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Israeli Invasion of Lebanon, 2006: Fact and Fiction

April 1, 2007

by Brian Harring

Note: On a business trip to Moscow for a conference with my publishers, I stopped in Paris for four days for business, research and sightseeing. During that time, one of my French friends in their Foreign Office gave me a copy of an official report and summary of the causes, actions and losses of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 2006. This document runs to over three hundred pages and is complete with charts, graphs and many photographs. Here is a translation and condensation of that report for your interest. Brian Harring

Subject: Causes of the attack

Both the State of Israel and the United States viewed Syria as a potentially dangerous enemy. Joint intelligence indicated that Syria was a strong supporter of the Hezbollah Shiite paramilitary group. Israel had planned a punitive military operation into Lebanon both to clip Hezbollah’s wings and send a strong message to Syria to cease and desist supplying arms and money to the anti-Israel group. Because of its involvement in Iraq, the United States indicated it would be unable to supply any ground troops but would certainly supply any kind of weapon, to include bombs, cluster bombs and ammunition for this projected operation. A casus belli was created by the Israeli Mossad’s assassination of Rafik Haarri, a popular Lebanese politician and subsequent disinformation promulgated and instigated by both Israel and the United States blamed Syria for the killing.

The IDF was being supplied faulty and misleading intelligence information, apparently originating from Russian sources, that gave misinformation about Hezbollah positions and strengths and therefore the initial planning was badly flawed.

In full concert with the American president, the IDF launched its brutal and murderous attack on July 12, 2006 and continued unabated until the Hexbollah inflicted so many serious casualties on the Israeli forces and also on the civilian population of Israel, that their government frantically demanded that the White House force a cease fire through the United Nations. This was done for Israel on August 14, 2007 and the last act of this murderous and unprovoked assault was when Israel removed their naval blockade of Lebanese ports.

The contrived incident that launched the Israeli attack was an alleged attack by Hezbollah into Israeli territory where they were alleged to have ‘kidnapped” two Israeli soldiers and subsequently launched a rocket attack to cover their retreat.

The conflict killed over six thousand people, most of whom were Lebanese, severely damaged Lebanese infrastructure, displaced 700,000-915,000 Lebanese, and 300,000-500,000 Israelis, and disrupted normal life across all of Lebanon and northern Israel. Even after the ceasefire, much of Southern Lebanon remained uninhabitable due to unexploded cluster bombs. As of 1 December 2006, an estimated 200,000 Lebanese remained internally displaced or refugees

During the campaign Israel’s Air Force flew more than 12,000 combat missions, its Navy fired 2,500 shells, and its Army fired over 100,000 shells. Large parts of the Lebanese civilian infrastructure were destroyed, including 400 miles of roads, 73 bridges, and 31 other targets such as Beirut International Airport, ports, water and sewage treatment plants, electrical facilities, 25 fuel stations, 900 commercial structures, up to 350 schools and two hospitals, and 15,000 homes. Some 130,000 more homes were damaged.

Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz ordered commanders to prepare civil defense plans. One million Israelis had to stay near or in bomb shelters or security rooms, with some 250,000 civilians evacuating the north and relocating to other areas of the country.

On 26 July 2006 Israeli forces attacked and destroyed an UN observer post. Described as a nondeliberate attack by Israel, the post was shelled for hours before being bombed. UN forces made repeated calls to alert Israeli forces of the danger to the UN observers, all four of whom were killed. Rescuers were shelled as they attempted to reach the post. According to an e-mail sent earlier by one of the UN observers killed in the attack, there had been numerous occasions on a daily basis where the post had come under fire from both Israeli artillery and bombing. The UN observer reportedly wrote that previous Israeli bombing near the post had not been deliberate targeting, but rather due to “tactical necessity,” military jargon which retired Canadian Major General Lewis MacKenzie later interpreted as indicating that Israeli strikes were aimed at Hezbollah targets extremely close to the post.

On 27 July 2006 Hezbollah ambushed the Israeli forces in Bint Jbeil and killed eighteen soldiers. Israel claimed, after this event, that it also inflicted heavy losses on Hezbollah.

On 28 July 2006 Israeli paratroopers killed 5 of Hezbollah’s commando elite in Bint Jbeil. In total, the IDF claimed that 80 fighters were killed in the battles at Bint Jbeil. Hezbollah sources, coupled with International Red Cross figures place the Hexbollah total at 7 dead and 129 non-combattant Lebanese civilian deaths.

On 30 July 2006 Israeli airstrikes hit an apartment building in Qana, killing at least 65 civilians, of which 28 were children, with 25 more missing. The airstrike was widely condemned.

On 31 July 2006 the Israeli military and Hezbollah forces engaged Hezbollah in the Battle of Ayta ash-Shab.

On 1 August 2006 Israeli commandos launched Operation Sharp and Smooth and landed in Baalbek and captured five civilians including one bearing the same name as Hezbollah’s leader, “Hassan Nasrallah”. All of the civilians were released after the ceasefire. Troops landed near Dar al-Himkeh hospital west of Baalbeck as part of a widescale operation in the area.

On 4 August 2006 the IAF attacked a building in the area of al-Qaa around 10 kilometers (six miles) from Hermel in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon. Sixty two farm workers, mostly Syrian and Lebanese Kurds, were killed during the airstrike.

On 5 August 2006 Israeli commandos carried out a nighttime raid in Tyre, blowing up a water treatment plant, a small clinic and killing 187 civilians before withdrawing.

On 7 August 2006 the IAF attacked the Shiyyah suburb in the Lebanese capital of Beirut, destroying three apartment buildings in the suburb, killing at least 120 people.

On 11 August 2006 the IAF attacked a convoy of approximately 750 vehicles containing Lebanese police, army, civilians, and one Associated Press journalist, killing at least 40 people and wounding at least 39.

On 12 August 2006 the IDF established its hold in South Lebanon. Over the weekend Israeli forces in southern Lebanon nearly tripled in size. and were ordered to advance towards the Litani River.

