------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Does Osama Have a Nuclear Bomb?
A Look at Weapons of Mass Destruction
Minister's approval of nuclear facility causes outrage
Britain reviews security at nuclear power plants
Czechs Silent on Test Failure
Nuclear Reactors Not Made to Withstand Airborne Terrorist Attacks
Hungary powers up EU-ready nuclear warning system
Koizumi orders more antiterrorism steps at nuclear plants
North Korea Warns Japan on Rocket Launch
Slovakia, EBRD to form fund to close nuclear plant
People near nuclear plants, ammunition, chemical depots worry
Nuclear plant security at issue
Bush energy bill sneaks in $30 million in 'corporate welfare'
No nuclear blast if plane hits Y-12, says Brumley
NEW WEAPONS LAB WILL MONITOR AGING STOCKPILE
Hanford watchdogs threaten suit
Yucca lump-sum funding criticized by lawmakers
BUSH SR. IN BUSINESS WITH BIN LADEN FAMILY
13 Questions for President George W. Bush

MILITARY
Northern Alliance gets help from U.S.
Where the Battlefield Is a Maze
Taliban ask for special meeting of Islamic nations
Nature of bin Laden Weapons Pondered
Bioterrorism Vulnerability Cited
Smallpox's 7 Percent Solution
Afghan Plant Has Potential Worrying Bush
People Near Chemical Depots Worry
Nations tie Mideast peace to U.S. campaign
Deaths Mar Mideast Peace Efforts
As Alliances Shift, Japan's Military Role Is Widening
Russia Welcomes Chechnya Support
Ending Doubts, Saudis to Allow U.S. to Use Base
U.S. introduces U.N. resolution to fight terrorism
UN Races to Complete New Anti - Terrorism Measures
Allied Special Forces Scouting Afghanistan, Official Says

OTHER
SOLAR POWER INDUSTRY HONORS ITS OWN
White House seeks ICC protection
Amnesty Ridicules Mideast Policies
Russian Bid for WTO Gains Support
New Office to Become a White House Agency
FBI Director Links Some Hijacking Suspects to al Qaeda
Bush Law-Enforcement Plan Troubles Both Right and Left
Bush at C.I.A. Gives Support to the Chief
Defense Spending to Favor Spying
Computer Robots Gather Intelligence

ACTIVISTS
Minus IMF, Protesters Give Peace A Chance
Are we at war?



-------- NUCLEAR

Does Osama Have a Nuclear Bomb?

By Declan McCullagh,
Sep. 28, 2001 PDT
Wired
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0%2C1294%2C47158%2C00.html

WASHINGTON -- It's a prospect so alarming that it was nearly unthinkable before this month's attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

But does the al Qaeda terrorist network headed by Osama bin Laden have nuclear weapons?

Nobody who knows for sure is talking publicly. Yet for much of the last decade, government reports and intelligence experts have been warning that bin Laden has been trying to build the bomb.

The reports have been sporadic but persistent: A 1999 article in the Jerusalem Report magazine claims "bin Laden has several nuclear suitcases," and a 1998 New York Times article says that a bin Laden aide was arrested in Germany on charges of trying to buy highly enriched uranium.

When Time magazine asked bin Laden in late 1998 what his nuclear intentions were, he cagily replied: "Acquiring weapons for the defense of Muslims is a religious duty. If I have indeed acquired these weapons, then I thank God for enabling me to do so."

There's a big difference, of course, between purchasing the right material -- and building a bomb, maintaining it, and successfully delivering it to its intended target. Nuclear weapons also have relatively short shelf lives, meaning a supply of replacement fuel eventually would be required.

"It's difficult to know if he has (nuclear weapons)," said Kimberly McCloud, a researcher at the Monterey Institute of International Studies who tracks weapons of mass destruction. "We know he's been interested in it, and that's reason for concern. At the same time, we don't know if (he) has weaponized it."

One shortcut to membership in the nuclear club is a portable tactical device, often called a "suitcase nuke."

Both the U.S. and the former Soviet Union created such weapons with about 1 kiloton of explosive power -- the equivalent of 1,000 tons of TNT -- which is enough to level a small portion of a city. The American version was called the Special Atomic Demolition Munition, or Mk-54, and was designed to be carried by a single paratrooper, then detonated by timer.

"You're talking about a bomb, a device with a capability of 1 kiloton of destruction, which is a massive capability that would cause severe destruction of a major inner city area, perhaps causing a multitude of buildings to collapse with the people inside of them," Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pennsylvania) said in 1999.

The Soviet military created similar devices -- and then, apparently, misplaced some during the turbulent dissolution of the Soviet Union a decade ago.

Alexie Yablokov, Boris Yeltsin's former science advisor, told a U.S. House committee in 1997 that he believed dozens of the "suitcase-size nuclear munitions" were missing. At the time, the U.S. State Department said it was satisfied with Russia's assurances.

Some analysts who follow the topic stress there's little hard evidence to suggest a nuke-capable al Qaeda.

"We have no evidence at all that bin Laden has access to nuclear weapons," said Anthony Cordesman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who specializes in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

"He now has shown an interest," Cordesman said. "George Tenet has made public remarks on this. No one has see that there is a clean chain of evidence that he has the capability. But no one can account for the Russian nuclear weapons."

Cordesman referred to speeches by CIA Director George Tenet, including a briefing that he gave in February. At the time, Tenet said: "The missile and (weapons of mass destruction) proliferation problem continues to change in ways that make it harder to monitor and control, increasing the risk of substantial surprise."

Perhaps the most detailed glimpse of bin Laden's capabilities comes from the testimony of Jamal Ahmad al-Fadl, a native of Sudan and ex-bin Laden associate who testified for the U.S. government in the World Trade Center bombing trial earlier this year. Al-Fadl testified he spent years trying to obtain highly enriched uranium for bin Laden.

The U.S. government seems to agree. Kenneth Karas, a federal prosecutor in that case, urged the jury in May to remember "the efforts by al Qaeda to obtain components of nuclear weapons and remember bin Laden's endorsement of what he called the Islamic nuclear bomb."

About the only thing that's certain is that if al Qaeda and bin Laden have the materials, making a nuclear weapon may not be that difficult.

A report by Carey Sublette, distributed by the Federation of American Scientists, recalls a 1960s experiment conducted by the U.S. government. In it, three newly graduated physics students were asked to develop a nuclear weapon using only publicly available information.

The result: "They did develop a viable design after expending only three man-years of effort over two and a half calendar years. In the years since, much more information has entered the public domain so that the level of effort required has obviously dropped further."

--------

A Look at Weapons of Mass Destruction

September 28, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Weapons-Glance.html?searchpv=aponline

A look at ``weapons of mass destruction'' -- devices that have the potential of killing thousands:

--Chemical weapons: These are considered the most likely to be used in a terrorist attack because they are easier to make and can kill people quickly. They include nerve agents such as sarin and VX, blister agents such as mustard gas, and cyanide. Making and storing them in any quantity still require the technical capability, roughly, of a pharmaceutical company, experts say.

--Biological weapons: These cause disease. Anthrax is considered a likely candidate for an attack. Effects can be minimized with quarantines and quick medical care.

--Radiological weapons: These spread radioactive material over a wide area. Unlikely to kill anyone quickly, they will instead cause long-term problems, such as cancer, in an affected population. They could also render an area uninhabitable for a long period. They don't have the mass, rapid killing effect that terrorists seek.

--Nuclear weapons: No terrorist group is believed to be able to develop these, although there are fears that one could be obtained from Russia. Reports of suitcase-sized nuclear weapons have not been verified.

-------- australia

Minister's approval of nuclear facility causes outrage

Australian Broadcasting,
September 28, 2001
http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/environment/2001/09/item20010928070433_1.htm

Environmental groups have slammed the Federal Environment Minister's approval of a nuclear irradiation facility at Narangba north of Brisbane.

Senator Robert Hill approved the Steritech Gamma Irradiation and Decontamination Plant earlier this week, saying it was environmentally acceptable with a number of strict conditions.

Friends of the Earth's Rebecca Duffy says she is concerned that a full Environmental Impact Statement was not carried out and that a number of safety issues have been left unresolved.

"We actually think that it's absurd that Senator Hill can approve a nuclear radiation facility with the lowest level of assessment that he's chosen," Ms Duffy said.

"We don't believe that this level of assessment can possibly take into consideration all of the possible impacts that a nuclear radiation facility will have."

-------- britain

Britain reviews security at nuclear power plants

September 28, 2001
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12568/story.htm

LONDON - Britain is launching a review of security at its nuclear power stations in the wake of this month's suicide attacks in the United States, the nuclear watchdog said yesterday.

"A review of security has been launched by the Office for Civil Nuclear Security (OCNS) in light of the events in the U.S.", a spokesman for the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate told Reuters.

He declined to give further details.

The Department of Trade and Industry, of which the OCNS is an independent unit, could not immediately be reached for comment on the review.

Britain operates 35 nuclear reactors at 16 sites. Nuclear power accounts for about 27 percent of UK electricity generation.

Britain's move comes as Germany and France also look to tighten security around nuclear power plants in the wake of the attacks on the U.S.

Germany's environment ministry has asked atomic scientists for a first set of recommendations on tightening security to be submitted by mid-October.

The future role of nuclear power in Britain is under scrutiny as the government conducts a review of the country's energy needs for the next 50 years.

-------- czech republic

Czechs Silent on Test Failure at Nuclear Power Station - Austrian Official

BBC Monitoring European - Political
September 28, 2001
http://199.97.97.163/IMDS%PMAINTL0%read%/home/content/users/imds/feeds/bellsuper/2001/09/28/MEUP/0000-1721-KEYWORD.Missing

Excerpt from report in English by Czech news agency CTK

Linz, Austria, 28 September: The Czech electricity utility CEZ, which operates the nuclear power plant in Temelin, southern Bohemia, keeps silent on the failure of a dynamic test of the plant's turbine because interruption of the launch process is politically undesirable, Radko Pavlovec said today.

In a letter sent to CTK in Vienna, Pavlovec, Upper Austrian government commissioner for nuclear power facilities in border areas, refers to confidential information from Temelin staff.

Pavlovec claims that pressure is exerted on the National Nuclear Safety Authority (SUJB) to issue permission to raise the reactor's output to a further degree, that is 75 per cent of its nominal output, in spite of the failed test. He also says that CEZ, in spite of all problems, would evidently like to gain the green light for the first bloc's operation in order not to mar Industry Minister Miroslav Gregr's privatization plans.

Such procedure however is "entirely incompatible" with safety culture in European Union countries, Pavlovec writes. He further claims that Temelin operators have so far avoided, after repairs carried out, to burden the turbo-set with stronger changes in output, and says that dynamic tests have been repeatedly postponed. In the first attempt on 20 September, the reactor had to be shut down and the repeated test on Thursday has failed as well, according to confidential information. The turbo-set did not allegedly reach the needed operation stability, Pavlovec writes.

"The Czech National Nuclear Safety Authority is evidently unable to resist political pressure and issues agreement with steps which are linked with further raising risks implied," Pavlovec claims. That is why it is most urgent that the results of the tests carried out be assessed by international experts. "Referring to CEZ's claim that its steps are transparent, we call on it to make public the test results," Pavlovec concludes...

-------- germany

Nuclear Reactors Not Made to Withstand Airborne Terrorist Attacks

By Dieter Schwöbel and Siegfried Thielbeer,
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,
September 28, 2001
http://www.faz.com/IN/INtemplates/eFAZ/docmain.asp?rub={B1311FCC-FBFB-11D2-B228-00105A9CAF88}&sub=&doc={4E3BFC35-7150-4CA2-8802-A74D6E61CD32}

FRANKFURT. While German nuclear power plants are considered the best protected in the world, most experts agree that they could not withstand a targeted airborne terrorist attack such as when the jets crashed into the World Trade Center in New York.

Security standards dating back to the 1970s stipulate that nuclear power plants must be secure against plane crashes. But these rules only take into account the possibility of accidents involving smaller aircraft, such as F-4 Phantom jet fighters, whose low-altitude maneuvers were a calculated risk. They merely aimed to prevent airplane parts from penetrating a plant's reinforced concrete shell. Crashes by bigger planes straying off course were considered unlikely. And flying below a certain altitude is forbidden in close proximity to nuclear power plants, in any case.

