------- Index of Articles

Register your vote on retaliation:

NUCLEAR
DOE EXTENDS YUCCA MOUNTAIN COMMENT PERIOD
Nuclear plants are called vulnerable to air attacks
British base prepares for arrival of B-52s
China Stresses Nuclear Energy's Role in Sustainable Development
Worldwide Sympathy Could Bolster U.S. Missile Defense Plans
Senate May Drop Missile Curb
Nuclear submarines to ship cargo in Arctic
BOOKS OF THE TIMES
Meeting to study hazardous waste

MILITARY
Nukes on Afghanistan?
Taliban rebuffs Pakistanis
For Ages, Afghanistan Is Not Easily Conquered
Taliban Threatens 'Holy War'
Defense Contractors' Shares Rise
British Warplanes Hit Iraqi Site
Hijack Suspect Met Iraqi Intelligence, Sources Say
Israel Says It Won't 'Pay Price' of Coalition
Pro-Taliban groups protest Pakistan pledge
U.N. Won't Hold World Meeting
UN Council Tells Afghanistan to Hand Over Bin Laden
Bush seeks bin Laden dead or alive
Wartime presidential powers supersede liberties
Bush: Mobilization a 'symbol of this nation's resolve'
Rumsfeld: Bin Laden is just one step
Bush Warns of Casualties of War
At Fort Bragg, Troops 'Packed Up and Ready to Go'
Afghanistan

OTHER
Tragedy loudens call for Alaskan drilling
Attacks Could Affect Energy Systems
Anti-Terror Push Stirs Fears for Liberties
Inquiry begins into failure to predict attacks
FBI Piecing Together Terrorism Case
Test Site proposed as anti-terrorism training school
Hijackers connected to Albanian terrorist cell
ISIS: First Casuality of War Must Not Be Pakistan
Jennifer Harbury Statement
World War III

ACTIVISTS
INDIGENOUS SOLIDARITY DAY:
Message from WILPF
Dear Friends of the Arms Trade Resource Center
VOICES OF RESTRAINT
Concerns Rise That Peace is Not on Table
Tolerance.org:
The Need for Dissent
88-Year-Old Nun Begins Prison Term
Toronto RTS Lawsuit Update---Tentative Trial Date Set!

---------

Register your vote on retaliation: http://www.sfgate.com/today/0912_chron_main.shtml

From: <Lee2garner@aol.com>
Tuesday, September 18, 2001
Subject: one more thing we can do

I'm passing on an action idea.

An internet poll shows that 57% of the people who answered a voluntary poll want to attack Osama Bin Laden immediately. 34% wanted to wait to find out who attacked us, and 9% do not want to retaliate and perpetuate the violence. And it originated in San Francisco!!

I thought, this is one thing I can do. If I send this link out and those of us who want to create peace instead of war send it to everyone we know, we might change the results of this vote. Then, instead of it saying that almost 2/3 of the Americans who responded to this poll wanted unthinking retaliation, it might say that the Americans polled want a new way to respond to such acts of violence. So, here is the link, and I hope you all will vote and pass it on to every person you know. Find the "Question" near the top and click on "vote"

[The question on 9/20/01: "Should U.S. attack Osama bin Laden immediately?", 47% said no, 34% said yes, and 23% said only if he's proven the culprit. et]

-------- NUCLEAR

DOE EXTENDS YUCCA MOUNTAIN COMMENT PERIOD

September 18, 2001
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/sep2001/2001L-09-18-09.html

WASHINGTON, DC, The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will go "well beyond what the law requires" in seeking public comments on the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said Monday.

"The views and the comments of Nevada citizens on this issue are very important," Abraham said. "I have received requests advocating many different actions for addressing Yucca Mountain from both proponents and opponents. My goal is to ensure a fair and impartial process."

Hundreds of angry people showed up at a DOE public hearing in Las Vegas on September 5 to express their objections to the proposed nuclear waste dump.

"At my direction, Under Secretary Robert Card attended the recent public hearing held in Las Vegas. I had asked him to report personally to me both on the views expressed by citizens of Nevada and on steps that could be taken to ensure Nevada citizens are afforded unfiltered and comprehensive opportunities to share their views on Yucca Mountain," Abraham noted. "Under Secretary Card offered a series of recommendations to increase opportunity for public involvement, and I have directed the Department of Energy to move forward on those recommendations, the first phase of which is announced today."

Abraham said the DOE has rescheduled hearings in the Amargosa Valley and Pahrump, Nevada, which were postponed last week after terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Both meetings will now be held Monday, September 24, from 2 pm to 9 pm.

"Time for public comment and the availability of experts to answer substantive questions during the poster session has been expanded to provide the public wishing to participate flexible hours to do so," Abraham said.

The Energy Secretary pledged to hold additional public meetings this year, each of which will be attended by Abraham, Deputy Secretary Frank Blake, Under Secretary Robert Card, or other appointed DOE officials. The DOE will also station an agency official at the Yucca Mountain Science Center in Las Vegas to receive public input at specific times and dates to be announced later.

The DOE has extended the current public comment period on Yucca Mountain until October 5.

--------

Nuclear plants are called vulnerable to air attacks

Bergen Record
Tuesday, September 18, 2001
http://www.bergen.com/morenews/nuec18200109189.htm

VIENNA, Austria -- Haunted by last week's terrorism, delegates from 132 nations opened an annual atomic energy conference Monday with calls for tighter security -- and admissions that little can be done to shield a nuclear power plant from an airborne assault.

Governments, fearing a similar suicide jetliner crash at a nuclear plant, have tightened security outside nuclear power and radioactive waste facilities worldwide in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

But Japan, which is heavily dependent on nuclear energy and has 52 nuclear plants, warned Monday that nothing can shield the plants from a direct hit from a missile or an aircraft.

At the same time, the world must also "ensure that nuclear materials are never used as weapons of terrors," U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham told the International Atomic Energy Agency gathering in Vienna.

"We cannot assume that tomorrow's terrorist acts will mirror those we've just experienced," he said.

In a message to delegates, President Bush also urged the Vienna-based agency to keep pace with "the real and growing threat of nuclear proliferation."

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called the effort "more important than ever in the aftermath of last week's appalling terrorist attack in the United States."

The architects of the world's nuclear plants designed them more with ground vehicle -- not airborne -- attacks in mind, IAEA spokesman David Kyd said.

Most nuclear plants were built during the 1960s and 1970s, and like the World Trade Center, were designed to withstand only accidental, glancing impacts from the smaller aircraft widely used at the time, he said.

"If you postulate the risk of a jumbo jet full of fuel, it is clear that their design was not conceived to withstand such an impact," Kyd said.

In Japan, Takeo Hiranuma, minister for economy, trade, and industry, noted that his country's nuclear plants were built to withstand earthquakes -- not "hits from above by missiles or aircraft."

A direct hit on a nuclear plant by a modern jumbo jet traveling at high speed "could create a Chernobyl situation," said a U.S. official who declined to be identified. The 1986 nuclear explosion in Chernobyl, Ukraine, killed more than 4,000 people. Tens of thousands more were disabled in the cleanup afterward.

However, the buildings that house nuclear reactors themselves are far smaller targets than the Pentagon posed, and it would be difficult for a terrorist to mount a direct hit at an angle that could unleash a catastrophic chain of events, Kyd said.

FROM NEWS SERVICE REPORTS

-------- britain

British base prepares for arrival of B-52s

Steven Morris,
Tuesday September 18, 2001
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,551036,00.html

The plane spotters clearly believed the rumours that the B-52s were on their way. Kitted out with reference books, notepads and cameras they had arrived early to grab the best vantage points at the perimeter fence of RAF Fairford, the Gloucestershire air base from which US bombing raids could be launched in retaliation for last week's terrorist attacks.

Immediately after the attacks, RAF Fairford was put on alert state Delta, one stage down from a full war footing, and US personnel and their families were told to consider themselves potential targets.

Work was halted on a £55m refurbishment and upgrading at the base and 250 civilian workers were sent home. Fortunately for the military planners, work on the 10,000ft runway, one of the largest in Europe, was done and the airstrip is ready for use again.

Yesterday the workers were back and understood to be putting the finishing touches to the "bomber loop", a holding area for bombers.

In the town yesterday the stars and stripes flew alongside union flags. Local people seemed resigned to the idea of American action being launched so close to home.

Shopper June Northwell, 45, said: "I don't doubt for a second that the bombers will be flying soon. But I must say I dread the moment when I hear them coming in."

Back at the base the spotters went on waiting for a glimpse of the B-52s. One of them, John, said: "All the signs are that they will be coming. There's a lot more activity than normal on the base and they are working flat out on the bomber loop. They'll be here."

Special reports:
Terrorism in the US http://www.guardian.co.uk/usterrorism
Afghanistan http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/0,1284,548335,00.html

-------- china

China Stresses Nuclear Energy's Role in Sustainable Development

Tuesday, September 18, 2001
People's Daily (China)
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200109/18/eng20010918_80489.html

Nuclear energy should be used more to ensure sustainable development, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) should play a coordinating role in developing new technology of nuclear energy, Zhang Huazhu, head of Chinese delegation told an IAEA General Conference Monday in Vienna.

With the deterioration of the ecological environment and the increase in energy demand, it's necessary to optimize energy structure policies and increase the proportion of clean energy so as to cut down pollution and relieve climate change, Zhang said.

He asked the IAEA to do more to "objectively popularize the significance of nuclear power to the reduction of environmental pollution and climate change," so that the general public may realize its importance in sustainable development.

Zhang said more than 40 years of experience proved that nuclear energy is clean, safe and economical. So far, nuclear power accounts for one sixth of the world's total power generation.

As the largest developing country in the world, China supports efforts made by all nations to relieve climate change, Zhang said, adding that the Chinese government has put forward the guideline of "developing nuclear power appropriately" in its 10th Five-Year Plan of national economic development (2001-2005).

China now has eight nuclear power units under construction with a total installed capacity of 6,600 megawatts, and a few more nuclear power plants are under planning or feasibility studies, according to Zhang.

The head of the Chinese delegation also said the IAEA should play a coordinating role in developing new technology of nuclear energy and give more consideration to the practical requirements of developing countries.

Delegations from more than 120 member states of the IAEA, along with the new members -- Yugoslavia and Botswana -- and some other international organizations, opened Monday the 45th Session of the IAEA General Conference.

-------- missile defense

Worldwide Sympathy Could Bolster U.S. Missile Defense Plans

September 18, 2001
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/sep2001/2001L-09-18-06.html

NEW YORK, New York, The massive terrorist attacks on the United States last week have prompted calls for a unified international attack on terrorism, and led to a new emphasis on peace and nuclear disarmament. But within the Bush administration, pressure is mounting to free the U.S. military from financial and treaty restrictions.

President George W. Bush visited the Islamic Center of Washington, DC on Monday to encourage Americans not to take their anger out on Islamic Americans (White House photo by Eric Draper)

Condemning the "alarming" terrorist attacks against the United States, the President of Iran Seyed Mohammad Khatami has proposed convening a global summit against terrorism, according to a document released Monday at United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York.

In a letter to Secretary-General Kofi Annan, which was sent on Sunday, the Iranian President stresses that the UN is the "appropriate framework to organize this struggle."

Khatami proposes "comprehensive and inclusive negotiations" on global policies to eradicate terrorism, "followed, at the earliest possible time, by a global summit to register and demonstrate the highest international political will to uproot terrorism and adopt appropriate strategies and measures in this regard."

The proposal would fit well with the Bush administration's desire to build an global coalition that will cooperate in rooting out terrorists. Since hijackers flew passenger jets into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon last Tuesday, President George W. Bush and his officials have formally approached the leaders of many traditional U.S. allies and even some countries less inclined to support the U.S., such as Cuba and Sudan, seeking their participation in the new effort.

President George W. Bush delivers his weekly radio address to the nation from Camp David on Saturday (White House photo by Eric Draper)

Bush has won pledges of support from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which last week invoked Article 5, saying that an attack on one NATO nation is an attack on all NATO nations. The government of Australia told the President that the two countries' mutual defense treaty applies to terrorist attacks, so the U.S. can expect Australian support for whatever actions it deems necessary in its new war on terrorism.

After the U.S. met resistance when it asked Israel to resume peace talks with Palestine and support the embryonic antiterrorism coalition, new hope dawned today when Palestinian leader Yassar Arafat called for a ceasefire with Israel. Israeli forces have reportedly pledged to disengage from their ongoing battles over land in the Middle East, and Arafat has offered to help the U.S. oppose terrorism.

At the opening session of the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) annual meeting, which began Monday at the Austria Centre in Vienna, representatives from many of the IAEA's 132 member states expressed their sorrow over last week's attacks.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan sent a formal statement to the IAEA meeting.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan ringing the Japanese Peace Bell at UN Headquarters on September 14, in observance of the International Day of Peace (UN Photo by Eskinder Debebe)

"Making progress in the areas of nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament is more important than ever in the aftermath of last week's appalling terrorist attack on the United States," Annan wrote. "Looking towards the future, it is evident that broad international cooperation is essential to upgrade the physical protection of nuclear material, to improve capabilities for intercepting and responding to illicit trafficking in nuclear materials and other radioactive sources, and to enhance the protection of facilities against terrorism and sabotage."

Annan emphasized the need for strong measures to reduce the proliferation of nuclear weapons, noting that the parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) agreed last year that "the total elimination of nuclear weapons is the only absolute guarantee against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons."

"Regrettably, several important treaties aimed at nuclear non-proliferation, nuclear disarmament or nuclear reductions still await entry into force," Annan added. "It is vitally important for the world community to continue its efforts to implement the commitments already made, and to further identify the ways and means of achieving nuclear disarmament as soon as possible."

But that may not be a tack that the U.S. is currently willing to take. The Bush administration reportedly informed Russian officials today that the U.S. still intends to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty so that it may legally build a missile defense system.

Weapons like this LGM-30 Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile, launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, are intended to seek out and destroy nuclear weapons launched at the U.S. by hostile nations or by terrorists (U.S. Air Force photo)

The "Washington Post" quoted an anonymous senior administration official as saying, "Missile defense will not fade as a priority of the administration. These incidents prove that there are people in the world for whom the concept of deterrence doesn't mean a thing."

"This was high-tech terrorism; these people had jet plane pilots," the official told the "Post", speaking on condition of anonymity. "And if these same people had access to ballistic missiles, do you think they wouldn't have used them?"

Facing criticism that the billions pledged for missile defense could be better spent on combating terrorism, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer told reporters Monday that the two programs are both crucial to national defense.

Even Congressional Democrats may be prepared to drop their resistance to Bush's missile defense plan. Though the Senate Armed Services committee voted earlier this month to include language in the Pentagon spending bill blocking further missile defense tests, Senate Democrats said Monday they will likely drop that language to avoid a protracted budget battle over military funding.

U.S. moves to step up efforts to create a missile defense program will still meet international resistance. Last week at the UN Conference on Disarmament, speakers repeatedly addressed the United States missile defense plans and the need to preserve the Anti-Ballistic Missiles Treaty.

An unarmed Minuteman II intercontinental ballistic missile launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, in support of the National Missile Defense Program (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Cherie Thurlby)

Some speakers stressed the need to start negotiations on a legal instrument to prevent an arms race in outer space, while others noted the need for the Conference to start negotiations on a treaty to ban the production of fissile materials used to make nuclear weapons.

Still, the U.S. now enjoys strong support for its plans to defend itself against terrorism. The president of the Disarmament Conference, Roberto Betancourt Ruales of Ecuador, said that these terrorist attacks which had caused the death of thousands of persons as well as substantial material losses should be strongly condemned by the Conference.

Chile, on behalf of the Rio Group; Belgium on behalf of the European Union and associated countries; Australia, on behalf of New Zealand; Canada; Egypt; Argentina; Norway; Hungary; the Republic of Korea; Pakistan; Nigeria; the Czech Republic; Georgia; the Russian Federation; Japan; Switzerland; China; Turkey; India; South Africa; Slovenia; Poland; Romania; Germany and Brazil delivered statements condemning the attacks on the United States. Speakers stressed the importance of fostering international cooperation against terrorism and assured the government of the United States that their countries would do everything possible to help find the perpetrators of these attacks.

----

Senate May Drop Missile Curb
Democrats Don't Want Fight on Defense Bill

By Helen Dewar
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 18, 2001; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46767-2001Sep17?language=printer

Senate Democrats said yesterday they plan to try to drop proposed restrictions on missile defense tests from next year's Pentagon spending authorization in hopes of passing the measure without a divisive fight.

"We figured we didn't need a missile defense debate at this point," said Anita Dunn, spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.), referring to Congress's efforts to project a united front in the wake of last week's terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

Under Senate rules, it will require consent of all senators to drop the provision, and it was not clear yesterday whether all 100 senators would agree. If agreement cannot be achieved, action on the defense measure, which authorizes the largest defense spending increase since the mid-1980s, may be delayed, sources said.

Dunn said that if the Senate agrees to take up the defense bill without the restrictions, they will be considered by the Senate later in separate legislation.

In approving the $328.9 billion authorization bill earlier this month, the Senate Armed Services voted along party lines to block the administration from conducting missile defense tests prohibited by the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty without the consent of Congress. Republicans opposed the language and said President Bush would veto the bill if the language was included. A major Senate floor fight over the ABM provision had been widely expected.

The Armed Services Committee also voted to cut $1.3 billion from the Bush administration's $8.3 billion request for missile defense development and use it for other military needs. Dunn said Democrats would not seek to restore the funds cut by the committee.

-------- russia

Nuclear submarines to ship cargo in Arctic

2001-09-18
Bellona News
http://www.bellona.no/imaker?id=20393&sub=1#21931

Novosti-online reports, that the Design bureau Rubin and the Norilsk nickel concern resumed project on construction of the nuclear submarine for cargo shipment on the North Sea route under ice. Approximate price tag of the project is $100 million. The idea of such submarines appeared back in 1993, but was hampered due to the high costs. Maybe this time the project will be more successful. Archangelsk region governor said at the GIS OFFSHORE-2001 exhibition that such a submarine had been already constructed. It is capable to enter rivers and receive cargo right from the ice. Maximum load is 10 thousand ton. Rubin chief construction engineer Sergey Kovalev said that nuclear submarines of Typhoon type will be used for such purposes: "We have to choose whether scrap the submarine or reconstruct it for nickel shipment".

Reconstruction of one submarine requires $100 million. Nickel shipment in this way can go much faster. Norilsk Nickel also plans to use submarines for oil and gas shipment. Cargo shipment in Arctic requires is not possible without nuclear icebreakers. However, all of them were bought by LUKOIL oil company, which demands too high price from Norilsk Nickel. The submarines allow to avoid icebreakers deployment. The only question is whether Norilsk Nickel can afford the project.

-------- u.s. nuc weapons

BOOKS OF THE TIMES
'THE BROTHER'
Of Atomic Secrets, Loyalty and Bitter Deceit

New York Times
September 18, 2001
By JAMES BAMFORD
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/18/books/18BAMF.html?searchpv=nytToday

High in the frigid, crystalline air off the Kamchatka Peninsula of Siberia, a filter in a specially modified American B-29 began picking up traces of microscopic particles containing disintegrating nuclei. Like cancer cells in their earliest stages, the tiny bundles of atoms would portend devastating consequences.

Scientists later determined that the invisible grains of matter caught in the plane's sniffer were highly radioactive and part of a cloud that was drifting east. Further analysis determined that they were produced by an explosion in a Russian desert about 100 miles south of Semipalatinsk.

On Sept. 23, 1949, President Harry S. Truman announced to the nation the troubling discovery. The Soviet Union had successfully tested its first atomic weapon. The United States' short-lived nuclear monopoly was over, and the cold war suddenly shifted into high gear. Adding to the worry, the device appeared to bear a striking resemblance to the bomb the United States had dropped on Nagasaki four years earlier. Thus began the search for the mole who passed America's deepest atomic secrets to its mortal enemy.

"The Brother," by Sam Roberts, takes a fresh look at the atomic- bomb spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg from the perspective of the man who stole the secrets, and then gave up the Rosenbergs to the F.B.I. - David Greenglass. What makes the story especially poignant is that those whom Mr. Greenglass strapped into the electric chair as a result of his testimony were members of his own family - his sister and brother-in-law.

Mr. Roberts, an editor at The New York Times, doggedly tracked down the elusive Mr. Greenglass in the early 1980's and pursued him for an interview, unsuccessfully, for 13 years. Then in 1996, on the verge of bankruptcy as a result of a failed business, Mr. Greenglass finally agreed to be questioned - for a share in the proceeds of the sale of the book. Thus he went full circle, first selling out his country for cash, then selling out his relatives for a deal with the prosecutors, and finally selling his story for a piece of a book.