On 14 August 2006 the Israeli Air Force reported that they had killed the head of Hezbollah’s Special Forces, whom they identified as Sajed Dewayer,but this claim was never proven.. 80 minutes before the cessation of hostilities, the IDF targeted a Palestinian faction in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp in Sidon, killing a UNRWA staff member. Sixty two refugees had been killed in an attack on this camp six days prior to the incident.

During the campaign Hezbollah fired between 3,970 and 4,228 rockets. About 95% of these were 122 mm (4.8 in) Katyusha artillery rockets, which carried warheads up to 30 kg (66 lb) and had a range of up to 30 km (19 mi). An estimated 23% of these rockets hit built-up areas, primarily civilian in nature.

Cities hit included Haifa, Hadera, Nazareth, Tiberias, Nahariya, Safed, Afula, Kiryat Shmona, Beit She’an, Karmiel, and Maalot, and dozens of Kibbutzim, Moshavim, and Druze and Arab villages, as well as the northern West Bank. Hezbollah also engaged in guerrilla warfare with the IDF, attacking from well-fortified positions. These attacks by small, well-armed units caused serious problems for the IDF, especially through the use hundreds of sophisticated Russian-made anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs). Hezbollah destroyed 38 Israeli Merkava main battle tanks and damaged 82. Fifteen tanks were destroyed by anti-tank mines. Hezbollah caused an additional 65 casualties using ATGMs to collapse buildings onto Israeli troops sheltering inside.

After the initial Israeli response, Hezbollah declared an all-out military alert. Hezbollah was estimated to have 13,000 missiles at the beginning of the conflict. Israeli newspaper Haaretz described Hezbollah as a trained, skilled, well-organized, and highly motivated infantry that was equipped with the cream of modern weaponry from the arsenals of Syria, Iran, Russia, and China. Lebanese satellite TV station Al-Manar reported that the attacks had included a Fajr-3 and a Ra’ad 1, both liquid-fuel missiles developed by Iran.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah defended the attacks, saying that Hezbollah had “started to act calmly, we focused on Israel[i] military bases and we didn’t attack any settlement, however, since the first day, the enemy attacked Lebanese towns and murdered civilians — Hezbollah militants had destroyed military bases, while the Israelis killed civilians and targeted Lebanon’s infrastructure.” Hezbollah apologized for shedding Muslim blood, and called on the Arabs of the Israeli city of Haifa to flee.

On 13 July 2006 in response to Israel’s retaliatory attacks in which 43 civilians were killed, Hezbollah launched rockets at Haifa for the first time, hitting a cable car station along with a few other buildings

On 14 July 2006 Hezbollah attacked the INS Hanit, an Israeli Sa’ar 5-class missile boat enforcing the naval blockade, with a what was believed to be a radar guided C-802 anti-ship missile. 24 sailors were killed and the warship was severely damaged and towed back to port.

On 17 July 2006 Hezbollah hit a railroad repair depot, killing twenty-two workers. Hezbollah claimed that this attack was aimed at a large Israeli fuel storage plant adjacent to the railway facility. Haifa is home to many strategically valuable facilities such as shipyards and oil refineries.

On 18 July 2006 Hezbollah hit a hospital in Safed in northern Galilee, wounding twenty three.

On 27 July 2006 Hezbollah ambushed the Israeli forces in Bint Jbeil and killed forty one soldiers, and destroyed 12 IDF vehicles and destroyed three armored vehicles and seriously damaged eight more. Israel claimed it also inflicted heavy losses on Hezbollah.

On 3 August 2006 Nasrallah warned Israel against hitting Beirut and promised retaliation against Tel Aviv in this case. He also stated that Hezbollah would stop its rocket campaign if Israel ceased aerial and artillery strikes of Lebanese towns and villages.

On 4 August 2006 Israel targeted the southern outskirts of Beirut, and later in the day, Hezbollah launched rockets at the Hadera region.

On 9 August 2006 twenty three Israeli soldiers were killed when the building they were taking cover in was struck by a Hezbollah anti-tank missile and collapsed.

On 12 August 2006 24 Israeli soldiers were killed; the worst Israeli loss in a single day. Out of those 24, five soldiers were killed when Hezbollah shot down an Israeli helicopter, a first for the militia. Hezbollah claimed the helicopter had been attacked with a Wa’ad missile.

One of the most controversial aspects of the conflict has been the high number of civilian deaths. The actual proportion of civilian deaths and the responsibility of it is hotly disputed.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch blamed Israel for systematically failing to distinguish between combatants and civilians, which may constitute a war crime, and accused Hezbollah of committing war crimes by the deliberate and indiscriminate killing of civilians by firing rockets into populated areas

On 24 July 2006, U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said Israel’s response violated international humanitarian law, but also criticized Hezbollah for knowingly putting civilians in harm’s way by “cowardly blending…among women and children”.During the war, Israeli jets distributed leaflets calling on civilian residents to evacuate or move north.

In response to some of this criticism, Israel has stated that it did, wherever possible, attempt to distinguish between protected persons and combatants, but that due to Hezbollah militants being in civilian clothing (thus committing the war crime of perfidy this was not always possible.

Direct attacks on civilian objects are prohibited under international humanitarian law. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) initially estimated about 35,000 homes and businesses in Lebanon were destroyed by Israel in the conflict, while a quarter of the country’s road bridges or overpasses were damaged. Jean Fabre, a UNDP spokesman, estimated that overall economic losses for Lebanon from the month-long conflict between Israel and Hezbollah totaled “at least $15 billion, if not more.”^] Before andthroughout the war, Hezbollah launched over 4000 unguided rockets against Israeli population centers, seeking to terrorize the Israeli population. This was in direct response to Israel’s attack on residental sections and the deliberate targeting of civilians

Amnesty International published a report stating that “the deliberate widespread destruction of apartments, houses, electricity and water services, roads, bridges, factories and ports, in addition to several statements by Israeli officials, suggests a policy of punishing both the Lebanese government and the civilian population,” and called for an international investigation of violations of international humanitarian law by both sides in the conflict.

