------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Uranium reactor stockpiles falling-ERA
Fired nuclear worker seeks to clear his name
Police suspect bin Laden making 'dirty' nuclear bombs
Common Interests in a Hazardous World
China Calls for Specific Efforts to Promote Nuclear Disarmament
Further information about DU conference
Depleted Uranium Munitions Suspension and Study Act of 2001
N-reactors are not bombs waiting to go off: Expert
Walk Softly in Nuclear South Asia
Indian troop movements put Pakistan on high alert
Keeping Peace in the Subcontinent
Analysis of the Immune Status in Latvian Chernobyl Clean-up Workers
Portion of Kursk Left for Next Summer
Sweden says wants to delay close of B2 reactor
NUCLEAR WEAPONS COMPLEX VULNERABLE TO TERRORIST ATTACK
YUCCA MOUNTAIN COMMENT PERIOD ENDS FRIDAY
Train loaded with nuclear waste awaits clearance to go
$88K fine proposed for TVA in whistleblower case
Security upgrades coming at Oak Ridge plant
High-level nuclear waste may still move

MILITARY
New offer on Bin Laden
Strikes 'eviscerate' Taliban militia
Northern Alliance closes in on Mazar-e-Sharif
Pentagon confirms Kabul raid blunder
AC-130 Use Signals Start of Attacks on Troops
Afghans the victims of US terrorism
Premier: Australia to Deploy Troops
Anthrax on Senate Letter Called Potent
Daschle Letter Called First Use of Anthrax as Weapon
Russia Offers Calm Antidote to U.S. Anthrax Alarm
U.S. May Waive China Sanctions
Pakistan offers to support long campaign
US buys up all satellite war images
Envoy Urges U.N. Not to Send Peacekeepers
U.N. Says Taliban Seized Wheat Supply
Low, noisy flights rattle Portsmouth
Dugway has all its anthrax
Active Duty 'Conscientious Objectors' On The Rise

OTHER
Solar Able to Meet A Quarter of Global Energy Needs by 2040
How to Make a Solar Power Generator for Less Than $300
Project on Nantucket Sound in Massachusetts to harness power of wind
STERILIZERS COULD KILL ANTHRAX IN MAILROOMS
Ozone hole smaller but radiation risk seen higher
Judges grill Seattle green lawyers on road ban
Anthrax Targets Immune Cells to Kill
Toxic Contamination in Cree Territory: Ouje-Bougoumou
U.S. food drops miss hungry Afghans, supply Taliban
War Hurting Afghani Children the Most
Crackdown on anthrax hoaxes
Message says Navy facilities watched
Analyst says strategy ignored low-level bioterrorism
33 Capitol Hill staffers exposed to anthrax
Anthrax spurs Lott to seek adjournment of Congress
"Those Murdering Men In Their Flying Machines..."
New solutions for an old war
A Rational Alternative to Thoughtless Bombing

ACTIVISTS
Anti-Globalization, Pro-Peace?
Ashcroft Urges Caution With FOIA Requests
Berkeley narrowly passes anti-war measure
Council Calls for U.S. to End Military Action in Afghanistan
Public meeting Nuclear workers programs
Susan Sontag, "The Traitor," Fires Back



-------- NUCLEAR

-------- australia

Uranium reactor stockpiles falling-ERA

Yahoo News
Wednesday October 17,
Reuters
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/011017/sp144005_1.html

SYDNEY, - Stockpiles of uranium held by nuclear power generating companies were slowly being used up, creating more demand for new supplies, uranium miner Energy Resources of Australia Ltd said on Thursday.

``Growth in demand for primary uranium production will largely arise through the depletion of utility inventories,'' ERA chairman Barry Cusack told the annual shareholders meeting.

Markets for intermediate uranium concentrate were relatively flat, with requirements from nuclear reactor operators worldwide expected to increase only modestly over the medium term, Cusack said.

But there were signs that supplies could begin to tighten, leading to higher selling prices, he said.

Prices for uranium oxide used by the reactors have slipped 15 percent in the last year to an average of US$7.89 a pound, but had improved recently to around $9.33 a pound, he said.

Mining companies overall produced 34,746 tonnes of uranium last year, a 12 percent increase on 1999, Cusack said.

``Primary production represented only 56 percent of demand, the balance being made up from secondary sources such as utility stockpile draw down,'' Cusack said.

About 440 commercial nuclear reactors in 31 countries supply 16 percent of the world's electricity, Cusack said.

New supply sources of uranium were being concentrated in Canada and Australia, he said.

ERA mines uranium in Australia's far northwest. Rival WMC Ltd (Australia:WMC.AX - news) produces uranium as a by-product of its copper mining business in South Australia. Heathgate Resources Pty Ltd, an affiliate of U.S. utility General Atomics, also operates a uranium mine in South Australia.

Most of the new nuclear reactors planned for construction are located in Southeast Asia, although the California energy crisis has led to discussions of nuclear power in the U.S., Cusack said.

Australia has no nuclear industry of its own but exports uranium to North America, Asia and Europe.

ERA shares were three cents lower at A$1.83.

ERA, 68 percent owned by Anglo-Australian mining group Rio Tinto Plc/Ltd (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: RIO.L)(Australia:RIO.AX - news), earlier this year posted a 62 percent fall in 200/01 (July/June) net profit to A$13.1 million.

-------- canada

Fired nuclear worker seeks to clear his name
Man with similar name found with bomb in car: police

Andrew McIntosh,
October 17, 2001
(Canada) National Post
http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?f=/stories/20011017/740085.html

OTTAWA - A man branded a security risk and fired by Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. last month wants the RCMP and Canada's spy agency to take a new look at his case after police in Toronto arrested another man with an almost identical name who allegedly had a bomb in his car.

Mohamed Attiah, 54, was fired from the AECL Chalk River Laboratories on Sept. 20, nine days after the terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon and killed more than 5,000 people.

Mr. Attiah, an Egyptian-born father of four who came to Canada 27 years ago, was dismissed after he was questioned by RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service officers at a police detachment in Deep River, Ont. Mr. Attiah, who was not taken into custody, arrested or charged with any offence, has since repeatedly denied any links with terrorists.

He has urged AECL and security authorities to let him refute claims to the contrary. But AECL, the RCMP and CSIS have refused repeated public calls to share any evidence that suggests Mr. Attiah was a potential security risk.

The federal agencies have also declined to comment when reporters asked why they had set Mr. Attiah free if he was indeed a security risk.

Now, Mr. Attiah wants authorities to re-examine his dismissal following the arrest last week of Mohamed Attia -- the two are unrelated -- in the Toronto area after police allegedly found a homemade gunpowder bomb in a car.

Halton Regional Police Constable Alan Bonner said Mohamed Attia, 23, of Scarborough, was stopped before 4 a.m. last Thursday in the Toronto area after an officer saw a car with an expired licence tag. The officer then noticed marijuana inside the car and decided to perform a full vehicle search. A homemade gunpowder bomb allegedly was found in the trunk.

The device found was a 26-ounce liquor bottle filled with black gunpowder and a wick, Const. Bonner told the National Post.

Mr. Attia is facing charges of unlawfully being in possession of an explosive device and of possession of marijuana. He also faces charges of driving without a licence and driving an uninsured vehicle, Const. Bonner said.

If convicted for the explosives offences, he faces up to five years in jail. Halton Regional Police have alerted both the RCMP and CSIS about the case.

Mr. Attia, described as a factory worker, applied for bail, but his request has been denied and he will stay in custody until his trial.

Mr. Attiah, the dismissed nuclear worker, was not aware of the Toronto case until informed by the Post and he emphasized he does not want to point the finger at Mr. Attia.

Mr. Attiah said the RCMP and CSIS officers who questioned him asked about another Mohammed Attiah who they claimed had died a few years ago. "It was very strange," he said.

Asked whether there might be a case of mistaken identity, CSIS spokeswoman Chantal Lapalme replied: "We cannot comment on operational matters."

AECL, a federal Crown corporation, did not return telephone calls.

----

Police suspect bin Laden making 'dirty' nuclear bombs

Troubling signs
By David Pugliese
Ottawa Citizen
October 17, 2001
http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?f=/stories/20011017/740701.html

Police in Canada, Britain and Bulgaria are urgently investigating suspicious activity involving atomic energy research facilities as fears grow that Osama bin Laden may be attempting to build crude nuclear weapons.

Terrorists could build a "dirty" radiological bomb with little effort capable of killing 2,000 people and contaminating thousands more, according to a report from the Center for Defense Information, a think tank in Washington.

A U.S. defence official has said bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorists had developed chemical and biological weapons and possibly nuclear-related arms.

"If there's any nuclear capability, it is liable to be more radiological than fissile," the official said, according to The Washington Times.

Radiological weapons -- or dirty bombs -- combine radioactive material with conventional explosives to increase their deadliness. A fissile nuclear device produces a nuclear blast.

British intelligence officials are reportedly tracing the activities of a Pakistani scientist, connected to bin Laden, who is believed to have tried to obtain nuclear waste materials in England. Also being investigated is a scheme by the bin Laden organization to set up a fake environmental company to obtain radioactive material from a nuclear power plant in Bulgaria.

In Canada, police continue to follow leads on a Kuwaiti man found with sensitive documents about Canadian atomic energy facilities.

In a report, Mr. Blair says a radiological bomb is an expedient weapon, in that radioactive waste material is relatively easy to obtain and not as well guarded as nuclear weapons. He estimated the worst-case calculation for a noon-hour explosion in downtown Manhattan to be more than 2,000 deaths.

"There's a potential for that type of action," said John Thompson, who studies terrorism trends for the Mackenzie Institute, a Toronto-based think-tank. "I don't think you would create a large number of casualties, but you would certainly generate a lot of panic."

Canadian defence analyst David Rudd notes bin Laden would be courting the demise of his cause if he used a nuclear weapon against the United States. Such an action would turn supporters among the Arab establishment against him and spark massive retaliation from the U.S. government against any country to give him sanctuary.

"All bets would be off if he used nuclear weapons," said Mr. Rudd, director of the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies.

Bin Laden has voiced his desire to have a nuclear bomb. In May, 1998, he issued a statement arguing it was necessary to obtain nuclear weapons and that it was the duty of Muslims "to prepare as much force as possible to terrorize the enemies of God." In a 1998 interview with Time, bin Laden dodged the question of whether he actually had such a device. "If I have indeed acquired these weapons, then I thank God for enabling me to do so," he said.

One of his former aides, Jamal al-Fadl, testified during a terrorism trial this year he was directly involved in an attempt to purchase uranium for bin Laden in 1993. He was instructed to meet a Sudanese military officer, who supposedly possessed radioactive material to sell for $1.5-million.

Mr. al-Fadl arranged for the purchase of a device to determine whether the material was radioactive, but he was taken off the job. Mr. al-Fadl testified he did not know if the purchase was completed.

Earlier this year, customs officers from Uzbekistan seized 10 lead-lined containers at a remote border crossing with Kazakhstan. Intelligence analysts say they were filled with enough radioactive material to construct dozens of crude radiological weapons. The containers were being shipped to a company in Quetta, Pakistan, but since Pakistan already has an arsenal of nuclear weapons, most analysts believe it would have no need for such material, prompting speculation it was destined for bin Laden.

There is also the possibility bin Laden has built or obtained a nuclear bomb, stolen from the stockpile of the former Soviet Union. In 1998, an Arabic news magazine reported bin Laden's organization paid Chechen gangsters US$30-million for 20 Russian nuclear warheads. The plan, according to the magazine, was to detonate the bombs in U.S. cities.

The Russian government denies any of its warheads are missing. But according to Republican Congressman Curt Weldon, the former Soviet Union cannot account for 48 of its 10-kiloton suitcase nuclear weapons.

-------- china

Common Interests in a Hazardous World

New York Times
October 17, 2001
By DAVID SHAMBAUGH and ROBERT S. LITWAK
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/17/opinion/17SHAM.html?searchpv=nytToday

WASHINGTON -- President Bush's trip to China tomorrow to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit meeting may mark a qualitatively new and more mature phase in relations between the two countries. The current campaign against global terrorism, in which the two governments have already cooperated extensively, offers the opportunity to improve a relationship that has been plagued by difficulties.

Normally a presidential visit to China would generate strong passions and public controversy in the United States, as China has been a lightning rod in American domestic political debates. Disagreements about China policy inside the government, which have often been heated since 1989, have become muted.

The principal reason for the lack of controversy is that America and the world are preoccupied by the events of Sept. 11 and the unfolding American-led military campaign in Afghanistan. This lack of attention may be just what the relationship between America and China needs, providing an opportunity for President Bush and President Jiang Zemin of China to meet without strong domestic pressures and heightened international expectations. Simply going to Shanghai will also help familiarize President Bush with the realities of a rapidly modernizing China, giving him a concrete sense of a country often reduced to abstractions and stereotypes.

This first meeting between Mr. Bush and Mr. Jiang provides a chance for the two to stake out mutual interests in the campaign against terrorism as well as to manage other difficult issues, including the spread of weapons of mass destruction, climate change, organized crime and narcotics smuggling, and the future of North Korea.

China's hosting of the APEC conference and imminent entry into the World Trade Organization in early November are also important events in their own right, and tangibly symbolize China's integration into the global economy. In this context, the tensions of recent years between Washington and Beijing may be reduced by multinational management of common problems. Although the two nations will continue to have friction, international coalitions and multilateral mechanisms offer a productive way forward for Sino-American cooperation.

Since President Nixon's opening to China three decades ago, American policy has sought China's integration into the international community. Encouraging Chinese membership in, and compliance with, international institutions has been viewed as important for global stability. Yet China has long suspected multilateral institutions of being stalking horses for American interests.

Interestingly, this view has recently been reversed; China now believes that such institutions may constrain American power or, at the least, keep the United States from acting unilaterally.

Although China is regarded as a full member of the global system, this integration remains more form than substance. China's ambivalence even now about multilateralism and Beijing's selective implementation of international agreements indicate that China is not fully comfortable with the aims, principles and norms that underlie global institutions. China's commitment to the international system needs to be judged by the consistency of its actions.

The international effort to restrict the proliferation of sensitive military technologies is one particularly thorny area that has long roiled Sino-American relations. Last November, Beijing formally committed to Washington that it would curb its exports of missile components and nuclear technology. This important agreement was reciprocated by a Clinton administration decision to make it easier for American companies to launch satellites on Chinese rockets. But last month the State Department slapped sanctions on two Chinese companies accused of circumventing the pledge to curb missile exports by transferring missile parts to Pakistan.

The Chinese government faces a choice. It can either continue selling nuclear technology and missile components, for example, to unstable states like Pakistan or hostile ones like Iran, or it can live up to its commitments and gain international acceptance as a responsible state. In our discussions in Beijing last week with military officials and civilian analysts, it was apparent that Chinese arms control authorities are rethinking China's approach. China cannot be against terrorism one day and selling dangerous technology to states that sponsor terrorism the next. The incentives now clearly cut in favor of Chinese compliance with multilateral nonproliferation norms. Mr. Bush and Mr. Jiang may announce progress on this issue when they meet in Shanghai on Friday.

The mixed, complex character of Sino-American relations resists reduction to any simplistic slogan, whether "strategic partners" or "strategic competitors." America's relationship with China is increasingly enmeshed in a broader global framework. Of course, some Sino-American problems - Taiwan and missile defense, for example - are not amenable to multilateral management. But China's increased participation in global organizations may well improve the way our two nations handle this always fraught relationship.

David Shambaugh is director of the China Policy Program at George Washington University. Robert S. Litwak is director of international studies at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.

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China Calls for Specific Efforts to Promote Nuclear Disarmament

Tuesday, October 17, 2000
People's Daily (China)
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200010/17/eng20001017_52789.html

China Monday called for concrete efforts to promote nuclear disarmament and to strictly abide by the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty) in order to build a nuclear-weapon-free world.

The appeal came as Hu Xiaodi, the Chinese ambassador on disarmament, took the floor at the First Committee of the 55th General Assembly session. The First Committee is in charge of disarmament and international security.

"Efforts must be made to overcome negative elements in order to ensure the right direction in nuclear disarmament," Hu said. "This is essential to the realization of the goal to build a nuclear-weapon-free world at an early date."

In his speech, the Chinese ambassador outlined six principles and concrete measures in the field of nuclear disarmament: First, the countries with the biggest nuclear arsenals should bear the special and primary responsibility in nuclear disarmament. They should continue their efforts aimed at shrinking their respective nuclear arsenal remarkably.

The country who deploys nuclear weapons overseas should withdraw such weapons back to its territories, and efforts must be made to do away with the policy and practice of "nuclear umbrella" and "the sharing of nuclear weapons," Hu said.

Secondly, all nuclear-weapon states should make clear-cut commitments that they will not be the first to use nuclear weapons under any circumstances, and that they will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states or nuclear-weapon-free zones under any circumstances.

Nuclear-weapon states should start negotiations to conclude biding international legal documents in this regard, he said.

Thirdly, the strengthening of strategic stability is an essential condition for promoting nuclear disarmament. "At present, the most important thing is to strictly abide by the ABM Treaty," he said.

The Chinese ambassador called for no development or deployment of any missile defense system which upsets the global strategic balance and destroys the world stability, no assistance to other countries in acquiring such a system, and non-proliferation of any sophisticated missile defense system and related technologies to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries and undermine their sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The international community needs to begin talks on relevant legal documents in order to comprehensively prevent the weaponalization of outer space, he said.

Fourth, the international community should take concerted efforts to urge those countries who remain out of the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) to enter into the treaty as soon as possible.

Fifth, nuclear-weapon states, on the basis of the commitment not to be the first to use nuclear weapons, should reach agreement through negotiations on "the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use of Nuclear Weapons."

Sixth, on the basis of safeguarding international strategic stability and under the guarantee that the security of each country should not be weakened, the international community should conclude through negotiations "the Convention on the Total Ban of Nuclear Weapons."

"China is determined to spare no efforts to promote the above-mentioned principles and measures," and the Chinese delegation will support all ideas and proposals which are conducive to the realization of a nuclear-weapon-free world as soon as possible, he added.


-------- depleted uranium

Further information about conference
"Facts on Depleted Uranium",
Prague, Czech Republic, November 24-25.2001.

Res publica, association for information, Prague, Czech Republic, publica@publica.cz
Reply-To: du@publica.cz
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001

The civic association, Res publica, association for information, the preparing for the date 24 and 25 November 2001 in Prague, the Czech Republic, a conference dedicated to the problems of depleted uranium "Facts on Depleted Uranium".

We consider it necessary to comment on the reason leading us the organization of this conference. In reply a letter pointing out the gravity of using Depleted Uranium in war operations in Persian Gulf and in Balkans, sent to the President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Havel by the vice-chairman of our association Res publica Jiri Horak, it was stated that the problem of using arms with depleted uranium is becoming ever more relevant and that V. Havel has been perceiving susceptibly all possible perils making possible with the deployment of arms of this type to endanger the health of all peoples. In organizing this conference we wish to contribute to the realization of the idea, supported also according to the mentioned reply by Vaclav Havel, that the whole problematic would be subjected to a proper expert opinion and on this basis relevant conclusions would be deduced as well as urgent steps resulting in the security of the protection of human lives.

It is just this reason that we are laying the central point of this conference on an expert level. We are interested in hearing at this conference technical, military, political, juristic, health, ecological and other expert's views on this problem. We have requested Prof. Jiri Matousek from the Institute of Environmental Chemistry and Technology Faculty of Chemistry, Brno University of Technology from Czech Republic, to be an expert moderator at this Conference "Facts on Depleted Uranium". From quite natural reasons we consider it correct to invite also members of various humanitarian, health, ecological and peace organizations. For your information we mention that in view of the nature of the conference we calculate with the participation of the approximately fifty persons. Contributions from this conference will be published in a conference volume.

Results of the conference "Facts on depleted uranium", information and comments presented at the conference will be forwarded also to the president of the Czech Republic Vaclav Havel.

On this occasion we wish to inform you that by thist conference we take up from our preceding actions, which had been for instance our international meeting dedicated to security problems of central Europe, the question of the nature of OSCE and the importantce of Charter on European Security and particularly the problems of Yugoslav crisis in 1999.

In case you are interested in aspects related to depleted uranium, it would be a great pleasure to welcome you at the conference "Facts on Depleted Uranium" in Prague.

We would appreciate very much too, to recommend us for invitation those of your friends who could address the conference on aspects connected with depleted uranium!

We are convicted that also with your help we may be able to contribute to a good case. We are also attaching a simple registration form to the conference and we would appreciate your decision as to whether you would wish to participate and particularly to present a contribution. Certainly you will understand that your concrete response will be important for our steps in the conference preparation. We are sending our greetings and look forward to your response.

==

Participants fee: None for participants who send filled participation forms not later than October 31.2001. USD 10 for those who send their participation form until November 10.2001. USD 20 for those whose participation forms will be received later.

==

Reply slip Res publica, association for information

I would like to participate in the Conference Facts on Depleted Uranium, Prague, Czech Republic, November 24.-25. 2001

I would like to submit a paper on.................................................

Name............. Organisation.................... Address.......................... Phone............. Fax............ E-mail.............. Web site..............

Please complete this slip and return it to the Res publica, association for information, Prague, Czech Republic: du@publica.cz

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Depleted Uranium Munitions Suspension and Study Act of 2001
(Introduced in the House)

HR 3155 IH
107th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 3155

To require the suspension of the use, sale, development, production, testing, and export of depleted uranium munitions pending the outcome of certain studies of the health effects of such munitions, and for other purposes.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

October 17, 2001

Ms. MCKINNEY (for herself, Mr. ACEVEDO-VILA, Ms. BALDWIN, Mr. MCDERMOTT, Mr. KUCINICH, and Ms. LEE) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Armed Services, and in addition to the Committees on Energy and Commerce, and International Relations, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

A BILL

To require the suspension of the use, sale, development, production, testing, and export of depleted uranium munitions pending the outcome of certain studies of the health effects of such munitions, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.

(a) SHORT TITLE- This Act may be cited as the `Depleted Uranium Munitions Suspension and Study Act of 2001'.

(b) TABLE OF CONTENTS- The table of contents of this Act is as follows:

Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents.

Sec. 2. Findings.

Sec. 3. Purposes.

Sec. 4. Suspension of use of depleted uranium munitions.

Sec. 5. Suspension of sale and export of depleted uranium munitions.

Sec. 6. Comptroller general investigation of plutonium contamination.

Sec. 7. Study of health effects of depleted uranium .

Sec. 8. Epa studies of environmental contamination by depleted uranium .

Sec. 9. Environmental mitigation and cleanup requirements.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

Congress makes the following findings:

(1) The highest regard should be given to the health and safety of the Nation's military personnel.

(2) Among the characteristics of depleted uranium munitions are that (A) they are pyrophoric, resulting in the munition burning upon impact with a target, and (B) the impact of a depleted uranium munition on a target creates aerosol particles, which can be inhaled.

(3) Depleted uranium munitions were used by the United States in 1991 during the Persian Gulf War in Southwest Asia and during the conflicts in the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Bosnia, Kosovo, Serbia, and Montenegro) during the 1990s, with approximately 300 metric tons of depleted uranium being used during the Gulf War, three metric tons being used in Bosnia, and over nine metric tons being used in Kosovo, Serbia, and Montenegro.

(4) The United States has provided or sold depleted uranium and depleted uranium munitions to allied nations, and the United Kingdom used depleted uranium munitions during the Persian Gulf War.

(5) Depleted uranium munitions have been used at numerous United States military installations, proving grounds, and testing facilities.

(6) The Yugoslav and Iraqi Governments have claimed that depleted uranium is affecting the health of their people, although such claims have yet to be independently verified.

(7) No definitive cause has been established for the various illnesses (commonly referred to as `Gulf War Syndrome') that currently affect approximately 130,000 United States servicemembers and veterans who served in Southwest Asia during the Persian Gulf War.

(8) The British Royal Navy, Canadian Navy, and United States Navy have all announced that they would phase out use of depleted uranium munitions.

(9) It has been reported that depleted uranium munitions use has proliferated to more than 20 nations.

(10) Crash investigators of the Federal Aviation Administration are instructed, in FAA Advisory Circular 20-123, dated December 20, 1984, to `handle with caution' any depleted uranium that they encounter in crash investigations, and are instructed that `the main hazard associated with depleted uranium is the harmful effect the material could have if it enters the body,' and that `[i]f particles are inhaled or digested, they can be chemically toxic and cause a significant and long-lasting irradiation of internal tissues,'.

(11) The 1949 Geneva Convention specifically outlines the precautions warring nations must take to avoid harming civilian populations, and it would be a violation of the 1977 Protocol to that Convention to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering to civilians, as depleted uranium has the potential to cause.

(12) The Department of Defense has acknowledged that stocks of depleted uranium munitions

have been contaminated with transuranic elements, including plutonium.

(13) Plutonium is an extremely toxic, carcinogenic, and radioactive material with a half-life of 4.5 billion years.

SEC. 3. PURPOSES.

The purposes of this Act are the following:

(1) To eliminate health threats from depleted uranium munitions to--

(A) United States military personnel and United States civilian employees;

(B) military personnel and employees of NATO member nations; and

(C) civilian populations in regions where such munitions were used (whether in conflict, training, or development) or produced.

(2) To provide for studies of--

(A) the level and scope of contamination of depleted uranium munitions by plutonium and other transuranic elements;

(B) the health effects resulting from exposure by inhalation, ingestion, or injection to depleted uranium munitions; and

(C) environmental contamination caused by depleted uranium at sites where depleted uranium was used in conflict, development, testing, or training and at sites where depleted uranium and depleted uranium munitions were produced.

(3) To require the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to issue regulations and requirements, based upon Environmental Protection Agency studies, concerning the cleanup and mitigation of depleted uranium contamination at sites of depleted uranium munition use and production in the United States.

SEC. 4. SUSPENSION OF USE OF DEPLETED URANIUM MUNITIONS.

(a) SUSPENSION OF USE- Effective no later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall direct that all elements of the Department of Defense suspend use of depleted uranium munitions.

(b) DURATION- (1) The suspension of use of depleted uranium munitions required by subsection (a) shall remain in effect until the Secretary of Health and Human Services, based upon the results of the study under section 7(a), certifies to the committees specified in paragraph (2) that use of depleted uranium munitions in future conflicts--

(A) will not pose a likely long-term or residual threat to the health of United States or NATO military personnel; and

(B) will not jeopardize the health of civilian populations in the area of such use.

(2) The committees referred to in paragraph (1) are the following:

(A) The Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Government Reform of the House of Representatives.

(B) The Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Governmental Affairs of the Senate.

(c) FUTURE USE LIMITED TO STOCKS FREE OF TRANSURANIC MATTER- Upon a certification by the Secretary of Health and Human Services described in subsection (b), the Secretary of Defense shall limit any subsequent use of depleted uranium munitions to stocks of such munitions that the Secretary certifies to be free of plutonium and other transuranic matter.

SEC. 5. SUSPENSION OF SALE AND EXPORT OF DEPLETED URANIUM MUNITIONS.

(a) SUSPENSION OF SALE AND EXPORT- Upon the enactment of this Act, all elements of the Government with responsibility for approving the foreign sale or export of munitions shall suspend the approval of the sale and export of munitions containing depleted uranium .

(b) DURATION- The suspension required by subsection (a) of approval of the foreign sale and export of depleted uranium munitions shall remain in effect until the Secretary of Health and Human Services makes a certification described in section 4(b).

(c) FUTURE EXPORTS TO BE LIMITED TO STOCKS FREE OF TRANSURANIC MATTER- Upon a certification by the Secretary of Health and Human Services described in section 4(b), any subsequent foreign sale or export of depleted uranium munitions or preproduction depleted uranium may be made only from stocks of such munitions or preproduction depleted uranium that the Secretary of Defense certifies to be free of plutonium and other transuranic matter, excluding depleted uranium .

SEC. 6. COMPTROLLER GENERAL INVESTIGATION OF PLUTONIUM CONTAMINATION.

(a) INVESTIGATION- The Comptroller General of the United States shall conduct a full investigation into the contamination of stocks of depleted uranium munitions with transuranic elements, including plutonium, neptunium, americium, and other forms of uranium . The investigation shall include--

(1) determination of when such contamination occurred;

(2) identification of the manufacturing or refining facilities at which such contamination occurred;

(3) identification of the quantity, by volume and percentage, of the material by which such contamination occurred;

(4) identification of when such contamination was first realized by Department of Defense personnel and when such contamination was brought to the attention of senior Department of Defense management;

(5) identification of persons responsible for monitoring the quality of such production;

(6) identification of the time when notification of such contamination was made to NATO-member nations; and

(7) determination of whether any law or treaty was broken by any such contamination or by any failure to provide timely notice of such contamination to any affected party.

(b) REPORT- Upon completion of the investigation under subsection (a), the Comptroller General shall submit to the committeed specified in section 4(b)(2) a report on the investigation.

SEC. 7. STUDY OF HEALTH EFFECTS OF DEPLETED URANIUM .

(a) STUDY- The Director of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and the Director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention shall jointly conduct a comprehensive study of the health effects of exposure to depleted uranium munitions on uranium -exposed veterans and on their children who were born after their respective exposures to uranium .

(b) URANIUM -EXPOSED VETERANS- For purposes of this section, the term `uranium -exposed veteran' means a member or former member of the Armed Forces who while on active duty handled, came in contact with, or had the likelihood of contact with depleted uranium munitions, including members and former members who while on active duty--

(1) were exposed to smoke from fires resulting from the burning of vehicles uploaded with depleted uranium munitions or fires at depots at which depleted uranium was stored;

(2) worked within environments containing depleted uranium dust or residues from depleted uranium fires;

(3) were within a structure or vehicle while it was struck by a depleted uranium munition;

(4) climbed on or entered equipment or structures struck by depleted uranium ; or

(5) were medical personnel who provided near-term treatment to members of the Armed Forces described in paragraph (1), (2), (3), or (4).

(c) PUBLIC HEALTH ASSESSMENT- The Director of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry shall conduct a public health assessment of persons who are thought to have an epidemiological link to any United States military installation or facility at which depleted uranium munitions have been or currently are used or any production facility at which depleted uranium or depleted uranium munitions are currently, or have been, produced.

