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Date Posted: 20:38:55 11/05/07 Mon
Author: briefing
Subject: November 5, 2007

ICLC BRIEFING INTERNATIONAL VERSION

[A7-45-1/BFG001]:BFG:L: [07/11/04][06: ]AM BRIEFING
STAND:[1.1.00/ ][3.4.10/ ][0.1.00/ ] [21: ]ECO-FIN
SUBJT:[5.1.11/ ][4.1.11/ ][2.1.11/ ] [23: ]AREA SECTOR INTEL
TOPIC:[060.000 :AM BRIEFING ] [99: ]LEGAL
SUB-T:[061.000 :AM BRIEFING, ENGLISH ]
TITLE:[BRIEFING MONDAY NOVEMBER 5 2007 ] 1 of Pages

SYNOPSIS:

TO: ALL POINTS BY: JEFFREY STEINBERG/DAVID CHERRY
RE: MORNING BRIEFING, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2007.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| |
| MORNING BRIEFING |
| |
| Monday, November 5, 2007 |
| |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+


LPAC {IS} THE LAROUCHE CAMPAIGN FOR THE 2008 PRESIDENCY

It is time to end the insanity of the persistent downward trend
in LPAC income at the very moment that Lyn's political impact is
on an upward trend, as never before.

Look at what we have already done with the Homeowners and
Bank Protection Act (HBPA). This is the only reality being
debated, albeit behind closed doors, on Capitol Hill. More and
more people are coming around to see that Lyn has been right
about the systemic collapse of the entire global financial
system, and what must be done about it. You will see, in an LPAC
release, and a series of slugs immediately below, that we have
moved into a new phase of the financial disintegration process,
in which major banks and other financial institutions are losing
tends of billions of dollars, with no end in sight.

If we successfully prevent a bombing of Iran, it will have
been solely the result of Lyn's persistent intervention against
the Children of Satan, even as most people who knew better were
proclaiming, for months and months, that the Iran war danger had
been eliminated, with the ouster of Rumsfeld and some of the
Pentagon neocons, and with the mess in Iraq. We persistently
said, ``No!'' and have been proven right. There is, as Lyn
emphasized in discussions on Sunday, a disposition, on the part
of Cheney and his British controllers, to go to war. There is no
question about that. Do they have the capacity to launch a
bombing campaign against Iran? Without a doubt, they do, perhaps
using the Stratcom ``Global Strike'' Revolution in Military
Affairs apparatus created when Rumsfeld was running the Pentagon.
Can it be stopped? Yes, of course. But it won't be stopped by
an endless parade of people second-guessing with ``what if, if,
if, if...''

Despite all this, many of our own people have not seized
upon this reality, to drive LPAC. Face it: From 1976-2004, Lyn
ran for President in every election cycle, and it was the impact
of his Presidential campaigns, despite some internal sabotaging,
that drove whatever outreach was achieved, and whatever
successive boosts in income followed from it. Remember, for much
of the 2004 Presidential primary campaign, Lyn had the largest
number of individual contributors of all the Democratic
candidates. We launched LPAC at the end of the 2004 Democratic
convention in Boston, as the vehicle for continuing our campaign
activity around Lyn's policy intervention. We almost pulled off
a Kerry victory, through our efforts, in league with Bill Clinton
and the Clinton team.

Ostensibly, Lyn is not running for the Democratic
Presidential nomination in 2008, for obvious reasons of age. But
that does not mean that we are not {running} a massive
intervention into the Presidential elections. At the diplomatic
luncheon on Wednesday, in response to a question about the 2008
Presidential elections, Lyn made a very dramatic point, that
people should take to heart. He said that obviously, the
candidates currently running for President are all unqualified,
and that at the moment, it is looking like Hillary Clinton may
win ``by default.'' The situation globally is so bad and so
terrifying, however, that it begs real ideas and real solutions.
And we have a virtual monopoly on those ideas. Lyn said that
imperfect people can behave like real leaders, if the ideas
exist, if the real solutions exist.

