Racial prejudice, like most social pathologies, is an irrational social force that has dogged our species since the origins of tribal society. While we can study it, observe it, and decry it, the dynamics which compel a man to despise his neighbor seemingly defy the cold logic of scientific inquiry. Yet, in a well-intentioned effort to solve this intractable problem, we now define racism as a political malevolence fomented by a far-reaching conspiracy of cultural terrorists. The chief adherents of this widely accepted theory are a select body of "experts" who earn their livings by interpreting the sinister permutations of the far right. We call them "watchdog groups," and this small minority of powerful anti-racist advocacy groups unwittingly shapes our collective perception of organized racism and anti-government dissent.

Typically, these organizations reside in the upper echelon of the nonprofit public policy milieu, which presents an onerous problemas their financial existence is closely tethered to the rise and fall of ethnic intolerance, one cannot help but question the objectivity of these renowned political soothsayers. Moreover, the marked dislike these modern-day demagogues display toward the subjects of their research further erodes their fayade of scholarly detachment. As political researcher Laird Wilcox remarks, "There is an anti-racism industry entrenched in the United States that has attracted bullying, moralizing fanatics, whose identity and livelihood depend upon growth and expansion of their particular kind of victimization.'"

While their passionate defenders will certainly object to such a charge by citing the threats posed by America's expanding political fringe, such protests fail to address the questionable methodology and often politically motivated criteria used by these media-savvy experts to classify unconventional social and religious movements. As we shall soon see, one needn't stockpile weapons or espouse reactionary beliefs to fall under the watchful eye of these formidable private surveillance networks. Indeed, imputing racist motives to alleged enemies of the State has become a notorious tactic among prominent watchdog groups such as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith (ADL), the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), and other purveyors of fear. To our detriment, this unchallenged "information disease"2 has unleashed an unprecedented expansion of State power. With this uncomfortable thought in mind, it is imperative that conscientious civil libertarians rethink the real threat pose by the extremists in our midst and closely examine watchdog tactics.

REASSESSING THE FAR RIGHT

Despite their similar agendas, each of these organizations has a different method of promoting its central message. Spokesmen for the Seattle-based Northwest Coalition for Human Dignity (NWCHD) consider themselves experts in youth-related topics and primarily focus on issues ranging from racist skinhead gangs to the controversial "Black Metal" subculture. The SPLC and the Atlanta-based Center for Democratic Renewal (CDR) adeptly play upon Northern stereotypes of the deep South with tabloid-style headlines decrying the allegedly fearsome motives lurking behind rural political movements. Mark Pitcavage, the chief researcher for the Militia Watchdog Website, adopts an intellectual tone and employs a rich academil argot to decry militia conspiracy theories and their supposedly racist subtext. Yet there is one unifying theme that permeates watch dog literature: "Violent "hate groups" are metastasizing at unprecedented levels."

The motive behind this clever marketing strategy isn't difficult to fathom: Combating the dark forces of "hate" has become a perpetual money-making machine. By issuing teeth-chattering prediction of impending racial terror, the more visible anti-racist groups gain access to an endless supply of lucrative foundation grants and stream of donations from terrified constituents. Struggling at the lower end of the watchdog spectrum is the NWCHD, which never theless boasts a yearly budget of some $600,000. Further up the scale is the ADL, whose annual expenditures exceed $30 million. However, for sheer wealth, few can match the SPLC, which enjoy combined assets of over $136 million, with a yearly take of nearly $40 million.

These substantial sums beg an important question: How big a threat is the far right? When viewed objectively, the rising diversity of the nation's population coupled with public intolerance toward racial beliefs is greatly undermining the influence and popularity of organized racism. Even watchdog groups are coming to terms with this uncomfortable (yet reassuring) reality. "We are talking about a tiny number of Americans who are members of hate groups-I mean Infinitesimal," SPLC spokesman Mark Potok conceded in a 1999 Associated Press article.

Potok's assertion is echoed by Wilcox, who edits the wellresearched Guide to the American Right (now in its 24th edition) and Guide to the American Left (now in its 21st edition). Contradicting watchdog claims that hundreds of violent racist groups stalk the American political landscape, the Kansas academic asserts that "in terms of viable groups ie., groups that are objectively significant, are actually functioning and have more than a handful of real members.. .the actual figure is about 50." Out of a national population which now exceeds 280 million, Wilcox estimates that "the Ku Klux Klan are down to about 3,000 people," with an additional 1,500 - 2,000 members of organized fascist groups."

By contrast, the SPLC (which is considered an irrefutable source by the mainstream press) lists over 600 "hate groups" on its Website. Yet when closely scrutinized, this authoritative directory is quite suspect. Little or no information is provided beyond the name of a purported racist group and the city in which it is located. With no contact information or mailing'address, who can verify these individuals or groups even exist? Having closely examined this data, Wilcox asserts that "a large number" of organizations included on the SPLC's list "are either unconfirmed or consist of a single individual.".

In some instances, watchdog groups will even contradict previous data in order to promulgate a culturally constructed "rise" in white nationalism. One such example is a 1999 report issued by the NWCHD entitled "Hate by State." According to the widely publicized study, the state of Oregon is undergoing a "rise" in white nationalist activism substantiated by the presence of some thirteen hate groups. Among the groups listed are "patriot" folk singer Carl Klang (who apparently constitutes a one-man white supremacist group), the avowedly anti-racist Southern Oregon Militia (SaM), a record label, and other questionable entries. However, this alleged proliferation of racist beliefs in a state best known for its bottle-throwing anarchists and tie-dyed hippie subculture is at odds with data from the organization's precursor, the Coalition for Human Dignity (CHD). The CHD issued a similar report in 1990 which documented some three-dozen well-organized "skinhead," "Christian Identity," "Christian Patriot," and "Nazi" groups in the same locale." Based on these numbers-from 36 to thirteen-it would appear that Oregon is witnessing a marked decline in far-right political activism.

Due to the underlying ethical considerations, few reporters would dare cite a study commissioned by the Philip Morris Company for an article discussing the health risks of smoking. Yet when otherwise well-meaning reporters regurgitate this type of tendentious watchdog research, their journalistic efforts are no less compromised. In some cases, the publication of unsubstantiated watchdog misinformation has enduring consequences. A 1996 media blitz conducted by the Center for Democratic Renewal (COR) provides a cautionary tale as to the perils of publicizing watchdog allegations.