(d) REPORT- The Directors shall submit to Congress a report on the results of the study under subsection (a) and the assessment under subsection (c). The report shall be submitted not later than two years after the date of the enactment of this Act and shall include the findings of the Directors on the matters covered by the report. The Directors shall include in the report a list of diseases or conditions that are found to exist within the populations specified in subsection (a) and their rate of occurrence compared to the general population.

SEC. 8. EPA STUDIES OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONTAMINATION BY DEPLETED URANIUM .

(a) LIST OF LOCATIONS IN UNITED STATES- Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall provide to the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency a list of all sites in the United States where depleted uranium munitions have been used or produced and a site-specific map of each such site.

(b) EPA STUDIES- After receipt of the list and maps under subsection (a), the Administrator shall, for each site specified on the list, conduct a comprehensive environmental study of the possible contamination of the soil, air, water, and vegetation by depleted uranium at that site.

(c) REPORT- Not later than two years after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency shall submit to the Secretary of Defense and the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Government Reform of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Governmental Affairs of the Senate a report--

(1) describing the extent of contamination by depleted uranium at each site studied by the Administrator pursuant to subsection (b);

(2) providing site-specific recommendations for the mitigation and cleanup of each such site; and

(3) providing general recommendations regarding the cleanup of sites where depleted uranium has been used on foreign lands.

SEC. 9. ENVIRONMENTAL MITIGATION AND CLEANUP REQUIREMENTS.

(a) DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE CLEANUP PLAN- Not later than one year after receiving the report under section 8(c), the Secretary of Defense shall develop a plan for mitigation and cleanup at each site and a prioritized list for such cleanups. The Secretary shall submit a copy of the plan to the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Government Reform of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Governmental Affairs of the Senate.

(b) REPORT- The Secretary shall submit a report to those committees and the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency each year before commencement of the mitigations and cleanups until those projects are complete.

(c) CLEANUP- After filing of such plans, the Secretary shall commence, or contract for, the mitigation and cleanup of each site for which the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency has recommended such mitigation and cleanup and in the manner and scope that the Administrator's report specifies.

(d) APPLICABILITY OF NEPA- Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the cleanup and mitigation required by subsection (c) shall be carried out in a manner consistent with the provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, without regard to any exemption to any of the provisions of that Act for the Department of Defense or any element thereof.

-------- india / pakistan

N-reactors are not bombs waiting to go off: Expert

The Times of India
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2001,
VITHAL C NADKARNI

MUMBAI: ``When you are in my kind of business, you have to knock misconceptions out of the air like flies," says John Ritch, director-general of the London-based World Nuclear Association (WNA). Ritch, who towers over ordinary mortals like Wilt ``the Silt" Chamberlain, did play basketball at national level when he was at West Point. A Rhodes scholar at Oxford, he worked as a staff adviser to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 22 years, specialising in East-West relations and nuclear arms control. He went to WNA after seven years as US ambassador to UN organisations in Vienna.

Now on a visit to the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, he wants to ``recommend steps that could be taken to remove the barriers that now separate India from the global nuclear community". He told Times News Network: ``I will discuss India's institutional status vis-a-vis the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Nuclear Supplies Group and offer some reflections on how to reconcile India's strategic interests with those of a global non-proliferation regime."

He explains: ``Today, there are already two great organisations in the? nuclear field. The first is the International Atomic Energy Agency, the inter-governmental organisation that sets the rules of nuclear commerce by promulgating safety standards and operating the global safeguards system. The? second great global organisation is the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO). This is only 12 years old but has become a major global instrument in promoting operational safety in all of the world's nuclear power reactors.

``Although both organisations are indispensable, we also need a world association of private sector companies that actually perform the various roles comprising the whole nuclear fuel cycle and which performs the third valuable role of commercial facilitation and strong advocacy."

What are some of the myths that he's had to bat down, particularly after the horrors of September 11? ``Some people might quickly jump to the conclusion that the nuclear power industry is particularly vulnerable in a terrorist-ridden world. But that's simply not true," he says.

``A power plant is not a bomb waiting to go off. A power plant is not a radiation-dispersal facility with its horrors waiting to be released. On the contrary, nuclear plants of the 21st century are extremely well-engineered facilities meant to produce clean electricity. Because of the nature of nuclear physics and because of the extremely effective and extensive nature of the safety systems surrounding power production, nuclear plants are already? heavily engineered against worst-case events. So the very technologies that? have been used to make them safe under ordinary operating conditions, make them very heavily defended against terrorist effort to damage them and cause a release of radiation," he adds.

``But the achievements of nuclear science and diplomacy have not been? paralleled by a comparable expansion of public appreciation," he muses.? ``Myths abound concerning nuclear power and radioactive waste, distorting? public debate at the very moment when nuclear technology seems indispensable if we are to meet the environmental challenge. The obvious irony is that? anti-nuclear mythology is most avidly propagated by persons describing? themselves as `green'."

He avers: ``Looking closer, however, an optimist can find powerful reason for encouragement. A case in point is America where nuclear power has maintained a 20 per cent share of electricity generation and where a nuclear renaissance is gaining momentum for a combination of factors. Also, new construction is alive and well not only in much of Asia and Eastern Europe but also in Latin America and South Africa. In the last five years, 24 reactors with 12,000 MW have been commissioned and 36 new reactors totalling over 30,000 MW capacity are now under construction."

He argues: ``If we may reasonably expect in the not too distant future, `new build' is approved, advanced nuclear reactors will be under construction in every region of the world. This will break a barrier of perception shifting the question everywhere from `whether' to `how many'."

----

Walk Softly in Nuclear South Asia

Wednesday, October 17, 2001
by Zia Mian
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/1017-08.htm

Before September 11, South Asia's problems were legion: over a billion people, most of them desperately poor; a history of war and violent conflicts; rising religious militancy; hard-line Hindu nationalists in power in India, the army in charge in Pakistan; newly tested nuclear weapons and a get-tough mood. Now, it is also the frontline of the US war against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. South Asia may not be able to take the strain. The US needs to ensure it does nothing to worsen the many crises in South Asia and that it thinks long-term, not short term, about its policies in the region.

The greatest concern is Pakistan. General Pervez Musharraf justified the October 1999 coup that brought him to power by citing the prevailing sense that Pakistan's economy, government, and society were on the verge of collapse. The fall has been swift; about one in three Pakistanis now live below the poverty line, double what it was a decade ago. There have been eight governments in this time. All of them have become wary of setting-off the widespread public resentment and anger at the hopelessness of everyday life. They have struggled to not provide political opportunities to the radical Islamist groups that have emerged and feed off the misery. Too often, they chose to make concessions to radical Islam. The military is in the same fix.

The US bombing campaign against Afghanistan in response to the terrible attacks of September 11 has opened wide the door for Islamist groups, with their history of anti-Americanism and strong ties to the Taliban. They have taken to the streets challenging Musharraf and his decision to support the U.S. The longer the U.S. bombs Afghanistan, the more civilians get killed, the greater the humanitarian and refugee crisis, and the more organized and angry the Islamists' challenge. Musharraf and the army may hold the line, but the Islamists will come out politically strengthened. Musharraf may win this battle but lose the war.

The US should heed the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and suspend its bombing campaign to allow relief supplies to reach the more than seven million Afghans in direst need. Calling in the UN Secretary-General and newest Nobel Peace Prize winner, Kofi Annan, showing him the evidence and asking him to mediate with the Taliban for a hand-over of Osama bin Laden for trial would acknowledge the vital role of the UN. Both would strengthen the hand of Pakistan's government against the militants.

Pakistan is also trapped by its conflict with India. Reflecting the intensity and depth of this battle, India and Pakistan have each sought to take advantage of the situation after September 11. India immediately offered political and military support to the United States in its conflict with the Taliban and urged it to include Pakistani-supported Islamic militants fighting in Kashmir as targets of the US assault on terrorism. Pakistan, under enormous pressure from the US, eventually decided to turn a liability into an asset and sought to cash in on its location and its leverage over the Taliban.

Seeing Pakistan win the US over to its side, and with the militants continuing their attacks in Kashmir, India is now trying another more dangerous gambit. It has threatened to follow the US example and attack militant training camps and bases in Pakistan. In an ominous development, India has ended a 10-month long effective cease-fire and started shelling Pakistani forces across the border that divides Kashmir.

The US must press Pakistan to end its support for the militants, restrain India from actions that may trigger a South Asian war, and get serious in working with the international community to resolve the more than fifty year old Kashmir dispute. For this effort to be taken seriously, the US must show by word and deed that unilateral military action is not the order of the day.

A longer term danger is that of nuclear weapons in South Asia. The May 1998 nuclear tests by India and Pakistan put the world on watch. The US and the international community used sanctions to pressure both countries to exercise restraint, and to signal a refusal to accept new nuclear weapons states. But, in its search for support in the region, the Bush administration has let go the already waning US hopes to reverse the nuclearization of South Asia. The US is lifting all its sanctions against India, most if not (yet) all sanctions against Pakistan, and economic and military assistance is being offered to both.

India and Pakistan may return with renewed vigour to their conventional and nuclear arms race. India seeks US arms to add to its $4 billion arms deal with Russia and $2 billion deal with Israel. Pakistan's limited funds have stalled its military purchases. With the army in charge, any resources freed by a blanket lifting of sanctions may go to catching up with India. With political and economic pressures eased, both sides may speed deployment of their nuclear warheads. South Asia may escape the frying pan of terrorism only to fall into the nuclear fire.

Also long term is democracy. General Musharraf's new status as ally in the war against Afghanistan and the man most likely to hold Pakistan together may lead to the lifting of the US sanctions levied after his coup. But, concern about Pakistan's stability should not translate into abandoning democracy and Musharraf should not be allowed or encouraged to stay in power. The two previous Pakistani generals who seized power each kept it for the better part of a decade. Civil society withered both times.

Musharraf should hold to his promise of elections and restoring democracy by next October. Elections may be just what it takes to mobilise the majority of Pakistanis in the battle against radical Islam. Whenever they have been allowed to choose who should govern them in the past, Pakistanis have decisively rejected Islamic political parties. They would do so again now. The small crowds on the streets supporting the Islamist groups are testament to that. Ten years without democracy may change their minds.

Dr. Zia Mian researches South Asian security issues with the Program on Science and Global Security at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. He has taught at Princeton, Yale, and Quaid-i-Azam University (Islamabad, Pakistan). He is the co-editor of "Out of The Nuclear Shadow", a collection of the best South Asian writing on nuclear disarmament.

----

Indian troop movements put Pakistan on high alert

CNN
October 17, 2001
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/south/10/17/pakistan.alert

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan Pakistan said on Wednesday that it had put its armed forces on high alert, claiming that it had detected Indian troop movements near its shared border.

Pakistani government spokesman Gen. Rashid Qureishi said Pakistan is "ready to thwart any attempt at mischief or misadventure."

"We have information wherein India has moved some troops and relocated some air force assets which may too be a threat," Qureishi said during a regularly scheduled briefing.

"This action when seen in the context of the irresponsible remarks of their newly-appointed Defense Minister and also the unprovoked firing that they resorted to two days earlier against civilians in Kashmir ... has become a cause of concern," he said.

India denied it was moving troops, calling the claim a "complete fabrication".

"Reports of a troop build up are a complete fabrication," Indian government spokeswoman Nirupama Rao said. "We reject such statements in their totality and restrainst should be exercised by the spokesman on the Pakistan side."

Tensions between India and Pakistan flared again Monday in Kashmir, when the Indian Army said that it had shelled 11 Pakistani military posts across the cease-fire line, destroying them.

Pakistani officials in Kashmir said two areas had been attacked and accused India of unprovoked firing on civilians.

Kashmir, which has a majority Muslim population, has been a decades-long source of tension between Indian and Pakistan which have fought two wars over the region.

Powell visit

Wednesday's announcement comes during U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's trip to Pakistan and India.

Powell earlier has told his Indian counterpart that the American-led fight against terrorism includes all terrorism, including that faced by India.

Speaking at a press conference following talks with Indian External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh, Powell said: "We deplore terrorism wherever it exists, whether on September 11 or on October 1 in Srinagar."

The latter incident referred to the suicide bombing at Kashmir's state assembly in which 38 people died -- India has blamed Kashmiri militants backed by Pakistan for carrying out the attack.

"The United States and India stand united against terrorism and that includes terrorism directed against India as well," Powell said.

Solidarity

He said he agreed with Indian officials who said the problem of terrorism was "not limited to Afghanistan".

Powell's short tour of South Asia, with visits to Pakistan and India, is intended to bolster solidarity with the U.S. counter-terror coalition and soothe hostilities between the two nuclear neighbors over the disputed region of Kashmir.

On Tuesday Powell held talks with Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf, who has taken on a key support role in the U.S.-led airstrikes over Afghanistan.

Musharraf has agreed to provide the United States with logistical and intelligence support and allowed planes to use Pakistani airspace on the way to Afghanistan.

----

Keeping Peace in the Subcontinent

New York Times
October 17, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/17/opinion/17WED1.html?searchpv=nytToday

The last thing Secretary of State Colin Powell needed as he began a delicate diplomatic mission to Pakistan and India this week was a flare-up of violence in Kashmir. Thanks to an untimely attack by India on Pakistani border posts, that is just what he got. The clash served notice, if any were needed at this volatile time in South Asia, that maintaining some sort of equilibrium in relations between Pakistan and India will be essential to waging a successful international war against terrorism.

In return for Pakistani support for the American bombing campaign in Afghanistan, President Bush has embraced Gen. Pervez Musharraf's regime in Islamabad and offered Pakistan large amounts of economic aid. Not surprisingly, that has alarmed Indian leaders, who before Sept. 11 had every reason to believe that Washington was eager to build stronger ties to New Delhi. Secretary Powell's difficult job has been to reinforce the new relationship with Pakistan while reassuring India that its interests will not be overlooked.

He appears to have accomplished the first part by gaining General Musharraf's agreement to work together to create a new, broad-based government in Afghanistan. To secure Pakistan's cooperation, Mr. Powell in principle endorsed the inclusion of moderate elements of the Taliban leadership. General Musharraf, for his part, did not insist on a fixed deadline for ending American military action. As General Powell completed his visit to Islamabad and began talks in India yesterday, it was clear that the Bush administration has no choice but to get more deeply engaged on a host of regional issues, including Kashmir.

General Musharraf deserves American support for his willingness to help in the campaign against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. That does not mean he should be given a free hand to support Islamic fundamentalist extremists in Kashmir, the northern Indian state where a Muslim uprising has been raging for years. Pakistan needs to stop supporting guerrilla fighters in the conflict. India must understand that it cannot crush Muslim aspirations in Kashmir with the use of force.

Washington should also press the two nations to lower nuclear tensions. The Clinton administration made significant progress in getting India and Pakistan to agree to end nuclear testing, curb the production of weapons material and halt the export of sensitive material. That effort must be continued.

George W. Bush came into office determined to keep his distance from foreign conflicts that did not directly threaten American interests. He probably would have put the strains between India and Pakistan in that category before Sept. 11. Now, with American forces attacking Afghanistan, Washington will have to be very much involved in maintaining the peace between these two old adversaries.

-------- latvia

Analysis of the Immune Status in Latvian Chernobyl Clean-up Workers

From: Magnu96196@aol.com
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 19:50:17 EDT

Scandinavian Journal of Immunology 54 (5), 528-533 Scandinavian Journal of Immunology

Analysis of the Immune Status in Latvian Chernobyl Clean-up Workers with Nononcological Thyroid Diseases

N. Kurjane, R. Bruvere , O. Shitova, T. Romanova, I. Jaunalksne, M. Kirschfink and A. Sochnevs

Institute of Immunology, Rigas Stradina University, Dzirciema 16; Biomedical Research and Study Centre, University of Latvia, Ratsupites street 1;

P. Stradins University Hospital, Pilsonu 13, Riga LV-1002, Latvia;

Institute of Immunology, University of Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 305, D-69120, Heidelberg, Germany

The aim of the present work was to characterize the immune status of 385 individuals who participated in the 1986â€"90 clean-up work of the after effects of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant explosion. Fifty-nine Chernobyl clean-up workers developed the most common thyroid diseases; euthyroid nodular and diffuse goiter; 47 healthy blood donors were taken as controls. The levels of immunoglobulins (IgA, IgG and IgM), the numbers of peripheral blood leukocytes, lymphocytes, monocytes, T lymphocytes and their subpopulations (CD3+, CD4+, CD8+), B lymphocytes (CD19+), natural killer (NK) cells (CD16+), classical and alternative pathway activity of complement (CH50, APH50), the C3 split product C3d, and neutrophil phagocytosis were determined in the peripheral blood. We found a significantly decreased number of CD16+ cells (natural killer), of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes, a reduced neutrophil phagocytic activity as well as a significant complement activation in Chernobyl clean-up workers with and without thyroid diseases when compared with normal levels and those in the control group. In addition, the number of CD3+ and CD4+ cells was significantly higher in patients with nodular goiter when compared with that in patients with diffuse goiter. Levels of IgG and numbers of monocytes were significantly decreased in persons who worked in Chernobyl in 1986 during the first 2 months after the accident (with maximal radiation exposure) but were without correlation to thyroid disorders. Our results clearly reflect an impaired immune system in the Chernobyl clean-up workers even 10â€"14 years after the nuclear accident.

--

Dr N. Kurjane, Institute of Immunology, Rigas Stradina University, Dzirciema 16, Riga LV-1007, Latvia. E-mail: nkurjane@hotmail.com (Received 10 March 2001; Accepted in revised form 14 August 2001)

PubMed Search Kurjane, N. Bruvere, R. Shitova, O. Romanova, T. Jaunalksne, I. Kirschfink, M. Sochnevs, A.

(Received 10 March 2001; Accepted in revised form 14 August 2001)

Affiliations
Institute of Immunology, Rigas Stradina University, Dzirciema 16;

Biomedical Research and Study Centre, University of Latvia, Ratsupites street 1;

P. Stradins University Hospital, Pilsonu 13, Riga LV-1002, Latvia;

Institute of Immunology, University of Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 305, D-69120, Heidelberg, Germany

Correspondence

Dr N. Kurjane, Institute of Immunology, Rigas Stradina University, Dzirciema 16, Riga LV-1007, Latvia. E-mail: nkurjane@hotmail.com

To cite this article:

Kurjane, N., Bruvere, R., Shitova, O., Romanova, T., Jaunalksne, I., Kirschfink, M. & Sochnevs, A. Analysis of the Immune Status in Latvian Chernobyl Clean-up Workers with Nononcological Thyroid Diseases. Scandinavian Journal of Immunology 54 (5), 528-533.

-------- russia

Portion of Kursk Left for Next Summer

October 17, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-Nuclear-Submarine.html?searchpv=aponline

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) -- The mangled front compartment of the nuclear submarine Kursk will probably be raised from the bottom or the Barents Sea next summer, Russia's leading submarine designer said Wednesday.

Igor Spassky, the head of the Rubin Central Design Bureau for Marine Engineering in St. Petersburg, said Russia was hoping to raise the sunken section on its own between June and August, without foreign help. He said it would be brought up in parts.

Most of the Kursk, which blew up and sank during military exercises in August 2000, was raised last week, but the front section was sawed off and left on the seabed for fear it could break off and destabilize the delicate operation.

Investigators say clues to the tragedy, which killed all 118 crewmen, could lie in the badly first compartment, which contained the torpedoes.

Many Russian and foreign experts have said the initial explosion was set off by an internal malfunction, while government officials suggest the Kursk collided with another vessel or a World War II mine.

The Russian navy has also said it was studying the possibility that a leak of hydrogen peroxide, which is used to propel torpedoes, may have been responsible for the explosion.

Spassky said the mystery of the Kursk tragedy will eventually be resolved.

``It may happen now after the investigation of the Kursk (in dry dock), but if that's not enough, we'll solve it after looking at the first compartment,'' he said.

Spassky said that the riskiest moment of operation last week to lift the main part of the Kursk was removing it from the sea floor, because engineers had feared that the first compartment had not been cut off completely.

He said the vessel would be put in dry dock this weekend after some defects in the pontoons are corrected.

The 18,000-ton Kursk was one of the world's largest submarines, making the docking operation a difficult effort since any sharp move could destabilize its twin nuclear reactors or its 22 supersonic Granit cruise missiles, each containing a metric ton of explosives.

-------- sweden

Sweden says wants to delay close of B2 reactor

SWEDEN: October 17, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12843/story.htm

STOCKHOLM - Sweden suggested postponing the closure of a reactor at nuclear power plant Barseback by 2003 because of a failed requirement to meet the lost power with renewable energy.

"The government's judgement is that the conditions for a shutdown should stand fast and that these conditions have not been met," Sweden's Industry Ministry said in a statement.

According to a 1997 agreement, Sweden aims to phase out its nuclear power if electricity prices stay stable and the lost power can be replaced with electricity from renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, biomass and small hydropower.

Sweden closed its first reactor at the Vattenfall -owned two-reactor Barseback plant in 1999 in line with the phase out plan.

The statement suggested the issue should be re-examined in 2003.

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


NUCLEAR WEAPONS COMPLEX VULNERABLE TO TERRORIST ATTACK
DOE's Longstanding Indifference to Lax Security Cited

TOMPAINE.com
http://www.tompaine.com/features/2001/10/17/index.html

The Project on Government Oversight investigates, exposes, and seeks to remedy systemic abuses of power, mismanagement, and subservience by the federal government to powerful special interests.

The following is a release from the Project On Government Oversight.
http://www.pogo.org

Washington DC, October 15, 2001 -- A new report by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) has revealed serious security flaws at nuclear weapons facilities around the country. These flaws, which leave U.S. weapons-grade nuclear material vulnerable to sabotage and detonation by terrorists, put the entire country at risk.

The Department of Energy (DOE) analyzes and tests the security of nuclear weapons facilities by conducting simulations and mock force-on-force exercises, often using U.S. military forces as adversaries. According to experts who have conducted these tests in the past, the government fails to protect against these attacks more than 50 percent of the time -- although the exact figure is classified.

"When our security efforts do not protect our weapons-grade nuclear materials against over half of the mock terrorist attacks, it is well past time for a reassessment of our security tactics," stated Danielle Brian, POGO Executive Director.

For example, in mock attacks on the nuclear weapons complex, the "terrorists" have been able to successfully "steal" enough material to make multiple nuclear weapons, "kill" enough protective force members to throw the remaining force into disarray, and had enough time to construct and "detonate" an Improvised Nuclear Device.

Furthermore, POGO has uncovered a disturbing trend of cheating and dumbed-down mock attacks favoring DOE's protective force. For example, several times the protective forces have been warned by DOE Headquarters against the indiscriminate "killing" of scientists, lab employees, and each other during mock attacks, in the hopes of hitting their targets as well. These instances are regularly counted as wins for the protective force.

DOE's disregard for proven threats to nuclear security and its institutional bull-headedness have thwarted the efforts of reformers, time and time again. DOE employees and others who have raised security concerns have largely been ignored and subjected to retaliation over many years.

In recent weeks, POGO has been working with policymakers in an attempt to remedy these problems. Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT), the Chairman of the House National Security Subcommittee, has announced the initiation of a Congressional investigation in response to POGO's findings: "In this critical environment, it is important for the Department of Energy to assure the integrity of basic security measures for the protection of nuclear weapon facilities and the nuclear materials they contain against both internal and external threats."

"Our report shows a long standing pattern of DOE's indifference to and even contempt for security reforms. Particularly in light of the recent terrorist attacks, we believe it is time for outside oversight to correct these problems," said Brian. The POGO report outlines a number of possible long term solutions. Brian added, "We have been recommending to the National Security Counsel and other policymakers two near-term security measures. Military units with SWAT capabilities should be brought in immediately to protect nuclear weapons and material at selected fixed sites. In addition, nuclear materials and weapons should not be transported on public highways until security is upgraded."

-------- nevada

YUCCA MOUNTAIN COMMENT PERIOD ENDS FRIDAY

October 17, 2001
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/oct2001/2001L-10-17-09.html

LAS VEGAS, Nevada, Midnight this Friday is the deadline for the public to comment on a proposal to build a permanent high level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has announced that the Las Vegas Science Center's hours will be extended on Friday to accommodate those persons who would like to submit comments on the Yucca Mountain site recommendation. The comment period, which began May 4, 2001, was extended to October 19 to provide citizens with additional time to comment.

The Las Vegas Science Center, located at 4101-B Meadows Lane (across from the southeast end of Meadows Mall) is open this week on Tuesday through Thursday from 10 am to 6 pm and on Friday from 10 am until midnight.

Since September 26, 2001, the Las Vegas Science Center has served as an extended hearing facility to receive official testimony from Nevada citizens. A DOE official and a court reporter have been available to record public comments.

Citizens are encouraged to reserve time slots to offer testimony by calling 1-800-967-3477. Oral testimony will be limited to 10 minutes, in order to provide proper consideration to all individuals wishing to testify.

Walk in testimony will be accepted as the schedule permits, with priority given to those citizens who have reserved time in advance.

Under normal hours, citizens also can visit DOE Science Centers located in Pahrump, 1141 South Highway 160, and Beatty, 100 North E Avenue, to submit comment cards on the project, until the close of the comment period.

The DOE is also accepting comments via electronic mail (YMP_SR@ymp.gov), fax (1-800/967-0739) and mail submitted to: Carol Hanlon, U.S. Department of Energy, Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Office (M/S#25), P.O. Box 30307, North Las Vegas, Nevada 89036-0307.

Letters should be marked with "Possible Site Recommendation for Yucca Mountain." There also is a comment form on the Yucca Mountain Project's website at http://www.ymp.gov

-------- new york

Train loaded with nuclear waste awaits clearance to go

October 17, 2001,
Associated Press
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--attacks-nucleartr1017oct17.story?coll=ny%2Dap%2Dregional%2Dwire

WEST VALLEY, N.Y. (AP)--A train loaded with nuclear waste remains idled at the West Valley Demonstration Project after plans to ship it cross country were delayed by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Alice Williams, the U.S. Department of Energy's representative at the site, said the agency has no plans to cancel the shipment, but acknowledged obstacles will mount as time passes.

In light of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, authorities along the 11-state, 2,360-mile route are re-examining security procedures, Williams said.

Also at issue are contracts with some of the four railroads hauling the waste, which are scheduled to expire at the end of the month. Williams said those contracts will have to be re-negotiated.

Additionally, the two specially engineered casks that hold the 125 spent nuclear fuel rods cannot be shipped if the temperature dips to below minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit, she said.

The obstacles "are not insurmountable," she told The Buffalo News. "Everybody in the DOE is committed to this shipment and nobody is saying we have to rethink" the decision to move the waste to the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory.

As was the case before the attacks, authorities are not expected to announce when the shipment will leave, for security reasons.

The assemblies, bundles of rods that contain fuel pellets, used to produce electricity in nuclear power plants. They have been stored at the West Valley site, 35 miles south of Buffalo, since the private Nuclear Fuel Services ceased operations in 1972. The company was the country's first commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing plant.

From New York, the train is expected to follow a route through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming and into Idaho, where it will pass through the Shoshone Bannock Indian Reservation before reaching INEEL in four to five days.

The $1.6 billion West Valley cleanup is a joint effort by the state and federal governments.

-------- tennessee

$88K fine proposed for TVA in whistleblower case

The Associated Press
October 17, 2001
http://www.oakridger.com/stories/101701/stt_1017010032.html

KNOXVILLE -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has proposed an $88,000 civil penalty against the Tennessee Valley Authority, finding it discriminated against an employee who raised safety concerns at a nuclear facility.

NRC officials informed TVA of the proposed fine in a letter Monday for discriminating against Curtis Overall, who in 1995 was removed from his job after he exposed problems at the Watts Bar facility in Spring City, Tenn.

Overall was shifted from his job overseeing the ice condenser containment system at Watts Bar after he found nearly 200 screws were either broken or missing from the system and asked that the problem be inspected.

TVA arranged for Overall's transfer to TVA Services but did not rehire him once he had been transferred, which led to his eventual layoff.

A judge sided with Overall in 1998 and ordered that he be rehired and receive back pay.

In May, a Labor Department review board ordered TVA to pay $50,000 in compensatory damages to Overall, and the NRC said in June it would consider a civil penalty.

TVA appealed the Labor Department decision to the U.S. Department of Appeals in June and may defer paying the fine until the appeal has been completed, NRC officials said.

The agency maintains the Labor Department's findings are incorrect.

"We believe that the Department of Labor's decision is in error and not supported by the record," TVA spokesman John Moulton said Tuesday.

Overall's attorney, Lynne Bernabei, wrote the NRC in July urging them to levy a large fine to send a signal to TVA.

"The amount of the fine is not insignificant, however, we continue to think the NRC should be stronger given TVA's record of sort of ignoring NRC penalties in the past for harassing whistleblowers," she said Tuesday. "That's good but not great."

"The money they save by harassing whistleblowers and not fixing safety problems is literally a million dollars a day per nuclear plant."

The NRC gave credit to TVA for what it considered "corrective action," which included assurances that "this matter was not having a chilling effect on the willingness of other employees to raise safety and compliance concerns within TVA," according to the NRC letter to TVA.

Overall no longer works in the nuclear department. He has a job in the fossil fuel division, Bernabei said.

TVA is the nation's single largest producer of electricity, providing power to 159 distributors serving some 8 million people in Tennessee and parts of Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi.

----

Security upgrades coming at Oak Ridge plant

By Frank Munger,
News-Sentinel senior writer
http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/opinion_columnists/article/0,1406,KNS_364_850272,00.html

The Y-12 nuclear weapons plant expects to share in the $40 billion emergency fund approved by Congress in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "We certainly hope so," Bill Brumley, the top federal official at the Oak Ridge plant, said this week.

Brumley said Y-12 and other nuclear weapons installations were asked to submit requests to Washington based on their needs to enhance security and respond to recent events.

"How much of that we will get back, we'll just have to wait and see," he said.