Ever since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, however, critics of the peaceful use of atomic energy are no longer alone in calling for a reevaluation of the dangers posed by such an attack. Lothar Hahn, the chairman of Germany's Reactor Security Commission, which advises the Environment Ministry, has warned "against the illusion of believing that it is possible to effectively protect reactors against events like those in New York or Washington."

But, he adds, from a scientific standpoint, "no clear boundaries can be drawn between the probable and the improbable."

The concrete protective shells of newer nuclear power plants are about 1.80 meters (5.11 feet) thick -- three times as strong as in older plants. Yet it is doubtful that they can withstand the impact of a fully fueled jumbo jet. Experts have thus conceded that they cannot estimate the consequences of a plane crash or attack.

Meanwhile, the Federal Association of Citizens' Initiatives for Environmental Protection and other environmental protection groups have sketched horror scenarios and demanded the "immediate shutdown of all nuclear power plants."

According to these groups, terrorists could seize control of planes shortly after taking off in Hamburg, Munich or Frankfurt, intentionally crashing them into the nearby Brokdorf, Stade, Biblis, Obrigheim or Isar plants within minutes.

The few minutes of flight after a hijacking would practically rule out any countermeasures, they say, and whole regions could be radioactively contaminated, killing thousands of people.

Similar concerns have, of course, also been plaguing policymakers. For example, the Social Democrats' state parliamentary group in Hesse has accused nuclear power plant operators of making light of the risks and have said the two reactor blocks at the state's Biblis plant pose a "great danger." The environment ministries in Baden-Württemberg and Schleswig-Holstein fear that the two states' eight reactor blocks could not withstand an attack and have commissioned reports.

At the same time, the Environment Ministry has asked the nation's Reactor Security Commission to make a recommendation on if, and how, the plants' security can be improved. The results of the study are to be presented by late October to pave the way for legislation on greater restrictions or on refitting the plants.

Mr. Hahn thinks preparations can be realistic against "minor occurrences" at best. He says strengthening the reinforced concrete cupolas over existing reactors makes little sense.

Peter Butz of the Office for Plant and Reactor Security in Cologne agrees: "We have to start a step earlier and prevent terrorist attacks in the first place." Yet time also argues against strengthening the shells -- the Environment Ministry says this procedure would be "the equivalent of relicensing" and take years.

Experts say that, at least in the newer plants, the reinforced concrete shells, called containments, can withstand the impact of a 20-ton Phantom jet fighter crashing vertically at 774 kilometers per hour (480 miles per hour).

But the concrete mantle protecting plant Biblis A, which began operating in 1974, is only 60-80 centimeters (24 to 31 inches) thick. This is not enough to withstand the impact of a Phantom, according to its operating company, RWE Power.

At least 10 of Germany's 19 nuclear power plants are equally inadequately protected against plane crashes, according to an internal security analysis the Environment Ministry performed in Feb., 2000. "No or inadequate protection against airplane crashes" was the verdict not only on the nuclear reactors Biblis A and B, but also on Obrigheim, Stade, Neckarwestheim 1, Unterweser, Brunsbüttel, Isar 1, Philippsburg 1 and Krümmel. Sep. 27

-------- hungary

Hungary powers up EU-ready nuclear warning system

HUNGARY: September 28, 2001
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12570/story.htm

BUDAPEST - Hungary has completed installation of a nuclear warning and analysis system, initiated by the European Commission in case of a repetition of the Chernobyl catastrophe, EU officials said yesterday.

After a nuclear reactor exploded at Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union in 1986, exposing five million people across Europe to radiation, EU countries started to install national warning systems. In 1995, the European Commission decided that one coordinated system for the EU should be introduced.

Of the 15 EU member states, only France and Britain have elected to retain their own systems.

"After Chernobyl we realised in Europe that we need better use of our resources should an emergency happen again," Neale Kelly, principal scientist at the European Commission's Directorate General for Research told a news conference.

The RODOS system (real-time on-line decision support system) has already been implemented in Germany - the core of the entire project - as well as in Finland, Spain, Portugal, Slovakia and Poland.

It is currently being built in Slovenia and the Czech Republic, while Romania, Bulgaria and the Ukraine are scheduled for next year.

The system, comprising a high-capacity computer centre incorporating digital maps, information about a country's nuclear plants and other hazardous industrial facilities and meteorological data, can help predict the spread of radiation and contains dozens of scenarios for different emergencies.

"(Although) Chernobyl is forgotten in the political mind...the past two weeks have reminded us that we should always be diligent," Kelly told Reuters, referring to the hijacked airliner attacks against New York and Washington.

He said that the system, when fully operational, would enable participant countries to have real-time information about any nuclear incident. Kelly put development costs at around 20 million euros ($18.4 million) and implementation at 500,000 euros ($460,400) per country.

Hungary has one nuclear power plant at Paks, some 50 km south of Budapest. The Soviet-built plant was completed in 1982 and has four VVER pressurised water reactors of 460 megawatt capacity each, providing 40 percent of Hungary's electricity.

-------- japan

Koizumi orders more antiterrorism steps at nuclear plants

Kyodo News,
September 28, 2001
http://home.kyodo.co.jp/all/display.jsp?an=20010928086

TOKYO, Sept. 28, Kyodo - Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Friday ordered the government to increase antiterrorism measures at Japan's nuclear plants in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, the government's top spokesman said. Koizumi told his cabinet members to ''take full measures'' following the attacks, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said in a press conference.

There are 51 commercial nuclear reactors operating in Japan.

--------

North Korea Warns Japan on Rocket Launch

By REUTERS
September 28, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-korea-north-missile.html?searchpv=reuters

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea slammed Japan on Friday for what it called a bid to develop nuclear missiles by stealth and warned Tokyo it would be ``merciless to those who infringe upon its dignity and sovereignty.''

The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said the warning came in a statement by a spokesman for Pyongyang's Anti-Nuke Peace Committee. It did not say what specific measures would be taken.

The North Korean accusation referred to Japan's successful launch of its next-generation H-2A rocket in late August which put a test satellite into orbit.

``The Japanese reactionaries are ridiculous enough to describe their recent test-fire of (the) large-size carrier rocket H-2A as one for 'space development','' the statement said, adding:

``Even the Japanese authorities do not hide the fact that this rocket can be used for military purposes as it is ... easily convertible into an intercontinental ballistic missile...''

KCNA said the committee spokesman went on: ``With this rocket test fire as a momentum, Japan has begun working in real earnest to emerge as a nuclear power.''

Japan has no nuclear weapons, a fact not mentioned by KCNA.

Pyongyang said two weeks ago that, given the H2A launch, it might be forced to reconsider the current moratorium on its own ballistic missile launches.

North Korea caused a stir in 1998 when it fired a Taepodong missile over Japan in what it said was a satellite launch.

The two traditional foes have held a number of talks since early 2000 aimed at normalizing ties but have made little progress.

Pyongyang is demanding compensation for Japan's harsh rule of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945. Tokyo insists the issue of Japanese nationals allegedly kidnapped to North Korea be resolved.

-------- slovakia

Slovakia, EBRD to form fund to close nuclear plant

SLOVAKIA: September 27, 2001
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12555/newsDate/27-Sep-2001/story.htm

BRATISLAVA - The Slovak government agreed yesterday to create an international, EBRD-managed fund to cover the shutdown of two reactors in the controversial nuclear power plant V1 at Jaslovske Bohunice planned for 2006 and 2008.

In 1999, Slovakia agreed to close the V1 blocks of the late-1970s Soviet-designed plant before their original technical service life expires, under concerns over the plant's safety raised by the European Union and neighbouring Austria.

The government plans to use the finances from the new fund to rebuild the plant's infrastructure for a different use in the energy sector and to cover social programmes and retraining for V1 employees, Economy Minister Lubomir Harach told reporters.

"The EU will contribute 6.5 billion crowns ($136.6 million)... We will attempt to obtain more finances for the fund ourselves," Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda added.

Harach added that the entire cost for the shutdown of the Bohunice V1 reactors has been estimated at 14.8 billion crowns.

The government expects to sign a framework agreement on the creation and the use of the fund with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) by the end of the year.

The plant in Jaslovske Bohunice is the oldest nuclear power plant in Slovakia, with its first block put into operation in 1978 and the second in 1980.

The blocks, equipped with Soviet-type VVER 440 reactors, are to be taken off line in 2006 and 2008, respectively.

The government's original shut-down plan called for the V1 plant to be preserved for 70-80 years before being demolished.

The third and the fourth blocks of the Jaslovske Bohunice complex - part of the V2 plant - came on line in 1984 and 1985. The country also has two more nuclear reactors equipped with western technology in its more-modern Mochovce plant.

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

People near nuclear plants, ammunition, chemical depots worry

Associated Press
Friday, September 28, 2001
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/local_regional/ausnukes09282001.htm

Some people living near the Seabrook nuclear plant are paying closer attention to evacuation routes since the terrorist attacks.

Karen Herrick, who works at a flower shop near the plant, says the attacks were unnerving.

She says local businesses and residents get instructions each year about evacuation routes should anything happen at the plant, but she usually throws them away.

She says she isn't afraid, but she's been wondering where her evacuation papers are.

Her uneasiness is shared by people across the country who live in towns that are home to ammunition and chemical weapon depots or nuclear power plants.

----

Nuclear plant security at issue

By JAMES ELI SHIFFER,
Charlotte News Observer
September 28, 2001 5:51 p.m. EDT
http://www.newsobserver.com/friday/front/Story/824531p-816359c.html

Traffic checkpoints and stepped-up patrols by heavily armed guards at the Shearon Harris nuclear plant are local signs of an industry literally on the defensive.

The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 did not target nuclear reactors. But they did renew a debate about the safety from sabotage of the nation's 65 commercial nuclear plants.

Under direction from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the power plants have beefed up their security since the attacks. Last week, NRC Chairman Richard A. Meserve announced a review of the federal government's requirements for nuclear security.

"We're looking at all aspects of nuclear plant security as far as our policies, our activities and our regulations from top to bottom to determine if there's any changes needed," said an NRC spokesman, Victor Dricks, on Thursday.

Government regulators and industry officials agree that plants are neither designed nor operated to anticipate a kamikaze-style attack from a commercial jetliner.

"Nuclear power plants cannot be guaranteed to be impervious to every form of attack that one can imagine, like a direct hit with a 767 loaded with jet fuel," said Keith Poston, a spokesman for Carolina Power & Light. The company runs three nuclear plants in the Carolinas, including the Harris plant in southwestern Wake County.

"At the same time, it's important to note and understand that nuclear power plants are not office buildings," Poston said. "These are robust, hardened structures. They are built with redundant safety systems, plant shutdown systems and cooling systems.

"They are designed to withstand the impact of airborne objects to a very substantial force. Several layers of protection have to be penetrated and several backup systems would have to fail before there was any risk to the public."

At the Harris plant near New Hill, traffic is now stopped at an outer gate, at times causing cars to back up to U.S. 1. Visits to the plant have been scaled back, and patrols have been increased by the plant's private paramilitary security force, Poston said.

These measures are designed to prevent a ground attack. But mock invasions staged in recent years as part of an NRC counterterrorism program revealed that the security forces at many plants would fail to stop ground-based terrorists before they caused catastrophic damage.

On its Web site, the NRC has posted a question-and-answer page to deal with the once unthinkable, such as what would happen if a large aircraft crashed into a reactor building or a used-fuel storage cask.

Such an attack would not trigger a nuclear explosion, the NRC said. But "detailed engineering analyses of a large airliner crash have not yet been performed," the agency said.

The site plays down the threat posed by an assault on spent uranium fuel rods stored in a dry cask. But it doesn't deal with the potential damage from sabotage of spent fuel pools, the water-filled basins that store used fuel rods at every nuclear plant.

Since May, opponents of CP&L's plans to open two new waste storage pools at the Harris plant have argued in vain about the vulnerability of the pools to a terrorist attack. If the cooling water drains from the pools, the uranium fuel assemblies could catch fire and release lethal radioactivity into the air.

Despite a two-year legal battle by Orange County, the NRC has dismissed opponents' concerns. CP&L began placing spent fuel in a third pool this summer.

Now Jim Warren, director of the environmental watchdog group N.C. WARN, hears everyone talking about the terrorist threat to nuclear plants.