ANATOMY OF A HOAX

It was a dramatic tale straight out of a John Grisham screenplay. In the spring of 1996, a team of investigators affiliated with the CDR crisscrossed the South in order to examine a troubling series of church fires. Despite the allegedly malevolent presence of hostile red necks, corrupt small-town sheriffs, and indifferent townspeople, the dedicated researchers pressed on. By summer, the disturbing truth was revealed: Since 1990, scores of African-American churches had been set aflame as part of a racist conspiracy. JoAnn Watson, CDR's president, was unequivocal in denouncing the unspeakable attacks. "This is domestic terrorism," she announced to the press. "It is not an isolated phenomenon. It's an epidemic."" This "epidemic" would later appear some 2,200 times in the popular press and become an operative metaphor for America's growing racial disunity.

With the poll-conscious Clinton White House demanding immediate action, a full-scale task force was mobilized to catch the craven perpetrators behind this "conspiracy." However, when the investigation was completed in 1997, it painted a far different picture than the sinister tableau depicted by the COR. "We have not seen hard evidence to support the theory of a nationwide conspiracy," asserted Assistant Treasury Secretary James E. Johnson." Indeed, it was found that the fires occurred against a "backdrop of widespread arson against houses of religion of all kinds, including white churches, mosques and synagogues."" As skeptical reporters began to delve deeper into the facts, it would soon be revealed that the only "conspiracy" in evidence was hatched by the CDR and its allies.

Michael Fumento, a former attorney with the US Commission on Civil Rights and a notorious debunker of media myths, closely scrutinized the initial CDR report and found the document fraught with selective omissions and factual errors. After discussions with fire officials in several Southern states, Fumento learned that the CDR had "regularly ignored fires set by blacks and those that occurred in the early part of the decade, and labeled fires as arsons that were not - all in an apparent effort to make black church torchings appear to be an escalating phenomenon."'. Citing statistics from the National Fire Protection Association, Fumento noted that in actuality Americans were seeing a radical decline in the number of church arsons, from 1,420 in 1980 to just over 500 in 1994.

As the story unraveled, other publications began to question the CDR's dubious claims. But the damage was done, and the profits were in: The anti-hate group and its affiliate, the National Council of Churches (NCC), secured a multimillion dollar windfall in donations. To this day, many still believe in this malicious urban myth which subsequently unleashed a series of copycat crimes by opportunistic racists. Therein lies the ultimate irony of this disturbing saga: By disseminating this ill-founded claim, the CDR spread terror among black churchgoers, fostered fear and resentment among varying racial groups, and actually contributed to an upsurge in racially-motivated violence toward African-American places of worship. "That which the Ku Klux Klan can no longer do, a group established to fight the Klan has done for them," Fumento observed.

In the aftermath of this obvious hoax, the credibility of the press suffered little. Yet to discerning observers, this unsavory incident revealed the symbiotic relationship watchdog groups enjoy with sympathetic members of the media.

WHEN TRAGEDY STRIKES

The aforementioned sham illustrates the tendency among watchdog groups to divine racist subcurrents behind highly publicized events. Thus, when the Alfred P. Murrah building exploded in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on April 19, 1995, these high-profile nonprofits unleashed a sustained offensive against the nascent citizen militia movement. "We warned Attorney General Janet Reno six months before the Oklahoma City bombing that private militia groups posed a serious threat," bragged SPLC founder Morris Dees in a selfaggrandizing fundraising letter.18 "Our Militia Task Force," Dees continued, "has been able to provide critical information to federal and state agencies investigating the Oklahoma City Bombing."

Few bothered to question the accuracy of this "critical information," especially in light of the fact that militia groups have yet to be implicated in the 1995 blast. Indeed, following one of the most exhaustive investigations in FBI history, federal officials were unable to establish a direct link between citizen militias and the bombing plot. In fact, since 1999, FBI agents across the country have been involved in an innovative effort to build a trusting relationship with patriot and militia groups. "The idea we're pushing is that it's not a crime to be a member of the militia," FBI agent Bill Crowley remarked to the Associated Press." Among the agents taking part in the outreach program is Danny Defenbaugh, the former head of the Oklahoma City investigation. Nevertheless, in the wake of the OKC attack, the SPLC, ADL, and other groups, in concert with the media, waged a heated information war against allegedly racist patriot groups and their sympathizers.

With no shortage of experts available to validate the most lurid claims, reporters were uninterested in anyone willing to depart from their institutional bias against patriot groups. "The militias-whoever the fuck they are...are a ticking time bomb composed of paranoid lunatics," remarked a reporter from the Washington Post seeking an interview with writer and publisher Adam Parfrey after the OKC bombing. When Parfrey offered a more balanced (and less hysterical) assessment of this evolving political phenomenon, his observations fell on deaf ears.

The ensuing anti-militia crusade would crescendo with the passage of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, a repressive statute which relaxed laws governing the use of electronic surveillance, expanded the State's right to investigate politically suspect individuals or organizations, and implemented other Orwellian measures to ferret out alleged domestic terrorists.

In the years since this well-orchestrated campaign to demonize primarily law-abiding constitutional militias, watchdog groups have now come to embrace the federal government's highly dubious "lone wolf" theory, which ascribes responsibility for the mass murder to convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh and his confederate Terry Nichols. However, a substantial body of evidence has surfaced which ties an armed, well-organized hate group known as the Aryan Republican Army (ARA) to the blast. "It is now believed the ARA financed and helped to stage the bombing," reports Andrew Gumbel in a special investigation for the Independent of London." The marked silence emanating from the watchdog camp in regards to this grave development would suggest that their initial preoccupation with uncovering a far-flung rightist conspiracy behind the blast was far from sincere.

Four years later, the Columbine High School mass-shooting provided yet another avenue for watchdog advocates to cynically exploit yet another inexplicable act of violence. Within weeks of the highschool shootings, the NWCHD began placing a racially-charged spin on the highly-publicized murders. Citing "evidence of Hitler worship as a component of their motives," Coalition Research Director Robert Crawford inveighed in an editorial appearing in the Portland Oregonian that both Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris "were known to hate African-Americans and Hispanics and speak adoringly of Hitler."" Crawford further alleged that the two teenage gunmen had been poisoned by "Neo-Nazi" music.

While the murder of African-American student Isaiah Sholes provides a thin veneer of justification for this sweeping (and sensationalistic) version of events, the argument falls apart under close scrutiny. If the Columbine killings were an act of racial terror, why were the vast majority of the victims white, suburban teens? Moreover, even if it is conceded that there was a modicum of racism lurking behind Harris and Klebold's deadly attack on the Colorado school, it would seem their alleged "hate" wasn't limited by the confines of racial identity.

A Time magazine analysis of a series of videotapes made by Klebold and Harris prior to their murderous spree depicts the two teens assailing every racial group on the face of the earth. This sustained verbal bombast displayed an "ecumenical" hatred that often bordered on the self-referential, as the two denigrated various minority groups, along with Christians, whites, and Jews." There is also evidence which indicates that both Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had little interest in racism. One might even argue that Harris possessed the virulent anti-racism notorious among watchdog groups.

