Archive for July 2008
The Catalyst For Financial Disaster
The Catalyst For Financial Disaster
Author: Jim Sinclair
Dear Friends,
A serious event occurred today. This event was the very public international recognition of more off balance sheet so called “assets” revealed as having little, if any, value.
This event is arguably the most serious financial upset ever. If you have not protected yourself, it is getting very late – maybe too late.
Your best hope is that this event is so complex that the herd of self anointed experts has no clue what that vehicle is, how large it is and therefore the profound meaning it has.
Gold, serious junior gold shares (the only seriously underpriced and therefore real value in equities) and non-dollar short term federal currency instruments are your sanctuary. You better get there, and get there FAST!
Click here for the criteria you should consider when selecting junior gold share situations.
The meaning of this is not only are Freddie and Fannie’s troubles much costlier than realized, but now there is an entirely new definition of market-less financial entities with off balance sheet assets that undermine primarily the US and now international banking systems. Conduit mortgage OTC derivatives will have to be marked down now that the sun is shining on them.
The U.S. mortgage industry transformed itself in a way that has opened dangerous SIV sub prime real estate conduits to global capital markets.
A conduit loan is priced by swaps and swap spreads, thereby becoming a package of various OTC derivatives generally derived from a formula that would make Einstein look like a kindergarten mathematician.
By turning mortgages into securities, lenders created vast distances between homeowners and their mortgage holders, who can be anywhere in the world such as Australia.
US banks have written down $450 billion in bad housing loans. The revelation from NAB means that they will now certainly need to take provisions to $1,000 billion. Write-downs of $1,300 billion and perhaps even more are in the cards.
That guarantees the USDX at .6200 and more likely at .5200.
That guarantees gold to reach at least $1650 much sooner than I anticipated.
This strongly suggests that my estimate of $1650 is significantly below the price of gold coming soon.
This opens the probability that a modernized and revitalized Federal Reserve Gold certificate ratio tied to the M3 will evolve into the monetary system.
The greatest economic crime ever committed is OTC derivatives. Those that proffered these will have killed more people than most wars.
This is it and it is NOW!
Respectfully yours,
Jim Sinclair
Greater Depression in US… Ad Vitam Eternam…
Greater Depression in US… Ad Vitam Eternam…
The Greater Depression is coming in the US as surely as an out-of-control freight train and it’s unstoppable. But, that’s not the bad part…
Whether Bush declares Martial Law and becomes a Dictator, as a result of another contrived ‘terrorist attack’ or the presidential elections actually take place putting Obama at the helm, it’s way too late to do anything about it…
The Greater Depression is coming to the US as surely as an out-of-control freight train and it’s unstoppable. But, that’s not the bad part…
What’s coming is the end of the era of the US Dollar dominating the world and all the abuses that resulted, allowing the US to live well above its means at the expense of all the other countries obliged to use the US Dollar for their commodities transactions…
What’s coming is the destruction of the ‘American Way of Life’ and the return to harsh reality, where consumption will be forcibly cut down by at least 30 to 35%, in line with what the US can actually afford…
What’s coming is the complete loss of Faith in FIAT currencies, starting with the US Dollar, but extending eventually to all paper currencies as well and heralding the return of precious metals as the TRUE store of VALUE: my initial target for Gold is $2,750.00, but $5000.00 is also a real possibility…
What’s coming is the destruction of a ’smoke & mirrors’ economy, where all the statistics are fraudulently manipulated: CPI/Inflation is 13% – NOT 3%; GDP Growth is -2.5%, NOT +1.5%; unemployment is 14%, NOT 5%, and M3 runs at 18%, etc…
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data
What’s coming is the end of the current style of capitalism with all its excesses and the concentration of money and power in the hands of a few, while most of the citizens are kept in virtual financial slavery where their income in REAL terms has been stagnant for the last 15 to 20 years…
What’s coming, in a nutshell, is the collapse of the Dollar and the US economy, heralding a Greater Depression that will last far longer than that which began in 1929, as the US no longer has the means it had back then to pull itself out of the hole…