Y-12 already was hoping to make security improvements, even before U.S. vulnerabilities were showcased last month, and there was a request for some funds in the 2002 budget.

Oak Ridge security police have complained about their armaments for years, and one guard recently said Y-12's equipment was clearly inferior to that at other facilities under the auspices of the National Nuclear Security Administration.

Brumley promises that's about to change.

The Y-12 guard force, managed by Wackenhut, is in the process of phasing out the M16 machine-gun and MP5, a submachine-gun, in favor of the M4 - a more modern weapon, Brumley said.

And, he noted, "Everybody's getting new handguns this year." Guards have said handguns currently used are 15 years old.

Brumley said "a lot of other, smaller things" will be added to Y-12's arsenal of security hardware, including night-vision and thermal-imaging capabilities.

Guards are pushing for better tools to deal with possible chemical and biological threats.

"We do have masks," Brumley said, but the NNSA official acknowledged the respirators are not the type fully protective of chem-bio hazards.

"People across the complex are looking at what we ought to do to protect against that," he said.

Current capabilities are not adequate - that's obvious - but Brumley said Y-12 and other federal facilities do not want to respond to terrorist threats in a knee-jerk fashion and end up wasting millions of taxpayer dollars.

Meanwhile, a long-anticipated security inspection is underway at Y-12, but it, too, has been affected by fallout from the Sept. 11 attacks.

Typically, as part of a major security evaluation, there would be one or more exercises to test the response of the Y-12 security force to physical threats. But that was scrapped because of the heightened state of security, according to Brumley.

"There was a collective decision that we did not want to conduct any more force-on-force (exercises)," he said, noting that six or seven of those drills were done over the summer.

While they are good tests for security, the exercises apparently can make the plant more vulnerable during the actual event. Such drills also require extraordinary safety precautions.

Brumley reiterated that Y-12 is the nation's chief repository for weapons-usable uranium and noted, "We can never, ever not protect it."

At the same time, some observers have suggested that training exercises heretofore may not have been tough enough to ensure preparedness. One Oak Ridge guard said there's a certain amount of cheating that takes place, because the threat is typically known in advance.

"In any drill or scenario, there is always some degree of artificiality," Brumley responded. "We work as hard as we can to minimize that."

FOREIGN FLAVOR: Last week, I wrote about the world campus at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, noting there currently are about 1,500 foreign nationals visiting the research facilities despite the heightened state of security. Some assignments last up to two years.

A recent visitation list at ORNL showed 84 countries represented - some of which may surprise you. Here's the list in alphabetical order:

Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominica, Egypt, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guyana, Haiti, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, PRC, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, and Zaire.

Senior Writer Frank Munger covers the Department of Energy for the News-Sentinel. He can be reached at 865-482-9213 or at twig1@knoxnews.infi.net. This column is also available on the Web at www.knoxnews.com/editorsview/munger/

-------- us nuc waste

High-level nuclear waste may still move

By Sylvia Cukan
10/17/2001
UPI
http://www.upi.com/print.cfm?StoryID=17102001-082626-6061r

BUFFALO, N.Y., Oct. 17 -- Plans to ship highly radioactive spent fuel rods by rail from West Valley, N.Y., near Buffalo, to Idaho by the end of the October may go forward despite security concerns after the terrorist attacks in September, Department of Energy officials said Wednesday.

"Obviously, it's more complicated than it was a few months ago, but we have not been told we cannot ship this year," said Alice C. Williams, director of the West Valley Demonstration Project for DOE. "Contracts with some of the four railroads are scheduled to expire at the end of the month."

In August, officials announced that 125 spent fuel assemblies, stored in stainless steel casks with 9-inch steel walls to shield radioactivity and for strength and durability in case of an accident, were to take a 2,360-mile rail journey through 11 states that would take 70 hours.

The specially engineered casks cannot be shipped if the temperature dips below minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit, according to Williams.

The nuclear shipment was scheduled to occur by Oct. 31 -- the date on which the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission's certificate for compliance for the shipment ends.

"We cannot disclose the exact date the train will go because of concerns of terrorist attacks or demonstrations," West Valley Demonstration Project spokesman John Chamberlain told United Press International in August.

"Contracts with some of the four railroads were scheduled to expire at the end of the month," Williams said. "Those contracts will have to be renegotiated and that's not a trivial thing in most cases."

Nuclear shipments were suspended after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 in New York and Washington. Spent fuel is the nuclear fuel removed from a nuclear power reactor because it can no longer sustain a nuclear chain reaction, and it is considered the most radioactive type of nuclear waste, according to Chamberlain. It contains uranium, plutonium and other radioactive products. It will remain radioactive for tens of thousands of years.

"It's perhaps the most dangerous cargo ever shipped in this country," according to Kevin Kamps, of the Washington-based Nuclear Information & Resource Service.

The dedicated train will carry no other cargo and will be composed of two flatbed cars carrying the casks, several spacer buffer cars, and a personnel car with people with expertise in radiological monitoring, emergency response and management, communications, and public affairs.

The train will be tracked around-the-clock using the federal Department of Energy's satellite tracking system, TRANSCOM. States and tribes along the shipping corridor will have access to the system to monitor the shipment. States and tribes have reviewed and provided input on potential rail routes and DOE is supporting state and tribal preparation of local emergency responders.

The spent fuel is destined for the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory where it will be stored in interim, dry storage, before it is ultimately shipped to a permanent repository.

The route uses the Buffalo & Pittsburgh rail line to Machias, N.Y. and then Norfolk Southern to Driftwood, Pa. where the carrier changes to the B&P line to New Castle, Pa. At New Castle the route changes carriers to CSXT and proceeds through Youngstown, Ohio.

At Fostoria, Ohio the shipment is transferred to Norfolk Southern and proceeds through Indiana, Springfield, Ill., and Missouri to Kansas City where it is transferred to Union Pacific. The Union Pacific portion of the route proceeds through northeastern Kansas, southern Nebraska, and Cheyenne, Wyo. to southeastern Idaho.

The route was chosen by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 1999 using computer modeling to evaluate 22 rail segments arranged in 12 different routes. The evaluation considered distance, quality of track, population along the route and potential risk to the public. A composite score for each route was developed that ranked the 12 routes from the route that had the highest combination of the four parameters to the lowest.

The West Valley Demonstration Project, located about 30 miles south of Buffalo, N.Y., is the site of a former nuclear fuel reprocessing plant and a shut-down low-level radioactive waste disposal area.

The $1.6 billion West Valley Demonstration Project Act was signed into law in 1980, it's purpose was to design and construct the two shipping casks for spent fuel, solidify liquid radioactive waste and to contain the leaking radioactive waste that had been tracked to a creek that emptied into another creek that drained into Lake Erie.


-------- MILITARY

-------- afghanistan

New offer on Bin Laden
Minister makes secret trip to offer trial in third country

Rory McCarthy in Islamabad
Wednesday October 17, 2001
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/0%2C1361%2C575593%2C00.html

A senior Taliban minister has offered a last-minute deal to hand over Osama bin Laden during a secret visit to Islamabad, senior sources in Pakistan told the Guardian last night.

For the first time, the Taliban offered to hand over Bin Laden for trial in a country other than the US without asking to see evidence first in return for a halt to the bombing, a source close to Pakistan's military leadership said.

But US officials appear to have dismissed the proposal and are instead hoping to engineer a split within the Taliban leadership.

The offer was brought by Mullah Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, the Taliban foreign minister and a man who is often regarded as a more moderate figure in the regime.

He met officials from the CIA and Pakistan's ISI intelligence directorate in Islamabad on Monday. US officials pressed the minister for a sweeping change in the regime. "They are trying to persuade him to get the moderate elements together," another source said.

Mr Muttawakil's visit coincided with the arrival in Islamabad of Colin Powell, the US secretary of state. After several hours of talks with Pakistan's military ruler General Pervez Musharraf yesterday, Mr Powell admitted that moderate Taliban would play a role in talks on a future Afghan government. "We would have to listen to them or at least take them into account," he said.

Mr Powell also met envoys sent by Zahir Shah, the former Afghan king who lives in exile in Rome, and a representative of the opposition Northern Alliance, sources said.

The Taliban foreign minister had asked for face-to-face talks with the US secretary of state but no direct meeting was held. Mr Muttawakil returned to Kabul last night and the Taliban have publicly denied he was ever in Islamabad.

His visit came as Taliban forces in Afghanistan came under renewed pressure from the bombing campaign and opposition advances.

Troops from the Northern Alliance were yesterday closing in on the key northern town of Mazar-i-Sharif. More alliance soldiers were locked in heavy fighting with the Taliban in the west hoping to cut a key supply line to the town.

Some reports suggested the Taliban foreign minister had in fact defected in the face of mounting pressure and was now in the Gulf. But sources in Pakistan confirmed he had returned to Kabul and said there was still no clear rift in the ultra-Islamic regime.

Instead, the offer appears to indicate that Pakistan is applying pressure on moderate Taliban elements to negotiate their way out of the crisis.

Pakistan has made clear that it wants the bombing campaign to be brief and that it does not want the Northern Alliance, backed by its arch-enemy India, to sweep to power in Kabul. Gen Musharraf said publicly yesterday that he wanted to see "moderate Taliban" in the next Afghan government.

Pakistan was intricately linked to the emergence of the Taliban as a military force and has closely backed the movement financially and diplomatically. Pakistan is now the only country to maintain diplomatic links with the ostracised regime.

The Taliban have offered to hand over Bin Laden before but only if sufficient evidence was presented. Bin Laden is wanted both for the September 11 attacks and for masterminding the bombings of two US embassies in East Africa in 1998 in which 224 people were killed. He is also suspected of involvement in other terrorist attacks, including the suicide bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen last year.

But until now the Taliban regime has consistently said it has not seen any convincing evidence to implicate the Saudi dissident in any crime.

"Now they have agreed to hand him over to a third country without the evidence being presented in advance," the source close to the military said.

However, it is unclear whether the Taliban would have the ability to seize Bin Laden and hand him over.

The US administration has not publicly supported the idea of a trial for Bin Laden outside America and appears intent on removing from power the Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and the hardliners in the regime.

Some in Pakistan have suggested Saudi Arabia as a loca tion for any trial for Bin Laden. "The Pakistan army would be supportive of anything with a Saudi link," said the source.

The Saudi royal family has long seen Bin Laden as a threat because he has accused the government of corruption and mismanagement and continually demanded the withdrawal of US troops from Saudi soil.

Mr Muttawakil's clandestine visit to Pakistan was planned several days in advance. The Taliban ambassador in Islam abad, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, left the embassy on Friday and travelled to Kandahar, home of the Taliban headquarters in southern Afghanistan, for talks with Mullah Omar to prepare for the visit.

It is not clear how the Taliban foreign minister travelled from Kabul to Pakistan without approval from the US. One report in the US yesterday suggested that Pakistani intelligence flew him out of the country in a small aircraft.

----

Strikes 'eviscerate' Taliban militia

October 17, 2001
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011017-97599731.htm

The Pentagon yesterday declared that 10 days of air strikes have "eviscerated" the ruling Taliban militia, as the United States greatly increased the number of troop-hunting fighter jets swarming over Afghanistan.

In recounting the heaviest two days of bombing, officials disclosed that for the first time all four Navy carriers in the region took part in operations Monday. This included the USS Kitty Hawk, which an Army source said is carrying Army Special Forces soldiers and Black Hawk helicopters.

Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, the Pentagon's director of operations, said Navy fighter-bombers hit sites around the important northern town of Mazar-e-Sharif. He said the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance was close to capturing the city and, with it, a critical pathway to western Afghanistan and to Kabul.

"I would say they're in danger of being cut off right now," he said.

He also said the bombing hammered forces protecting Kabul to the north, meeting a key demand of Northern Alliance commanders who want to start an offensive on the capital.

"We're striking Afghan Taliban military positions around Kabul, including those that protect the capital," he said.

All told, on each of the last two days, the Pentagon has put more than 100 strike aircraft in the skies, reinforced by Tomahawk cruise missiles and long-range Air Force bombers such as the B-52, B-1B and B-2 stealth planes. In previous days, the Pentagon said about 10 to 20 strike aircraft flew in any 24-hour period.

"The combat power of the Taliban has been eviscerated," Gen. Newbold said. "The campaign does include targets that are all around the country."

Gen. Newbold also said that two Air Force AC-130 Spectre gunships worked over enemy forces the past two days using the repeated volleys of their 40 mm and 105 mm cannons.

For ground troops in its cross hairs, the special-operations aircraft known as "Spooky" can be a terrifying presence as it loiters for hours, using sophisticated precision-guidance and night-sights to destroy soldiers and equipment.

"It has a large crew of specialists who are able to acquire targets to a degree that a fighter aircraft, for example, moving at over 300 knots, cannot," the general said. "There is a psychological effect in all that we're trying to do."

He said the slow-moving gunship was protected by fighter aircraft and flew at an altitude beyond the range of the "current threat," which officials say is principally artillery and portable missiles that reach about 10,000 feet.

Taken together, Gen. Newbold's briefing painted the picture of a Taliban leadership on the run and a military on a rapid decline. One official said the Taliban appears days away from collapse at the hands of relentless air strikes and ground attacks by the multiethnic Northern Alliance.

AC-130 gunships are typically used to support ground troops, including commandos. The general did not say whether American special-operations forces were used in the past two days.

U.S. officials say two AC-130s pounded forces around the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, the birthplace of the radical Islamic militia and home to supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. The Pentagon considers Mullah Omar part of the Taliban's command structure and has targeted his residence and known hide-outs since bombing began Oct. 7.

The Taliban claims that both he and Osama bin Laden are still alive. Mullah Omar provided a safe haven to bin Laden in 1996 in Afghanistan, where he enlarged his al Qaeda terrorist network. The Bush administration says bin Laden masterminded the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon that killed more than 5,000 people, almost all of whom were civilians.

Gen. Newbold said the 100 strike planes, and five Tomahawk cruise missiles, hit 12 "target areas" on Monday. The sets included airfields, aircraft, anti-aircraft artillery and surface-to-air missile sites. Over the weekend, U.S. forces also bombed Kabul's main telephone exchange, which was installed by the Chinese, making it difficult for Mullah Omar to communicate with commanders.

"We struck Taliban forces in a robust way that included troop and vehicle staging areas," the three-star general said.

"We're going to keep up the pressure on the terrorists and on the Taliban leadership," he added. "The pressure will come from all elements of national power and include the military. Regardless, it's going to be relentless. The essence of what we're trying to do is to destroy the al Qaeda terrorist infrastructure and those within the Taliban leadership."

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Monday that improved intelligence collection produced a new set of targets, not known when the operation began. He indicated the strikes could go on for weeks or months.

Gen. Newbold said the campaign, after effectively destroying air-defense missiles and radars, and unleashing more than 2,000 munitions, is now geared toward hitting military targets on the move, such as troops and tanks.

"I think you have seen over the past four or five days a shift to strike emerging targets, and that is exactly the way you'd want a campaign to go, to emphasize agility in execution."

The bombing began with two Navy carriers, the USS Carl Vinson and the USS Enterprise. Now, the Kitty Hawk and the USS Theodore Roosevelt have joined the ships in the Indian Ocean-Arabian Sea area off the coast of Pakistan, which has granted the United States airspace rights.

Mr. Rumsfeld yesterday taped an interview with Al Jazeera, a Qatar-based Arab news network used by bin Laden and al Qaeda to spread anti-American hatred. The Rumsfeld interview was part of the White House's drive to reach more Arabs to explain America's war on terrorism.

----

Northern Alliance closes in on Mazar-e-Sharif

10/17/2001
The Associated Press
http://usatoday.com/news/attack/2001/10/17/nalliance.htm

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Aided by U.S. bombing, opposition forces closed in Wednesday on a key northern city. U.S. jets struck fuel dumps in Kabul, setting off a huge fire, and the Taliban claimed U.S. planes hit two trucks, killing seven civilians trying to flee the onslaught. With the U.S.-led air campaign in its 11th day, a Western diplomatic source said in Islamabad, Pakistan, that the Taliban foreign minister had asked the Americans to slow down the bombardment to allow moderates within the ruling Islamic militia to reconsider their refusal to hand over terror suspect Osama bin Laden.

International aid organizations appealed Wednesday for a pause in the bombing so they can rush food to Afghan civilians as winter approaches. "Time's almost run out," said Barbara Stocking, director of Oxfam International.

President Bush ordered airstrikes Oct. 7 after the Taliban repeatedly refused to turn over bin Laden, chief suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

In the north, the Afghan opposition claimed it was 3 miles from the key city of Mazar-e-Sharif and was shelling its outskirts, said Abdul Vadud, the Northern Alliance military attache in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. Vadud also said the opposition had seized Dedai military airport, about 6 miles southwest of the city.

Taliban Information Ministry official Abdul Henan Himet confirmed heavy fighting near Mazar-e-Sharif but insisted Taliban forces were "fully capable" of defending the strategic city. The reports could not be independently confirmed.

In the latest airstrikes, U.S. jets struck an oil depot at a Taliban army garrison Wednesday in the Afghan capital of Kabul, setting off a huge fire. Airstrikes on Kabul were continuing through the afternoon, mostly in the north of the city.

Residents could see fire near the front line between Taliban and opposition forces. That suggested the Americans were going after Taliban troop concentrations there.

In Islamabad, U.N. spokesman Hassan Fairdous said a bomb crashed Wednesday into a boys' school in Kabul but did not explode. A private, U.N.-affiliated mine-clearing team had rushed to the school to try to defuse the bomb.

Elsewhere, a Taliban official, Amir Khan Muttaqi, claimed U.S. jets struck two truck Tuesday afternoon near the southern Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, killing seven civilians. The report could not be independently confirmed.

The Taliban claimed 47 civilians had been killed in bombing in Kandahar over the past two days. The report could not be independently confirmed.

In Washington, U.S. officials said Mazar-e-Sharif could fall within days, thanks in part to U.S. and British bombing that cleared the way for the opposition.

Forces loyal to two opposition commanders, Ato Mukhammad and Gen. Rashid Dostum, have attacked the city from different sides this week trying to drive out the Taliban, who have held it since 1997.

Losing the city would be a "significant setback," for the Taliban, Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff operations director, told reporters.

Control of Mazar-e-Sharif would give the opposition power over supply routes and consolidate their position near the borders with Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, a source of weapons and support for the rebels.

With the air campaign accelerating, there were signs that elements within the Taliban were seeking a way out of the confrontation with the United States.

In Islamabad, a Western diplomatic source speaking on condition of anonymity said Taliban Foreign Minister Mullah Abdul Wakil Muttawakil traveled secretly to Pakistan to ask that the United States slow down the airstrikes.

Muttawakil asked Pakistan to convey the message that if Washington slowed the campaign, moderates in the Taliban leadership would reassess their stand on bin Laden. The source said Muttawakil met several times over the weekend with Pakistan's intelligence chief.

Bush has repeatedly refused to negotiate, insisting the Taliban surrender bin Laden unconditionally.

In an attempt to rally his forces, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar reportedly sent a radio message of encouragement to his commanders Wednesday, telling them God was on their side.

"Show patience and confidence, because we are waging a holy war against infidels," Omar said, according to the Afghan Islamic Press, a Pakistan-based news agency. "Life and death are both the same to us, because we want to become martyrs."

In Islamabad, international aid groups appealed for a chance to transport food to Afghans ahead the winter snow, expected to start next month. Aid groups also appealed to both sides to avoid targeting aid convoys.

On Wednesday, the Pentagon acknowledged bombing the International Red Cross compound in Kabul, setting two warehouses on fire. A Pentagon official said U.S. pilots thought the warehouses were used by the Taliban.

----

Pentagon confirms Kabul raid blunder

BBC News
Wednesday, 17 October, 2001,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1601000/1601726.stm

The Pentagon has admitted mistakenly bombing a warehouse used by the Red Cross during a raid on the Afghan capital Kabul.

A statement said warplanes dropped 1,000 pound (454 kg) bombs that inadvertently hit one or more Red Cross buildings on Tuesday.

The Pentagon said it "did not know" the Red Cross was using warehouses that were among facilities used by the Taleban to store ammunition.

Red Cross reports "indicate that wheat and other humanitarian supplies stored in the warehouses were destroyed, and an Afghan security guard was injured" in the incident, the Pentagon said.

The apparent blunder followed the killing of four Afghan guards from a UN mine clearance agency in Kabul nearly two weeks ago when another bomb went astray.

Several villagers were also reported to have died when two bombs meant for Kabul airport went astray.

Click here for a map of recent air strikes

The Pentagon said earlier that dozens of US navy and air force planes were hitting other targets including the capital, Kabul.

In the latest daylight raids, six powerful explosions are reported to have rocked Kabul on Wednesday.

A Marine Corps spokesman said US and UK forces had struck military targets and guerrilla bases with "well over 2,000" bombs and missiles since strikes began on 7 October.

More than 100 US planes were used in raids on Monday and nearly that many on Tuesday, the official said.

Ground forces

The strikes continued into the night on Tuesday after a day of sustained bombardment, with attacks on military bases and airports outside Kabul, the Taleban stronghold of Kandahar in the south and the key northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

The strikes came as the use of low-flying AC-130 gunships signalled a new phase in the operation, with the US appearing to be moving towards deploying ground troops in Afghanistan to hunt down Osama Bin Laden.

A Red Cross spokesman said the compound which was hit was only a kilometre from the airport, but was clearly marked from the air.

The Red Cross has lodged an official complaint with the United States.

"It is definitely a civilian target. In addition to that, it is a clearly marked ICRC warehouse," said Robert Moni, head of the ICRC delegation in Kabul and now evacuated to Pakistan.

"It is marked on the top with a red cross. People should take all necessary measures to avoid such things," he said.

'Search and destroy' aircraft

The AC-130 now being used are among America's most lethal aircraft. They are especially suited to tracking small groups of troops and convoys of vehicles.

A BBC correspondent in northern Afghanistan says the use of the plane indicates that the US is now confident that it has destroyed most of the Taleban's air defences.

It may be a prelude to the first use of ground troops.

But the BBC's John Simpson, north of Kabul, says Taleban reinforcements have moved into position on the front line.

Opposition Northern Alliance troops have claimed that Mazar-e-Sharif could fall within days - they say they have already captured the airport.

The claims could not be verified, but the airport has changed hands several times in the last 24 hours.

Looting

Taleban figures show the overall death toll rising to nearly 400 - about one-third of them from a single village near Jalalabad, hit last week. US officials reject the figures, and there has been no independent confirmation.

The UN has warned that law and order appears to be breaking down in some cities in Afghanistan.

A gang of armed men attacked the offices of a British based aid organisation Islamic Relief in Kandahar, and then clashed with Taleban officials.

And in Mazar-e-Sharif, Taleban members looted the offices of another organisation.

In other cities, United Nations and other agencies have had their offices occupied and vehicles stolen.

--------

AC-130 Use Signals Start of Attacks on Troops

Joseph Fitchett
International Herald Tribune
Wednesday, October 17, 2001
http://www.iht.com/articles/35921.htm

PARIS The Pentagon's decision to begin using low-flying AC-130 gunships in Afghanistan this week signals the start of a bloody offensive against Taliban ground forces that will involve an arsenal of new helicopter-borne firepower and special forces, defense officials and other experts said Tuesday.

The AC-130 is one of the most lethal American warplanes in terms of its ability to chew up ground forces. The goal of the new offensive is to destroy the Taliban militia as a fighting force and to isolate Osama bin Laden's terrorist group from the Afghan people, according to the defense sources.

The slow-flying AC-130 is known as "Spooky II," because of its fearsome firepower. It circles a target and saturates it with automatic fire from three computer-controlled guns, including cannon and heavy machine guns capable of firing 1,800 rounds a minute. The plane's guns can cover an area the size of eight football fields with a round in each square yard.

An adaptation of the Hercules aircraft that has been a U.S. war horse, the AC-130 has banks of electronic sensors on board capable of detecting ground targets normally elusive from the air - notably small units moving at night or through cloud cover or fog. "There's no body count yet, but clearly the attack has shifted to killing Taliban fighters, getting them to move so that they can be spotted and then shot or bombed," according to John Pike, a strategic analyst in Washington.

The new phase of the war also involves covert operations by U.S. special forces, the defense sources said. "If it's safe enough for the AC-130s, then you can bet that black helicopters are going in at night," according to one U.S. official who spoke anonymously.

Night-fighting Apache attack helicopters and more traditional helicopter gunships could provide extra firepower, the source said, as U.S. fighter bombers start trying to pick off Taliban artillery and vehicles trying to move under the cover of darkness.

The next step, the sources said, will involve "capture and kill" raids in which U.S. special operations forces raid Taliban hideouts and try to bring out some fighters alive for interrogation. To strike with surprise and then escape safely, U.S. commandos will ride fast Blackhawk helicopters that have been modernized with satellite guidance so that pilots can navigate through the Afghan weather at night, even in fog.

"This is the secret war that the Pentagon has said was coming in which there would be successes and defeats that are publicly never talked about," according to a French defense official.

The Bush administration apparently hopes to end the war in Afghanistan quickly by moving to this new phase in the offensive. Destruction of the Taliban would open the way to an advance by the Northern Alliance and other rebel groups that are poised to seize power in Kabul.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Monday referred openly for the first time to cooperation between U.S. airpower and Northern Alliance ground power. U.S. defense planners liken that combination to the teamwork that developed between Albanian guerrillas and U.S. bombers during the 1999 war in Kosovo. The Albanian guerrillas forced the Serbian Army to regroup in self-defense, offering a target that was decimated by U.S. bombers.

Mr. Rumsfeld, without specifically referring to new U.S. tactics, seemed to have that in mind when he referred to the front where the Northern Alliance has been poised for days. "I suspect that in the period ahead, that might not be a safe place to be," he said.

So far, Bush administration officials have avoided any public discussion of heavy losses that are likely to be inflicted on the Taliban, mainly because Washington wants to play down bloodshed against Muslims - even a declared enemy such as the Taliban militia. The administration apparently fears that reports of heavy casualties will spark more anti-American demonstrations.

The overall casualty rate among the Taliban remains unknown at this stage, probably even to their own commanders, due to the collapse of national communications in Afghanistan. Damage estimates measured in Taliban troop losses are generated by the Pentagon, but "advances in the military track seem to be inhibited right now by the uncertainties about the political track with Muslim countries," according to Francois Heisbourg, a French strategic specialist.

Now, a Bush aide said, "This war can go on for a long time without arousing public fever across the Muslim world if we get to a phase centered on small battles that don't make headlines."

In other words, this sort of counterinsurgency campaign can only succeed if it stays largely secret, according to U.S. officials. Many of them draw an analogy with the U.S. failure in Vietnam in the 1970s: now, they say, the Pentagon wants to avoid adverse publicity - and also wants to prevent the Taliban from following U.S. military moves too easily through the global media.

With U.S. armed forces starting to hunt for Taliban battlefield forces, the campaign will see a tapering-off of the thunderous missile strikes that can easily fuel anti-American demonstrations organized by Islamic extremists in Pakistan and other Muslim members of the U.S.-led coalition against terrorism.

Though the operations by U.S. special forces risk possible American casualties, the raids are seen as an essential source of information about the Taliban's military deployment and for possible leads about the whereabouts of Mr. Bin Laden, the suspected terrorist leader, and his top aides in Afghanistan.

So far, the Pentagon "has to work with a fuzzy picture of the Taliban's organization and therefore how to go about rolling it up," according to Mr. Pike, who heads Globalsecurity.com, a U.S. strategic consulting firm.

The Taliban have an elite force, the 55th Brigade, that apparently works closely with the bin Laden organization and includes many of the Taliban's best-trained fighters, including combat veterans from Arab countries and from Pakistan. Even this force, said to number one or two thousand men, apparently has been broken into smaller units stationed in different parts of Afghanistan.

"To fight any war, you need a picture of the enemy's order of battle that tells you who you're fighting and where and we still haven't got that," a British official said. That picture has to be pulled together bit by bit, the British official said, especially now that the Taliban have lost the ability to organize and communicate through nationwide command-and-control systems.

Even with fewer electronic intercepts, the United States has several sets of round-the-clock eyes on Afghanistan, including a special spy satellite launched last week, an array of electronic warfare planes and the small unmanned drones - some of which are now being equipped with air-to-ground missiles that can be fired remotely.

All of this technical data, however, needs to be fleshed out with human intelligence of the sort that can come from Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence force, which helped set up the Taliban, and from Russian intelligence agents, many of whom worked against the Taliban for years.

--------

Afghans the victims of US terrorism

Irish Times Wednesday,
October 17, 2001

All the news bulletins and news channels nowadays have "anchormen" or "experts" parading in front of huge maps of Afghanistan, explaining the detail of the military assault on the country.

We are told of the type of bomber used and from what base, the aircraft carriers from where the tomahawk missiles are fired. Sometimes we are told of the "payload delivered".

And not a hint of the devastation these "payloads" deliver to the people of Afghanistan. The awful terror they bring, the devastation, the injury, the slaughter.

We have become morally desensitised to the abominations that are clinically conveyed to us night after night on our television screens.

Nobody at any of the news conferences challenges George Bush or Tony Blair or Donald Rumsfeld or Colin Powell about the outrages they are perpetrating. We are all part of the consensus that it is OK to bomb a country to a pulp with the vastness of the military might the world has ever known.

Nobody asks Tony Blair about the "human rights of the suffering women of Afghanistan" that he talked about in that speech at the Labour Party conference two weeks ago.

How did the world get to believe that terror and slaughter delivered by a bomb in a car was an atrocity, while much more terror and much more slaughter delivered by airplane or missile is morally OK?

Remember all the talk some years ago about the godfathers of violence who sat in their comfortable, middle-class homes in Dundalk or Buncrana, while their cowardly minions delivered mayhem to the streets of Belfast or Derry or Claudy or Omagh?

What about the godfathers of violence sitting in their stately mansions in the White House or Downing Street or Chequers or Camp David, and their minions dropping far larger bombs from the security of thousands of feet beyond range of retaliation, causing far more mayhem in the homes and streets of Kabul, Kandahar, and Jalalabad?

And all for what?