"It's very clear now that there's a very serious risk to the waste pools as well as to reactor containment domes," Warren said Thursday.

Dricks, the NRC spokesman, declined to talk about the potential radioactive release from damaged spent fuel pools. "We think it's extremely unlikely [an attacker] would be able to target one because of their size and location," he said.

Mel Fry, director of the state Division of Radiation Protection, said he is comfortable that North Carolina's nuclear plants have done what they can to protect themselves.

"Obviously they have designed safety features, and those designs are not infinitely safe," Fry said. "I don't feel any undue concern."

Staff writer James Eli Shiffer can be reached at 836-5701 or jshiffer@newsobserver.com

-------- new mexico

Bush energy bill sneaks in $30 million in 'corporate welfare' for uranium mining

Friday, September 28, 2001,
ENN
By Indian Country Today
http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2001/09/09282001/ict_45098.asp

CROWNPOINT, N.M. - The energy bill going before the Senate includes $30 million for Hydro Resources Inc. for leach uranium mining on the Navajo Nation, where communities are already suffering from disease and death after a half-century of uranium mining during the Cold War. "We're mad as hell," said Lori Goodman, spokeswoman for Dine Citizens Against Ruining our Environment (Dine CARE). "While we are told there is no money to pay the ill uranium miners, funds are being set aside in the House Energy Bill - $30 million - for corporations to start uranium mining in New Mexico. Where is the compassion for the miners made ill by their work? Or is that compassion only reserved for the rich?" Goodman said, as Navajos prepared to rally at Red Rock State Park Sept. 25-26 in opposition to the funding.

Calling it "corporate welfare," Goodman said amendment sponsor Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., was quick to fund uranium mining companies, while "she never lifted a hand for the uranium workers' concerns."

Ann Reitz of Crownpoint said Wilson should move to Crownpoint if she wants uranium mining here. "The sad truth is that Hydro Resources would never get away with such an outrageous proposal in any Anglo community in this country," Reitz said.

Uranium mining would contaminate the primary source of drinking water for more than 15,000 Dine people and Anglo teachers and health care workers in Crownpoint, Coyote Canyon, Mariano Lake, and Smith Lake.

"The people of this community have spoken, but their Navajo leaders and federal politicians continue to ignore the fact that the majority of us do not want this mine. Would Wilson like her children to be in school a quarter of a mile downwind from acres of drying ponds containing radioactive slurry, or to drink water from wells a quarter of a mile from 'pregnant lixiviant' loaded with uranium, radium, arsenic, selenium, molybdenum?" asked Reitz.

The uranium mining funding was added during consideration of the Bush energy bill by Wilson. It gives $30 million to Hydro Resources Inc. to develop in-situ leach-uranium mines at four sites in northeastern New Mexico.

Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., said he attempted to strike the provision in the final energy bill but was not successful. The House passed the overall energy bill in late July. Action is pending in the Senate. Udall said it is "sadly ironic" that the United States on one hand recognized Navajo Code Talkers with Congressional Gold Medals, then delivers a "slap in the face" to Navajos in New Mexico.

"The uranium provisions are opposed by Native American groups, environmentalists, and taxpayer watchdog groups who have labeled the Wilson provision as 'blatant corporate welfare'," said Glen Loveland, press secretary for Udall.

Udall urged his colleagues to vote against the amendment in H.R. 4 of the Securing America's Future Energy Act of 2001.

Udall said Section 306 authorizes the appropriation of a $10 million payment, or subsidies, for three years to domestic uranium producers to identify, test, and develop improved in-situ leaching mining. "This legislation is not needed for research and development purposes. In fact, this in-situ leaching process causes radioactive uranium and other toxic chemicals to leach into groundwater, threatening the public health of communities surrounding the mines," Udall told Congress.

"The local Navajo communities have suffered tremendously over this government's past practices and policies regarding uranium mining," Udall said, pointing out that Arizona, Colorado, and Utah are already suffering from long-term uranium mining.

Udall said currently the nation cannot compensate for past damages caused by uranium mining. "We as a nation cannot find the financial resources necessary to fully fund the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, or RECA, to compensate the victims of past uranium development, but we may put our stamp of approval on this $30 million subsidy for the uranium industry."

The amendment came as Bush announced he will stall benefits to some victims of uranium mining.

"Last year, Congress clearly mandated payments under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act to former uranium miners, workers, and downwinders," said Melton Martinez, president of Eastern Navajo Uranium Workers. "But now, the government is denying and delaying justice by changing the rules and have even stated clearly their priority constituents."

In defense of her amendment, Wilson said, "The industry has convinced me that this is worth looking into." Wilson said she believes it is equally appropriate to do research into uranium. Hydro Resources Inc. is seeking approval from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to develop four in-situ mines northeast of Gallup.

Jill Lancelot, cofounder and legislative director of Taxpayers for Common Sense in Washington, D.C., was among those opposing the amendment. "This is simply propping up the uranium mining industry at the expense of fiscal common sense," Lancelot said.

Speaking out at a community meeting in Crownpoint, Navajoland doctors said their major concern is in-situ leach mining will produce harmful uranium levels and damage human kidneys. There is more than 200 times the uranium level in the Crownpoint aquifer than is designated as a safe level by the World Health Organization.

Uniting to oppose the effort are Eastern Navajo Dine Against Uranium Mining, Dine CARE, American Indian Movement, Southwest Research and Information Center, Physicians Resisting In-Situ Mining, New Mexico Environmental Law Center, U.S. and New Mexico Public Interest Research Groups, Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, Mineral Policy Center, Nuclear Information Resource Service, Public Citizen, and Taxpayers for Common Sense.

-------- tennessee

No nuclear blast if plane hits Y-12, says Brumley

September 28, 2001,
by Paul Parson
Oak Ridger staff
Source: http://www.oakridger.com/

What if the Department of Energy's warning sirens were sounded and it wasn't a test?

Perhaps one of the federal agency's Oak Ridge facilities was the site of a malevolent attack. Let's say terrorists crashed a plane into the Y-12 National Security Complex, which is a nuclear weapons facility.

What would happen?

"The biggest concern people tend to have is, if a plane crashed [into Y-12], is that going to cause a nuclear explosion?" said Bill Brumley, the local manager for the National Nuclear Security Administration, the quasi-independent agency within DOE that oversees the nuclear weapons complex. "The physics say that's not going to happen."

Brumley pointed out that Y-12 makes uranium components for nuclear warheads, adding that there is no plutonium or highly explosive material at the site.

"Clearly there would be fatalities," Brumley added. "We believe all those would be caused by the [plane] crash and resulting fire."

Brumley said Y-12 has conducted an investigation into what would happen if an aircraft, specifically a KC-135 military transport plane, crashed into the facility. He added that there are no Federal Aviation Administration restrictions regarding flying planes over DOE facilities.

However, neither Brumley nor other DOE officials would speculate on the number of casualties that would follow a major incident at Y-12 or one of DOE's other local facilities.

Brumley did say that the fires and devastation caused by a plane crash could result in an off-site plume.

Jeff Cravens, director of DOE's Assessment and Emergency Management Division in Oak Ridge, said a release could range from a small event in which no one would be affected to an "absolute worst-case scenario" where the release would transverse the site boundaries and affect the general public. He would not venture a guess on how far-reaching the impact would be.

"I don't think that would be to anybody's advantage," he said.

In addition to Y-12, Oak Ridge is home to two other major DOE facilities: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a research facility that's home to a nuclear reactor, and the Oak Ridge K-25 site, where uranium-235 was separated from uranium-238 through a gaseous diffusion process.

All of DOE's facilities have been operating on a heightened state of security in light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. Those catastrophic attacks involved around 19 hijackers seizing control of four airplanes, crashing two into the World Trade Center twin towers in New York and one into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. The fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania.

Though never the victim of such an attack, Oak Ridge has experienced a similar threat.

In November 1972, three men hijacked Southern Airways Flight 49 and threatened to crash it into one of DOE's Oak Ridge facilities. The hijackers never fulfilled their threat, and about 48 hours after the aircraft was hijacked, the three men were apprehended on the ground after the plane finally landed in Havana, Cuba.

So, what if something does happen at one of DOE's facilities?

Bobby Davis, leader of DOE's local Emergency Management Team, said the federal agency's Oak Ridge Operations office has a comprehensive emergency management plan for the local facilities.

"We've looked at a broad range of scenarios, ranging from fires, explosions, chemical spills Å and radioactive materials releases," Davis said. Measures for dealing with terrorist attacks are also reportedly included in the plan.

In addition, each year, one of DOE's local facilities is the site of a major emergency response exercise. This May, the event was conducted at Y-12. It was the culmination of about four months of practice and involved a number of local and state agencies.

Brumley said the exercise's scenarios varied from building to building, and the participants were unaware of situations before the exercise. Overall, he said the participants' performance was good.

Brumley added that Y-12 is an "extraordinarily secure facility" and will be undergoing major modernization over the next several years. He said security measures have been taken into consideration for that project.

"There is a 'design threat' to which we design our facilities to withstand," Brumley said, adding that the details of that "design threat" are classified.

Much of the work at DOE's Oak Ridge facilities involves hazardous chemicals and radioactive materials. To warn the public in the event of a release of these materials, DOE has installed a series of emergency warning sirens.

The sirens, which serve an area of approximately two miles around each site, have never been used for an actual emergency, according to Davis. DOE expects to begin testing the sirens monthly starting in early 2002.

DOE officials said the agency works closely with the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency through a multi-jurisdictional emergency response plan. DOE also has mutual aid agreements with various agencies, including the city of Oak Ridge for fire response.

==

Comments:

Much of the bomb grade uranium at Y-12 is stored in a concrete array called a "tube vault," where the uranium is stored in dry nitrogen sealed in common steel cans.

In recent times, tube vaults have been replaced with stackable arrays of concrete pallets that can be warehoused. These free standing arrays can easily be toppled over in a jet crash and result in unsafe geometry leading to uranium metal criticalities that can cause a significant nuclear based explosion.

Y-12 also stores a good amount of its finished materials in stainless steel barrels that were often stored in wooden buildings and a large jet with 100,000 lbs of fuel would burn these areas to the ground and result in metal support failure and loss of safe geometry for this as well.

While the uranium metal criticalities that would result in a plane crash would not make a full nuclear blast, there could well be a nuclear low yield explosion. In addition the jet fuel fires would carry many pollutants into the air and around a huge region. It could well ignite and burn up much bomb grade uranium metal. Release much of the dangerous chemicals like HF from the site, etc.

Very simply, if a jet fuel loaded plane hit Y-12 there would be major fires of the wood structures, toppling of weak WWII vintage buildings, and major releases of pollutants that would go far beyond the siren boundaries of Y-12.

The danger zone of K-25 is the DUF-6 cylinder yards that would go off like firecrakers in a jet fuel crash poisoning large areas with HF and uranium oxides.

The danger zone of X-10 is the fuel separation and reactor areas.

-------- texas

NEW WEAPONS LAB WILL MONITOR AGING STOCKPILE

September 28, 2001
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/sep2001/2001L-09-28-09.html

AMARILLO, Texas, Design has begun on a new Weapons Evaluation Test Laboratory at the National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) Pantex Plant near Amarillo.

Tests conducted at the new facility will detect and predict possible aging effects on U.S. nuclear weapons systems and components.

Construction of the new laboratory is scheduled to begin in October 2002 and be completed by March 2004. The facility should be occupied and operational by October 2004.

Sandia National Laboratories has operated a Weapons Evaluation Test Laboratory facility at the Pantex Plant since 1965. The current lab is the only facility in the nation that conducts system level non-nuclear testing on U.S. nuclear weapon systems and components.

It houses some $90 million worth of equipment that is a unique national asset, said Bill Norris, Sandia manager of the assessment program that includes the Weapons Evaluation Test Laboratory.

The facility plays an important role in NNSA's Stockpile Evaluation Program, which monitors the reliability and safety of U.S. nuclear weapons systems, relying on test and evaluation of samples drawn from the stockpile.

The new Weapons Evaluation Test Laboratory (WETL), a $22.2 million project funded by NNSA Defense Programs, will provide about 30,000 square feet of state of the art laboratory, test support, office and storage space. Existing test equipment will be relocated from the old facility to the new lab.

