Gulf of Tonkin redux, redux

Today, I received an email from Tom Cleaver of “That’s Another Fine Mess” who had wanted to post a comment on my Oct. 31 post about the emergence of new evidence about the exaggeration or downright faking of the (second) of the 1964 “incidents” in the Gulf of Tonkin.
Tom was an on-watch Petty Officer on the admiral’s staff aboard the “Pine Island” when the USS Maddox reported it had been fired on that night…
The software here closes down the Comments boards after some period of time. So Tom couldn’t post his comment. I’ll paste it in in full, just below.
But before I move over to the intriguing contents of his email, I’ll tell you that the (non-governmental) National Security Archive organization has a fine new portal to the Gulf-of-Tonkin-related documents that have finally been declassified over the past few days. If you go there, you can even read the previously classified article on SIGINT aspects of the GoT story, written by the intel agencies’ in-house historian Robert Hanyok. So now you can read Hanyok’s article, read Tom Cleaver’s criticism of his work, and decide for yourself…
Here, anyway, was Tom’s email:

    I was just referred to your site where you comment about the Tonkin Gulf incident and the NSA historian saying the “intelligence was flawed.”
    I was going to post the following there, but it wasn’t allowed. I thought you might be interested with this information.
    Tom Cleaver
    Not only was there not an attack on August 4, there were no attacks on the Maddox ever in August 1964. The Tonkin Gulf “incident” never happened.
    In 1966, the former Chief Sonarman of the Maddox told an officer I served with on the staff of Commander Patrol Forces 7th Fleet (the operational command of the Maddox and Turner Joy) that “there were never any torpedoes in the water on the first night.” It happens that, while whales and schools of fish in particular formations can be mistaken for submarines, there is no “natural” sound in the water like a torpedo. It is unmistakeable. There were no North Vietnamese torpedo boats anywhere near the Maddox, which was actually there to perform fire support for a South Vietnamese “34-Alpha” commando raid on Hon Me Island (a bit of geography that is always conveniently not shown on any US maps of the “incident”).
    On August 4, the Maddox and Turner Joy only managed to not sink each other when a Fire Controlman 3rd class in the control tower of the Maddox refused to open fire on the grounds that “the only target I have is the Turner Joy.” He was later court-martialed for “failure to obey a direct order” and reduced in rank. Lt (jg) Fred Gardner, the assistant gunnery officer on the Turner Joy (and later one of the founders of the GI antiwar movement), managed to convince his commanding officer that the only target they had was the Maddox. Had a junior officer and a junior enlisted man not stuck to their guns, so the guns remained stuck in the non-firing position, one would have sunk the other (if not mutually) and things would have been very different.
    The entire Tonkin Gulf “incident” was a lie from beginning to end, and if some moron “historian” from the NSA is too stupid to figure out that August 2 was as phony as August 4, then it’s no wonder the only “historian” work he could get was this “job.”
    I say all this because I was there as a member of the staff of the drunken old fool of an “Admiral” who was supposed to be in charge of this.

Another lousy war over a bunch of made-up accusations, eh?
(At lunch today, George Packer said one of the differences between the US in Vietnam and the US in Iraq is that actually, in Vietnam, the stakes turned out not to be so huge. “The US was able to walk away and lick its wounds, and not suffer too much.” But in Iraq, he argued, the stakes are much higher– “because Iraq is a much more important country on the global scene than Vietnam.” I agree with that. I agree too with the implication of what George was arguing, namely that in withdrawing from Iraq the US won’t simply be able to walk away and lick its wounds and act as if nothing too big had happened… Indeed not. In the aftermath of a US withdrawal from Iraq, we need to recognize that the whole structure of the relationship between the US and the other 96% of the world’s people has to be radically restructured. We should not carry on as if it’ll be “US hegemony, as usual” the day after the withdrawal… Anyway, why would we want that?)

15 thoughts on “Gulf of Tonkin redux, redux”

  1. “The history that is being made now should be about their freedom. But it seems to be about their genocide.
    I have not left Baghdad hating Americans. The fear and paranoia shown by the GIs I spoke to there concerns me. I hate the manipulators who have put you and your kind into the situation that you are in.”
    this is not america

  2. Helena, I agree with your conclusion here. In reference to your comments on an earlier thread, I don’t think the “off shore balancing” concept is the same as, or necessarily implies, a policy of US hegemony. In fact, until that happy day when the whole world learns to live in peace and harmony, some form of balancing of global and regional powers is probably the best way to minimize conflict. I am a big believer in checks and balances among competitive factions, versus global utopian solutions. America’s post-cold-war attempt to achieve the latter is obviously ending in disaster.