Is it believable that the attack on America of September 11th could have been planned, directed and co-ordinated from caves in Afghanistan? Or that the organisation that was responsible for that attack originates in Afghanistan? A great deal of the emerging evidence suggests otherwise.

Last Wednesday the New York Times published a lengthy portrait of one of the organisers and perpetrators of the September 11th attack, Mohammed Atta. Atta came from a middle-class family in Cairo, where his father was a lawyer.

He went to Hamburg for several years to get a degree in urban planning and he later worked there. "Officials" were quoted as saying there was "strong evidence" Atta had trained in terrorist camps in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, but we are not told what that evidence is or what it is he could have been trained in that would have had any relevance to what happened on September 11th.

It is clear, however, that his radicalism emerged while he was in Hamburg, where he associated with people from the Turkish, Arab and African communities. He went to Florida in 2000 and trained as an airline pilot.

There is evidence that he received a large sum of money from someone in The United Arab Emirates, who "may" have had an association with Osama bin Laden.

A report in Monday's Los Angeles Times quoted FBI sources as saying there were several people involved in plotting further attacks on the US and they were "at large in the United States and across Europe and the Middle East".

The Los Angeles Times also reported that several people suspected of involvement either in the September 11th attack or in planning further attacks were from Saudi Arabia and were resident either there or in the US.

CBS News on Monday evening quoted Prof Vali Nasr of the University of San Diego as saying the Saudi government had "appeased" Islamic extremists by funding and promoting a radical form of Islam that sees the US as the enemy.

Other reports from the US suggest that the real source of terrorism is Iran, where there are several persons wanted by the US, and, of course, Iraq remains a major suspect as a terrorist sponsor.

So what is the point of the assault on Afghanistan? Yes, Osama bin laden and some of his associates are there, but if the vast bulk of those suspected of terrorism by the US are either in the US itself or in Hamburg or Iran or Saudi Arabia or Iraq, what good will it do if everyone in Afghanistan is obliterated?

How will it reduce the terrorist threat to US if the vast majority of terrorists are in places other than Afghanistan?

If the anthrax attacks are the work of terrorists, does anyone believe that the packages containing it were sent from Afghanistan?

And just one other thing. If the point of the assault on Afghanistan is not to defeat terrorism but get Osama bin Laden and bring him to "justice", why has the latest offer by the Taliban to send him to an agreed third country been dismissed?

What would it matter if he were taken to one of America's allies such as Egypt or even Pakistan or Turkey and "brought to justice" there?

The reality is that Afghanistan is being devastated and hundreds are being slaughtered, on the net issue of bringing bin Laden and his associates to justice in the US rather than to some other third agreed country. That's what the slaughter is about. And that's putting it at its best.

-------- australia

Premier: Australia to Deploy Troops

New York Times
October 17, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Attacks-Australia-Troops.html?searchpv=aponline

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) -- Australia will begin deploying troops and military hardware to the Persian Gulf over the next two weeks to join the U.S.-led coalition against terrorism, Prime Minister John Howard said Wednesday.

Howard said the deployment was order after a telephone request overnight from President Bush.

``He indicated the United States would like to activate the commitment that Australia had made to join the coalition force. I indicated that Australia would respond,'' Howard told reporters.

``This marks, of course, a significant further stage in the involvement of Australian military personnel and the Australian people in this war against terrorism,'' the prime minister said. ``Our forces will be overseas fighting in our name within a very short period of time.''

The contribution announced by Howard is larger than an initial commitment made last month, after the government invoked Article Four of Australia's 50-year-old ANZUS military treaty with the United States, under which an attack on U.S. territory is considered an attack on Australia.

The government's initial pledge was for a detachment of 150 Special Air Services troops, two B707 tanker refueling aircraft, two P3 long-range maritime aircraft and a navy guided missile frigate.

The additional commitment includes a naval group comprising one amphibious command ship with helicopter capabilities and a frigate escort, four F/A-18A fighter jets, and one frigate also with helicopter capability.

Total number of personnel is about 1,550 -- up from just under 1,000 in the original commitment.

Howard said an exact deployment date had not been set, but the first troops and equipment could begin leaving within the next two weeks. He said the full Australian contribution would be in position by mid-November.

The SAS troops are elite commandos trained to operate in small groups behind enemy lines. Howard said they would ``go to selected locations as decided by the chief of the defense force in conjunction with coalition force commanders to conduct combined operations.''

Howard's announcement comes in the second week of a campaign for national elections on Nov. 10.

Already well ahead of the opposition Labor Party in opinion polls and favored to win with an increased majority, the troop deployment is seen as a further boost to the bid by Howard and his conservative coalition for a third term.

Howard is campaigning on counterterrorism and national security issues. The opposition Labor Party has been trying to refocus voters on domestic issues -- health care, education and tax reform, issues where polls show it leads the government.

Opposition Labor leader Kim Beazley on Wednesday said his party fully supported the commitment of Australian forces.

-------- biological weapons

Anthrax on Senate Letter Called Potent
Investigators Pursue Links to Fla., N.Y. Letters

By John Lancaster and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, October 17, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A5437-2001Oct16?language=printer

The anthrax that arrived in the office mail of Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle on Monday is a highly potent, finely milled variety that spreads easily by air and is similar to the spores that killed Florida photo editor Robert Stevens almost two weeks ago, senior government officials said yesterday.

Senior officials also disclosed that the letter sent to Daschle bears striking similarities -- including references to Allah and a warning that the envelope contained anthrax -- to another contaminated envelope sent to NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw.

Although it has yet to be established that the anthrax sent to Brokaw and Daschle is the same high-grade variety, FBI investigators believe that the three cases -- in Florida, New York and now Washington -- are likely connected, officials said.

"Mr. Stevens died of pulmonary anthrax, which is the finely milled anthrax, which is what we believe we see in the Daschle letter," a senior government official said. "We're looking at the NBC case to see if it's the same kind. . . . We think we're going to see a connection between the three."

After tests confirmed the presence of anthrax in the letter sent to Daschle, authorities yesterday sealed the southeast wing of the Hart Senate Office Building, where his office is situated. They closed 12 Senate offices as hundreds of congressional aides and others underwent medical screening and began taking antibiotics as a precautionary measure.

Authorities said the growing web of connections among the bioterrorist episodes has deepened suspicions that they may be linked, and may be connected to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

They did emphasize that there is no firm evidence to tie them to Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden, the purported mastermind of the hijackings.

Tom Ridge, the new director of the White House Office of Homeland Security, said yesterday he suspects the anthrax contamination is linked to the Sept. 11 attacks and bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

"To me, it's just beyond coincidence," Ridge, the former Pennsylvania governor, told the Associated Press. "It's more than coincidence, and we don't have the credible evidence. It's somewhere in between."

Ridge said he gets regular intelligence, as well as law enforcement and military briefings. "As the evidence unwinds, there may end up being a formal tie" between the anthrax case and bin Laden, he said.

Authorities declined to comment publicly on whether the anthrax in the three known bioterrorist episodes may have come from the same source, saying they were awaiting conclusive test results. Investigators are still studying the contents of a letter sent to a Microsoft office in Nevada, but officials increasingly have come to believe that incident may have been a false alarm.

Yesterday's most striking disclosure initially came from Daschle. After receiving a briefing on the investigation, he told reporters -- on the basis of tests conducted Monday night in a military lab in Fort Detrick, Md. -- that the letter contained "a very strong form of anthrax, a very potent form of anthrax that was clearly produced by someone who knows what he or she is doing."

A federal official said last night the anthrax was of a potency capable of killing thousands of people if dispersed in the air and appeared to have been developed for purposes of biological warfare.

Capitol police and Daschle emphasized, however, that there was no evidence the anthrax in the envelope had contaminated Daschle's office, the Hart building or anyone in it.

Senators came away from yesterday's briefing with the strong impression that the anthrax was, as Daschle suggested, of a potent and concentrated nature. One senator, asking not to be named, said it was characterized as "weapon-grade." Another, also requesting anonymity, said it was described as "high-quality."

Authorities had indicated a connection between the letters to Brokaw and Daschle, both of which were postmarked in Trenton, N.J.

The letter to Brokaw, postmarked Sept. 18, was opened by an assistant, Erin O'Connor, 38, who has fallen ill with a skin-transmitted form of the disease that is less serious than the pulmonary, or inhaled, variety that killed Robert Stevens on Oct. 2 and has afflicted one of his co-workers, Ernesto Blanco, 73.

The infant son of an ABC producer in New York has also been diagnosed with cutaneous anthrax, though the source of that infection remains unknown. Nine other people may have been exposed to the bacterium in Florida and New York.

Copies of the envelopes to those letters released yesterday -- to alert the public to similar mailings -- showed they featured block-like, childish script sloping down and to the right. The letter to Daschle was postmarked Oct. 8. Both letters were about six lines long, stated that their envelopes contained anthrax and made reference to Allah. FBI officials noted that one came with a fake return address. The letter to Daschle bore a return address of the Greendale School in Franklin Park, N.J. No such school is listed there.

There were conflicting reports last night about whether the anthrax in the two letters may have came from the same source. While a senior government official suggested that such would turn out to be the case, following completion of tests, U.S. Postal Inspector Dan Mihalko said his office has been told that the New York and Washington anthrax strains are not the same, that the anthrax received by Daschle's office is stronger. The two strains are being compared now, he said.

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III said the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is evaluating the samples, and it is "premature" to discuss similarities or differences because the tests have not been completed.

Caree Vander Linden, spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, said "There is no evidence that this is engineered to be more potent than the naturally occurring form of anthrax. The question of whether it was genetically modified -- there is no evidence of that."

On Capitol Hill, police closed off the southeast wing of the eight-story Hart building, where the letter was opened in Daschle's office by a junior member of his staff at 10:15 a.m. Monday. Police said they had no evidence that anyone in Daschle's office -- or elsewhere in the building -- had been exposed to anthrax, and emphasized they had sealed the area as a precaution so the ventilation system could be checked.

Also as a precaution, Capitol physician John Eisold advised anyone who had been in the Hart building on Monday to undergo medical screening for anthrax exposure and start treatment with Cipro.

Yesterday, hundreds of congressional staff and others lined up outside a hearing room on the second floor of the Hart building, where medical staff took a swab from each nostril of those tested and distributed three-day supplies of the antibiotic. Those who took the test were advised to return on Thursday for the results and further medical advice.

Many of those waiting in line wondered why they had not been told to leave the building on Monday. "They should have just evacuated the building when they found out," said Rebecca Kessler, 23, a staff assistant in the Republican conference office on the fourth floor of the Hart building.

Speaking to reporters yesterday, Daschle said the overall risk to people who may have been in the building in Monday is "negligible . . . almost nonexistent" because of the effectiveness of the antibiotics against anthrax.

Daschle said his staff tested negative in preliminary tests for infection and "I'm quite confident that will remain the case."

The office of Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), which is next door to Daschle's, was closed yesterday. Baucus said he planned to get tested later in the day.

He said he wasn't criticizing anyone, but that too many questions remain unanswered involving the origin of the letter, health risks and other issues. "We're in a whole different world and we've lost our innocence," he said.

Sens. Paul Sarbanes (D-Md.) and Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) also were tested.

In Florida yesterday, Secretary of Health John O. Agwunobi said that more than 1,100 people in the state have been tested for anthrax. He said that all but about 50 of the nasal swab test results have come back.

So far, three people have been confirmed as infected: Stevens, 63; Blanco, the mailroom employee who has been hospitalized and is being treated with antibiotics; and Stephanie Dailey, 36, an administrative clerk who had anthrax in her nasal passages but has shown no symptoms and is being treated with antibiotics preventively.

Officials at American Media Inc., the tabloid newspaper company, have said blood tests on five other employees indicated they had been exposed to anthrax. But Agwunobi and other health officials said no conclusions can be drawn about those employees until a second set of blood tests is completed.

Agwunobi said health officials were looking into whether a former AMI intern is ill as a result of anthrax. Jordan Arizmendi, who has been hospitalized with a fever, initially was suspected by some employees as having been involved in the anthrax contamination of AMI because he had written a seemingly suspicious e-mail before leaving his job. Subsequently, law enforcement officials said the former intern was not a suspect. Agwunobi said Arizmendi had been tested but that results were not yet available.

Also, Judy Orihuela, a spokeswoman for the FBI's Miami office, said investigators believe the anthrax inside the AMI building was received by letter. She said investigators have not drawn that conclusion because of a specific letter that has been discovered, but rather because of the anthrax spores found in the building's mailroom, in the nasal cavities of two AMI mail handlers and in a post office that sorts mail for the building.

AMI employees said they have been told by the newspaper company that they will never have to go back to work in the contaminated building. They said the tabloids, including the National Enquirer, Globe and Sun, will find new editorial offices.

Mueller also acknowledged that there were "missteps" in the FBI's initial delay in testing a suspicious letter received by NBC News. He said the delay did not affect the outcome of the investigation, but that FBI offices around the country have been given instructions about prompt testing.

Staff writers Bob Woodward, Susan Schmidt, Helen Dewar, Justin Blum, Peter Slevin, Michael Powell, Ellen Nakashima, David Brown, Ceci Connolly and Christine Haughney contributed to this report.

--------

NEWS ANALYSIS
Daschle Letter Called First Use of Anthrax as Weapon

New York Times
October 17, 2001
By STEPHEN ENGELBERG and JUDITH MILLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/17/national/17WEAP.html?searchpv=nytToday

The discovery of what government officials say is high-grade anthrax in a letter mailed to Congress is the most worrisome development yet in a series of bioterrorist attacks that has already rattled the nation.

The officials and weapons experts said yesterday that it suggested that somewhere, someone has access to the sort of germ weapons capable of inflicting huge casualties.

So far, the officials said, the attacker or attackers have used a rudimentary delivery system: the mail. Their intent and capabilities remain unknown, as does the amount of anthrax available to them. But what worries the officials in Washington is the possibility that an adversary with even a small quantity could easily find much more effective means of spreading the disease.

Until yesterday's preliminary analysis of the letter received by Tom Daschle, the Senate majority leader, the spate of anthrax-laced envelopes stirred considerable anxiety but posed a limited threat. Some experts assumed that the anthrax being sent around the country was crudely made, composed mostly of large particles that fell to the ground and thus endangered primarily those in the immediate area.

What government officials say arrived in Senator Daschle's office was significantly more threatening. Following the use of anthrax in Florida, it suggests that for the first time in history a sophisticated form of anthrax has been developed and used as a weapon in warfare or bioterrorism.

The key to understanding the danger, experts said, is in the size of the particles. The anthrax sent to Mr. Daschle, government officials said, was finely milled so that it would float a considerable distance on the smallest of air currents.

Producing germs that could be spread as a mist had been the main technical challenge facing germ warriors throughout the 20th century. Anthrax is what the Nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg calls a "professional pathogen," a hardy germ that could wreak havoc if inhaled. The trick was turning it into an aerosol that lingers.

Decades ago, Soviet and American scientists separately devised methods to dry and grind anthrax into the tiny particles - five microns or less - that could easily enter the nostrils and lodge in the lungs.

Experts say an adversary armed with anthrax in this form would have a host of possible targets for mass terrorism. Experiments by the United States in the 1960's showed that anthrax released in the New York City subway could spread widely underground, infecting large numbers of people. Federal officials used a benign germ related to anthrax to demonstrate the possible effects.

An enemy with large quantities of high-grade anthrax could mount a credible attack on a city or large office building. Dried anthrax could be spread using a crop-duster or small airplane equipped with the appropriate nozzles. Buildings are an easier target and could be contaminated with a much smaller amount of anthrax pumped through a garden spray bottle, experts say.

Victims of an anthrax attack can be easily treated with antibiotics, but that requires that public health officials recognize the germ has been dispersed at a particular location. Experts say that detection equipment is far from reliable, which means the first signs could come when people show up in the emergency room with flulike symptoms.

Anthrax was one of the most important weapons in both the Soviet Union's and the United States' germ weapons arsenals.

Officials from both countries say they never used germ weapons, though Ken Alibek, a prominent defector from the Soviet germ warfare program, maintains that Moscow may have used germs as weapons against Germany and in Afghanistan.

The United States abandoned its own germ program in 1969, and soon after most of the world's nations signed an international treaty banning the development and possession of such weapons. The Soviet Union also signed the pact, but cheated on a massive scale, say former Soviet officials who worked to refine the strains of anthrax, among other germs, until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990.

In the 1980's, other nations, notably Iraq, began developing the germ as a weapon. Iraqi scientists spent more than five years on the project, cultivating anthrax and processing it into a wet slurry that was loaded into bombs and missiles.

United Nations inspectors who later studied the Iraqi program said Baghdad did not manage to produce dry anthrax that could be delivered as an aerosol though it did buy specialized nozzles for its fleet of crop- dusters.

In the years since, United Nations officials say, Iraq has acquired the capability to produce the high-grade, dry anthrax of the appropriate particle size.

None of this history gives investigators much of a hint as to the origins of the current attack. It is not clear whether the anthrax sent to Senator Daschle was produced by the attacker or attackers, bought from a foreign nation or made with the help of a rogue scientist.

Nor was it known whether the attacker or attackers could make or obtain larger quantities.

Former germ weapons scientists say that neither is easy. It took experienced Iraqi scientists several years to figure out how to cultivate large amounts of anthrax, which is the crucial first step to making a weapon.

Drying the germs is relatively straightforward. But that process creates a mix of particles that stick together, and most of them are far too large for use as an effective weapon. Grinding the material to a small, uniform size without damaging a significant portion of the germs is not easily done, former American and Soviet germ scientists say.

The discovery of expertly processed anthrax, one former scientist said, casts serious doubt on the theory advanced by some investigators that the germ attacks were the work of a lone amateur with a smattering of knowledge about biology.

"I do think in one form or another, a state was involved," one former American scientist said. "It could be employees of a former state, such as a Russian scientist."

Nor is it clear whether Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden's network, was involved in any way. American intelligence officials say Mr. bin Laden has tried to acquire nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

Until now, there has been no suggestion that he has succeeded in this goal, although there have been reports of testing chemicals and crude biological weapons on animals at one of his training camps in Afghanistan.

The attempted use of anthrax against a United States senator takes President Bush into a new, uncharted realm, particularly if the attack is ever linked to a specific nation. On the eve of the gulf war, his father weighed the question of whether to respond with nuclear weapons to a germ attack against the United States-led coalition. After a discussion among his senior advisers, President George Bush decided against such retaliation. Instead, American officials sent Baghdad an ambiguously phrased warning that was delivered in a letter from Mr. Bush to Saddam Hussein.

"Your country," the letter said, "will pay a terrible price if you order unconscionable acts."

--------

Russia Offers Calm Antidote to U.S. Anthrax Alarm

October 17, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-attack-russia-anthrax.html?searchpv=reuters

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia is offering its anthrax antidotes and expertise to a United States gripped by anxiety over bioterrorism attacks, but experts say Americans need more help coping with their fears rather than a mass vaccination program.

For centuries Russia, where 15 to 20 people still contract anthrax each year, has lived with the bacteria that can cause skin rashes, flu-like symptoms, putrid sores and death in the most serious, but rare, cases.

President Bush says there is as yet no evidence linking the U.S. anthrax outbreaks to Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born militant Washington blames for the Sept. 11 hijacked airliner attacks on the United States.

Experts and ordinary Russians have looked on the panic sweeping the United States -- where one person has died after opening infected mail and a dozen others have been exposed to anthrax -- with a mixture of consternation and some bemusement.

``We have big (vaccine) stocks, so if the Americans are short of them we will be able to help,'' said Benjamin Cherkassky, a senior scientist at Moscow's Central Institute of Epidemiology.

``But in my opinion we need to protect the Americans not from anthrax, but from the feeling of fear. I'm serious. Panic is even worse than the disease.

``In my opinion, there's no point in launching a mass vaccination program,'' added Cherkassky, one of Russia's leading anthrax specialists.

A breakdown in veterinary procedures since the demise of the Soviet Union and a failure to vaccinate livestock in some parts of the Volga region and volatile North Caucasus has stymied efforts to eradicate the bacteria that cause anthrax.

Health Minister Yuri Shevchenko said Monday Russia could help with medicines and vaccines, a know-how gleaned in part from Soviet-era germ warfare programs.

One institute in the Volga region city of Saratov has already offered help.

``We certainly welcome the spirit behind that offer, the spirit of solidarity,'' U.S. ambassador Alexander Vershbow told a news conference. ``And as the problem in the United States continues I wouldn't exclude that we will be seeking assistance from our Russian friends.''

FORMIDABLE ARSENAL

The Soviets built up a formidable arsenal of germ agents, some of which could be loaded onto multiwarhead SS-18 ballistic missiles targeted at the United States.

``The aim was to use it after a nuclear strike simply to clean out survivors from a nuclear strike,'' said Jean Pascal Zanders, project leader of the chemical and biological warfare project at Stockholm's respected SIPRI think tank.

At its height, the Soviet ``Toxic Archipelago'' of biological and chemical warfare plants stretched from western Ukraine to Siberia, Kazakhstan's shrinking Aral Sea and east toward China.

In a December 1999 research paper, bioweapons specialist Amy Smithson of the Washington-based Stimson Center said conservative U.S. government estimates put at 10,500 the number of key biological and chemical weapons specialists ``that pose a proliferation risk,'' but other experts cast doubt on such figures.

In a bid to keep their know-how out of the hands of states like Iran, Iraq and North Korea -- viewed as ``states of concern'' in Washington -- the United States launched a multimillion-dollar program in the early 1990s aimed at keeping such scientists in jobs not related to bioweapons.

The anthrax outbreaks in the United States are of a milder strain than those found in Russia, say experts, who doubt Russia could be the source of the spores used in U.S. anthrax mail.

Nikolai Shestopalov, head of Russia's State Epidemiological Supervisory Body, said stocks of deadly germs were guarded as tightly as nuclear facilities.

That has not stopped a spate of anthrax mail alerts in Moscow in recent days, though Russian medical officials say the country has vaccines and drugs to tackle any outbreaks.

-------- china

U.S. May Waive China Sanctions
White House Seeks to Trade Anti-Terrorist Intelligence

By Steven Mufson and Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, October 17, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A5384-2001Oct16?language=printer

The Bush administration, seeking to promote exchanges of anti-terrorist intelligence with China, is considering a waiver on sanctions that bar the sale of military-related equipment to Chinese security forces, government sources said yesterday.

The U.S. move on the sanctions, which were imposed after the 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen Square demonstrators, would clear the way for the sale of spare parts for Black Hawk helicopters the United States sold to China during the 1980s. The helicopters are designed for use at high altitudes typical of much of China, including its border with Afghanistan.

The waiver would signal a further thaw in U.S.-China relations on the eve of President Bush's departure today for Shanghai for a meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation group. It would also signal a step away from tensions that began with the Tiananmen crackdown against pro-democracy demonstrators and flared again six months ago during an 11-day standoff over China's detention of the crew of a Navy surveillance plane that made an emergency landing after colliding with a Chinese fighter jet.

The run-up to the meeting -- which will include talks Friday between Bush and Chinese President Jiang Zemin -- underscores the degree to which the administration's policy toward China has changed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. Having come into office calling China a "strategic competitor," Bush now is focusing on Beijing as a potential partner in the war against terrorism.

Since the attacks, China has tightened its already vigilant patrols of its small western border with Afghanistan and offered to share intelligence information, U.S. military officials said. In another gesture, China yesterday removed blockages that made it difficult for Chinese citizens to access the Internet sites of three U.S. news organizations, including The Washington Post.

When Bush and Jiang meet on the sidelines of the APEC summit, the highlights are expected to include a reiteration by Bush of U.S. support for a "one China" policy, which holds there is only one China and the self-governing island Taiwan is part of it. It also is expected to include a joint statement on terrorism and Chinese agreement to a U.S. request to open an FBI office in Beijing.

The U.S. focus on terrorism will probably prevent criticism of China's tough stance toward Uighur separatists in the largely Muslim region of Xinjiang.

But administration officials said key obstacles remain in bilateral relations, including human rights and U.S. allegations that Chinese firms have sold sensitive missile technology to Pakistan and other countries in violation of an agreement reached by the Clinton administration in November.

China has denied it violated that nonproliferation agreement and has asked that the Bush administration lift sanctions it imposed on China Metallurgical Equipment Corp., which the administration alleged to have sold missile technology to Pakistan. Sources close to the administration said the administration had urged Beijing to nationalize the company, which is a private firm with close connections to the government.

"Since the sanctions were imposed, there has been no real response," said a senior administration official. "They are clearly not abiding by their November 2000 agreement with the Clinton administration."

Administration officials are also frustrated that China has failed to fulfill a promise made in November to publish a list of missile components barred from export and establish a system for enforcing it. China might issue that list during Bush's visit, U.S. officials said.

Nonetheless, the context for those issues has completely changed. Six months ago, during the showdown over the Navy surveillance plane, Bush and Jiang refused to call each other. But since the attacks on New York and Washington, the two men have communicated by telephone twice and, according to Chinese sources, Bush described Jiang as "a great leader of a great nation" in one conversation.

China, for its part, openly declared that "the Chinese people stand with the American people and the international community in the fight against terrorism."

The Bush administration has sought Beijing's support for the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism because China is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and has developed deep ties with Pakistan, a key U.S. ally in the anti-terrorism war.

At the same time, China sees an opportunity to improve overall relations with the United States in the face of a common enemy, though Chinese diplomats and analysts remain worried about the possibility of a permanent U.S. presence near China's western borders and of instability in South Asia spreading into China.

"The U.S. realizes now that China is not its greatest threat, and there is a real chance for the two countries to become partners," said Zhu Feng, an international relations scholar at Beijing University. "But it's a complex situation with many uncertainties, and the Chinese government needs time to assess these challenges."

Terrorism is expected to be a major focus of the APEC summit, which will include the leaders of 21 nations in Asia and the Americas. Bush is also scheduled to meet separately with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but the meeting with Jiang carries special significance because it will be the first between the two.

Though China has strongly condemned the Sept. 11 attacks and "terrorism of any form," Beijing has been wary of fully endorsing the U.S. strikes on Afghanistan and has yet to denounce Saudi-born Islamic extremist Osama bin Laden or his terrorist network by name. The Chinese Foreign Ministry has repeatedly said military strikes should have "specific objectives, so as to avoid hurting innocent civilians."

But given the recent tensions over the plane collision, U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and China's history of opposing U.S. military action abroad, U.S. diplomats and analysts say they have been satisfied by the Chinese response.

"We don't have existing mechanisms" for exchanging information, said Adm. Dennis Blair, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific. "The events of earlier this year put us at loggerheads, for there is a further distance to travel" than with some other countries, he said. Blair said that although the two nations were exchanging information, cooperation against terrorism "hasn't gotten down to the tactical level yet."

The supply of Black Hawk spare parts could aid China, but would likely provoke controversy in Congress. In 1984, when the United States and China were nurturing military ties against the Soviet Union, China bought 24 Sikorsky S-70C Black Hawk helicopters for general use and search-and-rescue missions. The engines made them well suited for mountainous regions. Sikorsky is a unit of United Technologies Corp.

But the sanctions imposed after the Tiananmen crackdown barred the provision of spare parts, maintenance and field support. At least a couple of the helicopters have crashed. China experts believe the fleet has been grounded. China relies on its own helicopters and ones purchased from France and Russia.

-------- pakistan

Pakistan offers to support long campaign

October 17, 2001
By Willis Witter
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20011017-72823438.htm

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - President Pervez Musharraf yesterday gave visiting Secretary of State Colin L. Powell an open-ended commitment to back the U.S. military campaign in neighboring Afghanistan "as long as the operation lasts."

Gen. Musharraf made the offer as pressure against Afghanistan's Taliban government grew, with forces of the opposition Northern Alliance pushing toward the strategic northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif and new fighting reported with other opposition forces near the Iranian border in the west.

U.S. jets pounded Afghanistan for the ninth day, targeting airports and military installations in the capital city of Kabul, in Kandahar and in Mazar-e-Sharif. In Kabul, the air strikes hit an International Red Cross warehouse, injuring a guard and destroying wheat and other food stockpiles, Red Cross officials said.

In Washington, the Defense Department last night acknowledged that a U.S. warplane mistakenly dropped bombs on Red Cross warehouses in Afghanistan.

U.S. forces did not know the warehouses were being used by the Red Cross, and believed they were part of a complex where the Taliban militia stored military equipment, the department said in a statement. Military vehicles had been seen in the area, the statement said.

Earlier, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer suggested anti-aircraft fire from the ground could have been responsible.

In Afghanistan, a Taliban official said yesterday an attack by an AC-130 gunship struck a hospital in southern Kandahar, killing five persons, Al Jazeera television in the Gulf state of Qatar reported. The report gave no further details and could not be confirmed independently.

Meanwhile, U.N. relief officials here revealed yesterday that armed Arabs in Afghanistan, many of whom belong to al Qaeda terrorist network of Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, have clashed with the Taliban amid increasing lawlessness in Kandahar.

The clash between the Arab gunmen and the Taliban, who so far have refused U.S. demands to deliver bin Laden, broke out last week in the southern seat of Taliban power when the Arabs tried to loot an aid office.

Gen. Musharraf, who faces potentially explosive opposition from Taliban sympathizers in his own country, urged the United States to keep its bombing campaign as short as possible.

"We have decided to be with the coalition in the fight against terrorism and whatever operation is going on in Afghanistan within the three parameters that have been enunciated - that is, the intelligence cooperation, use of air space and logistical support," he said.

"And to this extent, we will certainly carry on cooperating as long as the operation lasts. There are no deadlines," he said at a joint press conference with Mr. Powell in Islamabad.

But he added: "One hopes that military objectives are achieved and the operation is short."

The makeup of a post-Taliban government was a key issue in yesterday's talks, with Pakistan especially concerned that the new regime reflect the country's volatile ethnic mix, including Pashtuns who are the largest single ethnic group in Afghanistan and have significant ties to Pakistan's Pashtun community.

Mr. Powell agreed, saying: "All elements have to be included in discussions of the future of Afghanistan. That would include the Northern Alliance, the southern tribal leaders," and even members of the Taliban who are "willing to participate in a different kind of government."