"Don't let me catch you making fun of someone just becasue [sic] they are a different color because I will come and break your fucking legs," the deceased shooter wrote on his Webpage prior to the killings." After investigating the adolescent killers, Salon reporter Dave Cullen asserted, "The biggest myths about the tragedy have to do with the question of who Harris and Klebold were really targeting in their rampage. Jocks, African-Americans and Christians have been widely described as their chief targets. Not a scrap of evidence supports that conclusion."" Further imperiling allegations of Nazi inclinations are Dylan Klebold's Jewish background, which would certainly undermine any purported affinity with National Socialism.

Although a prolonged sociological autopsy has severely undercut allegations of racist intent behind this disturbing incident of mass murder, the NWCHD (and later the SPLC) continued to propagate the misguided notion that the perpetrators were part of a highly organized crypto-fascist "Black-Metal" subculture. Yet there is utterly no evidence to prove the two youths were even remotely connected with the "extreme music" scene. In fact, Harris and Klebold enjoyed the German electronic group KMFDM, who consider their creative efforts a "statement against war, oppression, fascism and violence against others."'. Unfortunately, these types of inconvenient facts have never proved an obstacle to watchdog propaganda efforts.

DEFENDERS OF THE REGIME

While these vigilant defenders of "tolerance" will typically concede that racism permeates every stratum of society, rarely do these staunchly pro-law enforcement, pro-government groups ever address instances of State-sanctioned racism. If they are looking for examples of racial injustice, they need only review the tragic effects of the "War on Drugs," which has dealt a crippling blow to minority communities.

According to the Justice Policy Institute, the number of nonviolent offenders in American prisons has exploded due to the escalating Drug War. A recent study reports that the incarceration rate for African Americans has skyrocketed due to "increases in drug sentencing over the past two decades: At a bare minimum, 1.4 million African-America men - over 10 percent of the black male adult population - have lost the right to vote due to their brush with the criminal justice system'. To echo Fumento, even the most diabolical Klansman couldn't have dreamed of a more repressive policy to disproportionately punish minorities!

Obviously, taking on moribund Klan groups or cynically hyping another racist scare offers greater rewards than dealing with uncomfortable topics which threaten the legitimacy of the Beltway power elite. Indeed, in many instances watchdog groups have aided and abetted abuses of State power. The 1993 paramilitary siege of the Mt. Carmel religious complex in Waco, Texas, offers substantial evidence of watchdog complicity.

According to a report from the Committee for Waco Justice, the ADL worked in concert with federal officials by providing "precise documentation" on the Davidian "cult" and "how it operated in the past."" Although we can only speculate as to the nature of this intelligence, the inherent brutality of the initial raid conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) and the subsequent tank assault which led to the tragic death of over six-dozen members of a multiracial spiritual community suggest that this questionable information was of an inflammatory nature.

The role of quasi-governmental watchdog groups didn't cease once bloodthirsty ATF agents cravenly raised their flag above the smoldering Mt. Carmel complex. As Washington officials braced for Congressional hearings and the possibility of answering a number of difficult questions regarding the alleged "disappearance" of key pieces of evidence, watchdog groups stepped forward to wholeheartedly endorse the law enforcement debacle.

"I am more concerned with the victims of militia terrorists than with FBI or ATF excesses," SPLC figurehead Morris Dees remarked glibly, while failing to articulate a single instance of militia-sponsored terrorism.'" Nevertheless, SPLC "experts" repeatedly attacked those willing to question the Justice Department's factually untenable (yet media-sanctified) "mass suicide" theory. Mark Pitcavage of Militia Watchdog similarly assailed the allegedly sinister agenda of determined Waco investigators. "These guys have ulterior motives," whined the pro-government activist to Salon magazine." Tragically, few reporters bothered to question the "ulterior motives" of these well-connected Waco apologists who played a crucial role in the ensuing cover-up, which continues to shroud this unprecedented atrocity.

Five years later, the SPLC would wage a similar attack against those who attended the 1999 World Trade Organization demonstrations in Seattle, Washington. In its quarterly publication, Intelligence Report, the Alabama watchdog group made the stark allegation that the protests were thoroughly infiltrated by the "hard-edged soldiers of Neo-Fascism." Providing utterly no credible evidence to substantiate this charge. the anonymous author asserted that the WTO protests represented a convergence of the far left and far right in America, made possible by the increasing willingness of avowed Nazi and racist groups to co-opt traditional leftist stances on issues such as economic inequality and global trade policy.

These well-calculated attacks display how watchdog groups have long departed from their once progressive beliefs in order to curry favor with the National Security State. The ADL has been at the forefront of this disquieting trend.

COINTELPRO REDUX

It has long been believed that controversial government counterinsurgency operations such as the FBI's COINTELPRO program were disbanded during the brief era of reform which occurred in the wake of the Watergate scandals. While it is true that federal guidelines which curtailed government spying on political groups were adopted in the late 1970s, watchdog groups have allowed law enforcement to effectively sidestep these administrative prohibitions. Indeed, operatives for the ADL have played a key role in spying on suspected political dissidents from across the political spectrum.

"By the mid-1980s, the ADL was swapping files with hundreds of 'official friends,' the organization's euphemism for US law enforcement and intelligence sources," writes Robert I. Friedman in the Village Voice. The organization doesn't limit itself to merely observing and identifying political dissidents-this human rights group frequently uses paid informants to infiltrate and gather information on various political factions.

In one instance during the 1980s, a Michigan ADL operative named James Mitchell Rosenberg penetrated the extreme right and became a leading member of the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups. This shadowy agent provocateur even gave racially inflammatory speeches at white nationalist rallies until another organization, People Against Racist Terror (PART), spoke out about his involvement, which "crossed the line from collecting information which is vital and necessary in dealing with violenceprone racists, to acting as an initiator of racist organizing and proponent of racist violence."

Despite the progressive rhetoric which inundates ADL publications, the organization is no less dedicated to monitoring the other end of the political spectrum. The sheer scope of this counterintelligence effort was briefly brought to light in January 1993 when a San Francisco police investigation linked Roy Bullock, a self-admitted ADL spy, to Tom Gerard, an SFPD intelligence officer. Apparently Gerard had provided Bullock with access to confidential police files, and as the story unfolded, it was revealed that the seasoned ADL operative had subsequently compiled files on nearly 10,000 individuals and more than 950 political organizations. To the horror of the West Coast progressive community, it was learned that on behalf of the ADL, Bullock was covertly monitoring the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR), and a surfeit of other left-leaning groups.'.