- In the 30’s, the US had oil aplenty to use and export: now it imports 70% of its needs at huge cost, as oil production peaked in the 70’s…
- In the 30’s, the US had a strong manufacturing base and its people were lean and driven: now, most of the manufacturing base has gone to Asia and 70% of Americans are overweight or obese, lack drive or have become apathetic, while their Asian counterparts are lean, mean and driven…
- In the 30’s, the US population was one of the better educated: now it’s lagging most modern countries and the high technology sector has to rely on foreigners for over 50% of its employees…
- In the 30’s, the US was competitive in terms of labor costs: now, Asia is at least 10 times cheaper and making huge stride in productivity because it started from a much lower level…
- In the 30’s, the US was not anywhere as indebted as it now is: as the largest world debtor, the US now need to borrow $3 BILLION a day just to keep afloat on which it cannot even pay the interests and its debt and future liabilities – as per GAAP accounting – now exceed $65 TRILLION, or some $510,000 for every household…
Here is the bad part:
In short, the US will soon enter the Mother of all Depression, BUT no longer has the means it once had to pull itself out of it: in the last Depression it took 10 years and the advent of WWII, but I fail to see what assets the US now has that will drive it out of the hole, except for its army. However it no longer is in the best of shape or all dominant with the advent of the Russian supersonic anti-ship missiles and there are many other nuclear powers that are MAD (mutual assured destruction) capable, so this is another option that has become obsolete…
Pakistan has right to retaliate if allied forces attacked: President
Pakistan has right to retaliate if allied forces attacked: President
President Pervez Musharraf Saturday said he is concerned over the Nato forces attack in Pakistani tribal areas and warned a U-S think-tank that no such attacks will be tolerated in future, and Pakistan reserves the right to retaliate.
Talking to a senior advisor of the US think-tank Dr Hormon Olmen in Rawalpindi, President Musharaf asserted that the Afghan-based Nato forces are not being attacked from the Pakistani soil nor is any cross-border activity taking place from here.
According to sources, the President reiterated that a stable Afghanistan in the interest of Pakistan and said baseless allegations against Pakistan could affect the war on terror.
Dr. Olmen told the President that the Pak-Afghan border security is a joint responsibility of both the countries and a cooperation between them is the need of the hour.
Russian Navy aircraft test new Weapons in Arctic
Russian Navy aircraft test new Weapons in Arctic
Russia’s Northern Fleet Tu-142 Bear and Il-38 May anti-submarine aircraft have tested new electronic equipment and precision-guided weapons over the Barents and Norwegian Sea, a Navy spokesman said on Thursday.
“Advanced onboard electronic equipment and weapon control systems were tested during the flights. The tests have shown their high effectiveness,” Capt. 1st Rank Igor Dygalo said.
He added that at some stage of the flights, Russian aircraft were accompanied by NATO warplanes, stressing that all such flights are conducted strictly in accordance with international agreements and the norms of international law.
Russia resumed strategic bomber patrol flights over the Pacific, Atlantic, and Arctic oceans last August, following an order signed by then-president Vladimir Putin. Russian bombers have since carried out over 80 strategic patrol flights and have often been escorted by NATO planes.
Air Force commander, Col. Gen. Alexander Zelin said in April that Russia would drastically increase the number of strategic patrol flights over the world’s oceans to 20-30 a month in the near future.
The Arctic is becoming an area of increasing international focus due to the potentially large deposits of natural resources, including oil and natural gas, located there.
NZ students offer cash for “arrest” of U.S.’s Rice
NZ students offer cash for “arrest” of U.S.’s Rice
REUTERS
Reuters North American News Service
WELLINGTON, July 25 (Reuters) – A group of New Zealand students has come up with a novel way of protesting against a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, offering a cash reward for her “arrest” over U.S. actions in Iraq.
The Auckland University Students’ Association has offered NZ$5,000 ($3,700) for any student making a citizen’s arrest of Rice during her 36-hour stay that starts later on Friday.
“It’s primarily symbolic, but it’s a protest against her actions as secretary of state in Iraq and the authorisation of the torture of suspected terrorist detainees,” said the student body’s president, David Do.
Police said the stunt was disturbing, and warned no-one would be allowed to disrupt the visit.