Israel defended itself from such allegations on the grounds that Hezbollah’s use of roads and bridges for military purposes made them legitimate targets. However, Amnesty International stated that “the military advantage anticipated from destroying [civilian infrastructure] must be measured against the likely effect on civilians.”

Human Rights Watch strongly criticized Israel for using cluster bombs too close to civilians because of their inaccuracy and unreliability, suggesting that they may have gone as far as deliberately targeting civilian areas with such munitions. Hezbollah was also criticized by Human Rights Watch for filling its rockets with ball bearings, which “suggests a desire to maximize harm to civilians”; the U.N has criticised Israel for its use of cluster munitions and disproportionate attacks.

Amnesty International stated that the IDF used white phosphorus shells in Lebanon. Israel later admitted to the use of white phosphorus, but stated that it only used the incendiary against militants. However, several foreign media outlets reported observing and photographing “a large number” of Lebanese civilians with burns characteristic of white phosphorus attacks during the conflict.

Hezbollah casualty figures are difficult to ascertain, with claims and estimates by different groups and individuals ranging from 43 to 1,000. Hezbollah’s leadership claims that 43 of their fighters were killed in the conflict, while Israel estimated that its forces had killed 600 Hezbollah fighters. In addition, Israel claimed to have the names of 532 dead Hezbollah fighters but when challenged by Hezbollah to release the list, the Israelis dropped the issue. A UN official estimated that 50 Hezbollah fighters had been killed, and Lebanese government officials estimated that up to 49 had been killed.

The Lebanese civilian death toll is difficult to pinpoint as most published figures do not distinguish between civilians and militants, including those released by the Lebanese government. In addition, Hezbollah fighters can be difficult to identify as many do not wear military uniforms. However, it has been widely reported that the majority of the Lebanese killed were civilians, and UNICEF estimated that 30% of those killed were children under the age of 13

The death toll estimates do not include Lebanese killed since the end of fighting by land mines or unexploded US/Israeli cluster bombs. According to the National Demining Office, 297 people have been killed and 867 wounded in such blasts.

Official Israeli figures for the Israel Defense Forces troops killed range from 116 to 120. The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs gives two different figures – 117 and 119 – the latter of which contains two IDF fatalities that occurred after the ceasefire went into effect.In September 2006, two local Israeli news papers released insider information ensuring that the israeli military death toll might climbed to around 540 soldiers. Israel refuses any outside agency access to its lists of the dead and wounded but an examination of all the accurate information available as of January 1, 2007 indicates that Israeli Defense Forces lost a total of 2300 killed with 600 of these dying in militatry hospital facilities subsequent to the conclusion of the fighting and an additional 700 very seriously wounded.

Hezbollah rockets killed 43 Israeli civilians during the conflict, including four who died of heart attacks during rocket attacks. In addition, 4,262 civilians were injured – 33 seriously, 68 moderately, 1,388 lightly, and 2,773 were treated for shock and anxiety

Last month, (March, 2007) the Israeli comptroller had planned to release an interim report that was expected to accuse the army and Olmert of leaving Israeli civilians virtually defenseless during last summer’s Lebanon war, in which Hezbollah guerrillas fired a barrage of rockets and missiles at northern Israel.

The Green Zone Follies

Baghdad, 29 March 07: “The famous “surge” is not working. Casualties are not going down and civilian deaths in our raging civil war are at an all time high. A reputable British medical magazine (The Lancet. Ed) published the figure of over 600,000 Iraqi civilian dead and from what I have seen here, I entirely accept this. I had a copy of the mag on my desk and had finished reading it when a senior officer came in to drop off another of the endless puff reports we are expected to send around to the tired, furious and growingly mutinous troops. He saw the magazine, picked it up and read part of the article before taking it away. “Don’t read such defeatist crap!” he said. Now we have little dramas playing out here for the American press. Top brass, suitably dressed and accompanied with a small army of the press, visit military hospitals and are photographed Being Compassionate with mangled soldiers. And afterwards, they leave the wards with the photographers in tow, go back to their quarters, have a drink, wash their hands several times and have an expensive lunch. We have Israeli liaison officers here who still are hoping that Bush will attack Iran but it won’t happen in spite of the flood of “leaked” propaganda about “massing troops” and other such childish lies. We haven’t got the manpower and the Iranians have all kinds of deadly Russian missiles. If we moved a naval task force into the Gulf, they would pick our carriers off like a cat in a cage. Much threatening about attacks because of the captured Brits but we all know the Iranians will eventually release them, unharmed, when they make their point. Were they in Iranian waters? No one knows as borders are so screwed up that anything is possible. Most of the new troops flooding in here are not well armed, have no body armor and many have no weapons. The old hands will send them out to patrol the streets and get blow into cat meat while they stay in their barracks and play poker or smoke pot. MREs are so boring that broiled camel liver or thigh of small child that wandered in front a bored GI sniper is much more palatable.”

The CIA Secret Files Disaster

The Missing Crowley Papers

April 2, 2007

by Brian Harring

On October 8^th, 2000, Robert Trumbull Crowley, once a leader of the CIA’s Clandestine Operations Division, died in a Washington hospital of heart failure and the end effects of Alzheimer’s Disease. Before the late Assistant Director Crowley was cold, Joseph Trento, a writer of light-weight books on the CIA, descended on Crowley’s widow at her town house on Cathedral Hill Drive in Washington and hauled away over fifty boxes of Crowley’s CIA files.

Once Trento had his new find secure in his house in Front Royal , Virginia, he called a well-known Washngton fix lawyer with the news.of his success in securing what the CIA had always considered to be a potential major embarrassment. Three months before, July 20^th of that year, retired Marine Corps colonel William R. Corson died of emphysema and lung cancer at a hospital in Bethesda, Md.

After Corson’s death, Trento and a well-known Washington fix-lawyer went to Corson’s bank, got into his safe deposit box and removed a manuscript entitled ‘Zipper.’ This manuscript, which dealt with Crowley’s involvement in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, vanished into a CIA burn-bag and the matter was considered to be closed forever.