While Mr. Greenglass adds some personal detail and a bit of color, most of the key facts have long been known. He testified in court during the Rosenberg trial and gave a shorter interview to authors in the late 1970's. One exception, however, concerns Mr. Greenglass's testimony in which he confirmed a courtroom statement by his wife, Ruth, that Ethel typed up Mr. Greenglass's A- bomb notes. Now he says that he never actually remembered that happening. "I can only assume my wife didn't make it up," he said. But given the climate at the time - for example the jury only deliberated for 7 hours and 40 minutes - it is likely that the jury would have believed Ruth even without confirmation from Mr. Greenglass.

Mr. Greenglass also adds little depth and insight into what J. Edgar Hoover called "the crime of the century." One keeps listening for Kim Philby but hears only Forrest Gump. Luckily, Mr. Roberts made up for the lackluster confession by doing a wonderful job of research. He went through box loads of yellowing archives and newly declassified memos. He interviewed nearly everyone still living who was connected with the case, and he uncovered numerous unpublished notes and manuscripts of key figures. The result is an important and highly readable tale of blind loyalty and bitter deceit, of hysteria and horror.

Today's world of treachery is populated mostly by those who, out of need or greed, sell secrets to rescue a mortgage or buy a speedboat. But in the early 1940's ideology was a key reason for espionage, both in the United States and Britain.

With the United States engaged in a world war, there was great uncertainty about who would eventually emerge as friend or foe. Few would have guessed that western Germany and Japan would become America's great allies, or that the United States would soon be looking down the barrel of our ally at that time, the Soviet Union. This led some Americans to sympathize with the Soviet Union's plight, facing Hitler on its doorstep, and with the utopian ideal of Communism. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were among the few who went several steps beyond sympathy to espionage.

True believers in Communism almost from puberty, they also indoctrinated Mr. Greenglass early on. Like many teenagers David had a paper route, only he delivered The Daily Worker. Bounced from college, Mr. Greenglass married a woman who shared his Communist sympathies and shortly thereafter, in 1943, was drafted into the Army. As chance would have it, he was assigned to Los Alamos and the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb. For Mr. Rosenberg, by then deeply involved in espionage for the Soviets, it was a perfect opportunity, and he persuaded Mr. Greenglass to pass secrets to a courier, Harry Gold.

The F.B.I. finally caught up with Mr. Greenglass in 1950, and he quickly agreed to trade a reduced sentence for himself and freedom for his wife for damning testimony against his sister and her husband. In a truly unusual move for a spy case, the Rosenbergs chose loyalty to the cause and silence instead of selling out anyone else. They were duly rewarded with the electric chair by a judge who maintained that God had told him to impose the death sentence.

After 10 years, Mr. Greenglass walked out of prison with a new name and straight into anonymity, aided by the F.B.I. Eventually he and his family managed to retreat far enough into the background that even his grandchildren still do not know his true identity.

"No. I still don't believe I did anything wrong," Mr. Greenglass replied when Mr. Roberts asked him about his espionage. "Can you imagine if there wasn't mutually assured destruction?" he said, single-handedly taking credit for keeping the world safe from nuclear destruction. "Would you ever say you're sorry to Ethel and Julius?," the author asked.

"Never," Mr. Greenglass replied, adding that the Rosenbergs had an opportunity to cooperate with the government and foolishly decided against it. "To die for something as nebulous as that is stupidity," he said, quoting his and Ethel's mother. In the end, like Forrest Gump, Mr. Greenglass managed to encapsulate the entire case in a single phrase. "All you need is one guy to get caught," he said. "One guy that's not smart."

-------- u.s. nuc facilities

-------- kentucky

Meeting to study hazardous waste
(11/26/01 - Kentucky)

The Nov. 26 public meeting will focus on 15 billion pounds of hazardous material the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant would handle.

By Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650
September 19, 2001
http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news2001/nn11410.htm

A public meeting is set for Nov. 26 to study the environmental and economic impact of building a facility to convert about 15 billion pounds of hazardous waste at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant into safer material. The meeting will be from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Paducah Information Age Park Resource Center. In Tuesday's Federal Register, the U.S. Department of Energy announced its intent to prepare an environmental impact statement on the conversion project. Public comments will be accepted through Nov. 26, DOE spokesman Walter Perry said.

DOE is expected to award a contract in late October for the work, which will convert nearly 58,000 cylinders of depleted uranium hexafluoride (UF6) into material that may one day have commercial use. Most of the cylinders are at Paducah and the rest are at closed uranium enrichment plants at Piketon, Ohio, and Oak Ridge, Tenn.

Finalists include three groups, one of which includes USEC Inc., the Paducah plant operator.

John Cooper, a lobbyist for the city and county governments, told commissioners at a joint meeting Tuesday that last week's terrorist attacks may delay the contract award.

"There was supposed to be a conversion decision in late October," Cooper said. "The events of last Tuesday changed all that. It has pushed it back, and I don't know how long."

Construction must start by Jan. 31, 2004, according to federal law. Although the law mandates conversion facilities be built at Paducah and Piketon, DOE's notice describes that scenario as the "preferred" plan for purposes of the study under the National Environmental Policy Act. The contract is contingent on completing the study, DOE said.

Other alternatives are building one plant at Paducah or Piketon, using existing commercial conversion plants, or continuing to store the material in cylinders.

The study will assess worker and public health and environmental impacts of the project. UF6 in its normal, solid form resembles rock salt and contains low-level radiation. When released to the atmosphere, it reacts with water vapor to form toxic substances, notably hydrogen fluoride, the department said.

Besides environmental impact, the study will gauge the facilities' construction and operational effect on local employment, income, population, housing and public services. Some past estimates have shown each plant would employ 100 to 200 people, depending on the level of government involvement. Several hundred construction jobs are anticipated in each community.

The notice is available by linking the Federal Register at www.gpo.gov and doing a keyword search.

For information or to send written comments, contact Kevin Shaw, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Environmental Management, Office of Site Closure-Oak Ridge Office (EM-32), 19901 Germantown Road, Germantown, MD 20874; fax: 301-903-3479; or e-mail DUF6Comments@em.doe.gov (use NOI Comments for the subject).


-------- MILITARY

-------- afghanistan

Nukes on Afghanistan?
Attack Bolsters Nuke Lite Lobby
"Small Is Beautiful"

September 18, 2001
CounterPunch
By Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn
http://www.counterpunch.org/nukelite.html

Make the desert glow for a thousand years. Wipe them off the face of the Earth. Pulverize them. Such is the unrestrained blood lust that masquerades as military punditry these days. The Washington Times has called on the Bush administration the use of nuclear weapons against Afghanistan and Iraq. Absurd?

Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld had the question put to them directly and neither would rule out the use of nuclear bombs as an option. Rumsfeld's deputy, the blood-thirsty, Paul Wolfowitz has warned that the Pentagon is poised to unleash "a very big hammer", a hammer capable of "ending states that support terrorism." (Rumsfeld says the Pentagon has identified nearly 60 such states.) "At a bare minimum, tactical nuclear capabilites should be used against the bin Laden camps in the desert of Afghanistan.

To do less would be rightly seen by the poisoned minds that orchestrated these attacks as cowardice on the part of the United States and the current administration." These are not the words of a columnist for the rabidly pro-war New York Post. No. These are the considered sentiments of Thomas Woodrow, a former officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency.

We now find ourselves closer to the unthinkable possibility of launching a nuclear first strike than at any time since the thawing of the Cold War. What is important to understand is the fact that there are people inside the Pentagon and the nuclear labs who have been urging just such a posture, even before the events of 9/11. The Pentagon has come to a remarkable conclusion with regard to the nuclear weapons: smaller is better.

These days the Wizards of Armageddon are palpably anxious to develop a new class of nuclear weapons, the so-called "deep penetrator" warheads. These are relatively low-yield weapons, packing warheads as small as 10 kilotons. Rear Admiral George P. Nanos excitedly refers to this new breed of nukes as "hard target killers".

During testimony before the House in May, General John A. Gordon, director of the National Nuclear Security Administration, groused that for the past decade the Pentagon had not been able to actively pursue new weapons designs. He said he wanted to "reinvigorate" planning for a new generation of "advanced nuclear warheads". "This is not a proposal to develop new weapons in the absence of requirements", Gordon told the committee in a gem of Pentagon doublespeak. "But I am not now exercising design capabilities, and because of that, I believe this capacity and capability is atrophying rapidly". Gordon wasn't being truthful.

Over the past decade the Pentagon and its weapons designers have been quietly busy crafting a variety of new weapons. Indeed, although the Clinton administration generated a lot of hoopla by supporting the comprehensive test ban treaty (which it promptly violated with a string of subcritical tests), the Department of Energy and the Pentagon were busy developing new breeds of weapons.

In 1997, they unveiled and deployed the B61-11, described as a mere modification of the old B61-7 gravity bomb. In reality, it was largely a new "package", the prototype for the "low-yield" bunker blasting nuke that the weaponeers see as the future of the US arsenal. The nuclear priesthood is salivating at the prospect of a new generation of nukes and new infusions of cash under the Bush regime, which has been stockpiled with nuclear hawks, ranging from Richard Armitage and Paul Wolfowitz to Assistant Secretary of Defense Jack Couch, who a couple of years ago wrote that the US should consider dropping a small nuke on North Korea to teach them a lesson.

The Pentagon, of course, isn't the only one pushing new bombs. So are the nuclear labs and their legions of contractors. "There's an overwhelming desire to develop new nuclear weapons and there are a lot of rationales put forward to justify the expenditure and the risks", says Don Moniak, an organizer with the Blue Ridge Environmental League in Aiken, South Carolina. "For example, the nuclear labs have said they make new design weapons if only to maintain design expertise". Moniak monitors weapons production and plutonium storage and reprocessing at the Department of Energy's Savannah River Site, which Moniak says is being geared up to begin producing plutonium pits, the triggers for hydrogen bombs.

This spring the labs made a big pitch for the Bush administration to overhaul the nation's nuclear policy. The plea came in the form of a white paper by Paul Robinson, the director of the Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque. Robinson titled his essay Pursuing a New Nuclear Policy for the 21st Century and began thus: "I recently began to worry that because there were few public statements by US officials in reaffirming the unique role which nuclear weapons play in ensuring US and world security, far too many people (including many in our own armed forces) were beginning to believe that perhaps nuclear weapons no longer had value".

Robinson doesn't want to let go a single part of the nuclear arsenal. He even argues that Russia remains a threat, although he inverts the alleged source from that of an opposing superpower to that of a disintegrating nation. As backup for this rationale he quotes US National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice: "America is threatened less by Russia's strength than by its weakness and incoherence". This stretch is used to justify an upgrading of the most destructive and expensive weapons in the US arsenal, the so-called Category I strategic weapons capable of incinerating large-scale cities. Robinson also sees no reason to scale-back the US stockpile of Category II weapons, the kind of all-purpose nuclear missile that Robinson dubs the "To Whom It May Concern Force".

Robinson hedges identifying exactly who the targets of these weapons might be, but he eventually concedes that they include the other nuclear and near-nuclear nations, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran and, presumably, France, though definitely not Israel. These weapons, primarily low-yield single rocket missiles, would mainly be an investment in the Navy's submarine-launched arsenal to give the US the all-important "forward-basing" advantage-which mainly means that the US wouldn't have to worry about the touchy diplomatic issue of launching nuclear bombs over the territory of non-combatants. (Apparently, this good neighbor policy hasn't infected the Bush Star Wars team, which is toiling away on a contraption that would, if it works, knock incoming missiles down and onto the fields of the Poland, Germany and France.)

But Robinson's real passion is for the Category III weapon, the bunker-busting nuke that is designed for the assassination of the leadership of "rogue regime", a not so subtle code word for Iraq, although it really does serve as a stand-in for any troublesome non-nuclear nation. Robinson, in a scenario that perhaps even Edward Teller himself may not have envisioned, wants the Bush administration to publicly change its policy to target heads of state with nuclear bombs. "I believe it will be important to make a part o our declaratory policy that the United States' ultimate intent, should it ever have to unleash a nuclear attack against any aggressor, would be to threaten the survival of the regime leading the state", Robinson writes. "Unless that state's leaders are deterred from the acts we are seeking to deter, our war aims would be single-minded-to destroy that leadership's ability to govern".

And now we see the prospect of nuclear weapons being used not against a regime, but against an indistinct enemy, largely untargetable, couched in the forbidding recesses of the Hindu Kush, one the world's most hostile natural landscapes. The only possible objective for their use would be to kill broadly and indiscriminately and to obliterate the distinction between intentional and collateral damage.

----

Taliban rebuffs Pakistanis

September 18, 2001
By Nicholas Kralev
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010918-218204.htm

A Pakistani delegation yesterday failed to convince Afghanistan's ruling Taliban to hand over Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in last week's attacks in New York and Washington, and the United States moved closer to military action against the regime harboring the Saudi exile.

Although the Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, told the visiting Pakistani military officials he would let a national council decide today whether to deliver bin Laden, the State Department said it didn't expect the outcome to be any different.

"The Taliban, of course, is responding in the way that it always has: that bin Laden and his associates are guests in their country," Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told reporters. "Well, it is time for the guests to leave."

Another senior State Department official said later, "We are not holding our breath" in expectation of the Afghan council's decision.

The United States yesterday geared up for a massive diplomatic offensive against bin Laden and his terrorist network, Qaeda, with nearly a dozen senior foreign officials about to descend on Washington this week to discuss their respective roles in the U.S.-led anti-terrorist coalition.

Meanwhile, Pakistan said the Taliban had massed up to 25,000 fighters with Scud missiles near its border and thousands of Afghans were reported to have headed toward the borders with Pakistan and Iran.

In Islamabad, the government of President Pervez Musharraf closed the border yesterday, but it faced demonstrations in its own country by pro-Taliban groups opposing any U.S. attack on Afghanistan.

Pakistan's military intelligence service is believed to have more influence on the Taliban than anyone else.

After the delegation's unsuccessful meeting with Afghan leadership, however, Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar said Islamabad's leverage with the Taliban wasn't unlimited.

Pakistan, one of only three countries to recognize the Taliban when it seized power in 1996, announced over the weekend that it would support the United States in its fight against terrorism. According to some reports, it asked for favors in exchange.

The senior State Department official insisted yesterday Islamabad had sought "no conditions" when it offered its backing to Washington, but the United States made clear that the fight against terrorism would be "the most important issue in our relationship."

The Bush administration continued to receive support from foreign governments yesterday, as the State Department announced that the list of countries that lost citizens in last week's attacks had reached 62.

After "positive" and "forthcoming" statements from Iran and Syria, Mr. Powell said yesterday that Yemen had also offered support.

"They have been very helpful recently" in the investigation of last year's attack on the USS Cole, and "now are helping us with respect to leads in this current crisis," Mr. Powell said after a telephone conversation with Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The U.S. government has linked bin Laden and his associates to October's attack on the Cole in Yemen, which killed 17 American sailors.

Mr. Powell said yesterday "all roads" in the investigation into the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon led to bin Laden.

"It is becoming clear with each passing hour, with each passing day, that it is the Qaeda network that is the prime suspect, as the president has said, and all roads lead to the leader of that organization, Osama bin Laden, and his location in Afghanistan," he said.

He added that he was "reasonably confident and certain" the Taliban could find bin Laden if it wanted, and that he had seen "nothing to indicate" bin Laden has left Afghanistan.

But Mr. Powell said capturing bin Laden won't be sufficient and Washington's "objective" is to destroy Qaeda.

"It is not enough to get one individual," he said. "It will not be over until we have gotten into the inside of this organization, inside its decision cycle, inside its planning cycle, inside its execution capability, and until we have neutralized and destroyed it."

As part of its coalition-building effort in what President Bush has called "the first war of the 21st century," the administration plans intense talks with allies and other major powers this week, officials said yesterday.

In the next four days, the list of foreign leaders flying to Washington includes British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac and the foreign ministers of Russia, China, Italy, South Korea and Saudi Arabia, as well as three top European Union officials.

Separately, the EU has called a meeting of its 15 members on Friday to discuss the crisis.

In most allied capitals, debate over participation in a U.S.-led military operation has intensified since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and different views have emerged.

Britain, Italy, Canada, Norway and Australia appear ready to commit troops and other military aid, while France and Germany have been much more cautious about making promises and warned Washington against hurried decisions.

Mr. Powell, who has spent much of his time speaking with world leaders on the phone about the terrorism crisis, spoke Sunday night with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Yesterday, Mr. Powell tried to reassure Arab governments that the United States has not forgotten the Arab-Israeli conflict.

"We do have to do something about the situation in the Middle East. I carve out part of my day to press and work on that. I never lose sight of the fact that one of the underlying continuing problems we will have is that we have to get into the Mitchell plan and we have to get back to negotiations in due course. I can assure you I haven't taken the U.S. eye off that ball."

--------

HISTORY
For Ages, Afghanistan Is Not Easily Conquered

New York Times
September 18, 2001
By BARBARA CROSSETTE
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/18/international/asia/18AFGH.html

Afghanistan, a poor and landlocked country, appears to be positioned for another round of what 19th-century imperialists called the Great Game, the battle for influence by outsiders, once mostly the Russians and the British, over a defiant land that a British viceroy once called a poisoned chalice.

The country, populated by warrior clans, has for centuries been a mountainous obstruction astride the roads from Persia and the Middle East to the Indian subcontinent and much of Central Asia.

For the British Empire in India and, more than 100 years later, for the Soviet Union, Afghanistan became a killing field remembered for horrific massacres and the vengeance of holy war.

This time, it seems, the Russians and the West, now led by Americans, are on the same side. For the first time after years of disputes over other issues like the Balkans and Iraq, Moscow and Washington have found a common enemy in the Taliban, the radical Islamic movement that now controls most of the country.

Their motives are different. Russia sees links between Afghanistan and rebellions in its own Muslim areas, while the United States is focused on Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of terrorism. But their common cause in reining in and perhaps dislodging the Taliban appears strong for now.

Historic precedent is not encouraging. After Afghanistan emerged from periods of rule by ancient Hellenistic, Greco-Afghan and Buddhist empires, its ethnically and linguistically separated regions and peoples - the dominant Pathans, the Hazara, the Tajiks and the Uzbeks - eventually settled into a kind of collective independence that continued until the age of European colonialism.

An army of the British East India Company, still in charge of imperial India, moved into Kabul in 1839 to checkmate the Russian advances - real and imagined - in Central Asia, the Himalayas and Tibet. In 1841, disaster struck.

Britain's envoy in Afghanistan, Sir William Macnaghten was besieged by a mob and shot by the son of a ruler he had deposed. His garrison was permitted to disband and retreat through the Khyber Pass to what is now Pakistan.

There were about 4,500 soldiers and 12,000 noncombatants, including the wives and children of British officers, according to Charles Allen, in his book "Soldier Sahibs: The Daring Adventurers Who Tamed India's Northwest Frontier" (Carroll & Graf).

All of them - save one Dr. Brydon left to tell the tale - were massacred along the route. It was, Mr. Allen wrote, "the greatest military disaster in the history of British India."

A second Anglo-Afghan war came three decades later and included another massacre. But that time, says Barnett Rubin, a leading American expert on the region, the British were able to achieve their political goals, including drawing a border to separate British India from Afghanistan and ensuring some security for the unruly northwest frontier, a province that newly independent Pakistan inherited in 1947 and has never been able to control.

A century later, the Russians came back - as the Soviet Union. When King Zahir Shah of Afghanistan was overthrown in 1973 by his cousin Mohammad Daud, the new government appeared willing at first to do Moscow's bidding.

Instead, said Mr. Rubin, who is the director of studies at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, the Daud government threw out the pro-Soviet faction and refused to take orders from Leonid I. Brezhnev, the Soviet leader.

"Brezhnev tried to tell him what to do, and Daud basically spit in his eye," Mr. Rubin said in an interview. Afghan Communists overthrew the Daud government in 1978, but the Kremlin was still not satisfied. In December 1979 the Soviet Army invaded.

A decade-long holy war followed, pitting Afghan Muslim warriors, the mujahedeen, against well-equipped Soviet troops, with the fiercely anti- Communist holy warriors sustained by lavish support from the United States and Saudi Arabia. Pakistan, dependent on both countries, had little choice but to become the base for that battle. It has never recovered.

The mujahedeen, when they were finally able to capture Kabul in 1992, three years after the Soviet withdrawal, proved to be as incompetent, corrupt and fractious as the worst of any earlier Afghan regime.

They were not - despite the claims of their leaders, now shrunk to a small armed opposition - supporters of women's rights, and they threatened and sometimes massacred people from minority groups.

In 1996 they were driven from Kabul by the Taliban. Many of the new movement's youthful leaders were born in the refugee camps spawned by earlier war or in small rural villages, knowing nothing of the world and motivated only by a primal orthodoxy learned in religious schools and a determination to take back Afghanistan for the Afghans. The United States has refused to deal with the Taliban except perfunctorily.

But American interest in aiding Afghanistan was strong under the last monarchy. Generous United States grants built airports, roads, schools and other public amenities and services.

In terms of development, that was probably modern Afghanistan's golden age. More recently, America's approach to the country has been characterized by neglect.