“We are obliged to ensure the safety and security of the visiting guest and we will not shirk from that task,” said District Commander Superintendent Brett England in a statement.
Rice will meet New Zealand political leaders on her way back to the United States after attending this week’s Asean Regional Forum in Singapore. (Reporting by Gyles Beckford; Editing by Jonathan Standing and Mark Bendeich)
http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=267043
Iran ends cooperation with UN nuclear arms probe
Iran ends cooperation with UN nuclear arms probe
GEORGE JAHN
AP News
Iran signaled Thursday that it will no longer cooperate with U.N. experts probing for signs of clandestine nuclear weapons work, confirming the investigation is at a dead end a year after it began.
The announcement from Iranian Vice President Gholam Reza Aghazadeh compounded skepticism about denting Tehran’s nuclear defiance, just five days after Tehran stonewalled demands from six world powers that it halt activities capable of producing the fissile core of warheads.
Besides demanding a suspension of uranium enrichment — a process that can create both fuel for nuclear reactors and payloads for atomic bombs — the six powers have been pressing Tehran to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency’s probe.
Iran, which is obligated as a signer of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty not to develop nuclear arms, raised suspicions about its intentions when it admitted in 2002 that it had run a secret nuclear program for nearly two decades in violation of its commitment.
The Tehran regime insists it halted such work and is now only trying to produce fuel for nuclear reactors to generate electricity. It agreed on a “work plan” with the Vienna-based IAEA a year ago for U.N. inspectors to look into allegations Iran is still doing weapons work.
At the time, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei hailed it as “a significant step forward” that would fill in the missing pieces of Tehran’s nuclear jigsaw puzzle — if honored by Iran. He brushed aside suggestions Iran was using the deal as a smoke screen to deflect attention from its continued defiance of a U.N. Security Council demand for a halt to uranium enrichment.
The investigation ran into trouble just months after being launched. Deadline after deadline was extended because of Iranian foot-dragging. The probe, originally meant to be completed late last year, spilled into the first months of 2008, and beyond.
Iran remains defiant. It dismisses as fabricated the evidence supplied by the U.S. and other members of the IAEA’s governing board purportedly backing allegations that Iranians continue to work on nuclear weapons.
Officials say that among the evidence given to the IAEA are what seem to be Iranian draft plans to refit missiles with nuclear warheads; explosives tests that could be used to develop a nuclear detonator; and a drawing showing how to mold uranium metal into the shape of warheads. There are also questions about links between Iran’s military and civilian nuclear facilities.
On Thursday, Aghazadeh appeared to signal that his country was no longer prepared even to discuss the issue with the IAEA.
Investigating such allegations “is outside the domain of the agency,” he said after meeting with ElBaradei. Any further queries on the issue “will be dealt with in another way,” he said, without going into detail.
Britain, one of those suspicious of Iran’s nuclear activities, was critical.
“We are concerned by reports that Iran is refusing to cooperate with the IAEA on allegations over nuclear weapons,” the British Foreign Office said in a statement. “The IAEA has raised serious concerns over Iran’s activities with a possible military dimension. If Iran is serious about restoring international confidence in its intentions, it must address these issues.”
The IAEA asked in vain for explanations from Iran, and its last report in May said Iran might be withholding information on whether it tried to make nuclear arms. Reflecting ElBaradei’s frustration, the report used language described by one senior U.N. official as unique in its direct criticism of Tehran.
Aghazadeh’s comments Thursday appeared to jibe with those of diplomats familiar with the probe who told The Associated Press that the IAEA had run into a dead end.
A senior diplomat on Thursday attributed Tehran’s intransigence in part to anger over a multimedia presentation by IAEA Deputy Director-General Olli Heinonen to the agency’s 35 board members based on intelligence about the alleged weapons work. The diplomat, like others, agreed to discuss the matter only if not quoted by name because his information was confidential.
Tehran dismisses the suspicions of the U.S. and allies, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday again vowed that his country would not “retreat one iota” from pursuing uranium enrichment.
