cronies of the Iraqi dictator. They claimed they were in touch with serving military officers who would oust Saddam and take power.

Marik and the officers working with the Chalabi group were told to stay away from the operation, run with a dissident group called the Iraqi National Accord, when it became apparent to them that a second covert operation targeted at Saddam was under way.

Upon his arrival in 1995, Deutch not only gave the coup effort the green light but also pressed his agency to set "milestones" for getting the job done. Some officials there had the impression they were facing a deadline of about a year, in time to remove Saddam as an issue in the 1996 election.

CNN
Mar. 23, 1997

"I am putting the first condition for peace on the table, and that is I want them to start fighting terrorism as they promised," Netanyahu said Sunday during an interview on CNN's "Late Edition." "They've given the green light to terrorism. The traffic light hasn't changed yet. I want to see a red light there ... Then we can discuss many other issues."

The prime minister said the two sides were still talking, despite an Islamist suicide bomb attack that killed three women in Tel Aviv Friday. But he indicated that future progress would be dependent upon whether Palestinian authorities take decisive action against Hamas and other militant Islamic groups.

James Woolsey, former head of the CIA, criticized the American administration for its unwillingness to accept the version of events put forward by Israeli intelligence, according to which PA Chairman Yasser Arafat gave the "green light" to carry out the terror attack in Tel Aviv last week. "The Administration is ignoring the possibility that there is more than one way to encourage acts of terror," Woolsey said in an interview with Ha'aretz. "In the struggle against terror it is preferable not to get into a dispute over semantics," he said.

To illustrate the point, Woolsey cited the case of the British monarch, Henry II. "He did not give the order to murder Thomas Beckett, the Archbishop of Canterbury, but he went to the trouble of surrounding himself with people who would understand his intentions. I do not know if Henry II gave a green light or a strong flash of a yellow light, but it was enough to eliminate the Archbishop," he said.

Woolsey visited Israel many times between 1993 and 1995 as head of the CIA. He is currently in Israel to participate, along with other Western experts, in an international conference to mark the opening of the International Policy Institute for Counterterrorism in the framework of the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya.

When asked if the American administration truly does not believe that Israel has compelling proof regarding Arafat's responsibility for the attack, Woolsey replied, "it is important that the Administration understand that Israel is on the front line against terrorism and that it has a precise grasp of what is happening in the West Bank and Gaza. The United States has to understand that there are different ways to encourage terrorism." His assessment is that "it is definitely possible that Israel has collected exact information regarding this matter."

Woolsey also said that the Israeli and American intelligence communities, and those of other countries as well, are cooperating in the struggle against terror, but he refused to elaborate. When asked if the CIA was cooperating with Palestinian intelligence, he refused to comment.

"I did not have personal contact with the Palestinians," he added, "though the policy of the Administration was to encourage Israeli-Palestinian cooperation."

“Arafat is a killer, a killer” Klein yells less than a minute after we begin talking. “He has given a green light to terrorists and has praised suicide bombers. He hasn’t done anything to obliterate the infrastructure of the Hamas. Arafat is one of the most evil men of the 20th century.” Like Falwell, Klein has a Manichean view of the world. Israelis represent the children of light while the Palestinians are the children of darkness; the conflict is presented as a zero-sum game which excludes any possibility of compromise.

ZOA opposes Oslo and, according to University of Notre Dame political scientist Alan Dowty, it has used three tactics in an effort to undermine the peace process. First, it has insisted that the U.S. embassy be moved from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem. Second, it has condemned U.S. troop deployment on the Golan Heights. This is an interesting tactic since, according to Dowty, no one has seriously suggested that the U.S. actually deploy any troops. Finally, ZOA has tried to stop U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority.

Following the September 1993 Rabin-Arafat handshake, Israeli politicians familiar with the occupied territories’ dilapidated infrastructure understood that the new authority would have to invest billions of dollars in order to create a sustainable economy. Rabin recognized that poverty can lead to unrest and therefore asked other countries to contribute. Forty-three countries pledged $2 billion to support the fledgling Palestinian Authority, of which one-fourth would come from the U.S.

ZOA opposed the effort and lobbied Congress in order to prevent the transfer of U.S. funds. Consequently, on July 29, 1994, Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Spector and Alabama Democrat Richard Shelby managed to insert an amendment which hindered the transfer of money to the Palestinian Authority. The Administration opposed it, but to no avail.

ZOA and other extreme groups are not the only organizations that object to Oslo. AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), the most powerful group within the Jewish lobby, is also against the peace agreement. More significantly, there appears to be a link between ZOA and AIPAC. It is highly unlikely that Senator Specter who has received $298,623 from AIPAC “subsidiaries” since 1980, and Senator Shelby who has received $135,825 since 1984 would have initiated the amendment without receiving a “green light” from AIPAC.