From Khalid Amayreh in Ramallah
The famous American magazine Vanity Fair has publi****ng a
meticulously-researched expose showing that Palestinian Authority Chairman
Mahmoud Abbas, his aide Muhammed Dahlan actively conspired with the Bush
administration to topple the democratically-elected government of Hamas
and
engineer civil war in the occupied Palestinian territories.
In a lengthy article in the magazine's latest issue, Vanity Fair said it
obtained "confidential do***ents" corroborated by sources in the US and
Palestine, which lay bare a covert American operation, approved by the
President Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and
Deputy National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian
civil war.
According to the magazine, the plan was for forces led by Dahlan and armed
with new weapons supplied at America's behest, to give Fatah the muscle it
needed to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government from
power.
The following are excerpts from the article:
"We were sitting in Abbas's office in Ramallah, and I explained the
whole
thing to Condi. And she said, 'Yes, we have to make an effort to do this.
There's no other way."
"Walles and Abbas both knew what to expect from Hamas if these
instructions were followed: rebellion and bloodshed. For that reason, the
memo states, the U.S. was already working to strengthen Fatah's security
forces. "If you act along these lines, we will sup****t you both materially
and politically," the script said. "We will be there to sup****t you."
Abbas
was also encouraged to "strengthen [his] team" to include "credible
figures
of strong standing in the international community." Among those the U.S.
wanted brought in, says an official who knew of the policy, was Muhammad
Dahlan."
"Abbas, one official says, agreed to take action within two weeks. It
happened to be Ramadan, the month when Muslims fast during daylight hours.
With dusk approaching, Abbas asked Rice to join him for iftar-a snack to
break the fast. Afterward, according to the official, Rice underlined her
position: "So we're agreed? You'll dissolve the government within two
weeks?" "Maybe not two weeks. Give me a month. Let's wait until after the
Eid," he said, referring to the three-day celebration that marks the end
of
Ramadan. (Abbas's spokesman said via e-mail: "According to our records,
this
is incorrect.") Rice got into her armored S.U.V., where, the official
claims, she told an American colleague, "That damned iftar has cost us
another two weeks of Hamas government."
"Bush has met Dahlan on at least three occasions. After talks at the
White
House in July 2003, Bush publicly praised Dahlan as "a good, solid
leader."
In private, say multiple Israeli and American officials, the U.S.
president
described him as "our guy."
"With confidential do***ents, corroborated by outraged former and
current
U.S. officials, David Rose reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice,
and
Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force
under
Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza
and
leaving Hamas stronger than ever."
"Within the Bush administration, the Palestinian policy set off a
furious
debate. One of its critics is David Wurmser, the avowed neoconservative,
who
resigned as Vice President Dick Cheney's chief Middle East adviser in July
2007, a month after the Gaza coup. Wurmser accuses the Bush administration
of "engaging in a dirty war in an effort to provide a corrupt dictator****p
[led by Abbas] with victory." He believes that Hamas had no intention of
taking Gaza until Fatah forced its hand.
"It looks to me that what happened wasn't so much a coup by Hamas but an
attempted coup by Fatah that was pre-empted before it could happen,"
Wurmser
says. The botched plan has rendered the dream of Middle East peace more
remote than ever, but what really galls neocons such as Wurmser is the
hypocrisy it exposed. "There is a stunning disconnect between the
president's
call for Middle East democracy and this policy," he says. "It directly
contradicts it."
"Dahlan worked closely with the F.B.I. and the C.I.A., and he developed
a
warm relation****p with Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, a
Clinton appointee who stayed on under Bush until July 2004. "
"Dahlan says he warned his friends in the Bush administration that Fatah
still wasn't ready for elections in January. Decades of
self-preservationist
rule by Arafat had turned the party into a symbol of corruption and
inefficiency-a perception Hamas found it easy to exploit. Splits within
Fatah weakened its position further: in many places, a single Hamas
candidate ran against several from Fatah.