This is what Lyn's intervention into the 2008 election is
all about--presenting in a forceful and effective fashion, the
ideas that will shape the next Presidency, while forcing
immediate action on the life or death issues that cannot be
postponed until after January 2009. By using the heightened
politicization of the population during a Presidential election
cycle, compounded by the massive crises that are hitting people
wherever they turn in their daily lives, we can capture the
institution of the Presidency for a genuine revival of the
American System LaRouche ideas that are the only solution.

The question for all of us is: How effective are you in
conveying the LPAC/LaRouche intervention? Get that concept
straight in your mind, and the outreach and funds will follow.


NEWS SUMMARIES

- LAROUCHE -

Lyndon LaRouche issued a statement on Sunday, denouncing
those who disputed his forecasts about a collapse of the global
financial system. The statement is accompanied by a series of
news summaries, highlighting the latest phase of the financial
crash, with hundreds of billions of dollars in nominal bank
assets being wiped out, and the worse yet to come. LaRouche
referenced his Triple Curve Functions as the only competent
scientific framework for assessing the onrushing breakdown
crisis. (see slugs)

- ECONOMICS -

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), Chairman of the House Ways and
Means Committee, appeared on CSPAN on Sunday, to defend his new
tax legislation, that would repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax
and replace it with funds generated by shutting corporate tax
loopholes and increasing the taxes on hedge fund managers. Rangel
told reporters for the Wall Street Journal and Politico that he
knows that powerful lobbying forces are mobilized to defeat his
bill, but there are no lobbyists defending the interests of the
90 million middle class American taxpayers who are faced
increased tax burdens under the AMT, which has been identified as
a problem for 20 years. [js_]

- UNITED STATES -

Dick Cheney cranked up the Iran war drive some more in a
speech to the World Affairs Council in Dallas, Friday night. (see
slug)

Neither the FBI nor neocon so-called terrorism experts are
able to find Iranian terrorists in the U.S. (see slug)

- EUROPE -

A leaked British Army report blasts the pre-war planning for
the Iraq invasion. (see slug)

- SOUTHWEST ASIA -

Has the U.S. given the green light for an Israeli invasion
of Gaza? (see slug)

150,000 Israelis rallied in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv on
Sunday, to commemorate the 12th anniversary of the assassination
of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. [js_]

Hamas political director Kahled Meshaal said on Saturday
that Hamas is open to national dialogue with Fatah "because we
believe in the importance and the necessity of the Palestinian
people for this but we will not beg." (AFP, Nov. 3)

Istanbul summit on Iraq ended without any serious progress,
as the Kurdish-Turkish crisis dominated the discussions. (see
slug)

Iranian Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki and United
Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon met in Istanbul on
Saturday, on the sidelines of the Iraq neighbors conference. The
UN Secretary General cited Iran's important role in the region,
and Mottaki had praise for the UN chief's efforts to bring peace
to the Middle East. [js_]

The Iraq government, under the "guidance" of American legal
advisors, has canceled a Saddam-era contract with Lukoil to
develop the West Qurna oil field in southern Iraq. In response,
Russia has threatened to revoke a 2004 deal under which Russia
forgave $13 billion of Iraqi debt. (NYT, Nov. 4)

Former Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi, clearly angling for
the job again, told the BBC on Nov. 2 that a state of emergency
and martial law are required to bring order in Iraq. He also
argued that foreign forces are still needed in Iraq to prevent
chaos and more bloodshed. (Gulfnews.com, Nov. 2)

A visit to Lebanon, last month, by Undersecretary of Defense
for Policy Eric Edelman has unleashed another round of rumors
that the U.S. is seeking military bases in that country. The
rumors were denied by the U.S. ambassador in Beirut. (Daily Star,
Oct. 30)

- SOUTH AND EAST ASIA -

Japanese politics in turmoil over that country's
participation in naval operations in the Indian Ocean. (see slug)



