Middle East

Quotable

Jordan’s Prince Hassan, in a speech on March 25

I’m afraid we’ll see spillover into hostilities with Lebanon; already Hezbollah is bombing in the north. … A spillover into hostilities with Syria … Iran is still very much on the axis of evil. … We have to sort out the cards again—the war on terror, the question of Palestine, the question of Iraq, the question of Afghanistan, wmd, Iran. … I’m afraid the making of a third world war is actually taking place in front of our very eyes.”

Libya, Egypt: Nuke Ties?

Middle East Newsline, March 30

“The United States has … uncovered evidence that Libya was both the source for and recipient of nuclear and missile technology and expertise from Egypt. … [T]he evidence confirmed suspicions over the last three years of a secret trade between Cairo and Tripoli in strategic weapons obtained from North Korea.”

U.S. Intel vs. al-Qaeda

Middle East Newsline, April 16

More than two years after the suicide strikes of Sept. 11, 2001, “the United States has failed to develop the intelligence capability required to battle al-Qaeda. cia director George Tenet said the U.S. intelligence community needs at least another five years to develop effective counter-insurgency capabilities. Tenet said the community continues to fall short of requirements in both intelligence-gathering and analysis regarding Islamic insurgency groups. … [I]n the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. intelligence community lost about 25 percent of manpower and billions of dollars in funding.”