Name	North Atlantic Treaty OrganizationOrganisation du Traité de l'Atlantique Nord (NATO / OTAN)
Map	North Atlantic Treaty Organization (orthographic projection).svg
Mcaption	NATO countries shown in green
Type	Military alliance
Headquarters	Brussels, Belgium
Membership type	Member states
Membership	Albania | Belgium | Bulgaria | Canada | Croatia | Czech Republic | Denmark | Estonia | France | Germany | Greece | Hungary | Iceland | Italy | Latvia | Lithuania | Luxembourg | Netherlands | Norway | Poland | Portugal | Romania | Slovakia | Slovenia | Spain | Turkey | United Kingdom | United States}}

|language=EnglishFrench |leader_title=Secretary General |leader_name=Anders Fogh Rasmussen |leader_title2=Chairman of the NATO Military Committee |leader_name2=Giampaolo Di Paola |formation=4 April 1949 |website=nato.int }}

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO ( ; ), also called the (North) Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The NATO headquarters are in Brussels, Belgium, and the organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party.

For its first few years, NATO was not much more than a political association. However, the Korean War galvanized the member states, and an integrated military structure was built up under the direction of two U.S. supreme commanders. The first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay, famously stated the organization's goal was "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down". Doubts over the strength of the relationship between the European states and the United States ebbed and flowed, along with doubts over the credibility of the NATO defence against a prospective Soviet invasion—doubts that led to the development of the independent French nuclear deterrent and the withdrawal of the French from NATO's military structure in 1966.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the organization became drawn into the Breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s which resulted in NATO's first military operations in Bosnia from 1991 to 1995 and later Yugoslavia in 1999. Politically, the organisation sought better relations with former potential enemies to the east, which culminated with several former Warsaw Pact states joining the alliance in 1999 and 2004. The September 2001 attacks signalled the only occasion in NATO's history that Article 5 of the NATO treaty has been invoked and consequently the 11 September attacks were deemed to be an attack on all 19 NATO members. After 11 September, troops were deployed to Afghanistan under the NATO-led ISAF and the organization continues to operate in a range of roles sending trainers to Iraq, assisting in counter-piracy operations and most recently enforced a NATO-led no-fly zone over Libya in 2011 in accordance with UN SC Resolution 1973.

The Berlin Plus agreement is a comprehensive package of agreements made between NATO and the European Union on 16 December 2002. With this agreement the EU was given the possibility to use NATO assets in case it wanted to act independently in an international crisis, on the condition that NATO itself did not want to act—the so-called "right of first refusal". There are currently 28 member states of NATO, with the most recent being Albania and Croatia who joined in April 2009. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the world's defence spending. The United States alone accounts for 43% of the total military spending of the world and the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Italy account for a further 15%.

History

Beginnings

The Treaty of Brussels, signed on 17 March 1948 by Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, and the United Kingdom, is considered the precursor to the NATO agreement. The treaty and the Soviet Berlin Blockade led to the creation of the Western European Union's Defence Organization in September 1948. However, participation of the United States was thought necessary to counter the military power of the USSR, and talks for a new military alliance began almost immediately.

These talks resulted in the North Atlantic Treaty, signed in Washington, D.C. on 4 April 1949. It included the five Treaty of Brussels states plus the United States, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark and Iceland. Popular support for the Treaty was not unanimous; some Icelanders commenced a pro-neutrality, anti-membership riot in March 1949.

The members agreed that an armed attack against any one of them in Europe or North America would be considered an attack against them all. Consequently they agreed that, if an armed attack occurred, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence, would assist the member being attacked, taking such action as it deemed necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

The treaty does not require members to respond militarily action against aggressor). Although obliged to respond, they maintain the freedom to choose the method. This differs from Article IV of the Treaty of Brussels, which clearly states that the response will be military in nature. It is nonetheless assumed that NATO members will aid the attacked member militarily. Further, the North Atlantic Treaty limits the organization's scope to regions above the Tropic of Cancer, which explains why the Falklands War did not result in NATO involvement.

The creation of NATO brought about some standardization of allied military terminology, procedures, and technology, which in many cases meant European countries adopting U.S. practices. The roughly 1300 Standardization Agreements (STANAGs) codifies the standardization that NATO has achieved. Hence, the 7.62×51 NATO rifle cartridge was introduced in the 1950s as a standard firearm cartridge among many NATO countries. Fabrique Nationale de Herstal's FAL became the most popular 7.62 NATO rifle in Europe and served into the early 1990s. Also, aircraft marshalling signals were standardized, so that any NATO aircraft could land at any NATO base. Other standards such as the NATO phonetic alphabet have made their way beyond NATO into civilian use.

Cold War

The outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 was crucial for NATO as it raised the apparent threat level greatly (all Communist countries were suspected of working together) and forced the alliance to develop concrete military plans. The 1952 Lisbon conference, seeking to provide the forces necessary for NATO's Long-Term Defence Plan, called for an expansion to 96 divisions. However this requirement was dropped the following year to roughly 35 divisions with heavier use to be made of nuclear weapons. At this time, NATO could call on about 15 ready divisions in Central Europe, and another ten in Italy and Scandinavia. Also at Lisbon, the post of Secretary General of NATO as the organization's chief civilian was also created, and Baron Hastings Ismay eventually appointed to the post.

In September 1952, the first major NATO maritime exercises began; Operation Mainbrace brought together 200 ships and over 50,000 personnel to practice the defence of Denmark and Norway. Other major exercises that followed included Operation Grand Slam, NATO's first naval exercise in the Mediterranean Sea, 'Mariner,' which involved convoy protection, naval control of shipping, and striking fleet operations in the North Atlantic, Italic Weld, a combined air-naval-ground exercise in northern Italy, Grand Repulse, involving the British Army on the Rhine (BAOR), the Netherlands Corps and Allied Air Forces Central Europe (AAFCE), Monte Carlo a simulated atomic air-ground exercise involving the Central Army Group, and Weldfast, a combined amphibious landing exercise in the Mediterranean Sea involving British, Greek, Italian, Turkish, and U.S. naval forces.

Greece and Turkey also joined the alliance in 1952, forcing a series of controversial negotiations, in which the United States and Britain were the primary disputants, over how to bring the two countries into the military command structure. Meanwhile, while this overt military preparation was going on, covert stay-behind arrangements to continue resistance after a successful Soviet invasion ('Operation Gladio'), initially made by the Western European Union, were being transferred to NATO control. Ultimately unofficial bonds began to grow between NATO's armed forces, such as the NATO Tiger Association and competitions such as the Canadian Army Trophy for tank gunnery.

In 1954, the Soviet Union suggested that it should join NATO to preserve peace in Europe. The NATO countries, fearing that the Soviet Union's motive was to weaken the alliance, ultimately rejected this proposal. The incorporation of West Germany into the organization on 9 May 1955 was described as "a decisive turning point in the history of our continent" by Halvard Lange, Foreign Minister of Norway at the time. A major reason for Germany's entry into the alliance was that without German manpower, it would have been impossible to field enough conventional forces to resist a Soviet invasion. Indeed, one of its immediate results was the creation of the Warsaw Pact, signed on 14 May 1955 by the Soviet Union, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, and East Germany, as a formal response to this event, thereby delineating the two opposing sides of the Cold War.

Three major exercises were held concurrently in the northern autumn of 1957. Operation Counter Punch, Operation Strikeback, and Operation Deep Water were the most ambitious military undertaking for the alliance to date, involving more than 250,000 men, 300 ships, and 1,500 aircraft operating from Norway to Turkey.

French withdrawal from NATO command

NATO's unity was breached early in its history with a crisis occurring during Charles de Gaulle's presidency of France starting in 1958. De Gaulle protested the United States' strong role in the organization and what he perceived as a special relationship between it and the United Kingdom. In a memorandum sent to President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan on 17 September 1958, he argued for the creation of a tripartite directorate that would put France on an equal footing with the US and UK, and also for expanding NATO's coverage to include areas of interest to France, most notably French Algeria, where France was waging a counter-insurgency and sought NATO assistance.

Considering the response he received to his memorandum unsatisfactory, de Gaulle began constructing an independent defense force for his country. He wanted to give France, in the event of an East German incursion into West Germany, the option of coming to a separate peace with the Eastern bloc instead of being drawn into a NATO-Warsaw Pact general war. On 11 March 1959, France withdrew its Mediterranean Fleet from NATO command; three months later he banned the stationing of foreign nuclear weapons on French soil. This caused the United States to transfer two hundred military aircraft out of France and return control of the ten major air force bases that had operated in France since 1950 to the French by 1967.

Though France showed solidarity with the rest of NATO during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, de Gaulle continued his pursuit of an independent defence by removing France's Atlantic and Channel fleets from NATO command. In 1966, all French armed forces were removed from NATO's integrated military command, and all non-French NATO troops were asked to leave France. This withdrawal forced the relocation of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) from Rocquencourt, near Paris, to Casteau, north of Mons, Belgium, by 16 October 1967. France remained a member of the alliance, and committed to the defence of Europe from possible Communist attack with its own forces stationed in the Federal Republic of Germany throughout the Cold War. A series of secret accords between U.S. and French officials, the Lemnitzer-Ailleret Agreements, detailed how French forces would dovetail back into NATO's command structure should East-West hostilities break out.