LEADING DEVELOPMENTS

LaRouche:
Those Who Attacked My Forecasts
Are Now Proven Insane

Nov. 4 (LPAC)--Lyndon LaRouche today strongly chastized those who
have attacked him, for repeatedly warning that the entire global
financial and monetary system is hopelessly, irreversibly
bankrupt, and must be put through a bankruptcy reorganization to
begin a process of global reconstruction. ``The news of the past
48 hours that two of the largest financial institutions in the
United States, Merrill Lynch and Citicorp, are in dire crisis and
have chosen to fire their CEOs,'' LaRouche said, ``just serves to
underscore that I have been right, and all of my critics have
been wrong to the point of clinical insanity.'' LaRouche noted
that Bloomberg was reporting on Nov. 4 that former U.S. Treasury
Secretary Robert Rubin is likely to be brought in as the
``interim'' chairman of Citigroup.
LaRouche cited his now famous Triple Curve Function, as the
reference point for understanding the scale of the financial and
physical economic breakdown process that has entered a new,
accelerated phase in recent weeks. The documentation cited in
the three reports immediately below, when viewed from the
standpoint of the second of LaRouche's two Triple Curve diagrams,
makes the case that we have already entered a fullscale worldwide
Depression, far more severe than the Great Depression of the
1930s. ``Many foolish Democrats are behaving worse than
Hoover,'' LaRouche charged, ``by persisting in denying the
reality of the collapse, and therefore refusing to take the
emergency action that I have spelled out, as the only means of
solving this crisis.''

Nov. 4 (LPAC)--During the past week, as Wall Street shook from
the twin firings of the CEO of the largest commercial bank in the
world--Citigroup--and the CEO of one of the three largest
investment banks in the world--Merrill Lynch--physical economist
Lyndon LaRouche's repeated and uniquely correct warnings that the
entire world financial and monetary system is irreversibly
finished, were definitively confirmed. This is not the crisis of
a week, but of the past 40 years, which has been gathering force
during the past two years. The timeline below details some
inflection points this process, which is being acknowledged,
increasingly, by competent financial insiders, but still denied
by leading Democrats and Republicans. Were they to acknowledge
this, they would have to muster the courage to urgently implement
LaRouche's proposal to put the world financial system through
bankruptcy reorganization.
* During May and June of 2005, the Standard & Poor rating
agency downgraded General Motors' and Ford's credit rating, on
the more than $450 billion of the two companies' debt, to
junk-bond status. This set off an implosion of collateralized
debt obligations (CDOs)--a form of highly speculative
instrument--which caused hedge funds to lose hundreds of billions
of dollars, nearly tiggering the melt-down of the world financial
system.
* In September 2006, the Greenwich, Connecticut-based
Amaranth Advisers hedge fund, which had $9 billion under
management, went bust, the largest hedge fund failure in history.
This caused strong reverberations in the natural gas market--
where Amaranth speculated--and among other hedge funds, which
scrambled for liquidity, although the deniers of reality shouted
that "the event wasn't as big as LTCM."
* During January and February 2007 the sub-prime mortgage
crisis, which had been festering since the last half of 2006,
erupted full force, as banks began to acknowledge sizeable
sub-prime defaults. The foundations of the $20 trillion U.S.
housing bubble began to shake. On March 13, New Century, the
second largest sub-prime lender (after Countrywide), once a hot
property, was delisted by the New York Stock Exchange, and
effectively ceased to exist. New Century's market capitalization
had evaporated from $1.75 billion to a mere $55 million at the
point it was put out of its misery.
* During the period between mid-Summer 2006 and November 1,
2007, 178 U.S. mortgage-related lending companies went out of
existence. According to projections based on data provided by
Foreclosures.com, during 2007, U.S. home foreclosures will reach
2.02 million, 52% greater than during 2006.
* During July 2007 in the United States, banks rang up
spectacular losses in asset-backed securities, particularly
Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS). Then on August 9, France's BNP
Paribas, one of the world's largest banks, announced that it was
suspending all transactions in three of its "dynamic investment
funds," which all held mortgage-backed securities. German banks
announced five similar funds were being shut down. The crisis had
now hit Europe, and expanded globally, causing markets to freeze
up--ranging from junk bonds to commercial paper, far beyond the
sub-prime mortgages and MBS. Between late July and the end of the
October, the Bank of England, the U.S. Federal Reserve, and the
European Central Bank, frantically pumped in more than three-
quarters of a trillion dollars in short-term and medium-term
funds, to prevent markets from melting down, and banks from
folding. This set the ground for a Weimar-style hyperinflation.
* During September and October, the U.S. banks recorded $35
billion in third-quarter write-downs and loan loss provisions,
capped by these banks losing nearly a quarter trillion in market
capitalization. But the losses were only a fraction of the actual
losses that the banks carry on their books. During the last week
of October, and first week of November, the crisis entered a new
phase. With the more than $1.5 trillion SIV, conduit, and CDO
markets frozen, Merrill Lynch announced an $8.4 billion third
quarter write-down, and Citigroup a $6.5 billion write-down. But
there were much worse financial convulsions going on inside these
two companies, behind the scenes. Stanley O'Neal, and Charles
Prince III were forced out as CEOs of Merill Lynch and Citigroup,
respectively. [ref]