"Everyone was against the elections," Dahlan says. Everyone except Bush.
"Bush decided, 'I need an election. I want elections in the Palestinian
Authority.' Everyone is following him in the American administration, and
everyone is nagging Abbas, telling him, 'The president wants elections.'
Fine. For what purpose?"
The elections went forward as scheduled. On January 25, Hamas won 56
percent of the seats in the Legislative Council.
Few inside the U.S. administration had predicted the result, and there
was
no contingency plan to deal with it. "I've asked why nobody saw it
coming,"
Condoleezza Rice told re****ters. "I don't know anyone who wasn't caught
off
guard by Hamas's strong showing."
"Everyone blamed everyone else," says an official with the Department of
Defense. "We sat there in the Pentagon and said, 'Who the **** recommended
this?"
"In public, Rice tried to look on the bright side of the Hamas victory.
"Unpredictability," she said, is "the nature of big historic change." Even
as she spoke, however, the Bush administration was rapidly revising its
attitude toward Palestinian democracy.
"Wa****ngton reacted with dismay when Abbas began holding talks with
Hamas
in the hope of establi****ng a "unity government." On October 4, 2006, Rice
traveled to Ramallah to see Abbas. They met at the Muqata, the new
presidential headquarters that rose from the ruins of Arafat's compound,
which Israel had destroyed in 2002.
"America's leverage in Palestinian affairs was much stronger than it had
been in Arafat's time. Abbas had never had a strong, independent base, and
he desperately needed to restore the flow of foreign aid-and, with it, his
power of patronage. He also knew that he could not stand up to Hamas
without
Wa****ngton's help."
"At their joint press conference, Rice smiled as she expressed her
nation's
"great admiration" for Abbas's leader****p. Behind closed doors, however,
Rice's tone was sharper, say officials who witnessed their meeting.
Isolating Hamas just wasn't working, she re****tedly told Abbas, and
America
expected him to dissolve the Haniyeh government as soon as possible and
hold
fresh elections.
"Weeks passed with no sign that Abbas was ready to do America's bidding.
Finally, another official was sent to Ramallah. Jake Walles, the consul
general in Jerusalem, is a career foreign-service officer with many years'
experience in the Middle East. His purpose was to deliver a barely
varnished
ultimatum to the Palestinian president.
"We know what Walles said because a copy was left behind, apparently by
accident, of the "talking points" memo prepared for him by the State
Department. The do***ent has been authenticated by U.S. and Palestinian
officials.
"We need to understand your plans regarding a new [Palestinian
Authority]
government," Walles's script said. "You told Secretary Rice you would be
prepared to move ahead within two to four weeks of your meeting. We
believe
that the time has come for you to move forward quickly and decisively."
The memo left no doubt as to what kind of action the U.S. was seeking:
"Hamas should be given a clear choice, with a clear deadline: . they
either
accept a new government that meets the Quartet principles, or they reject
it
The consequences of Hamas' decision should also be clear: If Hamas does
not
agree within the prescribed time, you should make clear your intention to
declare a state of emergency and form an emergency government explicitly
committed to that platform."
Walles and Abbas both knew what to expect from Hamas if these
instructions
were followed: rebellion and bloodshed. For that reason, the memo states,
the U.S. was already working to strengthen Fatah's security forces. "If
you
act along these lines, we will sup****t you both materially and
politically,"
the script said. "We will be there to sup****t you."
Abbas was also encouraged to "strengthen [his] team" to include
"credible
figures of strong standing in the international community." Among those
the
U.S. wanted brought in, says an official who knew of the policy, was
Muhammad Dahlan.
"There was still no sign that Abbas was ready to bring matters to a head
by dissolving the Hamas government. Against this darkening background, the
U.S. began direct security talks with Dahlan."
