------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
The Ultimate Hatred Is Nuclear
Edward Radford, 79, Scholar of the Risks From Radiation
Pacific rim leaders seize new excuse for cooperation
Canada orders tighter security at nuclear plants
Army's uranium worries Hoosiers
Comments on Senate Bill 472
Nuclear industry hit by terrorism fallout
Czech N-plant output at high as Austrians protest
Thousands join anti-nuclear protests in France
German min wants early phase-out of old nuclear stations
Bush and Putin on brink of missiles deal
Bush and Putin Edge Closer to Missile Deal
Minatom forgets to inform President about spent fuel import
TWO NUCLEAR PLANTS INCREASE POWER OUTPUT
The amazing colossal concrete containment
Are Nuclear Plants Safe From Attack?
NUCLEAR COMMISSION PUTS TRIMMED WEBSITE UP
New UCS fact sheet on spent fuel security

MILITARY
Anti-Terrorism War Could Last Years - UK Military.
At Afghan Border, Many Want Out As Some Slip In
Building a nation in Afghanistan
Soldiers of the Northern Alliance Prepare for a Ground Battle
Anthrax trace found in US House mailroom
Argentina tests confirm letter laced with anthrax
Bioterrorism Preparations Lacking at Lowest Levels
Dozens Dead in Attacks By Groups in Colombia
Rebels double opium output
Israeli tanks advance in West Bank
Palestinian Authority Outlaws Military Wing of Radical Faction
U.S. Demands Israeli Withdrawal
Pakistanis Fear Wider Clash
Pakistan Threatens to Teach India Lesson
Russian veterans say U.S. campaign could be quagmire
MILITARY FRAUD DEPT.
U.S. intensifies strikes against Taliban posts
'Bullets will fly' to take bin Laden
U.S. Jets Strike Taliban Front Line

OTHER
Attacks make energy bill key - US energy chief
Sludge dumps put Corps on the carpet
Green army on US carrier guards the environment
Modified bananas could deliver anthrax vaccine
Mazar-e Sharif Seen Pivotal in Getting Aid to Millions
"Citizen, Can I See Your ID."
ACLU DISAPPOINTED WITH ANTI-TERRORISM LEGISLATION
Lawmakers Seek Inquiry Into Intelligence Failures
Job Seekers Flood Spy Agencies
Bush tells CIA to eliminate Osama
Al Qaeda's Tracks Deepen in Europe

ACTIVISTS
Waging their own war
Mass Blockade of Faslane
MSP's among 150 arrests at Faslane
Police, Protesters Stand Together
Bastion of Dissent Offers Tribute to One of Its Heroes
Academics critical of war face harassment in US



-------- NUCLEAR

The Ultimate Hatred Is Nuclear

New York Times
October 22, 2001
By BRUCE G. BLAIR
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/22/opinion/22BLAI.html?searchpv=nytToday

Bioterrorism, like the anthrax threats currently rattling America, is horrific. But perhaps the ultimate horror in our newly uncertain world is the prospect of terrorists with nuclear weapons. There is no evidence that any terrorist has nuclear materials now, but the possibility is serious enough so that the government should be heightening security at home by monitoring foreign nations' weapons more closely and planning for military raids, if necessary, to keep weapons out of the wrong hands.

Sophisticated terrorists would be able to make an atomic bomb if they could get the necessary fissile materials - highly enriched uranium or plutonium. Huge quantities exist around the world. Detonated in Manhattan, a relatively small bomb - say 15 kilotons in yield, equivalent to the one used on Hiroshima - could immediately kill 100,000 and cause another 100,000 deaths in the lingering aftermath.

A terrorist wouldn't even need nuclear bomb materials to wreak nuclear havoc on a smaller scale: lethal radioactivity could spew out from a bomb made of nuclear waste and dynamite or from a nuclear power plant attacked by a hijacked plane or a truckload of explosives.

Our first line of defense against nuclear terrorism is at home. Security measures around nuclear power plants, like restrictions on how close planes may fly to them, are already being reviewed, and they should be strengthened as much as possible. But we should also immediately impose better inspection and security regimes at American seaports. Tens of thousands of cargo containers on ships arrive at American ports every day, and given the terrorist networks' extensive business ties around the world, the potential that one of those containers might carry a nuclear device is decidedly too high.

America's actual nuclear arsenal and its fissile materials are heavily guarded, but it's important to make sure security is just as tight abroad. There has been concern for years about the vulnerability of Russian bombs and bomb materials. More than 1,000 tons of bomb-grade plutonium and uranium remain in the former Soviet Union, half stored in its raw form and half inside 20,000 bombs. The United States is already working with Russia in a limited way to secure its nuclear materials and facilities by installing fences and surveillance sensors, but only half of the needed security improvements have been completed. Congress has been balking at continuing to finance this program with $1 billion a year, while it actually should be spending more. Last year, Russia's top security officials urgently sought American help in shoring up security at nuclear weapons sites, but bureaucratic squabbling between the Defense and Energy Departments delayed and diluted the American response. In the end, the Russians got little of the help they had sought.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency and other American security agencies should be working with Russian law enforcement not only against terrorists, but to help Russia eliminate organized crime, which could make big profits selling nuclear materials to willing buyers.

Even more pressing, given the American military campaign in Afghanistan and the angry protests by some Pakistanis against their country's cooperation, is ensuring the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. Pakistan is estimated to have between 30 and 50 partially disassembled atomic weapons, from 1 to 15 kilotons in yield, stored at several locations 50 to 250 miles from Afghanistan. If the regime were destabilized or toppled, nuclear security would weaken. Moreover, there are radicals within the Pakistani government and military forces, and it is possible that insiders might collude to steal bombs and add them to the arsenal of Osama bin Laden or some other extremist. Pakistani weapons are believed to lack sophisticated locks that would prevent their unauthorized use.

Besides urging Pakistan to strengthen security where its weapons are stored and/or to disable its nuclear devices, the United States should be offering to help out by providing security equipment and guards. And regardless of the degree of cooperation between the two countries, American surveillance and intelligence efforts should be aimed at independently keeping track of the Pakistani arsenal.

To guard against the worst possibility - Pakistani weapons in the hands of our enemies - America should have plans ready to provide security without Pakistan's permission, if emergency circumstances dictate, and even to take Pakistan's weapons out of the country if the need arises. Special operations forces in the region should be kept on high alert for quick, covert incursions to disable or even relocate the weapons to prevent their capture by unauthorized people. Nuclear emergency search teams, which are trained in bomb detection and dismantling, should be ready to accompany such military operations. The teams, some from Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, know the basic design of Pakistani weapons from defectors' reports and could devise disabling procedures on the spot.

An even better idea might be to get American and Russian military-civilian bomb response teams together to conduct search and disable missions in Central Asia - and perhaps in Russia itself in an emergency. The mutual benefits would be considerable, and joint operations to protect everyone against nuclear terror could have lasting positive effects on future United States- Russian cooperation.