World's Largest Banks Take Huge Write-Downs

Nov. 4 (LPAC)--During the past two months, the world's largest
financial institutions' third quarter earnings reports had a
stunningly recurring theme: massive write-downs and/or losses,
from sub-prime mortgages, mortgage-backed securities, leveraged
loans for leveraged buy-outs that did not materialize, CDOs, etc.
{EIR} has gathered the report of write-downs and loan loss
provisions for eleven of the world's largest banks:
Merrill Lynch, $8.4 billion; Citigroup, $6.5 billion; UBS
(Union Bank of Switzerland), $4.4 billion; Deutsche Bank, $3.12
billion; Credit Suisse, $2.16 billion; Bank of America, $2
billion; Countrywide, $1.62 billion; Dresdner Bank, $1.09
billion, Morgan Stanley, $940 million; Bear Stearns, $700
million; and JP Morgan Chase, $339 million.
Total write-downs, etc. of the eleven banks: $31.27 billion,
of which seven Wall Street banks alone wrote down $20.50 billion;
four European banks, wrote down $10.77 billion.
Such uniform write-downs across the spectrum of major banks,
which is unprecedented in recent decades, bespeaks major crisis.
The Nov. 12 {BusinessWeek} reported that, altogether, Wall Street
banks had taken during the third quarter, "$35 billion in
sub-prime related write-downs and lost more than $220 billion in
stock value."
However, the situation is worse: the banks report only a
fraction of the true losses, and are still carrying many troubled
financial instruments like MBSs, CDOs, etc., at or near their
original value, when these instruments' real value has already
fallen 20% to 50%, thus far.
Further, the SEC is reportedly investigating banks that
illegally hid losses. The Nov. 2 {Wall Street Journal} cites the
case in which Merrill Lynch sold an unnamed hedge fund "$1
billion in commercial paper issued by a Merrill-related entity
containing mortgages." If proven, this would have allowed Merrill
to not report the troubled commercial paper onto its books and
thereby incur a loss, a potential serious crime. [ref]