As the United States plans a battle strategy against Afghanistan, it can draw many lessons from the country's history, Mr. Rubin said. The Soviet Union bombed, mined and strafed the terrain with helicopter gunships, yet lost the war.

Sending troops into ragged, barren mountains where the opposition is at home would only move the disadvantages of Vietnam to a new and harsher setting, Mr. Rubin said.

"If they're talking about going in and trying to occupy Afghanistan, that's a pretty iffy proposition," he said. "There has to be an alternative Afghan force."

That means a painstaking job of rounding up the remnants of the opposition front - led by Ahmed Shah Massoud until his death on Saturday - along with whatever forces the Afghan royalists might recruit and, most important, Taliban defectors. King Zahir Shah, deposed more than a quarter-century ago, is still alive in exile, waiting in the wings.

--------

Taliban Threatens 'Holy War'

September 18, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Attacks-Afghanistan.html

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- The hard-line Taliban said God would protect it if the world tried to ``set fire'' to Afghanistan for sheltering terrorist suspect Osama bin Laden, and in comments broadcast Tuesday also called on all Muslims to wage holy war on America if it attacks.

Hundreds of Islamic clerics were gathering in the Afghan capital to discuss conditions for extraditing bin Laden to a country other than the United States, a Pakistan government official said. The clerics are expected to meet Wednesday, said Hamdullah Nomani, the mayor of Kabul and host of the gathering.

The conditions, including international recognition of the Taliban government and the lifting of U.N. sanctions, were discussed Monday in Kandahar, headquarters of the Islamic militia that rules most of Afghanistan, the Pakistani official said on condition of anonymity.

It seemed unlikely the United States would agree to have bin Laden extradited to another country. A delegation sent by Pakistan to try to convince the Taliban to hand over bin Laden went home Tuesday without reaching an agreement, and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf scheduled a televised address to his people on Wednesday evening.

Before leaving Kabul, the Pakistani delegation met with eight detained aid workers being tried on charges of illegally preaching Christianity, the official said. Pakistan asked the Taliban to release the aid workers -- two Americans, four Germans and two Australians -- and the rulers promised to consider the request, he said.

The Taliban, who say bin Laden was wrongly implicated in the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States, urged the people of Afghanistan to prepare for a jihad, or holy war, against America, the official Bakhtar News Agency reported Tuesday.

``If America attacks our homes, it is necessary for all Muslims, especially for Afghans, to wage a holy war,'' Mullah Mohammed Hasan Akhund, the deputy Taliban leader, said Monday, according to state-run Radio Shariat. ``God is on our side, and if the world's people try to set fire to Afghanistan, God will protect us and help us.''

Since taking control of most of Afghanistan in 1996, the Taliban have declared holy wars against the northern-based anti-Taliban alliance, Russia and Iran, but never the United States.

The Taliban government is only officially recognized by three countries: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The Taliban's foreign minister, Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, condemned the violence within hours of the attacks in New York and Washington but said it would have been impossible for bin Laden to carry out the assaults. Bin Laden lacks the facilities for such an elaborate operation, he said.

Since then, the Taliban's leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, who has declared himself head of all Muslims, has defended bin Laden and accused the United States of pointing the finger in his direction because its investigators have been unable to come up with a real suspect.

Many Pakistanis living along the 1,500-mile border with Afghanistan promised to join the jihad against America, and possibly their own government, if there are retaliatory strikes.

``America is putting a gun on Pakistan's shoulder to fire at Afghanistan. The Pakistani people cannot accept this,'' said Haji Abdul Razzaq, a mechanic in the western city of Peshawar, near the Afghan border.

On Tuesday, some 3,000 people in the Pakistani city of Karachi demonstrated near a mosque that runs a religious school many Taliban leaders attended, warning of more attacks. Many carried posters of bin Laden portrayed as a hero.

``Until now, only one World Trade Center has been destroyed,'' demonstrators shouted in unison in English. ``But we will destroy all of America. We will die for Taliban. We will die for Islam. We will die for Osama.''

Bin Laden and his alleged network of Islamic militants are the prime suspects in last week's airborne assaults on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The United States believes bin Laden has played a role in a number of devastating attacks, including the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in which 231 people were killed.

Bin Laden, who was stripped of Saudi citizenship and has been living in Afghanistan since 1996, is accused by Washington of running a global terrorist network from his bases inside the war-ruined Central Asian nation.

The Taliban, the hard-line Islamic militia that rules according to a strict interpretation of the Quran, have been placed under economic sanctions twice by the United Nations to press earlier U.S. demand to hand over bin Laden for trial.

The Taliban have consistently refused, calling bin Laden a ``guest'' and saying that to hand him over to non-Muslims would betray a tenet of Islam.

Jordan's King Abdullah recalled on Tuesday that U.S. intelligent services last year helped foil a bin Laden-planned attack on Jordan hotels during Millennium celebrations.

He said on ``Larry King Live'' program that as the weeks go on, the world will learn that ``some of the things that he was up to were quite horrific indeed.'' CNN released excerpts of the interview prior to broadcast Tuesday evening.

The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad said Tuesday that the U.S. government has authorized its nonessential embassy staff members and their families to evacuate Pakistan amid fears of possible violence and terrorist strikes against Americans. Several multinational companies also have evacuated their international staff.

However, the U.S. Embassy and its consulates in Pakistan, an Islamic nation of 140 million people, were to continue their normal operations.

Meanwhile, thousands of Afghans were fleeing the country amid fears of retaliatory strikes on Afghanistan because of bin Laden's presence.

``We are worried that hundreds of thousands of Afghans have left the cities and are headed for Pakistan,'' Riaz Mohammed Khan, a spokesman for Pakistan's Foreign Office, said. Tuesday.

Thousands more have been gathering on islands along a river that marks much of Afghanistan's border with Tajikistan, Russian border officials said Tuesday.

At the United Nations, a representative of the former Afghan government of Burhanuddin Rabbani, which was ousted by the Taliban, said that 15,000 fighters loyal to Rabbani were prepared to assist the United States in any operation against the Taliban.

But the representative, A.G. Ravan Farhadi, said in New York that the United States had not asked for any help from his group based in northern Afghanistan.

-------- business

Defense Contractors' Shares Rise

By Greg Schneider
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 18, 2001; Page E01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46774-2001Sep17?language=printer

The peace dividend seems to have come and gone, with many experts predicting yesterday that the defense industry can look forward to a sizable increase in government spending to support the nation's fight against terrorism.

"We are at the beginning of the sixth great military mobilization in American history," said Loren Thompson, a defense consultant with the conservative think tank Lexington Institute.

This year's defense budget stands at$296 billion, but "before it's over we'll be looking at a defense budget well in excess of $400 billion," Thompson said.

Investors clearly believed as much yesterday, swarming to defense stocks and sending them up on a day that the stock market generally took a big hit.

"We've gone through eight years of atrophying the infrastructure of our military," said Paul Nisbet, an industry analyst with JSA Research Inc. in Newport, R.I.

"This is waking up the whole thing, and that's why the defense stocks are doing so well. They didn't do this well in the Gulf War or Kosovo."

Some analysts cautioned that although there is enormous zeal to defend U.S. interests, it remains unclear whether traditional platforms such as fighter jets or battle tanks will be of much use against small, concealed groups of terrorists.

"The nature of warfare has changed. The old models of industrial surge capability aren't terribly relevant to the types of conflicts we have been fighting in recent years," said Jeff Bialos, a consultant who served asdeputy undersecretary of defense for industrial affairs during the Clinton administration.

The Pentagon might need more money for personnel and logistics than for gigantic new weapons systems in the coming conflict, Bialos said. But he added that with the wounds of last week's attacks still so fresh, there will be enormous momentum to fund the military across the board.

"The environment has just gotten harder for cutting any major weapons programs, even if they in fact deserve to be cut," Bialos said.

Industry executives weren't yet ready to predict funding is guaranteed for all their big weapons systems, such as the Joint Strike Fighter and the Crusader artillery piece. But several said yesterday that they are talking with military and political leaders about the potential for increasing production of certain systems, such as surveillance platforms and cruise missiles. None was willing to speak openly because of instructions from the Pentagon to keep quiet about preparations.

"We have been asked to begin to supply information in a number of areas -- reports, data, information on how fast we could ramp up . . . mostly in surveillance, reconnaissance, intelligence, precision strike, situation awareness and so on," said an executive at one defense contractor. "Obviously we're starting to look at those areas right now."

Byron Callan, a financial analyst with Merrill Lynch in New York, said, "I've heard from a couple of companies that they've definitely been asked to be prepared to accelerate spare parts shipments, munitions, those types of things."

One general officer confirmed that senior Pentagon officials are busy taking stock of weapons inventories and considering what they may need to order on an expedited basis.

Experts said the military particularly needs to quickly build up its stock of air-launched cruise missiles, built by Boeing Co., and Tomahawk missiles produced by Raytheon Co.

Spokesmen for those companies would not discuss whether they are preparing to increase production efforts. "We stand ready to meet any urgent customer requirements . . . when they're made known to us," Raytheon spokesman Dave Shea said.

The nation's biggest military contractor -- Bethesda's Lockheed Martin Corp., maker of the F-16 and F-22 fighter planes, Aegis naval warfare systems and the THAAD missile defense system -- said it is too early to know just what President Bush will need to fight this new kind of war.

"[Our] lines of business are broad, and we will be able to meet any change in defense requirements that occur. However, investors should expect no windfall as the result of last week," Lockheed Martin spokesman James Fetig said.

There was no holding back defense investors yesterday, though. Lockheed Martin stock jumped $5.63 to close at $43.95; Raytheon gained $6.65 to close at $31.50; Northrop Grumman Corp., which is the dominant maker of pilotless spy planes, rose $12.86, to $94.80; and tank- and shipmaker General Dynamics Corp. gained $6.93 to close at $82.90.

Among the giant contractors,Boeing lost ground, falling $7.66 to close at $35.80, amid fears that its commercial aircraft business will slump along with that of the major airlines.

Certain small companies shone because they offer types of technology that could play key roles in the grim fight against terrorism.

Shares of BioReliance Corp., a Rockville biological testing and manufacturing company, rose 70 cents to close at $13. Last year, the company won two major contracts to manufacture large quantities of a smallpox vaccine for the Defense Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Smallpox is a deadly infectious disease that could be used as a weapon of bioterrorism.

Meridian Medical Technologies Inc.'s stock rose $2 to close at $14. The Columbia company has contracts with government agencies to manufacture and sell drug injection devices called auto-injectors that can administer quick antidotes to victims of nerve gas attacks.

Staff writers Terence Chea and Vernon Loeb contributed to this report.

-------- iraq

British Warplanes Hit Iraqi Site

September 18, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Strike.html?searchpv=aponline

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) -- British Tornado warplanes bombed a southern Iraqi anti-aircraft missile site Tuesday, retaliating for ``hostile activities'' by Iraq against planes patrolling a no-fly zone, a U.S. Air Force officer said.

The attack targeted a position near Basra, 350 miles south of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, said Maj. Brett Morris, spokesman for the Saudi-based Joint Task Force South West Asia.

``The strikes were in response to Iraq's hostile activities in the past, part of which we also experienced today,'' said Morris without elaborating.

There was no immediate report on damage.

An unidentified Iraqi military spokesman confirmed the Basra attack, telling the official Iraqi News Agency that ``our courageous ground resistance'' returned fire on the planes, forcing them to turn back ``in shame.''

The agency reported no casualties.

In recent months, Iraq has improved its ability to fire missiles at U.S. and British aircraft patrolling a no-fly zone in southern Iraq.

No-fly zones in southern and northern Iraq were established after the 1991 Gulf War to protect Shiite Muslims and Kurdish minorities.

Last week, Iraq said it downed a second unmanned U.S. spy plane. U.S. authorities confirmed the drone's disappearance, but were still investigating its fate.

--------

Hijack Suspect Met Iraqi Intelligence, Sources Say

September 18, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-attack-atta.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Mohamed Atta, suspected of hijacking the first plane that struck the World Trade Center last week, had met earlier this year with an Iraqi intelligence official in Europe, U.S. sources said on Tuesday.

Atta, a 33-year-old Egyptian, had studied at an engineering school in Hamburg, Germany, and took flying lessons in Florida. He was on board the first plane that demolished the Twin Towers in New York on Sept. 11.

Recent intelligence information received by the United States showed Atta had met with a representative of Iraqi intelligence this year, sources told Reuters.

The sources said the meeting took place in Europe but did not divulge the exact location, nor who the Iraqi intelligence official was, other than it was not the head of the intelligence services.

It was unclear what Atta and the Iraqi official discussed at the meeting and whether there was any connection to the attacks on New York and the Pentagon near Washington.

``We don't know that it is (connected), there's no evidence that it was, it's something that needs to be looked into further,'' one U.S. government source said.

Some intelligence experts, including former CIA Director James Woolsey, have suggested the United States look more deeply into whether there was Iraqi involvement in the attack.

But one U.S. official said there was no clear evidence any country backed the plot and attack which left the World Trade Center in rubble and the Pentagon damaged, with nearly 6,000 people dead or missing, and prompted President Bush to declare a war on terrorism.

``There's lots of little bits and threads and hints and nuggets out there, however is there some compelling evidence of state sponsorship? Not at this time. Are we looking at that? Sure among a thousand different things,'' said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Iraqi intelligence structure is complex with various branches in which President Saddam Hussein's sons, relatives, and clan members are involved, said Anthony Cordesman, a senior fellow at The Center for Strategic and International Studies.

LOOSE NETWORK

Atta was part of a loose network of militants so it would not be unusual for him to have met with an Iraqi intelligence representative, said Cordesman, a Middle East expert who formerly worked at the U.S. State and Defense Departments.

``The fact that in this sort of loose coalition there is a constant exchange does not in any sense mean that there was common planning,'' Cordesman said.

``It doesn't rule it out, but one indicator and one meeting almost falls in the noise level of how these groups operate. It is not evidence of a conspiracy,'' he said.

Cordesman also cautioned that some in Washington were trying to emphasize potential Iraqi involvement to further their own agendas for lashing out at Saddam's government.

``The set of hidden agendas in Washington is such, so that it makes speculation particularly dangerous,'' he said. Some might try to use the Atta-Iraqi connection ``as a way of broadening what we're doing (in response to the attack), to include Saddam Hussein,'' Cordesman said.

Woolsey has said the high degree of coordination involved in the attacks suggested another country may have backed it.

``There is a reasonable chance and indeed there are ways to find out whether Iraqi intelligence was involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing,'' Woolsey said.

``And if they were involved in '93 that would certainly suggest that we ought to examine the possibility that they were involved Sept. 11,'' he told Reuters.

If somehow it were proved that Iraqi intelligence was involved in the attack, that would mean the government had backed it, Woolsey said. ``Iraqi intelligence is not a rogue element. If Iraqi intelligence was involved, the government of Iraq was involved,'' he said.

Vice President Dick Cheney was asked bluntly on NBC's ``Meet the Press'' on Sunday whether there was any evidence that Iraq was linked to the attacks. Cheney responded: ``No.''

-------- israel

Israel Says It Won't 'Pay Price' of Coalition
Sharon Refuses to Relent on Palestinians to Help U.S. Build Support Among Arabs

By Lee Hockstader and Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, September 18, 2001; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46620-2001Sep17?language=printer

JERUSALEM, Sept. 17 -- As it ushered Arab countries into a multinational coalition against Iraq a decade ago, the first Bush administration persuaded Israel to stay in the background, even to hold its fire when Iraq launched Scud missiles at Tel Aviv.

Israel's current prime minister, Ariel Sharon, has made it clear that times have changed. In a series of pugnacious pronouncements since the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, he has insisted Israel will not sit quietly as the current Bush administration seeks to build a coalition of Arab and Islamic states against terrorism.

"It is inconceivable to grant [Yasser Arafat] legitimacy because someone thinks that might facilitate the inclusion of Arab countries in this coalition," Sharon told the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Aharonoth, referring to the Palestinian leader. "We will not pay the price for the establishment of this coalition."

As it rages on, with both sides seeking to squeeze advantage from the crisis, the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis may for several reasons impair Washington's ability to assemble an anti-terrorism alliance in the Middle East and beyond.

One difficulty is the U.S. backing for and identification with Israel. The unswerving U.S. stand has long been condemned in the Arab world as unfair, anti-Arab and anti-Islamic. Public opinion in the Arab and Muslim world has been further influenced by months of televised images of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which continue to air on Arab-language satellite television.

That has been compounded by the Bush administration's reluctance to become actively involved in efforts to quell the violence that has shaken the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Israel for a year. Several of the friendly Arab governments to which Bush is now turning -- Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt -- have been pleading for months for more involvement by Washington.

Foreign Minister Abdul-Illah Khatib of Jordan, for instance, said it will be difficult for the Bush administration to line up Arab support without a commitment to solving the Israeli-Palestinian dispute once and for all. "People will need to be convinced that Israel is not taking advantage" of the situation to demonize the Palestinian cause by comparing it to terrorism, Khatib said.

President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt said today that the Israeli-Palestinian standoff "may be one of the elements which encouraged" the terrorist attacks. He said President Bush suggested to him in a telephone conversation that the United States will be "very active" in trying to arrange a cease-fire. "But what I'm seeing now is the Israeli government is seizing the opportunity and launching attacks now and then," Mubarak said on "Larry King Live." He added: "This will have terrible repercussions after that."

The United States, hoping to extinguish a fire that threatens the anti-terrorism effort, has urged Sharon and Arafat to make every effort to reach a cease-fire. But the two leaders have vastly different agendas, and both have balked at fully satisfying U.S. requests to cool things off.

"For all sides, everything has changed," said a high-ranking Western source. "The Palestinians simply have to decide which side they're going to be on -- are they going to tolerate the kind of support for terrorism that has characterized the last year? And on the Israeli side, are they going to make it easy for the Palestinians? Or are they going to insist that pressure be kept up to such a level that [Arafat] can't climb down the tree even if he wants to?"

Since the terrorist attacks in Washington and New York, fighting has escalated here. Israel launched a fresh offensive, punching into Palestinian-controlled territory and towns and establishing a new military zone in the West Bank from which most Palestinians are excluded.

Sharon is eager to lump the Palestinians in with terrorists, discredit Arafat and justify the assaults in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that have killed at least 18 Palestinians in the past week. A real war on world terrorism, Sharon has said, must include a war on Arafat.

In that spirit, Sharon refused last week to allow his foreign minister, Shimon Peres, to meet with Arafat to negotiate a cease-fire, despite a direct request from Bush in a phone call to Sharon on Friday. Sharon raised the bar over the weekend, demanding that any cease-fire talks be preceded by 48 hours of complete quiet -- in effect, a pre-cease-fire cease-fire.

"If there was already a cease-fire you wouldn't need talks to discuss a cease-fire," said an annoyed Western diplomat.

For Israeli hard-liners, the decision to hold back during the Persian Gulf War in 1991 is a bitter memory. Many, including Sharon, believe that leaving the war to the United States made Israel appear weak. Afterward, the United States pushed a reluctant Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir into peace talks.

"Sharon doesn't want to open the door to a repeat situation where Israel will be a passive actor in a coalition," said Gerald Steinberg, head of the program on conflict management and negotiation at Israel's Bar Ilan University. "The Americans don't understand the depth of Israeli views on this."

Israelis, who have suffered dozens of casualties from terrorist attacks, were convinced from the first day that they should be charter members of any anti-terrorism coalition. They bristled at suggestions they should help cool the conflict with the Palestinians to help Washington enlist Arab and Islamic allies.

"Terrorist actions against Israeli citizens are no different from bin Laden's terrorism against American citizens," Sharon told the Knesset, Israel's parliament, today. "Terrorism is terrorism, and murder is murder."

Arafat, meanwhile, has drawn his own lessons from the Gulf War, when he took the side of Iraq, the loser, and risked pariah status. He seems determined not to repeat that choice. After months of tolerating or encouraging terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians, he is eager to show cooperation with the United States and demonstrate that Sharon is the one responsible for unbridled violence.

Although Bush has not phoned Arafat, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has urged Arafat several times to defuse the clashes and resume talks with Sharon's government. According to his close associates, fear is Arafat's prime motivation in wanting to cooperate. If Washington identifies him with the terrorist camp, it may embolden Sharon to launch an offensive to crush the Palestinian Authority. For that reason, Palestinian officials said, Arafat has dropped all preconditions for cease-fire talks with Peres, insisting he is ready to meet "anywhere, anytime."

"We can make it through this with the United States. We can't make it if left alone with Sharon," said Ahmed Abdul Rahman, Arafat's cabinet secretary. "We are wise enough not to make war with America."

Shortly after news of last Tuesday's attacks reached Gaza, Arafat called an urgent meeting of top political and military advisers to lay out a course of action. He grimly informed the half-dozen officials and the head of his combined security forces that he would immediately announce a pro-American position, said an official who was present.