Pakistan, which actively supported the Taliban against the Northern Alliance until the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, has publicly asked Washington not to help bring alliance leaders to power.

Pakistan's main argument is that the alliance is composed primarily of ethnic Tajik and Uzbek minorities and largely excludes the Pashtuns, who dominate in the south and mainly back the Taliban.

But with Washington confining its military campaign so far mainly to the air, the Northern Alliance has emerged as a de facto surrogate army fighting the Taliban on the ground.

The British Broadcasting Corp. reported alliance claims that its fighters had advanced close to the center of Mazar-e-Sharif after capturing the airport and several towns on the outskirts of the city. The report, which Taliban sources denied, could not be independently confirmed.

The alliance said yesterday it would focus its military efforts in northern areas of Afghanistan instead of attempting to take over Kabul.

"The Northern Alliance army on its own could march into Kabul," said Abdullah Abdullah, the alliance's foreign minister. But he said that would not happen. "A new government must include all sections of Afghanistan society, which are many."

Mr. Abdullah also said the alliance hopes to coordinate future military moves with the United States.

But alliance leaders in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, yesterday pulled back from a tentative agreement with Afghanistan's former king, now living in exile in Rome, to convene a council of the country's various opposition factions to determine the makeup of a post-Taliban regime.

Mohajeddin Mehdi, first secretary of the Afghan Embassy in Dushanbe, said his government still supports forming a "loya jirga" - a traditional council to choose a leader - but not until a few years after the Taliban is defeated militarily.

In Pakistan, Gen. Musharraf admitted that most people oppose the U.S. air strikes, although he claimed a majority also supported his decision to support the United States in its efforts to wipe out global terrorism.

In thousands of religious schools in Pakistan, especially in provinces bordering Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden - the Bush administration's prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks - is a hero, with tens of thousands of graduating students awaiting an opportunity to join the Taliban in a jihad, or holy war, against U.S. forces.

As President Bush praised U.S. children yesterday for contributing money to help relief efforts in Afghanistan, Pakistani religious schools, known as madrassas, began a fund-raising campaign of their own to help Taliban fighters.

"Starting from today, we hope to collect millions of dollars," said Hazarat Ali, 28, who expects to graduate this year.

Standing in a shaded courtyard at the Daarul Aloom Sarhid madrassa in downtown Peshawar, he held a stack of freshly printed receipt books for the school's 700 students as they begin the fund-raising drive.

-------- space

US buys up all satellite war images

Duncan Campbell
Guardian (UK)
Wednesday October 17, 2001
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4278871,00.html

The Pentagon has spent millions of dollars to prevent western media from seeing highly accurate civilian satellite pictures of the effects of bombing in Afghanistan, it was revealed yesterday.

The images, which are taken from Ikonos, an advanced civilian satellite launched in 1999, are better than the spy satellite pictures available to the military during most of the cold war.

The extraordinary detail of the images already taken by the satellite includes a line of terrorist trainees marching between training camps at Jalalabad. At the same resolution, it would be possible to see bodies lying on the ground after last week's bombing attacks.

Under American law, the US defence department has legal power to exercise "shutter control" over civilian satellites launched from the US in order to prevent enemies using the images while America is at war. But no order for shutter control was given, even after the bombing raids began 10 days ago.

The decision to shut down access to satellite images was taken last Thursday, after reports of heavy civilian casualties from the overnight bombing of training camps near Darunta, north-west of Jalalabad. Instead of invoking its legal powers, the Pentagon bought exclusive rights to all Ikonos satellite pictures of Afghanistan off Space Imaging, the company which runs the satellite. The agreement was made retrospectively to the start of the bombing raids.

The US military does not need the pictures for its own purposes because it already has six imaging satellites in orbit, augmented by a seventh launched last weekend. Four of the satellites, called Keyholes, take photographic images estimated to be six to 10 times better than the 1 metre resolution available from Ikonos.

The decision to use commercial rather than legal powers to bar access to satellite images was heavily criticised by US intelligence specialists last night. Since images of the bombed Afghan bases would not have shown the position of US forces or compromised US military security, the ban could have been challenged by news media as being a breach of the First Amendment, which guarantees press freedom.

"If they had imposed shutter control, it is entirely possible that news organisations would have filed a lawsuit against the government arguing prior restraint censorship," said Dr John Pike, of Globalsecurity, a US website which publishes satellite images of military and alleged terrorist facilities around the world.

The only alternative source of accurate satellite images would be the Russian Cosmos system. But Russia has not yet decided to step into the information void created by the Pentagon deal with Space Imaging.

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

Envoy Urges U.N. Not to Send Peacekeepers
World Body's Reluctance to Dispatch Force Is Setback for Former Afghan King

By Colum Lynch
The Washington Post
Wednesday, October 17, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A5332-2001Oct16?language=printer

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 16 -- Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N. special envoy for Afghanistan, cautioned the Security Council today not to "rush" into Afghanistan with a peacekeeping force that lacks the political and financial support required to succeed.

The remarks reflected mounting concern by the United Nations that the organization may be drawn into a military quagmire in Afghanistan. They also represented a setback for Afghanistan's exiled King Mohammed Zahir Shah, a key figure in U.S. efforts to help fashion a new government for Afghanistan should the ruling Taliban militia fall.

Zahir Shah appealed to the council Friday to send U.N. peacekeepers to the country when the U.S.-led airstrike campaign ends.

"We should not rush to establish a peacekeeping operation in Afghanistan," Brahimi told the 15-member council in his first official briefing since being appointed Oct. 3 to coordinate the U.N. policy toward Afghanistan, a council diplomat said. "The council should set achievable and realistic goals."

Brahimi, a former Algerian foreign minister, told the council in a closed-door session that it should concentrate first on accelerating the delivery of humanitarian relief, help the Afghan people establish a broad-based government that is acceptable to neighboring countries, and begin the long and costly task of reconstruction. "We need to move from relief to reconstruction, rehabilitation and development," he said, according to a diplomat who was at the meeting.

Brahimi provided no details of the role the United Nations would play in helping to administer Afghanistan. But some U.N. officials suggested the world body would likely play an advisory role for any new government. They said they did not foresee the establishment of a U.N. protectorate.

These officials also dismissed a proposal under which Turkey, a predominantly Muslim country, would provide most if not all of the troops to any peacekeeping force. One U.N. diplomat said Turkey maintains close ties to an Afghan faction headed by Gen. Abdurrashid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek commander allied with the opposition Northern Alliance.

Brahimi is planning to meet with the State Department's newly appointed special envoy to the United Nations, Richard N. Haass, in New York on Thursday before traveling to Washington for talks with U.S. officials. He said he would then travel to the region to begin discussions with Afghan opposition factions and neighboring governments.

One U.S. official said that some sort of U.N. or foreign peacekeeping force for Afghanistan could not be ruled out. But the official signaled that the United States would not impose a plan on the United Nations for rebuilding Afghanistan.

"We are not going to be dominating the postwar phase," John D. Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told the council today.

Negroponte said the United States would try to help the United Nations increase the distribution of relief to the region. British officials said the effort would focus on opening humanitarian land corridors into territory held by anti-Taliban forces.

Britain's ambassador, Jeremy Greenstock, said the shape of a post-Taliban government is beginning to "jell slowly" around Afghanistan's former 87-year-old king. The ex-king, who was deposed by his brother in 1973, has lived in exile in Rome ever since.

Reflecting broad concern that the Taliban could collapse at any moment, Brahimi said there was a danger of a political vacuum in Afghanistan. But he provided no proposals for filling the vacuum. "We may not have much time to plan," said U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, who sat in on the meeting. "We have to be nimble."

--------

U.N. Says Taliban Seized Wheat Supply

New York Times
October 17, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Afghan-Aid.html?searchpv=aponline

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Taliban militia have seized two warehouses in Afghanistan that contained nearly 7,000 metric tons of donated wheat, the U.N. World Food Program said Wednesday.

The two facilities in Kabul and Kandahar are among six major food warehouses that the organization operates in Afghanistan. The seizures Tuesday night left the World Food Program with about 5,000 tons of wheat in the country.

``Armed men came in, told our staff to leave and took over the warehouses,'' said Catherine Bertini, executive director of the World Food Program.

Her agency has about 48,000 tons of wheat in Pakistan and other neighboring countries and hopes to truck about 16,000 tons into Afghanistan over the next 10 days. When possible, the trucks will bypass warehouses and deliver grain direct to communities, Bertini said.

The Taliban action will make it difficult for the agency to meet its monthly goal of delivering 52,000 tons of wheat. About 165,000 tons of U.S. wheat are en route to the region, but aren't expected to arrive in time.

``We have to keep moving food in. We have to find alternative ways to distribute it,'' said Bertini, who was in Washington for meetings with lawmakers and Bush administration officials.

Meanwhile, private aid groups appealed Wednesday for a pause in the U.S.-led bombing in Afghanistan to allow urgent food deliveries for the winter.

Two million Afghans need donated food to help them get through the winter, and a half-million of them will be cut off by snow if aid doesn't reach them by mid-November, the aid groups said.

``We've run out of food, the borders are closed, we can't reach our staff and time's almost run out,'' said Barbara Stocking of Oxfam International.

Oxfam, ActionAid, Christian Aid, Islamic Relief and other organizations made the appeal in Islamabad, capital of neighboring Pakistan.

U.S. bombs on Tuesday hit Red Cross warehouses in Kabul, damaging vital stores of blankets, tents and grain.

On Monday, a missile landed a few hundred yards from a World Food Program depot where 250 tons of food were being loaded for distribution, relief workers said. The food would have been the first relief to reach the central city of Hazarajat since Sept. 11, the aid groups said.

``It is evident now that we cannot, in reasonable safety, get food to hungry Afghan people,'' Stocking said.

At least 50,000 tons of food must get into Afghanistan by next month, aid groups said.

The organizations asked for a halt in strikes for an unspecified amount of time.

They also appealed to all sides to forbid their fighters from targeting or impeding aid convoys.

Andrew Natsios, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said the United States hopes to have about 55,000 tons of food head into Afghanistan each month as part of the Bush administration humanitarian aid package.

About 65,000 tons of food are expected to arrive in the area within the next few weeks. An additional 100,000 tons will arrive toward the end of next month for November and December. The food will be administered by the World Food Program.

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

Low, noisy flights rattle Portsmouth
Terrorism-response plan activated

Wednesday, October 17, 2001
Mark D. Somerson
Columbus Dispatch Assistant State Editor
http://www.dispatch.com/print_template.php?story=dispatch/news/news01/oct01/895300.html

Fighter jets patrolled the skies above Portsmouth on Monday night after residents flooded the city's 911 center with reports that something big and loud was buzzing the area.

The first mysterious flyover got people's attention at 6 p.m.; the second, about 9:30 p.m.

By that time, the mayor, police and Scioto County's emergency management agency director were on the phone with state, federal and military officials.

City officials said the North American Aerospace Defense Command at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado ordered F-16 fighters to fly in from New York to investigate.

"We had an extremely interesting evening,'' Mayor Gregory A. Bauer said yesterday. "With the recent terrorist events, the community was extremely alarmed.''

Bauer and Kim Carver, director of the county's emergency-management agency, learned the phantom plane was a C-130 Hercules transport plane from the Youngstown Air Reserve Station.

"We are used to low-level training flights,'' Carver said. "But anxieties are very much heightened and people have been told to report anything suspicious.''

Lt. Brent Davis, public affairs officer for the station, said its 16 C- 130s fly over Ohio daily.

"They were doing that night what they do all the time, flying a routine training mission,'' Davis said. "Our neighbors up here I guess are used to it.''

He said C-130s fly as low as 500 feet to avoid radar detection.

"I'm a little surprised to hear they (Portsmouth residents) were alarmed,'' Davis said. "But I guess the timing would have to be a factor.''

A modified version of the plane, the AC-130 gunship, was recently chosen for duty in Afghanistan.

Because the AC-130s are low-flying and noisy, they can frighten the enemy, said Marine Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"It has psychological impact,'' he told reporters yesterday at the Pentagon.

The lumbering aircraft can loiter at low altitude over a target and unload withering fire from side-mounted guns. The latest models tout specialized radars for long-range target detection and satellite-guided navigation systems.

Al Vaught saw the stripped-down, cargo version of the aircraft shortly after 6 p.m. when he dropped off his children at East High School in nearby Sciotoville for evening practices.

"It was loud,'' said Vaught, operations manager for Hillview Retirement Community in Portsmouth. "And it was flying extremely low.''

Low enough for Vaught to see "U.S. Air Force'' emblazoned on the C-130.

"When I read that on the side of the plane, I didn't think about it anymore.''

Others did.

"I was at home when it flew over and I felt sure it was a military plane by the sound of the engine,'' Carver said. "But the (911) calls overwhelmed the dispatch center. That alarmed me.''

Bauer said city and county emergency personnel met Monday morning to discuss Scioto County's terrorism-response plan, which was created after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

"It was pretty ironic that we put that plan into action that night,'' he said. "And I'm happy to say that our procedures worked excellently.''

Bauer said the city, about 80 miles south of Columbus, appreciated the arrival of the fighter jets.

"It is comforting to know that Portsmouth, Ohio, got that kind of response from the federal government,'' he said.

He said that, in light of Monday night's excitement, he is writing a letter to Gov. Bob Taft and the state's adjutant general requesting that the county emergency-management agency director be given a heads-up when training exercises are planned in the area.

Although his wife saw the transport plane, Bauer did not. In fact, when it buzzed the city the second time, he was participating in a debate with his opponent for the fall mayoral race.

"It was funny because I was asked a question whether the city was prepared for an attack,'' he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

----

Dugway has all its anthrax

By Lee Davidson,
Deseret News Washington correspondent,
Wednesday, October 17, 2001
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,330008658,00.html?

WASHINGTON - While the government is unsure where terrorists could obtain anthrax, it says it knows one place the lethal bacteria did NOT come from: Utah's Dugway Proving Ground. "We have no anthrax missing," Dugway spokeswoman Paula Nicholson said.

The Rhode Island-size base in the West Desert is where the Army tests detection equipment and defenses against biological and chemical weapons. Dugway Laboratories are among the few in America that work regularly with anthrax. Anytime such lethal agents are discovered missing or stolen, it must be reported - but Nicholson said nothing is missing.

Nicholson said, however, that the recent anthrax scares have had an effect on Dugway: It is bringing in additional soldiers to beef up security. "Under direction of the Army, we are becoming even more vigilant in controlling the test area," or zones beyond the base's residential area, she said. She said the additional security forces were to arrive Wednesday. She added the base is also tightly restricting vehicle travel to ensure that only authorized personnel enter the test area.

The Army has said that work with disease-causing germs at Dugway is now limited to the base's laboratories and open-air tests no longer are conducted. Open-air tests are supposed to use safer germs that simulate the characteristics of more deadly pathogens.

Documents obtained by the Deseret News in recent years showed that Dugway conducted at least 328 open-air germ warfare tests during the Cold War. Agents used were among some of the most deadly known to man, including anthrax, the plague, brucellosis, tularemia, botulism, Q fever and parrot fever. In other related tests, Dugway scientists dropped toxic cadmium sulfide, an easy-to-trace chemical, throughout the nation to see how germ weapons might spread in the winds if released by an enemy.

Besides the germ testing at Dugway, the base also conducted during the Cold War at least 1,174 open-air tests of chemical arms and 74 tests of "radiological" weapons (smaller munitions designed to spread radioactive dust and materials to contaminate battlefields).

An accident with one of those tests in 1968 killed 6,000 sheep downwind in Skull Valley. Some residents have questioned whether their families have suffered long-term poor health because of that accident or other testing.

E-mail: lee@desnews.com

-------

Active Duty 'Conscientious Objectors' On The Rise

CNS News
By Michael Betsch CNSNews.com Editorial Assistant
October 17, 2001
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPentagon.asp?Page=\Pentagon\archive\200110\PEN20011017a.html

An increasing number of U.S. military personnel who enlisted prior to Operation Enduring Freedom are now seeking conscientious objector status, claiming they were misled by their local recruiter and military advertising, according to groups that assist people in obtaining conscientious objector status.

Many of the enlisted personnel who are now seeking honorable discharges argue they didn't sign up to defend America; they just wanted to learn a trade or earn money for college.

Those seeking discharges based on conscientious objections to the current war on terrorism and military action in Afghanistan insist that military advertising failed to present the reality of military conflict, focusing instead on money for college, job training, leadership and disciplinary aspects of the military.

Bill Galvin, a counseling coordinator at the Center On Conscience and War, said his organization has seen "a significant increase" in military personnel who claim to be conscientious objectors since the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

Galvin defines the term conscientious objector as those "who would identify moral or ethical qualms about being in the military or being a part of war."

All conscientious objectors must explain what happened since they joined the military that would now cause them to say they can't do this, said Galvin, who provided anecdotal information about a rise in the number of active duty military personnel now seeking discharges based on conscience.

He claimed that recruiters paint an attractive portrait of patriotism for potential recruits and "play up the training or the money for college. They don't play up fighting, because that's not what gets people to join."

Others who work with conscientious objectors agree that military recruiting ads that downplay or ignore the inherent violence in military action have an air of deception.

"There's very little in military advertising that talks about combat, that talks about killing, that talks about fear, loneliness and all of that stuff. It's not there," said Titus Peachey, a director of peace education for the Mennonite Central Committee U.S.

According to Peachey, potential recruits, many of whom are teenagers, "are at a very vulnerable age" when they meet with military recruiters that visit high school campuses.

He added that the teens are lured into military life by the "sharp uniforms" worn by recruiters and the "very attractive packages" offered by the military.

Peachey said he's counseled a number of military men and women who've called the G.I. Rights Hotline seeking assistance with applying for and receiving conscientious objector status.

They enlisted, Peachey said, only because they felt the military "seemed like the way out," of their pre-enlistment lives, and an easy way to get an education and a job without considering the reality of war.

"It seems logical that a high school kid would think about the possibility of fighting in a war," during a time of hostilities, he said. But in peacetime, war is "the farthest thing from their minds."

Army spokesman Lt. Col. Ryan Yantis said such arguments are thin. "It's made very clear to every recruit when they come in through the recruiting and enlistment process that they're joining the Army," said Yantis.

Those who enlist or receive commissions from the Army "are grown-ups who are making adult decisions," said Yantis, who also said he was not aware of a particular increase in the number of Army personnel seeing discharges because they object to war.

But sometimes, grown-ups make "mistakes," Galvin commented. "We get lots of calls from people who are just in their training status saying, 'what did I get myself into?'"

According to Yantis, recruits claiming to be conscientious objectors fail to recognize that their situation is nothing new, and he said medics and other conscientious objectors in non-combatant roles have historically been a "benefit of the military."

Yantis also said it would be "disingenuous," for a soldier to say, "'Oh, I joined up to be an infantryman. I never knew that that meant I might have to go to war.'"

He bolstered his argument by saying there's little mistaking the words and meaning of the oath that military personnel take upon being sworn into the armed forces.

Among other things in the oath, military personnel promise to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

Another Army public affairs spokesperson, who asked to not be identified, said, "Anybody who has ever joined the military at least ought to have it in the back of the mind that at all times we could go to war, that there's never a guaranteed peace."

Now that the U.S. is actively engaged in military operations, Peachey said he thinks potential recruits "might think more than once," about the prospect of fighting in a war.

The reality, he said, is that a "significant number of youth either ignore or don't really think that deeply about," the combat aspect of the military.


-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

Solar Able to Meet A Quarter of Global Energy Needs by 2040

From: "Patrizia Cuonzo" <pcuonzo@ams.greenpeace.org>
October 17, 2001

Berlin: Solar power could provide energy for more than 1 billion people, creating over 2 million jobs by 2020, and 26% of global energy needs by 2040, according to a report released by the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA) and Greenpeace in Berlin today.

The report 'Solar Generation' shows that solar photovoltaics have the potential to make a major contribution to both the future of secure global electricity supply, and to help prevent dangerous climate change.

"It's a realistic, achievable goal, based on the current state of the industry and opportunities in the market, but it requires clear political support from governments around the world," said Sven Teske, Greenpeace energy expert. "We need to massively boost renewable energy sources if we are to phase out the fossil fuels that threaten our climate.

"As part of the global Choose Positive Energy campaign, Greenpeace is calling on world governments to provide renewable energy to 2 billion of the world's poorest people in the next decade. Even using conservative estimates, this report shows solar energy is able to fulfil a large part of this demand, and create millions of jobs globally."

The EPIA, representing 54 of Europe's leading solar companies, is responding to this challenge by expanding its role as a global advocate for solar energy.

"We must have a clear signal from national governments that there is a political commitment to expanding the role of solar electricity in the energy mix. In particular, the European Commission must ensure that innovative national incentive schemes for solar electricity are not invalidated on competition grounds," said Teske.

The report shows that by 2020 global solar output could be 276 Terawatt hours, which would equal 30% of Africa's energy needs, or 10% of OECD European demand, or 1% of global demand. This would replace the output of 75 new coal fired power stations and prevent the emission of 664million tonnes of carbon dioxide. The global solar infrastructure would have an investment value of US$75 billion a year and lower the cost of solar modules to US$1 per Wp achieved.

By 2040 global solar output could be more than 9000 Terawatt hours, or 26% of the expected global demand which would have increased from 27,000 to 35,000 Terawatt hours. That's more than the combined demand of OECD Europe and North America in 1998.

Renewable energy technologies, utilising the power of not only the sun, but also wind and water, generate clean energy that will neither run out nor lead to the build-up of greenhouse gases that cause climate change.

Choosing renewables over fossil fuels is also to choose energy security. Fossil fuels, due to their wholesale contribution to the climate catastrophe, represent an intrinsically insecure energy source regardless of whether they are come from Alaska, the Caspian Sea, the Middle East or elsewhere. Turning to renewables would mean that countries are able to generate their own indigenous energy supplies which would be reliable, wherever they were generated.

The Solar Generation report is available on www.greenpeace.org

----

How to Make a Solar Power Generator for Less Than $300

http://www.rain.org/~philfear/how2solar.html

Using parts easily available from your local stores, you can make a small solar power generator for $250 to $300. Great for power failures and life outside the power grid. Power your computer, modem, vcr, tv, cameras, lights, or DC appliances anywhere you go. Use in cabins, boats, tents, archaeological digs, or while travelling throughout the third world. Have one in the office store room in case of power failures in your highrise. I keep mine in my bedroom where it powers my cd player, turntable, lights, modem, laptop, and (ahem) a back massager. I run a line out the window to an 8" x 24" panel on the roof.

1. Buy yourself a small solar panel. For about $100 you should be able to get one rated at 12 volts or better (look for 16 volts) at an RV or marine supplies store.

2. Buy yourself a battery. Get any size deep cycle 12 volt lead/acid battery. You need the deep cycle battery for continuous use. The kind in your car is a cranking battery--just for starting an engine. Look for bargains, it should cost about $50-60.

3. Get a battery box to put it in for $10. (This is good for covering up the exposed terminals in case there are children about If you going to install the system in a pump shed, cabin, or boat, skip this.)

3. Buy a 12 volt DC meter. Radio Shack has them for about $25.

4. Buy a DC input. I like the triple inlet model which you can find at a car parts store in the cigarette lighter parts section for about $10. This is enough to power DC appliances, and there are many commercially available, like fans, one-pint water boilers, lights, hair dryers, baby bottle warmers, and vacuum cleaners. Many cassette players, answering machines, and other electrical appliances are DC already and with the right cable will run straight off the box.

5. But if you want to run AC appliances, you will have to invest in an inverter. This will convert the stored DC power in the battery into AC power for most of your household appliances. I bought a 115 volt 140 watt inverter made by Power-to-Go at Pep Boys for $50. More powerful inverters are available by mail. Count up the number of watts you'll be using (e.g., a small color television(=60 watts) with a VCR(=22 watts), you'll need 82 watts).

6. Use a drill to attach the meter and DC input to the top of the box.

7. Use insulated wire to attach the meter to the wingnut terminals on the battery. Connect the negative (-) pole first. Only handle one wire at a time. Connect the DC inlet to the battery in the same way. Connect the solar panel to the battery in the same way.

8. Close the lid (I use a bungee cord to keep it tight). Put the solar panel in the sun. It takes 5-8 hours to charge a dead battery; 1-3 hours to top off a weak one. It will run radios, fans, and small wattage lights all night, or give you about 5 hours of continuous use at 115 volt AC, or about an hour boiling water. This system may be added on to with larger panels, inverters, and batteries. Options: A pop-up circuit breaker may be added between the positive treminal and the volt meter. Some of you will want an ampmeter as well. The panels I recommend have built-in bypass diodes, but I recommend charge controllers for people who have panels without diodes. Another option is a voltage regulator, which is not necessary for a system this small, but a larger system would require one.

Technical specifications for this solar power generator, some solar links, and more about solar power.

Tired of the high cost of of solar panels? Hate cloudy days? Try optimizing your panel this way.

copyright Boa Boy Press 1996 free for non-profit use

Created by Phil "Fear" Heiple - mailto:philfear@rain.org

For an illustrated copy of these instructions via snail mail (what, no printer?), send $2 to Phil Heiple, 732 Poli St., Ventura, CA., 93001. This is just a hard copy of this web page. It contains no further information.

-------- energy

Project on Nantucket Sound in Massachusetts to harness power of wind

Wednesday, October 17, 2001
By Bob Wyss,
Providence (R.I.) Journal
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2001/10/10172001/krt_45285.asp

HYANNIS PORT, Mass. - A soft wind pushes the American flag. It unfurls and flaps against the metal stanchion atop the tower of St. Andrews Church perched on a high bluff overlooking Nantucket Sound. Brian Braginton-Smith lifts his forefinger and thumb to the horizon and spreads them a quarter inch apart.

That's how big the wind turbines, up to 195 of them, would look when they are built seven miles offshore, he says. Below sit million-dollar clapboard-sided homes, the Kennedy compound and yachts moored in Hyannis Harbor.

"I'm very excited about this project and also a little reticient, because this is where I grew up," said Braginton-Smith. "The ocean is such a pristine region. But this is something we must do."

The scope of the proposed project is breathtaking. Seven miles offshore, developers want to erect wind turbines that, with their blades fully upright, would be 425 feet tall. Anywhere from 150 to 195 of them would be spaced about one-third to one-half of a mile apart. They would be connected by underwater cables and could produce up to 420 megawatts of electricity, nearly the output of the Manchester Street Station power plant in Providence.

The project would cost more than $500 million. It would be the first offshore wind energy project in this country and one of the few in the world.

Braginton-Smith, a former Rhode Islander, has been talking about the idea for a decade. But now he has been joined by James A. Gordon, the president of Energy Management Inc. of Boston, which built power plants in Pawtucket, Tiverton, and Dighton, Mass., and elsewhere in New England. Gordon was one of the first developers in New England to recognize the need for natural gas-powered generating plants.

"I've always found Jim Gordon to be two steps ahead of everyone else," said Curt Spalding, executive director of Save the Bay, Rhode Island's largest environmental organization.

The question is whether Braginton-Smith, Gordon, and a third partner, Brian Caffyn, are too far ahead of everyone else. It's not just that they want to use a technology, wind power, which has struggled over the past two decades amidst complaints that the turbines are noisy, unsightly, and kill birds. And it's not just that they want to erect them within eyesight of the homes of some of the richest and most powerful New Englanders, including Sen. Edward Kennedy.

Building on the ocean opens a range of questions, beginning with just which government agency is responsible for the regulatory process to get the necessary permits. It may be the Army Corps of Engineers, which has jurisdiction over navigable waters.

"We're kind of excited about it, but we don't know who has jurisdiction," explained Larry Rosenberg, a Corps spokesman at the Waltham, Mass., regional office.

Gordon says he is not worried. He says the environmental benefits outweigh any of the potential problems. And since the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, he said he is even more convinced of the need for the project. "We have an inexhaustable supply of wind off of the coast of Massachusetts and no cartel can economically manipulate or cut off that supply," said Gordon. "It brings out the importance of developing our energy resources here at home. We have to reduce our reliance on foreign oil. The geopolitical price is just too high to pay."

Windmills date back centuries but engineers have had difficulty harnessing the breezes that sweep across the earth to produce electricity on the same scale as conventional power plants. The energy crises of the 1970s produced some notable failures, including a wind turbine on Block Island most famous for interfering with local television reception.

Even with federal tax credits, the cost to produce a kilowatt hour of electricity varied between 10 cents and 20 cents, two to four times as expensive as a plant burning oil or coal.

But the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) reports that technology has improved now to the point where the cost is as low as three cents a kilowatt hour.

The United States has been slow to catch on to that development. Last year it was able to produce only 2,554 megawatts of the world's wind production of 17,300 megawatts. Europe is in the lead in such development, and the AWEA says that wind energy is now the world's fastest growing energy source, increasing at a rate of 25 percent to 30 percent a year.

Locally, Braginton-Smith was one of the first to catch on to wind's potential, especially on Nantucket Sound. He was living in Cumberland, selling ergonomically correct furniture in the late 1980s when he decided he wanted to make more of an impact. He quit his job, moved to Cape Cod, and began pitching the idea of relying more on sustainable resources such as wind energy.

But it took years for that idea to mature. One reason is that hardly anyone, even in Europe, has tried to build a large offshore wind farm. One person to recognize Braginton-Smith's idea was Brian Caffyn, who has worked on the financial side of energy development in the United States and for the last few years in Europe. The other was Gordon, who last year sold his holdings in several natural gas-fired plants for about $250 million and began looking for the next challenge. Gordon was interested in renewable energy and, after a review, concluded that wind was more promising than either solar energy or fuel cells.

The three were soon together, forming a partnership called Cape Wind Associates LLC. "It seems like this is the right place, the right time, and the right group," said Braginton-Smith.

The area the partners have picked out is called Horseshoe Shoals, a reef as shallow as five feet at places. It is avoided by commercial vessels but popular with some fishermen. "This is the place where the best wind is," said Braginton-Smith. Southeasterly breezes pick up, especially in the afternoon when demand for electricity also rises, and the turbines are designed to capture wind ranging in speed from 6 mph to 50 mph.