Citigroup Problem Radiates Through the Financial System

Nov. 4 (LPAC)--The {New York Times} reported today that
"Citigroup's board is highly likely to nominate Robert E.
Rubin,... as its interim chairman," at its emergency Sunday board
meeting. Rubin would replace Citigroup CEO Charles Prince III,
who reportedly has been forced to resign. Prince's resignation,
if confirmed, would be the second resignation, within the past 96
hours, of a CEO at a major U.S. financial institution, following
that of Merrill Lynch CEO Stanley O'Neal.
The Citigroup shake-up follows a deepening melt-down at the
world's either first or second largest financial institution.
Under Prince and his mentor, the previous Citigroup CEO, Sandy
Weil, Citigroup wildly expanded, increasing its total assets from
$1.09 trillion in 2002, to $2.35 trillion at the end of the third
quarter of 2007, a doubling in less than five years. Often,
Citigroup invested heavily in financial markets shaped by and
under the domination of the City of London financiers.
Citigroup possesses the following speculative investments:
* $80 billion in radioactive, off-balance sheet structured
investment vehicles (SIVs). Altogether, Citigroup has 7 SIVs,
with names like Dorada and Sedna Finance, 4 of which, {EIR} has
discovered, were created in and are steered from the Cayman
Islands.
* $60 billion in off-balance sheet Conduits, which are also
speculative vehicles, operating under slightly different rules.
* At least $20 billion in collaterialized debt obligations
(CDOs).
* More than $70 billion in asset-backed securities, based on
credit card cash flows.
All of these markets are either outright catering, or facing
serious problems. The most problematic are the SIVs. An SIV must
by law have sufficient paid-in equity (the value of the stock
that it sold), such that the equity represents "stored funds"
which could cover those losses/writedowns suffered on the SIV's
senior debt. To state it simply, were the losses on the SIV's
senior debt to exceed the value of the SIV's paid-in equity, the
SIV must effectively be shut down. It appears that some of
Citibank's SIVs are headed toward or may have crossed the danger
line, had strict accounting principles been in force.
On Thursday, Nov. 1, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce
analyst Meredith Whitney stated that Citigroup would have to
increase its capital by $30 billion to cover problems. The
statement, which is true, caused tremors throughout the
international financial system, and there was a mass dumping of
Citigroup stock, which led to the Dow Jones average dropping by
362 points.
This precipitated widespread fear, and prompted the U.S.
Federal Reserve, through three separate interventions, to inject
$41 billion in short term liquidity into the U.S. banking
system--all on Nov. 1, the largest one-day intervention since
September 2001, after the 9/11 attacks.
The Citigroup situation is made more dangerous by two
further problems. First, were there ruptures at Citigroup, this
could detonate its derivatives holdings of $34.9 trillion in
notional value, which would bring down the world's $750
trillion-plus derivatives market, and the entire world monetary
system. Second, Citigroup is America's largest bank, and thus at
the heart of the world's dollar-based system. A meltdown here
would have many other far-reaching consequences. [ref]

Regional TV Coverage of Schiller Institute's Independent
Candidate Hans Schultz in Aalborg

COPENHAGEN, Nov. 4--TV2 Nord, the main regional TV program in
northern Jutland, carried a very fine report on Hans Schultz'
election campaign on the occasion of the Danish LYM contingent's
2-day blitz in Aalborg. The coverage interspersed footage of Hans
campaigning, the LYM chorus, and a section of their interview
with Hans about the international financial crisis.
In the introduction, the anchorwoman said that Hans is
running as an independent, and fighting for a new world economy,
maglev, and a Kattegat bridge to Copenhagen. He has his own
singers along. (Then there is a clip of the chorus singing.)
Think about the future. After that Hans speaks to a woman saying,
The dollar is dropping fast. You can call it a dollar collapse.
He says, Maglev to Aalborg, to someone else, and his posters are
shown. Then he says I'm running as an independent. The reporter
says that he is not totally independent, because he works with
the Schiller Institute (showing the headline Schiller Institute
from our campaign newspaper) which thinks that there's something
really wrong with the world economy. There should be a new world
financial system which is not run by the speculators. The
financial crisis which we face is so big, and so comprehensive,
that you are not serious, if you're not speaking about it in this
election campaign, and how we should tackle that in Denmark, so
that we can keep the welfare we have. According to Schultz and
the Schiller Institute, the world will crash soon, and Denmark
should get ready by building better infrastructure. The answer is
a bridge across the Kattegat, with maglev so that you can come
from Aalborg to Copenhagen, in only... (then the chorus sings, as
part of a song) 43 minutes.
The homepage of the same station also has a good short
article with similar content.
Watch the coverage at www.sive.dk/hans_schultz.html. Then
look for "Indslag om Hans Schultz på TV nord" to the left of the
poster.
A much less in-depth report on the same station's eastern
Jutland regional affiliate, TV2 oestjylland, was confirmed for
Janus Kramer Moeller. Unfortunately, the main story was how far
candidates will go to get media coverage, where Janus was one of
three candidates interviewed separately. They were asked if they
would wear a clown's nose, etc. But, in any case, Janus' poster
with his name was prominently shown, also, Janus singing with the
LYM chorus, and a short clip of him responding to two questions.
There was no coverage of the content of his campaign. [mr_]