Détente and escalation

During most of the Cold War, NATO maintained a holding pattern with no actual military engagement as an organization. On 1 July 1968, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty opened for signature: NATO argued that its nuclear sharing arrangements did not breach the treaty as U.S. forces controlled the weapons until a decision was made to go to war, at which point the treaty would no longer be controlling. Few states knew of the NATO nuclear sharing arrangements at that time, and they were not challenged.

On 30 May 1978, NATO countries officially defined two complementary aims of the Alliance, to maintain security and pursue détente. This was supposed to mean matching defences at the level rendered necessary by the Warsaw Pact's offensive capabilities without spurring a further arms race.

On 12 December 1979, in light of a build-up of Warsaw Pact nuclear capabilities in Europe, ministers approved the deployment of U.S. GLCM cruise missiles and Pershing II theatre nuclear weapons in Europe. The new warheads were also meant to strengthen the western negotiating position regarding nuclear disarmament. This policy was called the Dual Track policy. Similarly, in 1983–84, responding to the stationing of Warsaw Pact SS-20 medium-range missiles in Europe, NATO deployed modern Pershing II missiles tasked to hit military targets such as tank formations in the event of war. This action led to peace movement protests throughout Western Europe.

With the background of the build-up of tension between the Soviet Union and the United States, NATO decided, under the impetus of the Reagan presidency, to deploy Pershing II and cruise missiles in Western Europe, primarily West Germany. These missiles were theatre nuclear weapons intended to strike targets on the battlefield if the Soviets invaded West Germany. Yet support for the deployment was wavering and many doubted whether the push for deployment could be sustained. On 1 September 1983, the Soviet Union shot down a Korean passenger airliner when it crossed into Soviet airspace—an act which Reagan characterized as a "massacre". The barbarity of this act, as the U.S. and indeed the world understood it, galvanized support for the deployment—which stood in place until the later accords between Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.

The membership of the organization at this time remained largely static. In 1974, as a consequence of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, Greece withdrew its forces from NATO's military command structure but, with Turkish cooperation, were readmitted in 1980. On 30 May 1982, NATO gained a new member when, following a referendum, the newly democratic Spain joined the alliance.

In November 1983, NATO manoeuvres simulating a nuclear launch caused panic in the Kremlin. The Soviet leadership, led by ailing General Secretary Yuri Andropov, became concerned that the manoeuvres, codenamed Able Archer 83, were the beginnings of a genuine first strike. In response, Soviet nuclear forces were readied and air units in East Germany and Poland were placed on alert. Though at the time written off by U.S. intelligence as a propaganda effort, many historians now believe that the Soviet fear of a NATO first strike was genuine.

Post Cold War

The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1991 removed the ''de facto'' main adversary of NATO. This caused a strategic re-evaluation of NATO's purpose, nature and tasks. In practice this ended up entailing a gradual (and still ongoing) expansion of NATO to Eastern Europe, as well as the extension of its activities to areas that had not formerly been NATO concerns.

The first post–Cold War expansion of NATO came with German reunification on 3 October 1990, when the former East Germany became part of the Federal Republic of Germany and the alliance. This had been agreed in the Two Plus Four Treaty earlier in the year. To secure Soviet approval of a united Germany remaining in NATO, it was agreed that foreign troops and nuclear weapons would not be stationed in the east. The scholar Stephen F. Cohen argued in 2005 that a commitment was given that NATO would never expand further east, but according to Robert Zoellick, then a State Department official involved in the Two Plus Four negotiating process, this appears to be a misperception; no formal commitment of the sort was made. In May 2008, Gorbachev repeated his view that such a commitment had been made, and that "the Americans promised that NATO wouldn't move beyond the boundaries of Germany after the Cold War".

On 10 and 11 April 1994, during the Bosnian War, the United Nations Protection Force called in air strikes to protect the Goražde safe area, resulting in the bombing of a Serbian military command outpost near Goražde by 2 US F-16 jets acting under NATO direction. This was the first time in NATO's history it had ever done so. This resulted in the taking of 150 U.N. personnel hostage on 14 April. On 16 April a British Sea Harrier was shot down over Goražde by Serb forces.

As part of post–Cold War restructuring, NATO's military structure was cut back and reorganized, with new forces such as the Headquarters Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps established. The Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe agreed between NATO and the Warsaw Pact and signed in Paris in 1990, mandated specific reductions. The changes brought about by the collapse of the Soviet Union on the military balance in Europe were recognized in the Adapted Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty, signed some years later. France rejoined NATO's Military Committee in 1995, and since then has intensified working relations with the military structure. The policies of French President Nicolas Sarkozy have resulted in a major reform of France's military position, culminating with the return to full membership on 4 April 2009, which also included France rejoining the integrated military command of NATO, while maintaining an independent nuclear deterrent.

New NATO structures were also formed while old ones were abolished: The NATO Response Force (NRF) was launched at the 2002 Prague summit on 21 November. On 19 June 2003, a major restructuring of the NATO military commands began as the Headquarters of the Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic were abolished and a new command, Allied Command Transformation (ACT), was established in Norfolk, Virginia, United States, and the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) became the Headquarters of Allied Command Operations (ACO). ACT is responsible for driving transformation (future capabilities) in NATO, whilst ACO is responsible for current operations.

Membership went on expanding with the accession of seven more Northern and Eastern European countries to NATO: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania. They were first invited to start talks of membership during the 2002 Prague Summit, and joined NATO on 29 March 2004, shortly before the 2004 Istanbul summit. The same month, NATO's Baltic Air Policing began, which supported the sovereignty of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia by providing fighters to react to any unwanted aerial intrusions. Four fighters are based in Lithuania, provided in rotation by virtually all the NATO states. ''Operation Peaceful Summit'' temporarily enhanced this patrolling during the 2006 Riga summit.

The 2006 Riga summit was held in Riga, Latvia, which had joined the Atlantic Alliance two years earlier. It is the first NATO summit to be held in a country that was part of the Soviet Union, and the second one in a former Comecon country (after the 2002 Prague summit). Energy Security was one of the main themes of the Riga Summit. At the April 2008 summit in Bucharest, Romania, NATO agreed to the accession of Croatia and Albania and invited them to join. Both countries joined NATO in April 2009. Ukraine and Georgia were also told that they will eventually become members.

Missile defence

For some years, the United States negotiated with Poland and the Czech Republic for the deployment of interceptor missiles and a radar tracking system in the two countries against wishes of local population. Both countries' governments indicated that they would allow the deployment. In August 2008, Poland and the United States signed a preliminary deal to place part of the missile defence shield in Poland that would be linked to air-defence radar in the Czech Republic. In answer to this agreement, more than 130,000 Czechs signed a petition for a referendum on the base, which is by far the largest citizen initiative since the Velvet Revolution, but it has been refused. The proposed American missile defence site in Central Europe is expected to be fully operational by 2015 and would be capable of covering most of Europe except parts of Romania plus Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey.

In April 2007, NATO's European allies called for a NATO missile defence system which would complement the American national missile defense system to protect Europe from missile attacks and NATO's decision-making North Atlantic Council held consultations on missile defence in the first meeting on the topic at such a senior level. In response, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin claimed that such a deployment could lead to a new arms race and could enhance the likelihood of mutual destruction. He also suggested that his country would freeze its compliance with the 1990 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE)—which limits military deployments across the continent—until all NATO countries had ratified the adapted CFE treaty. Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer claimed the system would not affect strategic balance or threaten Russia, as the plan is to base only ten interceptor missiles in Poland with an associated radar in the Czech Republic.

On 14 July 2007, Russia gave notice of its intention to suspend the CFE treaty, effective 150 days later. On 14 August 2008, the United States and Poland came to an agreement to place a base with ten interceptor missiles with associated MIM-104 Patriot air defence systems in Poland. This came at a time when tension was high between Russia and most of NATO and resulted in a nuclear threat on Poland by Russia if the building of the missile defences went ahead. On 20 August 2008 the United States and Poland signed the agreement, with a statement from Russia saying their response "Will Go Beyond Diplomacy" and is an "extremely dangerous bundle" of military projects." Also, on 20 August 2008, Russia sent word to Norway that it was suspending ties with NATO.

On 17 September 2009, US President Barack Obama announced that the planned deployment of long-range missile defence interceptors and equipment in Poland and the Czech Republic was not to go forward, and that a defence against short- and medium-range missiles using AEGIS warships would be deployed instead. The announcement prompted varying reactions – in Central and Eastern Europe, especially in Poland and the Czech Republic, response was largely negative; while the Russian response was largely positive. Following the announcement, Russian President Dimitri Medvedev announced that a planned Russian Iskander surface to surface missile deployment in nearby Kaliningrad was also not to go ahead. The two deployment cancellation announcements were later followed with a statement by newly named NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen calling for a strategic partnership between Russia and the Alliance, explicitly involving technological cooperation of the two parties' missile defence systems.

Military operations

Balkans interventions

Bosnian War

The Bosnian War began in 1992, as a result of the Breakup of Yugoslavia. NATO intervention began on 12 April 1993 with Operation Deny Flight, enforcing a no-fly zone under UN mandate over central Bosnia and Herzegovina until December 1995, the end of the war. In June 1993, Operation Sharp Guard commenced, and ran until October 1996. It provided maritime enforcement of the arms embargo and economic sanctions against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. On 28 February 1994, NATO took its first military action, shooting down four Bosnian Serb aircraft violating the no-fly zone. A NATO bombing campaign, Operation Deliberate Force, began in August 1995, against the Army of the Republika Srpska, after the Srebrenica massacre.