A small group of CIA officials gathered at Trento’s house to search through the Crowley papers, looking for documents that must not become public. A number were found but, to their consternation, a number of files Crowley was known to have had vanished.

When published material concerning the CIA’s actions against Kennedy became public in 2002, it was discovered to the CIA’s horror, that the missing documents had been sent by an increasingly erratic Crowley to others and these included devastating material on the CIA’s activities in South East Asia to include drug running, money laundering and the maintenance of the notorious ‘Regional Interrogation Centers’ in Viet Nam and, worse still, the Zipper files.

The originals had vanished and an extensive search was conducted by the FBI and CIA operatives but without success. Crowley’s survivors, his aged wife and son, were interviewed extensively by the FBI and instructed to minimize any discussion of former CIA files that Crowley had, illegally, removed from Langley when he retired.

A massive disinformation campaign was readied, using government-friendly bloggers, CIA-paid “historians” and others, in the event that anything from this file ever surfaced. The best-laid plans often go astray and in this case, one of the compliant historians, a former government librarian who fancied himself a serious writer, began to tell his friends about the CIA plan to kill Kennedy and eventually, word of this began to leak out into the outside world.

It came to the attention of Dr. Peter Janney, a Massachusetts clinical psychologist and son of Wistar Janney, another career senior CIA official, colleague of not only Bob Crowley but Cord Meyer, Richard Helms, Jim Angleton and others. Dr. Janney has personally researched the life and murder (or should we say assassination?) of Mary Pinchot Meyer for more than thirty years, ever since the story broke in the National Enquirer in 1976.  He knew the Meyer family well, his best friend was Michael Meyer, Mary and Cord Meyer’s middle son, who was hit and killed by an automobile when they were both 9 year old boys.

For a long time, all Dr. Janney had were supposition, opinions and circulating rumor and without any kind of concrete proof, his thesis was interesting but unproven In the midst of his investigations, Dr. Janney discovered the original Zipper file and began the lengthy and time-consuming process of authentication. He was in a unique position to accomplish this because of the extant archives of family and friends. Signatures and other identifying information that would be impossible for an outsider to locate were available to him.

For the last three years, Dr. Janney has collaborated on a Hollywood film script entitled Lost Light about the life and romance of Mary Pinchot Meyer and JFK. The project is currently being represented by one of Hollywood’s top deal-makers and is now being packaged for production.

Peter  Janney grew up in Washington with the families of top CIA brass.  He is now at work on a book tentatively entitled ‘Mary’s Mosiac, that he hopes will be published when the film is initially released.

According to Janney, Mary Meyer was not murdered by a young, innocent Afro-American male by the name of Raymond Crump, Jr., who happened to be ensconced in a tryst adjacent to the C&O Canal Towpath in Georgetown on October 12, 1964.   Crump was framed, according to Janney, and he believes he can now prove it.  The real assassin was interviewed, according to Janney, by the late author Leo Damore in March of 1993 who was writing a book on the subject (Damore committed suicide in 1995; his book was never published). Janney told us that the assassin was a former FBI agent and CIA contract agent who was assigned to surveillance of Mary Meyer right after the Warren Commission Report was released in late September, 1964. Janney is not the repository of all of Damore’s research.

It had always been rumored in the elite CIA circles that James Angleton, head of CIA’s counter intelligence and a fellow Crowley plotter, had ordered her murder because she was threatening to reveal what she knew of her lover’s murder, and the fact that the Warren Commission Report was nothing but a farce and an egregious public-relations venture.  For a long time, all Dr. Janney had were supposition, opinions and circulating rumor and without any kind of concrete proof, his thesis was interesting but unproven  In the midst of his investigations, Dr. Janney discovered the original Zipper file and the Driscoll Report and has now embarked on a lengthy and time-consuming process of authentication. He is possibly in a unique position to accomplish this because of the extant archives of family and friends. Signatures and other identifying information that would be impossible for an outsider to locate may, in fact, be available to him.

The hitherto unknown role of the very secret Naval Security Group surfaced when a former member recalled the activities of Marine Corps Lt. Colonel Bevan Cass while he was discussing his own role in the assassination of Dominican dictator Trujillo and contemporary conversations he had with Cass who was involved in this assassination as well as the Kennedy one.

In spite of the burn bags, the top secret safes and the vigilance of the CIA to keep its own secrets, the truth has an embarrassing and often very fatal habit of emerging, albeit decades later. When it is complete, the Janney book on the Mary Mayer murder will certainly spill over into areas the author never thought he would be able to explore.

While CIA drug running , money-launderings and brutal assassinations are very often strongly rumored and suspected, it has so far not been possible to actually pin them down but this book will do this with their own reports.

How To Avert Mortgage Disasters Before they Happen

Homeowners, Call Your Bankers Before They Call You

March 31, 1007

by Damon Darlin

New York Times

The day of reckoning is near for millions of homeowners who financed their dream house by taking out an adjustable-rate mortgage

Rates are resetting higher, and in some cases, the monthly mortgage payments that were so affordable in 2004 or 2005 when the loan was signed will push homeowners to their limit or beyond.

What is a borrower to do? You can try to make ends meet by cutting back on expenses. Shut off HBO and the premium cable channels, skip your Starbucks run and bring your lunch to work rather than eating out and you might have enough to cover the bump-up in your mortgage payment.

Don’t despair. There is another way to look at this problem. You, the borrower, are not powerless. “Consumers get the feeling it is a lost cause to do anything, but it is pretty much the opposite,” said Harry H. Dinham, president of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers. “The most motivated people are the lenders.”

Homeowners should seek a lower rate or switch to an interest-only loan for a spell. They might even ask for more time to pay, just as long as it does not create “negative amortization,” that is, letting the amount owed increase with each payment.

Mr. Dinham has been through six real estate cycles since 1967 and every time the market goes sour, he said, consumers make the mistake of avoiding the loan officer.

But know this: lenders do not want to get stuck with a property. They have to maintain it and then try to sell it on the open market, usually at a loss. Some industry analysts say that it costs a bank an average of $40,000 to foreclose on a loan. That amount gives the borrower that much more room to negotiate.