  3. Hi, Helen, I am Nouri bin Ziri from the “Moor Next Door,” you referenced to me in the comments section of a previous post about the riots in France (https://vintage.justworldnews.org/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=1556), which I am very pleased with, but you called me Moroccan American! I am Algerian/Lebanese (Algerian Shia (7ner) father and LEbanese Christian (fmr Greek ORtho, Quaker mother) American. Sorry to interupt! Thanks.
    Cheers and the best,
    Nouri

  4. Hi, all.
    JC, I agree with you that “off-shore balancing” need not necessarily always constitute the same project as maintaining US hegemony. But in practice, the way that OSB is referred to in all the US discourse that I’ve seen, it would indeed be the US that unilaterally does all that “balancing”… So yes, it does still look like a hegemonic project.
    If I saw references to a robust and empowered coalition of non-US forces also being involved in this “balancing” act– by which, I mean a coalitin that is NOT, like the present “coalition” in Iraq, totally dominated by Washington– then I would say that form of OSB is not wholly part of a hegemonic project. I’m not seeing any reference to any such coalition, or to a UN role, in the current mainstream discourse on OSB…
    Nouri, hi. Sorry about that mistake, which I realised soon after I’d posted that comment. Good work on your site there. I love some of your reflections on the nature of history… (Also, your “catch” re the David Duke story, which I hadn’t seen.)

  5. In the aftermath of a US withdrawal from Iraq, we need to recognize that the whole structure of the relationship between the US and the other 96% of the world’s people has to be radically restructured.
    Whether we withdraw or not, a radical restructuring of viewpoint is needed here in the United States.
    The situation in Vietnam in its time was looked at in just the dire terms that the saddest, darkest scenarios in Iraq now envision. The world will be simply doomed if *we* do not “stay the course.” Or something.
    The world survives, with our help or without, and sometimes thrives. This will come as a shock to the likes of Patrick Buchanan. As in Vietnam and now in regard to Iraq, the rest of the world has a difficulty understanding why the United States feels it is so much more “right” than the rest of the world.
    Whether it is lies about pre war intelligence or overblown doomsday fantasies, the fiasco our fears create blow up in the faces of the rest of the world as well as our own. Now we find ourselves in a jungle of animals and we believe clearly one animal is more equal than others.
    I came here by way of Jeanne at Body and Soul and am glad I did. Keep up the fine work and may we find a peace below the same stars at night we all share.

  6. “the way that OSB is referred to in all the US discourse that I’ve seen, it would indeed be the US that unilaterally does all that ‘balancing’…”
    Of course! I think the theory presumes that each participant will pursue its own interests, and will always be trying to tilt the balance its way, if you will. Naturally, the US discourse is focused on how the US would attempt to manipulate such a system. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad system. The positive aspect is the recognition that we are not, and never will be, in a position to maintain a global “pax Americana,” through either military force or economic leverage.
    Let’s pause for 1/2 second and be grateful that we live in a society where such ideas are still openly discussed . . .
    OK, that’s enough.

  7. On John C.’s recognition of the value of balance of power, I think it’s true that it’s the least bad thing humans came up with after they made the mistake of inventing borders. While I love to slag the British Empire because so much of its racism and greed-worship survive in our culture, in some ways our behavior has become worse than the British. I think the British were actually sincere about balance of power theory. They recognized their navy was their permanent edge over Europe and stuck quietly to that until the reality of German success led everyone to get grabby. Somehow America has crossed a line where it feels it can deform global power theory at will. Is it that we attained a certain % of global wealth, or a certain level of nuclear warheads, or that our thinking is so short-term that we defy the exhaustion of resources that will surely ruin us? Is it our greater cultural isolationism? Is it that Britian viewed itself as first among equals in the white European club, and had a vested interest in protecting the club’s goal of keeping other races down, while America sees itself as a master race that must smash down even other whites? (See: Project for a New American Century, an equal opportunity offender) At Victoria’s 1897 Jubilee, the navies of the world gathered in Portsmouth to celebrate not just the Queen, but the right of all nations to defend themselves, and those navies were far more equal than now, and the British treated them with respect. Now Americans view every other military as an affront, a slap in our faces – “How dare you not let us take over?”