NATO air strikes that year helped bring the Yugoslav wars to an end, resulting in the Dayton Agreement. As part of this agreement, NATO deployed a UN-mandated peacekeeping force, under Operation Joint Endeavor, first named IFOR and then SFOR, which ran from December 1996 to December 2004. Following the lead of its member nations, NATO began to award a service medal, the NATO Medal, for these operations.

Between 1994 and 1997, wider forums for regional cooperation between NATO and its neighbors were set up, like the Partnership for Peace, the Mediterranean Dialogue initiative and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council. On 8 July 1997, three former communist countries, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Poland, were invited to join NATO, which finally happened in 1999. In 1998, the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council was established.

Kosovo War

On 24 March 1999, NATO saw its first broad-scale military engagement in the Kosovo War, where it waged an 11-week bombing campaign, which NATO called Operation Allied Force, against what was then the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, in an effort to stop Serbian-led crackdown on Albanian civilians in Kosovo. A formal declaration of war never took place (in common with all wars since World War II). The conflict ended on 11 June 1999, when Yugoslavian leader Slobodan Milošević agreed to NATO's demands by accepting UN resolution 1244. During the crisis, NATO also deployed one of its international reaction forces, the ACE Mobile Force (Land), to Albania as the Albania Force (AFOR), to deliver humanitarian aid to refugees from Kosovo. NATO then helped establish the KFOR, a NATO-led force under a United Nations mandate that operated the military mission in Kosovo. In August–September 2001, the alliance also mounted Operation Essential Harvest, a mission disarming ethnic Albanian militias in the Republic of Macedonia.

The United States, the United Kingdom, and most other NATO countries opposed efforts to require the U.N. Security Council to approve NATO military strikes, such as the action against Serbia in 1999, while France and some others claimed that the alliance needed UN approval. The U.S./UK side claimed that this would undermine the authority of the alliance, and they noted that Russia and China would have exercised their Security Council vetoes to block the strike on Yugoslavia, and could do the same in future conflicts where NATO intervention was required, thus nullifying the entire potency and purpose of the organization. Recognizing the post–Cold War military environment, NATO adopted the Alliance Strategic Concept during its Washington Summit in April 1999 that emphasized conflict prevention and crisis management.

Operations in Afghanistan

The 11 September attacks caused NATO to invoke Article 5 of the NATO Charter for the first time in its history. The Article says that an attack on any member shall be considered to be an attack on all. The invocation was confirmed on 4 October 2001 when NATO determined that the attacks were indeed eligible under the terms of the North Atlantic Treaty. The eight official actions taken by NATO in response to the attacks included Operation Eagle Assist and Operation Active Endeavour, a naval operation in the Mediterranean Sea and is designed to prevent the movement of terrorists or weapons of mass destruction as well as to enhance the security of shipping in general which began on 4 October 2001.

Despite this early show of solidarity, NATO faced a crisis little more than a year later, when on 10 February 2003, France and Belgium vetoed the procedure of silent approval concerning the timing of protective measures for Turkey in case of a possible war with Iraq. Germany did not use its right to break the procedure but said it supported the veto.

On the issue of Afghanistan on the other hand, the alliance showed greater unity: on 16 April 2003, NATO agreed to take command of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. The decision came at the request of Germany and the Netherlands, the two nations leading ISAF at the time of the agreement, and all nineteen NATO ambassadors approved it unanimously. The handover of control to NATO took place on 11 August, and marked the first time in NATO's history that it took charge of a mission outside the north Atlantic area. Canada had originally been slated to take over ISAF by itself on that date.

In August 2003, NATO commenced its first mission ever outside Europe when it assumed control over International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. ISAF was initially charged with securing Kabul and surrounding areas from the Taliban, al Qaeda and factional warlords, so as to allow for the establishment of the Afghan Transitional Administration headed by Hamid Karzai. In October 2003, the UN Security Council authorized the expansion of the ISAF mission throughout Afghanistan, and ISAF subsequently expanded the mission in four main stages over the whole of the country. Since 2006, ISAF has been involved in more intensive combat operations in southern Afghanistan, a tendency which continued in 2007 and 2008. Attacks on ISAF in other parts of Afghanistan are also mounting.

In January 2004, NATO appointed Minister Hikmet Çetin, of Turkey, as the Senior Civilian Representative (SCR) in Afghanistan. Minister Cetin is primarily responsible for advancing the political-military aspects of the Alliance in Afghanistan. On 31 July 2006, a NATO-led force, made up mostly of troops from Canada, the United Kingdom, Turkey and the Netherlands, took over military operations in the south of Afghanistan from a U.S.-led anti-terrorism coalition.

Due to the intensity of the fighting in the south, France has recently allowed a squadron of Mirage 2000 fighter/attack aircraft to be moved into the area, to Kandahar, in order to reinforce the alliance's efforts. If these caveats were to be eliminated, it is argued that this could help NATO to succeed. NATO is also training the ANA (Afghan National Army) to be better equipped in forcing out the Taliban.

Training mission in Iraq

In August 2004, during the Iraq War, NATO formed the NATO Training Mission – Iraq, a training mission to assist the Iraqi security forces in conjunction with the U.S. led MNF-I. The NATO Training Mission-Iraq (NTM-I) was established at the request of the Iraqi Interim Government under the provisions of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1546. The aim of NTM-I is to assist in the development of Iraqi security forces training structures and institutions so that Iraq can build an effective and sustainable capability that addresses the needs of the nation. NTM-I is not a combat mission but is a distinct mission, under the political control of NATO's North Atlantic Council. Its operational emphasis is on training and mentoring. The activities of the mission are coordinated with Iraqi authorities and the U.S.-led Deputy Commanding General Advising and Training, who is also dual-hatted as the Commander of NTM-I.

Operation Ocean Shield

Beginning on 17 August 2009, NATO deployed warships in an operation to protect maritime traffic in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean from Somali pirates.

Operations in Libya

During the 2011 Libyan uprising, violence between protestors and the Libyan government under Colonel Muammar Gaddafi escalated, and on 17 March 2011 led to the passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, which called for a ceasefire, and authorized military action to protect civilians. A coalition that included several NATO members began enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya shortly afterwards. On 20 March 2011, NATO states agreed on enforcing an arms embargo against Libya with Operation Unified Protector using ships from NATO Standing Maritime Group 1 and Standing Mine Countermeasures Group 1, and additional ships and submarines from NATO members. They would "monitor, report and, if needed, interdict vessels suspected of carrying illegal arms or mercenaries". On 24 March, NATO agreed to take control of the no-fly zone from the initial coalition, while command of targeting ground units remains with the coalition's forces. NATO began officially enforcing the UN resolution on 27 March 2011 with assistance from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

By June, reports of divisions within the alliance surfaced as only eight of the 28 member nations were participating in combat operations, resulting in a confrontation between U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and countries such as Poland, Spain, the Netherlands, Turkey, and Germany to contribute more, the latter believing the organization has overstepped its mandate in the conflict. In his final policy speech in Brussels on 10 June, Gates further criticized allied countries in suggesting their actions could cause the demise of NATO. The German foreign ministry pointed to "a considerable [German] contribution to NATO and NATO-led operations" and to the fact that this engagement was highly valued by President Obama. While the mission was extended into September, Norway that day announced it would begin scaling down contributions and complete withdrawal by 1 August. Earlier in the week it was reported Danish air fighters were running out of bombs. The following week, the head of the British Navy said the country's operations in the conflict were not sustainable.

Membership

{| style="background:white; border:1px solid rgb(153, 153, 153); padding:.5em; margin-left:15px; float:right; width:380px;" |- ! colspan="3" style="text-align:center;"|Map of NATO affiliations in Europe |- | colspan="3" style="text-align:center;"| |- |rowspan=2| |valign=top| |width=40% valign=top|Individual Partnership Action Plan |- | |valign=top|Partnership for Peace |}

NATO has added new members seven times since first forming in 1949 (the last two in 2009). NATO comprises 28 members: Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Future enlargement

New membership in the alliance has been largely from Eastern Europe and the Balkans, including former members of the Warsaw Pact. At the 2008 summit in Bucharest, three countries were promised future invitations: the Republic of Macedonia, Georgia and Ukraine. Though it has completed the requirements for membership, the accession of Macedonia is blocked by Greece, pending resolution of the Macedonia naming dispute. Cyprus also has not progressed toward further relations, in part because of opposition from Turkey.

Other potential candidate countries include Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, which joined the Adriatic Charter of potential members in 2008. Russia, as referred to above, continues to oppose further expansion, seeing it as inconsistent with understandings between Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President George H. W. Bush that allowed for a peaceful German reunification. NATO's expansion policy is seen by Moscow as a continuation of a Cold War attempt to surround and isolate Russia.

Cooperation with non-member states

Euro-Atlantic Partnership

A double framework has been established to help further co-operation between the 28 NATO members and 22 "partner countries". The Partnership for Peace (PfP) program was established in 1994 and is based on individual bilateral relations between each partner country and NATO: each country may choose the extent of its participation. The PfP program is considered the operational wing of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership. Members include all current and former members of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Belarus joined NATO's Partnership for Peace in 1995. The Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) was first established on 29 May 1997, and is a forum for regular coordination, consultation and dialogue between all 50 participants.

