Iran Urgent Analysis: Judiciary Overrules Ahmadinejad --- Release of US Detainee Shourd Delayed

UPDATED 2100 GMT: President Ahmadinejad's office has just issued a brief statement, via the Islamic Republic News Agency, that the release of the "American spy" Sarah Shourd has been delayed.

LATEST Iran Breaking: Latest on Detained US Hiker Sarah Shourd

The release of Sarah Shourd, one of three US citizens picked up by Iranian authorities in July 2009 while hiking near the Iraq-Iran border, has been delayed.

An Iranian Labor News Agency story quotes Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Doulatabadi, in what appears to have been a sudden, late-night intervention (after 11 p.m. Tehran time), "Because the legal procedure on her case is not finished, her release is canceled."

The release was supposed to take place at 9 a.m. Saturday at the Hafeziyeh of Saad Abad, a Presidential palace which has been the site of high-profile appearances of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and visiting leaders.

Our snap analysis?

The Foreign Ministry and, more importantly, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, pushed too hard and too fast on the release of Sarah Shourd. Not necessarily in the release itself --- that could be justified as a humanitarian gesture, given the end of Ramadan and Shourd's gender and poor health --- but in its presentation.

Initially the freeing of Shourd was to take place in a hotel in north Tehran, probably as a low-key handover to Swiss officials, who represent US diplomatic interests in Iran. Then, however, the plans changed: the ceremony was now going to take place in the Presidential palace at Saad Abad, the site of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's public appearances with foreign leaders.-

At the same time, the Foreign Ministry --- which had recently been at odds with the President but which wanted the release of at least one US detainee as a diplomatic move --- put out the message that Ahmadinejad deserved the credit for Shourd's release.

So now a low-key freeing of the detainee had become a high-profile showpiece for the President. A showpiece on 11 September, with all that date means, and thus a clear signal of accommodation with the US. A showpiece which in itself was the warm-up act for Ahmadinejad's trip to New York and the United Nations later this month. (Remember, the wider context is Ahmadinejad's desire to return to uranium enrichment talks with Washington via the 5+1 powers.)

That was too much for both Larijanis, Speaker of Parliament Ali and head of judiciary Sadegh. The two, already manoeuvring vis-a-vis the President over authority in a dispute which had been escalating in recent weeks, did not want Ahmadinejad to take the glory and thus the political legitimacy of spearheading Shourd's release. (A bit of recent history: in 2007, 15 British sailors were held for weeks in Tehran after supposedly straying into Iranian waters. Although Ali Larijani was central to the discussions that brought their release, it was Ahmadinejad who presided over a choreographed ceremony and gift-giving to the sailors as they were freed.)

And there was an added bit of distaste for Ahmadinejad's critics. Word was getting out that the "high officials" who were to appear at this suddenly-arranged very public ceremony might included the President's controversial and widely-disliked Chief of Staff, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai.

So, at the last minute, on the Iranian weekend and after most of the media had gone to sleep, Sadegh Larijani's judiciary moved. The Foreign Ministry and the Presidency had no right intervening in a judicial matter. Shourd's release would have to be considered by the proper authorities, i.e., Iran's courts.

At least for this moment, that sudden move has prevailed.

Meanwhile, where is the Supreme Leader, the supposed authority in Iran's system? The apparent answer tonight is that he had been off to the side of all this drama. With Ahmadinejad's speed in raising the profile of Shourd's release and with the judiciary's sudden counter-attack, there has been no space for Ayatollah Khamenei to intervene. And, if he were to do so right now, he risks putting himself in the centre of a rather nasty fight between the heads of his three branches of Government. So the Supreme Leader's best move may be just to sit back and hope his politicians can find some face-saving accommodation.

The Latest from Iran (10 September): Khamenei Takes the Pulpit

1945 GMT: The Detained Americans. We have urgently updated the news and offered a snap anlaysis of the postponement of the release of detained US citizen Sarah Shourd. She was supposed to be freed ina ceremony in Tehran tomorrow morning.

1720 GMT: Eid al-Fitr Round-Up (cont. --- 1519 GMT). Rah-e-Sabz claims that in Najafabad the ceremony of followers of Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, who died last December, was much better attended than the Government's gathering.