Obviously, the elimination of nuclear weapons would not eliminate terrorism. But just as obviously, the need for nuclear safety and security has never been clearer.

Bruce G. Blair is president of the Center for Defense Information.

--------

Edward Radford, 79, Scholar of the Risks From Radiation

New York Times
October 22, 2001
By CARMEL McCOUBREY
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/22/obituaries/22RADF.html?searchpv=nytToday

Dr. Edward P. Radford, who energetically promoted a higher estimate of the cancer risk from radiation exposure and whose position was eventually upheld, died on Oct. 12 at his home in Haslemere, England. He was 79.

The cause was a stroke, his family said.

Dr. Radford was chairman of a committee of the National Academy of Sciences that released an initial report in 1979 indicating that one-half of 1 percent of Americans would develop cancer from manufactured sources of radiation like power plants and X-rays.

The report, widely expected because it was released shortly after the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, came in for sharp criticism by some members of the group that prepared it, the Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation.

The split in the 21-member committee was so bitter and public that the academy withdrew the report and the next year issued a revised paper that essentially halved the estimated risk, a conclusion that Dr. Radford rejected.

He argued for a model showing that there was a risk, albeit small, even at the lowest levels of exposure, while his opponents favored a model that found there was a threshold below which there was no harm.

The committee's conclusions were important to the nuclear industry because they were used by the Environmental Protection Agency to update its radiation protection standards. One committee member said of Dr. Radford, "If the guideline levels were reduced the way he wants them, there wouldn't be any nuclear industry at all."

Since then, Dr. Radford's ideas have been upheld by many other scientific bodies that study radiation, said Dr. Evan B. Douple, director of the Board of Radiation Effects Research at the National Academy of Sciences. "He's been an outspoken person who's contributed to the debate on radiation protection standards," Dr. Douple said.

Dr. Radford was also known for his research on cigarettes, particularly studies in the 1960's finding that radioactive polonium 210 was present in tobacco and made its way into the lungs of smokers. The concentration was high enough, he and his colleagues said, that the radioactivity could be a contributing factor in lung cancer.

He also developed a kind of chart called a nomogram that was widely used by anesthesiologists to calculate the proper mixture of oxygen and anesthetic in the days before computers, said Vilma R. Hunt, a retired professor of environmental science at Penn State.

"That kind of quantitative rigor characterized his approach to his clinical work and to his work on ionizing radiation," she said.

Edward Parish Radford, who was known as Ted, was born on Feb. 21, 1922, in Springfield, Mass., and graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy. He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earned his medical degree at Harvard in 1946. He was in the Air Force from 1947 to 1949; one of his duties was to measure radiation levels at flight altitudes soon after atomic bomb tests in the South Pacific.

He held research positions at the Harvard School of Public Health, DuPont, the University of Cincinnati and Johns Hopkins University, and was the chairman of the department of environmental medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health from 1979 to 1983. He then focused on consulting in legal cases about the health effects of radiation and toxic chemicals.

His marriages to Nettie Garrison and Olivia Kolar ended in divorce.

He is survived by his wife of 18 years, Jennifer Barnard Radford; 4 daughters, Martha Jo Radford of Farmington, Conn.; Donna Radford Patterson of Grand Junction, Colo.; Catherine Radford of Charlestown, Mass.; and Lilith Radford Calkins of Harvard, Mass.; a son, George Leslie, of Exeter, N.H.; and 11 grandchildren.

-------- asia

Pacific rim leaders seize new excuse for cooperation
Bush and Putin announce 'progress' on missile talks, but no changes yet.

Christian Science Monitor
By Robert Marquand | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
October 22, 2001
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1022/p7s1-woap.html

SHANGHAI, CHINA - If the White House thought it would receive carte blanche for the US-led military program in Afghanistan, its trip to Shanghai fell short of expectations. But only slightly.

In his first trip abroad since Sept. 11, President George W. Bush received strong support for the antiterror war amid fears the simmering economic crisis in the Pacific region would deepen. "What we heard for the most part is that this is not just a battle for the future of our children," said a senior US official. "We heard, 'If you don't deal with this problem, we are all in trouble; if you won't lead, no one else will.' It gives everyone an excuse to cooperate."

The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum released a lengthy statement elaborating further on recent United Nations resolutions against terror. China, at critical loggerheads with the US last spring, offered support provided it is within a UN context.

One highly placed US source said that all 21 countries, when asked privately, agreed to US overflight in the Afghan campaign if needed - though some states required prior notice.

If the White House had been criticized for unilateralism and for seeming to retreat from foreign commitments, its approach in Shanghai was a complete switch. Mr. Bush was both effusive and serious in tone with his counterparts. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin said that in weekend talks, they "made some progress" toward a new strategic framework on missile defense policy that would include limited missile defenses.

Meanwhile, US officials said privately that Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell were trying to take a greater attitude of listening. "We can no longer ignore the plight of the street in Islamabad," said a senior US official. "We have to look at the Palestine question again, a little harder, [and] why ... we now care about Indonesia in a new way."

While the APEC forum was originally intended to showcase China's rise as an economic dynamo and provide Mr. Jiang a high-profile moment as an international world leader, Jiang gamely allowed the younger Bush to share - and sometimes take over - center stage.

Jiang, for his part, showed a certain international éclat by reading both of the Shanghai final statements in English for the first time. Bush told the gathering he had decided to come to Shanghai despite an international crisis because "it was China" that was hosting the meeting.

Jiang also mentioned that in the future, Bush and he could "pick up the phone" whenever they felt the need. It was an effort to smooth over tensions from the spy plane incident last spring, a time when several White House calls to Jiang went unanswered.

What improved US-China relations greatly, some experts say, is China's effort to take a leading role on the world stage, and to cease being viewed primarily as a developing country with a troubled history of xenophobia and anti-Western reactions. China's agreement to work with the US on the antiterror front is an example.

"We are all in for a complicated learning experience in the coming years," says James Spence, a professor of Chinese history at Yale, speaking of the war against terror. "China has said it will be part of that learning experience. I think that is a very interesting new development."

One striking example came during a press conference Saturday, when a Taiwanese reporter asked a question of Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan, referring to China as "Communist China." "This is Shanghai, a big city on Chinese soil," retorted Minister Tang. "How dare you call us 'Communist China.' Communist China has become history. Such a term no longer exists."

Earlier reports that the US was preparing to lift sanctions on China and sell parts for Blackhawk helicopters, used for mountain fighting where rebel Muslims rebels live, were quashed this weekend by the White House. Such sales would involve the lifting of sanctions placed on China during the Tiananmen massacres, and White House sources said that human rights groups had complained bitterly, and had been heard.