UNITED STATES

More Cheney Warmongering Against Iran

Nov. 4 (LPAC)--Dick Cheney has been on the road this week,
promoting war against Iran. During a speech in which he peddled
the line that we are winning the war in Iraq and are also winning
the Global War on Terrorism, Cheney uncorked on Iran. Speaking to
the World Affairs Council in Dallas on Nov. 2, Cheney accused
Iran of seeking to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons, trying to
topple the government of Lebanon, supporting insurgents inside
Iraq and Afghanistan, and pledging to destroy Israel. He claimed
that the U.S. is trying to resolve the issue diplomatically, but
"The president's made it clear that we have taken no options off
the table. It's the only responsible position for him to take."
While claiming that no one wants issues with Iran resolved in any
way other than peacefully, "in the final analysis, the worst
outcome would be a situation in which Iran is sort of set loose,
if you will, in that part of the world with an inventory of
nuclear weapons prepared to be used against other nations in the
region, or to dominate that part of the globe and to threaten not
only the United States, but many of our friends and allies out
there, as well."
Briefed on Cheney's latest tirade, Lyndon LaRouche observed
that, while we do not have any immediate evidence that an order
has been issued to bomb Iran, we clearly see that Cheney and his
backers have the disposition to go to war against Iran, and are
building up a propaganda barrage for such an attack. Can it be
stopped? LaRouche said it clearly can be stopped, but that is
going to require a concerted effort, with no second-guessing, or
tea-leaf reading about how to interpret Cheney's words. [cjo/js_]

Does Eating Falafel Make You a Terrorist?

Nov. 4 (LPAC)--In a humorous column published on Nov. 2,
{Congressional Quarterly} National Security Editor Jeff Stein
makes light of the incompetence of both the FBI and the neo-cons
who tell us that we should fear Iranian terrorism in the U.S.
Stein begins by describing a data mining effort to use sales
records of Middle Eastern food from stores in the San Francisco
area to find alleged Iranian terrorists. "The idea was that a
spike in, say, falafel sales, combined with other data would lead
to Iranian secret agents," Stein writes. Stein notes that the
idea was torpedoed by the head of the FBI's criminal
investigations division, who argued that putting someone on a
terrorist list for what they ate was not only ridiculous but also
possibly illegal.
Stein then describes the "sky is falling" predictions of
certain well known neo-con "terrorism analysts," including
Israeli-born Yoseff Bodansky who has been trumpeting Iranian
terrorist networks inside the U.S. since the early 1990s, Walid
Phares of the neo-con Foundation for the Defense of Democracies,
and anti-Islam author Steven Emerson. Despite all of their claims
about an Iranian terrorist threat inside the U.S., no networks
have been found by law enforcement agencies. Instead, law
enforcement efforts to find non-existent Iranian terrorist
networks may be causing alienation of the Iranian-American
community. Michael P. Downing, commander of the
Counter-Terrorism/Criminal Intelligence Bureau of the Los Angeles
Police Department asked the question that Stein said the domestic
counter-terrorism agencies have yet to answer: "What good is it
to disrupt a group planning a mall bombing if the enforcement
method is so unreasonable that it is widely criticized and
encourages many more to enter the radicalization process?" "The
falafel flap was just such a ploy," concludes Stein. [cjo]