On Saturday, a U.S. diplomat had participated in talks with Iran held in Geneva, raising expectations that a compromise might be reached under which Iran would agree to temporarily stop expansion of enrichment activities. In exchange, the six world powers — the U.S., Germany, Britain, France, Russia and China — would hold off on adopting new U.N. sanctions against Iran.
But participants at Geneva said Iranian negotiators skirted the freeze issue despite the presence of U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday accused Iran of not being serious at the Geneva talks. She warned that all six nations were serious about a two-week deadline for Iran to agree to freeze suspect activities and start negotiations or else be hit with a fourth set of U.N. penalties.
Aghazadeh, who is also head of Iran’s atomic agency, played down the international complaints, but he also evaded a direct answer on whether Tehran would give any ground on an enrichment freeze.
“Both sides are carefully studying the concerns and expectations of both sides,” he told reporters.
___
BREAKING: Russian S-300 missiles ‘would ensure Venezuela’s oil security’
BREAKING: Russian S-300 missiles ‘would ensure Venezuela’s oil security’
MOSCOW, July 24 (RIA Novosti) – Russian S-300 air-defense missile systems would enable Venezuela to fully ensure the security of its hydrocarbon resources, a Russian military expert said Thursday.
“Needless to say, should S-300s be delivered to Venezuela, they would effectively strengthen its defense capability, and it would not be easy for its possible adversaries to punish the country by striking at its oil fields,” former Air Force commander Gen. Anatoly Kornukov said.
He added that as an oil-rich country Venezuela had to protect its natural resources.
“It is difficult to say how many air-defense systems Venezuela would need, since it has to protect not separate sites, but its entire territory,” he said, adding that 10 S-300 battalions, each comprising six launchers, “should be enough.”
The Venezuelan government on Wednesday accused international and domestic media of deliberately misinterpreting information on President Hugo Chavez’s recent visit to Russia.
Some media reports said Chavez offered to host Russian military bases in Venezuela and to buy $30 billion worth of Russian weaponry in the next four years.
Venezuela’s 1999 Constitution prohibits the hosting of foreign military bases in the country.
In 2005-2006, Venezuela bought more than 50 combat helicopters, 24 Su-30MK2 fighters, 12 Tor-M1 air defense missile systems and 100,000 AK-103 assault rifles from Russia. Current contracts are worth about $4 billion, according to various sources.
Future deliveries may include Amur-class diesel submarines, Il-76MD military transport planes, Il-78 aerial tankers and air-defense missile systems.
Iran Isolation Attempts Backfire
Iran Isolation Attempts Backfire
by Hannes Artens
Iran’s provocative missile tests 10 days ago again fueled the debate on the likelihood of aerial strikes against Iran. Since last week’s thaw, however, an attack on Iran by the end of President Bush’s tenure no longer appears in the offing. Moreover, the narrow, exclusively military focus of the debate misses the broader picture. The overall U.S. strategy of containing Iran has failed in principle. And the attempt to impose a sanctions regime on Iran has led to an erosion of U.S. strategic influence in Asia and the Middle East. Over the long term, Washington’s shortsighted containment policy will only hurt Western business in the region. It will also play into the hands of China, drive crucial allies away, and render Iran untouchable.
At the eleventh hour, even the Bush administration seems to have realized, albeit in a limited way, the inherent failure of the containment approach. In an important about-face, the White House not only agreed to direct talks between U.S. and Iranian officials in Geneva this weekend but also held out the prospect of soon opening an American interest section in Tehran. This sea change suggests that the realists around Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates have finally gained the upper hand over the faction around Vice President Dick Cheney in the intra-administration feud. The reversal also acknowledges that the dual approach of sanctions and military threats has produced nothing but America’s own isolation. The far-reaching repercussions of these counterproductive sanctions against Iran and America’s increasing isolation in Asia are best illustrated by this month’s breakthrough on the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline.
The Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline (IPI) is a $7.5 billion project designed to supply Indian mega-cities with natural gas from Iran’s Persian Gulf fields via a 1,700-mile-long pipeline across Pakistan. The project has been repudiated and boycotted by one project partner or the other uncounted times since its conceptualization. But on July 3, Indian Oil Minister Murli Deora affirmed on the sidelines of the World Petroleum Congress in Madrid that India expects to finally sign the deal next month. This long-time-in-coming breakthrough constitutes a crucial step toward energy security for India.