Space will be available for non-nuclear explosive testing, component testing, and static free rooms for handling devices that are vulnerable to damage from static electricity discharge.

"The new WETL represents a major improvement in capabilities that will allow our stockpile surveillance program to move from a defect detection mode toward a lifetime prediction mode," said Norris.

-------- washington

Hanford watchdogs threaten suit

The Seattle Times Company
Local News : Friday, September 28, 2001
By Linda Ashton
The Associated Press
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis/web/vortex/display?slug=hanford28m&date=20010928

RICHLAND - A pair of Hanford watchdog groups have notified the U.S. Department of Energy they plan to sue the agency to try to force it to permanently deactivate the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF).

Heart of America and the Government Accountability Project are the two groups planning to file the lawsuit.

Hope Williams, a spokeswoman for the Energy Department in Washington, D.C., said she had no immediate information about or response to the groups' plans.

The FFTF is an experimental reactor built more than 20 years ago at the Hanford nuclear reservation. The large and versatile reactor was designed to research advanced forms of nuclear fuel for breeder reactors, which produce as much or more plutonium fuel than they consume.

The government scuttled its program in the 1980s after deciding it had misjudged the nation's electricity needs, and the FFTF was placed on standby in 1992. The nuclear fuel was removed, but to permit a possible restart, the sodium-cooling system has been maintained at a cost of about $30 million a year.

When the Bush administration took office, it put on hold a last-minute Clinton administration order to permanently shut down FFTF.

Still pending is the Energy Department's 60-day review of a proposal to operate the reactor commercially. Advanced Nuclear & Medical Systems of Richland said it had assembled a team of nuclear-service companies that would like to operate the reactor to make medical isotopes.

In their notice to the Energy Department, the Government Accountability Project and Heart of America Northwest said they thought there were conflicts of interest and legal deficiencies in the environmental study conducted for the proposal.

The study was prepared by a contractor called Science Applications International, which Advanced Nuclear & Medical Systems listed as a team member in its proposal, the two watchdog groups said.

The groups contend the study failed to address the consequences of possible accidents and terrorist attacks or the effects on the Columbia River of new radioactive waste that would be generated.

The groups also contend the Energy Department is legally bound to shut down the FFTF under the court order governing cleanup at the reservation.

-------- us nuc waste

Yucca lump-sum funding criticized by lawmakers

By Benjamin Grove <grove@lasvegassun.com> and
Mary Manning <manning@lasvegassun.com>
LAS VEGAS SUN
September 28, 2001 at 10:03:45 PDT
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/lv-other/2001/sep/28/512415762.html

The Department of Energy for the first time has asked Congress to consider paying for the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in one lump sum rather than doling out smaller annual budgets, according to an agency report.

The proposal drew sharp criticism from Nevada lawmakers. Where would Congress get that kind of money -- the price tag for Yucca has been estimated at $58 billion -- during an economic slump and war time? they asked.

"That's going to take an enormous amount of money away from other programs -- it will take money from education, from health care, from defense," Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said. "All the president's priorities will be cut down tremendously. Fifty-eight billion dollars is a tremendous amount of money."

Congress, facing a dwindling surplus, is struggling to set the nation's budget.

That's partly due to this year's tax cut, a sagging economy, increased Department of Defense spending and a $40 billion expenditure to pay for rebuilding and retaliation after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, plus $15 billion in airline aid.

"There is no money available for a lump-sum payment, or any payment, to build Yucca Mountain," Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said. "The very notion that the Department of Energy is examining a lump-sum payment shows just how out of touch with reality they are."

Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only site being considered by the DOE to bury the nation's high-level radioactive waste.

The controversial project has not been approved by the president, Congress, or Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but has strong support among some lawmakers and the nuclear industry.

Roughly 77,000 tons of nuclear waste, now piling up at the nation's nuclear power plants and Defense Department sites, would be hauled to Yucca on trucks and trains for several decades.

The recommendation to pay, in one lump sum, the price of constructing Yucca was unveiled in an August 2001 report prepared by the Department of Energy. The House Appropriations subcommittee for energy and water requested the report, seeking proposals for a Yucca payment plan.

The DOE paid consultant Booz-Allen & Hamilton Inc. was paid $486,000 to help develop proposals.

The DOE earlier this month sent the 64-page document to House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rep. C.W. Young, R-Fla., but committee lawmakers and staff have not reviewed the report because the Sept. 11 attacks delayed budget negotiations, a committee spokesman said.

Congress has set up a national nuclear waste fund to pay for Yucca studies and construction. For years, ratepayers who use nuclear-generated electricity have paid into the fund, now at about $11 billion. The nation's taxpayers also contribute because some Department of Defense waste would be stored at Yucca.

Congress controls the fund. Each year since 1987 Congress has given the DOE money from the fund to study Yucca Mountain. Last year Congress budgeted $390 million.

The DOE report outlines possible Yucca funding alternatives to the current pay-as-you-go system. The DOE will wait to recommend a specific funding scheme until the department makes its final recommendation on Yucca Mountain, perhaps later this year, DOE officials have said.

One proposal in the report involves a scenario floated by pro-Yucca lawmakers earlier this year -- Give the DOE unrestricted access to the account by removing Congress' ability to set annual spending caps. Nevada's lawmakers in Congress oppose that.

They also oppose the lump-sum scenario in which the DOE could request one payment in 2003.

It is not clear exactly how many billions of dollars that would be. Among other uncertainties, the final design of the underground waste tomb has not been approved.

The DOE official who authored the report declined to comment about it, but the report summarized the pros and cons of a lump sum payment.

Among the pros, it said, a lump sum would "ensure greater certainty in the repository development schedule" the report said. Also, a lump sum would allow the DOE to offer contractors multi-year contracts, which could offer some cost savings, according to the report.

The con: A lump sum would lessen congressional spending control.

"This is just not going to happen," Reid spokesman Nathan Naylor said. "Sen. Reid will not abdicate congressional oversight over the largest public works project in the nation's history. To write a blank check would just be reckless."

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., also opposes any proposal that takes away the ability for Congress to set Yucca's budget annually, spokeswoman Traci Scott said.

-------- us nuc politics

WALL STREET JOURNAL: BUSH SR. IN BUSINESS WITH BIN LADEN FAMILY CONGLOMERATE THROUGH CARLYLE GROUP

FAMILY HAD RENOUNCED TIES TO TERRORIST SON BUT FAMILY STILL UNDER FBI INVESTIGATION

FATHER OF PRESIDENT SHOULD PULL OUT OF INTERNATIONAL CONSULTING FIRM

9/28/2001,
Judicial Watch Press Office (202-646-5172)
http://www.judicialwatch.org/press_release.asp?pr_id=1624

(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch, the public interest law firm that investigates and prosecutes government corruption and abuse, reacted with disbelief to The Wall Street Journal report of yesterday that George H.W. Bush, the father of President Bush, works for the bin Laden family business in Saudi Arabia through the Carlyle Group, an international consulting firm. The senior Bush had met with the bin Laden family at least twice. (Other top Republicans are also associated with the Carlyle group, such as former Secretary of State James A. Baker.) The terrorist leader Osama bin Laden had supposedly been "disowned" by his family, which runs a multi-billion dollar business in Saudi Arabia and is a major investor in the senior Bush's firm. Other reports have questioned, though, whether members of his Saudi family have truly cut off Osama bin Laden. Indeed, the Journal also reported yesterday that the FBI has subpoenaed the bin Laden family business's bank records.

Judicial Watch earlier this year had strongly criticized President Bush's father's association with the Carlyle Group, pointing out in a March 5 statement that it was a "conflict of interest (which) could cause problems for America's foreign policy in Middle East and Asia." Judicial Watch called for the senior Bush to resign from the firm then.

"This conflict of interest has now turned into a scandal. The idea of the President's father, an ex-president himself, doing business with a company under investigation by the FBI in the terror attacks of September 11 is horrible. President Bush should not ask, but demand, that his father pull out of the Carlyle Group," stated Judicial Watch Chairman and General Counsel Larry Klayman.

"This has the potential of making 'Billygate' (Jimmy Carter's brother's dealings with Libya) look like small potatoes," added Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

See "Bin Laden Family Could Profit From a Jump In Defense Spending Due to Ties to U.S. Bank," by Daniel Golden, James Bandler, and Marcus Walker, The Wall Street Journal, 9/28/01

--------

13 Questions for President George W. Bush

Common Dreams
Friday, September 28, 2001
by Martin A. Lee
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0928-11.htm

Mainstream journalists in the United States often function more like a fourth branch of government than a feisty fourth estate. If anything, the patterns of media bias that characterize sycophantic reporting in "peacetime" are amplified during a war or a national security crisis. Since the tragic events of September 11, the separation between press and state has dwindled nearly to the vanishing point. If we had an aggressive, independent press corps, our national conversation about the terrorist attacks that demolished the World Trade Center towers in New York and damaged the Pentagon would be far more probing and informative. Here are some examples of questions that reporters ought to be asking President Bush:

1. Before the attacks in New York and Washington, your administration quietly tolerated Saudi Arabian and Pakistani military and financial aid for the Taliban regime, even though it harbored terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. But now you say fighting terrorism will be the main focus of your administration. By making counter-terrorism the top priority in bilateral relations, aren't you signaling to abusive governments in Sudan, Indonesia, Turkey, and elsewhere that they need not worry much about their human rights performance as long as they join America's anti-terrorist crusade? Will you barter human rights violations like corporations trade pollution credits? Will you condone, for example, the brutalization of Chechnya in exchange for Russian participation in the "war against terrorism"? Or will you send a message loud and clear to America's allies that they must not use the fight against terrorism as a cover for waging repressive campaigns that smother democratic aspirations in their own countries?

2. Terrorists finance their operations by laundering money through offshore banks and other hot money outlets. Yet your administration has undermined international efforts to crack down on tax havens. Last May, you withdrew support for a comprehensive initiative launched by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which sought greater transparency in tax and banking practices. In the wake of the September 11 massacre, will you reassess this decision and support the OECD proposal, even if it means displeasing wealthy Americans and campaign contributors who avoid paying taxes by hiding money in offshore accounts?

3. Four months ago, U.S. officials announced that Washington was giving $43 million to the Taliban for its role in reducing the cultivation of opium poppies, despite the Taliban's heinous human rights record and its sheltering of Islamic terrorists of many nationalities. Doesn't this make the U.S. government guilty of supporting a country that harbors terrorists? Do you think your obsession with the "war on drugs" has distorted U.S. foreign policy in Southwest Asia and other regions?

4. According to U.S., German, and Russian intelligence sources, Osama bin Laden's operatives have been trying to acquire enriched uranium and other weapons-grade radioactive materials for a nuclear bomb. There are reports that in 1993 bin Laden's well-financed organization tried to buy enriched uranium from poorly maintained Russian facilities that lacked sufficient controls. Why has your administration proposed cutting funds for a program to help safeguard nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union?

5. On September 23rd , you announced plans to make public a detailed analysis of the evidence gathered by U.S intelligence and police agencies, which proves that Osama bin Laden and his cohorts are guilty of the terrorist attacks in New York and the Pentagon. But the next day your administration backpedaled. "As we look through [the evidence]," explained Secretary of State Colin Powell, "we can find areas that are unclassified and it will allow us to share this information with the public.... But most of it is classified." Please explain this sudden flip-flop. How can we believe what you say about fighting terrorism if your administration can't make its case publicly with sufficient evidence? How do you expect to win the support of governments and people who otherwise might suspect Washington's motives, particularly some Muslim and Arab nations?

6. Exactly who is a terrorist, and who is not? When the CIA was busy doling out an estimated $2 billion to support the Afghan mujahadeen in the 1980s, Osama bin Laden and his colleagues were hailed as anti-communist freedom fighters. During the cold war, U.S. national security strategists, many of whom are riding top saddle once again in your administration, didn't view bin Laden's fanatical religious beliefs as diametrically opposed to western civilization. But now bin Laden and his ilk are unabashed terrorists. Definitions of what constitutes terror and terrorism seem to change with the times. Before he became vice president, Dick Cheney and the U.S. State Department denounced Nelson Mandela, leader of the African National Congress, as a terrorist. Today Mandela, South Africa's president emeritus, is considered a great and dignified statesman. And what about Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, who bears significant responsibility for the 1982 massacre of 1,800 innocents at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon. What role will Sharon play in your crusade against international terrorism?