Some anticipation in Shanghai centered around the stances Malaysia and Indonesia, APEC's two Muslim-majority countries, would take on the war. Indonesian president Megawati Sukarnoputri, with 10,000 Muslims protesting in the streets of Jakarta this week, was not able to work out a meeting with Bush. But in a walk to one meeting, Megawati told the president that "foreigners would be safe" in Jakarta, sources say.

Chris Johnson contributed to this report from Shanghai.

-------- canada

Canada orders tighter security at nuclear plants

by David Ljunggren,
22/10/2001
Reuters
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12915/story.htm

OTTAWA - Canada said yesterday it had ordered the operators of the country's seven nuclear power plants to increase security immediately following a review of their procedures in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Linda Keen, president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, said that while there was no evidence of any increased threat to the plants it was clear that security had to be tightened because of a higher perceived risk.

She also said the commission was studying the idea of widening an existing ban on flights over the plants, which could, in theory, mean air force jets would be on alert to shoot down threatening aircraft.

The nuclear power generators had already boosted security in the wake of the attacks but Keen said she wanted to ensure every plant followed the same set of rules.

Late on Thursday she ordered operators to station armed response units at the plants. They must also boost security checks on people and vehicles entering the plants, tighten access to sensitive areas, upgrade security checks on some workers and provide better equipment to security guards.

"I want these measures put into place over a short time period...Some of them are immediate," she told a small group of reporters in her Ottawa office.

Five of the seven plants are in Ontario. Two are run by Bruce Power, a partnership between British Energy Plc and Cameco Corp. , and three by Ontario Power Generation Inc. Quebec and New Brunswick have one nuclear station each.

The new security measures also apply to the Chalk River nuclear laboratory, northwest of Ottawa, operated by the federal agency Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.

Keen met the operators of all seven plants earlier yesterday to explain the new measures, which were put in place in response to queries she made on Oct. 1 as to what exactly the facilities were doing about security.

"I asked them if there were any impediments to putting this in place...but there was no questioning of the order at all. The order is in place," she said.

In the United States, which has over 100 operating nuclear power plants, fears are high that a major attack on a facility could spread radioactive contamination over a large area.

Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island plant returned to normal on Thursday, a day after the operator reported receiving what it called a credible threat.

"There has not been an attack or the threat of an attack against a nuclear facility in Canada but we talked (to the operators) on the basis of a higher perceived risk by the regulator based on the events on Sept. 11 in the United States and our proximity to the United States," Keen said.

Her officials said the CNSC - which is in very close contact with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission - would be sending its security chief to Washington for talks next week.

The CNSC will now start looking at what other security measures could be introduced at the seven plants, including the idea of broadening air exclusion zones over the facilities.

"The question of exclusion zones for aircraft is under active consideration," Keen said.

Asked if this meant fighter jets could one day be asked to shoot down aircraft deemed to be a threat, she replied: "If you're going to have one (an exclusion zone) in place you have to be prepared to enforce it as well."

She declined to discuss the topic further, saying it was a matter for the transport and defense ministries to decide.

A CNSC official said that if a plane did crash into a Canadian power plant it would shut down and any radioactivity leaks would be contained locally.

The safety commission, which regulates more than 4,000 enterprises using nuclear material, will now start studying security at other less critical nuclear facilities.

These include fuel processing plants as well as operations that process radioactive isotopes and nuclear waste.

Canada's seven nuclear power stations - which contain a total of 22 working reactors - provide about 15 percent of the country's electricity.


-------- depleted uranium

Army's uranium worries Hoosiers
Military wants to leave it at proving ground

By Grace Schneider
The Courier-Journal
Monday, October 22, 2001
From: uranium@t-online.de

MADISON, Indiana -- More than 150,000 pounds of uranium -- the refuse from a decade of weapons testing -- lies buried at the Army's now-closed Jefferson Proving Ground near Madison.

Although the uranium isn't highly radioactive, there is widespread concern that it might break down in the soil or be washed off the proving ground, posing a significant risk to the environment and to people who live near the property.

But the Army, citing the danger involved in cleaning it up, is proposing to leave the uranium there and stop tests for health and environmental hazards.

That has outraged neighbors, local officials and environmentalists, who have challenged the Army's decision in its first decommissioning of a portion of a former U.S. military installation that would forever be off-limits to the public.

''I don't know why we should be the guinea pigs,'' Jefferson County Commissioner Julie Berry said. ''A lot can be at stake here. There are a lot of unknowns.''

The opponents have found a significant ally -- U.S. Rep. Baron Hill, D-9th District, who represents the region. Also, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission has agreed that the Army's plan doesn't pass muster.

What is Depleted Uranium?

Depleted uranium is what's left over after uranium is enriched for use in weapons or reactors. Gaseous-diffusion plants remove the rarer and more radioactive uranium 235. That's accomplished by heating the uranium into a gas and then running it through a filter that separates the U-235 from the more common and less radioactive U-238. What remains after removal of U-235 is known as depleted uranium. Only slightly radioactive but very heavy and hard, it is used as counterweight in aircraft and boats and in weapons designed to penetrate armor. Between 1984 and 1994, the Army shot depleteduranium rounds into a 2,000acre target zone at Jefferson Proving Ground near Madison, Ind. Although some of the uranium was picked up and recycled, 77 tons remains embedded in the soil. In a fact sheet on depleted uranium, the World Health Organization warns of the possibility of contamination of food and drinking water where depleted-uranium weapons have been used. Careful monitoring should be conducted anywhere there is a ''reasonable possibility'' that depleted uranium could enter the ground water or the food chain, the fact sheet says.

In the opponents' view, the danger of the so-called ''depleted uranium'' is that no one -- not the Army, the NRC or the world's top scientists now studying its hazards -- can guarantee that the stuff buried in the woods and fields on the Army firing range won't create havoc someday.

''They just don't know,'' said Vicki Jenkins, an assistant professor of philosophy at Indiana University Southeast in New Albany who lives with her husband on 35 acres along Big Creek, which flows through the middle of the area containing the uranium.

The NRC is reviewing the Army's plan for closing off 2,000 acres within the former firing range. Regulators say it could take three to five years to complete the decommissioning, at which point the Army would pull out.

The debate about the Army's plans is tinged by a cruel irony:

According to nuclear regulators, a cleanup of the depleted uranium might have been possible under different circumstances. The problem is that the Army, with NRC approval, fired the uranium rounds from artillery into a tract already loaded with unexploded ordnance from other testing, preventing the safe removal of the depleted uranium.

''We raised this issue'' when the Army requested the federal license to handle depleted uranium, said Richard Hill, president of Save the Valley, a local environmental group.

Depleted uranium is a heavy metal left over when most of the highly radioactive components of natural uranium are removed and used to manufacture nuclear weapons and fuel for nuclear reactors.

Depleted uranium is valued for its weight and hardness. It is 70 percent heavier than lead, and ammunition that contains it can punch through armored vehicles, erupting into a burning vapor cloud of radioactive dust.