For the United States, on the other hand, it deals a resounding blow to the fragile international sanctions front the Bush administration has crafted to contain Iran. What is more, with China keen on joining the project, a new geo-strategic axis – Tehran-Islamabad-New Delhi-Beijing – is about to emerge. This axis will radically reshuffle the power structure in Asia and, with it, the global balance of power.
Despite the Cheney faction’s saber-rattling, the Bush administration has banked on economic sanctions strangling investment and beating a technology-dependent Tehran into submission. This strategy of tightening the economic corset choking Iran and thus forcing it to renounce its nuclear ambitions, however, has isolated the United States and its allies more than Iran. For the time being, Washington has succeeded in cajoling French Total SA, Anglo-Dutch Shell, and Spanish Repsol to withdraw their bids to exploit the Iranian South Pars field, the world’s largest gas field, and the EU approved freezing the assets of a major state-owned Iranian retail bank, Bank Melli, last month.
But Iran’s countermeasures have been in the works for quite a while. After all, the country has long suffered from the effects of sanctions and the reluctance of Western companies to invest in its energy sector. So it has increasingly looked eastward for new financiers and partners. The most striking example is Iran’s March 24 bid for membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Central Asian security group dominated by Russia and China.
This new “looking east” – negahe be shargh – policy concept is the brainchild of Bangalore-educated Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki. While an Iranian SCO membership is still in the future, Asian dominance over the Iranian market is a current reality. China already ranks as the number-one foreign investor in Iran. Malaysian Petronas and LG Korea feature prominently in the exploitation of South Pars. The new IPI would be a final nail in the coffin of the sanctions regime.
The United States has fought hard against the new pipeline linking Iran, India, and Pakistan. As recently as July 15, Senators Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) and Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) threatened to strengthen the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act of 1996 that allows for the litigation of foreign firms investing in sanctionable business in Iran – a clear warning signal to India. Meanwhile, since the three countries could not bear the projected costs of $7.5 billion on their own, Washington has also used its considerable influence at the World Bank in the person of former president Paul Wolfowitz. He bluntly informed Pakistan that the bank would not allow any international institution to finance the project.
In its attempts to destabilize Iran and disrupt the possible route of the pipeline, the United States is allegedly supporting Jundallah. This militant insurgency in the Iranian Sistan and Balochistan province has suspected links to the Taliban and the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), which has been fighting a guerilla war against the Pakistani army since 2000. This clandestine Baloch connection – recently exposed by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker – undermines America’s fragile, always-on-the-brink-of-a-coup ally Pakistan. Washington is also pushing for the alternative of a Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline (TAPI), the construction bids for which, as a side benefit, would go to U.S. companies. This alternative scheme is strikingly similar to the pipeline deal Unocal struck with the Taliban in 1996.
U.S. obstruction is not the only problem facing the IPI project. Iran is asking for a lot of money; India and Pakistan have notorious difficulty cooperating. But this cluster of American threats and coercion proved until recently to be pivotal in preventing the project from getting off the ground. Former Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns cited preventing IPI as one of his greatest accomplishments at a conference at Harvard University in March.
India, however, desperately needs energy for its growing economy. And it will risk its relationship with the United States to get this energy. Moreover, its heavily subsidized low gas prices are no longer sustainable, especially now before an election year. After all, with oil around $140 per barrel and a global recession looming on the horizon, the United States no longer has the ability to pressure countries to sever energy ties with Iran, as it did when a fire-breathing John Bolton forced Japan to withdraw its bid to exploit the Iranian Azadegan oil field. It is now every country for itself in the new energy environment.
Despite U.S. opposition, then, the IPI pipeline is back on line. The last commercial difficulties between Pakistan and India concerning transit fees have been cleared away, and only minor technical details remain for a trilateral meeting in Tehran scheduled for the coming weeks. If an agreement is reached this summer, construction could commence in 2009 and be completed by 2012. Pakistan is eager to expand its new role as the energy corridor of the future. It expects an annual $600 million in transportation fees from IPI and is vigorously politicking for China to join the project in order to increase those revenues. Until Indian consent was secured, Pakistan used the Chinese wild card as a bargaining tool to force a wavering India’s hand. But now it seems that Islamabad and Tehran can have it both ways. If World Bank financing is off the table, China can step in to foot the bill.