Because Arafat recognized that many Palestinians who are aggrieved by U.S. support for Israel would show little sympathy for the United States, he ordered police and political parties to suppress anti-American demonstrations. Most dramatically, he warned leaders of militant Islamic groups to launch no terror attacks in Israel. If they did, he pledged to fight the groups ruthlessly, no matter how great the risk of internal Palestinian violence.

"Arafat's position is desperate," said Marwan Kanafani, an adviser to and spokesman for the Palestinian leader. "He is on a tightrope. His problem is how to avoid to being a victim of all this."

However, acceding to U.S. demands for quiet has its limits, Kanafani said. Arafat will not tell Palestinians to stand by and not fight in case of continued Israeli invasions of its territory. "We are still victims," Kanafani said.

Arafat believes he also has something to contribute to U.S. diplomacy: a Palestinian stamp of approval for the anti-terrorism coalition. If even the Palestinians, who are distressed by U.S. political, financial and military support of Israel, are willing to sign on, Arab leaders will find it easier to do so.

Williams reported from the Gaza Strip. Correspondent Howard Schneider in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.

-------- pakistan

Pro-Taliban groups protest Pakistan pledge

September 18, 2001
By Ben Barber
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-2001918214839.htm

Pro-Taliban Islamic groups in Pakistan called yesterday for mass demonstrations and strikes to protest the pledge by their president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, to help the United States arrest Osama bin Laden.

Illustrating the political risks for Gen. Musharraf in cooperating with Washington, the demonstrators burned U.S. flags, shouted their support for bin Laden and warned the government they would take up arms for the Taliban.

Pakistan's major political parties, gathered under the umbrella of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, endorsed the government's decision to grant "full cooperation" with the U.S. anti-terrorist campaign and plan to capture bin Laden.

But the major Islamic political party, Jamaat-i-Islami, and other Islamic groups rejected such cooperation amid reports that dozens of American agents had arrived in Pakistan.

"The American attacks are a conspiracy, and we should not fall into this trap," Qazi Hussain Ahmed, leader of Jamaat-i-Islami, told a gathering of the heads of all key pro-Taliban groups.

Western and Pakistani sources told Agence France-Presse yesterday that the United States had deployed up to 50 agents, including some from the Special Forces, in Pakistan.

The Americans are involved in advance liaison work and the selection of Pakistani officers who will work with them in any military operations in or against Afghanistan, AFP reported.

The Islamic leaders rejected a request by Gen. Musharraf on Sunday to support his policy of opposing terrorism and joining U.S. efforts to break up the al Qaeda terrorist network headed by bin Laden, who is in Afghanistan under the protection of its Taliban rulers.

Gen. Hamid Gul, former head of the army's intelligence unit, which is held largely responsible for the rise of the Taliban, predicted "Pakistan would be completely destabilized" after any U.S. attack on Afghanistan.

"The Pakistani people would never accept an American presence on their soil. They would revolt," he told the French newspaper Figaro. "The government would have to rely on the army to control the insurrection."

Fazlur Rehman, chief of Jamaat-i-ulema-i-Islam, told Gen. Musharraf at a Sunday meeting, "We will fight against the USA," an aide told United Press International. "The army will be against you. We shall go to the mountains and come back at night to launch hit-and-run attacks."

The split between the military government and the Islamist supporters of the Taliban threatens to tear apart Pakistan, a nation of 140 million people that in 1998 conducted its first nuclear weapons tests.

Pakistan also is developing medium-range missiles to deliver nuclear weapons. The United States has imposed sanctions on Pakistan as well as Chinese firms accused of supplying missile parts and technology.

Pakistan was the first of three countries to recognize the Taliban when it crushed rival warlord militias in 1996 and took power.

The Taliban's radical form of Islam was spawned in Pakistani religious schools and proved popular among many Pakistanis.

Foreign Minister Abdus Sattar said in an interview last week that Pakistan has been trying to confront its own Islamic extremists who have increasingly intimidated journalists, politicians and even the military.

"Our founding father dreamed of founding Pakistan as a modern moderate Islamic country based on democracy," he said.

There is widespread support in Pakistan for a guerrilla war to drive India out of Kashmir, and many of the Islamist groups fighting there are trained in Afghanistan - some by bin Laden's followers.

About 12 percent of Pakistan's 140 million people speak Pashtu, the same language as the Taliban and its followers. They are clustered along the border with Pakistan, where they share cultural and kinship ties with the Afghan Pashtus.

Many of the Pashtus in Pakistan have fallen under the spell of Islamic militants since U.S. and Saudi-armed Afghan guerrillas drove the Soviet army out of Afghanistan in 1990.

Even the military government of Gen. Musharraf has been afraid to confront the radical Islamic forces that have spread from the northeast throughout the country in recent years.

About 1 million Pakistani children are attending Islamic schools called madrassas, where they often are taught to hate the West and to prepare to fight a holy war, or jihad, in Afghanistan, Kashmir, Chechnya or elsewhere.

The leaders of the Taliban have been educated mainly in the Pakistani madrassas, and their influence over the mostly illiterate and impoverished Pakistanis continues to grow.

When Gen. Musharraf tried to water down a blasphemy law to require more proof of a crime before prosecution, he was forced to back off by widespread Islamic opposition.

In parts of the mainly Pashtu northwest, local officials have been forced, sometimes by mobs, to close video shops and to impose Islamic dress codes.

Newspaper offices also have been attacked. Pakistani politician and former cricket star Imram Khan has said that fear is spreading throughout the country.

Some 100,000 militants of Islamic parties and groups opposing Indian troops in Kashmir have been trained in Afghanistan and armed, said Mr. Khan and others.

Pakistan has a powerful and well-trained army that is expected to be capable of controlling any unrest, said analyst Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institution.

But it too has been influenced by Islamist teachings in recent years. The influence spreads even into its officer corps, which once was mainly British- and U.S.-trained.

-------- u.n.

U.N. Won't Hold World Meeting

By Colum Lynch
The Washington Post
Tuesday, September 18, 2001; Page A20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A47167-2001Sep17?language=printer

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 17 -- The United Nations will postpone its annual meeting of world leaders in New York next week because of concerns that the gathering would strain the resources of local and federal security agencies coping with the aftermath of the World Trade Center attack, according to U.N. diplomats.

President Bush was to deliver his maiden address to the United Nations at next Monday's opening of the General Assembly's general debate. But senior Bush administration officials told the United Nations that the city's law enforcement agencies may not have the capacity to accommodate the dignitaries from more than 150 countries who are expected to attend.

"We've explained the reality of the capabilities that this city and the government can bear in terms of security, which are very, very limited under this circumstance," said James B. Cunningham, the acting U.S. representative at the United Nations.

The world body's five key regional groups agreed today to postpone the event; they will meet on Tuesday to pick a new date, most likely in October or November. The 189-member General Assembly has scheduled a Wednesday meeting to announce the postponement.

The General Assembly decided last week to postpone a global summit on children's rights scheduled for Wednesday through Friday that was expected to draw about 75 heads of state into midtown Manhattan. "Neither the governments nor the U.N. secretariat want to put any additional pressure on the New York City authorities during this time of crisis," U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said.

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UN Council Tells Afghanistan to Hand Over Bin Laden

September 18, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-attack-un-laden.html

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Security Council members told Afghanistan's Taliban rulers on Tuesday to surrender Saudi-born millionaire Osama bin Laden ``immediately and unconditionally'' as called for in council resolutions.

``There is one and only one message the Security Council has for the Taliban: Implement United Nations Security Council resolutions, in particular Resolution 1333, immediately and unconditionally,'' French Ambassador Jean-David Levitte, this month's council president, said.

That resolution, adopted Dec. 19, imposed a second round of sanctions on the Taliban, including an arms embargo, in an unsuccessful effort to have them surrender bin Laden, under indictment in the United States for allegedly plotting the August 1998 bombings of two U.S. Embassies in East Africa.

Washington now suspects bin Laden, living in Afghanistan as a ``guest'' of the Taliban, of heading a network of militants responsible for the Sept. 11 carnage in the United States.

The attacks by hijacked airliners pulverized the World Trade Center and demolished part of the Pentagon, left nearly 6,000 dead or missing and engendered a sense of insecurity unparalleled since the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.

The council's statement came after a briefing from Kieran Prendergast, the U.N. undersecretary-general for political affairs, which included the ``dire consequences of Taliban rule for the Afghan people,'' Levitte said.

In contrast, U.N. humanitarian and refugee officials are worried about any attack on Afghanistan, whose impoverished population is suffering from two decades of civil war and the worst drought in 30 years.

The 15-member Security Council, most of whose decisions are mandatory, reacted immediately last Wednesday with a resolution that condemned the attacks and called on the world to help find the perpetrators and those who sheltered them.

CHIRAC DUE AT UNITED NATIONS

Levitte, diplomats said, wanted a follow-up resolution for a global ``anti-terrorism campaign'' but then decided to delay it for a few weeks so concrete measures could be worked out.

French President Jacques Chirac, now in Washington for talks with President Bush, is meeting U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in New York on Wednesday.

``President Chirac, beyond his meeting with President Bush, wanted to have quiet talk with Kofi Annan,'' Levitte said.

``He also wants to meet the press in the U.N. building to show that, confronted with scourge of terrorism, the world has to act in unanimous way and the United Nations is the body where we can build a unanimous response,'' Levitte said.

Chirac had been scheduled to chair a Security Council meeting on children in war zones but a World Summit on Children for this week was canceled after the attacks.

-------- u.s.

Bush seeks bin Laden dead or alive

September 18, 2001
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010918-38784010.htm

President Bush yesterday went to the Pentagon to get a closer look at developing anti-terrorist plans, as military sources said a war strategy is emerging to bomb Afghanistan to force Osama bin Laden out into the open and into U.S. hands.

Flanked by Donald H. Rumsfeld, his hawkish defense secretary, and other top military advisers, the president was asked how he wants bin Laden captured for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Mr. Bush replied, "I want justice. And there's an old poster out West, as I recall, that said, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.'"

The military sources, who are familiar with military options being discussed by Mr. Bush's national security team, said the ruling Taliban government in Afghanistan could defuse the plan by turning over bin Laden -- who is widely suspected of masterminding last week's terrorist attacks. Bin Laden is a welcomed guest of the radical Islamic Taliban rulers. The Saudi-exile millionaire uses the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan as home for a network of underground bunkers and training camps from which to mount terrorist assaults.

Mr. Bush's strategy of getting bin Laden to move, and thus possibly tip off his location, was revealed in the past few days in comments made by the president himself and his national security team.

"They like to hit and then they like to hide out," Mr. Bush said of his terrorist foes. "But we're going to smoke 'em out."

At Camp David on Saturday, the president said, "They find holes to get in. And we will do whatever it takes to smoke them out and get them running and we'll get them."

Vice President Richard B. Cheney, who as secretary of defense under Mr. Bush's father directed U.S. troops in the 1991 Persian Gulf war, said Sunday that countries such as Afghanistan who harbor terrorists face "the full wrath of the United States."

The administration's new terrorism policy says it will deal just as harshly with terrorist-protecting states as with the perpetrators themselves.

The administration is in the early stages of putting together a long-term anti-terrorist campaign.

But one early objective, military sources said, is to capture the biggest prize in the new war -- bin Laden.

Officials said that if a bombing campaign begins, it would be a sustained, punishing attack aimed at terrorists' training camps, bin Laden's known hideouts and Taliban military facilities.

The attack would be carried out by two Navy battle groups in the region, led by the carriers USS Carl Vinson and USS Enterprise. The Air Force would supply long-range B-2 stealth bombers, which would be prepositioned at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

The B-2 is armed with Joint Direct Attack Munitions.

The bombers can drop the satellite-guided bombs from 40,000 feet without anyone on the ground hearing the approaching jets.

The United States is known to have attacked bin Laden and his organization in 1998.

Scores of Navy Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired after U.S. intelligence agencies learned of a meeting of bin Laden operatives, which perhaps included the dissident leader himself.

The attack killed some followers, but not bin Laden.

The Clinton administration ordered no other follow-up attacks against the elusive terrorist, who had become the prime suspect in the bombings of two American embassies in Africa.

Afghanistan lies in a region for which U.S. Central Command, based at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., oversees U.S. military operations. The commander is Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, a wounded Vietnam War veteran who also fought in the 1991 Persian Gulf war.

"[Gen. Franks] is always fully engaged with the Pentagon leadership regarding his AOR [area of responsibility]," a spokesman said yesterday.

Central Command maintains a list of possible military and anti-terrorist targets in Afghanistan. Planners, along with Pentagon officials, have been updating the list since Sept. 11, when suicide terrorists steered hijacked commercial airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Retired Air Force Gen. Charles Horner, who commanded coalition air forces during the Gulf war, said the problem with bombing Afghanistan is that it possesses few high-value targets such as the ones found in Iraq or Yugoslavia during air attacks on those countries.

"There's nothing in Afghanistan worth bombing hardly, and of course the Afghan people have suffered so much," Gen. Horner said. "It's essentially still a mujahideen military."

But he agreed that one benefit of bombing could be to force bin Laden to move and thus expose himself to eyewitnesses or an intercept of his communications.

"The key to dropping bombs on bin Laden is having someone on the ground observing," he said.

In addition to terrorist-support sites, the Taliban's loose-knit military force does present some targets of value.

It owns 20 to 30 surface-to-surface missiles, Russian-made air-defense missiles and fewer than 100 MiG fighter jets, according to London's International Institute for Strategic Studies.

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Wartime presidential powers supersede liberties

September 18, 2001
By Frank J. Murray
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010918-1136.htm

The government arsenal to counterattack U.S.-based terrorists behind last week's "act of war" already includes wartime powers and other Draconian tactics that unsettle civil libertarians.

In "cases of rebellion or invasion [when] the public safety may require it," the Constitution permits a president to suspend the right to be freed from arrest by a writ of habeas corpus -- as Lincoln did during the Civil War. That denies a person jailed even by illegal means recourse in the courts.

On Lincoln's orders, outspoken civilians from secessionist states were jailed at Fort McHenry without formal charges, as were Baltimore's mayor, police chief and police commissioner, 31 members of the Maryland legislature and newspaper reporters, members of Congress and judges.

Simply by proclaiming a national emergency on Friday, President Bush activated some 500 dormant legal provisions, including those allowing him to impose censorship and martial law.

In 1944, the Supreme Court upheld the Roosevelt administration's use of Executive Order 9066 to place curfews on Japanese-Americans and later intern thousands of them. That legal precedent -- affirming the conviction of Toyosaburo Korematsu, a U.S. citizen of Japanese descent who refused the federal government's order to leave his home in San Leandro, Calif. -- still is law and would sanction military controls over a population perceived as dangerous.

"Congress, reposing its confidence in this time of war in our military leaders -- as inevitably it must -- determined that they should have the power to do just this," the justices said.

When the Korean conflict broke out in 1952, however, the high court drew the line on allowing President Truman to use an executive order to seize steel mills absent a declaration of war for a conflict far away.

The FBI said yesterday it has detained 49 persons so far.

Six are reportedly being held as "material witnesses" under sealed warrants, with more sought under a process requiring a judge's sanction for persons otherwise unlikely to be available to testify.

The rest were detained on charges related to immigration status, allowing them to be held for months without formal criminal charges being filed.

"We're going to find those evildoers, those barbaric people who attacked our country and we're going to hold the people who house them accountable, the people who think they can provide them safe havens will be held accountable, the people who feed them will be held accountable," Mr. Bush said at the Pentagon yesterday.

Since last Tuesday's horrific attacks with four hijacked airliners took an estimated 6,000 lives at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Senate has passed legislation to let law-enforcement personnel obtain private e-mails without a court order, to allow U.S. attorneys to approve wiretaps in terrorism cases, and to lift the longtime ban on CIA spying within the United States.

"Maybe what the terrorists have done made us feel a little bit less safe. Maybe they have increased Big Brother in this country," said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat, who argues against hurried steps to wiretap computers and telephones, as the Bush administration has requested, along with a doubling of the five-year sentence for those who harbor terrorists.

"It is not so difficult to imagine government investigators, engaged in good-faith efforts to protect our safety, beginning to ask, 'Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of a pro-Palestinian organization?'" said Tobias B. Wolff, a professor of constitutional law at the University of California at Davis, drawing comparisons to McCarthyism.

House Judiciary Committee member Bob Barr, Georgia Republican and a former federal prosecutor, did not share that view.

"I'll let the Lord worry about justice for them. We ought to take them out, and take them out as quickly as possible. I'm not worried about Miranda warnings for them," Mr. Barr said.

"I don't believe the government should, and I don't believe they would indiscriminately wiretap phones or read e-mails, but they should be allowed to do so when they can document some reasonable suspicion about terroristic activity," said Yarol Brook, director of the Ayn Rand Institute at Marina del Rey, Calif.

Gregory Nojeim, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union's national office in Washington, said leaders had insisted the terrorism "not be used to diminish liberty."

"At its very first opportunity, the Senate passed legislation that threatens privacy rights," Mr. Nojeim said.

The White House rejected questions about any "concern that people's civil liberties are being violated."

"Law enforcement agencies are going to act on legitimate law-enforcement considerations, and they will do so in accordance with all of our laws," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.

The Immigration and Naturalization Act allows a president to deny entry to "any class" of immigrants whose admission "would be detrimental to the interests of the United States."

E. Joshua Rosenkranz, president of the liberal Brennan Center of Justice, doubts federal judges will be anxious to block aggressive action in the wake of an assault likened to the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.

"No judge wants to be responsible for another act of terrorism," Mr. Rosenkranz said.

Even if a majority of the Supreme Court found government actions unconstitutional -- as Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney did in a 1861 ruling against Lincoln that Congress negated -- little can be done to stop a president when national security is in jeopardy.

"I have exercised all the power which the Constitution and laws confer upon me, but that power has been resisted by a force too strong for me to overcome," Chief Justice Taney said. He dispatched his ruling under seal to Lincoln at the White House "to determine what measures he will take to cause the civil process of the United States to be respected and enforced."

Lincoln defied the court and the suspension of habeas corpus was revoked by President Andrew Johnson on Dec. 1, 1865, months after the war ended.

----------

Bush: Mobilization a 'symbol of this nation's resolve'

September 18, 2001
U.S. Newswire
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010918-82067.htm

The following is a transcript of President Bush's remarks to employees at the Pentagon:

First, let me start off by saying to members of the Pentagon press -- the secretary [of defense] told me about how you conducted your business on that fateful day. I want to congratulate you and thank you.

Many of your members of the Pentagon press went out to help in the evacuation, and the aid of the people who work here in the Pentagon, and the country appreciates that very much. Thank you. Pass the word onto your colleagues, as well.

Today, we're talking about the mobilization of Reserve and Guard troops. Such a mobilization is a strong symbol of this nation's resolve.

I fully understand that a mobilization affects the lives of thousands of Americans. I mean, after all, we're talking about somebody's mom or somebody's dad, somebody's employee, somebody's friend or somebody's neighbor. But the world will see that the strength of this nation is found in the character and dedication and courage of everyday citizens.

We are in the process of calling up as many as 35,000 such troops. They will serve in a number of essential roles. They will help maintain our air defenses so they can stay on high alert. They will check shipping in ports. They will help our military with airlift and logistics. They will provide military police. They will participate in engineering projects. They will help gather intelligence. And they will perform work as chaplains.

I know this means a lot of sacrifice for those who will be called up, and their families. But you understand -- the troops who will be called up understand better than most that freedom has a cost, and that we're willing to bear that cost. An act of war has been committed on this country, and the dedication of our Guardsmen and Reservists will serve not only as a strong symbol to all that we're prepared to take the necessary actions, but will be a part of helping define the spirit and courage of America. And I'm grateful.

I want to thank the employers who understand that there is more to corporate life than just profit and loss, that the employee who is getting ready to serve the country is an essential part of winning the -- of defeating terrorism, evil-doers so emboldened that they feel like they could attack the great bastion of freedom.

Before I answer a few questions, I also want to wish the American Jewish community and Jews around the world a healthy and happy new year. As the high holy days begin, I know you'll find strength and determination during this time of reflection.

I'll be glad to answer a few questions.

Question: Mr. President, does the cost of freedom today in this war we're about to wage include the loss of civilian and military casualties? And can you keep us out of a depression-recession, during this crisis?

Mr. Bush: The only thing I can do is to reflect upon the spirit of the U.S. military, and the U.S. military is ready to defend freedom at any cost. The men and women who wear our uniforms, both active duty and reservists, and National Guard people, are ready to respond to the call of the commander-in-chief and the secretary of defense.

In terms of our economy, I've got great faith in the economy. I understand it's tough right now. Transportation business is hurting. Obviously, the market was correcting prior to this crisis. But the underpinnings for economic growth are there. We're the greatest entrepreneurial society in the world. We've got the best farmers and ranchers. We've got a strong manufacturing base.

Thirdly, we've got a tax cut that's still working its way through the economy, as well as a reconstruction plan for New York and the area.

Question: Mr. President, is it the case, based on what you've said now, that war is inevitable? And can you tell me [and] the American people what that war is going to look like?