Yet one needn't traffic in the political milieu to gain the attention of police-connected ADL officials. The organization's adversarial and confrontational tactics leave anyone open to charges of race hatred and the possibility of arrest. In the fall of 1994, a Colorado ADL affiliate transformed a seemingly innocent neighborhood dispute into a scorched-earth campaign to jail and ruin a middle-class couple.

The escalating feud, which began over an alleged dog attack, reached its apex when William Quigley drove his car recklessly (and illegally) in a threatening manner toward his neighbor Candice Aronson. In retaliation, Mrs. Aronson and her husband, Mitchell, began recording the Quigleys' cellular phone conversations by listening to a police scanner. In a highly emotional conversation in which Dorothy Quigley vented her frustrations over the dispute, she made a number of grossly insensitive remarks, such as her sadness that the Aronsons hadn't been on a bus "blown up by terrorists."

Although Mrs. Quigley immediately regretted making these statements and, in the same conversation, admitted that her comments were "sick," the Aronsons grew alarmed and took steps to initiate legal proceedings against their neighbors.'. After contacting the ADL that October, the couple was encouraged by League officials to continue taping the phone calls (which is illegal under federal law). In December, the Aronsons filed a federal lawsuit against the Quigleys, and within days, the local District Attorney charged them with several counts of ethnic intimidation. As the controversy spun out of control, an ADL spokesman accused them of "perpetrating the worst anti-Semitic incident in the area since the slaying of Jewish talkshow host Alan Berg."

However, there was little evidence to back up this hyperbole. After closely examining the evidence, Jefferson County D.A. David Thomas sheepishly concluded that the entire episode was "a basic garden-variety neighborhood dispute" and "the ethnic part of it came as an outgrowth, not a cause of it." Indeed, this was far from a onesided affair. Reporter Eric Dexheimer notes that "both families volleyed verbal insults that would make a prison guard blush." Nevertheless, the ill-conceived prosecution conducted "under pressure from the ADL" had dire results for the Quigleys, who were publicly accused of conducting a virulent anti-Semitic campaign against their neighbors:'

Facing an uncertain financial future with their reputations effectively ruined, the Quigleys launched their own legal offensive, which ironically charged the League with defamation and other offenses. In April 2000, a jury agreed, declaring that ADL statements at a news conference and on talk radio were both defamatory and "not substantially true." They awarded the embattled husband and wife a judgement in excess of $10 million."

Although the Quigleys enjoyed their proverbial day in court, how many average citizens could afford to retain counsel in order to defend themselves against such charges? Moreover, it is unlikely that this ephemeral moment of justice will curtail the extralegal surveillance efforts of dossier-compiling watchdog advocates. In fact, the SPLC still brags of its "unique computer database," which is considered the "largest in the United States"" and contains flies on thousands of Americans accused in absentia of possessing political views deemed suspect. According to US News and World Report, on any given day "[f]ourteen researchers with the SPLC's 'Intelligence Project' spend long hours in front of computers, crossfiling data from press reports, hate-group literature, and web sites."

In essence, the SPLC constitutes a "virtual arm of the state.. .acting as an informant, a chronicler, and a clearinghouse for information to be placed at the disposal of federal agencies," remarks anti-war activist Justin Raimondo. While smaller organizations such as the NWCHD may lack the elaborate and sophisticated surveillance apparatus of their wealthier peers, coalition members are not above attending rightist functions in order to take down license plate numbers and "photo document" alleged thought criminals for possible use by law enforcement.47

This disquieting nexus between watchdogs and the State has become so pervasive that spokesmen for other watchdog groups are beginning to register their dissent. "If you claim to be a broadbased human rights group you should not have a backdoor relationship with police," comments John Foster "Chip" Berlet of Political Research Associates (PRA), a Massachusetts think tank which studies right-wing extremism".

A THREAT TO FREEDOM?

You will find almost no reporting on these disturbing issues in the mainstream press. Why? Watchdog groups are extremely aggressive in pressuring members of the media to toe the official line. Indeed, those who dare deviate from scripted watchdog propaganda run the risk of offending this highly intolerant and politically powerful lobby. Nevertheless, remaining silent will only serve to embolden these determined enemies of freedom. While a vast segment of the population may find it difficult to find common cause with militias, gun owners, and even outright racists, history tells us that it is the opinions which many may find objectionable that most deserve protection under the US Constitution. However, so long as the public believes that we are besieged by church-burning "conspiracies," anthrax-wielding militia terrorists, and metastasizing "hate groups," Americans will remain under the iron heel of the watchdog nation.

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Endnotes

1. Wilcox, Laird. The Watchdogs: A Close Look at Anti-Racist 'Watchdog" Groups. Olathe, KS: Editorial Research Services, 1999: 3.

2. The writer's use of this term is taken from Conway and Siegelman's Snapping: America's Epidemic of Sudden Personality Change. (Philadelphia & New York: JB Lippincot & Company, 1978: 154.) The condition is described as a "sustained altered state of awareness" resulting in "narrowed or reduced awareness." A major symptom of this intellectually myopic state is the severe impairment of an "individual ability to question" -a cognitive lapse which has become prevalent among watchdog-friendly reporters!

3. 'Northwest Coalition for Human Dignity Cutting Staff: Seattle Gay News On-Line 23 Feb 2001.

4. Op. cit., Wilcox: 26.

5. Better Business Bureau Philanthropic Advisory Service, Charity Reports;Dec 2000 . The SPLC was rebuked by the Bureau for expending a mere 35 percent of its yearly take on actual program expenses.

6. Levinson, Arlene. "Hate Groups, Crimes Said Rare in the US." Associated Press 8 July 1999.-

7. Op cit., Wilcox: 49.

8. McCain, Robert Stacy. "Researcher Says Hate 'Fringe' Isn't as Crowded as Claimed." Washington Times 9 May 2000.

9. Op cit., Wilcox: 49.

10. Northwest Coalition for Human Dignity. "Hate by State." 1999: 5-6.

11. Coalition for Human Dignity. "Organized White Supremacists in Oregon." 1990: B.

12. "Rash of Church Fires Part of Racial Violence." Catholic World News 29 March 1996.

13. Fumento, Michael. "The Great Black Church Burning Hoax." consumeralert.org 9 July 1996.

14. Savage, David. "Probe Finds No Conspiracy in Church Arsons." Los Angeles Times 9 June 1997.

15. Booth, William. "In Church Fires, a Pattern but No Conspiracy." Washington Post 19 June 1996.

16. Op cit., Fumento.

17. Ibid.

18. SPLC fundraising letter dated 17 May 1995.

19. Hull, C. Bryson. "FBI Meets with Militia Groups." Associated Press 12 July 1999.

20. Parfrey, Adam. Cult Rapture. Los Angeles: Feral House, 1995: 346.

21.Gumbel, Andrew. "McVeigh 'Did Not Act Alone in Oklahoma Bombing." Independent (London) 11 May 2001.