Munitions containing depleted uranium were first used by American forces in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and later in air attacks on Kosovo, in the Balkans.

Scientists and health officials have only recently begun to examine the health and environmental consequences of exposure to depleted uranium -- after reports that large numbers of European peacekeeping soldiers have fallen ill with leukemia and other ailments.

Although scientists haven't established a link between those illnesses and depleted uranium, European governments have called for more thorough research. The European Parliament voted in January to ban the use of depleted uranium until studies on its health risks are in.

The Army obtained an NRC license in 1983 to handle depleted uranium at Jefferson Proving Ground. For a decade, rounds being tested for trajectory were fired at canvas targets stretched across telephone poles on the southern edge of a rectangular 2,000-acre tract.

Most of the projectiles were embedded in the soil in the so-called ''delta impact area,'' where ominous yellow signs now warn of radioactive contamination.

The area is sliced diagonally by Big Creek, which eventually feeds into the Muscatatuck River.

Tests Involving depleted uranium ended in 1994, and Jefferson Proving Ground was closed in the fall of 1995, one of many military installations shut down to save money.

Though it still owns the land, the Army recently reached an agreement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for that agency to manage the area north of the firing line, calling it Big Oaks Wildlife Refuge. That area contains the acreage contaminated by the depleted uranium.

The Air National Guard continues to conduct bombing practice in another section of the refuge.

At other decommissioned military sites, communities have created developments such as industrial parks.

But in the case of the Jefferson Proving Ground testing site, the Army has proposed a ''restricted use,'' given the dangers of the unexploded shells in the area with the depleted uranium. Access to the area would be prohibited -- even though it's contained within the wildlife refuge -- and there would be no cleanup.

The Army said in January that no uranium was found in twice-yearly tests on ground water and that tests on wildlife also detected no problems.

Therefore, the Army said, it saw no need to continue the monitoring. It also said computer modeling showed little risk to the surrounding area from the depleted uranium.

The Army says that ''institutional controls'' -- limiting the number of keys to locked gates, for example, and weekly checks on the fence around the property -- would keep people away from danger.

However, in a challenge before the NRC, Save the Valley questioned why the Army has refused to attempt to remove the depleted uranium.

Save the Valley also said it doubted that the Army had adequately examined whether the uranium could be washed into neighboring wells and farm fields and be ingested by animals that freely roam the range. They urged the NRC to order the Army to continue to monitor indefinitely for contamination in soil, sediment, surface water and ground water.

''DU has a half life of 4 1/2 billion years. They've only been monitoring (at the proving ground) for 15 years,'' said Richard Hill of Save the Valley. (The half-life of a radioactive element is the time it takes to lose half its radiation through natural decay.)

Last month the NRC rejected the Army's plan and pointed to seven deficiencies, most of them involving the Army's purported failure to assess whether contaminants could migrate from the firing range.

The commission said the Army should evaluate whether depleted uranium could be carried down Big Creek during floods and should examine the potential impact from natural disasters such as tornadoes and earthquakes.

The NRC also asked the Army to examine the depleted uranium's composition thoroughly, in light of recent scientific findings that it is not pure uranium but also contains plutonium, americium and neptunium -- all much more dangerous radioactive substances.

''There's obviously a lot of concern,'' said Thomas McLaughlin, an NRC project manager. ''I think the rejection reflects some of the concerns that citizens raised.''

McLaughlin said the commission won't allow the Army to release the property until the agency is satisfied that all concerns have been dealt with.

Paul Cloud, the Army's environmental and base-transition coordinator, said officials are preparing to submit an environmental report that should answer some of the commission's concerns. In the meantime, he said, the Army will keep trying to complete the required process.

McLaughlin said he thinks the Army has done an admirable job of keeping the community informed at public meetings and giving tours to citizens' groups and others who have questions.

The NRC, meanwhile, accepts the Army's argument that the area can't just be cleaned up and reopened to the public.

''The overriding fact is the UXO (unexploded ordnance),'' McLaughlin said. If it weren't there, he said, ''they would be out cleaning up the site right now.''

The Army does not agree that the depleted uranium could be removed if other ordnance weren't there, Cloud said. It would require hundreds of millions of dollars to, in effect, strip mine the land to fully recover all the uranium.

Madison Mayor Al Huntington said he's disturbed by the fact that the Army intends to retain ownership but not monitor the soil and ground water.

''My personal opinion is the Army just wants to walk away,'' he said. ''Nobody knows what's going to happen if (the depleted uranium) breaks down. I'll guarantee you that if this were a (private) corporation, they'd be finding a way to clean it up.''

Rep. Hill said he intends to ask the Army to explain its proposal to him. He said he does not accept the argument that there are no alternatives to what's now being proposed.

''I want to talk with the Army, and at least give them an opportunity to tell me their side of the story,'' he said. ''Right now, I don't understand their side of the story.''

----

Comments on Senate Bill 472

Here is some info to chew on:
Senate Bill S.472

From: "Lisa Helms" <lisa@miltoxproj.org>
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001

"To ensure that Nuclear Energy continues to contribute to the supply of electricity in the United States"

I know that Military Toxics Project, (MTP) is not on a mission to fight nuclear energy and the vast amount of environmental issues attached to nuclear energy, but we are directly concerned about the depleted uranium, (DU) waste that is generated in the nuclear energy process. Therefore we think this Bill is relevant and that we must encourage our Political Representatives to vote against S.472.

Of particular interest to MTP are Title 1, Subtitle C, Sections 127, 128, and 129.

Title 1, Subtitle C Sec 127 appropriates $10,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2002, 2003, and 2004 to "...develop improved 'in situ' leaching mining technologies...including low-cost environmental restoration technologies..." In Situ mining means "on site" mining, the material is processed as it is extracted. This leaching process does not have a good global record and the radioactive material will be pulled through a sole-source aquifer that provides water for almost 15,000 people. For more details and how you can help, contact Anna Rondon-Manuelito, SW Indigenous Uranium Forum PO Box 5058 Gallop NM 87305 505-733-2519 lightningstruck@msn.com

Title 1, Subtitle C Sec 128 allows $8,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2002, 2003, 2004 for maintenance of a viable domestic Uranium Conversion Industry. There is a series of hearings coming up, (see information listed below) that you can support the local communities and submit your comments. Our main concerns are:

the inference that these conversion methods will render the DU "safe,"

the handling and transportation of the DU with known transuranic elements,

the means and methods of disposal need to be more specific.

The conversion process is a step in the right direction but this is not as complete a cure as presented, and there are reasons to suspect that the people working in these positions are at risk of being contaminated. The DOE readily admits that the condition of the containers of DU create a potential human hazard due to their deteriorating conditions. The conversion facility in Portsmouth is expected to receive all of the DU that is currently rusting at Oak Ridge. DOE officials will be available at each meeting and public comments on the proposed scope of the document are welcomed.