7. There's been a lot of talk lately about unshackling the CIA and lifting the alleged ban on CIA assassinations. Many U.S. officials attribute the CIA 's inability to thwart the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington to rules that supposedly have prohibited the CIA from utilizing gangsters, death squad leaders, and other "unsavory" characters as sources and assets. Why don't you set the record straight, Mr. President, and acknowledge there were always gaping loopholes in these rules, which allowed such activity to continue unabated? It's precisely this sort of dubious activity - enlisting unsavory characters to advance U.S. foreign policy objectives - that set the stage for tragic events on September 11th. It's hardly a secret that the CIA trained and financed Islamic extremists to topple the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan. Some of the same extremists supported by the CIA, most notably bin Laden, have since turned their psychotic wrath against the United States. Instead of rewarding the CIA with billions of additional dollars to fight terrorism, shouldn't you hold accountable those shortsighted and perilously naïve U.S. intelligence officials who ran the covert operation in Afghanistan that got us into this mess?

8. John Negroponte, the new U.S. ambassador the United Nations, says he intends to build an international anti-terrorist coalition. During the mid-1980s, Negroponte was involved in covering up right-wing death squad activity and other human rights abuses in Honduras when he served as ambassador to that country. Doesn't Negroponte's role in aiding and abetting state terrorism in Central America undermine the moral authority of the United States as it embarks upon a crusade against international terrorism?

9. The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon brought home the frightening extent to which U.S. citizens and installations are vulnerable to terrorist attacks. If terrorists hit a nuclear power plant, it could result in an enormous public health disaster. In the interest of protecting national security, why haven't you ordered the immediate phase-out of the 103 nuclear power plants that are currently operating in the United States? Why doesn't your administration emphasize safe, renewable energy alternatives, such as solar and wind power, which would not invite terrorism?

10. After years of successful lobbying against rigorous safety procedures, the heads of the airline industry will receive a multibillion-dollar taxpayer bailout for their ailing companies. Given your support for the airline rescue package, do you now agree that letting the free market run its course won't resolve all our economic and social problems? (That's what anti-globalization activists have been saying all along.) And if airlines deserve a bail-out, how about a multibillion-dollar rescue package for human needs like health and education? Why aren't we bailing out our under-funded public schools, our insolvent hospitals, our national railroads, and other elements of our dilapidated social infrastructure?

11. September 11th will be remembered as a day of infamy in the United States because of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. In Chile, September 11th is also remembered as the day when a U.S.-back coup toppled the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in 1973, initiating a reign of terror by General Augusto Pinochet. Given your administration's avowed stance against terrorism, will you cooperate with the various international legal cases that are honing in on ex-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for colluding with Pinochet's murderous regime?

12. You say you're a loving man, Mr. President, but you must feel unrequited, for no empire has ever been loved by its subjugants, and that's what the USA is - an empire. You talk as though the United States has in no way contributed to the spread of fanaticism around the globe. As hideous as it might sound, there are many people on the planet who consider the September 11th attacks a response - however twisted or demented - to U.S. actions. If the killing of innocent people in New York and Washington is indefensible, and surely it is, then why do U.S. officials defend American air strikes that kill innocent civilians in Iraq, Sudan, Serbia, and Afghanistan? More than 500,000 Iraqi children under age 5 have died as a result of the 1990 Gulf War, subsequent economic sanctions, and ongoing U.S. bombing raids against Iraq. Will your planned actions lead to a similar fate for the children of Afghanistan?

13. What will you accomplish if you bomb Afghanistan? Wouldn't this galvanize Islamic fundamentalist movements that are already powerful in Algeria, Egypt, Pakistan, Sudan, the oil-rich Arab monarchies, and the Balkans? Wouldn't a U.S.-led military onslaught against Afghanistan be the fastest way to create a new generation of terrorists? Adept at manipulating real grievances, terrorist networks breed on poverty, despair, and social injustice. Do you think you can wipe out or even reduce this scourge, Mr. President, without seriously and systematically addressing the root causes of terrorism?

Martin A. Lee (martinalee17@yahoo.com) is the author of Acid Dreams and The Beast Reawakens.


-------- MILITARY

-------- afghanistan

Northern Alliance gets help from U.S.

September 28, 2001
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010928-99713184.htm

The U.S. military has begun discreetly helping the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, while the Bush administration is nearing a decision to arm the opposition force in its stepped-up war against the Taliban regime, senior officials say.

Administration officials said the assistance to the Northern Alliance has come in the form of advice and a discussion of the group's needs on the ground as it conducts an offensive in northern Afghanistan. U.S. special-operations troops are now in the region awaiting orders to strike suspected terrorist strongholds.

A debate is raging inside the administration on whether to arm the alliance.

Proponents argue that aiding the ill-equipped, though ferocious, opposition would put added pressure on the Taliban to offer up Osama bin Laden, the chief suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The U.S. arms transfers could also result in toppling the Taliban and putting an end to a regime that harbors bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network.

"It's a case of we'd be foolish not to consider the Northern Alliance as the major factor they really are," said a senior administration official who asked not to be identified. The official said using the alliance as a ready-made army would help dispel Arab concerns of an "anti-Muslim" campaign. "If they could get rid of the Taliban, it would look a lot better," the official said.

Army special-operations troops began deploying to the Central Asian region shortly after President Bush declared war on international terrorism and said that he wants bin Laden "dead or alive." Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, both on Afghanistan's norther border, have granted a U.S. request to let commandos launch strikes from the former Soviet republics. The two countries border areas of Afghanistan controlled by the Northern Alliance.

The administration official said Pentagon planners want to aid the Northern Alliance, but that top officials are slow in making a final decision. A major concern is Pakistan, which has become a major U.S. ally in the war on terrorism. But Pakistan - a predominantly Muslim state - may cease to provide assistance if the United States overtly helps the alliance, a movement opposed by Islamabad.

Top administration officials have made no secret of the fact that they want to form some type of partnership with the Taliban's main internal enemy. The alliance is composed of different factions, and commands a force of about 30,000 fighters. It controls under 10 percent of the country. Mr. Bush has equated terrorists and the states that sponsor them as being just as guilty of crimes - a comparison that signals the administration wants the Taliban to fall if it does not stop backing terrorists such as bin Laden.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said the alliance could "help a lot" in the U.S. goal to kill or capture those responsible for the terrorist attacks.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said, "I would just say that we are in regular contact with the whole variety - with the whole gamut of Afghan factions, including the Northern Alliance."

But a Washington representative of one alliance faction said yesterday the decision-making process is taking too long. He said the alliance is now waging a fierce battle to capture the city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

Haron Amin said the opposition urgently needs military aid now, especially in the form of air cover as Taliban fighter-bombers strike at guerrilla troops.

"We have made contact" with U.S. troops in the region, Mr. Amin said. He declined further comment.

Administration officials also said in interviews that:

• The chances of large-scale air strikes on Afghanistan are diminishing as the Pentagon refines its war-planning strategy. Strike aircraft sent to the region will more likely be used to go after specific terrorist targets or support a specific special-operations mission.

• Probably no more than 40 American commandos will infiltrate Afghanistan at any given time, in an effort to make each strike as simple and secret as possible. Gen. Henry H. Shelton, who retires Sunday after serving four years as the Joint Chiefs chairman, said yesterday that his troops will "hunt down and destroy" terrorists.

• There are unconfirmed intelligence reports that bin Laden's organization obtained "uranium capsules" from rogue Russian suppliers. The weapon could be used to spread deadly radioactive material.

Officials say privately that the first U.S. military action is weeks away, unless a chance to capture bin Laden suddenly materializes.

Mr. Rumsfeld, who has stressed operational security for his troops moving into the region, yesterday declined to discuss a timetable.

"We're not leaping into this. We're moving into it in a measured way," he told reporters at the Pentagon.

The Pentagon this week is also playing down expectations for a large military strike, or, for that matter, an overriding military role in Mr. Bush's war against terrorism.

"The military piece is not the primary piece," a senior Pentagon official said.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Wednesday that by using diplomacy - and not force - the United States may be able to persuade states that have been harboring terrorists to cease their sponsorship activities.

He also indicated that the United States is now engaged in an intense effort to collect intelligence on Afghanistan and bin Laden's network before ordering strikes.

--------

Where the Battlefield Is a Maze
In Afghan Cliffs, Fighters Face Off, Then Melt Away

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, September 28, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37740-2001Sep27.html

MOUNT TOPAK POMPAYA, Afghanistan, Sept. 27 -- The guerrilla fighters emerge with their Kalashnikov assault rifles from the tiny hideaway carved into the side of the cliff. They turn to their right and scramble up a steep gravel path, keeping their heads down all the way. No one wants to give the enemy an easy shot.

At the top of the path, they slip inside another door in the cliff, crouching in the four-foot-high space. In front of them are three small, crude holes in the stone to insert their guns. The ground is covered with ash and spent cartridges. The pungent odor testifies to recent volleys.

To see the sangar, or mountain base, on the side of this peak in the Gorbund Gorge about 35 miles northwest of Kabul is to begin to understand how the hardy people here have repelled one aggressor after another over centuries. Even to see the sangar is nearly impossible. From a distance of a few hundred yards, the tiny mud-covered outpost disappears from view, blending into the unforgiving landscape that may confront the United States in any attempt to hunt down suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden.

Reaching this citadel on the front lines of Afghanistan's civil war requires permission from a rebel general, and an armed escort. The drive follows a gorge that drops beneath the peaks to a shimmering river.

Ultimately, after a few checkpoints, the road exhausts itself into a narrow, sheer trail. While the climb burns the lungs of the uninitiated, the rebels who shuttle back and forth every day do not break a sweat. Along the path is a simple grave with a green rebel flag, planted in an artillery shell filled with stones.

The outpost resembles nothing more than a cave, albeit one with heavy armaments. The rebels built it two years ago, using stones for the walls. It is covered with mud that has dried in the sun, cracked in a thousand places, blending perfectly into the arid surroundings. A small ribbon of gravel has been laid around the outside, bordered by rifle cartridges, a place for any of the 10 rebels who man the base to sit while eating meals or drinking tea.

A few feet down the slope sits a mortar that can fire 81mm shells. Propped against the outer wall of the post is a Kalashnikov. Belts of machine gun ammunition hang from a hook. Inside are several more automatic weapons, a grenade launcher and six metal boxes of clips.

The interior includes two tiny and eerily dark rooms under a six-foot ceiling, one with a kettle, a lantern and pair of gray wool blankets laid out for guerrillas to sleep. A dirty transistor radio sits precariously on a cup in the glassless window -- for better reception of the Voice of America.

"Here it's a very dangerous place," Lt. Col. Abdul Qayum, a rebel colonel, said. But the only shots heard on this particular afternoon were fired by his own men into the air, an old trick intended to startle visitors, and one that invariably works.

The sharp cracks of the rifle echo against the mountain walls, yet when the guns are silent, so too is the sangar. The sound of the river flowing past, far below, can barely be heard. Everything else is perfectly still.

The fighters are veterans of the civil war or, earlier, the decade-long battle to force out Soviet invaders. They stare out through dark eyes, weathered faces and heavy beards. Their uniform of choice is not camouflage but the flowing, traditional Afghan robes. Instead of boots, they wear sandals or black pull-on shoes.

Up the cliff on one side is the observation post, with openings where weapons can be fired. On the other side is a grotto carved from the mountain for a Chinese-made machine gun with a range of nearly two miles.

The enemy can target either of these positions, though, and so rebel commanders do not station more than two or three men there at a time.

The rebels face off against a contingent, just across the gorge, from the ruling Taliban militia. The two sides fire machine guns at each other every night and sometimes hurl insults over a common frequency on their radios.

The sangar is one in a chain of 13 such posts in the surrounding peaks of the Gorbund Gorge, with another 17 in the broader region, all controlled by the rebels with a regiment of 350 men. Qayum can point out the other sangars, one by one, but even with his finger indicating their positions, they remain invisible to the untrained eye.

Guerrillas have vanished into the crevices of the Afghan terrain to evade the British, the Soviets and each other for so long it comes naturally. "We're mountain people," said Qayum, 44, squatting in the dust just outside the sangar. "We're used to fighting here. For us, it's not difficult. For others, I don't know."

