PLEAS TO ROMNEY TO COME CLEAN ON CHINA LINKS

Republican presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney has been asked to intervene to stop the Chinese from acquiring a stake in 3COM, an American company that protects classified US intelligence networks.
The former Massachusetts governor is believed to have enough clout to persuade the major hedge fund he founded, Bain Capital, from merging with Huawei Technologies to buy 3Com. The sale would give Bain 80% of 3Com with 20% going to Huawei. When the $2.2 billion merger was first announced in September there was a whispering campaign in Washington that the deal presented a risk to the US intelligence but little was said publicly about the matter. Since then, there has been a clamor for Romney to use his influence to persuade Bain Capital to pull out of the merger. He was CEO of Bain Capital until 2002 when he became Massachusetts governor. However, his tax returns show that he and his family earned $6 million in 2006 from holdings in 30 Bain Capital funds.
His fellow presidential candidate, Duncan Hunter (R. Calif.), has publicly condemned the merger and has called on Romney to exert his influence on Bain, pointing out that Romney received considerable financial support for his presidential campaign from Bain principals. In Hunter’s view the deal would place sensitive US intelligence networks at risk, especially at a time when it is clear China is keen to acquire US military technology. He added that the Chinese company at the center of the controversy was “closely aligned with the Chinese government.”
While that issue was all but ignored when the merger was announced several months ago two factors have forced it into the public domain. One is the presidential campaign and the other is a deteriorating relationship with China. On both those levels it was perhaps inevitable that the 20% acquisition of a US hi-tech security company would sooner or later be a prickly issue. Duncan Hunter lost no time pointing out that, in light of China’s refusal to allow the Kitty Hawk to dock in Hong Kong during recent Chinese war games, it was vital to prevent foreign companies acquiring US military technology.
But the issue is far from just a political spat between Hunter and Romney. There is a serious intelligence issue surrounding the merger. Huawei Technologies is well known to the US intelligence community because its founder, Ren Zhengfei, is a former officer in the Chinese Peoples’ Liberation Army and several of the company’s leading customers are Chinese government-run businesses. On Huawei files, Zhengfei is listed as having 1% ownership but the majority shareholder is not named, leading to speculation that the PLA owns and controls Huawei. It is well known the PLA controls a multitude of Chinese companies in the hi-tech and military fields.
For almost a decade, the CIA has had its eyes on Ren Zhengfei and his company. In 2003, the agency accused him of selling hi-tech security systems to Saddam Hussein. In 2003 he was hit with a copyright infringement by the US technology giant, Cisco. It claimed he had stolen patents for some of its equipment, but he denied the charge. Nevertheless, he later admitted guilt and reached a financial settlement with Cisco.
For years, cyber warfare experts have been warning the Pentagon that the PLA has been developing a cyber capability for use in the opening hours of a conflict with the United States. Chinese military hackers have been trained to attack the joint communications systems of US military and intelligence agencies and to cripple the computer networks on which the US economy relies. Since 2000, the US navy, which has an edge on all other services in fighting a hit-tech enemy, has been aware of tens of thousands of intrusions by hackers into US security systems. The Pentagon has admitted that its security systems have come under sustained assaults from probing cyber attacks originating in China.
In a world in which armies are relying more heavily on hi-tech communications and weaponry, victory in future conflicts may be measured by which side has the most secure Comms systems and the best networks for keeping the economy safe. For those reasons, a Chinese stake in 3Com, not matter how lucrative it may be for 3Com shareholders, is now seen as a bridge too far because 3Com’s expertise is in protecting secure US networks. To that end it has had contracts with the Defense department.
According to a classified intelligence report acquired by the Washington Times, the office of the Director of National Intelligence considers the merger a threat to the security of this country. It will now be up to the White House, or the Treasury Dept that deals with inward investment by foreign companies, to review the matter.
If there is any doubt about the risk posed by allowing the merger to go ahead, all the White House has to do is review testimony before a House subcommittee in 2001 in which nuclear arms control expert, Prof. Gary Milhollin, accused Huawei of acquiring technology in the US and then using it in ways that threatened the US military. His statement was a polite way of saying that the company was deliberately purchasing US technology for the PLA. In PLA manuals about future conflicts, the US military is the enemy and all Chinese war games are predicated on that basis.
Gov. Mitt Romney has refused to comment on the merger, probably hoping it will not gain much traction in the presidential race. His gamble may not pay off if the issue is taken up by enough members in Congress who believe the merger should be stopped.