DATES TIMES AND LOCATIONS - HEARINGS ON DU CONVERSION FACILITIES:

Portsmouth OH: Thursday, November 1, 2001, from 6-9 p.m., at the Vern Riffe Pike County Vocational School, 175 Beaver Creek Road (off State Route 32), Piketon, Ohio 45661. Contact Vina Colley 740-259-4688 or vcolley@earthlink.net

Paducah, Kentucky:
Tuesday, November 6, 2001, from 6-9 p.m.,
at the Information Age Park Resource Center,
2000 McCracken Blvd.,
Paducah, Kentucky 42001.

Oak Ridge, Tennessee:
Thursday, November 8, 2001, from 6-9 p.m.,
at the Pollard Auditorium, Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education,
10 Badger Avenue,
Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37830.

Title 1, Subtitle C Sec 129 There are no surprises here, this sections puts the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion plant into cold standby condition for a period of five years but would allow for a restart if domestic demand created the need. The plant is to receive $36,000,000 for preparation of cold standby for fiscal year 2002 and "such sums as are needed for 2003, 2004, and 2005.

The rest of this Bill uses fluffy, happy and safe environmental language to describe nuclear power and sets the stage for the assurance of continued production of DU. We have to work against this ideal from many fronts and get our Senators and Representatives to VOTE NO ON S.472

-------- europe

Nuclear industry hit by terrorism fallout

Environment Daily 1086,
22/10/01
http://www.environmentdaily.com/articles/index.cfm ?action=article&ref=10734

Europe's nuclear energy industry is proving to be a victim of September's terrorist attacks in the USA. A rising fear of massive radioactive releases is galvanising the anti-nuclear movement and raising new questions about the sector's long-term future.

First in the firing line are the nuclear fuel reprocessing plants at Sellafield in Britain and La Hague in France, following alarming estimates of potential radioactive releases in the case of an aircraft collision similar to those on 11 September.

According to a report by consultancy Wise-Paris released late last month, the potential release of caesium-137 from La Hague's irradiated fuel cooling ponds is 60 times the amount released in the 1986 Chernobyl accident in Ukraine. This month, Britain's New Scientist magazine reported the potential caesium release from Sellafield at 44 times that released from Chernobyl.

These dire forecasts were taken up in a debate in the European parliament today, with Irish Green MEP Nuala Ahern calling for "no fly zones" to be established around both plants. "Nuclear plants are a ticking time bomb in our midst and the only logical response is to close them all down and end this terrible threat," she argued.

Even strongly pro-nuclear European states have had their nerve tested by the realisation that reprocessing and other nuclear plants could be terrorist targets; the French government last week said that anti-aircraft missile batteries were to be stationed at La Hague.

In Germany, the effect has been to cement or even speed up the ongoing nuclear phase-out programme, culminating in media reports this weekend that economic minister Werner Muller has called on power firms to phase out their oldest stations ahead of schedule. This follows a pledge by environment minister Jurgen Trittin to order plant closures in case of a credible threat of attack (ED 10/10/01 http://www.environmentdaily.com/articles/index.cfm ?action=article&ref=10783) .

The new sense of insecurity has pervaded protests from the Irish government and UK environmental groups over the British government's decision to licence a new plutonium fuel manufacturing plant (ED 03/10/01

----

Czech N-plant output at high as Austrians protest

22/10/2001
Reuters
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12910/story.htm

PRAGUE - The Czech Republic's controversial Temelin nuclear power plant has boosted output from its first reactor to 75 percent despite renewed protests from neighbouring Austria, a spokesman said yesterday.

Milan Nebesar, spokesman for the Soviet-designed plant, said in a statement that output from the reactor had reached 705 megawatts.

CTK news agency reported that dozens of Austrians protesting that the plant was unsafe blocked a major border crossing with the Czech Republic for several hours. The blockade ended peacefully, it said.

Temelin, 60 km (37 miles) from the border, has been plagued by Austrian objections. Vienna says that despite the introduction of western safety systems to the Communist-era design, the plant is unsafe and should be shut down. The Czechs say the plant is safe.

Austria has threatened to impede the Czech Republic's EU accession talks and says it will block closure of the energy chapter next week unless its concerns about Temelin are addressed.

The plant's first reactor had been operating at 55 percent output until it received permission from the Czech nuclear power watchdog yesterday to boost it to 75 percent. Nebesar said some 300 tests will be conducted during the current phase.

The plant's owner CEZ has said it hopes to have the reactor in full operation by the end of the year, more than 18 months behind schedule.

Temelin was allowed last week to conduct final tests on the second block before nuclear fuel loading later this year. The second reactor is expected to be operational next year.

-------- france

Thousands join anti-nuclear protests in France

by Catherine Bremer,
22/10/2001
Reuters
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12913/story.htm

TOULOUSE - Thousands of anti-nuclear protesters demonstrated across France yeasterday amid heightened fears of guerrilla attacks on the country's 19 nuclear plants after last month's attacks on the United States.

Police said some 2,500 protesters marched through the southern city of Toulouse, chanting anti-nuclear slogans and brandishing banners demanding the abolition of France's highly-developed nuclear power and defence industries.

"The fact that we are several thousand in the streets of Toulouse, and elsewhere in France, proves that the French people are truly frightened of nuclear energy," said Andre Crouzet, head of the "Let's Get Out of the Nuclear Age" Association.

Activists pointed to the September explosion at a Toulouse petrochemicals plant, which killed 29 people and injured thousands, as an example of how easily accidents can happen.

Another 3,000 massed in Lyon in the southeast, while slightly smaller protests were under way at Colmar in the northeast, Lille in the north and Nantes in the southwest.

Green Party head Dominique Voynet said in Lyon, "We are not condemned for life eternal to be the most nuclearised country in the world, the country which exports low-price electricity to its neighbours while keeping the nuclear waste."

France's 19 nuclear plants produce 76 percent of national electricity, the highest proportion of any country. Nuclear power produces just over a third of European Union electricity.

Joining demonstrators in Lille, Noel Mamere - currently the front-runner Green candidate for France's April presidential elections - called on the government to reduce nuclear power, pointing to German plans to phase out nuclear energy by the early 2020s. Belgium and Sweden have also opted to get rid of nuclear power stations, largely on environmental grounds.

TIGHTER SECURITY AT NUCLEAR PLANTS

While opponents evoke the risk of deadly explosions like that at Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union in 1986, which exposed five million Europeans to radiation, supporters say nuclear plants do not produce carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas targeted by the 1997 Kyoto climate change deal.

Yesterday, France said it had deployed ground-to-air missiles near a nuclear waste reprocessing plant at La Hague in northern France as a precaution following the hijack attacks on U.S. landmarks.