The developers are looking for financing from European sources, who are more familar with wind projects. Money for new generating plants in New England has been drying up because there are so many under construction or being planned. Financial support will likely get even tighter if the economy worsens and falls into a recession, as some economists say it has. One result of a recession is a reduction in the demand for electricity. But Gordon maintains that the project can still obtain the necessary financing, which will be in the range of $500 million.

Construction of 195 turbines built in the ocean is more expensive than a conventional plant, but the fuel costs are virtually nonexistant. Power plant owners usually negotiate 20-year contracts with buyers to obtain the collateral for financing. Plants run by oil or gas have to include escalating prices over the 20 years, while the wind turbine would not. Plus, Massachusetts and other states have inducements encouraging the development of renewable energy projects.

Finally, the idea becomes even more desireable if residential customers can in the future choose among competitors when buying electricity. At least a certain percentage of customers say they would pay extra for power if they knew it came from a renewable source.

According to Gordon's analysis, an electricity generating plant producing as much power as the wind turbine facility would have to burn 85 million gallons of oil or 500,000 tons of coal. "We've looked at all of the environmental impacts and we see no fatal flaws," he said.

So far, only a few Cape Cod residents have raised concerns about the potential impact on fishing and the look of the shoreline. "I think that building wind mills is an excellent idea," said Sid Bennett, a retiree living in Harwich, Mass. "I just don't think that is a good place to put it." Bennett said he likes to take his boat out in that area of Nantucket Sound and catch bluefish. "You have to wonder what all that digging out there is going to do," he added.

The foundations for the wind turbines will either be driven into the bedrock or concrete supports will be embedded on the ocean floor. Gordon says every step possible will be taken to minimize environmental impacts.

Spalding of Save The Bay says that the construction period is when the biggest impacts could occur. Wind turbine projects elsewhere have resulted in large numbers of bird kills. Craig Olmstead, vice president/project development for Energy Management, said the blades will be moving so slowly, about 15 to 16 revolutions per minute, that birds should be able to avoid them.

Developers are counting on the turbines being far enough out that residents along the shoreline will not be worried. Even security from a terrorist attack does not appear to be a problem, since there would be so many and they would be up to one-half mile apart. "Most people I speak to are intrigued and excited," said Braginton-Smith. "But they also want to know what it will look like and what the net benefits will be."

The developers say they hope to begin filing permits next month, although that schedule has slipped several times. The process of obtaining the necessary approvals is expected to take 12 to 18 months, and construction could possibly be completed by 2004. The cost of developing such an entirely new energy project has run up $1 million in expenses and ultimately could cost at least $7 million.

Chuck Kleekamp of Sandwich, Mass. says he recognizes that the view of the wind turbines may bother some of his Cape Cod neighbors. He says he knows from experience, since his house has a clear view of the stacks of the Canal Station generating plant. He and his wife have been fighting for the last two years to get the plant to cut emission levels. "We have extremely high hopes" for the wind turbine project, Kleekamp said. "We are writing our state representatives and senators and encouraging them to permit the development of more wind farms."

Gordon said reaction to the idea has been positive and has only grown since Sept. 11. But he says there could still be a struggle. "I have been in the industry for 26 years and none of us here are naive," he said. "We expect at least some people to have a negative reaction to the project."

-------- environment

STERILIZERS COULD KILL ANTHRAX IN MAILROOMS

October 17, 2001
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/oct2001/2001L-10-17-09.html

BOSTON, Massachusetts, With America reeling under the threat of anthrax and other spore forming bacteria, Consolidated Machine Corporation may have discovered a way to ease the nation's fears.

The small Boston company, which builds steam sterilizers for hospitals, research laboratories and medical facilities in more than 60 countries around the world, has confirmed their machines are capable of killing spore forming bacteria, such as anthrax, present in mail. The key to this system is the combination of an old technology, steam sterilization, and a new technology, Consolidated's patented "Bug Buster" filtration device.

"We've been making water stills and sterilizers in our little factory here for more than 50 years," said William Barnstead, who founded his company in 1946 after serving in World War II. "We're not the biggest but I think we make the best machines you can buy."

After reading the weekend's news accounts of the anthrax scare, Barnstead and his director of research and development Arthur Trapotsis met on Monday morning to see if they could use their experience to help.

"We took our mail and contaminated it with a spore forming bacteria just like anthrax. Then we ran it through one of our sterilizers. The moist heat destroyed the bacteria and the 'Bug Buster' filter prevented the spores from escaping the sterilization vessel into the surrounding room," Trapotsis said. "The mail was completely clean. We were thrilled. We think this system can be the answer for companies and government agencies who are concerned about anthrax."

"People don't necessarily need to be worried about their mail. All they have to do is run their mail through one of these sterilizing machines every morning, just as hospitals run their medical instruments through everyday," Trapotsis added. "These machines are very efficient and they will make all mail and packages free of bacteria."

While the Federal Bureau of Investigations announced yesterday that they had received more than 2000 reports of anthrax since October 1, Barnstead said there is no reason to panic.

"Good old American know how can solve this or just about any problem,'' Barnstead said. "If we stay calm and think our way through, we can work out anything."

----

Ozone hole smaller but radiation risk seen higher

NEW ZEALAND: October 17, 2001
Story by Rodney Joyce
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12840/story.htm

WELLINGTON - This year's ozone hole over Antarctica is likely to last longer than last year's and spread more harmful ultra-violet radiation over the southern hemisphere, New Zealand scientists said yesterday.

The ozone hole forms in the southern spring over Antarctica and, as it breaks up, it reduces ozone levels throughout a huge swathe of the southern hemisphere - increasing ultraviolet (UV) radiation which contributes to skin cancers and eye cataracts.

Last year the hole reached a record 30 million square km (11.6 million square miles) - three times the size of the United States.

This year saw a slightly smaller 26 million square km (10 million square mile) hole at its peak in September but it was more stable and likely to last longer, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) said in a statement.

"The longer the ozone hole persists, the more likely it is that ozone-depleted air from the dispersing hole will reach New Zealand when the sun is high in the sky, increasing the risk of occurence of periods with high ultraviolet radiation," NIWA said.

The NZ government institute warning was aimed at New Zealanders but NIWA scientist Stephen Wood said from the NZ research station at Scott Base, on Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf, that the issue applied to other areas of the temperate southern hemisphere band, in latitudes from around 30 to 50 degrees south.

"When it breaks up you get little filaments, or remnants of the ozone-depleted air that go across the mid-latitudes," he told Reuters.

OZONE LEVELS DOWN

Ozone levels over the southern hemisphere's temperate zone have dropped 15 percent over the past 20 years, Wood added.

"The dilution effect from the ozone hole in the Antarctic is responsible for around half of the changes in UV that we've seen in the southern hemisphere," he said.

Ozone molecules, made up of three atoms of oxygen, form in a thin layer of the atmosphere around 10-29 km (6-18 miles) above the earth and absorb ultraviolet radiation from the sun.

The ozone holes are triggered by a combination of chlorine pollutants in the atmosphere, extremely cold temperatures and the return of sunlight to Antarctica in spring.

A reduction in chlorine pollution has scientists hoping that current ozone holes are at their most severe, but they say it could be 50 years before levels are restored to normal.

"Our research has suggested that climate change could further delay the recovery in ozone levels," Wood said.

This year's hole has a minimum ozone reading of 132 Dobson Units over Scott Base - compared with last year's 126 units minimum and a typical 300 units in other parts of the world.

A reading below 220 Dobson units is considered an ozone hole - equivalent to a 2.2 mm (0.09 inch) thickness if the ozone was concentrated at ground level.

----

Judges grill Seattle green lawyers on road ban

Wednesday, October 17, 2001
By Chris Stetkiewicz,
Reuters
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2001/10/10172001/reu_45298.asp

SEATTLE - Two of three appellate judges, hearing arguments Monday on a federal plan to restrict roads on 60 million acres of U.S. forests, questioned whether environmental lawyers had a right to argue the case.

In an hour-long hearing in Seattle, the two judges said they doubted green groups' legal standing in the case, since the U.S. government had not challenged an injunction prohibiting its implementation of the road-building ban.

A third judge, Warren Ferguson of Pasadena, Calif., appeared more sympathetic to the environmentalists and offered tough questions for lawyers representing timber and livestock interests and local Indian tribes, which oppose the ban.

At issue is a rule approved by the former Clinton administration last January and slated to take effect on May 12. A federal judge agreed to delay the plan at the request of timber company Boise Cascade Corp. The rule would restrict road building on land amounting to 2 percent of the entire United States and would also curb oil drilling and timber cutting, except to prevent fires or other dangers to surrounding private property.

President Bush has said he would implement the plan but would modify it to allow local input and different interpretations made on a forest-by-forest basis.

Judge Andrew Kleinfeld of Fairbanks, Alaska, and Judge Ronald Gould of Seattle told lawyers for the Sierra Club, Wilderness Society, and other green groups that they doubted they had any business arguing the case.

Raymond Ludwiszewski, representing corporate and tribal interests as well as Boise County, Idaho, was asked by Judge Kleinfeld to explain whether the environmentalists had a right to be there. "It would be hard for me to say it any better than you did,'' Ludwiszewski said.

After the hearing, Doug Hannold, who argued for the environmentalists in favor of the road ban, said it was difficult to predict the outcome. But he acknowledged the panel had questioned him aggressively. "I don't think anybody could have sat through that and not think it had been a challenge for us to raise the issues we wanted to,'' Hannold said.

The judges could take weeks or even months to render a decision, according to Ludwiszewski, who declined to comment on the likely outcome. "They kept me pretty busy today.''

Other observers noted that oral arguments can be highly deceiving, but some predicted Judge Gould may be the swing vote. "It looks like two judges are pretty clearly on opposite sides while Judge Gould is a big question mark,'' said Mike Anderson, a senior resource analyst for the Wilderness Society.

-------- health

Anthrax Targets Immune Cells to Kill

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
Wednesday October 17
Reuters
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011017/sc/anthrax_target_dc_1.html

WASHINGTON - Anthrax targets immune system cells, grappling them, sneaking inside and then multiplying until the cell bursts.

The newborn swarms of anthrax bacteria spill out and look for other cells to infest.

``We don't entirely understand how anthrax kills,'' Darrell Galloway, a molecular biologist at Ohio State University who is trying to make a new anthrax vaccines, said in a telephone interview.

The Bacillus anthracis bacteria starts out as a spore, which is a microbe's way of shutting down and surviving hard times. It has been shown to persist for as long as 100 years, and can survive being freeze-dried, buried, and shot through a nozzle as an aerosol.

The spores wait until they find a congenial environment, which for this bacterium is a warm, wet place -- like deep inside a lung.

There, they seek out a place to replicate. For as-yet unknown reasons, they look for immune system cells known as phagocytes, a type of cells that include macrophages. These are the cells that sweep the body for invaders, usually engulfing and destroying the enemy.

But when they encounter anthrax bacteria, the anthrax uses a molecular doorway to get into the cells and do what bacteria do best -- multiply.

CELLS STRETCH AND BURST OPEN

So many of the rod-shaped bacteria are produced that eventually the phagocyte stretches to its limits and bursts. Scores of rod-shaped anthrax bacilli spill out into the blood or lymph, and seek other cells to infect.

As they grow, the bacteria produce a waste byproduct of poisons. One of these is known as lethal factor.

``Like a killer who cuts the telephone line before entering the house, the poisons will move throughout the body and slice up a protein called MAPKK,'' bioterrorism and public health expert Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota writes in his book ``Living Terrors''.

This particular protein is vital to cell function.

``These macrophages that get targeted by toxin will, in a fairly short period of time, die,'' Galloway said.

But as they die, they send out a distress call -- a release of signaling chemicals called cytokines. These overstimulate the immune system, causing the victim -- whether a sheep or a human -- to go into shock.

``From what we understand, the individual basically dies from shock-like symptoms,'' Galloway said.

``This is in part why the effect of anthrax seems so sudden, why an individual may seem to be recovering and then suddenly die -- because of the peculiar role of the macrophages.''

In contagious diseases -- those that spread from person to person or animal to animal -- it does not benefit the microbe to kill its host, at least not right away. That is why particularly deadly strains of flu, like the one that caused a worldwide pandemic in 1918, die out.

But anthrax benefits from killing its host, which is usually a grazing animal.

The animal dies and rots into the soil. There, the bacteria revert to their spore state, waiting, sometimes for years, until another animal comes by and ingests the spore as it grazes or perhaps gets some infected dirt into a cut.

Luckily, naturally occurring Bacillus anthracis is easy to kill, succumbing to a wide range of antibiotics from penicillin to ciprofloxacin. Although health experts fear that someone, somewhere may have genetically engineered anthrax that can resist antibiotics, none has been found.

-------- human rights

Toxic Contamination in Cree Territory: Ouje-Bougoumou

OTTAWA, Oct. 17
CNW
http://www.newswire.ca/releases/October2001/17/c7490.html

On Monday, October 22, 2001, the Grand Council of the Crees will release a report on the very disturbing findings of an investigation of toxic contamination of sediment, water and fish within the Ouje-Bougoumou traditional territory. The source of the contamination is the operations of several mines operating within the Ouje-Bougoumou traditional territory in the vicinity of Chibougamau. The toxic contaminants include arsenic, cyanide, lead, mercury, cadmium, copper and selenium. A preliminary screening of the Ouje-Bougoumou population indicates elevated levels of toxic metals. A Press Conference will be held on Monday, October 22, 2001 in the Verriere Room (Lobby Level) of the Delta Hotel Centre-Ville, 777 University St., Montreal commencing at 10:00 a.m. Comments will be made by Grand Chief Ted Moses and Chief Sam Bosum of Ouje-Bougoumou. Also present will be the authors of the report, Mr. Christopher Covel, a New Hampshire-based geologist and Dr. Roger Masters, President of the Foundation for Neuroscience and Society at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire.

----

U.S. food drops miss hungry Afghans, supply Taliban soldiers critics claim

October 17, 2001
By Steve Miller
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011017-26321034.htm

America's humanitarian effort to relieve hunger in Afghanistan is drawing increasing international fire.

Traditional food agencies and U.N. organizations say the small, bright yellow boxes of food dropped from U.S. planes are feeding hostile Taliban soldiers or are landing in minefields.

Jean Ziegler, a U.N. official from Geneva, described the U.S. actions as "totally catastrophic for humanitarian aid," in a report from the British Broadcasting Corp. Because the food drops are not targeted, he said, "the man with the gun picks it up. So Americans are feeding the Taliban every night."

A report in this week's Sunday Mail in Glasgow, Scotland, said much of the food has been scattered across minefields in rural Afghanistan.

An official at the U.S. Agency for International Development acknowledged that the food drops, which are not publicly mapped for security reasons, could fall into the minefields of the besieged country.

"They pick strategic locations in remote parts of the country," said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "We do everything we can to make sure the areas don't have mines. But there are a lot of mines in Afghanistan."

The air drops are being made mostly in the northern portion of Afghanistan and are largely "symbolic," said Rep. Jim Kolbe, Arizona Republican and chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs.

"It shows our intent is to help the people but the largest number of people that are in danger are not being helped. These drops are in the north part of the country that is controlled by the Northern Alliance, not the south where the real starvation is."

The Bush administration said the military cargo planes are dropping food as part of a $320 million humanitarian effort.

The planes also have been dropping leaflets, written in Pashto and Dari languages, which read: "The partnership of nations is here to help." On the other side, "The partnership of nations is here to assist the people of Afghanistan."

But it is the food that has caused controversy.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told reporters that "over the weekend we dropped another 68,000-plus rations into Afghanistan, for a total of 275,000 rations since the effort began."

The effort has angered some aid organizations, who say the U.S. government does not know where assistance is needed. Most government-sponsored humanitarian efforts are carried out by organizations with personnel on the ground, but the air strikes have not made that possible.

"Air drops should include the clear identification of beneficiaries, careful monitoring of the distribution of assistance, and transparency in implementation of the operation," Nicolas de Torrente, executive director of the international group Doctors Without Borders, told a congressional panel last week.

Personnel for most of the aid agencies left Afghanistan shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

Reports say some of the air-dropped food reaches people who don't need it and that traders have started selling supplies at the bazaar in Khoja Bahawuddin after Afghans truck their supplies into the town.

White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said earlier this month that "there is always a concern to make certain that the food is kept out of the hands of the Taliban who will deny it to their people, while getting it to the people who were suffering. And in this case, the United States government will work with world food programs, with the United Nations, to get food into the regions where it can do the most good."

Despite the U.N. official's claim that Taliban soldiers are eating the U.S. food, a spokesman for the Afghan militia said last week that the humanitarian rations have been gathered up and burned in some sections of the country.

The Department of Defense drops the food in 7-foot-high cardboard boxes with three-ply walls to avoid using parachutes and detection by the Taliban. When the large boxes hit the slipstream, the individual meals are supposed to "float to the ground," said an Air Force spokesman.

--------

War Hurting Afghani Children the Most

Common Dreams
by Nadeem Iqbal
Thursday, October 17, 2001
by the Inter Press Service
http://commondreams.org/headlines01/1017-01.htm

ISLAMABAD - Seven-year-old Muhammad Mugheez, who reached a slum in the Pakistani capital Islamabad two weeks ago after coming from Afghanistan, spends the day begging in the streets with his mother.

In the night , he and his unskilled father join hundreds of others sitting for hours outside a bakery to get free bread.

[Bomb Shelter] Afghani children walk into a basement used as a shelter to protect them from U.S. and British military strikes in Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2001. (AP Photo/Amir Shah) For the last two decades, Afghan children, who constitute around half of the total Afghan population, have been exposed to the ravages of war inside and outside their country.

They have been suffering from hunger, disease, illiteracy, child labor and forced recruitment as soldiers, besides being easy victims of war who will live with its effects today and in coming years.

Mugheez's family is part of 200,000 other Afghans who have found their way to Islamabad, a much better place to live in compared to the crowded, filthy camps near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.

The refugee population living in and around the capital now equals 20 percent of the 8 million people of Islamabad. Most of the Afghan children here -- half of Afghanistan's 21 million people are under 18 years of age -- are scavengers.

Pakistan hosts around 3 million Afghan refugees, half of whom are children. Some 1,000 people from Afghanistan are pouring into Pakistan daily.

On Monday, Eric Laroche, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) representative in Afghanistan, says that the situation was bad enough for Afghan children before the Oct. 8 bombings - and look even bleaker now.

Afghan children are malnourished and lack warm clothing as the winter approaches, he said.

Some 100,000 children are likely to die in Afghanistan in the coming winter due to diarrhea, pneumonia and other diseases, according to UNICEF.

U.N. officials estimate that more than 95 percent of Afghan children do not go to school - a situation that depicts the total collapse of the education system in the war-ravaged country.

In fact, an entire generation of Afghan children is growing without education. Girls are most affected as they are prevented from going to school under the brand of strict Islam by the ruling Taliban.

To add to their misery, there are reports that in the aftermath of the air strikes against Afghanistan, unprecedented levels of child recruitment and mobilization into the ranks of the Afghan militia and the opposition Northern Alliance has been going on unhindered.

The Pakistan-based non-government group Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC) has appealed to the UN Security Council to integrate specific measures to prevent the use of children as soldiers in the impending conflict in Afghanistan.

''The United Nations must take into account child protection in its political actions on Afghanistan, including the incorporation of action to stop child recruitment and to task the UN Special Mission on Afghanistan with monitoring the recruitment of children and deploy child protection advisers with any future UN peacekeeping or humanitarian operations," reads the appeal.

In an interview, Masroor Gillani said the group is demanding this under the new Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in May 2000.

The protocol ''prohibits governments and armed groups from using children under the age of 18 in hostilities; bans all compulsory recruitment of under 18; and raises the minimum age and requires strict safeguards for voluntary recruitment''.

Article 4 of the Optional Protocol also provides that ''armed groups that are distinct from the armed forces of a State should not, under any circumstances, recruit or use in hostilities persons under the age of 18 years''.

Both Pakistan and Afghanistan are not signatories to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict. Pakistan however is signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

According to the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers , children have been used as soldiers by all warring parties in Afghanistan's during two decade-old civil war. Forced and compulsory recruitment by the Taliban and Northern Alliance continues to be reported, despite international commitments to the contrary.

In its September 2001 report, the coalition says: ''Reports of child recruitment continued to emerge, particularly in connection with 'madrasah' -- religious schools in Pakistan -- whose young Afghan refugee students became a main source of recruits for the Taliban when they first became party to the civil war in 1994.''

''As the conflict receded in Taliban-held areas, recruitment has progressively taken place within Afghanistan. But the Taliban continue to draw recruits from networks of 'madrasah' in Pakistan sponsored by various Islamist parties and groups,'' the report adds.

''Where once these institutions were confined largely to the border regions, today they are spread throughout the country (even in urban centers of Punjab and Sindh) and draw beyond the Afghan refugee diaspora,'' it explains.

Pakistani social scientist Kaiser Bengali traces the root cause of the use of child soldiers to Afghanistan's decades of war, and its damaged society.

In the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the U.S. and western-sponsored counter-military campaign, thousands of children were orphaned, Bengali explains.

As the United States engaged Islamist clergy in its war against Soviets, it found it expedient to employ these children to fight.

''Hundreds of thousands of these orphans were collected in scores of 'madrasah' in Afghan refugee camps in Pakistani cities where they grew up in an environment devoid of women. So they do not know any norm of civilization," Bengali adds.

SPARC researcher Saifur Rehman, who just returned after conducting a survey of children in Darra Adam Khel, a tribal town at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, said that around 2,500 children, both Afghan and local, are not only involved in active war but also in small arms manufacturing and cartridge filling, among others.

Their daily wages range between 5 rupees to 30 rupees (8 to 48 U.S. cents).

In addition, despite strict checks to monitor the cross-border movement of Afghan refugees at the border town of Torkham, many children are involved in the smuggling of items across the border. These include petrol, cloth, cosmetics, washing powder, toothpaste, soap, cosmetics, processed food items, scrap, and auto parts into Pakistan.

Smuggling of fine quality foreign cloth by roping it with the child carriers' bodies, is also fast becoming a practice because it is difficult for the security guards to detect.

-------- police / prisoners

Crackdown on anthrax hoaxes

October 17, 2001
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011017-9707528.htm

Federal authorities yesterday indicted three persons in the beginning of a crackdown on anthrax hoaxes nationwide, while the FBI continued its criminal investigation into exposures of the bacteria from Florida, New York and Nevada.

The first indictment handed down yesterday named Connecticut state worker Joseph Faryniarz in an anthrax hoax described by Attorney General John Ashcroft as "no joking matter" - an incident that cost taxpayers $1.5 million and could land the employee in prison for five years.

In the other cases, a second Connecticut man was charged with threatening use of a weapon of mass destruction when he phoned in threats to police, and a Utah man was charged with falsely claiming he received a letter containing anthrax.

Mr. Ashcroft said the Justice Department is working with state and local officials across the country to prosecute additional hoaxes. Since Oct. 1, the FBI has received more than 2,300 reports involving anthrax or other dangerous agents, the overwhelming majority of which have proven to be false alarms.

"It should be painfully obvious to every American today that the threat of bioterrorism is no joking matter. These acts are serious violations of the law and grotesque transgressions of the public trust," he said. "Terrorism hoaxes are not victimless crimes, but are the destructive acts of cowards."

In the District, police said the number of hoaxes to which they had responded had stretched its available resources. A Florida inmate was accused of sending out letters threatening anthrax infections and faces 75 years in prison. In Georgia, a suspicious powdery substance discovered by a railroad worker beside CSX train tracks turned out to be someone's remains that had been spread along the tracks.

Yesterday's indictment accused Mr. Faryniarz of making false statements in connection with an anthrax hoax.

He is accused of telling security guards at the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection where he worked he had found a powdery substance on a paper towel near his computer with the word "Anthax" written on it.

Mr. Faryniarz, according to the indictment, knew the Oct. 11 incident was a hoax, but stood silent as 800 employees were evacuated and 12 were forced to disrobe and were washed down with a decontamination solution. The indictment said he lied to FBI agents repeatedly and attempted to implicate co-workers before confessing.

"As this case demonstrates, false threats of anthrax and other terrorist attacks carry high costs for consumers and taxpayers," Mr. Ashcroft said, noting that a two-day evacuation of the state offices necessitated by the hoax cost taxpayers $1.5 million.

During a press conference, Mr. Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III also said investigators have not found any "conclusive evidence" tying the anthrax exposures nationwide to the 19 Middle Eastern men who hijacked four jetliners and crashed three into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or to others involved in the attack.

"While we have not ruled out linkage to the terrorist attack of September 11 or the perpetrators of that attack, we do not have conclusive evidence that would provide a basis for a conclusion that it is a part of that terrorist endeavor," Mr. Ashcroft said.

But the attorney general warned that the Justice Department viewed the sending of anthrax-laced letters with the intent to hurt people as an act of terrorism and that it would be treated as such.

"Make no mistake about it: When people send anthrax through the mail to hurt people and to invoke terror, it's a terrorist act. And we treat it as an act of terror and terrorism," he said.

In the second Connecticut warrant, Fred Forcellina was accused of calling the Fairfield police and threatening to use biological agents against three courthouses.

According to an affidavit filed by an FBI agent involved in the case, Mr. Forcellina told police yesterday that the destruction of three Connecticut courthouses was in retaliation for what the United States had done "to our people."

The affidavit quoted Mr. Forcellina as saying his people had been bombed and "now we are doing a silent warfare. This is not a hoax. And I'm telling you that three of your symbols of justice have been dusted."

In the Utah case, Terry Olson, 29, is accused of placing sugar and chocolate powder in an envelope himself and then calling police Saturday and saying it was anthrax, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney in Salt Lake City said.

His house and a neighbor's were sealed and people were taken to a local hospital to undergo detoxification procedures.

"We anticipate additional charges will be filed after the grand jury meets," spokeswoman Melodie Rydalch said. "He eventually confessed to agents he didn't mean anybody harm."

In Washington, Mr. Mueller said FBI agents were taking every threat seriously and are investigating exposures in Florida, New York, Washington, D.C., Nevada and "elsewhere around the country." He said every threat received a full response and the FBI had "no choice but to assume that each reported instance is an actual biothreat."

Mr. Mueller also said that while no direct link had been established between the anthrax scares and organized terrorism, there were "certain similarities" between letters sent to NBC in New York and to the office of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.

The similarities have been described as the handwriting and the postmarks, which included return addresses in Trenton, N.J. One letter was addressed to "Tom Brokaw," the NBC anchorman, and the other was sent to "Senator Daschle." Both had printed letters and numerals. The Daschle letter gave a return address of "4th grade, Greenvale School, Franklin Park, N.J. 08852." The NBC letter had no return address.

Mr. Mueller said agents working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are now "testing, analyzing and comparing powders" with ones received in Florida, where the first exposures were reported - including one that killed Bob Stevens, 63, the photo editor of the Sun, a supermarket tabloid.

Since the initial discovery of the anthrax exposures in Florida, 13 persons have either been diagnosed with anthrax or were confirmed as having been exposed to the anthrax bacteria.

In New York, authorities are trying to learn the source of an anthrax infection suffered by the 7-month-old son of an ABC news producer. The youngster was the second anthrax case involving the media in New York. Earlier, an aide to Mr. Brokaw tested positive for the bacteria.

Meanwhile, 150 abortion clinics, most of them in the Southeast, reported receiving letters with anthrax threats. All have so far proven to be hoaxes, said Beth Raboin, spokeswoman for the Feminist Majority, one of three pro-choice groups that monitor security at clinics.

The anthrax exposure that killed Mr. Stevens and infected a co-worker, Ernesto Blanco, was from airborne spores, which prove fatal about 90 percent of the time. The other exposures nationwide are from cutaneous anthrax, meaning they infect the skin on contact. Those cases can be treated with an expected success rate of about 80 percent.

Florida health officials yesterday classified Mr. Blanco as a possible case of anthrax and ordered employees at the office where the men worked to a second round of blood tests. Authorities said the letter in which the anthrax was delivered to Mr. Stevens was tossed and burned before it could be tested. He was diagnosed with the disease Oct. 4.

Mr. Mueller also said the FBI remains on the highest state of alert for possible new terrorist attacks in this country and against U.S. targets overseas. He said when the warning was issued last week to the public and 18,000 police agencies across the country, it involved a specific time period and that that period had not yet ended.

"Because it was specific with regard to time, it was our belief that federal, state, and local law enforcement should be on a higher state of alert, and we remain on a higher state of alert," he said. "Quite obviously, the incidents of anthrax exposures in the last couple of days warrant such a continued state of alert."

-------- spying

Message says Navy facilities watched

October 17, 2001
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011017-15863837.htm

The Navy is investigating 11 incidents in which "Arab" or "Middle Eastern" males appeared to be conducting surveillance of naval bases, and, on one occasion, a truck loaded with munitions, according to an internal message to commanders.

The Oct. 11 message from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) recounts disturbing cases of suspicious activity around major air bases and ports that could be the prelude to terrorist attacks. A copy of the message was obtained by The Washington Times.

The document deals strictly with Navy facilities worldwide. But a senior U.S. official said the armed forces are operating under the assumption that Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network has conducted surveillance of military installations belonging to all the services in preparation for possible attacks.

The U.S. charges that bin Laden and al Qaeda executed the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon. The United States also has accumulated evidence linking bin Laden to the suicide bomber attack on the destroyer USS Cole that killed 17 sailors in a Yemen port. Bin Laden has urged his army of terrorists to specifically attack American military personnel.

What's more, defense sources say in recent years suspicious persons were seen photographing the Pentagon in a methodical manner.

The Navy message states, "The report documents a collection of incidents that remain under investigation but still has not been fully mitigated. None of this information has been definitely linked to pre-operational terrorist activity."

Among the incidents, both before and after the Sept. 11 attack:

•A truck driver transporting ammunition and explosives from a naval weapons center said a Middle Eastern man approached him at a truck stop in Kentucky.

"Subject was observed looking the truck over, then asked the driver where he was heading," the message states. "The truck driver did not answer, and a white vehicle bearing Florida license plates followed his truck for the remainder of the trip" to Hanover, Pa.