Mr. Bush: I believe -- I know -- that an act of war was declared against America. But this will be a different type of war than we're used to. This is -- in the past there have been beaches to storm and islands to conquer. We've been able to watch on our television screens sophisticated weaponry find a building; and we've seen dramatic reports from the front where Pulitzer Prize-to-be winning reporters stood up and declared, "the United States is attacked," and all that.

There may be some of that, who knows? But I know that this is a different type of enemy than we're used to.

It's an enemy that likes to hide and burrow in, and their network is extensive. There are no rules. It's barbaric behavior. They slit throats of women on airplanes in order to achieve an objective that is beyond comprehension. And they like to hit, and then they like to hide out.

But we're going to smoke them out. And we're adjusting our thinking to the new type of enemy. These are terrorists who have no borders. And, by the way, it's important for the world to understand that we know in America that more than just Americans suffered loss of life in the World Trade Center.

People from all kinds of nationalities lost -- that's why the world is rallying to our call to defeat terrorism.

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Rumsfeld: Bin Laden is just one step

USA TODAY
09/18/2001
The Associated Press
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2001/09/18/terrorist-attacks.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday the administration is moving carefully to launch a sustained offensive against not only the terrorists responsible for last week's attacks but also the countries that support them. "This is a very new type of conflict, or battle or campaign or war or effort, for the United States," Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news conference. "As a result, we are moving in a measured manner as we gather information." He said the U.S. response would be aimed at more than just alleged terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network known as al-Qaida.

"We're talking about a very broadly based campaign to go after the terrorist problem where it exists, and it exists in countries across the globe. As I've indicated, this one network, al-Qaida, that's receiving so much discussion and publicity may have activities in 50 to 60 countries, including the United States."

Rumsfeld stressed that once the battle begins, it will be long and difficult.

"It will not be quick and it will not be easy," he said. "Our adversaries are not one or two terrorist leaders, even a single terrorist organization or network. It's a broad network of individuals and organizations that are determined to terrorize, and in so doing to deny us the very essence of what we are - free people."

He made clear that countries that harbor terrorists or support them less directly are vulnerable to U.S. attack.

"The terrorists do not function in a vacuum," he said. "They don't live in Antarctica. They work, they train and they plan in countries. They're benefiting from the support of governments. They're benefiting from the support of nongovernmental organizations that are either actively supporting them with money, intelligence and weapons, or allowing them to function on their territory and tolerating, if not encouraging, their activities. In either case, it has to stop."

Meanwhile, the head of the Army Reserve said numerous U.S. military base commanders are asking the Pentagon for help in strengthening base security and building defensive structures like barriers and fences.

Lt. Gen. Thomas Plewes said in an interview that he expects to assign as many as 150 reservists to assist the Army Corps of Engineers in construction projects at bases. He did not say which bases had requested such help, but he indicated it was widespread in response to last week's terrorist attacks.

Plewes said no members of the Army Reserve had yet been called to active duty under the partial mobilization of reservists authorized by President Bush last week. However, some have been put on two-week duty orders to help with search and recovery operations at the Pentagon, where an estimated 188 people were killed when a hijacked American Airlines jet slammed into the building last Tuesday.

"We're still sorting through the missions we're going to do," Plewes said in his Pentagon office.

Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman, said no military reservists have been called to active duty yet, although dozens of reserve units have been alerted to be prepared for an activation order.

Also, Pentagon officials said a Norfolk, Va.-based aircraft carrier, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, was preparing to begin a long-scheduled deployment to the Mediterranean. The Navy already has one extra carrier at sea - the USS Enterprise, which was scheduled to return home from the Persian Gulf this month but remains in the region. The USS Carl Vinson is in the Persian Gulf.

Under the mobilization order signed by Bush, the Army expected to call as many as 10,000 members of the Reserve and National Guard to active duty. That calculation was based on two primary missions for the Reserve: assisting in the recovery efforts in New York and at the Pentagon, and "homeland defense," which Plewes said meant using military police to beef up base security.

If the president orders a major military offensive, then larger numbers of reservists likely would have to be activated, Plewes said.

"Quite clearly, 10,000 (reservists) in a large-scale anti-terrorism campaign would be exhausted," he said.

Plewes noted that if sustained military operations are focused on Afghanistan, for example, the Army Reserve's 377th Support Command, based at New Orleans, likely would be called to active duty to support Army operations in that region.

-------

Bush Warns of Casualties of War
President Says Bin Laden Is Wanted 'Dead or Alive'

By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 18, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46924-2001Sep17?language=printer

President Bush warned the nation yesterday to prepare for U.S. military casualties in the coming war against terrorism and, in his bluntest language since last week's attacks on New York and Washington, said he wants Osama Bin Laden brought to justice "dead or alive."

"We will win the war and there will be costs," Bush said after a meeting with Pentagon officials that was described as a review of his earlier decision to call up 35,000 military reservists to help in air patrols around major cities, intelligence gathering and engineering projects. He said the military "is ready to defend freedom at any cost."

On a day when Americans went back to work, the stock markets reopened and Major League Baseball resumed play for the first time since the terrorist attacks, Bush described the perpetrators as "evildoers" and "barbaric people." Those harboring bin Laden and his network, Bush said, should be "on notice" that they will not escape the wrath of the United States and the international coalition his administration is working to build.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said "the first round" of the war against terrorism will be aimed specifically at those who launched last week's attacks. He emphasized that it is "becoming clear with each passing hour" that the al Qaeda terrorist network is the prime suspect and that "all roads lead to" bin Laden, the organization's leader, "and his location in Afghanistan."

But Powell said the nation should be prepared for a "long-term campaign" against worldwide terrorism that will include legal, political, diplomatic, law enforcement and intelligence-gathering components -- as well as military action.

"What we have to do is not only deal with this present instance but the whole concept of terrorism, deal with it as a scourge upon civilization and go after it," he said.

U.S. officials continued their intensive diplomatic campaign to build international support for military actions and other moves as they awaited word on a Pakistani delegation's trip to Afghanistan to urge that the Taliban leaders turn over bin Laden.

Powell plans to meet tomorrow or Thursday with Prince Saud Faisal, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, as investigators reported that 14 of the 19 suspected hijackers have links to that country. Calling the Saudis friends of the United States, Powell said of the foreign minister, "I expect he will be forthcoming and I expect he will be coming with a message of support and commitment."

As another sign of the growing intensity of preparations, White House officials said Bush will discuss the crisis at a working dinner tonight with French President Jacques Chirac. The president will meet on Wednesday with Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri, who leads the world's largest Muslim nation, and on Thursday with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The visits by Chirac and Megawati were scheduled before the current crisis but the visit by Blair, who has been one of the staunchest and most outspoken allies of the administration in the wake of last week's attacks, was a late addition to the president's calendar.

As investigators continued to probe the four hijackings that resulted in the attacks on New York's World Trade Center and on the Pentagon, New York officials revised their estimate of the number of people missing there to 5,422, along with 201 confirmed dead. Combined with the deaths at the Pentagon and on the hijacked airplanes, the possible death toll from Sept. 11 is nearly 6,000.

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft called on Congress to enact new legislation granting law enforcement officials greater powers to combat terrorism. Ashcroft said law enforcement officials urgently need expanded wiretapping powers to track terrorists. He also urged the statute of limitations on prosecuting crimes of terrorism be eliminated and said the legal fight against terrorism must be a greater priority.

"If terrorism has not had a priority in the criminal justice system previously, it's time for us to understand that it needs to be a priority in the criminal justice system now," he said.

Ashcroft pledged that the Justice Department would have a comprehensive package of bills ready for consideration within a few days.

The attorney general said the administration would ask for expanded powers "mindful of our responsibility to protect the rights and privacy of Americans." But he said the legal system must reflect the seriousness of crimes of terrorism.

Ashcroft also announced that law enforcement personnel from across the government would be assigned to the Transportation Department for use as armed sky marshals on some commercial airline flights. He did not say how extensive the program will be.

He said he had ordered the U.S. Marshals Service, whose responsibility is to protect U.S. courthouses around the country, to assign more than 300 deputy marshals to assist FBI field offices in the investigation of the terrorists.

Concerned about reports of violence and intimidation aimed at Muslims and Arab Americans, Bush visited the Islamic Center in Washington yesterday afternoon and called on Americans to show tolerance in these tense times.

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III said his agency has launched 40 investigations into hate crimes aimed at Arab Americans, including a number targeting Muslim houses of worship and community centers. "I'll make it very clear," he said. "Vigilante attacks and threats against Arab Americans will not be tolerated."

Security concerns continued to ripple throughout the country. The United Nations postponed the opening of the General Assembly scheduled for next week, and the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank canceled their annual meeting scheduled for late September in Washington. One reason cited was that District officials had planned on assistance from law enforcement officials in New York, who are now busy with rescue and recovery efforts there.

Bush spent a busy day monitoring and managing the crisis, including a morning meeting with his National Security Council and an afternoon meeting with his economic advisers about the time the Dow Jones industrial average was posting its largest one-day point drop in history. Early yesterday, he visited the cafeteria in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House. Staff members were evacuated last week when officials feared the White House was a target of terrorists, and they spent a tense week amid heightened security alerts.

Seeking to boost morale among those White House workers, who include many veterans of his presidential campaign, Bush told them, "The best way to fight terrorism is to not let terrorism intimidate America."

At the Pentagon, Bush met with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others to review the status of preparations. Then the president used a brief appearance before the cameras to escalate his rhetoric and sharpen his focus on the alleged mastermind of the terrorist network that is at the heart of the investigation.

"Do you want bin Laden dead?" Bush was asked.

"I want justice," the president replied. "There's an old poster out West, as I recall, that said, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.' "

Later, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer was asked whether Bush's comments indicated that the quarter-century ban on government-sponsored assassination had been lifted.

Fleischer said, "That directive is in effect. And I also want to add that it does not limit the United States's ability to act in its self-defense."

Asked repeatedly if the administration would consider the sponsoring of bin Laden's assassination to be an act of self-defense, Fleischer said, "I'm just going to repeat my words, and others will figure out the exact implications of them."

Vice President Cheney said on Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he did not believe any U.S. or international law would prevent American agents from killing bin Laden. "Not in my estimation," Cheney said. "But I'd have to check with the lawyers on that, obviously."

Powell later said, "It is not enough to get one individual, although we'll start with that one individual." He said success will come only when "we have neutralized and destroyed" the whole network.

Bush's language at the Pentagon was his harshest yet as he continue to shift toward putting the country on a war footing.

"I know that this is a different type of enemy than we're used to," he said. "It's an enemy that likes to hide and burrow in, and their network is extensive. There are no rules. It's barbaric behavior. They slit throats of women on airplanes in order to achieve an objective that is beyond comprehension."

Calling the campaign ahead "a fight for freedom," Bush said the world "will not allow ourselves to be terrorized by somebody who thinks they can hit and hide in a cave somewhere." He said he was confident that "once we get them running, we have got a good chance of getting them."

The president reiterated his promise to attack both the terrorists and those who harbor them, singling out the Taliban government in Afghanistan.

"The people who think they can provide them safe havens will be held accountable," he said. "The people who feed them will be held accountable. And the Taliban must take my statement seriously."

Bush plans to hold a Rose Garden ceremony with technology executives today to announce an industry-sponsored Web site designed as a clearinghouse for charitable drives and efforts to locate missing people.

--------

At Fort Bragg, Troops 'Packed Up and Ready to Go'
Soldiers Bracing for the Grim Possibility of Ground Combat

By Daniel LeDuc
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 18, 2001; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46901-2001Sep17?language=printer

FORT BRAGG, N.C., Sept. 17 -- In the modern American arsenal of Tomahawk missiles, carrier-launched air strikes, and long-range artillery include Pfc. Jeremy Rinner, who today jumped from a C-130 transport plane at 800 feet and landed hard on the dusty red soil of central North Carolina.

Today marked the resumption of parachute training at America's largest military base, home to the 82nd Airborne Division and the Army's Special Forces, who are likely to be among the initial soldiers deployed in America's new war on terrorism.

The sight of billowing parachutes over the Fort Bragg landing zone was as welcomed by this military community as the sound of the New York Stock Exchange bell ringing was by brokers on Wall Street. It was a sign of normalcy six days after the terrorist bombings in New York and Washington halted daily training and put the base on the highest alert. But for America's fighting men and women, what is normal has changed very much in the past week.

Just after hitting the ground here, still sweating and panting from his jump, Rinner was asked what he thought he was getting himself in to when he left his Texas home to enlist in the Army six months ago. "I didn't think this," he said.

"I joined for school and benefits and to go away from home for a little bit. And to serve my country," said the fresh-faced Rinner, 21. "Now, it's going to be real heavy on the last part."

But like so many other soldiers at this heavily guarded military post and in nearby Fayetteville, Rinner said he was trained, ready and willing to go where his nation's leaders sent him.

And for the first time in a long time, that may be in harm's way. For the past decade, U.S. military and political leaders have been extremely reluctant to put troops at risk. The United States withdrew from Somalia after 18 were killed in a firefight in Mogadishu; the preferred weapons in places such as Sudan and Iraq have been cruise missiles fired from hundreds of miles away.

But President Bush, congressional leaders and most Americans believe the time has come to accept a grim new reality: The war against terrorism may require ground action, and U.S. soldiers will be wounded and killed. Last week, a Washington Post poll found 69 percent of the nation supported military action against those who bombed the World Trade Center and the Pentagon even if it meant getting into a protracted war with large numbers of U.S. casualties.

The 42,000 men and women in green fatigues who populate this post and live in the surrounding towns will live that reality. Already, their lives have undergone dramatic changes. Since last Tuesday, this post, home to the top-secret Delta Force, is guarded by military police officers in full combat gear, wearing flak jackets and toting M-16s. Every vehicle going in and out is scrutinized.

Side roads are blocked with concrete barriers and barbed wire. Armed MPs patrol near the base's elementary schools. And training for war has a new sense of urgency. Moments before Rinner and his fellow soldiers from the 20th Engineering Brigade parachuted to the ground, a group of "specialty" troops had landed in the same field, hustling away from a group of reporters gathered at the landing zone as base officials prohibited photographs.

"I don't know what we're up against. We're probably going to go in blind," said Staff Sgt. Bruce D. Tingler, 31, who was among 70 soldiers parachuting in with the engineering unit.

The 12-year Army veteran has a wife and two children, and "they're pretty scared about it, about what might happen," said Tingler, perspiring beneath his heavy Kevlar helmet. "But this is what I signed up to do. This is what I do. Whatever my leaders tell me to do, I'll do."

Like many Americans, many of the soldiers here are angry. Unlike most Americans, they are in a position to do something about it.

"If they call me, I'll go willingly," said Spec. E-4 Jeff Johnson. "They'll give me live rounds, and I'll take out as many as I can.

"My wife will be nervous. My mother will be nervous. My in-laws will be nervous," he said. "I don't want to go to war. I don't think any soldier in their right mind wants to go into a combat situation. But every soldier -- especially if they volunteered -- should be willing to do their part."

Because the United States has not had a draft since 1973, everyone is a volunteer, recruited by a military that advertises everything except the likelihood of death. Cpl. David Smith joined the Army four years ago because it meant a stable job. He has learned to be a heavy equipment operator, someone whose job it is to help dig in and fortify infantry troops and build airstrips near battlefields. Fighting and dying weren't necessarily what he was thinking about at enlistment.

But yesterday he proudly said, "We're packed up and ready to go."

History has shown, he said, that "war is inevitable. It's just a question of whether it's on your watch."

-------

Afghanistan
If Bush wants an invasion, it could become more costly than Vietnam

Independent News (UK)
By Robert Fisk
18 September 2001
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia_china/story.jsp?story=94638

President Bush is talking about a "crusade'' ­ it would be difficult to find a word more likely to enrage Muslims ­ but if he plans to wage it in Afghanistan, the United States faces a military campaign more fraught and potentially even more costly than Vietnam.

Ground troops may be necessary to seize Osama bin Laden but they will be entering a country containing one tenth of the world's land mines, left by Soviet occupation forces across 80 per cent of the land.

Besides, anyone who wants to invade Afghanistan needs friends. The Russians had the communist government of Babrak Karmal. But, with the murder of the only serious opponent of the Taliban, Shah Masood, by Arab suicide bombers nine days ago, the United States hasn't a single friend in that cemetery of foreign armies.

So, are the Americans planning a mere attack by cruise missiles? They fired 70 missiles at Osama bin Laden's camps after the bombing of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam ­ they knew where they were, of course, because the camps were built by the CIA during the Afghan-Russian war ­ but they did not touch Mr bin Laden. Do they plan to use special parachute units to descend on the areas around Kandahar where Mr bin Laden has been known to live in the past?

And what about those mines? If the Americans are even contemplating a ground force, it can enter only from Pakistan ­ the most dangerous main supply route it would be possible to find ­ and up the Kabul Gorge from Jalalabad. But the Russians seeded the perimeters of Jalalabad, Kandahar, Khost and Herat with anti-armour mines. There are, in Afghanistan today, more than 10 million mines. They lie in fields, on mountainsides, beside roads, around the big cities, along irrigation ditches. On average, between 20 and 25 Afghan men, women and children are blown up by mines every day ­ even if we take the lower figure, this indicates 73,000 civilian casualties from these mines in the past 10 years alone.

A military incursion would, therefore, need an army of mine clearance specialists as well as soldiers, men who would have to inch their way over the roughest terrain in the world ­ while under attack ­ to make the roads and countryside safe for the Americans and their allies. Of Afghanistan's 29 provinces, 27 are littered with mines.

During their savage 10-year occupation, the Russians also planted thousands of mines in "security zones'' around Afghanistan's airports, power stations and government installations. Western non-governmental organisations working in the country two years ago estimated that it would cost £80 per mine to clear Afghanistan's 10 million mines ­ and 45 days to clear merely a square mile of land. There are now two million disabled men, women and children in Afghanistan. No infantry can march across this territory.

And then there is that main supply route. Pakistan has already made clear that it will not involve its own military in a campaign, although there are suspicions that enough money might persuade General Musharraf ­ now respectfully referred to as President by the Americans even though he took the presidency illegally ­ to change his mind. However, the "Jihadi" culture has already impregnated the Pakistan army and there is a real possibility of unrest turning to civil war if the Americans arrived to invade Muslim Afghanistan.

The very border areas through which a Western army would have to pass are held by men loyal to the Taliban. On the Pakistani side of the frontier, there are now 2,000 Taliban madrassas (schools) where religious teaching is given not only to potential mujahedin but to Chechen and Tadjik fighters as well.

The policemen who guard these madrassas constitute a mere facade of governmental control.

Even if the Americans penetrated Afghanistan, their shells would only plough over the ruins. The Russians tried to destroy the Taliban's predecessors with 10 years of bombing, destroying whole villages, with their people, farm animals, fields, trees and mud huts. And still they could not get rid of the mujahedin, still they could not ­ to use Mr Bush's inappropriately folksy phrase ­ "smoke them out of their holes''.

With Pakistan as its only, broken ally among Afghan-istan's neighbours, with no friends inside the country and 10 million hidden land mines lying across its mountains and fields and cities, Mr Bush's "crusade'' looks more than dangerous. We are now being told that the United States is no longer afraid to take casualties. America, the President says, will have to accept losses. He'd better be right.


-------- OTHER

-------- energy

Tragedy loudens call for Alaskan drilling

September 18, 2001
By Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010918-31188982.htm

The Bush administration said yesterday that as a result of last week's terrorist attacks and to decrease America's dependence on foreign oil, it will renew its aggressive pursuit of the right to drill in Alaska's Arctic.

"We are redoubling our commitment to implement a long-term energy strategy that both protects our environment and increases our energy security with increased domestic energy supplies," said Mark Pfeifle, Interior Department spokesman.

In addition to energy production in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, Mr. Pfeifle said the overall plan is to increase energy resources within the U.S. borders "in an environmentally sensitive way."

Additionally, the Bush administration wants to invest in conservation programs, to diversify energy sources and to increase research and development of renewable energy sources and alternative fuels.

"We look forward to continuing to build a bipartisan coalition to pass the president's objectives in the future in the Senate," Mr. Pfeifle said.

The House passed legislation last month clearing the way for limited drilling in the refuge, but the energy package is stalled in the Senate where senior aides say recent events have brought the issue to the forefront.

"We do have a change in the landscape that was caused by this tragedy, and it may be more viable to pass legislation that allows for the exploration of Alaska oil so that we can rely on ourselves instead of the Middle East," said one leadership aide.

However, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, Connecticut Democrat, has threatened to filibuster the energy bill. His spokeswoman said yesterday that last week's events have not changed his position. Sen. John F. Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, has also threatened to block the legislation. His spokesman could not be reached for comment.

"I think this has got to change everything. These folks have got to wake up," said a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee aide.

The U.S. imports 60 percent of its oil, a quarter of which comes from the Middle East, the aide said.

Many environmental groups who have criticized President Bush's efforts to reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil have lowered their profile since the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. The Sierra Club issued a memo the day following the attack saying they will "cease bashing President Bush."