About 1.1 million homeowners will lose their homes to foreclosure because of a mortgage resetting to a higher rate over the next six to seven years, said Christopher L. Cagan, director for research and analytics at First American CoreLogic, a mortgage industry research firm in Santa Ana, Calif.

He studied two databases with information on 58 million mortgages and sees a wave of mortgage resets moving through the system, first the mortgages with low teaser rates, followed by subprime loans and finally, as the decade comes to a close, the loans to homeowners with good credit.

This pig-through-the-python transition is not enough to hurt the overall economy — about $112 billion will be lost, he calculated — but it is a world of pain for the households involved.

Almost all of the teaser loans issued this decade — those mortgages offered for less than 3 percent — have reset in the last two years. Rates for most of the homeowners with good credit who obtained adjustable-rate mortgages during the boom years of the housing market will reset from 2008 to 2010. Mr. Cagan said he thought only 7 percent of these loans would default because of the reset.

He concluded that “2008 is the pinch year.” If he were a gambling man — or a real estate investor, but really, what’s the difference? — he said he would start buying residential properties in 2009.

The bulk of the subprime adjustable-rate mortgages, those made to people with less-than-sterling credit reports, are resetting this year and next. About 12 percent of the subprime mortgages will default, he predicted.

Subprime borrowers are particularly vulnerable to resets because the interest rates they were originally paying were higher than market rates. People who were subprime borrowers are, by definition, those who have had trouble with money. Some were already on the edge when they borrowed. For instance, an adjustment on a $300,000 loan to 9.5 percent from 7 percent leads to a 26 percent increase in the payment, to $2,523 from $1,996.

The way to look at resets, whether they are subprime or prime, is what percentage of income is going to the mortgage. Assume that the lender determined when it granted the loan that the borrower was paying 30 percent of income to mortgage payments. Using the example above, upon reset, the borrower is paying 7.8 percent more of their income to the mortgage, that is 30 percent times 26 percent.

It becomes scarier when a borrower originally devoted 50 percent of income to mortgage payments, a rate not uncommon on the coasts where housing is more expensive. Multiply 50 percent times 26 percent and you reach the sad fact that the person has to pay 13 percent more of income to cover the mortgage. “At 50 percent of your income there is not that much you can cut,” Mr. Cagan said.

Catherine Williams, the vice president for financial literacy at Consumer Credit Counseling Services in Houston, said, “We can all have a great garage sale, but, sadly, that only works once.”

Rates are resetting higher, and in some cases, the monthly mortgage payments that were so affordable in 2004 or 2005 when the loan was signed will push homeowners to their limit or beyond.

What is a borrower to do? You can try to make ends meet by cutting back on expenses. Shut off HBO and the premium cable channels, skip your Starbucks run and bring your lunch to work rather than eating out and you might have enough to cover the bump-up in your mortgage payment.

Don’t despair. There is another way to look at this problem. You, the borrower, are not powerless. “Consumers get the feeling it is a lost cause to do anything, but it is pretty much the opposite,” said Harry H. Dinham, president of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers. “The most motivated people are the lenders.”

Homeowners should seek a lower rate or switch to an interest-only loan for a spell. They might even ask for more time to pay, just as long as it does not create “negative amortization,” that is, letting the amount owed increase with each payment.

Mr. Dinham has been through six real estate cycles since 1967 and every time the market goes sour, he said, consumers make the mistake of avoiding the loan officer.

But know this: lenders do not want to get stuck with a property. They have to maintain it and then try to sell it on the open market, usually at a loss. Some industry analysts say that it costs a bank an average of $40,000 to foreclose on a loan. That amount gives the borrower that much more room to negotiate.

About 1.1 million homeowners will lose their homes to foreclosure because of a mortgage resetting to a higher rate over the next six to seven years, said Christopher L. Cagan, director for research and analytics at First American CoreLogic, a mortgage industry research firm in Santa Ana, Calif.

He studied two databases with information on 58 million mortgages and sees a wave of mortgage resets moving through the system, first the mortgages with low teaser rates, followed by subprime loans and finally, as the decade comes to a close, the loans to homeowners with good credit.

This pig-through-the-python transition is not enough to hurt the overall economy — about $112 billion will be lost, he calculated — but it is a world of pain for the households involved.

Almost all of the teaser loans issued this decade — those mortgages offered for less than 3 percent — have reset in the last two years. Rates for most of the homeowners with good credit who obtained adjustable-rate mortgages during the boom years of the housing market will reset from 2008 to 2010. Mr. Cagan said he thought only 7 percent of these loans would default because of the reset.

He concluded that “2008 is the pinch year.” If he were a gambling man — or a real estate investor, but really, what’s the difference? — he said he would start buying residential properties in 2009.

The bulk of the subprime adjustable-rate mortgages, those made to people with less-than-sterling credit reports, are resetting this year and next. About 12 percent of the subprime mortgages will default, he predicted.

Subprime borrowers are particularly vulnerable to resets because the interest rates they were originally paying were higher than market rates. People who were subprime borrowers are, by definition, those who have had trouble with money. Some were already on the edge when they borrowed. For instance, an adjustment on a $300,000 loan to 9.5 percent from 7 percent leads to a 26 percent increase in the payment, to $2,523 from $1,996.

The way to look at resets, whether they are subprime or prime, is what percentage of income is going to the mortgage. Assume that the lender determined when it granted the loan that the borrower was paying 30 percent of income to mortgage payments. Using the example above, upon reset, the borrower is paying 7.8 percent more of their income to the mortgage, that is 30 percent times 26 percent.

It becomes scarier when a borrower originally devoted 50 percent of income to mortgage payments, a rate not uncommon on the coasts where housing is more expensive. Multiply 50 percent times 26 percent and you reach the sad fact that the person has to pay 13 percent more of income to cover the mortgage. “At 50 percent of your income there is not that much you can cut,” Mr. Cagan said.

Catherine Williams, the vice president for financial literacy at Consumer Credit Counseling Services in Houston, said, “We can all have a great garage sale, but, sadly, that only works once.”