Finalization of IPI in the coming weeks would be more than a slap in the face for President Bush. After all, in 2006 he personally fought for a nuclear cooperation pact with India designed to meet India’s energy needs while tying it closer to the United States as a counterweight against a rising China. Now however, not only has the Indian government so far failed to get the pact ratified in the Indian parliament, but India is about to collaborate with China in undermining America’s sanctions on Iran. Pakistan, beefed up with more than $10 billion in military aid by the Bush administration, is also giving the cold shoulder to Washington. And Iran, soon to be the number-one energy supplier for East Asia, becomes more untouchable by the day.
The Bush administration’s lofty design to keep Iran in the box and use the Indian tiger to tame the Chinese dragon runs the risk of collapsing in the last months of his presidency. In fact, the American sanctions regime is driving Iran into China’s arms and facilitating a Sino-Indian rapprochement. Even worse, America is facing the rise of a new strategic axis in Asia that stretches from Tehran to New Delhi to Beijing, with Islamabad as a central hub, and is financed by petrodollars. Then again, the Bush policy, by giving a lift to this new strategic energy alliance, may ultimately strengthen support in Washington for a military strike against Iran, to accomplish what containment failed to do.
Reprinted courtesy of Foreign Policy in Focus.
Did the U.S. Banking System Nearly Melt Down Last Week?
Did the U.S. Banking System Nearly Melt Down Last Week?
23 Jul 2008
Did the U.S. banking system nearly collapse last week? On Monday, July 14, spurred by an open run by depositors to pull their funds out of the failed (reopened by the FDIC) IndyMac Bank, the banking crisis was once again in the headlines. During the day, bank stocks plunged as shareholders rushed to sell, and there were indications that the runs were not limited to IndyMac. Two banks, Washington Mutual and National City, took the unusual step of issuing press releases saying they were okay. WaMu, a $320 billion thrift based in Seattle, issued a statement saying it had “excess liquidity” and that it “exceeds all regulatory ‘well-capitalized’ minimums for depository institutions. National City, based in Cleveland and with $155 billion is the twelfth-largest bank holding company in the nation, said it was “experiencing no unusual depositor or creditor activity” and touted its own capital levels.
The next day, the SEC issued an emergency decree that blocked “naked” short selling in the securities of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and 17 other major financial institutions, including Citigroup, J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sucks. Such activity “threatens the stability of financial institutions. As a result of this and what appears to have been a major intervention by the Plunge Protection Team and the Fed, U.S. bank stocks had their best day in 16 years.
Reports flowing into LaRouchePAC indicate that there is a high degree of nervousness in the population and among bank employees, over the state of the banking system, with fears that such anxiety could easily turn into panic. It is becoming increasingly obvious to citizens that the situation is rapidly deteriorating, and the assurances of the bankers and the regulators ring more hollow by the day. It would take very little for the situation to turn into a full-fledged banking panic.
Special Interview: Islamic Army in Iraq
Special Interview: Islamic Army in Iraq
- Democracy is an illusion and is impossible to implement under occupation.
- The IAI is open to dialogue only if the U.S. will announce a timetable for its withdrawal from Iraq and recognize the “resistance” as Iraq’s sole legitimate representative.
- The U.S. army will soon be stunned by the movement’s new advanced weapons.
- Iran is weak and will not be able to enter Iraq after the U.S.’s withdrawal.
- The IAI will not operate outside Iraq.
Established after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, the IAI is comprised of ex-Iraqi military officers, all – or most – of whom are adherents of the Sunni creed. These officers recruit young Sunnis to the organization and train them in a combination of military discipline and guerilla warfare.
The movement takes the media war seriously and uses the Internet to promulgate its ideology. It produces a monthly magazine and airs a daily updated website. Each month the organization publishes what it calls the “harvest” of its operations. During last month, the IAI managed, according to its website, to kill at least 28 American soldiers, using guns and bombs.