Green Movement followers also attended Ayatollah Sane'i's ceremony in his office in Qom. The cerlic declared, "Our committment to Eid al-Fitr should be that we should divert from yesterday's wrong path, which dishonoured Islam or its principles, and do everything to compensate. Everyone who took the problematic way yesterday, causing injustice for people, should know that he will be punished on Doomsday."

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The Latest from Iran (9 September): US Hiker Shourd to Be Released

Khodnevis, under the headline, "Siege, prohibitions, and Threats", claims that all Sunni ceremonies were forbidden in Tehran. Security forces allegedly hung banners declaring, "The unifying Eid al-Fitr ceremonies will be held at Tehran University, led by Supreme Leader, leader of all Muslims of the world."

1710 GMT: Sanctions Watch. Another major European company --- the Linde Group of Germany, an engineering firm and one of the world’s biggest industrial gas suppliers --- has decided to cut ties. Spokesman Uwe Wolfinger said the company recently decided “to stop our activities in Iran and with Iran completely”.

Dutch-based plastics and chemical firm LyondellBasell said just over two weeks ago that it was ending business in Iran.

1535 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. More on the latest court hearing for journalist and activist Heshmatollah Tabarzadi....

Tabarzadi, whose lawyer Nasrine Sotoudeh was detained last Saturday, told the court, "We did not topple the Shah to recreate the same situation. This court has no legal authority to judge accusations against me."

1519 GMT: Eid al-Fitr Round-Up. At the start of today, we wondered if today's Eid al-Fitr ceremonies, marking the end of Ramadan, would be a sign of support for the regime and Government. The results appear to be inconclusive.

Iranian media features photographs of crowds in Tehran. Khabar Online adds details: more than 40,000 security forces and police were mobilised, 700 taxis and 6000 buses and vans  were organised for free fares to the ceremony. Two tons of dates were distributed. About 100 ambulances with 1000 personnel
were on hand.

In Bandar Abbas in southern Iran, the authorities appear to have chosen a dusty dockyard outside town, possibly to avoid Green "interference". probably most of the praying people are poor rustabouts and their wives. Photos show Mashhad's Imam Reza shrine was crowded, but Isfahan's Naghshe Jahan square was half-empty.

Rah-e-Sabz claims that security forces prevented the ceremony in the house of Habibollah Peyman, the leader of an Islamic Socialist party.

Ayatollah Sane'i said in his sermon that  "the evil-doer will be punished on earth as well" and warned, "Whoever took the wrong road yesterday by doing injustice to people, should take a better road today." In what one EA correspondents sees as a tacit apology for acts of the past 31 years, he continued, "If we did injustice yesterday, believing it would help us to stay in power, know that no one will stay with the help of injustice."

In Shiraz, Ayatollah Dastgheyb --- prevented from speaking last Friday by a pro-regime crowd ---  told his audience to "beware of doomsday and the devil" and commanded, "Don't allow anything in the name of Basij [militia] and upholding clerical rule."

1435 GMT: Diplomatic Move? Georges Malbrunot claims at Le Figaro that Hussein Ali Zadeh, a counselor at the Iranian Embassy in Finland, is leaving his post to support the Green Movement. The decision will supposedly be announced in the next few hours.

Earlier this year Iranian diplomats in Norway and Japan resigned their positions in sympathy with the demands of the opposition.

1425 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Protester Nezam Hassanpour has been sentenced to six years in prison.

1350 GMT: Kiss and Make Up? It appears that the imminent release of detained US hiker Sarah Shourd might be the occasion for a reconciliation between President Ahmadinejad and the Foreign Ministry.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said that the freeing of Shourd was made possible by the President's efforts.

Tension between Ahmadinejad and his diplomats had risen because of the President's appointment of four special envoys, with Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki only withdrawing hisresignation after the intervention of the Supreme Leader's office..

1300 GMT: Execution Watch. Lecturer and author Ahmad Ghabel has been summoned to answer questions in Revolutionary Guard. Ghabel claims this was prompted by his revelation, upon release from Mashhad Prison, of mass executions in that facility.

1120 GMT: Economy Watch. In a jab at the Government, Grand Ayatollah Makarem-Shirazi has said that the official statistics for inflation do not match up with what Iran's people are experiencing.