The Mediterranean Dialogue was established in 1994 to coordinate in a similar way with Israel and countries in North Africa.

The Istanbul Cooperation Initiative was announced in 2004 as a dialog forum for the Middle East along the same lines as the Mediterranean Dialogue. So far participants in it are some of the Gulf Cooperation Council members: Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates.

Other third countries also have been contacted for participation in some activities of the PfP framework such as Afghanistan.

Individual Partnership Action Plans

Launched at the November 2002 Prague Summit, Individual Partnership Action Plans (IPAPs) are open to countries that have the political will and ability to deepen their relationship with NATO.

Currently IPAPs are in implementation with the following countries:

(22 November 2002) (29 October 2004) (27 May 2005) (16 December 2005) (31 January 2006) (19 May 2006) (10 January 2008) (June 2008)

Contact Countries

Since 1990–91, the Alliance has gradually increased its contact with countries that do not form part of any of the above cooperative groupings. Political dialogue with Japan began in 1990, and a range of non-NATO countries have contributed to peacekeeping operations in the former Yugoslavia.

The Allies established a set of general guidelines on relations with other countries, beyond the above groupings in 1998. The guidelines do not allow for a formal institutionalization of relations, but reflect the Allies' desire to increase cooperation. Following extensive debate, the term ''Contact Countries'' was agreed by the Allies in 200. The following countries currently have this status: (AUSCANNZUKUS) (AUSCANNZUKUS)

Structures

The main headquarters of NATO is located on Boulevard Léopold III, B-1110 Brussels, which is in Haren, part of the City of Brussels municipality. A new headquarters building is, , in construction nearby, due for completion by 2015. The design is an adaptation of the original award-winning scheme designed by Larry Oltmanns and his team when he was a Design Partner with SOM.

The staff at the Headquarters is composed of national delegations of member countries and includes civilian and military liaison offices and officers or diplomatic missions and diplomats of partner countries, as well as the International Staff and International Military Staff filled from serving members of the armed forces of member states. Non-governmental citizens' groups have also grown up in support of NATO, broadly under the banner of the Atlantic Council/Atlantic Treaty Association movement.

NATO Council

Like any alliance, NATO is ultimately governed by its 28 member states. However, the North Atlantic Treaty, and other agreements, outline how decisions are to be made within NATO. Each of the 28 members sends a delegation or mission to NATO's headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. The senior permanent member of each delegation is known as the Permanent Representative and is generally a senior civil servant or an experienced ambassador (and holding that diplomatic rank). Several countries have diplomatic missions to NATO through embassies in Belgium.

Together, the Permanent Members form the North Atlantic Council (NAC), a body which meets together at least once a week and has effective governance authority and powers of decision in NATO. From time to time the Council also meets at higher level meetings involving foreign ministers, defence ministers or heads of state or government (HOSG) and it is at these meetings that major decisions regarding NATO's policies are generally taken. However, it is worth noting that the Council has the same authority and powers of decision-making, and its decisions have the same status and validity, at whatever level it meets. NATO summits also form a further venue for decisions on complex issues, such as enlargement.

The meetings of the North Atlantic Council are chaired by the Secretary General of NATO and, when decisions have to be made, action is agreed upon on the basis of unanimity and common accord. There is no voting or decision by majority. Each nation represented at the Council table or on any of its subordinate committees retains complete sovereignty and responsibility for its own decisions.

List of Secretaries General
! #	! Name	! Country	! Duration
1	General officer		4 April 1952 – 16 May 1957
2	[[Paul-Henri Spaak		16 May 1957 – 21 April 1961
3	Dirk Stikker		21 April 1961 – 1 August 1964
4	Manlio Brosio		1 August 1964 – 1 October 1971
5	Joseph Luns		1 October 1971 – 25 June 1984
6			25 June 1984 – 1 July 1988
7	Manfred Wörner		1 July 1988 – 13 August 1994
–	Sergio Balanzino ''(acting)''		13 August 1994 – 17 October 1994''
8	Willy Claes		17 October 1994 – 20 October 1995
–	Sergio Balanzino ''(acting)''		20 October 1995 – 5 December 1995''
9	Javier Solana		5 December 1995 – 6 October 1999
10			14 October 1999 – 17 December 2003
–	Alessandro Minuto-Rizzo ''(acting)''		17 December 2003 – 1 January 2004
11	Jaap de Hoop Scheffer		1 January 2004 – 1 August 2009
12	Anders Fogh Rasmussen		1 August 2009–''present''

List of Deputy Secretaries General
! #	! Name	! Country	! Duration
1	Jonkheer van Vredenburch		1952–1956
2	Baron Adolph Bentinck		1956–1958
3	Alberico Casardi		1958–1962
4	Guido Colonna di Paliano		1962–1964
5	James A. Roberts		1964–1968
6	Osman Olcay		1969–1971
7	Paolo Pansa Cedronio		1971–1978
8	Rinaldo Petrignani		1978–1981
9	Eric da Rin		1981–1985
10	Marcello Guidi		1985–1989
11	Amedeo de Franchis		1989–1994
12	Sergio Balanzino		1994–2001
13	Alessandro Minuto Rizzo		2001–2007
14	Claudio Bisogniero		2007–''present''

NATO Parliamentary Assembly

The body that sets broad strategic goals for NATO is the NATO Parliamentary Assembly (NATO-PA) which meets at the Annual Session, and one other during the year, and is the organ that directly interacts with the parliamentary structures of the national governments of the member states which appoint Permanent Members, or ambassadors to NATO. The NATO Parliamentary Assembly, currently presided by John S. Tanner, a U.S. Representative (Democratic Party) from Tennessee, is made up of legislators from the member countries of the North Atlantic Alliance as well as thirteen associate members. It is however officially a different structure from NATO, and has as aim to join together deputies of NATO countries in order to discuss security policies on the NATO Council.

The Assembly is the political integration body of NATO that generates political policy agenda setting for the NATO Council via reports of its five committees:

Committee on the Civil Dimension of Security

Defence and Security Committee

Economics and Security Committee

Political Committee

Science and Technology Committee

These reports provide impetus and direction as agreed upon by the national governments of the member states through their own national political processes and influencers to the NATO administrative and executive organizational entities.

Military structures

The second pivotal member of each country's delegation is the Military Representative, a senior officer from each country's armed forces, supported by the International Military Staff. Together the Military Representatives form the Military Committee, a body responsible for recommending to NATO's political authorities those measures considered necessary for the common defence of the NATO area. Its principal role is to provide direction and advice on military policy and strategy. It provides guidance on military matters to the NATO Strategic Commanders, whose representatives attend its meetings, and is responsible for the overall conduct of the military affairs of the Alliance under the authority of the Council. The Chairman of the NATO Military Committee is Giampaolo Di Paola of Italy, since 2008.

Like the Council, from time to time the Military Committee also meets at a higher level, namely at the level of Chiefs of Defence, the most senior military officer in each nation's armed forces. Until 2008 the Military Committee excluded France, due to that country's 1966 decision to remove itself from NATO's integrated military structure, which it rejoined in 1995. Until France rejoined NATO, it was not represented on the Defence Planning Committee, and this led to conflicts between it and NATO members. Such was the case in the lead up to Operation Iraqi Freedom. The operational work of the Committee is supported by the International Military Staff.

NATO's military operations are directed by the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, and split into two Strategic Commands commanded by a senior US officer and a senior French officer assisted by a staff drawn from across NATO. The Strategic Commanders are responsible to the Military Committee for the overall direction and conduct of all Alliance military matters within their areas of command.

The Military Committee in turn directs two principal NATO organizations: the Allied Command Operations responsible for the strategic, operational and tactical management of combat and combat support forces of the NATO members, and the Allied Command Transformation organization responsible for the induction of the new member states' forces into NATO, and NATO forces' research and training capability.

Notes

References

David C. Isby & Charles Kamps Jr, Armies of NATO's Central Front, Jane's Publishing Company Ltd 1985, ISBN 071060341X

Further reading

External links

NATO including Basic NATO Documents

Bridget Kendall, NATO searches for defining role BBC, February 2005

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, One for all: The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (extracts, 1947–2003, link verified February 2009)

Fundación para el análisis y los estudios sociales (Spain), NATO: an Alliance for Freedom, 2005

United States Air Force Air War College, Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports regarding NATO, link verified February 2009

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name	Oriana Fallaci
birth date	June 29, 1929
birth place	Florence, Italy1
death date	September 15, 2006
death place	Florence
occupation	Journalist, author, political interviewer
website	}}

Oriana Fallaci (29 June 1929 – 15 September 2006) was an Italian journalist, author, and political interviewer. A former partisan during World War II, she had a long and successful journalistic career. Fallaci became famous worldwide for her coverage of war and revolution, and her interviews with many world leaders during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

After retirement, she returned to the spotlight after writing a series of articles and books critical of Islam that aroused both support as well as controversy and accusations of racism and intolerance.