  8. JC, hi. I think what you write crystallizes the problems I have joining myself to any project that concerns “the national interest”. That supposes that my interests are the same as those of Halliburton inc and Donald trump? I don’t think so! That’s why I always strongly prefer to talk about the interests of the US citizenry as such– precisly to cut out the most commonly understood, corporation-dominated understanding of “the national interest.”
    And at the level of the US citizenry, I am strongly of the view that our best interest is served not through militarism, might, or domination of the sea-lanes or global markets but through building relationships of decent mutual respect with all the other peoples of the world… If we can do that, then the need for armies and war preparations will simply fall away. (Q.v. the “need” white South Africans felt they had for armed might to protect them from their non-white compatriots… as opposed to the fact that once they re-engaged with them on the basis of equality the “need” for that army fell away.
    Super, you make some “super” points there; especially about the difference between US purviews of hegemony and those entertainable by the European imperial powers of the 19th century. I definitely think short-sightedness is a big factor there…

  9. Helena, you are essentially saying that things would be much better if we could all just get along. How can I argue with that? I just don’t believe that we are ever going to achieve a utopian world society in which all relationships are based on understanding and mutual respect and “the need for armies and war preparations will simply fall away.” I think we’ll always have troublemakers, who will always be able to find gullible supporters. I would humbly argue that human history thus far supports my view. That’s why I think structure is important, as well as a balance of power.
    By the way, I’ve been reading Gareth Porter’s book “Perils of Dominance” (mentioned here in a prior thread) which makes a pretty good case for blaming the Vietnam war on the imbalance of power (in favor of the US) following the Korean war.

  10. I sort of miss those war criminals Nixon and Kissinger, who committed murder to prepare for American relative decline in a “multipolar” world. The dogmatic conservatives hated them for such a heretical belief, and Watergate paved the way for their pope, Reagan, to restart the march to empire. Why should we have decline or balance of power when America can get away with infinite borrowing?
    I’m not entirely pessimistic about the idea of a multi-generational reduction of war. The 13 colonies once were pretty well armed against each other and sometimes shooting, and the members of the EU are only 60 years removed from The Big One. But backsliding can be catastrophic. Something has gone wrong with the Western liberal project of consolidating the world into bigger and bigger states that will magically make that final leap into world government and peace. Do you remember 40 years ago that everyone simply assumed world government was coming, for good or ill? Boy, every science fiction writer assumed it, even Robert Heinlein, a truly extraordinary thing if you’ve read his stuff. If old Tory Churchill could call for a United States of Europe in 1945, then it seemed that last step would be a cinch. What was the flaw in their reasoning – was it a problem of consolidation within larger bodies, or a problem of the subsequent relations between those bodies? If it’s the latter, then it impinges on balance of power issues.
    But even internal mergermania could be dangerous. Say all English-speaking states had merged, as opposed to the UK joining the EU. Once Britons were in America’s tight orbit, would their attitudes converge with ours? Would they all start believing in Creationism and the death penalty? Right now Britain is in an unstable orbit around two massive stars, in economic ways becoming more American, but in views about God, Guns and Empire becoming more European. Since past consolidation has tended to be on national lines (shared religion, language), it could create self-sufficient blocs of closed-minded people susceptible to Master Race arguments. And that, I submit, overwhelms any mechanism for military balance of power, because such blockheads find balance repugnant. It’s bad news for ideas of shared humanity, too.
    I’ve lost my belief in progress, and now think the world is not consolidating, but is in a giant culture elimination tournament that will lead to disaster. The US, China, Russia, and the still un-consolidated Arab Nation may be the semi-finalists. With fewer players, balancing power become clumsier (the Triple Entente-Triple Alliance dilemma). And worst of all, every time a society is absorbed by a more aggressive one, the resulting people think they’re a complete humanity, needing to know nothing about the outside. If America wins the tournament, no one will be left to talk about global warming or peak oil, or why somebody has to save money so someone else can get a home equity loan and blow it on sport utility vehicles. If our ideas are proven wrong by reality, we will take our entire species with us.