22. Crawford, Robert. "Nec-Nazi Background Music to School Massacre." Oregonian (Portland) 13 May 1999.

23. Gibbs, Nancy, and Timothy Roche. "Special ReportlThe Columbine Tapes." Time 20 Dec 1999.

24. Eric Harris' Webpage ["HatePage"].

25. Cullen, Dave. "Inside the Columbine High Investigation." Salon 23 Sept 1999.

26. Bryson, Wyatt. "Columbine High School Massacre-The Web Connection." Rock Hill Herald (South Carolina) Online 21 April 1999.

27. Schiraldi, Vincent, Jason Ziedenberg, and John Irwin, PhD. "America's One Million Non Violent Prisoners." Justice Policy Institute 1999. <>.

28. "Poor Prescription: The Costs of Imprisoning Drug Offenders in the United States." Justice Policy Institute 2000. .

29. Moore, Carol, et al. "The Massacre of the Branch Davidians: A Study of Government Violations of Rights, Excessive Force and Cover-Up." Committee for Waco Justice 28 Jan 1994.

30. Grigg, William Norman. "SPLC's 'Extremist Cash Cow.'" New American 10 June 1996.

31. Elder, Sean. "Great Balls of Fire." Salon 9 Sept 1999.

32. "Neither Left Nor Right." Intelligence Report Winter 2000.

33. Friedman, Robert I. "How the ADL Turned the Notion of Human Rights on Its Head, Spying on Progressives and Funneling Information to Law Enforcement." Village Voice 11 May 1993.

34. Redden, Jim. Snitch Culture. Los Angeles: Feral House, 2001: 79.

35. Op cit., Friedman.

36. Op cit., Wilcox: 32.

37. Lane, George. "Charges of Bigotry Backfire." Denver Post 29 April 2000.

38. Janofsky, Michael. "Spat Leads to Huge a Award Against the Anti-Defamation League." New York Times 13 May 2000.

39.0p cit., Lane. 40. Dexheimer, Eric. "War of the Words: How an Eager DA Transformed a Neighborhood Spat Into a Headline Grabbing Hate Crime." Westword Online 9 August 1995.

40. Link

41. Op cit., Dexheimer.

42. Ibid.

43. Op cit., Lane.

44. SPLC mailing dated 7 Nov 1997.

45. Shapiro, Joseph P. "Hitting Before Hate Strikes." US News & World Report 6 Sept 1999.

46. Raimondo, Justin. "Behind the Headlines." Antiwar.com 3 Sept 1999.

47. Redden, Jim. "Good Guy Spies." Hustler April 1994.

48. Op cit., Shapiro.

1. The U.S. is a buffer against more violence. This is perhaps the most resilient conjecture that has no basis in fact.

Iraqis themselves do not believe it. In a State Department poll published in September, huge majorities say the U.S. is directly responsible for the violence. The upsurge of bloodshed in Baghdad seems to confirm the Iraqis' view, at least by inference. The much-publicized U.S. effort to bring troops to Baghdad to quell sectarian killing has accompanied a period of increased mortality in the city.

2. The killers do it to influence U.S. politics. This was the mantra of right-wing bloggers and cable blowhards like Bill O'Reilly, who asserted time and again before November 7 that the violence was a "Tet offensive" designed to tarnish Bush and convince Americans to vote for Democrats. This is American solipsism, at which the right wing excels. If anything, the violence has grown since November 7.

English-language sources have more than 1,000 dead since the Bush rejection at the polls. Bill, are the Iraqi fighters now aiming at the Iowa caucuses in '08?

3. The "Lancet" numbers are bogus. Since the only scientific survey of deaths in Iraq was published in The Lancet in early October, the discourse on Iraqi casualties has changed. But many in media and policy circles are still in denial about the scale of mayhem.

Anthony Cordesman, Fred Kaplan, and Michael O'Hanlon, among many others, fail to understand the method of the survey -- widely used and praised by leading epidemiologists -- which concluded that between 400,000 and 700,000 Iraqis have died in the conflict. One knowledegable commentator describes the Lancet survey as "flypaper for innumerates," and the deniers indeed look foolishly innumerate when they state that there was "no way" there could be more than 65,000 or 100,000 deaths. As soon as that bit of ignorance rolled off their lips, the Iraq Health Ministry admitted to 150,000 civilians killed by Sunni insurgents alone, which would be in the Lancet ballpark. Much other evidence suggests the Lancet numbers are about right. (See "The Human cost of the War in Iraq" here; fyi, I commissioned the study. More on this another time.)

4. Syria and Iran are behind the violence. There is no compelling reason why the two neighbors would foment large-scale violence that could spill over to threaten their regimes. Iran is in the driver's seat -- as everyone not blinded by neo-con fantasies knew in advance -- with its Shia cousins in power; Syria has its own regime stability problems and does not need the large influx of refugees or potential jihadis. That both are happy to make life hard for the U.S. is not a secret (call it their Monroe Doctrine). But are they organizing the extreme and destabilizing violence we've seen this year? Doubtful. And, there's very little evidence to support this piece of blame-someone-else.

5. The "Go Big" strategy of the Pentagon could work. The Pentagon apparently is about to forward three options to Bush for a retreat: "Go Big," meaning more troops for a short time, "Go Long," a gradual withdrawal while training Iraqis, and "Go Home," acknowledging defeat and getting out. Go Big is what McCain and Zinni and others are proposing, as if adding 20,000 or 30,000 troops will do the trick. The argument about more troops, which speaks also to the "incompetence dodge" (i.e., that the war wasn't wrong, just badly managed), has one problem: no one can convincing prove that modest increments in troop strength will change the security situation in Iraq (see #1 above). One would need 300,000 or more troops to have a chance of pacifying Iraq, and that is neither politically feasible or logistically possible, and is therefore a nonstarter. So is "Go Big."

6. Foreign fighters, especially jihadis, are fueling the violence. This was largely discredited but is making a comeback as Washington's search for scapegoats intensifies. By most estimates, including the Pentagon's, foreign fighters make up a small fraction of violent actors in Iraq -- perhaps 10 percent overall. (This is based on identifying people arrested as fighters.) Some of the more spectacular attacks have been carried out by al Qaeda or its imitators, but overall the violence is due to three forces: U.S. military, Iraqi Sunni Arab insurgents, and Shia militia, with minor parts played by Kurdish peshmerga in Kirkuk and the foreign bad boys.