Life and career

The resistance movement

Fallaci was born in Florence, Italy. During World War II, she joined the resistance despite her youth, in the democratic armed group "Giustizia e Libertà". Her father Edoardo Fallaci, a cabinet maker in Florence, was a political activist struggling to put an end to the dictatorship of Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini. It was during this period that Fallaci was first exposed to the atrocities of war. She later received a certificate for valour from the Italian army. In a 1976 retrospective collection of her works, she remarked that:

Beginning as a journalist

Fallaci began her career journalism during her teens, becoming a special correspondent for the Italian paper ''Il mattino dell'Italia centrale'' in 1946. Beginning in 1967 she worked as a war correspondent covering Vietnam, the Indo-Pakistani War, the Middle East, and in South America.

1960s

For many years, Fallaci was a special correspondent for the political magazine ''L'Europeo'' and wrote for a number of leading newspapers and ''Epoca'' magazine. During the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre, prior to the 1968 Summer Olympics, Fallaci was shot three times, dragged down stairs by her hair, and left for dead by Mexican forces. In a profile of Fallaci, ''The New Yorker'' described her former support of the student activists as having "devolved into a dislike of Mexicans":

1970s

In the early 1970s Fallaci had an affair with the subject of one of her interviews, Alexandros Panagoulis, who had been a solitary figure in the Greek resistance against the 1967 dictatorship, having been captured, heavily tortured and imprisoned for his (unsuccessful) assassination attempt on dictator and ex-Colonel Georgios Papadopoulos. Panagoulis died in 1976, under controversial circumstances, in a road accident. Fallaci maintained that Panagoulis was assassinated by remnants of the Greek military junta and her book ''Un Uomo'' (''A Man'') was inspired by his life.

During her 1972 interview with Henry Kissinger, Kissinger agreed that the Vietnam War was a "useless war" and compared himself to "the cowboy who leads the wagon train by riding ahead alone on his horse." Kissinger later wrote that it was "the single most disastrous conversation I have ever had with any member of the press."

During her 1979 interview with Ayatollah Khomeini, she addressed him as a "tyrant" and managed to unveil herself from the chador:

{{bquote|OF- I still have to ask you a lot of things. About the "chador," for example, which I was obliged to wear to come and interview you, and which you impose on Iranian women. [...] I am not only referring to the dress but to what it represents, I mean the apartheid Iranian women have been forced into after the revolution. They cannot study at the university with men, they cannot work with men, they cannot swim in the sea or in a swimming-pool with men. They have to do everything separately, wearing their "chador." By the way, how can you swim wearing a "chador"? AK- None of this concerns you, our customs do not concern you. If you don't like the islamic dress you are not obliged to wear it, since it is for young women and respectable ladies. OF- This is very kind of you, Imam, since you tell me that, I'm going to immediately rid myself of this stupid medieval rag. There !''.}}

Retirement

Living in New York and in a house she owned in Tuscany, Fallaci lectured at the University of Chicago, Yale University, Harvard University, and Columbia University.

After 9/11

After September 11, 2001, beginning with ''The Rage and the Pride'' (initially a four-page article in ''Corriere della Sera'', the major national newspaper in Italy), Fallaci wrote three books critical of Islamic extremists and Islam in general, and in both writing and interviews warned that Europe was too tolerant of Muslims. She wrote that "sons of Allah breed like rats" and in a ''Wall Street Journal'' interview in 2005, said that Europe was no longer Europe but "Eurabia". ''The Rage and The Pride'' and ''The Force of Reason'' both became best-sellers.

Fallaci was a life-long heavy smoker. She died on 15 September 2006, in her native Florence, from lung cancer.

Her writings have been translated into 21 languages including English, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Urdu, Greek, Swedish, Polish, Hungarian, Croatian, Persian, Slovenian, Danish and Bulgarian.

Awards

Fallaci twice received the St. Vincent Prize for journalism (1967, 1971), as well as the Bancarella Prize (1970) for ''Nothing, and So Be It''; Viareggio Prize (1979), for ''Un uomo: Romanzo''; and Prix Antibes, 1993, for ''Inshallah''. She received a D.Litt. from Columbia College (Chicago).

On 30 November 2005 in New York, Fallaci received the Annie Taylor Award for courage from the Center for the Study of Popular Culture. She was honored for the "heroism and the values" that rendered her "a symbol of the fight against Islamic fascism and a knight of the freedom of humankind." The Annie Taylor Award is annually awarded to people who have demonstrated unusual courage in adverse conditions and great danger. David Horowitz, founder of the center, described Fallaci as "a General in the fight for freedom."

On 8 December 2005, Oriana Fallaci was awarded the Ambrogino d'oro, the highest recognition of the city of Milan.

Acting on a proposal by Minister of Education Letizia Moratti, on 14 December 2005 the President of the Italian Republic, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, awarded Oriana Fallaci a Gold Medal for her cultural contributions (''Benemerita della Cultura''). The state of her health prevented her from attending the ceremony. She wrote in a speech: "This gold medal moves me because it gratifies my efforts as writer and journalist, my front line engagement to defend our culture, love for my country and for freedom. My current well known health situation prevents me from traveling and receiving in person this gift that for me, a woman not used to medals and not too keen on trophies, has an intense ethical and moral significance."

On 12 February 2006, the Governor of Tuscany, Riccardo Nencini, awarded Fallaci a gold medal from the Council of Tuscany. Nencini reported that the prize was awarded as Oriana Fallaci was a beacon of Tuscan culture in the world. During the award ceremony, held in New York, the writer talked about her attempt to create a caricature of Mohammed, in reply to the polemic relating to similar caricatures that had appeared in French and Dutch newspapers. She declared: "I will draw Mohammed with his 9 wives, including the little baby he married when 70 years old, the 16 concubines and a female camel wearing a Burqa. So far my pencil stopped at the image of the camel, but my next attempt will surely be better."

''America Award'' of the Italy-USA Foundation in 2010 (in memory).

Controversy

She received much public attention for her controversial writings and statements on Islam and European Muslims. Both agreement and disagreements have been published in Italian newspapers (among which, ''La Repubblica'' and ''Corriere della Sera'' had a series of articles), and David Holcberg at the Ayn Rand Institute supported her cause with a letter to ''The Washington Times''.

Fallaci received support in Italy, where her books have sold over one million copies. At the first European Social Forum, which was held in Florence in November 2002, Fallaci invited the people of Florence to cease commercial operations and stay home. Furthermore, she compared the ESF to the Nazi occupation of Florence. Protest organizers declared, "We have done it for Oriana, because she hasn't spoken in public for the last 12 years, and hasn't been laughing in the last 50."

In 2002 in Switzerland the Islamic Center and the Somal Association of Geneva, SOS Racisme of Lausanne, along with a private citizen, sued Fallaci for the allegedly "racist" content of ''The Rage and The Pride''. In November 2002 a Swiss judge issued an arrest warrant for violations of article 261 and 261 bis of the Swiss criminal code and requested the Italian government to either prosecute or extradite her. Italian Minister of Justice Roberto Castelli rejected the request on the grounds that the Constitution of Italy protects freedom of speech.

In May 2005, Adel Smith, president of the Union of Italian Muslims, launched a lawsuit against Fallaci charging that "some of the things she said in her book ''The Force of Reason'' are offensive to Islam." Smith's attorney cited 18 phrases, most notably a reference to Islam as "a pool that never purifies." Consequently an Italian judge ordered Fallaci to stand trial in Bergamo on charges of "defaming Islam." The preliminary trial began on 12 June and on 25 June Judge Beatrice Siccardi decided that Oriana Fallaci should indeed stand trial beginning on 18 December. Fallaci accused the judge of having disregarded the fact that Smith had called for her murder and defamed Christianity.

In France, some Arab-Muslim and anti-defamation organisations such as MRAP and ''Ligue des Droits de l'Homme'' launched lawsuits against Oriana Fallaci charging that ''The Rage and The Pride'' and ''The Force of Reason'' (''La Rage et l'Orgueil'' and ''La Force de la Raison'' in their French versions) were "offensive to Islam" and "racist." Her lawyer, Gilles William Goldnadel, president of the France-Israel Organization, was also Alexandre del Valle's lawyer during similar lawsuits against del Valle.

On 3 June 2005, Fallaci had published on the front page of an Italian daily newspaper a highly controversial article entitled "''Noi Cannibali e i figli di Medea''" ("We cannibals and Medea's offspring"), urging women not to vote for a public referendum about artificial insemination that was held on 12 June and 13, 2006.

On 27 August 2005, Fallaci had a private audience with Pope Benedict XVI at Castel Gandolfo. Although an atheist, Fallaci reportedly had great respect for the Pope and expressed admiration for his 2004 essay titled "If Europe Hates Itself."

In the June 2006 issue of ''Reason Magazine'', libertarian writer Cathy Young wrote: "Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci's 2002 book ''The Rage and the Pride'' makes hardly any distinction between radical Islamic terrorists and Somali street vendors who supposedly urinate on the corners of Italy's great cities. Christopher Hitchens, who described the book in ''The Atlantic'' as "a sort of primer in how not to write about Islam," notes that Fallaci's diatribes have all the marks of other infamous screeds about filthy, disease-ridden, sexually threatening aliens."

Bibliography

''The Seven Sins of Hollywood'' preface by Orson Welles, Longanesi (Milan), 1958.

''The Useless Sex: Voyage around the Woman'' Horizon Press (New York City), 1961.

''Penelope at War'' 1962 (London).

''Limelighters'' 1963.