Most environmental groups are declining to discuss how the energy debate will take shape, among them the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council.

Adam Kolton at the Alaska Wilderness League said the country faces a host of policy issues that should be re-examined, but that drilling in ANWR should be excluded.

"This is not the time to be engaging in a partisan political battle. This is a time for the country to come together," Mr. Kolton said. "It would be unfortunate for anyone to take advantage of this tragedy to push a partisan, self-serving agenda."

Still, analysts say that Congress must take up the challenge of protecting America's energy supply in the coming weeks and open the arctic to drilling.

"I would hope that opponents would take a second look at this. The tragic events of last week show our vulnerability to other countries," said Charlie Coon, of the Heritage Foundation.

--------

Attacks Could Affect Energy Systems

September 18, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Energy.html?searchpv=aponline

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Increased security at nuclear power plants, refineries and along thousands of miles of pipelines is likely to have long-range impact on the nation's energy systems, industry officials say.

The cost of the additional security measures -- from hiring more guards at power plants to more intense monitoring of nearly 400,000 miles of pipeline -- remains unclear.

But federal regulators have advised they are ready to approve requests for electricity rate increases if energy producers request them.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration expressed its hope Monday that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries would take steps to avert supply shortages and keep prices stable. The OPEC ministers are meet Sept. 26 in Vienna, Austria, to decide on production levels.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, while in Vienna on Sunday, met with OPEC Secretary-General Ali Rodriguez to relay President Bush's concerns for price stability and adequate supplies should the United States retaliate for last week's terrorist attacks.

Rodriguez told Abraham that OPEC remained committed to market stability, although he could not predict what would be decided at the upcoming meeting of oil ministers. Some OPEC members, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, have vowed to do all they can to avoid a disruption in oil supplies, according to energy experts.

World oil prices spiked to more than $31 a barrel after the terrorist attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but have since receded slightly. Futures contracts in New York for light sweet crude closed Monday at $29.17 a barrel for November delivery, about what prices were before the attacks.

While there have been no specific terrorist threats against U.S. energy facilities, the attacks prompted energy companies across the country to scramble to increase protection.

The heightened security is likely to remain for some time and could, according to some industry officials, have permanent effects.

Already, some energy companies are urging Congress to limit the amount of information that should be provided the public on flow rates and locations of major oil or natural gas pipelines. Additional federal security requirements for nuclear power plants also may debated in coming weeks.

About 200,000 miles of pipelines carry oil and petroleum products across the country. An additional 180,000 miles of pipelines carry natural gas. While most of these lines are buried, pumping stations, terminals and other facilities could be vulnerable.

Pipeline companies are putting people into previously unmanned facilities, increasing security at terminals and key pumping stations, and adding to patrols along the thousands of miles of pipes, according to industry officials.

``We've been at heightened security since the attacks,'' Jerry Halvorsen, president of the Interstate Natural Gas Association, said Monday.

Security for the nation's electricity grid poses similar challenges, as thousands of miles of high-voltage lines crisscross America. Attacks on key lines could trigger vast power outages because grids are widely interconnected.

Within hours of last Tuesday's terrorist attacks, the FBI issued an alert to utilities to increase security and report suspicious activities. The alert remains in effect, although few details have been provided.

``I don't think anybody wants to talk about where they're vulnerable,'' said Ellen Vancko, a spokeswoman for the North American Electric Reliability Council. ``It's a very tough time right now.''

Nuclear power plants have been on the highest state of alert since the terrorist attacks.

But industry officials acknowledged Monday that while reactors have numerous levels of protection and the radioactive cores are enclosed in steel and concrete, there may be no defense against the kind of attack that occurred Sept. 11.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's anti-terrorist strategy has focused largely on protecting a reactor against truck bombs or guerrilla ground attacks, even small aircraft -- but not a threat from a suicide dive by a captured jetliner.

-------- human rights

Anti-Terror Push Stirs Fears for Liberties
Rights Groups Unite To Seek Safeguards

By Jonathan Krim
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 18, 2001; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46828-2001Sep17?language=printer

A coalition of public interest groups from across the political spectrum has formed to try to stop Congress and the Bush administration from rushing to enact counterterrorism measures before considering their effect on Americans' privacy and civil rights.

Tentatively named In Defense of Freedom, the group is concerned about everything from expanded electronic surveillance measures sought by the Justice Department to possible ethnic profiling in the wake of last week's terrorist attacks.

Various coalition members stressed yesterday that they want vigorous investigation and prosecution of the terrorists and effective tools for law enforcement to minimize the risks of future attacks. But the group was galvanized by Thursday's late-night action in the Senate, which passed on a voice vote several counterterrorism measures as an attachment to the regular appropriations bill for the Commerce, State and Justice departments. Normally, such amendments would be the subject of separate hearings.

"What is disturbing to people is just how swiftly Congress began grasping for anything to appear responsive to the outrage of the attacks," said James Dempsey, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology.

Dempsey's group and others, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the conservative Free Congress Foundation and Arab American organizations, want a more deliberate approach to avoid the excesses of past crises, such as the internment of Japanese Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941.

"We need to be sure we reconcile requirements of security with the demands of liberty . . . and resist efforts to target ethnicity," said David Sobel, general counsel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

But Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said yesterday that terrorists with links to those who committed last week's attacks might still be operating in the United States and that a new set of counterterrorism measures is needed to address the threat.

Without providing full details, Ashcroft said he is completing a set of proposals that will include extended authority to conduct searches and electronic surveillance and the ability to identify and confiscate assets of terrorists.

Among the measures sought is the ability of law enforcement agencies to get a wiretap order that would target an individual, rather than a specific device or telephone number.

The measures also would allow for "roving" wiretap authority, rather than the current requirement that separate wiretaps be obtained in each jurisdiction of an investigation.

Ashcroft said the rights of Americans would be protected.

A spokesman for Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), who last week sponsored a number of amendments similar to what the Justice Department is seeking, said at the time that most of what is being contemplated had been requested for years by law enforcement officials in the Clinton administration.

But coalition members said many such approaches were considered and rejected.

"We need to be clear that doing more of the same that failed to prevent this is likely to fail to prevent it in the future," said J. Bradley Jansen, deputy director of the Center for Technology Policy at the Free Congress Foundation.

Jansen said that better human intelligence gathering, as opposed to electronic eavesdropping, is necessary, and different surveillance and encryption laws would not have stopped last week's attacks.

"The real story is how trackable these people already are," said Richard Smith, chief privacy officer of the Colorado-based Privacy Foundation. He pointed to all of the leads being followed since the attacks by the FBI, including video surveillance cameras at airports, ticket purchases and the identification 18 months ago of one suspect as a potential terrorist.

The White House is pushing for Capitol Hill to act by the end of the week, according to a congressional source.

-------- police / prisoners

Inquiry begins into failure to predict attacks

USA TODAY
09/18/2001
The Associated Press
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2001/09/18/inquiry.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - Analysts from the FBI and other security agencies are restudying intelligence data for missed clues that might keep a horror like last week's terror strike from happening again. In Congress, members with oversight of the intelligence apparatus are ready to grill officials to find out whether they missed signs of the attacks.

The Senate Intelligence Committee said Monday it will hold hearings on why the government didn't predict the Sept. 11 attacks by hijackers who slammed jetliners into the World Trade Center in New York and into one side of the Pentagon in Washington. Osama bin Laden, an exiled Saudi multimillionaire accused of masterminding major international terrorism, is the prime suspect.

U.S. officials say they had no warning on the method, timing or location of the attacks, only a sense that something big was on the horizon, probably overseas.

"It's troubling to all of us in America, I suppose, that nobody had a clue as to this forthcoming attack of such devastation," said Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. "It was a lot of people involved, a lot of coordination involved. There had to be some evidence, somewhere, of something being planned."

CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said Tuesday the agency "won't be distracted" by criticism of its efforts.

"Our focus is on terrorists; it is not on addressing criticisms," he said. "The CIA has very important work to do, and that's determining who was responsible for these horrendous attacks, and continuing to do everything we can to counter terrorism."

Shelby and the intelligence committee chairman, Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., agreed to conduct hearings but have set no date.

Did U.S. intelligence agencies possess information in fragments that did not coalesce to prevent an attack? Is a specific warning sitting, unanalyzed for lack of time or linguists, on a CIA report or a hard drive at the National Security Agency?

Were counterterrorism agents looking in the wrong places? Should U.S. training of foreign pilots be suspect? Or were the terrorists truly able to conduct a massive, highly coordinated operation and keep it almost perfectly secret for months, even years?

"You go back and see what was the evidence ... that maybe we missed," Shelby said. "Maybe they didn't miss it. Maybe they didn't go after it."

For now, intelligence agencies are working to prevent more attacks and are looking through old information as part of that effort, officials said.

Already, U.S. investigators have learned that two of the hijackers were on a terrorist watch list before the attacks.

Khalid Al-Midhar and Salem Alhamzi were on the flight that crashed into the Pentagon. Al-Midhar was a known associate of one of a suspects in last October's bombing of the destroyer USS Cole in Yemen, according to a report in Newsweek.

In late August, the CIA told the Immigration and Naturalization Service to add them to the watch list, which would prohibit them from entering the country. The INS told the CIA it believed the men were already in the United States, so the CIA provided the information to the FBI, officials said.

The CIA issued warnings throughout the summer to beware of possible terrorist action and in August privately told U.S. leaders that bin Laden could be planning an attack, possibly in the United States, U.S. officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Other possible hints and warnings are beginning to emerge. Some are general, others specific. They include:

Recent reported statements by bin Laden himself, in which he announced that he was planning an unprecedented attack on U.S. interests. A general sense among U.S. intelligence agencies that bin Laden's organization had a major operation planned. However, it was widely believed the operation would be done overseas, officials said. CIA counterterrorism officers, working with authorities in several countries, had broken up several planned overseas terrorist operations connected to bin Laden in recent years, U.S. officials say. A foreign intelligence agency tipped a U.S. law enforcement agency that a possible bin Laden associate from the Middle East was in Boston. The agency checked into the information but decided the man was no longer in Boston, where several bin Laden supporters are known to live, officials said. Two of the hijacked flights took off from Boston. In late May and again in late June, the State Department issued worldwide cautions that said U.S. citizens were at high risk of terrorist attacks; the May warning specifically cited bin Laden's group. In July, the department issued one of the strongest warnings ever in the Persian Gulf. Washington said it had "strong indications that individuals may be planning imminent terrorist actions against U.S. interests in the Arabian Peninsula."

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FBI Piecing Together Terrorism Case

September 18, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-The-Evidence.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI has meticulously pieced together a broad terrorist plot, securing evidence the hijackers trained for months or years without raising suspicions in the United States, received financial and logistical support from others and identified additional targets for destruction.

Law enforcement and other officials familiar with the evidence said the FBI is investigating whether the terrorist network behind Tuesday's attacks targeted more flights for hijacking beyond the four that crashed.

Authorities have grown increasingly certain -- from intelligence intercepts, witness interviews and evidence gathered in hijackers' cars and homes -- that a second wave of violence was planned by collaborators. They said Sept. 22 has emerged as an important date in the evidence, but declined to be more specific.

Tuesday's attacks were ``part of a larger plan with other terrorism acts, not necessarily hijacking of airplanes,'' said Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. ``Those acts were going to occur in the United States and elsewhere in the world.''

The FBI said it has issued an advisory to fire departments across the country to increase security and guard against the theft of any ambulances or fire trucks, which could be used in bombing attacks. The bureau said the warning was precautionary.

The investigation, the largest in American history, has engulfed the full resources of the FBI, Justice Department, Customs Service, Treasury Department agencies that track assets and the CIA, National Security Agency and other spy agencies.

Officials from several of those agencies described developments in the investigation to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Most of the evidence remains sealed by court orders. A federal grand jury in White Plains, N.Y., was convened last week to weigh evidence and issue subpoenas.

U.S. officials have made no secret they believe exiled Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden masterminded the plot from Afghanistan and organized his and other terrorist groups to carry it out. In President Bush's words, bin Laden is wanted ``dead or alive.''

The FBI has hinted at the magnitude of the collaboration, sending airlines, local police and border patrol agencies a list of about 200 people it believes may have information or assisted the attacks. The government has detained 75 people for questioning and on immigration charges, from California to Germany.

At least four people on the list have been arrested as material witnesses, law enforcement officials said Tuesday. That means they are believed to have critical information about the plot and are at risk to flee.

Authorities have explored whether the hijackers may have had help from people with access to airlines. On Tuesday, authorities arrested and charged three men in the Detroit area with possessing false documents after searching a house where agents found airport-related diagrams and documents about a military base and the ``American foreign minister,'' according to an FBI affidavit. It did not explain the reference to ``foreign minister.''

Authorities said they believe some of the men may have worked at one time for a company that provides food service to airlines at the Detroit airport.

Several detainees have been flown to New York, where the grand jury is working and where prosecutors have significant anti-terrorism experience from earlier cases involving bin Laden.

These detainees include Ayub Ali Khan, 51, and Mohammed Jaweed Azmath, 47, two men who left the Newark, N.J., airport aboard a flight headed for Texas about the same time as the hijackings. The men were grounded in St. Louis and then took a train toward Texas, where they were taken into custody. They had $5,000 cash and box cutters like those used by the hijackers, immediately drawing the attention of law enforcement.

Authorities also have flown to New York a French-Algerian man who was detained last month after he sought flight training in Minnesota. The school where he offered to pay for the training was suspicious, and called authorities. The government has held Zacarias Moussaoui on immigration charges since Aug. 17.

Two weeks before Tuesday attacks, agents had already gathered evidence tracing Moussaoui to an effort to get flight training as early as fall 2000 in Norman, Okla., officials said.

Similarly, the FBI has traced the steps of the 19 known hijackers to flight schools across the country, from Maryland to Florida.

The FBI is seeking as many as a dozen others who fit this profile: Middle Eastern men who came to the United States, got pilot licenses or sought flight training, like the men who flew jetliners into the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

``We want to know whether there were other pilots, other teams who were supposed to take down airliners or strike Americans in other ways,'' one law enforcement official said.

Agents are investigating whether some associates of the 19 hijackers planned or did board other planes, possibly with similar plans for suicide hijackings that weren't carried out.

Vice President Dick Cheney hinted at such additional hijackings during a TV appearance Sunday when he said U.S. authorities believed six planes were targeted by the hijackers last week.

Law enforcement has gathered evidence suggesting the plot was patiently hatched over many months and years, and that the terrorists spent significant time training for it and grooming supporters.

Many of the hijackers trained or sought training in flight schools as early as 1999, and most entered the United States with legal visas. Some of the hijackers met with supporters overseas, in places like Germany and Malaysia, before returning to carry out their plan, officials said.

``One of the keys to understanding this is the length of time these hijackers spent here. These weren't people coming over the border just to attack quickly. ... They cultivated friends, and blended into American society to further their ability to strike,'' one investigator said.

Authorities said the fact that some of the men claimed to have connections to Middle Eastern countries friendly to the United States -- Saudi Arabia, Egypt and United Arab Emirates -- may have lessened suspicion.

Some of the pilots carried identification suggesting they were connected with Saudi Arabia's national airline.

The FBI has pressed for evidence across the globe as to who may have assisted the hijackers, seizing bank and computer records and studying credit cards used to pay for plane tickets, rental cars and the like.

A doctor in San Antonio, where the two Newark, N.J., passengers were heading, has been detained, as has a man in California who has been linked through financial transactions to hijackers Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf Alhamzi, authorities said.

Al-Midhar and Alhamzi were placed on a watch list this summer after U.S. intelligence received information they might have been meeting with suspected terrorists. By the time they were added to the watch list, they'd already entered the United States, officials said.

On the financial trail, the Securities and Exchange Commission has received information from other U.S. regulators about possibly suspicious trading ahead of the attacks. European regulators are looking to see if bin Laden's network sought to profit off investments related to the attacks.

The potential collaborators are also being linked by communication intercepts -- some of which have occurred since the attacks, authorities told AP.

-------- terrorism

Test Site proposed as anti-terrorism training school

Las Vegas SUN
September 19, 2001
By Benjamin Grove <grove@lasvegassun.com> and
Mary Manning <manning@lasvegassun.com>
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/2001/sep/19/512372265.html

The Nevada Test Site -- once a Cold War proving ground for nuclear weapons -- should be developed as a next-generation training camp in the nation's "new war" on terrorism, Nevada's House lawmakers said.

In the wake of last week's terrorist attacks, counterterrorism training courses held periodically each year at the Test Site could be expanded into a permanent, established academy, they said.

Nevada's congressional delegation has long argued the Test Site -- the secure, Rhode Island-sized former testing area for the nation's nuclear weapons -- is a suitable home for such a center.

"It's perfect," said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., who plans to lobby for the proposal in the remaining weeks of this year's session. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., also supports the proposal, especially because of the open space and infrastructure that already exists at the site, he said.

As lawmakers in Congress are searching for innovative ways to prevent and respond to terrorist threats, the attacks in New York and Washington may renew interest in creating a better network of national counterterrorism training schools, several experts said.

Government officials are already talking about developing more centers that teach combat skills, encourage strategic planning and foster more terrorism research, said Stephen Bowers, director of the Nelson Institute at James Madison University, which focuses on terrorism studies.

"It's what the government calls 'consequence management' (training) and there is a great need for that," Bowers said.

Congress considered one bill last year that would have established a national Office of Terrorism Preparedness and increased counterterrorism training centers. But the legislation died without lawmaker action.

No nuclear weapons have been tested since 1992 at the remote, 1,375-square-mile desert Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. It is the focus of proposals for windmill farms and a space shuttle launch pad.

The Test Site since 1999 also has been the home of anti-terrorism training courses, coordinated by Bechtel Nevada, managing contractor for the Department of Energy at the Test Site.

Congress last year allocated $4 million for training courses for local, state and federal law enforcement and emergency response teams. The courses, held four times last year, focused mostly on hazardous materials response to chemical, biological and nuclear terrorism, officials said.

Police, firefighters, paramedics and other crews go through classroom and field simulations of exploding bombs, discharging weapons, and scenarios of biological weapons release, Bechtel officials said. Emergency workers have learned how to decontaminate victims after exposure to a radioactive or toxic substance.

The Senate last week allocated $7 million for more courses next year, although lawmakers have not finalized that figure. The budget increase would both increase the number of courses and the number of people trained, Bechtel Nevada spokeswoman Cheryl Oar said.

While the courses at the Test Site have been effective in mostly hazardous materials training, Nevada leaders envision a permanent, established center that one day could offer a broader array of counterterrorism training, Nevada officials said.

An anti-terrorism school would be a natural fit for the Test Site, said Kevin Rohrer, a spokesman for the the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration.

Not everyone agrees the nation needs a counterterrorism academy. The nation already has plenty of training sites for private citizens as well as emergency responders, the military and special operations CIA and State Department officials, said Neil Livingstone, CEO of Washington-based GlobalOptions. The company offers counterterrorism training to businesses and foreign officials.

The United States may need more trained people but not training facilities, he said.

"We don't need a West Point of counterterrorism training," Livingstone said. "It'll be a huge waste of government money."

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Hijackers connected to Albanian terrorist cell

September 18, 2001
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010918-91529452.htm

U.S. intelligence officials are investigating ties between the terrorists who carried out suicide airliner attacks and associates of Osama bin Laden based in Albania.

The connections were described as support for the terrorist operation to hijack U.S. commercial jetliners and crash them into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

No further details of the support could be learned.

One official said intelligence reports about the Albanian connection to the attacks is one of several leads being pursued overseas by the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies.

Bin Laden and his organization, al Qaeda, are believed to have small groups of terrorists or supporters in 50 to 60 nations, including Albania, according to U.S. officials.

Asked if getting bin Laden is the U.S. goal, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told reporters yesterday that "we are after the al Qaeda network."

"It's not one individual," Mr. Powell said. "It's lots of individuals, and it's lots of cells. ... Osama bin Laden is the chairman of a holding company. And within that holding company are terrorist cells and organizations in dozens of countries around the world."

The administration's war on terrorism will "start with that one individual" - bin Laden.

"It will not be over until we have gotten into the inside of this organization, inside its decision cycle, inside its planning cycle, inside its execution capability, and until we have neutralized and destroyed it," Mr. Powell said. "That's our objective."

Albania is one of several places U.S. intelligence agencies are focusing their resources - from human agents to electronic eavesdropping.

Since the mid-1990s, bin Laden associates have been based in Tirana, Albania's capital, as well as in at least two other towns in the small, formerly communist nation, U.S. officials said.

Islamic radicals, including supporters of bin Laden, have been supporting Albanian rebels fighting in the region, including members of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Intelligence officials have said there are reports that KLA members have been trained at bin Laden training camps in Afghanistan.

Bin Laden and his Islamic extremist group, al Qaeda, are the main suspects in last week's terrorist attacks.

As of last year, the group operated a residence in Tirana, and the CIA has been pressing Albania's government to expel all associates of the Islamic terrorists.