  11. Regarding the validity of the Gulf of Tonkin incident being a false pretext for the US engaging in the Viet Nam War, an ex-Navy pilot friend of mine has provided me with this first hand account of his flying cover patrols at that time which supports the false pretext notion:
    Nov. 1, 2005
    We pilots on the Ticonderoga were briefed about the Desoto patrols but not any of the other operations underway at the time. We were told that the Maddox (and maybe the Turner Joy) were going to follow North Vietnam’s coastline at the 3 mile limit. Three miles by the way was what the US uses to define international waters whereas North Vietnam and many other countries use 13(?) miles.
    I was flying F8 Crusaders and that airplane was primarily used for air to air cover for the fleet but this day, instead of air-air Sidewinder missles, we were loaded with air to ground unguided Zunis and were going to practice firing them at a sled being towed about 1000 yards behind the aircraft carrier. Sounded like a gift to me as they never let us do that account of the expense…except that we had been briefed about the Maddox’s operation. A sled is a metal surfboard that produces a good size wake simulating the wake of a ship which would give us a good aiming point. This was clue #2 that we were setting up a situation where we could justify an attack on N.V. The alledged attack on the Maddox occured when another 2 Crusaders were airborne, again with Zunis instead of Sidewinders. Oddly, the section comprised of one F8 from my squadron, VF-51, flown by Ltjg Dick Hastings, killed the next year, and a LCDR from VF-53 our the sister squadron who I don’t remember. My wingman was a Ltjg also from VF-53 but I don’t remember who and it’s not recorded in my pilots logbook. Don’t remember them mixing us before and don’t know what that was about. As I was briefing the other pilot someone from the Admiral’s staff (also unusual to have the Admiral on board) came in to tell us that the Maddox was being fired on and the the F8’s were sent in reponse. That’s what we did too, only I never saw and PT boats. I’ve seen reports that the weather was bad with limited visibility and that’s why there was sighting problems but that just wasn’t true. There was a high overcast but visibility was quite good underneath.
    Our cycles from takeoff to landing were about 1.8 hours so we must have toured around looking for those boats for up to an hour but we never saw any. Saw lots of Sampans but PT boats are much bigger, and even if they were dead-in-the-water, they would have been easy to see. The Maddox vectored us around and we spent time “over” the PT boats but could not spot them.
    The next night the Turner Joy was “attacked.” When our C.O. CDR Stockdale heard of this he grabbed the airplane away from a junior officer and launched. It was one of the black nights and a black night at sea, esp if there is an overcast is beyond the sort of black we are familiar with.
    Same drill as August 4th. He and a wingman were vectored around and of course he did not see anything but just blindly fired his guns, Zunis and even Sidewinders! Even if there was anything there he would not have hit it.
    Incidently, in the 10/31 issue of the SF Chronicle there was an article reporting that the events of the night of August 5th never happened.
    Seems to me the whole thing was a setup by the USA.

  12. Regarding the validity of the Gulf of Tonkin incident being a false pretext for the US engaging in the Viet Nam War, an ex-Navy pilot friend of mine has provided me with this first hand account of his flying cover patrols at that time which supports the false pretext notion:
    Nov. 1, 2005
    We pilots on the Ticonderoga were briefed about the Desoto patrols but not any of the other operations underway at the time. We were told that the Maddox (and maybe the Turner Joy) were going to follow North Vietnam’s coastline at the 3 mile limit. Three miles by the way was what the US uses to define international waters whereas North Vietnam and many other countries use 13(?) miles.
    I was flying F8 Crusaders and that airplane was primarily used for air to air cover for the fleet but this day, instead of air-air Sidewinder missles, we were loaded with air to ground unguided Zunis and were going to practice firing them at a sled being towed about 1000 yards behind the aircraft carrier. Sounded like a gift to me as they never let us do that account of the expense…except that we had been briefed about the Maddox’s operation. A sled is a metal surfboard that produces a good size wake simulating the wake of a ship which would give us a good aiming point. This was clue #2 that we were setting up a situation where we could justify an attack on N.V. The alledged attack on the Maddox occured when another 2 Crusaders were airborne, again with Zunis instead of Sidewinders. Oddly, the section comprised of one F8 from my squadron, VF-51, flown by Ltjg Dick Hastings, killed the next year, and a LCDR from VF-53 our the sister squadron who I don’t remember. My wingman was a Ltjg also from VF-53 but I don’t remember who and it’s not recorded in my pilots logbook. Don’t remember them mixing us before and don’t know what that was about. As I was briefing the other pilot someone from the Admiral’s staff (also unusual to have the Admiral on board) came in to tell us that the Maddox was being fired on and the the F8’s were sent in reponse. That’s what we did too, only I never saw and PT boats. I’ve seen reports that the weather was bad with limited visibility and that’s why there was sighting problems but that just wasn’t true. There was a high overcast but visibility was quite good underneath.
    Our cycles from takeoff to landing were about 1.8 hours so we must have toured around looking for those boats for up to an hour but we never saw any. Saw lots of Sampans but PT boats are much bigger, and even if they were dead-in-the-water, they would have been easy to see. The Maddox vectored us around and we spent time “over” the PT boats but could not spot them.
    The next night the Turner Joy was “attacked.” When our C.O. CDR Stockdale heard of this he grabbed the airplane away from a junior officer and launched. It was one of the black nights and a black night at sea, esp if there is an overcast is beyond the sort of black we are familiar with.
    Same drill as August 4th. He and a wingman were vectored around and of course he did not see anything but just blindly fired his guns, Zunis and even Sidewinders! Even if there was anything there he would not have hit it.
    Incidently, in the 10/31 issue of the SF Chronicle there was an article reporting that the events of the night of August 5th never happened.
    Seems to me the whole thing was a setup by the USA.