''The Egotists: Sixteen Surprising Interviews'' Regnery (Chicago), 1968.

''Quel giorno sulla Luna'' Rizzoli, 1970.

''Interview With History'', a collection of interviews with various political figures Liveright, 1976.

''A Man'', The story of ''Alexandros Panagoulis'', a Greek revolutionary. A novel about a hero who fights alone and to the death for freedom and for truth. (1979) ISBN 84-279-3854-3

''Inshallah'', a fictional account of Italian troops stationed in Lebanon in 1983.

''If the Sun Dies'', about the US space program.

''Letter to a Child Never Born'', a dialogue between a mother and her eventually miscarried child.

''Nothing, and so be it'', report on the Vietnam war based on personal experiences.

''The Rage and The Pride'' (''La Rabbia e l'Orgoglio''), an expose on Islam. Rizzoli, December 2001. ISBN 0-8478-2504-3.

''The Force of Reason'' (''La Forza della Ragione''). Rizzoli, April 2004. ISBN 0-8478-2753-4

''Oriana Fallaci intervista Oriana Fallaci'', Fallaci interviews herself on the subject of "Eurabia" and "Islamofacism". (Milan: ''Corriere della Sera'', August 2004).

''Oriana Fallaci intervista sé stessa – L'Apocalisse'' (in Italian). An update of the interview with herself. A new, long epilogue is added. Publisher: Rizzoli, November 2004.

''Un cappello pieno di ciliegie'', Rizzoli, 2008. A novel about her ancestors, published two years after her death. Fallaci worked on it for ten years, until the September 11 attacks and her books inspired by them.

See also

Robert Spencer

Steven Emerson

Daniel Pipes

Bat Ye'Or

Alexandre del Valle

References

External links

The Force of Reason

Obituary published by the Associated Press.

A tribute by Michael Leeden

Articles by Fallaci

Rage & Pride by Oriana Fallaci, English translation by Letizia Grasso, from the four-page essay "La Rabbia e l'Orgoglio", that appeared in Italy's leading newspaper Corriere della Sera on 29 September 2001. (Note that the official edition by Rizzoli, is translated by Fallaci herself)

Rage and Pride, as translated by Chris Knipp

On Jew-Hatred in Europe, by Columnist Oriana Fallaci, IMRA – 25 April 2002 (Originally published in Italian in the Panorama magazine, 17 April 2002).

Articles about Fallaci

''Golda and Oriana: A Romance'' in ''The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership'' by Yehuda Avner (2010). ISBN 9781592642786

The Slow Suicide of the West, by Jorge Majfud

Rage and Pride Ignites a Firestorm – On the reception of "Rage and Pride" By Michael San Filippo, guide to Italian Language at about.com.

Prophet of Decline: An interview with Oriana Fallaci by Tunku Varadarajan in the Wall Street Journal

The Agitator: Oriana Fallaci directs her fury toward Islam by Margaret Talbot in ''The New Yorker'', 29 May 2006

Oriana Fallaci—The Enjoyment of Hate by Judy Harris in ZNet (17 September 2006)

Category:1929 births Category:2006 deaths Category:People from Florence Category:Members of Giustizia e Libertà Category:Deaths from lung cancer Category:Italian writers Category:Italian atheists Category:Italian anti-fascists Category:Opposition to Islam in Europe Category:Action Party (Italy) politicians Category:Cancer deaths in Italy Category:Criticism of Islam Category:Bancarella Prize winners

af:Oriana Fallaci bs:Oriana Fallaci br:Oriana Fallaci ca:Oriana Fallaci cs:Oriana Fallaci da:Oriana Fallaci de:Oriana Fallaci el:Οριάνα Φαλάτσι es:Oriana Fallaci eo:Oriana Fallaci eu:Oriana Fallaci fa:اوریانا فالاچی fr:Oriana Fallaci gl:Oriana Fallaci ko:오리아나 팔라치 hr:Oriana Fallaci it:Oriana Fallaci he:אוריאנה פלאצ'י ku:Oriana Fallaci la:Oriana Fallaci lb:Oriana Fallaci hu:Oriana Fallaci nl:Oriana Fallaci ja:オリアーナ・ファラーチ no:Oriana Fallaci pl:Oriana Fallaci pt:Oriana Fallaci ru:Фаллачи, Ориана sc:Oriana Fallaci sq:Oriana Fallaci scn:Oriana Fallaci simple:Oriana Fallaci sk:Oriana Fallaciová fi:Oriana Fallaci sv:Oriana Fallaci tr:Oriana Fallaci uk:Оріана Фаллачі ur:اوریانا فلاچی vec:Oriana Fallaci zh:奥里亚娜·法拉奇

Webster Griffin Tarpley is an author, journalist, lecturer, and critic of US foreign and domestic policy. Tarpley maintains that the September 11 attacks were engineered by a rogue network of the military industrial complex and intelligence agencies. His writings and speeches describe a model of false flag terror operations by a rogue network in the military/intelligence sector working with moles in the private sector and in corporate media, and locates such contemporary false flag operations in a historical context stretching back in the English speaking world to at least the "gunpowder plot" in England in 1605. He also maintains that "The notion of anthropogenic global warming is a fraud."

Education

Tarpley was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in 1946. He received a BA degree ''summa cum laude'' in English and Italian from Princeton University in 1966. While a student at this university he became a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He furthermore was a Fulbright Scholar at University of Turin in Italy. Tarpley also obtained a MA degree in humanities from Skidmore College.

Career

Tarpley was on the editorial board of the National Caucus of Labor Committees' journal, ''The Campaigner'', in 1971, according to its masthead.

As a journalist living in Europe in the 1980s, Tarpley wrote a study commissioned by a committee of the Italian Parliament on the assassination of Prime Minister Aldo Moro. The study claimed that the assassination was a false flag operation orchestrated by the masonic lodge Propaganda Due with the cooperation of senior members of Italian government secret services but blamed on the Red Brigades.

Tarpley was president of the Schiller Institute of the United States in the 1980s and in 1993. In 1986 Tarpley attempted to run on Lyndon LaRouche's U.S. Labor Party platform in the New York State Democratic Party primary for the U.S. Senate, but was ruled off the ballot because of a defect in his nominating petitions. He was a frequent host of "The LaRouche Connection" which its producer LaRouche's Executive Intelligence Review News Service describes as "a news and information cable television program."

Tarpley first gained attention for co-authoring, with Anton Chaitkin, ("history editor of Executive Intelligence Review") a 1992 book on George H. W. Bush, ''George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography,'' which was published by Executive Intelligence Review, run by Lyndon LaRouche. He has expounded the "Versailles Thesis" laying the blame for the great wars of the 20th century on intrigues by Britain to retain her dominance. He gained experience as a political operative during his years with the LaRouche movement but broke away sometime after 1995.

In 2005, Tarpley published ''9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA''. He speaks at length about the themes in the book during an interview in the film ''Oil, Smoke, Mirrors''.

Since March, 2006, Tarpley has had a weekly online talk radio show called World Crisis Radio, currently hosted on GCNLive.com. Tarpley is a member of the "world anti-imperialist conference" Axis for Peace, of Scholars for 9/11 Truth and of a research ''Netzwerk'' of German 9/11 authors founded in September 2006. He is featured in the film, Zero: an investigation into 9/11 (2007–2008).

Tarpley is a critic of the Dalai Lama; in 2010 he told the state-funded ''Russia Today'' that "pre-1959 Tibet ... was probably the closest thing to hell on earth that you had ... social reform was impossible." In the interview he criticizes US funding of pro-Dalai Lama organizations, which he says amounts to US$2 million per year, saying "this is a bad deal for the American taxpayers."

Bibliography

''Chi ha ucciso Aldo Moro?'' (Who Killed Aldo Moro?), a study commissioned by a member of the Italian government and published in Rome in 1978 The Larouchian, Partito Operaio Europeo http://www.movisol.org/moro.htm, which broke open the affiliation of the Red Brigades with the neofascist lodge P2.

''George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography'' (1992) (co-authored with Anton Chaitkin, son of the lawyer who indicted Prescott Bush under the Trading with the Enemy Act for collaboration with Nazi Germany.) Reprinted 2004, ISBN 0-930852-92-3.

''Against Oligarchy'' (1996)

''Surviving the Cataclysm: Your Guide through the Worst Financial Crisis in Human History'' (1999); updated edition, 2009.

'' 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA - Myth of the 21st Century'' (2005), Foreword by Thierry Meyssan, ISBN 0-930852-31-1, Fourth edition ISBN 0-930852-37-0 (April 2007).

* Version française: ''La Terreur Fabriquée, Made in USA : 11 Septembre, le mythe du XXIe siècle'' (Sept. 2006). ISBN 2952557144

*In Italiano: ''La Fabbrica del Terrore'' (Sept. 2007). ISBN 978-88-87307-36-6

*En Español: ''11-S, El Falso Terrorismo'' Jan. 2008 ISBN 0-930852-98-2.

''Obama - The Postmodern Coup: Making of a Manchurian Candidate'' (Apr. 2008) ISBN 0-930852-88-5.

*Deutsche Fassung: ''Barack Obama: Wie ein US-Präsident gemacht wird'' (Aug. 2008) ISBN 978-3-938516-74-4.