According to U.S. officials, bin Laden gained a foothold in Albania in 1994 by portraying himself to the government there as a wealthy Saudi national who was in charge of a humanitarian agency that could help Albania.

Albanian intelligence believes terrorists have benefited from the theft of some 1,000 blank Albanian passports that were stolen during riots in 1997, according to a 1998 report in the London Sunday Telegraph.

Since the attack, the FBI has detained 49 persons, many of whom appear to be of Middle Eastern descent. Four of the detainees were are identified as "material witnesses" to the Sept. 11 attacks. None has been identified by nationality and the passports they used to enter the United States also have not been identified.

In 1998, U.S. and Albanian authorities broke up an Islamic terrorist cell in Albania and arrested two members of the bin Laden group.

The CIA was able to obtain a large quantity of documents and computer equipment that led to further arrests. Two members of the group, Egyptian nationals, were turned over to anti-terrorist police in Egypt that year.

"Bin Laden's group has a network in Albania," said former CIA counterterrorism official Vince Cannistraro.

"This looks like the support operation [for the U.S. attacks] was worldwide," he said of reports of the Albanian connection.

Albanian Police Chief Bilbil Mema told Agence France-Presse on Thursday that Albania had ceased to be a safe haven for terrorism. "In Albania there is no longer an Islamic threat," Mr. Mema was quoted as saying. "This country is no longer a refuge for Islamic terrorists."

Albanian security and intelligence authorities, in cooperation with the CIA, had "successfully led operations aimed at destroying the network that Islamic terrorists have attempted to establish in this country," Mr. Mema said.

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ISIS: First Casuality of War Must Not Be Pakistan
Pakistan's Nuclear Weapons Must Not Fall Into Terrorists' Hands

U.S. Newswire
18 Sep 16:36
http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/Current_Releases/0918-130.html

To: National Desk Contact: Corey Hinderstein of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), 202-547-2696
Email: cgh@isis-online.org
Web site: http://www.isis-online.org

WASHINGTON, Sept. 18 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The following was released today by the Institute for Science and International Security:

The United States must carefully craft its approach to nuclear-armed Pakistan for help in extracting Osama bin Laden from Afghanistan. Many Pakistanis are sympathetic to the Taliban, and militant Pakistani clerics vocally oppose the government's cooperation with the United States. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf must be able to offer assistance to the United States such that his government is not threatened by domestic instability. Similarly, the United States must not exert too much pressure on Musharraf and must provide him with incentives, political support, and other tools to stay in power. Increased instability in Pakistan could make Pakistan's nuclear weapons and stocks of nuclear explosive material dangerously vulnerable to theft by militant groups.

Pakistan's nuclear assets are substantial, but little is known about the security of these assets. As the end of 1999, according to estimates by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) Pakistan possessed sufficient nuclear explosive material (plutonium and weapon-grade highly enriched uranium (HEU)) for 30-50 nuclear explosives (bombs and/or warheads). ISIS presumes that Pakistan has increased this stock since the end of 1999, given its military competition with India.

Whether or not all of Pakistan's nuclear explosive material has been converted to nuclear weapons is unknown, leaving the possibility that many kilograms of bulk material may be poorly protected. The key sites and facilities used to produce plutonium and HEU have been identified, but the storage locations of these materials and weapons are undoubtedly among the most important state secrets in Pakistan.

Should the location of these materials become known, security forces at storage sites may be unable to thwart a determined attack by extremist groups allied with bin Laden or the Taliban, particularly if even a small number of guards are sympathetic to the Islamic fundamentalist cause. In the extreme case -- should extremists take over the Pakistani government -- control over Pakistan's nuclear explosive materials and weapons could be lost irretrievably.

Crafting a policy that will ensure Pakistan's survival will not be easy. The U.S. track record in Pakistan in recent years has had limited success. Western sanctions following Pakistan's 1998 nuclear tests, and more recent overtures to Pakistan's arch-rival India, have alienated both its population and leadership from the United States.

"Fighting the war on terrorism starts with ensuring the stability of a nuclear-armed Pakistan," said David Albright, the president of ISIS, "otherwise the terrorist threat will take on a new, frightening dimension."

For additional information about Pakistan's nuclear weapons and missile material capabilities, see http://www.isis-online.org/mapproject/pakistan.html.

For additional ISIS resources on the threat of nuclear terrorism, see http://www.isis-online.org/publications/terrorism/index.html

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Jennifer Harbury Statement
"ATTACK ON AMERICA": INTELLIGENCE GATHERING AND HUMAN RIGHTS RESTRICTIONS

September 18, 2001
From: "LPDC" <lpdc@idir.net>

In the wake of the tragedy and horror which occurred last week in both New York City and Washington D.C., I find myself compelled to write and comment upon the reaction of certain government officials. There can be no doubt that an enormous lapse in our national intelligence efforts has occurred, resulting in the simultaneous hijacking of four separate passenger jets, the destruction of the World Trade Towers, an outright attack on the Pentagon, and unimaginable human suffering. In response to public criticism, some officials have decried certain human rights restrictions which they claim have impeded the ability to taken action and to obtain needed information from "unsavory persons". Specifically, they are referring to U.S. legal prohibitions against assassinations, and the more recent requirements that before our CIA agents may hire a known human rights violator as an informant, they must notify and obtain clearance from their superiors. The last restriction was imposed after my husband, a Mayan resistance leader, was secretly detained and tortured for two years, then executed without trial, by Guatemalan military officers on CIA payroll.

I wish to begin my response by expressing my own deep shock and sadness over last week's savage actions against the civilians of New York and Washington. As an attorney born and raised in the northeast, I had many friends in offices all too near to the World Trade Center, and have agonized over their safety for many days now. More searing still for me have been the stories of those who are still missing, and the pain of their desperate friends and families. My heart goes out to each and every one of them, for I remember such pain all too well. It took me three long years and several dangerous hunger strikes to learn what had become of my own husband. By then, of course, it was too late to save his life.

I most certainly understand and share the rage we must all feel over this national tragedy. However, revenge is indeed best served cold; and we should take care not to worsen the security of our own citizenry by lashing out blindly instead of thinking clearly. As I have stated in the past, I certainly agree that under emergency circumstances involving the imminent loss of human life, such as a possible bombing or hijacking, greater flexibility should be permitted to our intelligence gathering personnel. However, precisely such flexibility is built into the current rules. Our CIA agents are not prohibited from purchasing information from unsavory characters. They are simply required to inform their superiors, who in turn will ascertain that such connections are justified. In cases involving international terrorism, there is little question that such justification exists. It is thus difficult to see how our intelligence was hampered in this context; and indeed, CIA spokespersons themselves say that they have continued to use such operatives without difficulties.

The complained of human rights restrictions are not designed to obstruct government efforts to protect us from terrorist actions. To the contrary, they are designed to prevent our own agencies from themselves aiding and abetting and collaborating in terrorist-like actions against the citizens of other countries. Sadly, there is no shortage of well documented examples to illustrate this need. In 1973 the people of Chile watched in horror similar to our own, as their capitol building was bombed, their elected President assassinated, and their friends and family herded into the National Stadium and other detention centers, then battered and killed by the thousands. U.S. Agency files more than establish the deep involvement and responsibility of the CIA for the Pinochet coup and its violent aftermath. The CIA is also responsible for the bloody 1954 coup in Guatemala, and the frightening repression which followed. The United Nations Truth Commission report of 1999 severely criticized our intelligence community for its close collaboration with and support for the Guatemalan military throughout its counter-insurgency campaign. The army was found responsible for some 93% of the war crimes, which included the torture, murder and "disappearance" of some 200,000 civilians and the massacre of some 660 Mayan villages. The U.N. also ruled that the army was guilty of genocide; the same army the CIA had chosen as its close friend and partner. These actions were not taken to protect American lives from terrorists, but rather, to coldly guard our cash flow. This is hardly a record of which we, the citizens of this nation, can be proud. Nor is our own security increased by fomenting such hatred against us abroad. It is because of excess and abuses of this nature that the human rights restrictions in question, flimsy though they may be, are now in place. They are in place to protect the sanctity of human life, ours as well as our friends' and neighbors'.

I worry greatly that as our intelligence and military agencies sow, so shall we the citizens reap. Let us not, as we plunge towards war, toss aside the human rights protections so hard won during the last hundred years, whether the Geneva Conventions or the ban upon torture. I speak from experience. My husband was detained in complete isolation for two years. He was battered, drugged, injected with toxins, and held in a full body cast to prevent his escape, then either flung from a helicopter or dismembered. His body has yet to be returned to me. Who among us could ever accept such a fate for any of the young men and women in our armed forces, should they fall captive? The answer, of course, is no one. For this very reason we had best hold firm to our most basic human rights restrictions. Let us not inflict what we would not wish to suffer.

Jennifer K. Harbury

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World War III

by Michael C. Ruppert,
From The Wilderness Publications, Lead Essay
From The September 18, 2001 Issue
http://www.copvcia.com/stories/sept_2001/ww3.html

Some of us will come out of the shock sooner than others. Some of us will acknowledge the fear and the hurt sooner than others. Sooner or later we all will feel the pain. But the unfolding of events following the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon will wait for none of us. I do not rely on the fifteen or so times that I have seen the term "World War III" used by major publications like the New York Times. I rely on my knowledge of how the U.S. military, intelligence and economic infrastructure will respond to a given set of circumstances. In this case, the relevant context for these tragedies had developed long before last Tuesday's events.

Only a few, as yet, grasp the dynamics already in motion that will almost certainly produce a long and protracted war, as well as huge economic and perhaps physical dislocations in the United States and around the world. Additional attacks on Americans are almost a certainty, even -- as I am about to describe -- a necessity. The rhetoric from President Bush and his Administration contains messages for the American people, which they do not yet grasp, and for terrorist organizations, which they most certainly do. "This is a war and it will not be a short war." "This will not be over quickly." "We have a war plan that will work, over whatever period of time it requires." "There will be many casualties. The military is prepared for that." "This is not just an effort to get bin Laden. This is a war to wipe out terrorism all over the world." "We are not thinking just in terms of a few air strikes. Ground troops will be involved. And some of them will die." "We will go after terrorism wherever terrorism threatens the United States." "Americans need to be prepared for more sacrifices and more casualties." "Just removing bin Laden won't suffice. We are going after terrorism in all of the countries where it resides."

The last statement is the first great lie of this war. As the U.S. government has announced its partnership with the drug-financed government of Pakistan, which has supported terrorist groups from the Middle East to the Balkans, to China, to Southeast Asia, the deception begins. Indeed, after Afghanistan, Pakistan should have been the first great enemy in this war. It's long support of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan ended only as the Taliban destroyed most of that nation's opium crop in February of this year. As in every conflict since World War II, the drug trade will now see a new day of freedom.

And I guarantee that terrorist groups are well aware of one fact that we, as Americans, have not yet grasped. George W. Bush carries on his shoulder the political memory of a father who waged a war against Sadam Hussein and then left him in power. He can afford no such image in the current context and the military he commands must become engaged in a do or die battle. They too, will accept no less.

That said, the terrorist groups in or from Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, the Sudan, Yemen, Jordan, Algeria, Somalia, Turkey, Chechnya, Uzbekistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Germany, Ireland, France, Spain, Italy, Albania, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico know that they are now in a "use it or lose it" position. For, not knowing where and when the industrialized nations may strike, they now realize that almost any action against any political group will go unchallenged in the world press. Even separatist groups not posing an immediate threat can be conveniently eliminated in the months and perhaps years to come. As evidenced by the almost immediate admission of China into the World Trade Organization, after 15 years of unsuccessful attempts, the warp drive for globalization - unfettered by any need to respond to public opinion - has now been engaged. The most cynical part of me hopes that the headline for this war will not be, "The G-8 Wipes Out Poverty." In this model I must say that the long discussed, but rarely acknowledged, alleged plans for massive global population reduction are no longer a "back burner" issue.

Therefore, in this context, the American people must expect additional attacks that may even include biological warfare or nuclear devices on American soil. And these attacks, already being hinted at by the Administration, will serve an additional purpose. Two days after the attacks every street and highway was a sea of American flags. Now, a week after the attacks - at least in Los Angeles - they are hard to find. Whether we admit it or not, what the vast majority of the American people really want is for this to go away. Only sustained attacks on the American people will provide George W. Bush with the political mandate to wage the war he has committed to fight - to the bitter end. As the economic impact sinks in, and as Americans feel the pain in their wallets, the willingness of American citizens to experience the carnage that has been raging around the world for decades - in the name of prosperity and for the benefit of the G-8's largest corporations - is, in my opinion, a big question mark. Do not expect a quick recovery in the stock market based upon emotion. As we describe in this issue, the fundamental weaknesses in the U.S. economy were not blown up with these attacks. And the markets, if they can still be called that, are driven by one 800 pound guerilla above all others - earnings. With the exception of defense contractors, there is absolutely nothing hopeful to report and I, for one, cannot and refuse to be an advocate for investing in the destruction of the planet.

The United States has many enemies. It is the economic enemies that warrant the most scrutiny now because the perception that America is the safest place in the world in which to invest foreign capital has been dealt a huge blow. Further blows will come with further attacks and this exposes the fine line that the Administration must walk. Without more attacks at home, the bold gambit of George Bush, et al will fail for lack of political support. With them, the world may eventually conclude that the United States is economically expendable as nations look to their own interests. Too much economic blood in the water will start a feeding frenzy.

In the major media, in the alternative media, in Congress and around the world the context now provides the opportunity for great lights with courageous souls to emerge and to lead. We are walking a fine line on a precipice that may lead to Armageddon or, please God, something better. The Bush Administration is not equipped with a repertoire of responses sufficient to navigate the long term perils. We must dig and find something better within ourselves.

We are living in a whole New World. We just don't know what it looks like yet.

Mike Ruppert


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INDIGENOUS SOLIDARITY DAY:
NATIVE AMERICAN LIBERATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Friday, October 12, 7:30PM
Plymouth Congregational Church,
5301 N. Capitol St., Washington DC

Information Contact John Steinbach 1-800-484-7459 <jsteinbach@igc.org

Speakers:

• Dacajeweiah (Splitting the Sky) Founder of the League of Indigenous Sovereign Nations of the Western Hemisphere(LISN), Author of "From Attica to Gustafsen Lake," Organizer of the U.N. Rally on October 12, 1992

• Penny Williams, Writer and artist; Sachem(spiritual leader) of the Chappaquiddick Band of Wampamnoag Indians; Producer & Host of WOL's Indigenous Circle,

• Bob Brown, Director, Kwame Ture Work-Study Institute and Library, delegate to the World Conference Against Racism

• Billy Redwing Tayac, Hereditary Chief of the Piscataway Indian Nation, Co- Founder, Mid-Atlantic American Indian Movement(AIM), Co-Founder, LISN

• Margarito Esquino, U.S.A. Representative of the National Association of Indigenous Salvadorans (ANIS) (Sally Hanlon, translator)

• Teresita Jacinto, Emcee, Committee for Indigenous Solidarity (CIS)

----

This message comes from the WILPF UN & JAPA staff and volunteers in New York

Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 08:57:42 -0400 From: Felicity Hill <flick@igc.org>

We have come together this morning for the first time to share our reactions, pain and insights into this tragedy as New Yorkers living so close to the scene, as WILPFers, and as women who believe in peace. We have discussed how to move forward, to heal politically and personally, which will require time and support. We have cried and we have expressed anger and disbelief. We have also reaffirmed our continuing desire for structural, economic and political change in this world.

We have been guided by our WILPF values and the work that we do, to first and foremost, value life - all life - and to recognise the innocence of those who have been effected or killed, in New York, Washington DC and Pennsylvania, and all over the world, from acts of violence. We are also reflecting on the shared experience of the many people affected every day by premeditated violence, genocide, crimes against humanity and other atrocities in all parts of the world.

While acts of racist violence have occurred and must also be condemned, the majority of people in the USA have exhibited the basic human instinct of helping one another, and acting in solidarity with one another. Here in New York, there is a sense of not being alone, and that people from around the world recognise the loss and the grief, and are standing beside the people who have lost relatives and friends. From this strength and solidarity, we believe the cycle of violence can be broken.

The indiscriminate nature of the violence of September 11 is its dominant feature, and an indiscriminate retaliation is exactly what must be avoided. True healing will be met only through justice, and justice through legal channels, not bombing. Truth and honesty will be the tools of peace. These criminal acts should be prosecuted through legal channels and mechanisms already established by the international community. Of course, we join all calls for restraint, and feel that this is what will differentiate a sane and just response from the insanity of the violence.

The role of the media cannot be over-emphasised at times such as these in providing facts and information. The media should not become a vehicle of expressing hatred, or lending itself to propaganda. The repetition of scenes of Palestinian celebration, allegedly from 1991, has served no purpose at this point, except to fuel anti-Arab sentiment in the US. We regret this very much. Now is a time for creative answers and approaches, not the simplistic categorisation of good and evil.

The UN is a vehicle for negotiation, peace and justice, a vehicle which must be better utilised. Just as the tragedy of WWII drove human beings to create the UN, perhaps this tragedy will refocus human beings to revaluate and strengthen this institution. We in the UN Office of WILPF and at JAPA are increasingly committed to promoting the original intention of the UN and its Charter, to create peace through constructive discussion and action for peace and human security, which we as WILPF know is much broader than military security.

Today, the WILPF UN Office and JAPA staff called for and contributed to a religious and non-religious NGO meeting to plan an event and statement that would bring together the UN and NGO community to mourn and heal. The meeting also set up a series of support sessions for those in the building, to help facilitate reconciliation and process the trauma people are experiencing.

We thank you for your messages of support and concern. We are safe, but we are also shocked and stunned. Many images, smells, sounds and stories are ricocheting around in our minds and streets. We will need time to get back into work at full speed. Thanks for your patience and love.

Isha Dyfan, Executive Director JAPA
Mikele Aboitiz, PeaceWomen project
Sara Poehlman-Doumbouya, PeaceWomen project
mily Schroeder, Reaching Critical Will project
Sherri Gibbings, intern
Felicity Hill, Director, United Nations Office

Women's International League for Peace and Freedom,
777 UN Plaza, New York, NY 10017, USA
Ph: 1 212 682 1265 Fax: 1 212 286 8211
email: flick@igc.org, wilpfun@igc.org
web: www.wilpf.int.ch www.reachingcriticalwill.org

----

Dear Friends of the Arms Trade Resource Center

18 September 2001
From: "Frida Berrigan" <BerrigaF@newschool.edu>

Hello from New York City. A quick note to let you know that we are okay, back in the office and have regained the ability to send and receive email. We lost our server when the world fell apart a week ago.

Our email addresses are the same as before: William Hartung: hartung@newschool.edu Frida Berrigan: berrigaf@newschool.edu Michelle Ciarrocca: ciarrm01@newschool.edu Dena Montague: montd033@newschool.edu

Please resend any emails that you want us to read. We have NOT received ANY emails for a week.

Below is a brief commentary on the World Trade Center attack by William Hartung. We will be sending out a longer update later in the week.

Do not hesitate to contact us with questions, research queries or just to touch base. Information, analysis and dialogue are so important as we struggle together to respond and to act and to not lose hope.

Peace,
Frida Berrigan

911 COMMENTARY

by William D. Hartung, President's Fellow,
World Policy Institute at the New School, and author of And Weapons for All:

The attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center have generated urgent demands for the Bush administration to retaliate against the perpetrators and take measures to prevent future acts of violence against U.S. citizens. These are worthy goals given the terrible human toll of these terrorist acts. But as we enter the "new world" that is emerging in the wake of the events of September 11th, we have a responsibility as citizens of a democracy to ensure that in its rush to fight terrorism, our government does not revert to failed policies of the past. Many of the responses that have been discussed - from bombing Afghanistan, to lifting the ban on assassinations by the CIA, to arming anti-government rebels in an effort to pressure regimes that are harboring terrorists - are likely to be either irrelevant to the issue of curbing terrorism, or to actually make matters worse. Let's not forget that it was not that long ago that Osama Bin Laden was one of Ronald Reagan's cherished Afghan "freedom fighters," working hand-in-hand with the CIA in the effort to eject Soviet troops from Afghanistan. The founding members of Bin Laden's network were recruited from the midst of the Afghan resistance, which the United States supported to the tune of $2 to $3 billion in arms, training, and infrastructure in the 1980s. The United States' role in building up Bin Laden is just one example of the kind of unintended consequences that can flow from a narrowly focused, overly militarized approach to achieving key foreign policy objectives.

Before we rush off to war, there should be a thorough public debate about the most effective methods of combating terrorism without killing innocent civilians abroad or undermining fundamental democratic freedoms at home. If this is truly a "long-term effort," as the president has suggested, it should encompass economic, diplomatic, and domestic security components, not just military action. Reducing global stockpiles of nuclear weapons and working vigorously to promote negotiated solutions to key regional conflicts such as those between Israel and the Palestinians and India and Pakistan (over Kashmir) will do more in the long run to reduce the dangers of terrorism than meeting terrorist violence with "disproportionate" counter-violence, as the President has suggested.