BRITISH IRAQ PULL-OUT AIDS EXTREMISTS

The mutilated bodies of dozens of women dumped in the Basra area of southern Iraq at the beginning of December confirms that the British withdrawal from the region will be followed by a rise in the brutal enforcement of strict Islamic rule.
The women were murdered for refusing to adhere to strict Islamic dress codes and the grisly nature of the killings was intended to serve as a horrific warning to other women what to expect if they adopted a western style of dress. The deaths highlighted that the Iraq, which President Bush and former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, once declared would be democratic and tolerant, is more likely to follow the strictly religious Iranian model if Shiite militias in Basra have their way.
The British withdrawal from Basra, the southernmost major city in Iraq, close to the Iranian border, began on December 16 and was marked by a show of strength by Iraq’s fledgling military. As a colorful spectacle, it masked a different reality, namely that the Iraqi military is incapable of imposing order in Basra and its four provinces. For five years, beginning in 2003 when Tony Blair sent 45,000 troops to Iraq as part of Operation Telic, the writing has been on the wall that Basra was ungovernable. The moment British troops put their boots on the sands of that part of Iraq it was clear the majority Shiites in the area were opposed to the Occupation. A recent survey showed that as few as 2% of the residents felt the British present was a positive one. If there is such a thing as not losing a war while not winning it, the British have that distinction.
In February, before leaving office Tony Blair promised a phased withdrawal to avoid offending the White House. Now there are 2,500 British personnel in the Basra region and they will remain stationed in barracks until the middle of 2008. The fact is British troops rarely left their barracks in the past year and during that time it was clear Tony Blair’s Iraq policy was a failure. Some observers point to 2006 when Blair ignored the increasing lawlessness in Basra as evidence even then that he had lost his part of the war. The police commander in the area now says he cannot control it with the forces at his disposal. He can only hope that the transfer of power to the Iraqi army will change the tide but that is unlikely for several reasons, the most significant being the fact that the army is riddled with men who are also members of the three militias fighting for control of Basra and its oil wealth.
All of that feeds into a climate in which two violent factors dominate the social landscape – religious extremism and organized crime.
The three groups battling for Basra which is now mostly Shiite, the Sunnis having being forced to flee under the eyes of the British, are the Mahdi army of the fiery cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, the Fadhila militia that has close links to the Iraqi government and the Badr Brigade, a group run by the ISCI- Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. The ISCI has the backing of the US and Britain because its leader, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, often regarded as pro-Iranian, established a dialogue with the US military, beginning last year.
From a US and British perspective, support for one militia is driven by a strategy of divide and conquer in order to marginalize al-Sadr’s Mahdi army and the Fadhila. So far, the Mahdi army has maintained a truce with the ISCI because it has US support but all that could change as the battle for Basra and its provinces intensifies. In that event, the Mahdi army with its deep roots in the slums of Baghdad and Basra could win the day, creating an even bigger headache for US forces and the Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki. Al-Sadr has shown that, at any moment, he can bring tens of thousands of supporters onto the streets of most Iraqi cities as he demonstrated on November 15 when he held a march to honor his late father, the revered Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr. There are conflicting theories about how much al-Sadr is supported by Iran, though it is clear the White House and the Israeli leadership believe he is Iran’s man in Iraq. The Israelis have tried to persuade Washington that Iran plans to help al-Sadr transform his militia into another Hezbollah, the Iranian supported Lebanese group that gave Israel a bloody nose when it invaded Lebanon in 2006. Other observers say al-Sadr is not a leader of the likes of Hezbollah’s Sheik Nasrallah, who is well educated and is regarded as a shrewd political and military tactician. On the other hand, al-Sadr has proven he is a great survivor, who can command a massive following where it matters most – on the streets. Some even suggest he has learned a great deal and could prove his critics wrong. In any event, he wants a strict Islamic order in Iraq, modeled along Iranian lines. His militia is partly responsible for Islamic Sharia courts flourishing in and around Basra. No attempt is being made by the Iraqi authorities to close them down and that does not bode well for the future of the country as a whole.
The British withdrawal from what has become an unpopular war in the minds of the British public leaves Washington with no coalition of the willing in Iraq. In 2008, Poland and Australia will withdraw their forces. In the meantime, the British soldiers leaving Iraq will no doubt find themselves heading for Afghanistan to another war that is not being won or lost. Recent warnings from military figures are that unless more troops are committed to that country any gains made could be lost. The US is not in a position to send additional troops and some members of NATO have shown little stomach for the fight. Next year could determine whether the battle in Afghanistan can be won and whether Iraq will face serious civil strife in places like Basra as the competing Shiite militias position themselves to control large swathes of the country.