  13. Helen, you are absolutely right that when the United States loses in Iraq, as it surely will in the end, it must be the occasion for a fundamental reassessment of U.S. foreign policy. The idea that the United States should remain the dominant power in the world for as long as possible was the bedrock of bipartisan agreement on the invasion of Iraq in the first place. That should be the issue in the wake of the worst defeat in U.S. history. Of course, the right-wing will thunder about how Islamist terrorists will be emboldened. But the answer to that argument is that Iraq has shown the utter fecklessness of U.S. military power as a response to that problem.
    Instead of fighting an unnecessary and unwinnable war with former Baathists in Iraq, who are natural allies against Islamic terrorists, we should be joining forces with them against those Islamic terrorists. I have just written a piece for Inter-Press Service about the offer from major Sunni ressistance organizations to take down Zarqawi and his foreign jihadists as part of a negotiated peace agreement. That ought to be the direction of U.S. policy right now.
    Here is my piece, from antiwar.com:
    December 6, 2005
    No-Timetable Policy Rules Out a Deal on Zarqawi
    by Gareth Porter
    U.S. President George W. Bush’s adamant rejection of a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq effectively slams the door on a recent reported offer from Sunni resistance groups to eliminate the al-Qaeda terrorist haven in Iraq as part of a negotiated peace agreement.
    At the recent Iraqi reconciliation meeting in Cairo, leaders of three Sunni armed organizations – the Islamic Army, the Bloc of Holy Warriors, and the Revolution of 1920 Brigades – told U.S. and Arab officials they were willing to track down terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and turn him over to Iraqi authorities as part of a negotiated settlement with the United States, according to the highly respected London-based Arabic-language al-Hayat newspaper.
    Other press reports have confirmed the presence of Sunni resistance leaders on the fringes of the conference, and al-Hayat reporters were on the scene covering the conference.
    Bush has effectively ruled out such an agreement with the insurgent groups by rejecting any negotiation on a withdrawal timetable. He again attacked the idea of “setting an artificial deadline” for withdrawal in his speech to naval cadets on Nov. 29.
    U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad declared for the first time in an interview on ABC news last week that he was prepared to open negotiations with leaders of Sunni insurgent groups who are not Saddam loyalists or followers of Zarqawi.
    But without any flexibility on the troop withdrawal issue, no real negotiations with the insurgents are possible. The demand for a withdrawal schedule has been the central negotiating demand of Sunni insurgent leaders ever since they began communicating their conditions for ending the armed resistance to U.S. officials early in 2005.
    The capture of Zarqawi by Sunni insurgents would not end the terrorist-haven problem by itself, but that offer appears to shorthand for a broader proposal to attack and eliminate the foreign terrorist bases of operation in Iraq. U.S. intelligence has long been aware of a sharp rivalry and even occasional armed clashes between Sunni insurgent organizations and the foreign terrorists under Zarqawi’s leadership, despite their military cooperation against the occupation.
    In the past, both the Sunni insurgents and Zarqawi’s followers have raised the possibility that the Sunni leaders would turn on the foreign jihadists if a peace agreement were reached with the United States. Last August, Saleh al-Mutlaq of the Sunni National Dialogue Council, which is sympathetic to the Sunni armed resistance, declared, “If the Americans reach an agreement with the local resistance, there won’t be any room for foreign fighters.”
    After the reports of contacts between the Sunni insurgents and U.S. officials surfaced last summer, the al-Qaeda organization in Iraq expressed serious concern about just such a possibility. An Internet posting by a follower of Zarqawi warned that if the Sunni insurgents ended their armed resistance, the insurgents would “exploit their knowledge of the mujahideen and their methods and their supply routes and they way they maneuver.”