SOUTHWEST ASIA

LaRouche:
The Ghosts of Bremer and Wolfowitz
Haunted the Istanbul Summit on Iraq

Nov. 4 (LPAC)--A two day summit on Iraq's future ended on Sunday
with little progress on any of the major issues, including the
continuing U.S. occupation, the lack of real economic
reconstruction, and the future of a unified Iraqi nation-state.
The Istanbul conference, which drew together the Iraqi
government, all of its neighbors, the United Nations Security
Council Permanent Five, and other G-8 nations, issued a final
communique, denouncing international terrorism, and vowing that
Iraqi territory would not be used for staging terrorist attacks
against neighboring countries. At the end of the conference,
Kurdish regional authorities announced that they had shut down
offices of PJAC, a PKK-linked party, in the city of Irbil; and
Iraqi central government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh announced
tightened security at Iraqi airports and other locations, aimed
at cutting off PKK guerillas from launching cross-border attacks
into Turkey and Iran. But these actions are seen as little more
than cosmetic attempts to cool out a crisis that could soon see a
Turkish cross-border invasion of northern Iraq, to wipe out PKK
and PJAC bases that the Turks consider to be under the protection
of the Kurdish regional government, the United States, and NATO.
Informed of these developments, Lyndon LaRouche commented on
Sunday, Nov. 4, that we are still living with the consequences of
the Paul Wolfowitz and Paul Bremer scheme to bust up Iraq, along
the lines of traditional British ``great game'' manipulation of
the Kurdish separatist card, and other similar divide-and-conquer
schemes. At the time of the March 2003 U.S. invasion, Wolfowitz,
then Deputy Secretary of Defense, had famously told Turkish
officials that he envisioned the breakup of Iraq into three
separate entities--a Kurdish autonomous state in the north, a
Shi'ite south, and a Sunni center. Since Wolfowitz's original
floating of the three-state solution, others have joined the push
for the bust-up of Iraq. When Paul Bremer was sent to Baghdad in
May 2003, to take over the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA),
with orders to dismantle the Ba'ath Party and the Iraqi Army, the
die was essentially cast, LaRouche said.
LaRouche further noted that the way that the U.S. and the
British have orchestrated the breakup of Iraq, since the March
2003 invasion, and especially since the arrival of Bremer as head
of the CPA several months later, reminded him of Andrew Jackson's
infamous ``trail of tears'' genocide against the Cherokee
Indians, which was an essential part of British schemes to
destroy the United States, through needlessly provoked conflicts
and brutal slaughter. ``The {logic} of the Iraq situation, ever
since Bremer's arrival, has been towards the partition of the
country,'' LaRouche concluded. [js_]

Has U.S. Okayed Israeli Invasion of Gaza?

Nov. 4--Ynetnews.com, the Internet version of the Israeli Yediot
Aharanot newspaper, reported yesterday that, according to the
Lebanese daily Al Akhbar, the U.S. has given the green light for
an extensive Israeli incursion into Gaza. Diplomatic sources told
Al Akhbar that "Washington's approval undermines the negotiations
for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement ahead of the Annapolis peace
conference." According to those same sources, Israel has relayed
intelligence reports to Washington that explain the "pressing
need" for an extensive incursion, in response to the "escalation
of activity of Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip in order to
put a stop to their unprecedented armament efforts." Defense
Minister Ehud Barak has reportedly met with Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert several times in the past week in a bid to "reach an
understanding regarding the date and scope of a Gaza invasion."
Barak was in Washington, two weeks ago, where he met with
Dick Cheney and George Bush, among others. There were also
reports that Barak met with Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt,
who was in the U.S. at the same time. Ha'aretz reported on Oct.
22 that Jumblatt was going to ask Barak to use his influence in
Washington to work toward bringing down the Damascus regime of
Bashar Assad. [cjo]

Some British Army Officials Blast Iraq War Planning

Nov. 4 (LPAC)--The British Army, in a document leaked to the
Sunday Telegraph of London, blasts the planning and execution of
the war in Iraq. THe document, reportedly drawn up in late 2006,
focusses mostly on the failure to plan for post-invasion "Phase
IV" operations. "The evidence shows that too little planning was
done for Operation Telic (the British codename for the invasion),
particularly on the non-military side, and that too few
resources, both human and financial, were allocated to the
post-war situation." According to the Telegraph, the report makes
the following points:
* British headquarters suffered from a lack of good quality
officers
* Lack of planning put Britain and the U.S., as occupying
powers, in "breach" of the Geneva Convention
* Lack of planning resulted in delays before essential
reconstruction could begin
* Not enough funding was requested by Army commanders or
approved by the Treasury
* British commanders were forced to work to an ideologically
driven U.S. timetable
* Restrictive security meant too few people in government
were involved in the planning
One British officer is quoted saying that "We couldn't begin
planning until it was almost too late, we just didn't have enough
time so we went to war on untested plans."
While the British Army criticism sounds a lot like the
criticism of U.S. war planning under Donald Rumsfeld, it is the
Brits who are preparing to leave Iraq, not the U.S., a fact that
the Telegraph doesn't note. [cjo]