Then 90 to 120 days before the loan resets start talking to the lender. Lenders usually approach their borrowers 45 days before a reset. That is not enough time for a borrower to act. Here is an online calculator so you don’t even have to bother to count the days by hand: www.timeanddate.com/date/dateadd.html.

If you started out with a 5.5 percent interest rate, it will adjust to something like 7.75 percent. “If you want to wait and get that rate you can,” said Joe Rogers, executive vice president for the sales and service systems office of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. “Or you could get a 6 percent fixed loan now.”

The dynamics are slightly different when you have no equity in your home or the value of your home is less than the amount of your loan. As a negotiating ploy, you could suggest to your lender that you are willing to just walk away and rationalize the mortgage payments you made as monthly rent payments: tax-deductible monthly rent payments. You wouldn’t want to go through with it because you will seriously damage your credit. It’s a black mark that remains for seven years. Of course, by then the real estate cycle could be back to where it was in 2004 and lenders will be once again throwing loans to anyone.

But tell your lender that’s what you intend to do. What you are seeking is what’s called a deed in lieu of foreclosure. Hearing that, the lender may find more motivation to work something out.

Another strategy to suggest to the lender is something that is called a temporary buy down, Mr. Rogers said. The lender locks you into a rate that is slightly higher than the going rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage. Right now that would be 6 7/8 percent. In the first year of the loan, the payments are set as if you are paying a loan at 4 7/8 percent. In the second year it jumps to 5 7/8 percent. In the third and successive years it is 6 7/8.

You would want this only in a circumstance where you are buying time and expect something to happen within three years that will bail you out. Not that you hope or pray something will happen in that time, but that you actually know you will get a big bonus, an inheritance, or a transfer so you can sell the house.

If your rate does not reset until 2009 or 2010, just sit tight. A lot can change in two or three years. If you don’t believe that, look at how the housing market has changed from 2005.

If there are more signs that the Federal Reserve will begin to lower interest rates, as you near a reset it might be worth considering riding an adjustable-rate mortgage down. A fixed rate is viewed as less risky. The spread between the opening rates on A.R.M.’s and those on fixed-rate loans are not very wide. Mr. Rogers said of taking an A.R.M., “that’s just rolling the dice; if the rates fall, just refinance again.”

But if you worry that you might not be able to refinance as rates drop because a recession might decrease the equity in the home, the adjustable-rate mortgage will allow you to benefit from the lower rates. Erik Hurst, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, said homeowners who took out A.R.M.’s benefited from lower-than-market rates. “If the Fed cuts rates, they’ve won again,” he said.

Is there any good news in this topic? Mr. Cagan, the researcher at First American CoreLogic, found that if house prices went up 1 percent nationally, 70,000 fewer loans would foreclose because of resets.

Of course, the opposite is true as well, he said. Every 1 percent fall in national prices drives an additional 70,000 loans into foreclosure. And for right now, at least, house prices are falling.

FOLLOW-UP: Fidelity Investments said this week that it had calculated the amount of money an American retiring at age 65 would need just for health care during their twilight years: $215,000

It was supposed to be a scary number to encourage Americans to save more, but spread over the 20-year life expectancy that Fidelity also predicts, that comes to $10,750 a year. Fidelity said 27 percent of the average Social Security check would cover that expense.

The frightening part was another calculation. With the rate of health costs rising at more than twice the pace of general inflation, Fidelity said in 20 years, half of the Social Security check would be needed to cover health care costs.

Departing the Titanic

Ex-Aide Details a Loss of Faith in the President

April 1, 2007

by Jim Rutenberg

New York Times

AUSTIN, Tex., In 1999, Matthew Dowd became a symbol of George W. Bush’s early success at positioning himself as a Republican with Democratic appeal.

A top strategist for the Texas Democrats who was disappointed by the Bill Clinton years, Mr. Dowd was impressed by the pledge of Mr. Bush, then governor of Texas, to bring a spirit of cooperation to Washington.

He switched parties, joined Mr. Bush’s political brain trust and dedicated the next six years to getting him to the Oval Office and keeping him there.   In 2004, he was appointed the president’s chief campaign strategist.

Looking back, Mr. Dowd now says his faith in Mr. Bush was misplaced.

In a wide-ranging interview here, Mr. Dowd called for a withdrawal from Iraq and expressed his disappointment in Mr. Bush’s leadership.

He criticized the president as failing to call the nation to a shared sense of sacrifice at a time of war, failing to reach across the political divide to build consensus and ignoring the will of the people on Iraq.

He said he believed the president had not moved aggressively enough to hold anyone accountable for the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and that Mr. Bush still approached governing with a “my way or the highway” mentality reinforced by a shrinking circle of trusted aides.

“I really like him, which is probably why I’m so disappointed in things,” he said.

He added, “I think he’s become more, in my view, secluded and bubbled in.”

In speaking out, Mr. Dowd became the first member of Mr. Bush’s inner circle to break so publicly with him.

He said his decision to step forward had not come easily.  But, he said, his disappointment in Mr. Bush’s presidency is so great that he feels a sense of duty to go public given his role in helping Mr. Bush gain and keep power.

Mr. Dowd, a crucial part of a team that cast Senator John Kerry as a flip-flopper who could not be trusted with national security during wartime, said he had even written but never submitted an op-ed article titled “Kerry Was Right,” arguing that Mr. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and 2004 presidential candidate, was correct in calling last year for a withdrawal from Iraq.

“I’m a big believer that in part what we’re called to do — to me, by God; other people call it karma — is to restore balance when things didn’t turn out the way they should have,” Mr. Dowd said.

“Just being quiet is not an option when I was so publicly advocating an election.”

Mr. Dowd’s journey from true believer to critic in some ways tracks the public arc of Mr. Bush’s political fortunes.

But it is also an intensely personal story of a political operative who at times, by his account, suppressed his doubts about his professional role but then confronted them as he dealt with loss and sorrow in his own life.