France has boosted security around all its nuclear plants, aware that a guerrilla attack on a nuclear power station could cause devastating and widespread damage with little effort.

While Paris had not been informed of any particular threat, Defence Minister Alain Richard said this week France was prepared to use warplanes to shoot down hijacked planes. Putting missile batteries in place was a complementary measure, he said.

Earlier this month, anti-nuclear protesters met rail shipments of waste from German nuclear plants to the La Hague reprocessing site - the first atomic waste to arrive from Germany since the attacks on New York and Washington.

Some 50 anti-nuclear campaigners gathered near Strasbourg, saying it was irresponsible to transport nuclear waste at a time of increased risk of guerrilla attacks.

-------- germany

German min wants early phase-out of old nuclear stations

22/10/2001
Reuters
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12911/story.htm

BERLIN - German Economics Minister Werner Mueller said in remarks published yesterday that power companies should consider phasing out old nuclear power stations ahead of schedule due to the threat of possible attacks. Mueller said in a newspaper interview to be published on Monday that in return, companies could allow more modern nuclear plants to stay on line for longer than planned.

Mueller told Berliner Zeitung newspaper that he did not want to unravel the deal reached between the government and the energy industry under which the country's 19 nuclear reactors are to be phased out at differing speeds by the mid-2020s.

But he added: "In this case, I'm in favour of the power industry considering this proposal."

A spokesman for the environment ministry said that planned legislation would allow Mueller to implement his proposal.

The September 11 hijacked plane attacks on the United States have raised fears that nuclear power stations could be targeted in similar strikes.

-------- missile defense

Bush and Putin on brink of missiles deal

By Rupert Cornwell in Washington and Calum MacLeod in Shanghai
22 October 2001
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia_china/story.jsp?story=100765

President George Bush has won Russia's full support for his anti-terrorist attacks against Afghanistan, and also appears to have narrowed his differences with President Vladimir Putin on missile defence and cuts in the two countries' still massive nuclear arsenals.

Whether the two leaders are on the brink of a breakthrough will only become apparent next month when the Russian President visits Washington before going on to spend time with Mr Bush at his ranch at Crawford, Texas.

But yesterday's meeting on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation forum summit in Shanghai left little doubt as to how the terror attacks of 11 September are transforming ties between the two former superpower rivals.

Speaking after a 90-minute discussion with Mr Putin, the American President confirmed they had examined a new round of cuts in their nuclear arsenals from the level of 3,000 to 3,500 warheads apiece contained in the Start-2 treaty. This, he added, would be within a framework "of limited defence protecting both our lands from political blackmail".

Afterwards Mr Putin seemed to soften his opposition to the amendment or scrapping of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty ­ changes implicit if Mr Bush is to go through with his plans for a defence shield protecting America from a missile attack. Yesterday, President Bush again described the ABM treaty, which Russia has long regarded as the cornerstone of nuclear arms control efforts, as "outdated and dangerous". Instead of rejecting this approach, as he did before 11 September, Mr Putin indicated that agreement was possible, "taking into account the national interests of Russia and the US". The same clearly goes for reducing the two countries' weapons stockpiles, acknowledged by both sides to be far higher than necessary in the post-Cold War era. Washington and Moscow both retain more than 6,000 warheads, and Mr Putin ­ joined now perhaps by Mr Bush ­ is keen to push the figure down to 1,500.

Particularly welcome to Mr Bush was Russia's specific endorsement of the air and ground operations against Aghanistan. Indonesia and Malaysia, which are predominantly Muslim, prevented the Apec summit explicitly backing the military offensive against Islamic Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden.

But Mr Putin had no such inhibitions. Calling the US response "measured and adequate", Mr Putin also pledged Moscow's full co-operation with Washington in combating nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. He underlined his commitment to the cause when he arrived in Tajikistan early today for talks with Burhanuddin Rabbani, the deposed president of Afghanistan and leader of the Northern Alliance.

Moscow depicts its long campaign to suppress the Chechen insurgency as part of the global struggle against terrorism, of a piece with American retaliation in Afghanistan.

Though the bilateral meeting with Mr Putin was the most important moment of Mr Bush's stay in Shanghai, American officials professed themselves "thrilled" with the wider summit's statement "unequivocally condemning" the 11 September attacks.

Shelving their strictly economic remit, participants at the annual meeting of the Apec forum issued the first political statement in the organisation's 12-year history. While the wording of the statement avoids mention of Osama bin Laden and the ongoing assault on Afghanistan, to accommodate the sensitivities of Malaysia and Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, a senior American official told reporters yesterday: "We're thrilled with this statement ... it does everything we wanted it to." For the first time, President Bush called the 11 September attacks an attempt to destroy world financial markets and to ruin the global economy.

The uncertainty following the attacks has hit many Asian economies, which are highly dependent on exports to America. "The nations meeting here in Shanghai understand what is at stake," Mr Bush said.

--------

Bush and Putin Edge Closer to Missile Deal

By Mike Allen and Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, October 22, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31132-2001Oct21.html

SHANGHAI, Oct. 21 -- President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin said today they made progress on a deal allowing the United States to build a missile defense system in return for sharp reductions in nuclear arsenals and said they would negotiate specifics at Bush's Texas ranch in November.

Administration officials acknowledged a compromise may not be complete by then, but suggested Bush is prepared to move unilaterally with his missile defense plans in January if a deal with Putin is not forthcoming.

Should the two leaders fail to reach an agreement at the November summit, Bush would face difficult choices. He could press ahead with a testing schedule that would violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which would anger Putin, who has recently backed Bush's drive against terrorism. Or Bush could push back the timetable of a project that his aides contend is an essential part of a new arms control framework. The aides have said this could be one of Bush's most important legacies.

Standing side by side with Putin at a news conference, Bush argued that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington have made a missile defense system more urgent. Bush told the Russian leader that missile defenses would "protect both our lands from political blackmail, from potential terrorist attack."

"Both our nations must be able to defend ourselves against the new threats of the 21st century, including long-range ballistic missiles," he said. "The events of Sept. 11 make it clearer than ever that a Cold War ABM Treaty that prevents us from defending our people is outdated, and I believe dangerous."

However, Putin did not accept this argument. "It would be difficult for me to agree that some terrorist will be able to capture intercontinental missiles and will be able to use them," he said.

Putin defended the ABM Treaty as "an important element of stability in the world," but he reaffirmed a willingness to modify the pact in return for deep cuts in offensive nuclear weapons by both sides.

"Our task is to develop parameters of such reductions and to design a reliable and verifiable method to reduce nuclear arsenals of Russia and the United States," Putin said. "As for ABM-related issues, we also made some progress. At least, I believe we do have understanding that we can reach agreements."

Putin added, "We should look into the future, and we should react adequately to possible threats in the future. And we are prepared to discuss that with our American partners."