Some of the terrorists who executed the Sept. 11 attack lived and trained in Florida.

•The Island County, Wash., sheriff's office told of reports of suspicious behavior by "three Arab males" who checked into a motel near a major naval air station. The three drove a rented car. The name on the rental agreement "did not match the name given by the driver to the motel."

•"Three Arabic males were reported acting in a suspicious manner and possibly surveying [Naval Air Station] Whidbey Island [in Washington]."

"The individuals were on the beach with fishing gear; however, [they] did not do any fishing and their gear was not appropriate. The same individuals had been ordered out of a restricted area of the park by park rangers earlier in the day where they were observed videotaping the Deception Pass Bridge."

•A "Middle Eastern" man visited a county property assessment office and got parcel maps of all private property surrounding the Whidbey station.

•Two males at an air show at the Willow Grove, Pa., Naval Air Station, trained high-powered scopes on areas of the flight line closed to the public. "The individuals were writing numbers in a notebook, which the spectator believed to be tail numbers of various aircraft on the flight line," the message says.

The suspicious activity was chronicled by NCIS' anti-terrorism task force and sent to major commands around the world, including the fleet. The reports were gleaned from hundreds of other sightings that were judged inconsequential.

Lt. Cmdr. Cate Mueller, a Navy spokeswoman at the Pentagon, said the reports "indicate there is increased security awareness and we are looking at all the reports and cataloging and assessing them to determine if there is a threat."

She added, "I'm not going to get into the specifics of any of the ones discussed in the message."

Since Sept. 11, she said, the Navy has introduced "a number of proactive measures to ensure the safety of our men and women and equipment which is vital to our national security."

The Navy has been hit particularly hard by bin Laden's terrorists. In addition to the 17 sailors killed on the Cole last year, one of the hijacked airliners demolished the Navy's Pentagon command center, killing 33 sailors and nine civilian employees.

-------- terrorism

Analyst says strategy ignored low-level bioterrorism

October 17, 2001
By August Gribbin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011017-73803271.htm

Government officials responding to the rash of anthrax exposures and infections are limited to investigating and issuing alerts.

"In the current situation, there's almost nothing more the government or individuals can do except not open our mail," says Michael O'Hanlon, a Brookings Institution warfare specialist.

FBI agents and specially trained investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention yesterday continued their weeks-old quest to determine where the anthrax came from and who caused the attacks. The latest alarm came yesterday when Floyd Horn, administrator of the Agriculture Research Service, warned the food industry and farmers to watch for unusual plant and animal diseases because terrorists might resort to biological weapons that can infect and destroy them. "There are diseases that can wipe out our herds and crops," he said.

Mr. Horn said he has no direct evidence of any pending biological-weapons attack. Still, he said, the former Soviet Union manufactured plant and animal diseases that could devastate 13.4 percent of America's annual gross domestic product, and there is reason to suspect terrorists may have obtained anti-agriculture biological weapons.

By using such weapons, terrorists could engineer the destruction of a crop, and, armed with knowledge that a crop would fail, they could profit handsomely from investing in the U.S. commodity-futures market, Mr. Horn noted.

Like all counterterrorism specialists, Margaret A. Hamburg, a physician and vice president for biological programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, says, "Preparation for attacks is the best preventative." Yet as studies by the General Accounting Office and independent blue-ribbon panels have revealed, the United States has not adequately prepared for biological-weapons assaults.

If the warnings of counterterrorism specialists had prevailed in recent years, the preparations might have forestalled the current attacks, but they had a different scenario in mind. It was thought that terrorists would strive to produce mass casualties through biological or chemical attack.

"This is more like an old-fashioned terrorist attempt to hurt a few and scare many. It comes in contrast to the Sept. 11 variety of attack motivated by hatred to kill as many as possible and cause anguish," Mr. O'Hanlon says.

What we are facing now, Dr. Hamburg says, "is a relatively unsophisticated delivery mechanism for anthrax. Terrorists may have different motives at different times. These events have created very large ripple effects, panic, anxiety, and uncertainty in how to deal with basic life activities. They create the specter of a unseen, silent, potential killer out there. This might be the desired goal of whoever perpetrated this and it might be an individual or group."

Dr. Hamburg says that for years there have been discussions about the likelihood of a biological-weapons attack. She says that many argued there were "so many barriers to producing mass casualties with such weapons that it was simply not a concern."

"Others said you don't need a mass delivery system to achieve widespread panic and anxiety and to undermine confidence in government while achieving a certain level of disease and death. That certainly is what we have witnessed with these isolated cases. You don't need a crop-duster to have a big impact."

But, Mr. O'Hanlon said, "This is the kind of threat I can deal with. It's one thing to be scared and something else to be dead. Most of us can tolerate being scared. We're going to look back at this and see this is a pretty minimal accomplishment for whoever did it."

--------

33 Capitol Hill staffers exposed to anthrax

10/17/2001
The Associated Press
http://usatoday.com/news/attack/2001/10/17/weapons-grade.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - Congressional leaders ordered an unprecedented shutdown of the House on Wednesday after more than two dozen people in Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's office tested positive for exposure to a highly concentrated form of anthrax. "We will not let this stop the work of the Senate," Daschle said at a news conference outside the Capitol. He said 31 people have had "positive nasal swabs," including two Capitol police officers. CNN reported this afternoon that two more staffers have tested positive for anthrax exposure. Despite the vow to remain open, Daschle said senators "will excuse our staff" so that three Senate office buildings can be tested. Daschle made his announcement a short while after Speaker Dennis Hastert said that anthrax had been found in the Senate's mailroom.

"To ensure safety we thought it best to do a complete sweep, an environmental sweep," he said, adding that House members and staff would be sent home at day's end, until at least Tuesday.

Three government officials said Wednesday there was no evidence of any foreign or terrorist involvement although they continue to investigate the possibility. One official said there was evidence that could point toward a domestic culprit.

On a day of rapidly unfolding events, Hastert also told reporters that a suspicious package had been removed from his suite of staff offices on the fourth floor of the Capitol and was being tested for anthrax.

In addition, Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., announced that two of his aides had tested positive for exposure to anthrax. Feingold's office is adjacent to Daschle's suite in the Hart Senate Office Building. It was not known whether the aides had entered Daschle's suite.

Five weeks after terrorist strikes killed thousands in New York and Washington, there was cause for bioterrorism concern elsewhere around the country. In New York, Gov. George Pataki announced that a test conducted in his midtown Manhattan office showed the presence of anthrax. Officials said the suite of offices had been closed for further testing and decontamination.

Pataki said one test did indicate "the probability of anthrax," adding that "the odds are very high" that subsequent testing will confirm the presence of anthrax.

Outside of Washington, four people are known to have contracted anthrax and nine others have tested positive for the bacteria.

With word of the positive test results on Capitol Hill, officials opened a second anthrax testing center in the physician's office on the first floor of the Capitol. A line extended up to the second floor. Tests also were available in an office building across the street. There, more than 1,000 people were tested on Tuesday and given a three-day supply of antibiotics as a precaution.

At his news conference, Hastert told reporters that his staff offices on the fourth floor of the Capitol had been placed under quarantine. Hastert spokesman John Feehery said the step was taken after an aide to the speaker recalled seeing a letter that bore lettering similar to what was on the letter sent to Daschle and a second anthrax-tainted letter addressed to NBC anchor Tom Brokaw.

Hastert also told reporters that anthrax had gotten "into the ventilation system" in Senate portion of the Capitol complex. But a short while later, Scott Lillibridge, a bioterrorism expert at the Department of Health and Human Services, said the only known evidence of anthrax was found in Daschle's office across the street from the Capitol and in the Senate's mailroom in a second office building.

"There is absolutely no evidence of infection at this point," Daschle said. "All of those who had had this positive nasal swab have been on antibiotics for some time and the good news is that everyone is OK."

Daschle, flanked by Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott, sought to ease concerns that had been raised by word of the positive test results and by Hastert's announcement that House members and staff would be sent home at day's end to allow for environmental testing.

"There will be a vote this afternoon," Daschle said. "We will be in session and have a vote or votes tomorrow."

Senate leaders were accompanied by numerous federal officials, several of whom stepped before the microphone to announce developments in the most reassuring manner possible.

"This particular strain of anthrax is sensitive to all antibiotics," said Maj. Gen. John Parker, speaking on behalf of the Ft. Detrick military lab technicians in Maryland who performed the tests on the samples.

He described it as "common variety" anthrax.

While some of the anthrax-laced powder was refined in a way to make it airborne, preliminary tests suggest the strain was common to the United States, a government official said. The official added the letters sent to Brokaw and Daschle urged the use of medicine and alerted the recipients to the presence of the poison - something deemed unlikely for a terrorist seeking mass casualties.

In an atmosphere of some confusion, finger-pointing broke out between members of the House and Senate. Some senators openly questioned Hastert's announcement of a shutdown. But at his second news conference of the day, Hastert said there had been an agreement between the two houses "that we would close our offices this evening."

He said the Senate would conduct only a pro forma session on Friday, and its offices would be closed as well.

A positive finding does not mean the person has the disease or will get the disease. About 8,000 spores must be inhaled for a person to develop inhalation anthrax.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, testifying on Capitol Hill, said, "There's no question this is a very serious attempt at anthrax poisoning."

Lillibridge added: "There's been some attempt to collect it, perhaps refine it and perhaps make it more concentrated. That seems certain."

--------

Anthrax spurs Lott to seek adjournment of Congress

October 17, 2001
By Dave Boyer
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011017-882885.htm

Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott yesterday called for Congress to adjourn rapidly as investigators verified an anthrax attack at the Capitol, part of a Senate building was closed and thousands were treated with antibiotics.

"There is a growing feeling that as soon as we can get our work done, that we should recess for the year," said Mr. Lott, Mississippi Republican.

House Republican leaders, too, were focused at a closed meeting yesterday on wrapping up business as soon as possible. Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois is expected to make that pitch to Republican lawmakers this morning.

But Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and others said Congress should stay in session as long as necessary.

"Leaving town is no longer the panacea," said Mr. Daschle, South Dakota Democrat. "That assumes it's less dangerous somewhere else. What we have to do is not run away from these problems, but address them."

Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, said adjourning Congress quickly would be "an outright admission of surrender."

Mail to Congress was halted for a second straight day as the probe into the first bioterrorist attack on the federal government intensified. Police closed 12 Senate offices and shut off ventilation in an eight-story wing of the Hart building where an aide in Mr. Daschle's state office opened an envelope containing anthrax Monday morning.

Mr. Daschle said new tests revealed that the envelope held high concentrations of a particularly deadly spore form of the bacteria that can be inhaled.

"It was a very potent form of anthrax that clearly was produced by somebody who knew what he or she was doing," Mr. Daschle said.

In another wing of the Hart building, Capitol physicians set up an emergency treatment station to test congressional aides with nasal swabs. As more than 2,000 people lined up, Capitol police also issued a plea for people who visited the Hart building on Monday to be checked by a doctor for possible exposure.

"We need to get the word out," said Lt. Dan Nichols of the Capitol Police. "It's not only people who work in the area, but it's also people who may have walked through the area or visited the building."

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson promised to station Deputy Surgeon General Ken Moritsugu at the Capitol indefinitely after anxious senators summoned Mr. Thompson yesterday for a meeting. Mr. Moritsugu will be available to coordinate policy and answer questions.

The closed offices were those of Sens. Barbara A. Mikulski and Paul S. Sarbanes, Maryland Democrats; Richard C. Shelby, Alabama Republican; Craig Thomas, Wyoming Republican; Barbara Boxer, California Democrat; Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican; Max Baucus, Montana Democrat; Russell D. Feingold, Wisconsin Democrat; Mr. Daschle; Robert C. Byrd, West Virginia Democrat; Richard G. Lugar, Indiana Republican, and Joseph I. Lieberman, Connecticut Democrat.

Staffs in those offices relocated to committee rooms in other buildings or doubled up in other Senate offices. Some lawmakers sent aides home. Police were testing air ducts for anthrax spores and said the wing should reopen in two or three days.

Several senators said they, too, planned to be tested for anthrax exposure. The test results are usually available within 24 to 48 hours, said Dr. John Eisold, attending Capitol physician.

Mr. Daschle said there is no evidence yet that any of his aides were contaminated. He said the clothing of the woman who opened the letter did not show any signs of anthrax contamination.

Most lawmakers vowed to press on with their work.

"We have a particular responsibility to carry out our duties here and not to add to the anxiety of the American people by overreacting," said Sen. Bob Graham, Florida Democrat and chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

"We want to be here as long as it takes to do the things to respond, to help the president fight terrorism, to fight the battle overseas, and to get this economy turned around," said Sen. Rick Santorum, Pennsylvania Republican and chairman of the Senate Republican Conference. "We are not moved one iota by anything that's happened here in our mission to do just that."

Amid the increased anxiety on Capitol Hill, however, there were also calls to finish the legislative agenda as quickly as possible and adjourn.

Sen. Larry E. Craig, Idaho Republican, said lawmakers are worried about their staffs.

"If we're a primary target, us leaving town limits the collateral damage to staff," Mr. Craig said.

Mr. Lott told reporters, "Once we get through the things that need to be done as a result of September 11th and get our appropriations bills through that then we [should] recess."

But even an anthrax attack could not defuse the partisan politics that are prolonging adjournment. Lawmakers in both parties acknowledged that ideological disputes over airline security, an economic stimulus package and judicial nominees will likely delay any recess until mid-November.

Rep. Martin T. Meehan, Massachusetts Democrat who had criticized President Bush for not returning to Washington immediately on Sept. 11, said Congress must stay in town for the time being because it is "behind schedule."

"The budget deadline was Oct. 1," Mr. Meehan said in a statement. "The remaining bills have broad bipartisan support and are viewed as must-do items but the details need to be worked out. Beyond that, I support giving the leadership the authority to call Congress back into session in the case of an emergency or at the president's request."

While lawmakers and staff had many concerns, both the House and Senate planned to proceed with their schedules.

"I think under the circumstances, the Senate is functioning quite well," Mr. Daschle said.

--------

"Those Murdering Men In Their Flying Machines..."

From: "John Thomas"
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001

No, not the hate-filled hijackers and murderers who killed thousands of our brothers and sisters in New York last month.

The other ones - the aviators of the US armed forces, who have completed what the Soviet military and no end of squalid little Afghan factions could not - to level Afghanistan so much that there is nothing left to target.

They've had to start bombing stuff on spec, bless 'em!

Still they've had plenty of practice - for these are roughly the same Top Gun wannabes who torched 60,000 odd fleeing Iraqi soldiers at the arse end of the Gulf War.

"Terrorists" and "military targets" blasted so far include UN land mineclearance workers, a well-marked Red Cross warehouse and a village full of shepherds and their families.

That atrocious euphemism for lives destroyed, "collateral damage", is no doubt being bandied about in brass-hat circles as we speak...

There you go then... Murder by terrorists is an Atrocity... Murder by state war machines is "Unfortunate"...

About time we took their toys away, isn't it?

FOR GLOBAL, DEMOCRATIC WORKING CLASS UNITY -
www.worldsocialism.org

-------

New solutions for an old war

By William Rivers Pitt
10-17-01
www.onlinejournal.com

Turn on the television and find a news station, and you will be greeted within seconds by a graphic, and by suitably dramatic music, that tells us we are engaged in America's New War. You will be reminded that we were attacked out of nowhere by entities that hate our freedom. You will be counseled to understand that everything has changed.

In his recent prime time press conference, George W. Bush took the long walk, a la Reagan, down the red-carpeted hallway to the East Room of the White House and answered about 12 questions. In one response, he professed amazement at the hatred our new enemies hold for us. We're so good, he claimed. How could they miss that?

The answer to that question embarrasses all the networks that tell us we are involved in a 'new' war, and should not embarrass a president whose oft-repeated disdain for reading has left him with little historical understanding for our current circumstances.

For you see, this is not a new war at all, nor is it a new world, nor has everything changed.

This is a very old war that has been raging for decades. There are nations, some of whom are apparently complicit in the Sept. 11 attacks, who believe that they have been at war with the United States for 20 years. The destruction of the Trade Towers and a section of the Pentagon was not a lightning strike from a blameless sky. It was a bold tactical stroke by an enemy that has, for the first time, managed to strike back.

This is not a new world, and nothing has changed. America has been rudely and horrifyingly awakened to the circumstances of the world around them. The cushion provided by two oceans, 2,000 nuclear missiles, and a media establishment that quails from reporting what is actually happening elsewhere because of our policies, has been ripped from under us.

Welcome to the world, America. This is what life is like for many, many nations.

Now that we are here, at last aware of the war that we have been waging for a generation, we must analyze our reaction and decide if the course we have set is just, proper, worthy of the lives of our service men and women, and above all, winnable.

As it stands today, I am against this war.

I am against this war because it is being fought in exactly the wrong way. Pursued as it is, we will soon find ourselves facing a united Muslim world that has a long laundry list of grievances against us to begin with. A united Pan-Islamic Front is precisely what bin Laden wants, and by strafing the rubble in Afghanistan, we are skipping gaily into his arms.

The more civilians we kill, the stronger and more sympathetic we make bin Laden to a poor and enraged Muslim world. Continue to support this bombing campaign and you are feeding the fires that will burn us all out of house and home.

I am against this war because the millions of Afghan civilians who escape the bombs can look forward to unknown amounts of time eating grass and drinking poisoned water in deathtrap refugee camps. We dropped 37,000 meals on Afghanistan when the bombing started, which leaves, by my math, 6,963,000 people who need food.

There is dying, and there is dying. Among those who flee will undoubtedly be thousands who listen to clerical rhetoric against America and decide, in their despair, that strapping Semtex to their chests and boarding a plane is preferable to a squalid death far from home at the hands of an unseen bomb-dropping enemy.

Better to die on you feet than live on your knees, right? I would bet the farm that many of those now fleeing our bombs will come to decide the same thing. Again, we put the barrel of the gun to our own heads.

The head of the largest Islamic group in Pakistan has called for the overthrow of that government. If Pakistan falls, as it may well do, the fundamentalists will have nuclear weapons. On that road lies total annihilation. India, China and Russia will immediately go 'red-alert' if Pakistan falls. If just one bomb goes off over there, all of our Cold War night sweats will become a reality.

Besides, who says those Pakistan-based fundamentalists can't cart one of those bombs over here, should they get their hands on them?

I am against this war because Afghanistan is a convenient target whose ultimate destruction will do little to win "The War On Terrorism." Bin Laden will survive and flee, and the thousands of Al Qaeda terrorists in places like Syria, Egypt, Palestine, Germany, Ireland, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland and Los Angeles will be totally unharmed.

Afghanistan is a straw man. Yes, they are repressive. Yes, they treat women unspeakably. They did so on September 10 and I heard no one advocate the limitless bombing of that country on that day or any day before it.

I have heard in several forums the comparison of bin Laden and the Taliban to Hitler and the Nazis. That is a joke. Bin laden has no mechanized army to roll on Poland or France, nor does he have a Navy to close sea lanes, nor does he have an air force, nor even a nation. The Taliban are not a government. They are a gang.

This is a war between two rich power brokers -- Bush and bin Laden -- who are gambling with all of our lives. Bin Laden is no Hitler. He is a lunatic who kills us with weapons and training we provided him.

In that, he is like Saddam Hussein, another lunatic who kills people with weapons and training we provided him. Also like bin Laden, Hussein was compared to Hitler by Bush Sr. The comparison did not, and does not, hold water. It did, however, manage to get us all whipped up as we are now.

Waving the bloody shirt of Hitler is exactly what Bush wants you to do, because it obscures clear and critical thinking. Being afraid right now is understandable, but lashing out with that fear and destabilizing the planet is stupid and suicidal.

If we continue to lash out, if we continue to bomb the nothing that is Afghanistan, bin Laden can fulfill his Pan-Islamic dreams. He will unite the Muslim world against us, and will then have the capability to become Hitler. He's not there yet, but is helped on his way with such inflammatory and inaccurate comparisons.

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has described this conflict as a 'new Cold War.' That war lasted from Truman to Bush Sr., and the circumstances we are currently enduring are a direct result. I refuse to even consider supporting something that will create a new 45-year war.

The old Cold War gave us nuclear weapons in all corners of the globe, plus Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Nicaragua, Iraq, the Gulf War, the Red Scare, the Black Lists, McCarthy, Hoover, anthrax weapons, smallpox weapons, Star Wars, massive ecological destruction, and yes, Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.

The ultimate fallacy behind the idea that this is a new war lies in the fact that we are fighting it in a very old-fashioned way. Bombing a defenseless nation will not stop terrorism. It will not allay the fears of our populace, who are bombarded daily with reports of anthrax infections.

All the bombing of Afghanistan will do is create new jihad warriors who are ready to die so as to see you die. In their rage and despair, they will sign up willingly. Our so-called endless war will become a reality, as we manufacture droves of the very people we seek to destroy. It will never end.

Let us speak of new solutions for this old war:

1. Immediately recognize a Palestinian state, and pull out all the stops to broker a peace deal. Beat Arafat and Sharon about the head and shoulders until they come to an agreement that will stop the unspeakable suffering of the Palestinian people while ensuring the safety and security of Israel. Make Jerusalem a UN Protectorate guarded by Swiss troops, or some equally uninvolved nation. This is no longer an eternally nagging problem. It is the lynchpin upon which peace or total destruction will turn.

2. Take the billions of dollars we are currently spending to destroy rubble and mud in Afghanistan and turn it into food, medicine, radios, clothing, seeds. If we can read Mullah Abdul bin Tallal bin Alla bin Mustafa's watch as he rides his camel through the Kybher Pass with our satellites, we can feed and clothe these people, because we are clever. Who says a Marshall Plan has to come after a war? With a concentrated effort, all the Taliban warriors in Afghanistan won't be able to stop it. They will fall.

3. Continue what had been shaping up to be an excellent diplomatic course. Cut off terrorist funding. Organize the coalition to marshal every iota of intelligence ability to tracking, arresting and convicting terrorists in every corner of the globe. Before we started bombing, we had massive cooperation. That may evaporate in a cloud of outrage soon, and the aforementioned safe terrorists will not have the combined might of the international community looking for them anymore.

4. Stop bombing Afghanistan. Hundreds of civilians have been killed already by errant munitions. We have already created more terrorists. Stop the bombing and stop this genesis. We've got Special Forces in Afghanistan right now lazing "targets," i.e. mud piles and rubble. Reconstitute their mission to search-and-destroy mode. Shoot these Al Qaeda fighters between the eyes from 1,000 yards out . . . you know we can do it.

These actions will strip bin Laden and the Taliban of their most potent weapon -- the ability to generate outrage in the Muslim world. If we are not bombing cities, if we are actively seeking peace between Palestine and Israel, if we are lobbing tons of food and supplies at Afghan civilians, nothing bin Laden can say or do will be able to deflect the obvious fact that America is not being belligerent to yet another Muslim country. His ranting will make him and his friends more and more isolated, and a well-fed Afghan populace with the Northern Alliance hot on their heels will make some good changes.

There are problems which require cures on the home front, as well:

1. Restore congressional oversight to its full constitutional stature. Bush has sworn to limit the flow of data to Congress. This must not stand. Harry Truman investigated America's conduct of World War II and a senator and Congress investigated several facets of the Vietnam War. Both actions helped America in its actions. We cannot lose this essential aspect of our government in the rush to battle.

2. The Republican Party must immediately cease its attempts to pass partisan legislation under the guise of military necessity. The war will not be helped by tax cuts, nor will it be helped by drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, nor will it be helped by a ceaseless barrage of denunciations aimed at President Clinton. If this does not cease, our much ballyhooed unity will fall to dust, and rightly so.

3. Immediately begin congressional investigations into the spectacular failures by the FBI, CIA, NSA and the security sections of the national airlines that allowed this travesty to take place with nary a word of warning.

4. A complete analysis of our international policies over the last 50 years must be immediately undertaken. We must determine where our own actions have helped bring this old war to our shores. From our toppling of the Iranian government, to Palestine, to Lebanon, to the sanctions on Iraq, our policies have left many large and damaging footprints. Before we can get to how we will win, we must first undertake to fully understand why it all happened. Simply being amazed at the hatred of our enemies is not enough and does scant justice to the American lives that have been lost.

There is one last truth we all have to face when considering this war:

Absolutely, positively nothing we can say or do will completely end the threat of terrorism in this country.

Nothing.

It's here, friends. For 225 years we were protected by those two oceans and then we added 2,000 nuclear missiles. Those days are gone. We were protected and isolated from our policies, our wars, our mistakes and our evils. Not anymore.

We did not deserve the attack we have absorbed, but neither did those whom we have attacked, or helped others to attack. Nobody deserves it, but it has done by us and in our name for generations. The Bible says that he who troubles his own house shall inherit the wind. We have troubled this house for a long time, and that wind has begun to blow hard and strong.

Sept. 11 was merely an upping of an ante that has been bid upon for years. Super-terrorism did not come from nowhere. It is a step on the ladder to hell, a ladder we did much to place.

Finally, the time has come to ask the really hard question:

If we cannot stop terror without becoming a barricaded, isolated, totalitarian state -- a dark choice that is the only sure cure -- then what is left?

More bombs far away? More civilian death? More feeding of the cycle that will surely bring more of the same to our shores and theirs?

Or a long, slow, tortured path towards some kind of redemption?

There is no way to win this old war if we fight it the way we have been for the past several days. The only way to guarantee victory is to transform the conflict into a genuine New War, one that looks inward as well as outward.

If we can come up with solutions that do not involve the bombing of civilians and the creation of new terrorists, we will win. If we can bring the criminals who attacked us to justice without such tactics, we will win. If we can foster genuine peace in that tortured region, we will win. If we can come to understand the desperation and rage that is aimed at us and change that reality, we will win. If we can maintain democracy in our own country, we will win.

I'd like to think we can win this new war. To do so, we must discard the old one, and the old ways in which we fight it.

--------

A Rational Alternative to Thoughtless Bombing

AlterNet
Ted Rall, AlterNet
October 17, 2001
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11741

Beware collateral damage, for today's hey-nothing-personal victims give rise to tomorrow's terrorists. As this goes to press, a bestiary of bombs -- a few 500-pounders here, some "bunker busters" there -- is falling into Afghan cities. Bombing, despite laughable assertions to the contrary, is anything but a precision art. Bombs go off-course. Bombs hit things that themselves blow up and kill people who weren't supposed to die. Civilians hang out where they shouldn't. And information about bombing targets is often plain wrong or out-of-date.

The bottom line is this: Ordinary Afghan people, men and women and children who have never done anything wrong to anyone, are getting mangled and killed by American bombs. The innocents have spouses, parents and friends, and these spouses, parents and friends quite naturally hate those who mangled and killed their loved ones. That hate festers, and some eventually come to be persuaded that vengeance will soothe their pain. And one day they'll fly planes into office buildings or blow themselves up in shopping malls or do something as yet unimaginable.

Needless to say, getting even doesn't do much good if our vengeance only creates more terrorism.

And yet: the right-wingers are absolutely correct when they assert that doing nothing is not a viable option. Whether we had September 11th coming or not, giving peace a chance is a supreme act of self-denial: there is no peace. Whether the victims cry for vengeance or not is moot: no nation is worthy of the name unless it's willing to react to the murder of its citizens with force. Bush is, like it or not, doing something. People respect that, even if that something later turns out to be counterproductive.

There is, however, an intelligent middle ground between the commonly-considered binary of mindless bombing versus mindless pacifism. Neither liberal nor conservative, a thoughtful solution can be found by applying what we Americans do best: simple common sense.

The Objectives

The "war on terrorism" is, like previous wars on drugs and poverty, too vague and nebulous to win. Our first priority ought to be to bring the remaining perpetrators of the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center to justice; if they end up dead in the attempt, so be it.

Second, while we'll never eradicate terrorist attacks on American soil we can minimize their number and their intensity when they do occur. This requires a delicate combination of force and tact: We must be kind as well as forceful.

What To Do

Afghanistan's Taliban regime is at best indirectly involved with the September 11th hijackings. (The Bush Administration admits that it couldn't indict Osama or the Taliban on the evidence it currently possesses.) Follow the passports: 18 out of the 19 hijackers were Egyptian; 1 was Saudi. The smart money points to one of the Middle East's most venerable militant Muslim organizations, Gama'at al-Islamiyya, or the Islamic Group. Founded by Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, currently serving a life sentence for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Gama'at al-Islamiyya is best known for the November 1997 massacre of 62 tourists at the Temple of Luxor in Egypt and the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981. Though the Islamic Group is composed of numerous splinter cells whose ideology varies, they share a common aim: the replacement of the secular government of Hosni Mubarek by an Islamic theocracy. The Islamic Group resents the U.S. for propping up the Mubarak government as well as Israel.

Egyptians are, according to most reports, the main suspects for September 11th. So why are we attacking Afghanistan? American intelligence should work with the Egyptian government to track down any members of Gama'at al-Islamiyya who had anything to do with the New York and Washington attacks and put them on trial for mass murder. Arresting murderers ought to take precedence over bombing the places where they trained.

A targeted approach would demonstrate to all but the most fanatic elements in the Arab world that the United States is a nation whose retribution takes place in a measured, just manner. It would also serve to destroy the one network to have drawn the most American blood -- and reduce the odds of a repeat performance.

Though we should continue providing economic and military assistance to Israel, that aid ought to be predicated on several conditions. First, all Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories ought to be closed. Second, Israel should guarantee an end to its more egregious human rights abuses, such as the demolition of Arab homes and rocket attacks on civilian targets. Finally, internal border blockades of Gaza and the West Bank should be permanently halted. This bilateral policy -- supporting Israel while refusing to tolerate religious apartheid -- would show that we stand behind our friends but only to the extent that they behave in a civilized fashion. Best of all, it would end an absurd state of affairs in which a superpower is repeatedly manipulated by a resource-free desert nation the size of New Jersey.

We should drop sanctions and military action against such nations as Iraq and Afghanistan in exchange for verifiable assurances that neither nation will harbor terrorists who target the United States. Then we should pour in humanitarian assistance to show ordinary Muslims that Americans care about their plight. Let a co-opted postwar Taliban root out Al Qaeda and other groups in their territory; it's a hell of a lot easier to let the locals do our dirty work than to send in American ground troops.