7. If we do not defeat the violent actors there, they will follow us here. This is now the sole remaining justification for U.S. involvement in the war. If the numbers about foreign fighters are correct, then it is plainly wrong. The main anatgonists are Iraqis, and they will remain there to fight it out for many years. That does not mean we have not created many "terrorists" who would do us harm, as U.S. intelligence agencies assert, but killing them in Iraq is not a plausible option. It's too difficult; aggressive counterinsurgency creates more fighters the longer we stay and harder we try; and they might not be there.

8. The violence is about Sunni-Shia mutual loathing; a pox on both their houses. This is the emerging "moral clarity" of the right wing, that we gave it our best, we handed the tools of freedom to Iraqis, and they'd rather kill each other. That there was longstanding antagonism, stemming from decades of Sunni Arab domination and repression, is well known. But the truly horrifying scale of violence we see now took many months to brew, and is built on the violence begun by the U.S. military and the lack of economic stability, political participation, etc., that the occupation wrought. Equally as important, sectarian killing found its political justification in the constitution fashioned by U.S. advisers that essentially split the country into three factions, giving them a very solid set of incentives to go to war with each other.

9. The war is an Iraqi affair, and the best we can do now is train them to enforce security. This is the more upbeat version of #8, the "Go Long" strategy that sees training as a panacea. Despite three years of serious attempts, the U.S. training programs are bogged down by the sectarian violence itself, or by incompetence all round. No one who has looked at this carefully believes that training Iraqis is a near-term solution. It's a useful ruse as an exit strategy, blaming the victims for violence and failure.

10. Trust the same people who caused or endorsed the war to tell us what to do next. We know who they are: Bush, Cheney, McCain, and other cronies; the neo-cons now increasingly on the periphery of power but still bleating (Wolfowitz, Feith, Perle, Adelman, Lieberman), the liberal hawks, and the right-wing media (Krauthamer, Fox News, Glenn Beck, phalangist bloggers, et al). They say, "just finish the job." Just finish the job... at a human cost of how many more dead? How many lives ruined? How much more damage to U.S.-Arab relations? How much anti-Muslim racism fomented to justify the killing?

The distortions about the violence in Iraq persist even as the mayhem increases. Yesterday there was a report about 100 widows a day being created in Iraq. A Times of London report from last summer notes that gravediggers in one Baghdad cemetery are handling 200 bodies daily, compared with 60 before the war. The situation of the displaced is becoming a humanitarian crisis that will soon rival the worst African cases; the middle and upper classes have fled, leaving the poor to cope. So the poor from the U.S. go to beat up the poor in Iraq, or stand by helplessly as the Iraqi poor ravage each other.

That is the harsh reality of violence in Iraq. A half million dead. More than two million displaced. No end in sight.

Beware the delusions.

While in charge of the CIA's analytical division in the mid-1980s, Robert M. Gates made wildly erroneous predictions about the dangers posed by leftist-ruled Nicaragua and espoused policy prescriptions considered too extreme even by the Reagan administration, in one case advocating the U.S. bombing of Nicaragua.

Gates -- now President George W. Bush's nominee to replace Donald Rumsfeld as Defense Secretary -- expressed his alarmist views about Nicaragua and the need to bomb the country's military targets in a secret Dec. 14, 1984, memorandum to then-CIA Director William Casey.

The memo has new relevance today because Gates's private advice to Casey suggests that Gates was either more of an extremist ideologue than many in Washington believe or he was pandering to Casey's personal zealotry.

Either possibility raises questions about Gates's fitness to run the Pentagon at a time when many observers believe it needs strong doses of realism and independence to stand up to both a strong-willed President and influential neoconservative theorists who promoted the invasion of Iraq.

The Iraq War -- now exceeding the length of U.S. participation in World War II -- has been marked by politicized intelligence, over-reliance on force, fear of challenging the insider tough-guy talk, and lack of respect for international law -- all tendencies that Gates has demonstrated in his career.

Cold Warrior

In the 1980s, Gates was a Cold War hardliner prone to exaggerate the Soviet threat, which put him in the good graces of Reagan administration officials. They also rejected the growing evidence of a rapid Soviet decline in order to justify a massive U.S. military build-up and aggressive interventions in Third World conflicts.

Put in charge of the CIA's analytical division, which supposedly is dedicated to objective analysis, Gates instead pleased his boss Casey by taking an over-the-top view of the danger posed by Nicaragua, an impoverished Third World nation then ruled by leftist Sandinista revolutionaries who had ousted right-wing dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979.

Though Gates opens his December 1984 memo with the declaration that "it is time to talk absolutely straight about Nicaragua," he then ignores many relevant facts that get in the way of his thesis about the need to launch air strikes against Sandinista military targets and to overthrow the supposedly "Marxist-Leninist" regime.

For instance, Gates makes no mention of the fact that only a month earlier, the Sandinistas had won an election widely praised for its fairness by European and other international observers. But the Reagan administration had pressured pro-U.S. candidate Arturo Cruz into withdrawing when it became clear he would lose -- and then denounced the election as a "sham."

Without assessing whether the Sandinistas had any real commitment to democracy, Gates adopts the Reagan administration's favored position -- that Nicaragua's elected president Daniel Ortega was, in effect, a Soviet-style dictator.

"The Nicaraguan regime is steadily moving toward consolidation of a Marxist-Leninist government and the establishment of a permanent and well armed ally of the Soviet Union and Cuba on the mainland of the Western Hemisphere," Gates wrote to Casey.

The Gates assessment, however, turned out to be wrong. Rather than building a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship, the Sandinistas competed six years later in a robust presidential election -- even allowing the United States to pour in millions of dollars to help elect Washington's favored candidate, Violeta Chamorro.

The Sandinistas respected the election results, ceding power to Chamorro. The Sandinistas also have competed in subsequent elections with Ortega finally regaining the presidency in the latest election held in November 2006.

Aggressive Intent?

In the 1984 memo, Gates also promotes another right-wing canard of the era -- that Nicaragua's procurement of weapons was proof of its aggressive intentions, not an attempt at national self-defense.

Again, Gates ignores significant facts, including a history starting in 1980 of first the right-wing Argentine junta and then the United States financing and training a brutal counterrevolutionary movement, known as the contras.

By 1984, the contras had earned a reputation for rape, torture, murder and terrorism -- as they ravaged towns especially along Nicaragua's northern border. In 1983-84, the CIA also had used the cover of the contra war to plant mines in Nicaragua's harbors, an operation later condemned by the World Court.