"He's Our Guy"
"In 2001, President Bush famously said that he had looked Russian
president Vladimir Putin in the eye, gotten "a sense of his soul," and
found
him to be "trustworthy." According to three U.S. officials, Bush made a
similar judgment about Dahlan when they first met, in 2003. All three
officials recall hearing Bush say, "He's our guy."
They say this *****sment was echoed by other key figures in the
administration, including Rice and Assistant Secretary David Welch, the
man
in charge of Middle East policy at the State Department. "David Welch
didn't
fundamentally care about Fatah," one of his colleagues says. "He cared
about
results, and [he sup****ted] whatever son of a ***** you had to sup****t.
Dahlan was the son of a ***** we happened to know best. He was a can-do
kind
of person. Dahlan was our guy."
Lieutenant General Keith Dayton, who had been appointed the U.S.
security
coordinator for the Palestinians in November 2005, was in no position to
question the president's judgment of Dahlan. His only prior experience
with
the Middle East was as director of the Iraq Survey Group, the body that
looked for Saddam Hussein's elusive weapons of mass destruction.
In November 2006, Dayton met Dahlan for the first of a long series of
talks in Jerusalem and Ramallah. Both men were accompanied by aides. From
the outset, says an official who took notes at the meeting, Dayton was
pu****ng two overlapping agendas.
"We need to reform the Palestinian security apparatus," Dayton said,
according to the notes. "But we also need to build up your forces in order
to take on Hamas."
Dahlan replied that, in the long run, Hamas could be defeated only by
political means. "But if I am going to confront them," he added, "I need
substantial resources. As things stand, we do not have the capability."
The two men agreed that they would work toward a new Palestinian
security
plan. The idea was to simplify the confusing web of Palestinian security
forces and have Dahlan assume responsibility for all of them in the newly
created role of Palestinian national-security adviser. The Americans would
help supply weapons and training.
As part of the reform program, according to the official who was present
at the meetings, Dayton said he wanted to disband the Preventive Security
Service, which was widely known to be engaged in kidnapping and torture.
At
a meeting in Dayton's Jerusalem office in early December, Dahlan ridiculed
the idea. "The only institution now protecting Fatah and the Palestinian
Authority in Gaza is the one you want removed," he said.
Dayton softened a little. "We want to help you," he said. "What do you
need?"
Dahlan did not hesitate to voice his exasperation. "I spoke to
Condoleezza
Rice on several occasions," he says. "I spoke to Dayton, to the consul
general, to everyone in the administration I knew. They said, 'You have a
convincing argument.' We were sitting in Abbas's office in Ramallah, and I
explained the whole thing to Condi. And she said, 'Yes, we have to make an
effort to do this. There's no other way." At some of these meetings,
Dahlan
says, Assistant Secretary Welch and Deputy National-Security Adviser
Abrams
were also present.
The administration went back to Congress, and a reduced, $59 million
package for nonlethal aid was approved in April 2007. But as Dahlan knew,
the Bush team had already spent the past months exploring alternative,
covert means of getting him the funds and weapons he wanted. The
reluctance
of Congress meant that "you had to look for different pots, different
sources of money," says a Pentagon official.
A State Department official adds, "Those in charge of implementing the
policy were saying, 'Do whatever it takes. We have to be in a position for
Fatah to defeat Hamas militarily, and only Muhammad Dahlan has the guile
and
the muscle to do this.' The expectation was that this was where it would
end
up-with a military showdown." There were, this official says, two
"parallel
programs"-the overt one, which the administration took to Congress, "and a
covert one, not only to buy arms but to pay the salaries of security
personnel."
But there are also im****tant differences-starting with the fact that
Congress never passed a measure expressly prohibiting the supply of aid to
Fatah and Dahlan. "It was close to the margins," says a former
intelligence
official with experience in covert programs. "But it probably wasn't
illegal."
