WASHINGTON Ñ The head of a Washington-based think tank has urged Congress to make its own study after criticizing the State Department's latest report on international terrorism.
Frank Gaffney, president of the Washington-based Center for Security Policy, told the House Armed Services subcommittee on Thursday that the State
Department report was the most politicized document since a CIA missile
estimate in 1995, Middle East Newsline reported. He told the Special Oversight Panel on Terrorism subcommittee that the State Department report ignored many acts of terrorism and refused to cite terrorist sponsorship by the Palestinian Authority and Saudi Arabia.
"I would suggest that not since the 1995 National Intelligence Estimate
on missile threats to the United States, a blatantly politicized document,
has the Congress been served such a
distorted and, frankly, fraudulent document as that the State Department has
just rendered describing Palestinian compliance with its obligations and
other terrorist threats," Gaffney said.
Gaffney, regarded as a Republican close to the Bush administration, said
the State Department refused to acknowledge Israeli-supplied evidence that
Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat was involved in financing
suicide bombings and buying rockets to attack Israeli cities. Gaffney cited
the Israeli capture of the Karine-A freighter in January, condemned by
President George Bush and later acknowledged by Arafat himself.
The State Department's reference to the Karine-A is vague. "In January
2002 Israeli forces boarded the vessel Karine-A in the Red Sea and uncovered
nearly 50 tons of Iranian arms, including Katyusha missiles, apparently
bound for militants in the West Bank and Gaza Strip," the State Department
report said.
"It pretends as though there's some uncertainty as to whom the intended
recipients of these arms were," Gaffney said. "It suggests no certitude as
to the role of the Palestinian Authority in acquiring these arms."
Gaffney urged the subcommittee to commission its own report on
terrorism. He cited the 1998 congressionally-mandated study on the missile
threat to the United States. That report launched plans to establish an
American missile defense umbrella.
"The State Department has, I believe, grossly misrepresented this
[Palestinian terrorism]and a number of other aspects of Palestinian
compliance in the global war on terrorism, or the terrorist threat," Gaffney
said. "You need a second opinion on this."
Former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Murphy disagreed. Murphy
told the subcommitee that the State Department was "genuinely shocked at the
stupidity of the Karine A shipment: how could this have been tolerated by
the Palestine Authority when they were trying to get across their interest
in getting back to negotiations with Israel?"
Daniella Pletka, vice president of the American Enterprise Institute,
said the State Department treated the Karine-A episode seriously. But Ms.
Pletka said the department, in its effort to maintain discretion, overlooked
the alliance between the PA, the Iranian-backed Hizbullah and Syria.
"I think that it hasn't been clearly understood in our body politic just
how important that incident was," Ms. Pletka said. "It represented a new
nexus between the Palestinian Authority, the government of Syria, and Imad
Mughniyeh, who is probably, outside of Osama Bin Laden, one of the most
wanted terrorists in the world today."
