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