But Gates offers none of this context in his five-page memo to Casey, a strong advocate of the contra cause. The memo makes no serious analytical attempt to gauge whether Nicaragua -- the target of aggression by a nearby superpower, the United States -- might have been trying to build up forces to deter more direct U.S. intervention.

Instead, Gates tells his boss what he wants to hear. "The Soviets and Cubans are turning Nicaragua into an armed camp with military forces far beyond its defensive needs and in a position to intimidate and coerce its neighbors," Gates wrote.

Gate also paints an apocalyptic vision of what might happen if the contras retreated to Honduras. According to Gates, the flight of the contras would touch off a new wave of refugees and destabilize the region.

"These unsettled political and military circumstances in Central America would undoubtedly result in renewed capital flight from Honduras and Guatemala and result in both new hardship and political instability throughout the region," Gates wrote.

This so-called "feet people" theme was another administration rationale for continuing the contra war against Nicaragua. But the truth was that right-wing "death squads" then operating in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras generated far more of a refugee flow than had followed the Sandinista victory in Nicaragua in 1979.

Bombing Is the Answer

After laying out his premises, Gates moves to his conclusion -- that there is no hope the Sandinistas will accept democracy, even if the contras were sustained in the field, and thus there was no choice but to oust the Sandinistas by force. Gates wrote:

It seems to me that the only way that we can prevent disaster in Central America is to acknowledge openly what some have argued privately: that the existence of a Marxist-Leninist regime in Nicaragua closely allied with the Soviet Union and Cuba is unacceptable to the United States and that the United States will do everything in its power short of invasion to put that regime out.

Hopes of causing the regime to reform itself for a more pluralistic government are essentially silly and hopeless. Moreover, few believe that all those weapons and the more to come are only for defense purposes.

Dressing up his recommendations as hardheaded realism, Gates added:

Once you accept that ridding the Continent of this regime is important to our national interest and must be our primary objective, the issue then becomes a stark one. You either acknowledge that you are willing to take all necessary measures (short of military invasion) to bring down that regime or you admit that you do not have the will to do anything about the problem and you make the best deal you can.

Casting aside all fictions, it is the latter course we are on. ... Any negotiated agreement simply will offer a cover for the consolidation of the regime and two or three years from now we will be in considerably worse shape than we are now."

Gates then calls for withdrawing diplomatic recognition of the Nicaraguan government, backing a government-in-exile, imposing an economic embargo on exports and imports "to maximize the economic dislocation of the regime," and launching "air strikes to destroy a considerable portion of Nicaragua's military buildup (focusing particularly on the tanks and the helicopters)."

In the memo, Gates depicts those who would do less as weaklings and fools, including some administration officials who favored focusing on arranging new covert aid to the contras.

"These are hard measures," Gates wrote about his recommendations. "They probably are politically unacceptable. But it is time to stop fooling ourselves about what is going to happen in Central America. Putting our heads in the sand will not prevent the events that I outlined at the beginning of this note. ...

"The fact is that the Western Hemisphere is the sphere of influence of the United States. If we have decided totally to abandon the Monroe Doctrine, if in the 1980's taking strong actions to protect our interests despite the hail of criticism is too difficult, then we ought to save political capital in Washington, acknowledge our helplessness and stop wasting everybody's time."

More than two decades later, as the Senate rushes to confirm Gates as Rumsfeld's successor, neither the Republicans nor Democrats are showing much inclination to review Gates's troubling record.

But the Nicaragua-bombing memo alone should give the senators pause. One could readily imagine Gates playing into George W. Bush's predilections on Iraq by presenting similar dichotomies between doing the wise but "politically unacceptable" thing by escalating the violence or "putting our heads in the sand" to negotiate some cowardly compromise.

What's less clear is whether Gates actually believed his hard-line rhetoric in 1984 or was just parroting what he thought his boss wanted to hear.

Some longtime Gates watchers at the CIA believe Gates is essentially a "chameleon" who adapts to the colorations of whatever political environment he finds himself in. His mild-mannered style also has led powerful mentors to see what they wish to see in him.

So, is Gates a closet ideologue who shares his real views only with like-minded individuals like Casey or is he a skilled apple-polisher who curries favor with those above him by leaving them little presents like the Nicaragua-bombing memo for Casey.

Getting It All Wrong

Another striking aspect of the Nicaragua memo is that it proves what many Gates critics have alleged over the years -- that he tossed aside the principles of objective analysis to position himself as a political/policy advocate.

Gates did that in the 1984 memo even while serving as the official responsible for protecting the integrity of the intelligence product. But Gates not only crossed the red line against entering the world of policy recommendations, he turned out to be wrong in virtually all his dire predictions.

None of his predictions proved true after the Reagan administration rejected Gates's extreme proposals. The Reagan administration did not create a Nicaraguan government-in-exile. Nor did it bomb Nicaragua's military targets. Instead, President Reagan ordered his subordinates to continue arranging financial and military support for the contras, an operation led by White House aide Oliver North.

Later, during George H.W. Bush's presidency, Secretary of State James Baker pushed a strategy of negotiations to resolve the bloody violence raging across Central America. Then, in 1990, the Bush I administration spent millions of dollars to support the Nicaraguan presidential candidacy of Violeta Chamorro against Daniel Ortega.

The Sandinistas permitted the elections to go forward despite the continued contra violence and despite the U.S. intervention in Nicaragua's internal politics. After Chamorro's victory, the Sandinistas accepted the outcome and went into opposition.

Despite Gates's apocalyptic vision, Nicaragua never hardened into a "Marxist-Leninist" dictatorship; it never used its military buildup against neighboring states; it turned out that hoping Nicaragua would become a pluralistic democracy wasn't "silly and hopeless"; Nicaragua even joined in regional peace negotiations that halted the political violence.

As it turned out Gates had favored policies to the right of Ronald Reagan -- and was proven wrong in judgment after judgment after judgment.

Yet now two decades later, after a stint as president of Texas A&M, Gates is returning to Washington as a respected Wise Man who will be trusted to guide the United States out of the bloody debacle in Iraq.

Thankful that George W. Bush's first Defense Secretary is on his way out, the U.S. Senate seems determined to trust in Bush's wisdom in choosing a replacement. The Senate also appears ready to trust in the judgment of Robert M. Gates to make the right decisions about the Iraq War.


Robert Parry's new book is Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq."

Speaking at a news conference during a stopover in Estonia before heading to Latvia for a NATO summit, Bush said that the latest bombings in Iraq were part of a nine-month-old pattern of attacks by Al Qaida extremists aimed at fomenting sectarian violence by provoking retaliation.