The Bush administration has said its missile defense program schedule could violate ABM restrictions within months, and has awarded a contract to begin work on a testing facility in Alaska next spring. To withdraw from the treaty, the United States must give six months' notice, which would have to come by November to allow the work in Alaska to proceed next April.

U.S. officials said Bush and his advisers had discussed giving that notice to Putin during today's meeting, which took place on the sidelines of an international economic conference in Shanghai. But national security adviser Condoleezza Rice told reporters, "He did not deliver a deadline."

Asked if a unilateral U.S. pullout from the treaty was broached with Putin, Rice said, "They simply talked about moving beyond" the treaty. Bush has said the United States would withdraw from the ABM Treaty on its own timetable, with or without Russian assent.

Rice acknowledged that a deal to scrap or modify the ABM Treaty might not be hammered out before the Nov. 12-14 Bush-Putin summit in Washington and Crawford, Tex.

"We are continuing to work on this issue, and they're going to work on it at Washington-Crawford. They're going to work at it beyond Washington-Crawford," she said. "We're not looking for any specific breakthroughs at any given meeting. . . . The structuring of a new relationship is going to take time."

But she added: "We are not going to permit a program of testing and development to be constrained by a treaty that we think is outmoded. . . . The president has made very clear that he thinks that it's going to be time to move on fairly soon."

Bush seemed impatient during the news conference, briefly drumming his fingers on the side of the lectern on an elaborate red-and-gold stage built by the famed Shanghai Film Studio.

Bush and Putin met for about an hour and 15 minutes, including a brief one-on-one session before they were joined by Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and other officials. After the news conference, the two men attended an informal dinner with members of both delegations.

Putin described the talks as "forthright and trustful" and "really productive," but noted that Bush did not present a specific proposal for arms reductions -- a step the Russians have said would be necessary for serious negotiations to continue.

Bush said he did not present a specific plan on arms reductions because his administration had not completed a review in time for today's session, and he promised to get back to Putin soon. "We've got work to do between now and Crawford, and I look forward to continuing to work with him," he said. "But he knows my feeling about the ABM Treaty, and so does America."

The United States has about 7,000 strategic nuclear warheads while Russia has about 6,000, and Bush has already promised to reduce the U.S. stockpile to under the ceiling of 3,500 for each side mandated by the 1993 START II treaty. Putin has proposed that both countries slash their arsenals further, to about 1,500 long-range weapons each. Some U.S. military officials want to keep the American arsenal at about 2,200 to 2,500.

Bush met separately with the leaders of eight nations during the economic conference, including Chinese President Jiang Zemin, and thanked each of them for their support of the U.S. anti-terrorism campaign. But the United States issued a separate joint statement on terrorism only with Russia, and Bush saved his warmest words for Putin.

"Vladimir Putin was the first person to call. That's what a friend does, calls in time of need, and he called," Bush said of the events of Sept. 11. "He extended his sympathy and he extended his support. He did something more. . . . To simplify our situation, to show solidarity, he ordered Russia's military to stop a set of exercises that were getting underway."

Russia has backed the U.S. moves in Afghanistan by offering to share intelligence, granting assent to the use of airspace, urging Central Asian states to cooperate with the United States and promising to continue arming opposition forces fighting Afghanistan's Taliban rulers. Today, Putin said he believes the U.S. military strikes in Afghanistan were "measured and adequate to the threat the United States was confronted with."

Bush said he also raised more sensitive issues with Putin, including urging Russia to respect freedom of the press, respect the territorial integrity of Georgia and continue a political dialogue with rebels in Chechnya. "It's important to distinguish between those who pursue legitimate political aspirations and terrorists," he said.

-------- russia

Minatom forgets to inform President about spent fuel import

Rashid Alimov,
2001-10-22
Minatom
http://www.bellona.no/imaker?id=22140&sub=1

The Ecodefence! envirogroup said that Tekhsnabexport, or TENEX, one of Minatom's sub-units, is about to ship spent nuclear fuel from Bulgaria to Russia.

A special train for transportation of spent nuclear fuel departed from Russia two weeks ago and now is waiting at the terminal of Bulgarian Kozlodoy nuclear power plant.

According to the contract, signed by TENEX and Kozlodoy NPP in summer 2000, 41 tonnes of spent fuel would be brought to the Russian Chemical and Mining Combine in Krasnoyarsk-26.

This will be the first shipment of spent nuclear fuel after President Putin signed bills, which legalised and structured the proceedings for storage of foreign nuclear waste in Russia. But will those regulations be followed? Most likely not.

According to the information obtained by Ecodefence!, the head of the State Nuclear Regulatory (GAN), Yury Vishnevsky, sent a harsh letter to TENEX on October 16th, pointing out that such activities require an official licence. Moreover, the spent nuclear fuel bills stipulate that each shipment must receive proper environmental evaluation. Besides, TENEX must prove that a part of funds earned on the imports will be allotted to the remediation of contaminated areas in Russia, even if such programs have not been developed yet.

There is no information whether TENEX answered to GAN. But the company has nothing to answer anyway.

Signing the bills this summer, President Putin said that he would personally control each spent nuclear fuel import contract. Putin also said that he would establish an independent commission to evaluate such business. The commission was to be headed by Nobel prize winner physicist Zhorez Alferov.

As of today, no commission has been set up, Putin most likely has not heard about the spent fuel coming from Bulgaria, whereas the remediation programs have not been written yet.

Minatom's promises of huge revenues on the import operations (amounting to $20bn) are also fading away. Bulgaria is ready to pay $620 for one kilogram of spent nuclear fuel. Minatom used to say it would take not less than $1000 per kilo.

Bills approved by State Duma

The Russian State Duma, the lower chamber of the Russian parliament, endorsed the spent nuclear fuel import bills in third reading on June 6th. The first bill legalises spent nuclear fuel import from other countries by amending art. 50 in the Russia's Environmental Protection Law in favour of spent fuel imports. The second bill sets frames for leasing of Russia's manufactured nuclear fuel abroad. While the third functioned more as an incentive for the Duma members and public in general, stipulating the remediation programs for radioactively contaminated areas.

The environmental groups, GAN and reasonable politicians in the Russian State Duma warned earlier against the import plans. But the warning calls were futile. Now Minatom has legalised its corporative business, which is under no independent control. The revenues of this business will be diverted to support post Soviet vast nuclear weaponry complex, which has been mostly useless after the cold war was over. Whereas the future generations will enjoy taking care of the hazardous waste for the coming thousand of years.

Duma keeps approving

On Thursday, the State Duma passed the second reading of the Law On Environmental Protection. MPs almost unanimously voted for spent fuel imports to Russia and abolished governmental environment funds, transferring money back to the common budget.

308 MPs voted for the bill, 36 voted against, and 99 did not cast their vote. Earlier the nuclear lobby, supported by Minatom made amendments to article 50 of the Law On Environmental Protection, allowing spent nuclear fuel imports to Russia. In June 2001, these amendments were signed by President Putin and came into force. But yesterday MPs had to consider the law as a whole, and that is why they returned to the controversial amendments to the article 50.