By others, he means the United States, which has threatened a military assault against both the Taliban regime that controls most of Afghanistan and bin Laden, the chief suspect in the attacks on New York and Washington.

Any U.S. forces entering this vast maze, against an enemy that strikes and then melts away, will need good intelligence and pinpoint precision. For that, the United States may forge a partnership with the rebel group, known as the Northern Alliance or United Front, that has been battling the Taliban in these gorges.

"For foreign people to fight here is impossible," said Mohammad Siddig, the commander of the regiment that mans the mountain bases. "Without our help, they cannot do anything."

The rebels are not the only force that knows how to fight in the mountains. Taliban troops are also at home among the peaks and valleys, and are presumed to be harboring bin Laden in the portions of the country they control.

The prospect that bin Laden could be secluded may torment Western military planners, but the rebels expressed confidence they could find him in the mountains. "It's not possible for Osama bin Laden to come here to hide," said Siddig, 40, the commander who has been fighting one foe or another here for 25 years.

It might be easy to dismiss such assurances were it not for the mountain fighters' record. One young guerrilla offered a telling reminder of that past as he hoisted his Kalashnikov for inspection.

"This came from the hand of a Russian," he bragged.
He meant a dead Russian.

--------

Taliban ask for special meeting of Islamic nations

USA TODAY
09/28/2001
The Associated Press
http://www.usatoday.com/news/attack/2001/09/28/islamicmeeting.htm

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Afghanistan's Taliban leaders have asked for a special meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference to discuss the terrorist attacks in the United States and "help in getting the culprits," a Taliban official said Friday. Pakistani officials said the meeting would probably be held Oct. 9 in Doha, Qatar. Foreign Office spokesman Riaz Mohammed Khan said Pakistan planned to attend.

Officials from the Saudi Arabia-based OIC, which groups 57 Muslim nations, could not immediately be reached for comment on Friday, a weekend day in the Islamic world.

"We have urged both the OIC and the United Nations to investigate the matter and help in getting the culprits," Sohail Shaheen, a spokesman of the Taliban embassy in Islamabad, told The Associated Press.

The United States says Osama bin Laden is the top suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks against New York and the Pentagon. Washington has demanded the Taliban hand over bin Laden, who has been living in Afghanistan since 1996.

Shaheen said the Taliban want the perpetrators to be punished but also want to see solid evidence linking bin Laden, who has denied the allegation, to the attacks.

Shaheen also complained that American spy planes have been violating Afghan airspace since the crisis began.

--------

Nature of bin Laden Weapons Pondered

September 28, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Bin-Laden-Weapons.html?searchpv=aponline

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Osama bin Laden has said acquiring weapons of mass destruction -- poison gas, killer diseases, radiation bombs and nuclear devices -- is ``a religious duty'' and that all Americans are targets.

He has tried to get such weapons, say U.S. intelligence officials, who won't discuss whether the world's most wanted accused terrorist has succeeded.

``Does (bin Laden) have a nuclear bomb? I'd say no,'' said Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who is privy to secret briefings from the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies. ``We have to be aware of the possibility that he could launch a chemical attack or biological attack at any time. We need to prepare for it.''

Since the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, lawmakers and terrorism experts say they are undergoing a fundamental shift in thinking about doomsday weapons.

Now, it's clear that whoever conducted the attacks -- and the exiled Saudi bin Laden remains the chief suspect -- would not hesitate to use one of these nightmare devices if given the opportunity. But don't panic, say the officials and experts.

``Bad guys are capable of developing these agents, but they are not very capable of delivering them,'' said Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. ``What is new is the wanton destruction of September 11 makes clear there would be no hesitation against using them.''

Shelby said bin Laden has engineers and chemists among his ranks.

CIA Director George Tenet said both bin Laden and the Palestinian group Hamas are trying to obtain chemical weapons.

``Although terrorists we've pre-empted still appear to be relying on conventional weapons, we know that a number of these groups are seeking chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear agents,'' Tenet told the Senate Intelligence Committee last year. ``We are aware of several instances in which terrorists have contemplated using these materials.''

In addition, Tenet said, bin Laden's ``operatives have trained to conduct attacks with toxic chemicals or biological toxins.''

Witnesses in the 1998 embassy bombings trial said bin Laden, who has been indicted in the case, had sent people to Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, to buy South African uranium for $1.5 million. It is unclear from the trial transcript whether the purchase was made.

In addition, there have been reports of chemical and biological weapons being tested in his training camps in Afghanistan. A Taliban security officer, who accompanied bin Laden to a camp in eastern Kunar province, said he saw a North Korean training the militants in chemical weapons. It wasn't possible to independently confirm his report.

Fears of such an attack were heightened after investigators learned that one of the suspected Sept. 11 hijackers, Mohamed Atta, repeatedly tried to learn about crop-dusters in Florida. Some have suggested that terrorists would try to use the low-flying planes to spread a chemical or biological weapon over a populated area; fears of such plans caused the Federal Aviation Administration to keep crop dusters grounded nationwide last weekend.

Vince Cannistraro, the CIA's former counterterrorism chief, doesn't believe bin Laden has any usable weapons.

``If he had them in his inventory and could use them, he would use them,'' Cannistraro said. ``There are no restraints.''

All these weapons are hard to get and use effectively. Killing more than a few people with them takes technical skills, manufacturing and storage equipment and the means to smuggle them to targets.

Simply spraying a few gallons of poison vapor out of a crop duster won't necessarily kill a cityful of people, said Gary Ackerman, a terrorism expert at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies. A terrorist would have to account for numerous factors, such as wind speed, altitude and nozzle settings on the plane, to disperse the weapon effectively.

``You might kill a few people with that, but to cause a true mass casualty event -- it's not that easy,'' Ackerman said.

Chemical agents such as sarin are considered the most likely means of a terrorist attack. Biological and radiological attacks are deemed less likely. Experts say an attack with a nuclear weapon, such as the much-feared ``suitcase bomb,'' is considered highly unlikely.

One terrorist group, the Japanese cult Aum Shirikyo, tried to use a nerve agent in Tokyo in 1995. Their method was to poke holes in small bags of sarin left in subway terminals. While thousands were injured by the vapors, only twelve people were killed.

To former CIA officer and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss, R-Fla., the most fearful weapon is a rapidly spreading disease, because it can affect several cities and threaten civil order.

U.S. cities, states and the federal government have trained firefighters, National Guard teams and other officials to respond quickly should one of these weapons be used.

-------- biological weapons

Bioterrorism Vulnerability Cited
GAO Warns That Health Departments Are Ill-Equipped

By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 28, 2001; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37610-2001Sep27.html

The federal government's plan for responding to bioterrorism is a collection of poorly coordinated, often underfunded, projects that span 11 separate Cabinet-level agencies, according to the first comprehensive report on the subject since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Further, the study by the General Accounting Office warns that state and local health departments appear equally unprepared to deal with a biological assault, despite the fact they are likely to be the first to respond.

"Bioterrorism remains a low probability, but a growing probability, coupled with a high vulnerability for our nation," said Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), who, along with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) requested the report.

In this year's budget, the Bush administration has allocated $343 million for dealing with a biological attack, $113 million of which is for the Pentagon to protect soldiers in the field. The rest, which amounts to less than $1 per U.S. civilian, goes to projects as diverse as environmental assessments, pharmaceutical stockpiles and computer upgrades.

More money is being spent by the Defense Department and other federal agencies on prevention and detection, although Frist and Kennedy argue it is nowhere near enough. They have urged President Bush to spend an additional $1 billion to immediately upgrade public laboratories, train medical personnel, pursue new vaccines and therapies and secure overseas stocks of biological weapons.

"We hope you will bear in mind the special challenges posed by biological weapons," the pair wrote Bush. "A terrorist attack using a deadly infectious agent could kill or sicken millions of Americans."

In the past, many have dismissed the threat of bioterrorism as unlikely because it can be difficult to obtain, produce and deliver the deadly agents. However, the formulas "are readily available on the Internet, and the agents are relatively easy to conceal," the report notes. "According to intelligence agencies, the possibility that terrorists may use chemical or biological materials may increase over the next decade."

Many of the gaps identified in the report -- lack of coordination, questions over jurisdiction -- are endemic to the broader challenges surrounding counterterrorism, said Jeffrey H. Smith, former counsel to the CIA and an expert on preparedness.

"But biological weapons have unique aspects," he said. "The first unique aspect is the fact that the response is largely a public health challenge. That adds a layer of complexity that the others do not have."

Yet as the Bush administration readies for war and prepares to fend off future attacks on U.S. soil, many in the health field argue it is time to elevate the issue of bioterrorism.

"We are concerned that the grave medical and public health vulnerabilities in the nation will be missed in the very, very rapid push to shore up the nation's response to terrorism," said Thomas Inglesby, a senior fellow at the Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense at Johns Hopkins University.

Reading from the Defense Department's report to Congress, he said the Pentagon spent $264 billion to deter regional conflicts, $28 billion to protect against a "peer" nuclear attack and $3 billion on all other biological, chemical, cyber and nuclear assaults. Of that, he said, $250 million went to public health systems. "It would be a mistake not to change the funding patterns of the past," he said.

The GAO report, which is still in draft form, found that many of the federal bioterrorism programs are still in their infancy, with little more than start-up money.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta formally began a bioterrorism program in 1999, although the agency did not receive its first infusion of cash -- $9.2 million -- until this fiscal year. All told, the CDC budget includes $148 million for bioterrorism, though much of that money is spent on developing vaccines or purchasing medications for national stockpiles.

As of January 2001, not one of the National Guard's civil support teams, designed to deploy to a contaminated area within four hours of an attack, "had received necessary certification, and none were in use." The Pentagon received $93 million for the teams, which have a broader mandate of responding to attacks by all types of weapons of mass destruction.

Other critical agencies have been left out of the discussion or continue to spar among themselves, the GAO report indicated. The departments of Transportation and Agriculture were left out of the early planning entirely.

"The FBI and CDC each have their own list of biological agents, and these lists only partially overlap," the report notes. "For example, CDC considers smallpox to be a biological agent of concern, whereas the FBI does not include smallpox on its list of biological agents likely to be used in a terrorist attack."

And while some officials at the Department of Health and Human Services have argued with the Pentagon and the CIA over what medications should be stored in the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile, the Food and Drug Administration has not been consulted at all, "despite FDA's expertise with pharmaceuticals."

The study's authors also highlight fears that state and local agencies could not manage a biological assault.

--------

Smallpox's 7 Percent Solution

By Kristen Philipkoski,
Wired, 2:00 a.m.
Sep. 28, 2001 PDT
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,47137,00.html For a disease that was supposedly obliterated from the planet in 1978, smallpox is inciting a lot of worry lately.

There's good reason for the worry, experts say. Since the Sept. 11 attacks that killed or left missing about 6,000 people, the threat of a biological attack, using smallpox in particular, has many experts troubled since it is extremely contagious and no vaccine is readily available to prevent its spread.

Anthrax has also been a key threat named by biological warfare experts, but it's not so easy to infect a person with the 10,000 spores necessary to cause disease. Plus, it's not contagious. A suicidal terrorist needs only to contract smallpox and wander around a subway, or get on a plane.

"Bioweapons programs to be used in times of war were designed to be highly effective and have very limited and well-defined boundaries," said Stephen Block, a professor of biological sciences and applied physics at Stanford University. "Terrorists are subject to none of these constraints and might choose to release a weapon of only moderate effectiveness and not care at all about the boundaries."

The United States maintains a stockpile of about 15.4 million doses of the smallpox vaccine, which is only enough to vaccinate about 7 percent of the population. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has given $343 million to Acambis of Cambridge, England, to produce 40 million doses, but that will take at least three years.

Another company called Bavarian Nordic of Denmark is also working on a vaccine, but it's not clear when it will produce a significant quantity.

Experts emphasize that it's not easy to create a weapon out of a germ. Certainly not one as devastating as jets manned by suicidal hijackers.

"I don't really see it being used very often because it's very hard to weaponize," said Jim Lewis, director of the technology and public policy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Nevertheless, during the Cold War, Soviet scientists did just that.

The Soviet Union, Iraq and many other countries signed the Bioweapons Convention Treaty of 1972, agreeing to destroy all stocks of bioweapons and cease all research on offensive weapons. However, Russia and perhaps others maintain inventory of the virus, according to the CDC and other sources.