1115 GMT: Today's All-Is-Not-Well Alert. Iran's Minister of Oil Masoud Mirkazemi has been proclaming this week that the country is now self-sufficient in gasoline production.

He may want to have a word with Iran's statisticians. Latest figures indicate that gasoline imports rose 135% in the first five months of the Iranian year (March-August).

0903 GMT: Converting the US message. This was the statement from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the Council on Foreign Relations on Wednesday: "It is definitely our policy to support freedom and human rights inside Iran, and we have done so by speaking out. We have done so by trying to equip Iranians with the tools, particularly the technology tools that they need, to be able to communicate with each other to make their views known."

And here is how it is presented in Fars News: "US Confession of Efforts to Support the Insurrection in Iran".

0900 GMT: Unity? Before his sermon, the Supreme Leader met with Iranian officials. An EA correspondent reports two notable absentees: the head of the Guardian Council, Ahmad Jannati, and former President Hashemi Rafsanjani.

0830 GMT: Authority Re-Asserted? The official outlet Islamic Republic News Agency does have wall-to-wall coverage of the Eid al-Fitr ceremonies, but much of the message seems tangential or diversionary.

IRNA carries the official statement from President Ahmadinejad's website to the heads of Islamic countries, calling for the strengthening of unity and friendship amongst all nations based on monotheism.

But any reference to Iran's own affairs has to come indirectly through "All Have Come", a short item and photo noting the attendance of "all authorities", such as Ahmadinejad, Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, Guardian Council head Ahmad Jannati, 1st Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi, and the head of Iran's armed forces, General Hassan Firouzabadi.

0815 GMT: Authority Re-Asserted? The Supreme Leader has led prayers for Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan, at Tehran University.

A week ago, the regime tried to establish its leadership of the people through the commemoration of Qods (Palestine) Day. That effort quickly receded into disappointment, with little evidence of a mass response. On that occasion, however, the lead speaker was President Ahmadinejad. So could Ayatollah Khamenei's camp be hoping that the claim of velayat-e-faqih (clerical authority) had a greater influence than that of the current Government's legitimacy?

Press TV's report on the Khamenei sermon focuses on the Supreme Leader's denunciation of  direct Israel-Palestine talks as "a cover-up for Israeli crimes against the Palestinian nation". Khamenei said:

The United States and the West just sit back and watch the suppression of the Palestinian nation, and yet they arrange talks for peace, what peace? Between which people?...Tyrants wish to push the Palestinian issue to a corner however a strong turnout at the annual International Quds Day rallies indicates motivation and hope among Muslims worldwide.

The Supreme Leader also referred to the need to help those suffering from Pakistan's floods.

Hmm, we'll keep reading but the re-assertion of last Friday's message and the denunciation of the US and Zionist does not seem to address the internal issues or even bolster the Government. There is no follow-up coverage of note on Press TV's broadcast.

Meanwhile, there is a shot across the Supreme Leader's bow. Ayatollah Sane'i, a prominent critic of the Government and even Khamenei, has declared that the Iranian people can properly commemorate Eid al-Fitr by remaining at home rather than coming out to hear clerics.

0710 GMT: The US Detainees. We're looking for further developments on yesterday's news that Tehran will release Sarah Shourd, one of three US hikers detained in July 2009 along the Iraq-Iran border, on Saturday.

Meanwhile, James Miller of Dissected News assesses the possible Iranian motives behind the move: "[This] may be the perfect excuse to save face during Iran’s ongoing political limbo."

0605 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Arjang Davoudi, nearing the 60th day of his hunger strike in Rajai Shahr Prison, has vowed to continue it after a meeting with his wife.

Davoudi demanded that phone calls and visits to the prison return to normal, that the position of the prison's head be addressed, andthat his house confiscated by the judiciary be returned to his wife.

Ali Jamali, a member of the alumni organisation Advar-e Tahkim Vahdat, is reported to be in solitary confinement, three weeks after his detention.

US and Afghanistan: The Little Inconvenience of Corruption (Miller)

Last month we featured articles which pointed not only to the problem of corruption within Afghanistan but to a political battle within the US Government over the issue, with some agencies accusing others of turning a blind eye to and even accepting the diversion of money. This week we noted the politics behind the near-collapse of the Kabul Bank.