Legal or not, arms ****pments soon began to take place. In late December
2006, four Egyptian trucks passed through an Israeli-controlled crossing
into Gaza, where their contents were handed over to Fatah. These included
2,000 Egyptian-made automatic rifles, 20,000 ammunition clips, and two
million bullets. News of the ****pment leaked, and Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, an
Israeli Cabinet member, said on Israeli radio that the guns and ammunition
would give Abbas "the ability to cope with those organizations which are
trying to ruin everything"-namely, Hamas.
Avi Dichter points out that all weapons ****pments had to be approved by
Israel, which was understandably hesitant to allow state-of-the-art arms
into Gaza. "One thing's for sure, we weren't talking about heavy weapons,"
says a State Department official. "It was small arms, light machine guns,
ammunition."
Plan B
The State Department quickly drew up an alternative to the new unity
government. Known as "Plan B," its objective, according to a State
Department memo that has been authenticated by an official who knew of it
at
the time, was to "enable [Abbas] and his sup****ters to reach a defined
endgame by the end of 2007 The endgame should produce a [Palestinian
Authority] government through democratic means that accepts Quartet
principles."
Like the Walles ultimatum of late 2006, Plan B called for Abbas to
"collapse the government" if Hamas refused to alter its attitude toward
Israel. From there, Abbas could call early elections or impose an
emergency
government. It is unclear whether, as president, Abbas had the
constitutional authority to dissolve an elected government led by a rival
party, but the Americans swept that concern aside.
Security considerations were paramount, and Plan B had explicit
prescriptions for dealing with them. For as long as the unity government
remained in office, it was essential for Abbas to maintain "independent
control of key security forces." He must "avoid Hamas integration with
these
services, while eliminating the Executive Force or mitigating the
challenges
posed by its continued existence."
In a clear reference to the covert aid expected from the Arabs, the memo
made this recommendation for the next six to nine months: "Dahlan oversees
effort in coordination with General Dayton and Arab [nations] to train and
equip 15,000-man force under President Abbas's control to establish
internal
law and order, stop terrorism and deter extralegal forces."
The Bush administration's goals for Plan B were elaborated in a do***ent
titled "An Action Plan for the Palestinian Presidency." This action plan
went through several drafts and was developed by the U.S., the
Palestinians,
and the government of Jordan. Sources agree, however, that it originated
in
the State Department.
The early drafts stressed the need for bolstering Fatah's forces in
order
to "deter" Hamas. The "desired outcome" was to give Abbas "the capability
to
take the required strategic political decisions . such as dismissing the
cabinet, establi****ng an emergency cabinet."
The drafts called for increasing the "level and capacity" of 15,000 of
Fatah's existing security personnel while adding 4,700 troops in seven new
"highly trained battalions on strong policing." The plan also promised to
arrange "specialized training abroad," in Jordan and Egypt, and pledged to
"provide the security personnel with the necessary equipment and arms to
carry out their missions."
A detailed budget put the total cost for salaries, training, and "the
needed security equipment, lethal and non-lethal," at $1.27 billion over
five years. The plan states: "The costs and overall budget were developed
jointly with General Dayton's team and the Palestinian technical team for
reform"-a unit established by Dahlan and led by his friend and policy aide
Bassil Jaber. Jaber confirms that the do***ent is an accurate summary of
the
work he and his colleagues did with Dayton. "The plan was to create a
security establishment that could protect and strengthen a peaceful
Palestinian state living side by side with Israel," he says.
The final draft of the Action Plan was drawn up in Ramallah by officials
of the Palestinian Authority. This version was identical to the earlier
drafts in all meaningful ways but one: it presented the plan as if it had
been the Palestinians' idea. It also said the security proposals had been
"approved by President Mahmoud Abbas after being discussed and agreed [to]
by General Dayton's team."
On April 30, 2007, a ****tion of one early draft was leaked to a
Jordanian
newspaper, Al-Majd. The secret was out. From Hamas's perspective, the
Action
Plan could amount to only one thing: a blueprint for a U.S.-backed Fatah
coup."
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