US conference to revisit USS Liberty sinking

WASHINGTON: The US State Department will sponsor a conference next week on the

1967 Arab-Israeli War that will include a discussion of the controversial sinking by Israel

of a US naval vessel in the Mediterrean during the conflict.

The two-day conference, hosted by the department’s historical office, will be held on

January 12 and 13 coinciding with the release of documents detailing US diplomacy

during the war, the department said.

“The latest historical research on the 1967 Arab-Israeli War will be presented” at the

conference that will be attended by historians and Middle East experts from around the

world, it said in a statement. The first panel discussion of the conference “will be devoted

largely to the attack on the USS Liberty,” the department said. Controversy has raged for

years over the sinking of the Liberty, a signals intelligence ship, in international waters by

Israeli jets and torpedo boats in which 34 US sailors were killed and 171 wounded. Israel

maintains that its forces mistook the Liberty for an Egyptian warship but many, including

survivors, have disputed the Israeli account and have demanded a new investigation of

the sinking.

One leading skeptic of the Israeli explanation, James Bamford, author of several books on

US intelligence, will participate in the panel on the Liberty incident, according to the

State Department. —AFP

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_8-1-2004_pg4_12