Greg Miller now writes in The Washington Post:

In the span of several months, U.S.-backed investigative teams have assembled alarming evidence of rampant corruption in Afghanistan and the extent to which it reaches the highest ranks of that nation's government.

Afghanistan: Petraeus “Success” Undone by Rising Casualties? (Porter)

But the American effort to increase Afghanistan's capacity to combat corruption has also had unintended consequences, aggravating the U.S. relationship with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and producing embarrassing revelations that have undermined attempts to build popular trust in the government in Kabul - a key component of the Obama administration's counterinsurgency campaign.

After pouring more resources into the anti-corruption effort over the past 18 months - including teams of advisers and sophisticated wiretapping technology - administration officials said there is growing concern that rooting out graft is paradoxically reinforcing perceptions that the problem is endemic.

"Our big push to help build Afghan institutions for transparency and anti-corruption has had the dismaying effect of bringing a lot of stuff to light that has sparked political crises," said a senior administration official. "Afghan institutions are growing more capable" of fighting corruption, the official said. But their work has the potential to "set us back."

The quandary in many ways reflects the extent to which the U.S. government has operated at cross-purposes in Afghanistan, doling out vast sums of money to win over warlords and buy security for military convoys, then cracking down on abuse in a system awash in American cash.

After nearly nine years of nation-building in Afghanistan, experts said, the U.S. government faces mounting evidence that it has helped to assemble one of the most corrupt governments in the world.

"I don't know how you can disaggregate the way in which [the U.S. government] has funneled money into Afghanistan from the crisis of corruption that presents itself today," said C. Christine Fair, an assistant professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service who has monitored the U.S. role in Afghanistan. "We are a government at odds with ourselves."

Underscoring the Obama administration's sensitivity on the subject, officials persuaded Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) to block the release of a report on corruption in Afghanistan that the panel's staff completed last month. Kerry had publicly mentioned that the report was coming. An administration official said the concern was about sensitive information contained in the document, but others blamed fears that its release would lead to further embarrassment for the U.S. government and Karzai.

There is no authoritative estimate of the toll that corruption has taken on the Afghan economy, which is sustained to a large extent by billions of dollars in American aid, as well as profits from drug trafficking.

U.S. officials acknowledge that they are still struggling to plug large leaks. An estimated $1 billion a year, for example, is leaving the country in bags of cash carried out of Kabul airport. Authorities suspect that much of the outflow is diverted foreign aid....

Read rest of article....

Afghanistan: Petraeus "Success" Undone by Rising Casualties? (Porter)

Gareth Porter writes for Inter Press Service:

General David Petraeus claimed limited success this week in the war within a war over the Taliban's planting of roadside bombs, but official Pentagon data shows the Taliban clearly winning that war by planting more bombs and killing many more U.S. and NATO troops since the troop surge began in early 2010.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published Tuesday, Petraeus asserted that the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) by the Taliban had "flattened" over the past year and attributed that alleged success to pressures by the U.S. military, and especially the increased tempo of Special Operations Forces raids against Taliban units.

Afghanistan: The Politics of the Kabul Bank Crisis (Ellick/Filkins)

Data provided by the Pentagon's Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO), however, shows that IEDs planted by Afghan insurgents killed nearly 40 percent more U.S. and NATO troops in the first eight months of 2010 than in the comparable period of 2009.

The data also show that Taliban IEDs wounded 2,025 U.S. and NATO troops in the first eight months of this year –-- almost twice the 1,035 wounded in the same months last year.

In the Journal interview, Petraeus said that the data on violent incidents in Afghanistan indicate a slowly improving security situation.

Without putting his statement in quotation marks, Journal reporters Julian E. Barnes and Matthew Rosenberg reported Petraeus as claiming that the use of IEDs "has generally flattened in the past year". While crediting U.S. military operations with this alleged improvement, Petraeus said it is too soon to say that they are the sole reason for this alleged flattening of IED incidents.

But the data for 2009 and 2010 provide no support for Petraeus's "flattened" description.

The 12-month moving average of IED incidents, provided in a report in July by the Center for Strategic and International Studies on the basis of JIEDDO data, shows a continuing and sharp increase from 250 in June 2009 to more than 900 in May 2010, for an average increase per month of 54 incidents.