CHINA FLEXES MILITARY MUSCLE

While the US waits for China to agree to a military to military hotline to avoid serious misunderstandings in the seas around Taiwan the Chinese military continues to show off its military might in the region.
In November, following a visit to Beijing by US Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, the Chinese military, navy and air force conducted more than a week of military exercises which some experts said were designed to show how China’s Peoples’ Liberation Army and its other services would seek to control the seas around Taiwan, as well as air corridors in advance of a full-scale assault on the island.
Before the maneuvers began on November 19, the seas north of the Philippines and to the east of Taiwan were closed off as were air routes normally used by Chinese civilian Aircraft along China’s south east shoreline. At the same time, the US Kitty Hawk and its battle group were denied access up Hong Kong’s harbor to prevent them monitoring the exercises. In a sign this was all geared to show the Chinese people and their neighbors that China was a big military player the normally secretive PLA – Peoples Liberation Army – allowed details of the exercises to be discussed on its own Internet sites and other sites affiliated to them in Hong Kong. There was also a hint in comments made by China’s military leaders that they were determined to demonstrate to Washington that they were unhappy with the US move to honor the Dalai Lama, whom they regarded as a threat to their rule in Tibet, and with President Bush’s agreement to a $1 billion upgrade to Taiwan’s missile defenses. But above all else, the brazenness of the maneuvers and the openness with which they were conducted represented a deliberate projection of China’s military power. The way they were planned demonstrated they were part of a military war game to seal off Taiwan in a pincer movement to prevent the US from using its naval power to resupply the island in the event of an attack.
The war game had the following elements. Taiwan would be blockaded by the Chinese navy and air force before being surrounded and subjected to an assault. In order to determine if this would work in reality, the PLA used substantial elements of China’s military and for the first time showcased new weapons. That represented a departure for the PLA which normally prefers to hint at weapons that it has in development rather than putting them on public display. Among the new weapons were Russian-made cruise type missiles that could be used to take out US frigates, aircraft carriers or destroyers. There were also 022 stealth missiles in evidence and Russian designed Kilo class submarines. Two upgraded 965EM Sovremenny class destroyers had pride of place in one part of the war game. They were supplied by Russia in 2005-2006 and, at the time, their arrival in waters round Taiwan worried the US and the Taiwanese authorities.
As part of the air component of the exercises, there were bombers and Chinese-designed Flying Leopard fighters with battalions of naval special units standing by for a mock landing on the shores of Taiwan. Chinese J-10 fighters were also on show. When they first emerged in 2005 they were compared to US F-16s. They were modeled on lines similar to Israeli fighters but it was unclear at the time if the Chinese had bought the plans for the fighter from the Israelis or had stolen them. The Israelis refused to comment but Pentagon sources confirmed there were close military links between China and Israel which have continued to this day. In the latest exercises, there were unconfirmed reports that the PLA had a prototype of its much lauded Jin-class submarine in the waters near Taiwan. The Jin-class is designed to carry nuclear warheads.
An outcome of this war game will be a heightened awareness among the US and its allies in the region, especially Japan, that there should be a renewed willingness to be ready to confront and defeat China in the event its military rather than civilian leadership decides to attack Taiwan or advance Chinese interest in disputed parts of south east Asia such as the eight Senkakus islands or areas of the seabed in the Yellow Sea. At the heart of those disputes are natural resources, especially oil and gas much needed by a vast developing Chinese economy.
For US military experts watching this latest display of Chinese military might, there could well be a growing awareness that if China decides to fulfill its long term goal of seizing Taiwan, it may be able to do that before the US can get the necessary military assets in place to stop it. In that event, a US president may face two difficult options. Would it be too costly to try to oust China from Taiwan or would it be better to launch attacks on China’s military or its military- industrial complex in order to seriously weaken it and to punish it for its aggression. The latter might prove to be the better option because it would have a two-fold benefit. First, it would cripple the PLA and secondly it would demonstrate that the US and its allies in the region were not prepared to tolerate continued Chinese aggression. Of course, both options could lead to a fully fledged war with China and that is far from being a remote possibility the longer China prepares, as it did last month, for a military assault on Taiwan.