Referring to Iran's nuclear issue, Bush said that the idea of a nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable, urging the country to halt uranium enrichment.

If Iran was to be involved in fostering stability in neighboring Iraq, Bush said, "they ought to be involved in a constructive way."

And while the Iraqi government was free to talk to Iran about helping end the violence, U.S. conditions for direct talks with Tehran remained unchanged, Bush said.

Besides, the U.S. president also urged NATO countries to accept difficult assignments in Afghanistan, adding that members must provide the forces NATO military commanders require.

The NATO summit, at which Afghanistan and NATO's transformation are set to be top agendas, will be held on Nov. 28-29 in the Latvian capital Riga.

The U.S. Air Force said in a statement that fighter aircraft had spotted insurgents in the area of the crash site immediately after the warplane came down about 30 km (20 miles) northwest of Baghdad in the volatile Falluja area, where the anti-American Sunni insurgency is strong.

"The single-seat jet was in direct support of extensive Coalition ground combat operations when it crashed in an uninhabited field," it said.

The area is a base for the Mehdi Army militia led by Maliki's fellow Shi'ite leader Moqtada al-Sadr.

Though the violence was limited, it was a dramatic demonstration of the popular passions Maliki and his national unity government are trying to calm following Thursday's multiple car bombs in Sadr City -- the worst since the U.S. invasion -- and later revenge attacks.

On Sunday, a car bomb killed at least 6 people and wounded more than 20 in a market just south of Baghdad, police said.

On the third full day of a curfew on the capital, mortar bombs crashed down in various parts of Baghdad and residents reported isolated and mostly unexplained clashes.

The government has said traffic can circulate again from Monday morning but, after a series of high-level meetings, it again appealed for calm.

APPEAL FOR UNITY

"We are counting on you, a great nation," Shi'ite, Sunni and ethnic Kurdish leaders said in a joint statement. "Do not let those who are depriving you of security impinge on your unity.

"They want to drag you all into angry reactions.

"Those whose forefathers have lived together for thousands of years on this land as brothers ... come today so we can write our history, our present and the future, for our children and grandchildren, in forgiveness," the statement continued.

Maliki accused factions in the government itself of fuelling conflict. Three days before he meets President George W. Bush to talk about how to impose stability and start pulling out U.S. troops, he said the violence reflected a "political crisis".

Frustrated by deadlock in the national unity government over the past six months and harsher rhetoric between minority Sunnis and his fellow Shi'ite leaders, he said: "The ones who can stop a further deterioration and the bloodshed are the politicians."

But he added this could happen "only when they agree and all realise that there are no winners and losers in this battle."

"Let's be totally honest -- the security situation is a reflection of political disagreement," he said on television.

Iraqis -- and Maliki's sponsors in Washington -- are frustrated at his failure to improve either security or the economy since being appointed in April as a compromise candidate following months of wrangling within the dominant Shi'ite bloc.

Maliki's aides say he in turn is irritated by uncompromising language, and support for armed groups, among Sunni leaders and Shi'ite allies, like Sadr, on whom he depends for his position.

The U.S. and Iraqi governments have indicated the summit in Jordan will go ahead, despite a demand from Sadr, who wants an immediate U.S. withdrawal, that Maliki boycott the talks.

"In Iraq, whenever the time is ripe, it will be everyone and his dog competing and the chances of having a major share will be far less," Brown said.

Iran is heavily reliant on oil, which represents about 80 to 90 percent of its export earnings. But its aged and declining oil fields mean it needs increased investment just to keep output at the present level of around 4 million barrels a day.

So Iran needs access to foreign money and technology, but U.S. laws prohibit American firms from investing in the Islamic Republic. Washington can impose penalties on firms from other countries investing more than $20 million a year in oil and gas.

Contract disputes, delays, bureaucratic and political meddling, infrastructure problems and concessions oil firms say are unattractive have reduced foreign investment to a trickle.

The problem in Iraq is perhaps more intractable -- the daily toll of bombings, sectarian clashes and spiralling violence.

But Iraq has the third largest reserves in the world and only 10 percent of the country has been explored for oil.

Dozens of foreign oil companies have signed memoranda of understanding with Iraq, seen as a way of initiating relations with the new Baghdad government that could develop into real deals if and when stability is achieved.

But between April 2003 and June 2006, there were an estimated 315 attacks on Iraq's energy infrastructure and few foreign oil firms have started work on the ground.

OPPORTUNITIES

To escape its bind, Iran has dangled the prospect of huge energy deals with China, which may be willing to accept less lucrative deals to attain energy security and which traditionally does not link investment with politics.

This strategy, if successful, "would allow Iran to attract the investment, expertise and technology it desperately requires without undercutting its current domestic and political positions," said a report by consultancy PFC Energy.

For Iran, such deals might also help dissuade China from backing sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear programme.

While U.N. Security Council negotiations over Iran sanctions drag on, so do Tehran's talks with China's Sinopec <0386.HK> over its Yadavaran oil field, a rich prize which could be worth as much as $100 billion.

What is given may also be taken away.

"If China agrees with sanctions on Iran, not only the government of the Islamic Republic, but also the people of Iran, would consider China an enemy of Iran and this may affect its political and economic cooperation," wrote Hossein Shariatmadari, an adviser to Iran's supreme leader.

China has yet to nail its colours to the mast as the United States pushes for a tougher sanctions draft against Iran and Russia argues for the European text to be watered down.

"Russia is the key player for Iran in terms of thwarting U.N. sanctions," said Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London.

China, he said "will come in behind Russia. If Russia accepts stronger sanctions, China will not object. China's relations with the U.S. are more important. Iran has to sell oil to someone and is not going to freeze China out of the market."

Before the 2003 Iraq war, China had agreed a $700-million deal with Saddam Hussein's government to develop the Ahdab oil field. Now that contract is being renegotiated and the new Iraqi government is keen to secure a deal with the Chinese.

"Their contacts with Iraq never stopped," said a senior Iraqi Oil Ministry official. "They are the most active firms of all. They are on the ground with us and ready to offer all kinds of help to develop the oil sector."

Chinese firms are ready to take a more relaxed view of the security risk to get in ahead of other international players.

"They are really competing with other companies to secure energy sources for themselves and so they are really assuming a higher risk and also even prepared to give better conditions," said Muhammad-Ali Zainy, senior energy economist and analyst at the British-based Centre for Global Energy Studies.

While Iraq is in such dire need of investment to repair the damage to its oil infrastructure from sanctions, war and looting, it is unlikely to fuss about the source.

"It is not wise to sideline anybody. The era of signing contracts based on our mood and relations is gone. The contracts will be given to those who are capable of doing the work," the Iraqi official said.

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny in Baghdad)