"As reported by the former deputy director of the Russian Bioweapons Program, officials of the former Soviet Union took notice of the world's decision in 1980 to cease smallpox vaccination, and in the atmosphere of the cold war, they embarked on an ambitious plan to produce smallpox virus in large quantities and use it as a weapon," wrote D. A. Henderson of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies in Baltimore, in a paper published by the CDC.

The deputy director was Ken Alibek (formerly Kanatjan Alibekov), who said that more than 60,000 people were involved in the biological weapon program in the Soviet Union.

"Hundreds of tons of anthrax weapon formulation were stockpiled, along with dozens of tons of smallpox and plague," he wrote in a paper published in Perspective, a publication of the Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology and Policy at Boston University.

Terrorists who are quite obviously willing to sacrifice their own lives, however, wouldn't need the former Soviet Union's technological capabilities. They would need only to contract the virus, and walk around coughing and sneezing on people.

Smallpox claimed more than 300 million lives before 1978, more than any other infectious disease. It spreads through coughing, sneezing or physical contact and kills up to 30 percent of those infected in 15 to 20 days. The disease causes painful, pus-filled boils all over the body.

The most difficult part of creating a bio-weapon out of smallpox is keeping the virus stable as it travels many miles in a warhead that eventually explodes.

"Making a germ is not that hard, what's hard is to employ it in a way that will cause a lot of casualties," Lewis said.

"It would take a wide range of technological experience and access to microorganisms and the ability to grow them and protect oneself, and come up with a suitable dispersal method which is not at all easy," said Mark Wheelis, a professor of microbiology and a bioweapons historian at the University of California at Davis.

Other biological agents, such as anthrax, are more likely candidates for an aerosol-style distribution, because a lot of the bacteria is needed to be infectious, Block said. But smallpox could be transported in a specially engineered warhead, because it doesn't take much to cause an outbreak. The disease is so contagious, people become the disseminators.

Proving how difficult it is to effectively spread anthrax, the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo cult tried to disseminate it nine times in Tokyo and failed, Block said. The cult even bought a 500,000-acre sheep farm to test their methods before they opted to used nerve gas instead and killed 10 people in the subway in 1995.

Earlier this month, Jonathan Tucker of the Monterey Institute of International Studies published Scourge: The Once and Future Threat of Small Pox, outlining evidence that during the Cold War, the Soviet Union had deployed warheads designed specifically to spread smallpox.

Even though experts believe it would be a significant challenge for terrorists to develop the scientific expertise to deploy biological weapons using smallpox or another bio-weapon such as anthrax, they say those chances increase significantly if a country with the scientific infrastructure to develop bio-weapons is sponsoring the terrorists.

The collapse of the Soviet Union pulled the funding out from under many Russian scientists, so the idea that the technological know-how to create smallpox warheads could be had for a fee isn't entirely far-fetched.

"There is great concern that because of the economic crisis in the former Soviet Union that skilled, trained person familiar with any methods of mass destruction might leak (their knowledge) out of the Soviet Union," Block said.

For this reason, the United States has programs in place to import former Soviet scientists, which brought Alibek to the country.

Tucker wrote that the cold temperatures in northern Russia kept the smallpox agent viable for long periods. Later, the Russian scientists developed special refrigerated warheads that could enable biological payloads to survive the intense heat of reentry into the atmosphere.

Lawrence Halloran, staff director for the House Government Reform subcommittee on national security cautioned against panicked reactions.

"It's not as easy to produce mass casualties with biological weapons as the fearmongers would have you believe," he said.

Reuters contributed to this story.

--------

GERM WARFARE
Afghan Plant Has Potential Worrying Bush

New York Times
September 28, 2001
By JUDITH MILLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/28/international/asia/28GERM.html

The Bush administration is concerned about a plant in Afghanistan that makes a vaccine for anthrax, administration officials and officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross said yesterday.

One official said the administration is trying to assess whether the plant could make biological weapons. To do so, the plant would have to have lethal strains of anthrax in stock and the right equipment.

Christophe Luedi, the Red Cross's deputy head of operations for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said he did not believe that the plant in Kabul possessed any lethal strains.

Foreign workers have been withdrawn from Afghanistan, but Mr. Luedi said that his organization has daily phone contact with its Afghan employees and that there is no indication that any of its main projects have stopped functioning.

The plant, he said, makes about 10,000 doses of anthrax vaccine a year, a small portion of the 20 million doses that the country needs. Anthrax, an infectious disease that kills cattle and other livestock, is a serious health problem in Afghanistan.

The vaccine strain used at the plant is the 34F2 Sterne, a nonvirulent strain commonly used to make vaccine. Vaccine strains cannot be turned into weapons because some of the genetic material that makes them lethal has been removed.

The Red Cross has been helping people in Afghanistan for 20 years, lately providing about $40 million a year in food and medical supplies.

A Clinton administration official, who had worked on biological defense, said he had never heard of such a plant in Afghanistan and was stunned that the Red Cross had decided to renovate such a "dual-use" center in 1997, a year after the Taliban had seized control of Kabul. "It's scary," he said.

-------- chemical weapons

People Near Chemical Depots Worry

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
September 28, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Depot-Fears.html?searchpv=aponline

NEWPORT, Ind. (AP) -- Wiping yellow shards of cheese off a slicer at Gidget's Deli, on the north side of the freshly mowed courthouse square, Linda Clawson's eyes grow wide as she describes her town's fear of a terrorist attack.

With a population of about 700, flanked on all sides by rolling farmland, it seems an unlikely target. But Newport is only a few miles from an Army chemical depot that stores 2.5 million pounds of VX, the deadliest nerve gas ever created.

And that's reason for concern in this town about 100 miles from Indianapolis.

``If we get bombed, this town's wiped out,'' Clawson said. ``If the alarm goes off, it takes 11 seconds for that gas to get here.''

Just enough time, some folks say, to start praying.

Across the country, people in towns and cities that are home to ammunition and chemical weapon depots or nuclear power plants haven't been able to avoid the question: What if the terrorists who have lashed out at America come after us?

Residents in Anniston, Ala., know all about the deadly substances held at a nearby chemical weapons incinerator, like sarin, which kills by paralyzing the lungs and other vital organs. They wonder who else knows.

``We would not even be on the terrorist map if it weren't for the stockpile out there,'' said Keith Howland, a salesman who also stars as Enviroman on a public-access television show. ``Right now, we're sitting ducks -- it's public information.''

Kay Bryan, who lives eight miles from the Umatilla Chemical Depot in northeastern Oregon, said a routine check of the Army's alarm system this week gave her quite a scare.

``I had my windows open, I was sound asleep and the sirens went off,'' she said. ``I jumped up and panicked and thought: 'Oh my God, I thought they said (Osama) bin Laden wasn't going to attack again.'''

The Oregon depot holds 12 percent of the nation's chemical weapon stockpile.

Security at military depots across the country has been increased since the Sept. 11 attacks. For example, hundreds of members of the 101st Airborne have been dispatched to the Newport Chemical Depot and to a rocket and nerve gas depot in Richmond, Ky.

Richmond native Rachel Rose said she was glad to see the troops come, and she's noticed they've kept the depot gates closed since they arrived.

``That was the first time in my life I've ever seen the gates closed during the daytime,'' she said. ``It feels safer though, it's just not easy sitting so close to that much ammunition and nerve gas.''

Of course military sites aren't the only concern.

Karen Herrick, who works at a flower shop near the Seabrook Station nuclear plant in Seabrook, N.H., said the attacks have been unnerving. She said local businesses and residents get instructions each year about evacuation routes should anything happen at the plant, but she usually throws them away.

``I can't say I'm afraid,'' she said, ``but I've been thinking about where my evacuation papers are.''

About 55 miles west of Phoenix, in Wintersburg, Ariz., is the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, the nation's largest nuclear power plant both in size and output. But not everyone here is paranoid about recent events.

Sitting in the shade of his mobile catfish stand, in clear view of the plant's bullet-shaped cooling towers, Thurman Payne said the terrorist attacks haven't changed the way he views the plant.

``The only thing I did different is hang up my flag,'' he said, nodding to an American flag flapping on the side of his stand. ``All that's happened after the attacks is that we're dealing with a new reality, no different than any other American.''

At the Wintersburg General Store, about three miles from the plant, store owner Ann Hollenstein echoed Payne's opinion.

``That plant does not bother me at all,'' she said. ``I think that plant is pretty much built to withstand more than the World Trade Center.''

Standing on a corner by the courthouse square in Newport, waving at the occasional car passing by, Dick McArty, who worked for 24 years as an electrician at the Newport Chemical Depot, said he knows the facility as well as anyone.

``It's secure as it is,'' he said, his eyes hidden behind tinted glasses. ``But with these terrorists, what the hell is secure? What's safe anymore?''

-------- israel

Nations tie Mideast peace to U.S. campaign

September 28, 2001
By Nicholas Kralev
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010928-675895.htm

Pro-American Muslim nations cautioned the United States yesterday that failure to break the Israeli-Palestinian cycle of violence will hamper efforts to bring the Arab world into an anti-terrorism coalition.

The caveat, from visiting Jordanian, Turkish and Saudi officials, came as a gunbattle in the Gaza Strip shattered hopes for Middle East peace - hopes that had surged a day earlier with an Israeli-Palestinian agreement to stop fighting.

King Abdullah II of Jordan offered his nation's support for the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism, but asked the Bush administration for urgent action to address the 53-year-old Middle East conflict.

The king told Secretary of State Colin L. Powell that the conflict has "a bearing on how we go forward in terms of dealing with the problem of terrorism," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said at a press briefing.

A senior Jordanian official traveling with the king said: "We have to address the root causes and move very fast on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It's important that the United States continue to play an effective role."

The king, who earlier met with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, also had talks with the visiting foreign ministers of Turkey and Egypt, Ismail Cem and Ahmed Maher.

Today, King Abdullah will be the first Arab head of state to meet with President Bush since the Sept. 11 attacks.

In a gesture of appreciation for Amman's support in the fight against terrorism, the Senate approved a long-delayed free-trade agreement with Jordan on Monday.

Mr. Cem, who also held talks with Mr. Powell, said that ending the Middle East violence is "essential for the composition and effectiveness" of the coalition against terrorism.

"I have always advocated that U.S. presence and involvement in the peace process is the decisive factor, and no other country can play such a role," he told reporters.

In the Gaza Strip yesterday, Israeli troops fought a fierce battle with Palestinians, despite an agreement the night before to seek a lasting cease-fire that could boost U.S. efforts to build a global anti-terror alliance.

Three Palestinians were killed and 27 were wounded in overnight fighting in the Rafah refugee camp, close to the southern border with Egypt, after Israel sent tanks and a bulldozer to demolish houses, Reuters news agency quoted Palestinian officials as saying.

Troops later shot dead a 15-year-old schoolboy as he stood in a tense area of Rafah near an army post and killed a 30-year-old mentally disturbed man who strayed too close to a Jewish settlement in central Gaza, hospital sources told Reuters.

The United States said both sides must "break from their past practices" of provocation and retaliation.

"We've called on the Israeli government to halt the demolition of Palestinian homes and to halt the incursions by Israeli defense forces into Palestinian-controlled areas," Mr. Boucher said.

"For their part, we continue to call upon the Palestinian Authority to undertake sustained and effective steps to pre-empt violence, to arrest those responsible for planning and conducting acts of violence and terror," he said.

Visiting Saudi lawmakers this week said Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the terrorist attacks, "is exploiting the feelings of many Arabs with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

"There is definitely frustration in Saudi Arabia and in the Arab world, especially those countries with strong relationships with the United States, to see the slowdown, the lowering of U.S. engagement in the peace process," said Bandar M. Aiban, chairman of the committee on foreign relations in the Saudi Consultative Council.

Abdulaziz bin Ibrahim Fayez, another member of the legislature, said many Saudis were "dismayed to see the United States withdraw from the peace negotiations."

"We saw what happened when the issue was left to the parties themselves to decide," he told reporters at the Saudi Embassy on Wednesday.

The senior Jordanian official said yesterday that part of King Abdullah's message is that "terrorism should not be linked to Arab and Muslim culture."

•David Sands contributed to this report.