But first, let's stop this stupid bombing.

Ted Rall, a syndicated cartoonist for Universal Press Syndicate, is the author of the new books 2024 and Search and Destroy.


-------- activists

Anti-Globalization, Pro-Peace?

Mother Jones
by Emily Huber and Jamie McCallum
October 17, 2001
http://www.motherjones.com/web_exclusives/features/news/peace.html

The question of whether to support or oppose the US-led bombing of Afghanistan is fracturing the anti-globalization movement. With Americans overwhelmingly in favor of military action, could protesting for peace cost the coalition its hard-won momentum?

For nearly two years after its raucous coming-out party at the World Trade Organization summit in Seattle, the anti-globalization movement gathered astonishing momentum, forging alliances among widely disparate groups and bringing tens of thousands of people into the streets of cities around the world. But for this young movement, as for seemingly everything else in American society, the Sept. 11 terror attacks could change everything.

Faced with a dramatically altered political landscape, in which the plight of Asian sea turtles seems trivial and dissent itself can appear unpatriotic, groups making up the anti-globalization coalition are pursuing markedly different agendas.

Some of the coalition's members have hastily diverted their energies to protesting the US attacks on Afghanistan, but at least one vital player in the movement -- organized labor -- has thrown its support forcefully behind the Bush administration.

"We stand fully behind the President and the leadership of our nation in this time of national crisis," said AFL-CIO president John Sweeney in a statement the day after the attacks. Other coalition members, particularly environmental groups such as Rainforest Action Network, are for now quietly opting out of the debate while continuing with their usual campaigns.

The results of this abrupt divergence have already been seen. Anti-globalization groups had hoped to draw as many as 100,000 people to Washington, D.C. in late September to protest the annual International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings. Those plans were scrapped in the wake of the terror attacks, but a handful of coalition members subsequently pushed to convert the event into an anti-war march. The change in focus prompted several key sponsors, among them the AFL-CIO, to withdraw their support. In the end, fewer than 10,000 people turned out.

What remains unclear is whether vigorous opposition to the attacks on Afghanistan by some coalition members will cause others -- most importantly organized labor -- to permanently sever ties.

Lane Windham, spokesperson for the AFL-CIO, says it's too early for such speculation.

"We really don't know what our plans for the anti-globalization movement are right now," Windham says.

Some activists suggest the movement's apparent retreat from the streets may be only temporary, an acknowledgement that now is simply not the time to be agitating.

"I don't think people will be as receptive to what we're saying since the attacks," says John Sellers, executive director of the Ruckus Society, which trains activists in nonviolent protest tactics. "People are raw right now. We're going to have to realize that and change the way we operate as well."

With polls showing upwards of 90 percent of the public supporting military action, the prospects for widespread opposition to the war certainly appear remote. The peace movement "does not seem to have the energy or the broad-based support that anti-globalization had," says William Fisher, director of Clark University's Program for International Development.

While there have been dozens of peace demonstrations across the country, participants are routinely assailed by counter-demonstrators. More ominously, the American Friends Service Committee reported receiving bomb threats after launching an anti-war campaign. Still, some activists say now is not the time to sit idle.

"Innocent people always die in war. Always. We can't accept lost lives as collateral damage," says Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Global Exchange, a leading anti-globalization group that has organized several anti-war demonstrations.

Given the current national mood, there is clearly a possibility that any groups seen spearheading a push for peace could lose public support in general. Should that happen, some activists fear that the loss of goodwill may, in turn, encourage organized labor to distance itself further from those groups when the focus again turns to fighting globalization.

"Big labor would rather risk alienating activists than the rest of America," says Carl Beers, of the Association for Union Democracy, a group that mediates between union members and leadership. Still, labor leaders have said they remain committed to the agenda pursued by the anti-globalization coalition. Just days after the attacks, AFL-CIO president John Sweeney declared that his organization will "remain steadfast in our conviction that the policies of the World Bank and the IMF must change if they are to foster a fair and just global economy that works for working families everywhere."

Indeed, activists and unions have proved willing to overlook their differences in the past. The AFL-CIO's support of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, for example, infuriated environmentalists, but both contingents remained in the alliance protesting the IMF/World Bank meeting. Even with American bombs falling on Afghanistan, labor is working to drum up opposition to a bill that would give the president "fast-track" authority to approve trade bills -- a bill most anti-globalization groups also oppose.

"We act in the interests of our members," says Marco Trbovich, assistant to the international president of the United Steelworkers of America. "It's in our interest to continue protesting free trade policies and globalization, and to cooperate with other groups doing the same."

What do you think?

Emily Huber and Jamie McCallum are editorial fellows at MotherJones.com.

----

Ashcroft Urges Caution With FOIA Requests

Associated Press
Wednesday, October 17, 2001; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5308-2001Oct16.html

Obtaining government records might become more difficult under a Bush administration policy change made a month after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft directed agency leaders to be cautious in releasing records to journalists and others. He said agencies must "carefully consider" issues such as threats to national security and the effectiveness of law enforcement.

Ashcroft also said agencies that legitimately turn down requests made under the Freedom of Information Act will have the backing of the Justice Department.

"Any discretionary decision by your agency to disclose information protected under the FOIA should be made only after full and deliberate consideration of the institutional, commercial, and personal privacy interests" that could be implicated, Ashcroft said in a memo dated Oct. 12 and released yesterday.

The FOIA allows reporters and others to get unclassified government records that officials otherwise would not release. Journalists have used the law to reveal government wrongdoing and abuses.

Caesar Andrews, editor of Gannett News Service and president of the Associated Press Managing Editors, said public access should not be weakened.

"We certainly understand that during these very volatile and sensitive times there will be information that needs to be kept classified. At the same time, given the same volatile environment, there is a tremendous need for the public to have access to certain information. I'd bemoan any holding back," he said.

Ashcroft said the Bush administration is committed to complying with the FOIA so Americans "can be assured neither fraud nor government waste is concealed."

He said that must be balanced with other issues, including national security and the protection of business information.

The attorney general told agency leaders to consult with Justice Department lawyers about significant requests for information.

----

Berkeley narrowly passes anti-war measure

Oct. 17
by Hil Anderson, Fremont, Calif.)
UPI
http://www.unitedstates.com/news/article//610338

BERKELEY, Calif., The left-wing bastion of Berkeley, Calif., narrowly voted Tuesday night to condemn U.S. military action in Afghanistan and not before the addition of an amendment denouncing the terrorist "mass murder" of thousands of Americans on Sept. 11.

The resolution, which passed on a 5-4 vote, was believed to be the first official statement by a U.S. city critical of the U.S. military response to the destruction of the World Trade Center and the damage to the Pentagon.

Although public opinion polls show the American public in favor of the military response by an unprecedented margin, former city council member Ying Lee Kelley urged the panel to "continue to honor Berkeley's tradition of opposition to brute force to solve profoundly difficult social problems."

Berkeley, home of the University of California at Berkeley campus, was the birthplace of the free speech movement in the 1960s with Mario Salvo and has been a hotbed of peace protests since the Vietnam War.

The San Francisco Chronicle said a recent poll of Berkeley students showed 65 percent were opposed to the U.S.-led bombing of Afghanistan.

While the Chronicle Wednesday described the council's makeup as split between leftist and centrists, there were a number of residents at Tuesday's meeting urging the resolution be defeated.

"War does solve something," said Kelso Barnett, the head of a conservative student group at the university. "Ask the people of Europe who were liberated after World War II."

The council passed the measure, however not before changing the wording to call for the bombing to end "as quickly as possible" rather than immediately.

At an Afghan restaurant in the "Little Kabul" district of nearby Fremont, home to the largest U.S. population of Afghan people, a couple who appeared to be in their 70s and had attended Berkeley, told United Press International that they had organized a group of 10-20 -- similar to the much larger group of 300 or so anti-war types in nearby Palo Alto -- that hold daily protests against the bombings and were gaining support from passersby.

"We get a lot of car horns honking and only an occasional call of 'traitor,'" said the woman, who declined to give her name, noting that the reception was encouraging given Fremont's overall conservative attitudes. "Smart bombs are not smart," she said, echoing the sentiment on the sign she holds up for Fremont traffic.

----

Council Calls for U.S. to End Military Action in Afghanistan
Resolution Also Denounces Sept. 11 Attacks

Daily Californian
By NATE TABAK
Daily Cal Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 17, 2001
http://www.dailycal.com/article.asp?id=6699

The Berkeley City Council called for an immediate end to U.S. bombing in Afghanistan and condemned the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in a series of divisive votes at a meeting Tuesday.

The resolution opposing U.S. military action, approved Tuesday with lone support from the council's five progressives, was first introduced a week ago and put Berkeley again under the national spotlight.

"It was a glib, thoughtless, knee-jerk response that has just ripped our city apart and caused tremendous pain when it wasn't necessary," said Councilmember Polly Armstrong, a centrist moderate.

The idea of a resolution opposing military action had been brewing among progressives for more than three weeks.

The resolution, drafted by left-leaning progressive Councilmember Dona Spring and supported by her four progressive counterparts, urged President Bush and congressional representatives to "help break the cycle of violence as quickly as possible" by stopping the bombing and the endangerment of the innocent people in Afghanistan.

Instead, the terrorists should be brought to justice in a world court, Spring said. But as Mayor Shirley Dean was quick to point out, it could be difficult to deliver a subpoena to the Taliban and Osama bin Laden.

Dean said it would be nearly impossible to bring the terrorists to court and insisted that "you have to take a strong action against the terrorists."

Dean said that since the resolution was first made public last week, her office has received thousands of e-mails from across the country lambasting the council. Some of the letters, which include death threats, left her staff in tears, she said.

Comments made by Spring last week, in which she called the United States a terrorist-remarks she now disputes having made-thrust Berkeley into the center of attention again. It was the third time in as many months that city blunders have embarrassed Berkeley before a national and international audience, Dean said.

In August a meeting at City Hall with visiting Japanese boy and girl scouts had to be relocated because of the Boy Scouts of America's policy toward gays, a move that brought national ridicule. Likewise, a decision last month to remove flags from the city's fire trucks put the city on the defensive.

Tensions were high at the meeting, attended by more than 100 city residents, some waving flags in support of military action and others displaying signs calling for an end to the war.

Spring, who revised her original proposal after being "disavowed" by Dean and her three moderate allies in a biting statement released last week, criticized the lack of moderate support for the revised resolution, which she said was "seeking to be conciliatory" to the moderates.

"The item has been revised to be more sensitive to some of the input that was gotten from the public," Spring said.

Moderates on the council said they did not want to take a stand on the airstrikes in Afghanistan because the city's residents had many opinions on the attacks and had no clear consensus.

Amid heckling and applause from the crowd, Armstrong ridiculed the resolution as another embarrassment to Berkeley.

"When our country has been wounded, we seem to just flail away in the public eye, trying to draw attention to ourselves, and we come off as fatuous and embarrassing," she said. "We come off sounding like a bunch of nuts."

But Councilmember Kriss Worthington urged the council to be "equally as brave" as Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, who was the lone voice of opposition to the "War Powers Resolution" passed shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. Worthington said it is "critical" that Berkeley question the government while many Americans are afraid to ask questions.

He said Berkeley could again make history by condemning the Sept. 11 attacks, a move he said had not been made by any other council. A competing resolution from Armstrong to commend President Bush for his response to the Sept. 11 attacks, including his patience in forging an alliance with 60 countries, was voted down by the council.

Those who attended the meeting were similarly split in their opinions of the military action.

In response to those who said the bombing was justified to overthrow the repressive Taliban, known for its poor treatment of women, Snehal Shingavi, a UC Berkeley student and member of the audience, questioned "when has a bomb ever helped a woman?"

Kelso Barnett, who sat on the opposite side of the room, said, however, that military action is justified because war was declared against the United States on Sept. 11. He said no distinction should be made between the terrorists and countries that harbor them.
----

Public meeting Nuclear workers programs

Wednesday, October 17, 2001
DOE NEWS
From: "vcolley" <vcolley@earthlink.net>

Department of Energy To Hold Second Public Hearing to Receive Comments on Program to Assist Nuclear Workers

WASHINGTON D.C. The Department of Energy (DOE) will hold a second public hearing on proposed procedures to help workers under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000. The meeting will be held at 4:00 p.m. on October 25, 2001, at the Radisson Hotel Cincinnati Airport ( adjacent to the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport in Hebron, Kentucky). DOE held a previous public hearing in Washington, D.C. on October 10, 2001.

The purpose of the meeting is to obtain input from the public on how to structure a program at the Department of Energy for workers who have illnesses not covered by the federal Department of Labor (DOL) program under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Act. Eligibility under the DOL program is limited to workers with certain cancers and lung diseases.

For workers with other illnesses, the legislation directs the Department of Energy to help workers apply for state workers' compensation benefits. Worker medical records will be reviewed by an independent panel of physicians. If the physician's panel finds the worker's illness meet criteria based on employment at an Energy Department facility, DOE must assist the applicant in filing the claim. In addition, DOE may, to the extent permitted by law, directs contractor not to contest the claim.

Those wishing to speak should contact Ms. Judy Keating at 202/586-7551 and fax a copy of their statement to her at 202/586-6010 in advance of the meeting. Speakers are also encouraged to bring copies of their statements to distribute to the media and the public. Speakers who have not reregistered will be allowed to speak once all registered speakers are heard.

Written comments can be addressed to Ms. Loretta Young, office of Advocacy, EH-8,U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, DC 20585, "PHYSICIAN RULE COMMENTS." The deadline for receiving written comments is November 10,2001

The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and additional information on the program can be found on the DOE Office of Advocacy website at http://www.eh.doe.gov/advocacy.

-------

Susan Sontag, "The Traitor," Fires Back

AlterNet
David Talbot, Salon http://www.salon.com
October 17, 2001
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11742

Writer Susan Sontag has produced many texts during her four-decade career, including historical novels and reflections on cancer, photography and the war in Bosnia. But it was a brief essay, less than 1,000 words long, in the Sept. 24 issue of the New Yorker that created the biggest uproar of her life.

In the piece, which she wrote shortly after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, Sontag dissected the political and media blather that poured out of the television in the hours after the explosions of violence. After subjecting herself to what she calls "an overdose of CNN," Sontag reacted with a coldly furious burst of analysis, savaging political leaders and media mandarins for trying to convince the country that everything was OK, that our attackers were simply cowards, and that our childlike view of the world need not be disturbed.

As if to prove her point, a furious chorus of sharp-tongued pundits immediately descended on Sontag, outraged that she had broken from the ranks of the soothingly platitudinous. She was called an "America-hater," a "moral idiot," a "traitor" who deserved to be driven into "the wilderness," never more to be heard. The bellicose right predictably tried to lump her in with the usual left-wing peace crusaders, whose programmed pacifism has sidelined them during the current political debates.

But this tarbrush doesn't stick. As a thinker, Sontag is rigorously, sometimes abrasively, independent. She has offended the left as often as the right (political terms, she points out, that have become increasingly useless), alienating some ideologues when she attacked communism as "fascism with a human face" during the uprising of the Polish shipyard workers in the 1980s and again during the U.S. bombing campaign against the Serbian dictatorship, which she strongly supported.

Sontag, 68, remains characteristically unrepentant in the face of the recent attacks. On Monday, she talked with us by phone from her home in Manhattan, reflecting on the controversy, the Bush war effort and the media's surrender to what she views as a national conformity campaign.

Did the storm of reaction to your brief essay in the New Yorker take you by surprise?

Absolutely. I mean, I am aware of what a radical point of view is; very occasionally I have espoused one. But I did not think for a moment my essay was radical or even particularly dissenting. It seemed very common sense. I have been amazed by the ferocity of how I've been attacked, and it goes on and on. One article in the New Republic, a magazine for which I have written, began: "What do Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Susan Sontag have in common?" I have to say my jaw dropped. Apparently we are all in favor of the dismantling of America. There's a kind of rhetorical overkill aimed at me that is astonishing. There has been a demonization which is ludicrous.

What has been constructed is this sort of grotesque trinity comprised of myself, Bill Maher and Noam Chomsky. In the Saturday New York Times, Frank Rich tried in his way to defend us by arguing for our complete lack of importance, by saying that any substitute weather forecaster on TV has more influence than any of us. Well, it's not true of course. Excuse me, but Noam Chomsky is quite a bit more than a distinguished linguist. Our critics are up in arms against us because we do have a degree of influence. But our own "defenders" are reduced to saying, "Well, leave the poor things alone, they're quite obscure anyway. "

Look, I have nothing in common with Bill Maher, whom I had never heard of before. And I don't agree with Noam Chomsky, whom I am very familiar with. My position is decidedly not the Chomsky position

How do you differ from Chomsky?

First of all, I'll take the American empire any day over the empire of what my pal Chris Hitchens calls "Islamic fascism." I'm not against fighting this enemy -- it is an enemy and I'm not a pacifist.

I think what happened on Sept. 11 was an appalling crime, and I'm astonished that I even have to say that, to reassure people that I feel that way. But I do feel that the Gulf War revisited is not the way to fight this enemy.

There was a very confident, orotund piece by Stanley Hoffman in the New York Review of Books -- he's a very senior wise man in the George Kennan mold, certainly no radical. And I felt I could agree with every word he was saying. He was saying bombing Afghanistan is not the solution. We have to understand what's going on in the Middle East, we have to rethink what's going on, our foreign policy. In fact, since Sept. 11, we're already seeing the most radical realignment of policies.

Bill Maher has abjectly apologized for his remarks --but you don't seem to be getting any more docile in the fact of this storm of criticism. Why not?

Well, I'm not an institution, and I don't have a job to lose. I just get lots of very nasty letters and read lots of very nasty things in the press.

What do the letters say?

That I'm a traitor. The New York Post, or so I've been told, has called for me to be drawn and quartered. And then there was this Ted Koppel show -- the producer invited me onto the show a week ago. It's not my thing, but I did it. And they got someone from the Heritage Foundation [Todd Gaziano], who practically foamed at the mouth, and said at one point, "Susan Sontag should not be permitted to speak in honorable intellectual circles ever again." And then Koppel said, "Whoa, you really mean she shouldn't be allowed to speak?" And he said, well maybe not silenced, but disgraced and "properly discounted for her crazy views."

So there's a serious attempt to stifle debate. But, of course, God bless the Net. I keep getting more articles of various dissenting opinions e-mailed to me; naturally, some of them are crazy and some I don't agree with at all. But you can't shut everyone up. The big media have been very intimidated, but not the Web.

I don't want to get defensive, but of course I am a little defensive because I'm still so stunned by the way my remarks were viewed. What I published in the New Yorker was written literally 48 hours after the Sept. 11 attacks. I was in Berlin at the time, and I was watching CNN for 48 hours straight. You might say that I had overdosed on CNN. And what I wrote was a howl of dismay at all the nonsense that I was hearing. That people were in a state of great pain and bewilderment and fear I certainly understood. But I thought, "Uh-oh, here comes a sort of revival of Cold War rhetoric and something utterly sanctimonious that is going to make it very hard for us to figure out how best to deal with this." And I have to say that my fears have been borne out.

What do you think of the Bush administration's efforts to control the media, in particular its requests that the TV networks not show bin Laden and al-Qaida's video statements?

Excuse me, but does anyone over the age of 6 really think that the way Osama bin Laden has to communicate with his agents abroad is by posing in that Flintstone set of his and pulling on his left earlobe instead of his right to send secret signals? Now, I don't believe that Condoleezza Rice and the rest of the administration really think that. At least I hope to hell they don't. I assume they have another reason for trying to stop the TV networks from showing bin Laden's videotapes, which is they just don't want people to see his message, whatever it is. They think, Why should we give him free publicity? Something very primitive like that. Which is ridiculous, because of course anyone online can see these tapes for themselves. Although I see the BBC, our British cousins who are of course ever servile, are discussing whether to broadcast the tapes. We can always count on the Brits to fall in line.

Why has the media been so willing to go along with the White House's censorship efforts?

Well, when people like me are being lambasted and excoriated for saying very mild things, no wonder the media is cowed. Here's something no one has commented on that I continue to puzzle over: Who decided that no gruesome pictures of the World Trade Center site were to be published anywhere? Now I don't think there was single directive coming from anywhere. But I think there was an extraordinary consensus, a kind of self-censorship by media executives who concluded these images would be too demoralizing for the country. I think it's rather interesting that could happen. There apparently has been only one exception: one day the New York Daily News showed a severed hand. But the photo appeared in only one edition and it was immediately pulled. I think that degree of unanimity within the media is pretty extraordinary.

What is your position on the war against terrorism? How should the U.S. fight back?

My position is that I don't like throwing biscuits and peanut butter and jam and napkins, little snack packages produced in a small city in Texas, to Afghani citizens, so we can say, "Look, we're doing something humanitarian." These wretched packages of food that are grotesquely inadequate -- there's apparently enough food for a half day's rations. And then the people run out to get them, into these minefields. Afghanistan has more land mines per capita than any country in the world. I don't like the way that humanitarianism is once again being used in this unholy way as a pretext for war.

As woman, of course, I've always been appalled by the Taliban regime and would dearly like to see them toppled. I was a public critic of the regime long before the war started. But I've been told that the Northern Alliance is absolutely no better when it comes to the issue of women. The crimes against women in Afghanistan are just unthinkable; there's never been anything like it in the history of the world. So of course I would love to see that government overthrown and something less appalling put in its place.

Do I think bombing is the way to do it? Of course I don't. It's not for me to speculate on this, but there are all sorts of realpolitik outcomes that one can imagine. Afghanistan in the end could become a sort of dependency of Pakistan, which of course wouldn't please India and China. They'd probably like a little country to annex themselves. So how in the world you're going to dethrone the Taliban without causing further trouble in that part of the world is a very complicated question. And I'm sure bright and hard-nosed people in Washington are genuinely puzzled about how to do it.

Do you really think it could be done without bombing?

Absolutely. But it's a complicated and long process -- and the United States is not very experienced in these matters. The point is, as I said in my New Yorker piece, there's a great disconnect between reality and what people in government and the media are saying of the reality. I have no doubt that there are real debates among military and political leaders going on both here and elsewhere. But what is being peddled to the public is a fairy tale. And the atmosphere of intimidation is quite extraordinary.

And I think our protectors have been incredibly inept. In any other country the top officials of the FBI would have resigned or been fired by now. I mean, [key hijacking suspect] Mohammad Atta was on the FBI surveillance list, but this was never communicated to the airlines.

The authorities are now responding to the anthrax scare -- to what I think are 99 percent certain to be just domestic copycat crazies on their own war path -- by spreading more fear. We have Vice President Cheney saying, "Well, these people could be part of the same terrorist network that produced Sept. 11." Well, excuse me, but we have no reason to think that.

As a result of these alarming statements from authorities, the public is terrified. I live in New York and the streets were empty after the FBI announced that another terrorist attack was imminent. You have these idiots in the FBI saying they have "credible evidence" -- I love that phrase -- that an attack this weekend is "possible." Which means absolutely nothing. I mean it's possible there's a pink elephant in my living room right now, as I'm talking to you from my kitchen. I haven't checked recently, but it's not very likely.

And meanwhile our ridiculous president is telling us to shop and go to the theater and lead normal lives. Normal? I could go 50 blocks, from one end of Manhattan to another, in five minutes because there was no one in the streets, no one in the restaurants, nobody in cars. You can't scare people and tell them to behave normally.

We also seem to be getting contradictory messages about Muslims in the U.S. We're told that not all Islamic people are our enemy, but at the same time there's a fairly wide dragnet, which some civil liberties defenders have criticized as indiscriminate, aimed at rounding up Islamic suspects.

Well, people are very scared and Americans are not used to being scared. There's an American exceptionalism; we're supposed to be exempt from the calamities and terrors and anxieties that beset other countries. But now people here are scared and it's interesting how fast they are moving in another direction. The feeling is, and I've heard this from people, about Islamic taxi drivers and shopkeepers and other people -- we really ought to deport all the Muslims. Sure they're not all terrorists and some of it will be unfair, but after all we have to protect ourselves. Racial and ethnic profiling is now seen as common sense itself. I mean how could you not want that if you're going to take an airplane and you don't want a fellow in a turban and a beard to sit next to you?

What I live in fear of is there will be another terror attack -- not a sick joke like the powder in the envelope, but something real that takes more lives, that has the stamp of something more professional and thought out. It could be another symbolically targeted building -- maybe not in New York this time, but in Chicago or some other heartland city that scares the rest of the country. And then you could get something like martial law here. Many Americans, who as I say are so used to not being afraid, would willingly accede to great abridgements of freedom. Because they're afraid.

You called the president "robotic" in your New Yorker essay. But the New York Times, among other media observers, has editorialized that Bush has shown a new "gravitas" since Sept. 11. Do you think the president has grown more commanding since the terror attacks?

I saw that in the Times -- I love that, gravitas. Has Bush grown into his role of president? No, I think he's acquired legitimacy since Sept. 11, that's all -- I don't call that "growing" at all. I think what we obviously have in Washington is some kind of regency, run presumably by Cheney and Rumsfeld and maybe Powell, although Powell is much more of an organization man than a real leader. It's all very veiled. And Cheney has not been much seen lately -- is this because he is ill? It's all very mysterious. I hate to see everything become so opaque.

It seems important to the Times and other major media to shore up the president's image these days.

Yes, I just don't understand why debate equals dissent, and dissent equals lack of patriotism now. I mean, look, I cry every morning real tears, I mean down the cheek tears, when I read those small obituaries that the New York Times publishes of the people who died in the World Trade Center. I read them faithfully, every last one of them, and I cry. I live near a firehouse that lost a lot of men, and I've brought them things. And I'm genuinely and profoundly, exactly like everyone else, really moved, really wounded, and really in mourning. I didn't know anyone personally who died. But my son [journalist David Rieff] had a former classmate who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald who died. A number of people I know lost friends or loved ones.

I want to make one thing very clear, because I've been accused of this by some critics. I do not feel that the Sept. 11 attacks were the pursuit of legitimate grievances by illegitimate means. I think that's the position of some people, but not me. It may even be the position of Chomsky, although it's not for me to say. But it's certainly not my position.

Speaking of your son, he seems to favor a tougher military response to Islamic terrorism than you do.

Well, I don't want to go deeply into it, but clearly we don't see it exactly the same way. Whatever David thinks is tremendously important to me, but we do start from a different point of view. I feel that it's just a difference of emphasis, but without speaking for him, he feels it's deeper than that. But he's still the love of my life, so I won't criticize him.

This is one thing I do completely agree with David on: If tomorrow Israel announced a unilateral withdrawal of its forces from the West Bank and the Gaza strip -- which I am absolutely in favor of --- followed by the proclamation of a Palestinian state, I don't believe it would make a dent in the forces that are supporting bin Laden's al-Qaida. I think Israel is a pretext for these people.

I do believe in the unilateral withdrawal of Israel from the Palestinian territories, which is of course the radical view held by a minority of Israeli citizens, but certainly not by the Sharon government. And it's a view I expressed when I received the Jerusalem Prize there in May, which created quite a storm. But just because I am a critic of Israeli policy -- and in particular the occupation, simply because it is untenable, it creates a border that cannot be defended -- that does not mean I believe the U.S. has brought this terrorism on itself because it supports Israel. I believe bin Laden and his supporters are using this as a pretext. If we were to change our support for Israel overnight, we would not stop these attacks.

I don't think this is what it's really about. I think it truly is a jihad, I think there is such a thing. There are many levels to Islamic rage. But what we're dealing with here is a view of the U.S. as a secular, sinful society that must be humbled, and this has nothing to do with any particular aspect of American policy. So I don't think we have brought this upon ourselves, which is of course a view that has been attributed to me.

Let me ask you about another part of your essay that has riled your critics. You said the hijackers displayed more courage than those, presumably in the U.S. military, who bomb their enemies from a safe distance.

No, I did not use the word "courage" -- I did use my words carefully. I said they were not to be called cowards. I believe that courage is morally neutral. I can well imagine wicked people being brave and good people being timid or afraid. I don't consider it a moral virtue.

My feeling about this type of safe bombing goes back to the U.S. air campaign against the Serbs in Kosovo, which I strongly supported, though I was criticized by many of my friends on the left for being too bellicose. I did support the bombing of the Serb forces, because I had been in Sarajevo for three years during the siege and I wanted the Serbs checked and rebuked. I wanted them out of Kosovo as I had wanted them out of Bosnia.

When the U.S. campaign in Kosovo began, I happened to be staying with a close friend in a town on the tip of Italy, the boot, about 40 miles across from Albania, and the Apache helicopters were literally passing over my head. They landed at the Tirana air base in Italy, but they never took off for Kosovo because it was calculated that they might be shot down and the crew killed. And the U.S. was unwilling to accept these casualties.

But in order to bomb precisely, without hitting hospitals and other civilian targets, you have to fly low to the ground with aircraft like these. And you have to risk being brought down by antiaircraft fire. So I was dismayed by the loss of civilian life in that U.S. bombing campaign, which I had hoped would be very precise.

And so thinking about this, as I was writing my essay for the New Yorker, I became very angry. And I wrote, if you're going to use the word "cowardly," let's talk about the people who bomb from so high up that they're out of the range of any retaliation and therefore cause more civilian casualties than they otherwise would, in what is supposedly a limited military bombing.

What about those in the antiwar camp who see a moral equivalence between the destruction of the World Trade Center and the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan?

Well, I don't share that view. I'm not a pacifist, but I am against bombing. And I do think that if you want to conduct a military operation, you have to be willing to take casualties. There are not, strictly speaking, very many military targets in Afghanistan. We're talking about one of the poorest countries in the world. What they can do is bomb the soldiers, the camps where the Taliban soldiers are based. And you can imagine who they are, it's a lot of kids. We can drop a lot of napalm, and uranium-tipped bombs, and kill many thousands of people. We haven't been doing a lot of that yet. That's next. And then we'll get these other awful people to come in, this Northern Alliance, and it will be horrible.

David Talbot is the founder and editor in chief of Salon, where this article originally appeared.



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