ASIA

LaRouche Notes Impulse for Attack on
Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province

Nov. 4 (LPAC)--Lyndon LaRouche on Sunday, Nov. 4, noted that the
recent days' events in Pakistan, with the declaration of
emergency rule and the detention of opposition figures, including
Supreme Court justices, could be in preparation for combined U.S.
and Pakistani military actions in the Northwest Frontier
Province, bordering on Afghanistan, where Al Qaeda and Taliban
forces have established a strong base of operations. LaRouche
cautioned that the events suggest an ``impulse'' to carry out
such strikes, although he said he had no direct knowledge of
precise ``plans or orders'' for such attacks.
On Sunday, Pakistan's Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz told
reporters that the state of emergency would last ``as long as
necessary,'' and that the January 2008 parliamentary elections
would likely have to be postponed indefinitely. Aziz told a news
conference in Islamabad that 400-500 people had been preventively
detained since the declaration of the state of emergency,
although opposition figures claimed that the number was closer to
1,500. Benazir Bhutto returned on Saturday, Nov. 3, to Pakistan,
from a brief overseas trip, and denounced the action by President
Musharraf. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice issued a
statement, also critical of the Musharraf action, claiming
Washington had not been informed of the planned action in
advance; however, just days before the declaration of the state
of emergency, Adm. William Fallon, the Commander of the Central
Command, had been in Islamabad and met with Musharraf, further
fueling speculation that the government's crackdown may be linked
to plans to strike against Al Qaeda/Taliban bases. A recent NATO
study underscored that the situation in Afghanistan is not
improving. [js_]

Japan Politics in Turmoil as Opposition Head Resigns

Nov. 4 (LPAC)--Japanese politics took another strange turn
Saturday as head of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan
(DPJ), Ichiro Ozawa, resigned after a failed meeting with Japan's
ruling Liberal Democratic Party's leader and Prime Minister,
Yasuo Fukuda.
The two had met to attempt to reach agreement over Japan's
"anti-terror" Self-Defense Forces Deployment in the Indian Ocean
in support of Afghanistan operations. The law authorizing this
deployment has expired and the new Fukuda government was pushing
to fashion a replacement acceptable to DPJ which controls the
upper house of Japan Diet.
It was initially reported by the Asahi Shinbun (and other
media) that "Fukuda made the proposal and offered several
concessions to ... Ichiro Ozawa concerning the Self-Defense
Forces when they met for a total of about two hours in two
separate meetings Friday."
Ozawa did not immediately respond to Fukuda's suggestions,
telling the prime minister he would have to discuss the matter
with other Minshuto (DPJ) executives, who later decided against
teaming up with Fukuda's Liberal Democratic Party and New
Komeito.
Today the newspaper Yomiuri reports the following
developments: "`I [Ozawa] presented my resignation to Secretary
General [Yukio] Hatoyama and left the matter to the party
leadership,' Ozawa said at a hastily arranged press conference
held at DPJ headquarters at about 4:30 p.m.
"Ozawa said he had considered stepping down as party head
Saturday. He added that he would not leave the party, but instead
would devote his efforts as a lawmaker to the next House of
Representatives election.
"Ozawa also said he presented the idea of holding policy
talks with the LDP during a DPJ executive meeting after his
meeting with Fukuda, but this was turned down by party bigwigs.
`This was tantamount to a no-confidence vote by the executives,'
he said."
"Ozawa insisted Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda had proposed
forming a grand coalition during their meeting Friday, and took a
swipe at TV and newspaper reports that had suggested Ozawa was
the one who put forward this plan.
"Ozawa expressed anger at these reports, describing them as
"totally groundless." He added that such reports, which he said
`put democracy in a crisis,' had negatively impacted the DPJ.
Besides the future of the military deployment, which is
currently a dead letter with the Japanese ships off-station,
there are other important issues facing the Japanense government
at this time, including a proposal to raise taxes to fund needed
social programs.
Seemingly ignored, but lurking within every issue, is the
massive, worldwide economic collapse and how Japan will respond.
That remains more open than ever, with the government and
opposition in disarray. (ron)

*** END OF BRIEFING ***

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