Following are excerpts from the interview:
TML: Most parties in Iraq are backed by a military arm. In an ideal democracy, do you believe parties should have a military arm?
IAI: Democracy is a great illusion used by the U.S. to deceive the peoples of the world in order to justify its criminal deeds.It is an impossible concept in light of an occupation, which employs a divide-and-rule policy.
TML: In the past, the IAI said it considered conducting negotiations with the American army. What is your stand regarding negotiations today?
IAI: Our door is open to negotiations with others, for it is an important principle in war according to Islam. The religion of Islam permitted this principle in order to save lives and turn to war only as a last resort. Islam is a religion of peace and the Muslim only fights if he has to, as is our situation in Iraq. The Islamic Army’s official spokesman has announced our readiness for negotiations with preconditions. These include an announcement by the U.S. Congress regarding a timetable for the American forces’ withdrawal from Iraq, and its recognition in the resistance as the Iraqi people’s legitimate representative. However, until now we have not seen any serious steps from the Americans toward negotiations.
TML: Your activities involve much killing. How does this affect your warriors from a psychological point of view? Do they ever seek any psychological or other kinds of aid?
IAI: We are an ideological army and we believe in the hereafter. Fighting in the name of Allah is a divine honor and grace our warriors not only contend for but also take pleasure in. Therefore, they suffer no psychological effects or any such problem, contrary to the occupation soldiers’ pangs of conscience and fears of death and disability, which they suffer for the sake of satisfying U.S. President George W. Bush’s vanities. We will continue to draw confidence from our souls, from the rights we are willing to die for and from heaven, which was prepared for the God-fearing.
TML: You recently said that during the past two years the IAI had committed over 14,000 attacks. How do you finance your activities?
IAI: When IAI’s leader was asked this question two years ago by the London-based daily Al-Hayat, this was his answer: “In Iraq there are Jihad and wealth. We are a generous nation, which sacrifices its people’s lives, let alone their wealth.”
TML: What kinds of weapons do you use?
IAI: The experts and engineers in the military development unit are working day and night and they always have something new with which they surprise the enemies. God willing, soon you will hear news about advanced weapons, which will stun the occupation army and will gain a victory for Allah’s sake.
TML: In April 2005 the IAI announced the formation of the Al-Aqsa Support Division. This division was meant to support Palestinians in their armed struggle against Israel, according to your announcement. What have you done so far to support the Palestinian struggle? Have you sent experts to the Palestinian territories? Have you trained Palestinians in Iraq?
IAI: The aim behind these brigades was to support the Palestinians in their struggle against the Zionist entity and all who support it. We have our own policy regarding this issue. Everything that is done for the sake of the resistance in Iraq is also done for the sake of the Palestinian cause, because the two are part of the same problem and cannot be divided. The Zionist evil, as everyone knows, draws its might from the unlimited American support it receives. The Palestinian operatives undergo a high level of training, and it shows. It is our policy to benefit from past and present Islamic experiences to complement our activity in Iraq.
TML: In a recent article you published in your website, you said Iran aimed to control Iraq and strip its Sunni population of any political influence. You also said Iran, after the American withdrawal, would aim to turn southern Iraq into a completely Shi’ite region, by way of arresting and transferring its Sunni population. You are fighting the American forces in Iraq. If they leave, what will prevent Iran from executing its plans?
IAI: Iran would not dare take one step toward or inside Iraq without receiving the green light from the United States. If that is not so, then where was Iran before the American occupation? Also, the U.S. entered Iraq with Iranian support, which cannot be hidden. The Iraqi street in the south, especially the Arab tribes, is tired of the Iranian influence. We say: He who succeeded in defeating America, can also respond to the Iranian aggressions, especially after the harsh experience Iran went through with the Iraqi warriors.
TML: Do you plan to expand your activities and commit attacks outside Iraq?
IAI: We have said time and again that the movement is defined by its name – the Islamic Army in Iraq. Iraq is the arena where the struggle takes place, and it would be illogical to leave it to the occupier in search of another arena.
http://www.themedialine.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsID=22186