*Japanese Edition: ''Obama: Dangerous Geometry'' (Nov. 2008) ISBN 4880862398

*''Barack H. Obama: The Unauthorized Biography'' (Aug. 2008) ISBN 0930852818; Japanese edition, March 2009.

References

External links

Tarpley's Website

Tarpley's Show on the Genesis Network

Ground Zero Grassy Knoll - Feature article in New York Magazine (March 20, 2006)

Publisher's web site

Amazon.com's Webster Griffin Tarpley page

Audio and Video Links:

Webster Tarpley lecture and interview videos

Category:LaRouche movement Category:Conspiracy theorists Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Living people Category:U.S. Labor Party politicians Category:Anti-globalist activists

de:Webster Tarpley es:Webster Tarpley fr:Webster Tarpley it:Webster Tarpley sr:Вебстер Тарпли

Wayne Madsen (born April 25, 1954) is a Washington, D.C.-based author, columnist, and self-described investigative journalist specializing in intelligence and international affairs. He has written for ''The Village Voice'', ''The Progressive'', ''CounterPunch'', CorpWatch, ''Multinational Monitor'', ''CovertAction Quarterly'', ''In These Times'', and ''The American Conservative''. His columns have appeared in The ''Miami Herald'', ''Houston Chronicle'', ''Philadelphia Inquirer'', ''Columbus Dispatch'', ''Sacramento Bee'', and ''Atlanta Journal-Constitution'', among others. He is the author of the blog ''Wayne Madsen Report''.

He has been described by critics including Andrew Sullivan at the Atlantic Monthly, CBS, and Salon as a conspiracy theorist.

Background and Early Life

Madsen was born in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania on 28 April 1954 to an American mother and a Danish mariner who had served on a Danish merchant vessel that shipped arms to Republican Spain during the Spanish Civil War and who later joined the International Brigades fighting against General Franco. His grandmother, who emigrated to the U.S. with his father after World War II was Victoria Madsen, a Danish communist party official and newspaper reporter who, during World War II was a leader in the Danish resistance movement which was involved in organising the smuggling of Danish Jews to Sweden. In the 1950s Victoria Madsen was deported by the FBI after attempting to organise hospital employees into a union.

Madsen attended the University of Mississippi where he joined the Navy ROTC.

Career

U.S. Navy

Upon graduation from University of Mississippi, he joined the U.S. Navy. He was commissioned an ensign and underwent training at the Surface Warfare School. Later he was assigned to anti-submarine acoustic sensing operations. He subsequently received a Navy Unit Commendation for being part of the team that found the first acoustic signature of a Soviet Alfa class submarine. He was later given a bad fitness report by his executive officer, Lt. Cmdr. Marney Finch.

His new commanding officer at Coos Bay transferred him to Washington D.C. He resigned from the Navy in 1985 as a lieutenant, having been passed over for promotion. Madsen described himself as the "most senior lieutenant in the Navy" at the time of his resignation and has blamed his lack of advance on a powerful group of pedophiles hidden in the top of the U.S. Navy ranks. Madsen notes that independent investigations into illegal homosexual activity in the federal government by other journalists were eventually published by the Washington Times in 1989.

In 1984 he "benefitted from the 1983 bombing of the Computer Area in the Washington Navy Yard" and the 1984 White House screening of the movie War Games which he suggests prompted President Reagan into putting money into computer security. He was loaned in 1984 to the NSA by the Navy to work in computer security.

In 2005 Madsen began working as a free-lance journalist, and publishing his own news blog. His columns have appeared in The Miami Herald, Houston Chronicle, Philadelphia Inquirer, Columbus Dispatch, Sacramento Bee, and Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Reporting and Opinions

In 2000, Madsen expressed concern over the Carnivore Internet information monitoring program of the FBI and Project Echelon of the National Security Agency which he said were threats to the privacy rights of Americans. In 2002 he suggested to the Guardian newspaper that the United States Navy had aided in an attempted overthrow of Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez. In January 2002 he expressed concern over the possible use of torture by the United States government against suspected terorrists, as well as possible plans to use the military in domestic law enforcement, in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.

In 2003 he said that he had uncovered information linking the September 11 attacks to the government of Saudi Arabia as well as to Bush administration. In 2005, he wrote than an unidentified former CIA agent claimed that the USS Cole was actually hit by a Popeye cruise missile launched from an Israeli Dolphin-class submarine.

In 2005 he said that the pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC, had pressured American politicians to stay away from protests against the Iraq war.

In 2006 he criticized the Iraq Study Group, saying: :"I think it is a whitewash group and nothing will come of it, except that they may concoct some reason for the US to stay the course in Iraq, with perhaps a little more international support, like Germany and Canada. The commission is a whitewash because the members are all consummate Washington insiders, many of whom have a political and financial stake in the successful outcome of the war. The longer the war goes on the more money they make."

Later that year he criticized the movie industry for indirectly causing suffering in Africa by promoting diamonds in movies like ''Breakfast At Tiffany's'' and ''Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend''. He included Leonardo DiCaprio, whose film ''Blood Diamond'' dealt with the issue, as well as Russell Simmons who is selling a line of "nonconflict diamonds." Madsen said about them, "It's a p.r. campaign. They should be saying, 'Don't buy diamonds at all.'"

In a 2008 ''ArabNews'' article, Madsen is quoted as suggesting that the criminal prosecution of New York State governor Eliot Spitzer was partly due to the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad.

In July 2009, Madsen released a report claiming the existence of a Q Group within the National Security Agency. This unit is, according to Madsen, tasked with concealing US government involvement in 9/11.

In 2010, Madsen reported in the Pakistan Daily on claims by General Hamid Gul, the former head of Pakistans Intelligence Service, that Xe Services, the company formerly known as Blackwater, had been conducting false flag operations in Pakistan that were blamed on the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. The claims were supported by General Mirza Aslam Beg, former Pakistani Army Chief of Staff, who claimed that former President Pervez Musharraf approved the operations. Several terrorist attacks in Pakistan have been blamed on Blackwater by Pakistani Islamic leaders and Blackwater has been accused of smuggling weapons and munitions into Pakistan.

Obama birth certificate

Also on June 9, 2008 he reported that unnamed "GOP dirty tricks operatives" had found a Kenyan birth certificate registering the birth of Barack Obama, Jr., on August 4, 1961. "However, the registration is a common practice in African countries whose citizens abroad have families with foreign nationals." This birth certificate was a cornerstone of the "Kenyan Born" subset of the so-called birther conspiracy theories, and Madsen's article was cited in a Washington state petition challenging Obama's eligibility to serve.

2009 swine flu man-made

On April 25, 2009, Madsen suggested that some unidentified UN World Health Organization officials and scientists believed the 2009 new H1N1 strain of swine flu virus appeared to be the product of U.S. military sponsored gene splicing, as opposed to natural processes, citing as evidence the presence of genetic material from strains not occurring in pigs (such as bird flu and different forms of human flu), the lack of transmission from pigs to humans and the flu disproportionately affecting young adults when compared to other strains of flu. The virus was later declared by the CDC to be a combination of four different viruses: North American swine flu, North American avian flu, human H1N1 flu and a swine flu strain found in Asia and Europe. While it can not be ruled out that the virus was created in a research laboratory or vaccine factory, another explanation is that the virus is the "long predicted" result of modern farming techniques. New Scientist magazine cited the example of a H1N2 influenza pandemic in the 1990s that only affected pigs in the United Kingdom. This subtype of the H1N2 was also a reassortment (mix) of swine, human and avian strains.

Bibliography

''Jaded Tasks—Brass Plates, Black Ops & Big Oil: The Blood Politics of Bush & Co.'' (TrineDay, 2006) ISBN 0-9752906-9-X

''America's Nightmare: The Presidency of George Bush II'' with John Stanton (Dandelion Books, 2003) ISBN 1893302296

''Forbidden Truth: U.S.-Taliban Secret Oil Diplomacy, Saudi Arabia and the Failed Search for bin Laden'' (foreword) Jean-Charles Brisard, Guillaume Dasquie (Nation Books, 2002) ISBN 1560254149

''Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa 1993-1999 (African Studies)'' (Edwin Mellen Press, 1999) ISBN 0773480021

''Handbook of Personal Data Protection'' (New York: Macmillan Publishers Ltd, 1992) (reference book on international data protection law) ISBN 1561590460

References

External links

Wayne Madsen Report

Category:American alternative journalists Category:American foreign policy writers Category:American political writers Category:American anti–Iraq War activists Category:Analysts of the National Security Agency Category:Living people Category:American people of Danish descent Category:1954 births Category:Place of birth missing (living people) Category:9/11 conspiracy theorists

no:Wayne Madsen ro:Wayne Madsen

name	Hamid Gul
birth date	November 20, 1936
death date
birth place	Sargodha, British State of Punjab, British Indian Empire
placeofburial coordinates
nickname	General Gul
birth name	Hamid Gul
allegiance
branch
serviceyears	1958–1992
rank
unit	19th Lancers, Pakistan Army Armoured Corps
commands	1st Armoured Division, MultanDG Military Intelligence (DGMI)DG Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)II Corps, Pakistan Army, Multan
battles	Indo-Pakistani War of 1965Indo-Pakistani War of 1971Soviet war in AfghanistanBattle of JalalabadAfghanistan War of 1989Kashmir Insurgency Operations
awards	Sitara-e-BasalatHilal-e-Imtiaz (Military)
laterwork	}}

Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, HI(M), SBt, (Urdū:حمید گل) (born 20 November 1936) is a retired Pakistani Army three star general known for heading the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the premier Pakistani intelligence agency, after the Soviet-Afghan War, and for supporting the insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir against India in 1989 with the support of the militants, who fought in the Soviet-Afghan war.