--------

Deaths Mar Mideast Peace Efforts
Israeli Troops, Palestinians Fight Fierce Battle at Gaza Camp

By Nidal al-Mughrabi
Reuters
Friday, September 28, 2001; Page A27
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37292-2001Sep27.html

RAFAH, Gaza Strip, Sept. 27 -- Israeli troops fought a fierce battle with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip today, undermining an agreement to seek a lasting cease-fire that could boost U.S. efforts to build a global anti-terror alliance.

Three Palestinians were killed and 27 wounded in overnight fighting in the Rafah refugee camp, close to the southern border with Egypt, after Israel sent tanks and a bulldozer to demolish houses, Palestinian officials said.

Israeli troops later shot dead a 15-year-old in a tense area of Rafah near an army post, and killed a 30-year-old mentally disturbed man who strayed too close to a Jewish settlement in central Gaza, hospital sources said.

The fighting in Rafah quieted by mid-morning. But troops repeatedly fired from an army post to disperse children burning tires and kept a close watch on thousands of people marching at the funerals of the men.

"Revenge, revenge," mourners chanted. Masked men fired in the air as the corpses, wrapped in Palestinian flags, were carried through the streets.

Senior activists from militant Muslim groups -- the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, and Islamic Jihad -- called through loudspeakers for people to ignore the agreement by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to implement a truce plan. "Yesterday we offered peace and what did they offer? They offered the dismembered bodies of our people," one said.

The two leaders said security talks would resume Friday, the eve of the first anniversary of a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation in which at least 591 Palestinians and 169 Israelis have been killed. The conflict is widely seen as an obstacle to U.S. efforts to recruit Arab states for an alliance to respond to the suicide plane attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11.

-------- japan

As Alliances Shift, Japan's Military Role Is Widening

By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, September 28, 2001; Page A30
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37422-2001Sep27.html

TOKYO, Sept. 27 -- Japan is preparing for its most expansive military role since World War II, part of the shifting power alignments in Asia following the terrorist attacks on the United States.

President Bush's call for international support in dealing with terrorism has produced a shuffling of alliances in the region. Japan has turned its attention from India to court rival Pakistan, which had been seen as moving closer to China. Russia and China appear to be stepping aside in their Central Asian spheres of interest. Even North Korea has sent conciliatory signals to the United States.

And Washington's call to arms has muted the strong regional protests that -- until two weeks ago -- would have greeted Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's proposal to significantly expand the role of Japan's military.

"There's enormous international pressure to help out the U.S., so we have to keep our lips sealed," Soh Chang Rok, an international relations specialist at Korea University, said in Seoul. "For Japan, this is a great opportunity to kick-start its military buildup."

Koizumi today called on the Diet, Japan's parliament, to swiftly enact his seven-point plan to allow Japan's Self-Defense Forces to provide rear-guard support for an expected U.S. military action in Afghanistan. He also vowed to press his economic reforms to help stabilize the world economy.

"The terrorist attacks are not only on the United States," Koizumi said. "They represent a despicable attack on all of humankind." In New York on Monday, he said he "saw the scars left behind by terrorism."

On Tuesday, Koizumi met Bush in Washington and pledged to send Japan's forces to support the U.S. military. His firm pledge on an issue that normally would cause extensive hand-wringing in and around Japan is a sign of the rapid changes in Asia's political landscape in the past two weeks.

Following the U.S. lead, Japan announced a $40 million aid package to Pakistan. It had frozen new economic aid after the 1998 nuclear tests by India and Pakistan.

China and Russia have indicated they may cooperate with -- or at least not oppose -- U.S. plans, a suspension for now of the animus toward American unilateralism that had been growing in the region. North Korea set aside its usual anti-American bombast, and news reports here say Pyongyang sent a note to Washington disassociating itself from the terrorism.

"Certainly, on this issue of terrorism, these countries appear to be uniting," said Peter Sato, former Japanese ambassador to China. "This is an issue that we can deal with together with any country."

But he noted that by resuming aid to Pakistan, Japan gives up diplomatic leverage on nuclear nonproliferation. Others worry about long-term effects of some of these changes. "For Japan to send troops that would do more than peacekeeping will have a tremendous destabilizing effect in northeast Asian relations," said Chang Dal Joong, a professor at Seoul National University. "This is a bone in our throat."

The change in the Japanese military role is a significant step in the slow, incremental expansion of the role of Japan's army, navy and air forcesince the Persian Gulf War. Japanese forces remain prohibited from fighting except in self-defense, and they operate under tight restrictions that have largely prevented them from taking even a supporting role in any outside military action.

But the changes proposed by Koizumi would give those forces much greater leeway for a broad range of rear-guard roles, including ferrying supplies, setting up medical care and possibly providing intelligence and early-warning information to U.S. forces.

"We are being tested as to how we will act as an ally of the United States, and how we will act as a member of the international community," said Chikako Sekiba, a professor of international politics at Sacred Heart University in Tokyo.

Despite the limits, Japan has assembled one of the world's best-equipped militaries, centered on a sophisticated navy. Its defense budget ranges from second- to fifth-largest in the world, depending on how exchange rates and ancillary budgets are calculated.

But using that military is still controversial in Japan, where the devastation of the war is bitterly remembered by older generations. And any hint of militarism has always brought strong protests from Japan's neighbors that were targets of Imperial Japan's conquests. Hundreds of protesters demonstrated today in central Tokyo against Japanese participation in the U.S. plans. Even the escort by Japanese destroyers and minesweepers of the U.S. aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk out of port at Yokosuka last Friday prompted domestic controversy.

Koizumi advocated an expansion of the military's role during his election campaign this year, though he has since played down the issue to concentrate on economic reform. Critics say he is seizing on the terrorist attacks to achieve his purpose.

"The main purpose is just to dispatch the Self-Defense Forces, not really to contribute to crush terrorism," said Kazuo Shii, leader of Japan's small Communist Party, which opposes the legislation.

Opponents argue any such expansion in the military's role violates Article 9 of Japan's postwar constitution. That article, which "forever renounces" use of force, has been interpreted as prohibiting Japanese forces from working "collectively" with other militaries.

"This expansion of the Self-Defense Forces is eroding the whole significance and reason" of the constitutional prohibitions, said Yasuhiro Okudaira, a professor emeritus at Tokyo University. "I am very worried."

Japan's navy -- the Maritime Self-Defense Force -- is preparing to send to the Indian Ocean a supply ship and three destroyers -- including an Aegis ship with advanced radar and surveillance gear -- to support the U.S. efforts. The air force plans to send transport planes to Pakistan carrying supplies for refugees, a government spokesman said today.

Japan is loath to repeat its experience of the Gulf War, when it wrung its hands over what to do for so long that the six minesweepers it eventually sent arrived after the conflict ended. Japan contributed $13 billion to the $80 billion cost of the war, which backfired when it was criticized as willing to send money but not men.

"There was almost a kind of trauma among Japanese as a result of the reaction to what we did in the Gulf War," said Sekiba. "It was a very bitter experience, so since then we have been trying to determine what we should do next time. But next time has come."

Special correspondent Joohee Cho in Seoul contributed to this report.

-------- russia

Russia Welcomes Chechnya Support
Contact With Rebels Follows U.S. Reversal

By Susan B. Glasser
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, September 28, 2001; Page A25
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37795-2001Sep27.html

MOSCOW, Sept. 27 -- Russia today claimed vindication for its war against Islamic rebels in Chechnya after nearly two years of criticism from the West, welcoming a sharp about-face by President Bush and other leaders who now say that Moscow, too, is fighting a war against "international terrorism."

Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said that "the whole world community" supports Russia's position just days after President Vladimir Putin backed possible U.S.-led retaliatory strikes against Afghanistan and demanded that Chechen rebels lay down their arms within 72 hours and break their ties to international "terrorists" such as Osama bin Laden.

As the deadline came and went tonight, Putin's envoy to Chechnya reported the first contacts with representatives of rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov since the current war began in late 1999. Such overtures represent a glimmering of peace talks in a conflict that has claimed an estimated 10,000 Russian soldiers' lives and many thousands more Chechens and Russian civilians. It was also an indication of how broadly the reverberations from the terrorist attacks against the United States were being felt, affecting even the seemingly stalemated conflict in Chechnya.

"It is the beginning of a conversation, the beginning of a dialogue," said Putin's envoy, Viktor Kazantsev. Kazantsev said in a televised interview that "several dozen" Chechen rebels had initiated contacts with the Russians today, "not only common fighters, but also some field commanders."

But otherwise, there were few indications of peace coming from Chechnya today. Only seven people responded to Putin's demand to turn in their weapons, according to Russian news agencies, yielding a modest cache of four grenade launchers, two pistols and one automatic rifle. A bomb went off in central Grozny, the war-destroyed Chechen capital, killing one man. And rebels killed a security officer who worked for the Russian-installed chief administrator of Chechnya in the village of Kurchaloi.

Still, Russian officials said tonight that the overtures from Maskhadov constituted a huge step forward. Just a few weeks ago, a call by a leading lawmaker for talks with Maskhadov was widely denounced here as dangerous and irresponsible. But now Putin's backers say he has given the Chechen rebels an opening. "The president gave 72 hours, not for the bandits' disarmament, but for them to establish contact with federal forces," said Nikolai Britvin, Kazantsev's deputy.

With a new war threatening to break out in Central Asia, on Russia's southern border, it was increasingly clear that the former Soviet republics near Afghanistan were preparing to allow an unprecedented U.S. military presence there. Putin gave tacit approval to such presence Monday, and there have been intensified consultations with U.S. officials throughout the region since.

A high-level U.S. delegation, led by Undersecretary of State John Bolton, has been in Uzbekistan since Wednesday, according to sources familiar with the talks. But underscoring the sensitivity of U.S. activity in an area Russia considers its sphere of influence, the talks were being kept secret at the request of Uzbek officials, the sources said.

A spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Tashkent, the Uzbek capital, said only that "there have been close and continuing contacts with the Uzbek leadership over the past couple of weeks." U.S. military officials have said they planned to use military bases in Uzbekistan for their warplanes.

In a statement today, however, Uzbek President Islam Karimov stopped short of acknowledging such cooperation, saying only that he would consider allowing use of Uzbek airspace for humanitarian flights. But he also said, "We think it natural to help the planned measures of the United States in the war against terrorism."

Russia has ruled out direct participation in any U.S. strikes against Afghanistan and has said it would allow its airspace to be used only for humanitarian flights. But Putin pledged to increase military aid to opposition forces in Afghanistan. Speaking at a NATO meeting in Brussels, Ivanov said Moscow would supply the Northern Alliance with Soviet-era weapons and replacement parts rather than sophisticated new arms. The Afghan fighters, who fought against Moscow during the Soviet Union's decade-long occupation of their country but have since allied themselves with their former rivals, "prefer Soviet-made weapons. They know how to handle them," Ivanov said.

Weapons needed by the Northern Alliance include T-55 tanks, artillery systems, armored personnel carriers and armored vehicles, according to Ivanov.

-------- saudi arabia

Ending Doubts, Saudis to Allow U.S. to Use Base

By Howard Schneider
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, September 28, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37459-2001Sep27.html

CAIRO, Sept. 27 -- Torn between the conservative religious leanings of its people and a desire to help in the war on terrorism, Saudi Arabia has signaled that it will permit U.S. troops and planes stationed on its soil to participate in military action against Osama bin Laden and his protectors in Afghanistan, according to senior U.S. officials.

Saudi willingness to help would constitute a major gain for the Bush administration's political and military coalition against bin Laden, the Saudi-born militant blamed for the Sept. 11 suicide attacks in New York and Washington. Not only are the Saudi bases important militarily, but visible cooperation from the fervently Islamic Saudi monarchy would provide a welcome imprimatur in the Arab and Muslim world.

Earlier Saudi misgivings about use of the kingdom's facilities had raised questions about whether it would authorize use of a state-of-the-art command center -- as planned by the Pentagon -- to direct any military action in the region. The U.S.-built center is at Prince Sultan Air Base outside Al Kharj, 70 miles southeast of Riyadh, the capital. Because of new Saudi assurances, plans to organize an alternate command center elsewhere in the Persian Gulf region have been dropped, U.S. officials said, and one said Washington believes the Saudi government "will allow us to do most things, but with a lot of winking."

Prince Saud Faisal, the foreign minister, strongly indicated Saudi wil