FIERY IRAQI CLERIC BACK IN BUSINESS

The fiery Shiite cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, who was once regarded a major obstacle to US policy in Iraq has reinvented himself after vanishing from the headlines. In recent weeks he has declared that his powerful militia, the Mahdi Army, will not attack US or Iraqi forces.
From a US perspective, it is good to have a truce with al-Sadr’s militia because it allows the US military to devote its energies to combating Sunnis insurgents and Al Qaeda elements. There is, however, a downside to al-Sadr’s new peace making persona. Behind the scenes, he has encouraged his militiamen to join the ranks of the Iraqi Army. Some observers have suggested that as many as 20,000 have signed up. They did so, not only at the behest of their leader but also on the advice of the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, himself a Shiite. In recent months, while he too has also kept a low profile, he has nonetheless been busy shoring up his political support among Shiites. To do that, he has had to court al-Sadr who commands a large following. They had been allies until earlier this year when al-Sadr openly condemned al-Maliki and resigned from the government, taking with him representatives of the Iraqi Accordance Front. Their walk-out led to a serious weakening of the government and left al-Maliki politically vulnerable. All that has now changed with these two men recognizing that together they can dominate the political landscape.
Sunnis and some other Shiites in government have been alarmed by this strange alliance and have threatened to bring down the government. That might just suit Al-Maliki. In the event of new parliamentary elections, he would be a force to be reckoned with, especially if al-Sadr was at his side. Sunnis say the issue that most disturbs them is the influx of militiamen into the Iraqi Army. They point out that many of those militiamen were directly involved in the senseless torture and slaughter of thousands of Sunni civilians. Al-Maliki has argued that it is better to have Shiite militiamen in uniform under a proper chain of command than on the streets where they pose a threat to law and order. In contrast, his critics say he and al-Sadr have initiated a strategy to place the Iraqi military under complete Shiite control.
The US has stayed out of the war of words over this issue because Washington’s priority is to defeat the insurgency and that is made easier by the truce with the Mahdi Army. As for militiamen joining the Iraqi army, Washington also believes it is better to have them in uniform and in barracks than face them at roadblock or have them roaming the streets murdering Sunni civilians. While the US has not commented on the new Iraqi political alliance, it is buoyed by the fact that al-Sadr, who had demanded earlier this year that the Iraqi government sever all ties to the Bush Administration until a US timetable for withdrawal was agreed, is now happy to leave that issue for discussion somewhere down the line.
Many commentators have been trying to figure out why the fiery cleric made a political U-turn. The answer may lie in several factors. After he left the government, it set its sights on taking down his militia. The US military carried out raids on Sadr City in Baghdad and arrested militia leaders. But no matter how concerted the drive was to weaken the Mahdi Army it survived intact and that convinced al-Sadr his organization was more formidable than the government or the US had imagined. He slowly realized, as did his Iranian backers, that if the Mahdi Army could wrap itself into the system politically and militarily it could be unstoppable. That is when a strategy was developed beginning with overtures to al-Maliki. He was only too happy to welcome the cleric back into the fold because he knew that to dominate Shiite politics in the year ahead he will need al-Sadr’s election machinery and the support of his followers. The second arm of the strategy was to persuade the Mahdi Army to send its men into the Iraqi military with the aim of eventually controlling it from within. From a Washington perspective, that part of the strategy is acceptable because it brings the Mahdi out of the shadows and into a formal negotiating process, making it an integral part of the state.
In the long run, however, al-Sadr and his supporters will strive to build an Iraqi state along the lines of the Iranian model. They have already declared their goal of introducing Islamic courts and Sharia Law. Sooner or later, they will also return to their stated doctrine of demanding that Washington must issue a withdrawal timetable. In the meantime, he will rebuild his Mahdi army under the noses of the US military.