The total number of IED incidents in Afghanistan began to rise steeply in March 2010 to a new high of 1,087 and then continued to climb to 1,128 in May and again to 1,258 in August.

In a related effort to spin the IED issue more favourably to the war effort, Maj. Michael G. Johnson, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) commanded by Petraeus, was quoted in a USA Today story published Tuesday as saying that there had been a "dip" in deaths and injuries from IEDs over the previous 12 weeks compared to the same period in 2009.

But the JIEDDO figures on deaths and injuries to U.S. and NATO forces from IEDs from June through August 2010 total 271 casualties --- a 30 percent increase over the total for those months a year ago....

Read full article....

Outsourcing War: Blackwater Uses 30 False Fronts for Government Contracts (Mazzetti/Risen)

Blackwater became one of the blackest names in the American intervention in Iraq from 2003. The company, which increasingly handled "security" in the country, was implicated in a series of killings of Iraqi civilians. Eventually, the firm changed its name to Xe.

However, the controversy does not seems to have affected Blackwater/Xe's profitable work for the US Government in areas such as Afghanistan. Mark Mazzetti and James Risen report for The New York Times:

Blackwater Worldwide created a web of more than 30 shell companies or subsidiaries in part to obtain millions of dollars in American government contracts after the security company came under intense criticism for reckless conduct in Iraq, according to Congressional investigators and former Blackwater officials.

While it is not clear how many of those businesses won contracts, at least three had deals with the United States military or the Central Intelligence Agency, according to former government and company officials. Since 2001, the intelligence agency has awarded up to $600 million in classified contracts to Blackwater and its affiliates, according to a United States government official.

The Senate Armed Services Committee this week released a chart that identified 31 affiliates of Blackwater, now known as Xe Services. The network was disclosed as part of a committee’s investigation into government contracting. The investigation revealed the lengths to which Blackwater went to continue winning contracts after Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in September 2007. That episode and other reports of abuses led to criminal and Congressional investigations, and cost the company its lucrative security contract with the State Department in Iraq.

The network of companies --- which includes several businesses located in offshore tax havens --- allowed Blackwater to obscure its involvement in government work from contracting officials or the public, and to assure a low profile for any of its classified activities, said former Blackwater officials, who, like the government officials, spoke only on condition of anonymity.

Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said in a statement that it was worth “looking into why Blackwater would need to create the dozens of other names” and said he had requested that the Justice Department investigate whether Blackwater officers misled the government when using subsidiaries to solicit contracts.

The C.I.A.’s continuing relationship with the company, which recently was awarded a $100 million contract to provide security at agency bases in Afghanistan, has drawn harsh criticism from some members of Congress, who argue that the company’s tarnished record should preclude it from such work. At least two of the Blackwater-affiliated companies, XPG and Greystone, obtained secret contracts from the agency, according to interviews with a half dozen former Blackwater officials.

A C.I.A. spokesman, Paul Gimigliano, said that Xe’s current duties for the agency were to provide security for agency operatives. Contractors “do the tasks we ask them to do in strict accord with the law; they are supervised by C.I.A. staff officers; and they are held to the highest standards of conduct” he said. “As for Xe specifically, they help provide security in tough environments, an assignment at which their people have shown both skill and courage.”

Congress began to investigate the affiliated companies last year, after the shooting deaths of two Afghans by Blackwater security personnel working for a subsidiary named Paravant, which had obtained Pentagon contracts in Afghanistan. In a Senate hearing earlier this year, Army officials said that when they awarded the contract to Paravant for training of the Afghan Army, they had no idea that the business was part of Blackwater.

While Congressional investigators have identified other Blackwater-linked businesses, it was not the focus of their inquiry to determine how much money from government contracts flowed through the web of corporations, especially money earmarked for clandestine programs. The former company officials say that Greystone did extensive work for the intelligence community, though they did not describe the nature of the activities. The firm was incorporated in Barbados for tax purposes, but had executives who worked at Blackwater’s headquarters in North Carolina.

The former company officials say that Erik Prince, the business’s founder, was eager to find ways to continue to handle secret work after the 2007 shootings in Baghdad’s Nisour Square and set up a special office to handle classified work at his farm in Middleburg, Va....