In the last several years, as he has gradually broken his ties with the Bush camp, one of Mr. Dowd’s premature twin daughters died, he was divorced, and he watched his oldest son prepare for deployment to Iraq as an Army intelligence specialist fluent in Arabic.

Mr. Dowd said he had become so disillusioned with the war that he had considered joining street demonstrations against it, but that his continued personal affection for the president had kept him from joining protests whose anti-Bush fervor is

so central.

Mr. Dowd, 45, said he hoped in part that by coming forward he would be able to get a message through to a presidential inner sanctum that he views as increasingly isolated.

But, he said, he holds out no great hope.

He acknowledges that he has not had a conversation with the president.

Dan Bartlett, the White House counselor, said Mr. Dowd’s criticism is reflective of the national debate over the war.

“It’s an issue that divides people,” Mr. Bartlett said.

“Even people that supported the president aren’t immune from having their own feelings and emotions.”

He said he disagreed with Mr. Dowd’s description of the president as isolated and with his position on withdrawal.

But he said he was not surprised.

Mr. Dowd has relayed the same sentiments to Mr. Bartlett in private conversations; they are friends.

During the interview with Mr. Dowd on a slightly overcast afternoon in downtown Austin, he was a far quieter man than the cigar chomping general that he was during Mr. Bush’s 2004 campaign.

Soft spoken and somewhat melancholy, he wore jeans, a T-shirt and sandals in an office devoid of Bush memorabilia save for a campaign coffee mug and a photograph of the first couple with his oldest son, Daniel.

The photograph was taken one week before the 2004 election, and one day before Daniel was to go to boot camp.

Over Mexican food at a restaurant that was only feet from the 2000 campaign headquarters, and later at his office just up the street, Mr. Dowd recounted his political and personal journey.

“It’s amazing,” he said.

“In five years, I’ve only traveled 300 feet, but it feels like I’ve gone around the world, where my head is.”

Mr. Dowd said he decided to become a Republican in 1999 and joined Mr. Bush after watching him work closely with Bob Bullock, the Democratic lieutenant governor of Texas, who was a political client of Mr. Dowd and a mentor to Mr. Bush.

“It’s almost like you fall in love,” he said.

“I was frustrated about Washington, the inability for people to get stuff done and bridge divides.

And this guy’s personality— he cared about education and taking a different stand on immigration.”

Mr. Dowd established himself as an expert at interpreting polls, giving Karl Rove, the president’s closest political adviser, and the rest of the Bush team guidance as they set out to woo voters, slash opponents and exploit divisions between Democratic-leaning states and Republican-leaning ones.

In television interviews in 2004, Mr. Dowd said that Mr. Kerry’s campaign was proposing “a weak defense,” and that the voters “trust this president more than they trust Senator Kerry on Iraq.”

But he was starting to have his own doubts by then, he said.

He said he thought Mr. Bush handled the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks well but “missed a real opportunity to call the country to a shared sense of sacrifice.”

He was dumbfounded when Mr. Bush did not fire Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld after revelations that American soldiers had tortured prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

Several associates said Mr. Dowd chafed under Mr. Rove’s leadership.  Mr. Dowd said he had not spoken to Mr. Rove in months but would not discuss their relationship in detail.

Mr. Dowd said, in retrospect, he was in denial.

“When you fall in love like that,” he said, “and then you notice some things that don’t exactly go the way you thought, what do you do?

Like in a relationship, you say ‘No no, no, it’ll be different.’ ”

He said he clung to the hope that Mr. Bush would get back to his Texas style of governing if he won.

But he saw no change after the 2004 victory.

He describes the administration’s handling of Hurricane Katrina, and the president’s refusal in the summer of 2005 to meet with the war protester Cindy Sheehan, whose son died fighting in Iraq, around the same time that Mr. Bush entertained the bicyclist Lance Armstrong at his Crawford ranch as further cause for doubt.

“I had finally come to the conclusion that maybe all these things along do add up,” he said.

“That it’s not the same, it’s not the person I thought.”

He said that during his work on the 2006 re-election campaign of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, which had a bipartisan appeal, he began to rethink his approach to elections.

“I think we should design campaigns that appeal not to 51 percent of the people,” he said, “but bring the country together as a whole.”

He said that he still believed campaigns must do what it takes to win, but that he was never comfortable with the most hard-charging tactics.

He is now calling for “gentleness” in politics.

He said that while he tried to keep his own conduct respectful during political combat, he wanted to “do my part in fixing fissures that I may have been part of.”

His views against the war began to harden last spring when, in a personal exercise, he wrote a draft opinion article and found himself agreeing with Mr. Kerry’s call for withdrawal from Iraq.

He acknowledged that the expected deployment of his son Daniel was an important factor.

He said the president’s announcement last fall that he was re-nominating the former United Nations ambassador John R. Bolton, whose confirmation Democrats had already refused, was further proof to him that Mr. Bush was not seeking consensus with Democrats.

He said he came to believe Mr. Bush’s views were hardening, with the reinforcement of his inner circle.

But, he said, the person “who is ultimately responsible is the president.”

And he gradually ventured out with criticism, going so far as declaring last month in a short essay in Texas Monthly magazine that Mr. Bush was losing “his gut-level bond with the American people,” and breaking more fully in this week’s interview.

“If the American public says they’re done with something, our leaders have to understand what they want,” Mr. Dowd said.

“They’re saying ‘Get out of Iraq.’ ”

Mr. Dowd’s friends from Mr. Bush’s orbit said they understood his need to speak out.

“Everyone is going to reflect on the good and the bad, and everything in between, in their own way,” said Nicolle Wallace, communications director of Mr. Bush’s 2004 campaign, a post she also held at the White House until last summer.

“And I certainly respect the way he’s doing it — these are his true thoughts from a deeply personal place.” Ms. Wallace said she continued to have “enormous gratitude” for her years with Mr. Bush.

Mr. Bartlett, the White House counselor, said he understood, too, though he said he strongly disagreed with Mr. Dowd’s assessment.