    In 2005, the Sunni insurgents and Zarqawi have clashed over both possible peace negotiations and participation in the October referendum on the constitution. Organizations linked with Zarqawi warned as early as last spring against negotiating with the United States, and threatened to kill anyone who worked to turn out voters in the referendum. A coalition of larger insurgent groups called for maximizing the vote against the draft constitution.
    The Sunni leaders told their U.S. contacts in Cairo they would not deliver Zarqawi to the U.S. forces, consistent with their demand that the U.S. military presence must be phased under any negotiated settlement, according to al-Hayat. A Pentagon source commented last week that it would “make perfect sense” that the Sunni insurgents don’t want to hand over either arms or foreign jihadists to the U.S., as a matter of nationalist pride.
    Cooperation with a Shi’ite-dominated government on the foreign terrorist presence in Iraq, however, would require further negotiations between Sunni insurgent leaders and the government on protection of minority rights and other major political issues.
    Negotiating with the major Sunni resistance organizations, once regarded as impossible, become a real option after Sunni intermediaries began passing on peace feelers from several of those organizations early in 2005. Guerrilla units once thought to be acting entirely independently of one another and without any program are now credited with the capability for common political action.
    In July, Marine Lt. Gen. James T. Conway told reporters in Washington that the military had identified the top eight to 10 leaders of the insurgency and knew that they had met “occasionally” to “talk organization tactics.” Some of those meetings are said to have taken place in Syria and Jordan.
    After meetings between the insurgent leaders and U.S. military officers, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, said that the “preliminary talks” could lead to actual negotiations with insurgent groups.
    Bush’s “declassified” war strategy reflects a much more sophisticated understanding of the relationship between Sunni insurgents and Zarqawi’s organization than is seen in past administration rhetoric.
    Whereas Bush administration rhetoric has referred to the enemy only as “terrorists” and “Saddam loyalists” in the past, the document identifies a third group, the “rejectionists,” who are said to represent most of those who have taken up arms against the occupation. It acknowledges that the “rejectionists” have goals that are “to some extent incompatible” with those of the terrorists.
    The document, titled “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq,” also hints that the Sunnis have legitimate Sunni concerns about the absence of any protection for minority rights in the constitution pushed through by Shi’ite party leaders.
    Nevertheless, it suggests that there is no need for any compromise with the insurgency, because the U.S. and its Iraqi allies can play on divisions among the insurgent groups, drawing off some of them and controlling the rest. Bush declared in his speech on Iraq last week that the goal was to “marginalize the Saddamists and rejectionists.”
    According to source familiar with Defense Department thinking on the issue, a plan was adopted last summer for “negotiations” with insurgent groups that would offer no real compromise with them. Instead, the U.S. officials would offer withdrawal only if and as certain “conditions” were met, such as training and deployment of adequate government units to replace U.S. troops.
    The marginalization strategy requires Shi’ite leaders to promise greater protection for Sunni rights through amending the constitution. “I think Khalilzad is gently nudging the government in the direction of negotiating with the Sunnis,” said the Pentagon source.
    The administration is unlikely to do anything more in contacts with Sunni insurgents until and unless a more accommodating Shi’ite leadership emerges from the Dec. 15 election, according to the source.
    Meanwhile, no effort is being made to take advantage of an opportunity to do something concrete about the one issue which is of concern to the U.S. public. As the domestic political struggle over military withdrawal from Iraq heats up, the failure to pursue a timetable could eventually become an explosive issue for the Bush administration.
    (Inter Press Service)

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