Jim Lobe

Losing I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, perhaps the most influential national security official without a formal cabinet rank, marks a serious blow to the George W. Bush administration and particularly to the hawks who led the drive to war in Iraq. Like his boss Vice Pres. Dick Cheney, Libby, who was indicted Friday for perjury, obstruction … Continue reading “A Formidable Hawk Goes Down”

One week after a top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell issued a blistering attack on foreign policy-making in the George W. Bush administration, Brent Scowcroft, who served as national security adviser under Bush’s father, assailed neoconservatives who persuaded the president to go to war in Iraq. In an interview with The New … Continue reading “Frustrated Scowcroft Assails Neocons, Cheney”

Despite repeated vows by the Pentagon to fully investigate the deaths of all detainees in U.S. custody in Iraq and elsewhere in the “war on terror,” a major human rights group has found a pattern of “grossly inadequate and flawed investigations” that have made it difficult or impossible to hold perpetrators accountable. Human Rights First … Continue reading “Serious Lapses Taint Probes of Detainee Deaths”

While international human rights groups have long wanted former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to face trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, they have serious reservations about whether proceedings that got underway in Baghdad Wednesday will meet international standards of fairness. Human Rights Watch (HRW) has been most outspoken about the rules governing the … Continue reading “Hussein Trial Put Off Amid Doubts About Fairness”

As top officials in the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney’s office await possible criminal indictments for their efforts to discredit a whistleblower, a top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell on Wednesday accused a “cabal” led by Cheney and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld of hijacking U.S. foreign policy by circumventing or … Continue reading “Powell Aide Blasts Rice, Cheney-Rumsfeld ‘Cabal’”

Wrapping up a two-year investigation that a growing number of legal analysts expect to yield indictments of at least one, and possibly two, of the George W. Bush administration’s most powerful men as early as this week, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has Washington on pins and needles. As the witness list and accounts of recent … Continue reading “Washington on Tenterhooks Over Leak Case”

Five days before Saturday’s referendum on Iraq’s proposed constitution, the U.S. foreign policy elite appears both anxious and gloomy, increasingly worried that win or lose, the process will bring Iraq one step closer to civil war and, with it, the possible destabilization of the wider region. The constitution’s approval, in the view of many experts, … Continue reading “A Lose-Lose Referendum?”

Just as the theocratic leadership in Iran is trying to rein in the aggressive nationalism of the new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, so Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appears to be restraining aggressive nationalists in Washington who want to escalate rising tensions with Iran and Syria. In just the last 10 days, Rice and her State … Continue reading “Condi May Be Bush’s Expediency Council”

Despite fading public – and Republican – confidence in his performance in Iraq and the wider "war on terror," U.S. President George W. Bush Thursday raised the stakes by warning that a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq would lead to a takeover by al-Qaeda and the subversion of its pro-Western neighbors. In his longest – and … Continue reading “Bush Raises the Stakes in Terror War”

On the eve of the fourth anniversary of the launch of U.S. military operations against the Taliban regime, Afghanistan presents a mixed picture, according to experts here. The relative stability of the government of President Hamid Karzai and last month’s successful voting for national and regional legislatures offer grounds for some satisfaction on the part … Continue reading “Four Years Into Afghan Campaign, Perils Abound”