Hamid Gul served as the director general of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence during 1987-89, mainly in the time when Benazir Bhutto was Prime Minister of Pakistan. He was instrumental in the anti-Soviet support of the mujahideen in the Afghanistan War of 1979–89, a pivotal time during the Cold War, and in establishing the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad, a right-wing political party against the Pakistan Peoples Party. He also was a vehement supporter of the Kashmiri insurgency against India, and is accused by the United States of having ties to al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Early life

Hamid Gul was born on 20 November 1936 to Muhammad Khan, in the Sargodha District of Punjab in what was then British India but now Pakistan. He got his early education from a school in his village. He briefly got admission in Government College Lahore, before reporting to Pakistan Military Academy Kakul.

Army career

Hamid Gul was commissioned in the Pakistan Army in October 1958 with the 18th PMA Long Course in the 19th Lancers regiment of the Armoured Corps. He was a Tank commander during the 1965 war with India. During 1972-1976, Gul directly served under General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq as a battalion commander, when General Zia was GOC, 1st Armoured Division and Commander, II Corps at Multan. Thus, Gul had already cemented his ties with General Zia by serving under him when both were officers in the Armoured regiments of the II Corps. Gul was promoted to Brigadier in 1978 and steadily rose to be the Martial Law Administrator of Bahawalpur and the Commander of the 1st Armoured Division, Multan in 1982, his appointments expressly wished by Zia himself.

Mehran Gate

Saudi influence

Gul was then sent to GHQ as the Director-General or DG Military Intelligence (DGMI) under General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq who then nominated him to be the ISI chief succeeding General Akhtar Abdur Rahman in March 1987. He was later replaced as the ISI commander by PM Benazir Bhutto in May 1989 and Gul was transferred as the commander, II Corps in Multan. In this capacity, Gul conducted the Zarb-e-Momin military exercise in November–December 1989, the biggest Pakistani Armed Forces show of muscle since 1971 Indo-Pakistani War.

General Asif Nawaz upon taking the reins of Pakistan Army in August 1991, had Gul transferred as the DG Heavy Industries Taxila. A menial job compared to Gul's stature, Gul refused to take the assignment, an act for which he was retired from the army.

Career as ISI Chief

Execution of failed Jalalabad operation

During his time as head of the ISI and the Soviet war in Afghanistan, Gul was blamed for planning and executing the operation to capture Jalalabad from the Afghan army in the spring of 1989. This switch to conventional warfare was seen as a mistake by some mujahideen leaders who considered that the mujahideen did not have the capacity to capture a major city. But the Pakistani army was intent on installing a fundamentalist-dominated government in Afghanistan, with Jalalabad as their provisional capital, Abdul Rasul Sayyaf as Prime Minister, and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar as Foreign Minister.

Contrary to Pakistani expectations, this battle proved that the Afghan army could fight without Soviet help, and greatly increased the confidence of government supporters. Conversely, the morale of the mujahideen involved in the attack slumped and many local commanders of Hekmatyar and Sayyaf concluded truces with the government. In the words of Brigadier Mohammad Yousef, an officer of the ISI, "the jihad [meaning the plans for Hekmatyar to be installed as prime minister] never recovered from Jalalabad". As a result of this failure, Hamid Gul was sacked by Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and replaced by Shamsur Rahman Kallu, who pursued a more classical policy of support to the militants fighting Afghanistan.

Organization of IJI against PPP

During his tenure as ISI chief in 1988, General Gul successfully gathered right-wing politicians and helped them create Islami Jamhoori Ittehad, a religio-political conservative coalition against the left-leaning liberal Pakistan Peoples Party. He has recently acknowledged this fact in various interviews and for this he was harshly rebuked in one of editorials of a major Pakistani newspaper, which asked the general to apologize first to the PPP for having done the sordid deed and after that, apologizing for lack of wits because the IJI could not maintain its two-thirds majority for long.

Kashmir Insurgency

Indian front

According to B Raman, an Indian strategic analyst, Gul actively backed Khalistani terrorism. "When Bhutto became prime minister in 1988", Raman says, "Gul justified backing these insurgents as the only way of preempting a fresh Indian threat to Pakistan's territorial integrity. When she asked him to stop playing that card, he reportedly told her: Madam, keeping Punjab destabilized is equivalent to the Pakistan army having an extra division at no cost to the taxpayers." "Gul strongly advocated supporting indigenous Kashmiri groups", adds Raman, "but was against infiltrating Pakistani and Afghan mercenaries into Jammu and Kashmir. He believed Pakistan would play into India's hands by doing so."

Iranian front

In Islamabad, Gul asked that Iran should explain its bona fides regarding the pact signed with India to jointly counter terrorism. According to him, "Iran should come clear on the nature of agreement with India. Otherwise this will create doubts and apprehensions in Muslim Ummah that Iran helps RAW in putting down Kashmir jihad". He also added that in case doubts about the agreement came true and Iran was seen as working with India against "Kashmir freedom struggle", then it will be concluded that the country also supports Mossad, Israeli external intelligence agency.

Turning against the United States

General Gul worked closely with the CIA during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan when he was the ISI chief. But, he became passionately anti-American after the United States turned its back on Afghanistan following the 1989 Soviet withdrawal, as the United States had promised to help build a prosperous Afghanistan. He was further disconcerted when the USA began punishing Pakistan with economic and military sanctions for its secret nuclear program. General Gul then went on to declare that "the Muslim world must stand united to confront the U.S. in its so-called War on Terrorism, which is in reality a war against Muslims. Let's destroy America wherever its troops are trapped."

General Gul personally met Osama Bin Laden in 1993 and refused to label him a terrorist unless and until irrefutable evidence was provided linking him to alleged acts of terrorism.

Accusation of US and Israel behind 9/11

Only days after the September 11 attacks he stated that they were ''clearly an inside job''. That interview was not published by newspapers.

Post-Army career

Solidarity with Osama bin Laden

According to Zahid Hussain, in his book ''Frontline Pakistan'', Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul and former Army chief General Mirza Aslam Beg were part of the 9 January 2001 Darul Uloom Haqqania Islamic conference held near Peshawar, which was also attended by 300 leaders representing various Islamic groups. The meeting declared it a religious duty of Muslims all over the world to protect the Taliban government, and the Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden it was hosting, whom they considered as a 'great Muslim warrior.'

Support for Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry

On March 12, 2007, Gul marched shoulder-to-shoulder with activists from the liberal democratic parties and retired former senior military officers against General Pervez Musharraf. General Gul faced down riot police when they tried to arrest him at a rally outside the Supreme Court in Islamabad protesting against attempts to dismiss Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. He turned against the restored Supreme Court chief justice after a bench allowed Musharraf to contest the elections in uniform.

Accusation by Benazir Bhutto

Days after the 2007 Karachi bombings, Benazir Bhutto in a letter to President Musharaf written on 16 October 2007 named Hamid Gul as one of the four persons including the current Intelligence Bureau (IB) Chief Ijaz Shah, the then chief minister of Punjab Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, then chief minister of Sindh Arbab Ghulam Rahim, she suspected were behind the attacks. Gul responded furiously to these claims. He was arrested on November 4 by the Military police in Islamabad during President Pervez Musharraf's declared state of emergency.

Terrorism charges

He has acknowledged being a member of banned militant organization Ummah Tameer-e-Nau. The United States government has included Hamid Gul's name in a list of 4 former ISI officers for inclusion in the list of international terrorists that was sent to UN Secretary General, but China refused.

Gul has been informed by a senior official in Pakistan's Foreign Ministry that he had been placed on a U.S. watch list of global terrorists, along with several others. He was shown a U.S. document that detailed several charges against him, including allegations that he had ties to al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

On December 14, 2008 President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari in an interview with ''Newsweek'' described Hamid Gul as a political ideologue of terror.

In July 2010, Wikileaks released over 92,000 documents related to the war in Afghanistan between 2004 and the end of 2009. In those documents Gul was accused of backing Taliban Insurgency against western forces to disrupt the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan.

See also

Establishment (Pakistan)

History of the Soviet Union (1982–1991)

References

External links

Official website of Hamid Gul

Alex Jones">Transcript of Interview by Alex Jones

Profile of Hamid Gul

Image of Hamid Gul taken by photographer Declan Walsh of Getty Images Gul's home in Rawalpindi.

Stein, Jeff. "The audacity of Hamid Gul." ''The Washington Post''. July 26, 2010.

"Gulled by Hamid Gul." ''The Washington Times''. Friday December 4, 2009.

Bibliography

Zahid Hussain. ''Frontline Pakistan: The Struggle with Militant Islam'', New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.

Husain Haqqani. ''Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military'', Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2005.

Category:Pakistani generals Category:Pakistani Muslims Category:Living people Category:1936 births Category:Directors of the Inter-Services Intelligence Category:People from Sargodha District Category:Ravians Category:9/11 conspiracy theorists

de:Hamid Gul fr:Hamid Gul