“Do we know our critics will try to use this to their advantage? Yes,” he said.  “Is that perfect? No. But you can respectfully disagree with someone who has been supportive of you.”

Mr. Dowd does not seem prepared to put his views to work in 2008.

The only candidate who appeals to him, he said, is Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, because of what Mr. Dowd called his message of unity.

But, he said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if I wasn’t walking around in Africa or South America doing something that was like mission work.”

He added, “I do feel a calling of trying to re-establish a level of gentleness in the world.”

Conspiracy Corner: Blessed Prozac Division

NUCLEAR WAR ALERT !!!

Ken-Welch.Com raised its Alert Status to ORANGE at 3 PM EST (8 PM GMT), March 29, 2007, reflecting that U.S. plans for a nuclear attack on the Republic of Iran, during the period of April 6th through April 11 remain on track and are confirmed by events now taking place in the Middle East.

The Alert is posted at http://www.ken-welch.com/Central.html

1)  Although the objective of the attack is to seize Iranian oil reserves, the entire country will be attacked and tremendous loss of life is anticipated.

2)  At this time all persons currently inside Iran should be making urgent preparations to leave using any pretext available, with the strong possibility of not returning.  Those who cannot leave should be locating underground shelter, and gathering supplies that will allow them to stay in that shelter for as long as possible.

3)  Anyone living in Syria should also be making plans for an emergency foreign vacation, because a concurrent attack upon Syria by Israel is very likely.  This also may involve the use of nuclear weapons.

4)  All people in the Middle East and adjoining areas in western Asia should be reviewing safety procedures related to radioactive contamination carried on the wind.

5)  U.S. residents should be aware that a relatively small nuclear detonation on U.S. soil, centered around the Easter weekend (Saturday 4/7) , is the most probable triggering event.  With the Al-Qaeda myth collapsing, this event will most likely be blamed directly on Iran.  U.S. “response” could be immediate or slightly delayed, with the possible date of 4/11 being considered as psychologically significant.

6)  Currency Markets are expected to be in turmoil, and the value of Iranian and Syrian currencies may fall to zero.  The dollar is also likely to fall as well, while prices for gold and silver rise dramatically.  A complete shut-down of oil shipments from the Persian Gulf will lead to astronomic prices for crude oil and petroleum products of all kinds, leading to equally extraordinary profits for the Houston-based Oil Cartel that is controlling events.

Taken from : http://world.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/52298/

Source:

by courtesy & © 2008 Marwan Asmar

BEIRUT: The Environment Ministry has released a new booklet containing information about the environmental catastrophe caused by Israel’s bombing of the fuel tanks at the Jiyyeh power plant during the summer 2006 war. Funded by the Hanns Seidel foundation and entitled “One Year On … Oil Spill Crisis, July 2006,” the 15-page booklet in both English and Arabic recounts the history of the spill between July 2006 and July 2007. This includes a rundown on the events and phases, estimates of environmental degradation and costs and other information, including action that was taken and is to be taken, such as surveys and interventions.

The impact of the spill, estimated at between 12,000 and 15,000 tons, was determined by wind and water currents that spread it across 150 kilometers of Lebanese coast.

Reactions to the oil spill came through different phases.

According to the booklet, initial intervention began with coordination from the Environment Ministry of and various embassies and non-governmental organizations. This resulted, the booklet says, in preventing about 25,000 more tons of heavy fuel oil from being spilled into the sea.

According to the ministry’s booklet, subsequent intervention, which ran from August 2006 until March 2007, determined the criteria and resources necessary to alleviate the adverse effects of the oil spill based on a shoreline survey. This completed Phase I of intervention.

A “comprehensive survey of all polluted sites,” running in April and May 2007, identified priorities sites for Phase II work. The results of an underwater survey are listed, in the booklet, as well as a map of Lebanon with thumbnail images from each location surveyed.

There is also information about the cleanup process, which recovered 1,144 cubic meters of liquid waste and 7,537 cubic meters of semi-solid and solid waste.

The booklet provides information about the locations the waste was moved to, the method of its storage, and options for the disposal of the waste outlined in order of priority.

Briefly discussing the cost of environmental degradation, the booklet also mentions a United Nations resolution  that assigns blame to Israel for the oil spill and its responsibility to compensate Lebanon for the damage. A copy of the resolution is printed in the booklet, as well as a list of all involved partners in the crisis and images of the sites discussed.

Also…

Long after a cease fire in the Iraeli-Lebanese conflict, thousands of unexploded bombs–cluster munitions–still cover the battlefields…

Dan Rather Reports on Cluster Munitions

http://www.democracynow.org/2006/7/28/national_exclusive_hezbollah_leader_hassan_nasrallah

Sheik Hassan Nasrallah is the leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Although the United States considers Hezbollah a terrorist organization, three former U.S. diplomats had a chance to meet with Nasrallah this past February in Lebanon. The diplomats were members of a delegation organized by the Council for the National Interest.
During the meeting, Nasrallah discussed Hezbollah’s strategy to free Lebanese prisoners being held in Israel. He also spoke about the origins of Hezbollah, and recounted an event that is back in the news this week—Israel’s bombing of a UN observation post in the southern Lebanese town of Qana in 1996 which killed 106 Lebanese refugees.
One of the retired diplomats who met with Nasrallah in February was Edward Peck–he joins us from our Washington studio. Edward Peck is the former U.S. chief of mission in Iraq and ambassador to Mauritania. He served as the deputy director of the White House Task Force on Terrorism in the Reagan administration.

http://www.democracynow.org/2006/7/28/national_exclusive_hezbollah_leader_hassan_nasrallah

وقال مدير قسم الأسلحة في المنظمة ستيف غوس “إن إسرائيل اطلقت عدداً كبيراً من القنابل العنقودية على لبنان تركت مخلفات تسببت بقتل وجرح نحو 200 شخص منذ نهاية الحرب. والسبيل الوحيد لوقف مثل هذه المآسي هو تبني إتفاق دوليلحظر الذخيرة العنقودية”.

حريدة النهار، الأحد 17 شباط 2008 – السنة 74 – العدد 23269