----

VOICES OF RESTRAINT - Peace vigils planned throughout the US Amid talk of war, movement pleads for reconciliation

By Alice Dembner and David Abel,
Boston Globe,
9/18/2001

From: Joseph Gerson <JGerson@afsc.org> - [9/18 - All our efforts are beginning to find their way into the public consciousness, to affect the national debate, and the struggle for security through justice with peace rather than deepening the catastrophic cycles of violence. J. Gerson]

NEW YORK - They are gathering quietly in vigils, not mounting protests. And they are largely being drowned out by a feverish tide of war rhetoric.

But across the country, voices of pacificism and restraint are growing stronger.

Little more than a mile from ground zero of the incinerated World Trade Center, a vigil at Union Square for the victims has already evolved into an ad hoc center for the budding peace movement. The square's monument to George Washington is not only draped in American flags, but also covered with antiwar slogans.

Peace vigils have been held from Portland, Ore., to Cambridge, Mass., and hundreds more are planned over the coming weeks.

More than 100 civil rights and religious organizations plan to gather Thursday in Washington to map a larger response to last week's terrorism, hoping to moderate the government's support for military strikes abroad and expanded law enforcement powers at home.

Separately, peace groups will gather in New York Friday to plan national action against President Bush's declared ''war on terrorism,'' arguing that war is not the answer and will only add to the carnage.

''We're mobilizing the peace community to call for reconciliation, not retaliation,'' said Judith Mahoney Pasternak of the War Resisters League. ''The faster we start singing the songs of peace to counter the drums of war, the better it's going to be.''

While the War Resisters League said their organizing efforts have been hampered by phone and e-mail failures at their offices only 11/2 miles from ground zero, other groups said they had been moving slowly out of respect for the victims.

''We are committed to building public opinion in our communities and then moving in the near future to a national expression,'' said Judith McDaniel at the national office of the American Friends Service Committee in Philadelphia. She confirmed that the office has received several bomb threats since it launched a national ''No More Victims'' peace campaign.

Meanwhile, some in Congress are questioning whether lawmakers are rushing into actions that will harm America. Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, yesterday said he is worried that the push to relax wiretapping restrictions could infringe on civil liberties.

''We do not intend to tie the hands of the intelligence community, but neither do we intend to curb the rights of millions of Americans,'' he said.

And Representative Barbara Lee, the California Democrat who was the only member of Congress to vote against last week's resolution authorizing President Bush to use force against terrorism, says there is growing support for her stand.

''People are beginning to understand that we must show some restraint, that we don't want to see this spiral out of control,'' Lee said. ''We've got to make sure democracy is upheld and our country is safe.''

It's not only pacifists who oppose the war rhetoric, but also others who look to history and see failures and abuses when the United States moved without enough thought.

In 1998, they note, US forces bombed a suspected chemical weapons plant in Sudan that turned out to be a pharmaceutical factory. And in World War II, hysteria led the United States to round up Japanese-Americans into internment camps.

''I really have a problem with the war analogy,'' said Stephen Zunes, chairman of the peace and justice studies program at the University of San Francisco. ''This was not an act of war but a criminal act. We need to think in terms of police actions in response. But I don't think it would be unreasonable to have small-scale commando operations to break up the terrorist cells.''

Longtime pacifist and MIT professor Noam Chomsky opposes even that action. ''A call for revenge without thinking about what lies beyond is a gift to the terrorists,'' he said. ''It virtually guarantees an escalating cycle of violence. An alternative in the short term is to follow the rule of law through the United Nations Security Council or the World Court.''

Retired Boston University historian Howard Zinn suggests that the answers to terrorism lie elsewhere. ''We have to move from a war-making nation to a nation that uses its resources for constructive purposes ... to get at the grievances that feed terrorism,'' he said.

In the Boston area, peace vigils are planned at noon today at the JFK Federal Building and at 6 p.m. tomorrow at Copley Square, with a planning meeting for more events to follow. At Tufts University, members of the peace and justice studies program are circulating a petition urging that ''the search for justice'' focus only on the perpetrators of the crime, avoid targeting entire nationalities, and respect civil liberties.

At Union Square in New York, young and old, Jews and gentiles, blacks and whites have gathered around thousands of votive candles, American flags, and pictures of the missing to pay their respects and chant such slogans as ''Vengeance isn't justice'' and ''Break the cycle of violence: War is weakness, peace is strength.''

''People need to know that there are other feelings in America, that we are not all hawks hoping to exchange an eye for an eye,'' said Josh Torpey, 24, a Manhattan teacher who met a group of friends on Union Square Sunday night

Ted Lawson, a 31-year-old artist from Boston, was creating a painting of the American flag out of thumbprints of passersby to signify American unity, but said he wondered whether previous acts of war by the United States had encouraged terrorism. Heated arguments have erupted throughout the park between those who question US policy and those who believe the United States should annihilate any group or country who helped organize the attacks.

But others were frightened about the prospect for war. Lighting a candle next to a row of roses arranged to evoke the World Trade Center, Christine Andriopoulos said she was scared.

''The message should be that the violence has to stop,'' she said. ''Here. Now. Forever.''

----

Concerns Rise That Peace is Not on Table
Response: Pacifists fear the burgeoning pro-war sentiments in Congress. They implore the administration to weigh other options.

By SUE FOX
LATimes Staff Writer
September 18 2001
From: Max Obuszewski <MObuszewski@afsc.org>

First one tower, then its twin. When a third hijacked plane divebombed into the Pentagon, Mary Ellen McNish, the leader of one of the nation's oldest peace groups, slumped forward onto her desk in her Philadelphia office.

"This means war," she told herself, cradling her head in her hands. "I just knew that was going to be the response."

Many signs indicate that McNish, general secretary of the 84-year-old American Friends Service Committee, may be right. Talk shows trumpet the righteousness of retaliation. Opinion surveys find heavy support for military action. And even dovish lawmakers are clamoring for blood.

As clouds of war gather over the land, pacifists from coast to coast are desperately preaching peace, hoping to stop any violence before the United States rains death on whomever it deems responsible.

"An eye for an eye makes everyone blind," warned Felicity Hill, the director of the United Nations office of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, an 86-year-old social justice group. "That's what Gandhi said."

But hate mail is already trickling into Hill's in-box. Calls for vengeance pour from the pages of mainstream publications. Patriotic fury has seemingly overcome restraint.

A Los Angeles Times poll that surveyed 1,561 adults nationwide on Thursday and Friday found that more than eight in 10 said they would favor a military strike against Afghanistan if the ruling Taliban is found to be harboring Osama bin Laden. That sentiment held even if innocent Afghanis would be killed.

Peace advocates say they understand feelings of helplessness, anguish and outrage after the worst terrorist attack in American history. They feel that way too, and agree something must be done.

But not violence. Peace groups strongly condemn terrorism and support punishment within the bloodless bounds of international law.

"We urge that those responsible for these heinous crimes be brought to justice in courts of law or before an international tribunal," said a statement by the Hague Appeal for Peace, an international group with offices in New York and Geneva that seeks to abolish war.

Just two months ago, peace was looking more palatable. Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio) and 37 co-sponsors introduced a bill to establish a Cabinet-level Department of Peace, with a secretary appointed by the president.

On Friday, the Senate unanimously approved a sweeping resolution authorizing President Bush to "use all necessary and appropriate force" to avenge the attacks.

"Everyone has just crumbled," said Mary Lord, a Washington-based lobbyist for the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group.

Senators who ordinarily could be counted on to support arms control and peaceful cooperation--such as Democrat Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee--lined up to unleash the military's might.

Biden declared this week: "We will seek [terrorists] out, find them, bring them to justice, and, if they resist, we will kill them."

Both the Senate and House of Representatives voted to authorize the use of force. Although there were a few murmurs of objection from Kucinich and others, the House approved Friday's resolution 420 to 1. The sole dissenter was Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland).

Even many religious leaders who often ally themselves with peace groups are not doing so this time. A statement issued last week by prominent liberal members of the clergy called for "sober restraint" and said that retaliation should avoid "even more loss of innocent life" but did not counsel against a military response.

"This is America acting out its rage," said David Robinson, executive director of Pax Christi USA, a Roman Catholic antiwar group. "We have to hold ourselves back, lest we ourselves become the barbarians who started this in the first place."

Hoping to bring calm, peace activists nationwide have held prayer meetings and candlelight vigils. They have taken up collections to help victims and reminded their neighbors not to scapegoat Arab Americans. They've called President Bush and members of Congress, begging them not to go to war.

Peace activists warn that retaliation will create a bitter cycle of hatred that will be difficult to end.

"Often we counsel other nations that they need to stop and reflect," Lord said. "We've said that to people in Northern Ireland and the Middle East, and now we have to say it to ourselves."

Bill Warrick, a spokesman for the Gainesville, Fla., chapter of Veterans For Peace, said Americans need to put themselves in the shoes of their attackers.

"What we should do is get into the minds of the people who did it: Why do these Middle Easterners hate us so much?" said Warrick, an Army veteran who turned against violence during his service in the Vietnam War.

In Southern California, home to many of the victims killed in Tuesday's plane crashes, the local Human Rights Watch office has been deluged with calls from people concerned that retaliation equals more dead civilians, albeit in another country.

"There's this expectation that there will be a Hollywood-style military strike and we'll be dropping missiles, and it will feel satisfying," said Emma Cherniavsky, associate director of the branch office. "I find that a very terrifying image. That would mean losing more lives."

----

Tolerance.org:

In case you have not already come across it yet, below is information about a Web site which may be of interest to you and others whom you know.

Morgan <norsehorse@hotmail.com> Morgan W. Brown Montpelier Vermont

http://www.tolerance.org

"The mission of Tolerance.org is to create a national community committed to human rights. Its goal is to awaken people of all ages to the problem of hate and intolerance, to equip them with the best tolerance ideas and to prompt them to act in their homes, schools, businesses and communities." :: "Tolerance.org is a Web project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a national non-profit civil rights organization that promotes tolerance and diversity and combats hate and discrimination through education, investigation and litigation." :: "Tolerance.org is structured for easy access to news, solutions and engaging exercises that teach and prompt personal soul-searching."

-------

The Need for Dissent
Voices from Britain and the US highlight the risks of a hasty response

by George Monbiot
September 18, 2001
Guardian of London
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4259207,00.html

If Osama bin Laden did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. For the past four years, his name has been invoked whenever a US president has sought to increase the defense budget or wriggle out of arms control treaties. He has been used to justify even President Bush's missile deface program, though neither he nor his associates are known to possess anything approaching ballistic missile technology. Now he has become the personification of evil required to launch a crusade for good: the face behind the faceless terror.

The closer you look, the weaker the case against Bin Laden becomes. While the terrorists who inflicted Tuesday's dreadful wound may have been inspired by him, there is, as yet, no evidence that they were instructed by him. Bin Laden's presumed guilt appears to rest on the supposition that he is the sort of man who would have done it. But his culpability is irrelevant: his usefulness to western governments lies in his power to terrify. When billions of pounds of military spending are at stake, rogue states and terrorist warlords become assets precisely because they are liabilities.

By using Bin Laden as an excuse for demanding new military spending, weapons manufacturers in America and Britain have enhanced his iconic status among the disgruntled. His influence, in other words, has been nurtured by the very industry which claims to possess the means of stamping him out. This is not the only way in which the new terrorism crisis has been exacerbated by corporate power. The lax airport security which enabled the hijackers to smuggle weapons on to the planes was, for example, the result of corporate lobbying against the stricter controls the government had proposed.

Now Tuesday's horror is being used by corporations to establish the preconditions for an even deadlier brand of terror. This week, while the world's collective back is turned, Tony Blair intends to allow the mixed oxide plant at Sellafield to start operating. The decision would have been front-page news at any other time. Now it's likely to be all but invisible. The plant's operation, long demanded by the nuclear industry and resisted by almost everyone else, will lead to a massive proliferation of plutonium, and a high probability that some of it will find its way into the hands of terrorists. Like Ariel Sharon, in other words, Blair is using the reeling world's shock to pursue policies which would be unacceptable at any other time.

For these reasons and many others, opposition has seldom been more necessary. But it has seldom been more vulnerable. The right is seizing the political space which has opened up where the twin towers of the World Trade Center once stood.

Civil liberties are suddenly negotiable. The US seems prepared to lift its ban on extra-judicial executions carried out abroad by its own agents. The CIA might be permitted to employ human rights abusers once more, which will doubtless mean training and funding a whole new generation of Bin Ladens. The British government is considering the introduction of identity cards. Radical dissenters in Britain have already been identified as terrorists by the Terrorism Act 2000. Now we're likely to be treated as such.

The authoritarianism which has long been lurking in advanced capitalism has started to surface. In these pages yesterday, William Shawcross - Rupert Murdoch's courteous biographer - articulated the new orthodoxy: America is, he maintained, "a beacon of hope for the world's poor and dispossessed and for all those who believe in freedom of thought and deed". These believers would presumably include the families of the Iraqis killed by the sanctions Britain and the US have imposed; the peasants murdered by Bush's proxy war in Colombia; and the tens of millions living under despotic regimes in the Middle East, sustained and sponsored by the US.

William Shawcross concluded by suggesting that "we are all Americans now", an echo of Pinochet's maxim that "we are all Chileans now": by which he meant that no cultural distinctions would be tolerated and no indigenous land rights recognized. Shawcross appeared to suggest that those who question American power are the enemies of democracy. It's a different way of formulating the warning voiced by members of the Bush administration: "If you're not with us, you're against us."

The Daily Telegraph has set aside part of its leader column for a directory of "useful idiots", by which it means those who oppose major military intervention. Perhaps the roll of honor will soon include families of some of the victims, who seem to be rather more capable of restraint and forgiveness than the leader writers of the rightwing press. Mark Newton-Carter, whose brother appears to have died in the terrorist outrage, told one of the Sunday newspapers: "I think Bush should be caged at the moment. He is a loose cannon. He is building up his forces getting ready for a military strike. That is not the answer. Gandhi said: 'An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind' and never a truer word was spoken." But when the right is on the rampage, victims as well as perpetrators are trampled.

Mark Twain once observed that "there are some natures which never grow large enough to speak out and say a bad act is a bad act, until they have inquired into the politics or the nationality of the man who did it". The left is able to state categorically that Tuesday's terrorism was a dreadful act, irrespective of provenance. But the right can't bring itself to make the same statement about Israel's new invasions of Palestine, or the sanctions in Iraq, or the US-backed terror in East Timor, or the carpet bombing of Cambodia. Its critical faculties have long been suspended and now, it demands, we must suspend ours too.

Retaining the ability to discriminate between good acts and bad acts will become ever harder over the next few months, as new conflicts and paradoxes challenge our preconceptions. It may be that a convincing case against Bin Laden is assembled, whereupon his forced extradition would be justified. But, unless we wish to help George Bush use barbarism to defend the "civilization" he claims to represent, we must distinguish between extradition and extermination.

Tuesday's terror may have signaled the beginning of the end of globalization. The recession it has doubtless helped to precipitate, coupled with a new and understandable fear among many Americans of engagement with the outside world, could lead to a reactionary protectionism in the US, which is likely to provoke similar responses on this side of the Atlantic. We will, in these circumstances, have to be careful not to celebrate the demise of corporate globalization., if it merely gives way to something even worse.

The governments of Britain and America are using the disaster in New York to reinforce the very policies which have helped to cause the problem: building up the power of the defence industry, preparing to launch campaigns of the kind which inevitably kill civilians, licensing covert action. Corporations are securing new resources to invest in instability. Racists are attacking Arabs and Muslims and blaming liberal asylum policies for terrorism. As a result of the horror on Tuesday, the right in all its forms is flourishing, and we are shrinking. But we must not be cowed. Dissent is most necessary just when it is hardest to voice.

Special report: terrorism in the US http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/0,1300,550197,00.html

--------

88-Year-Old Nun Begins Prison Term

Wednesday, July 18, 2001
Associated Press,
by Jay Hughes
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0718-01.htm

PEKIN, Ill. -- An 88-year-old nun arrested at Fort Benning, Ga., while protesting the Army's School of the Americas reported to prison to begin serving a six month sentence.

Dorothy Hennessey arrived Tuesday at the minimum-security Pekin Federal Prison Camp along with her sister Gwen Hennessey, 68, also a nun from Dubuque, Iowa.

The sisters were among 26 protesters convicted of trespassing during a November protest in which some 3,400 people crossed onto the Army base without permission. Only those who had been arrested for trespassing before but not prosecuted were sentenced to prison.

The protesters contended that graduates of the school, recently renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, have been linked to murder, torture and other human rights abuses. Military officials say the school's goal is to teach democratic principles to future Latin American leaders.

Dorothy Hennessey was given the chance to serve probation, but she turned the judge's offer down.

"I'm not an invalid, so I think I should get the same as the others," she said.

She said she began protesting against the school to honor the memory of her brother who spent several years as a missionary in Central America and relayed tales of government abuses.

"My little bit of discomfort is nothing like that my brother's parishioners suffered down there," she said.

The Hennessey sisters were sentenced to up to six months in prison, as was Rachel Hayward, of Negaunee, Mich., who at 19 was the youngest protester convicted.

Pekin prison spokesman Richard Engel said the nine female protesters sent there were assigned cubicles that each will share with another inmate in dormitory-style housing.

The Rev. Roy Bourgeois, founder of the protest's organizer, School of the Americas Watch, said the sentences of the 26 who were ordered to report to prisons around the country Tuesday would energize future demonstrators. The group is planning another protest at Fort Benning in November.

-------

Toronto RTS Lawsuit Update---Tentative Trial Date Set!

Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001
From: "Brian Burch" <burch@tao.ca>

In the midst of all the crisis of the current times an ongoing effort to hold police in Toronto accountable for their actions continues to progress.

Subject to the normal vagaries of the judicial system our lawsuit against the Toronto police is scheduled to proceed on January 28, 2002. This lawsuit was launched as the result of the arrest of Kevin Thomas and myself on the charge of "Unlawful Assembly". This charge was laid as a result of our participation in the 1998 Reclaim the Streets Celebration in Toronto.

On November 22, 2001 we have a pre-trial. This is a hearing with a judge, different than the one that would hear the case, that is an effort to sort out the evidence and encourage the idea of an out-of-court settlement.

Keeping alive interest in an ongoing struggle for years is hard. There are new examples of the criminalizing of dissent that also need to be addressed. And with the world possibly on the brink of war, it may seem trivial to try to hold the police accountable. However, as civil rights are often threatened in times of 'national emergency', efforts to support the right to publically dissent perhaps it is even more important to keep the pressure up. We must, given recent statements by governments in the west, remember that the F.B.I. considers the Reclaim the Street movement a terrorist network. The police statement that I was an organizer of the 1998 RTS event thus has a very interesting connotation when seen in that light.

Those wishing to help with defence costs can send donations to our lawyer. Cheques should be made payable to Brian Shiller in Trust and mailed to Shiller Layton Arbuck, 70 Bond Street, Suite 200, Toronto, Ontario M5B 1X3.

Those wanting more info on this can reach me at <burch@tao.ca> or leave a message with TASC/Homes Not Bombs (416-651-5800)

Brian Burch burch@tao.ca

++

The following was the original appeal for support for this effort.

FROM THE DESK OF CLAYTON RUBY

Re: LAWSUIT TARGETS USE OF "UNLAWFUL ASSEMBLY" CHARGE

On Wednesday, January 25, 2000 Brian Burch and Kevin Thomas launched a civil suit against the Toronto police force. They are seeking over $500,000 in specific and general damages as a result of their experiences when they were charged with Unlawful Assembly while present at a peaceful 1998 Reclaim the Streets protest in downtown Toronto.

Taking this action was not an easy decision to make. However, it was felt that something had to be done to respond to the growing criminalization of public protest in Canada.

Denial of Charter guarantees of the rights of assembly and expression should not go unchallenged. Thomas and Burch felt that allowing police broad-ranging power to detain people who are merely present at a peaceful demonstration can lead to even further injustices down the road.

After many pre-trial appearances and a five-day trial, a mistrial was declared and the crown chose to withdraw the charges. Brian Shiller, a well respected civil lawyer, agreed to pursue a civil action arguing that charging the two defendants with unlawful assembly and proceeding to trial violated their Charter rights. With his guidance, a suit alleging violations of sections 2, 7, 8 and 9 of the charter was prepared and launched.

The suit is against a number of individual officers, the Toronto Police Department and the Toronto Police Services Board.

Legal actions are expensive. Defending the right to peacefully assembly and not be subject to arbitrary arrest is an ongoing battle of which this case is a small but potentially significant part. I urge all those concerned with civil liberties to financially assist Burch and Thomas in their efforts to fight back against police abuses.

Cheques should be made payable to Brian Shiller in Trust and mailed to Shiller Layton Arbuck, 70 Bond Street, Suite 200, Toronto, Ontario M5B 1X3.

Sincerely, Clayton Ruby



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