The opponents of the spent fuel imports again tried to stop turning the country into an international nuclear dumpsite, but failed. The majority of the MPs did not want to vindicate themselves before their electorate. Polls say more than 90% of Russians oppose the import of spent nuclear fuel.

Challenging the bills

The liberal Yabloko party keeps on criticising the idea of nuclear imports. Yabloko faction proposed two new amendments to the article 50, at least to minimize the damage from Minatom's activity and to ban eternal storage of the imported spent fuel in Russia. Yabloko also suggested that all the waste generated during reprocessing of the foreign spent nuclear fuel and newly manufactured fuel should be returned to the country of origin. But the MPs refused to discuss Yabloko's amendments and approved the article as it is.

Nuclear safety turns out to be particularly important issue in the wake of the terror acts in the US. "It's a pity, the majority of the MPs don't take the catastrophe in US as a warning... But the threat of nuclear terrorism is very actual in Russia, and becomes increasingly actual after the country has resolved to accept spent nuclear fuel from all over the world," Yabloko faction member Sergey Mitrokhin said.

Referendum vs spent fuel, nuclear lobby vs referendum The bills favouring spent nuclear fuel imports, approved by the State Duma and signed by the President, may be abolished by a national vote. Yabloko is going to initiate it, supported by envirogroups.

TENEX

The joint stock company Tekhsnabexport (TENEX) was founded in 1963 as a trade office within the USSR Ministry of External Trade. The main task of Tekhsnabexport was to export radioactive isotopes and rare metals to the East European and other countries. In 1968, Tekhsnabexport also began enriching uranium for export. In 1988, the company was transferred from the trade office to the Ministry of Atomic Energy. In 1989-90, Tekhsnabexport started to export natural uranium mined in Russia, as well as enriched uranium. In 1990, it shipped the first 12,000 tons of natural uranium abroad. Today the main activity of TENEX focuses on implementation from the Russian side of the HEU-LEU contract, launched by the US administration with a view to control Russian nuclear materials.

Last year, environmentalists tried to start the referendum, but the Central Electoral Committee said 0.6m of 2.5m of signatures collected were not valid. According to the Russian legislation, to start the referendum 2m signatures must be collected in a period of three months.

But the Minatom lobby tries to prevent the coming vote. In early October, a group of little known MPs proposed bills, hampering citizens' initiative for the referendum.

Both bills are called "On the amendments and additions into the federal constitutional Law On the Referendum in Russia". One of the amendments is that the questions, put forward for people's evaluation, should be approved by the upper and the lower chambers of the Russian parliament. That violates article 3 of the Russian Constitution, which stipulates that referendum is the "supreme and direct expression of people's power". Another amendment calls for that a group, who initiates a referendum, should be registered not in a centre of a federative subject, where the majority of the group lives, but in the Central Electoral Committee in Moscow.

According to the legislation in force, the initiative group may collect signatures anywhere, but not in the places said specifically about. The third amendment stipulates, that the Central Electoral Committee will define the place for the collection of signatures on its own choice.

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

U. S. Operating Commercial Nuclear Power Plants
http://www.mindspring.com/~what/usnuke.html

----

TWO NUCLEAR PLANTS INCREASE POWER OUTPUT

October 22, 2001
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/oct2001/2001L-10-22-09.html

WASHINGTON, DC, The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has approved requests by two nuclear power plants to increase their electricity generating capacity.

Carolina Power & Light Co. will increase the generating capacity of the Shearon Harris nuclear power plant by about 4.5 percent, or 51 megawatts.

The power uprate at the plant, near Raleigh, North Carolina, will increase the generating capacity of the reactor to about 968 megawatts of electricity. The facility intends to implement the power increase in December.

The NRC's safety evaluation of the requested power uprate for the plant focused on several areas, including nuclear steam supply systems, instrumentation and control systems, electrical systems, accident evaluations, radiological consequences, operations and technical specification changes. The NRC determined that the licensee could increase the power output of the reactor by using more new fuel in the core and by replacing the steam generators.

TXU Electric Company will increase the generating capacity of the Comanche Peak Steam Electric Station by 1.4 percent for Unit 1, and 0.4 percent for Unit 2. The plant is located near Glen Rose, Texas.

The power increase will be implemented now at Unit 2 and next spring for Unit 1.

The NRC's safety evaluation of the requested power uprate for the plant focused on several areas, including nuclear steam supply systems, instrumentation and control systems, electrical systems, accident evaluations, radiological consequences, operations and technical specification changes. The NRC determined that the licensee could increase the power output of the reactor with minor modifications to plant equipment because of technical refinements that permit more precise measurements of reactor operating conditions.

----

The amazing colossal concrete containment

From: "Scott D. Portzline" <sportzline@home.com>
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001

Over the last two months, reactor containment buildings are magically getting thicker. Sizes ranged from 2-3 feet before the attacks on September 11. Shortly afterward they grew to 4 feet. Two weeks later some containments were 5 feet thick. Then on "60 Minutes a week ago they were up to 6 feet thick." Now I am pleased to know that some are more than 10 feet thick according to the engineer in the story below.

The Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency was on a television call-in program last week. A woman asked "what are the dangers of nuclear power plants?" He answered, "Nothing more than a well run factory." That was it - no explanation of potential radioactive release or need to evacuate. And we pay him big buck to help Pa's citizens be prepared.

Scott Portzline

--------

Are Nuclear Plants Safe From Attack?
Protecting the nation's nuclear facilities.

Monday October 22 08:26 AM EDT
By Amanda Onion
ABCNEWS.com
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/abc/20011022/ts/strike_nukesafety011022_1.html

In light of the Sept. 11 attacks and the recent string of anthrax exposures, scientists and authorities have been forced to plan for another kind of unthinkable attack - on nuclear power plants.

If the improbable happened and terrorists managed to attack and penetrate a nuclear reactor core at a power plant, it could trigger an explosive meltdown that could spread radiation for hundreds of miles and trigger lethal health problems, if not immediate death among large populations. An undercover intruder could wreak similar havoc by sabotaging a plant from the inside.

Officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and others emphasize that such events are highly unlikely and claim that facilities are protected against attacks.

But it's clear the idea has been considered, if not by terrorists, then at least by terrorist impersonators. Last week, two airports near the Three Mile Island nuclear facility near Harrisburg, Pa. were closed after authorities said they had received a "credible" threat against the plant. By Thursday morning, the threat was dismissed and airports were reopened.

The false alert was a reminder of the vigilant defense needed at nuclear power plants. Some point to the 1986 accidental Chernobyl meltdown in Ukraine, which killed as many as 2,500 people, as an example of possible damages wrought by a nuclear power plant meltdown.

Daniel Hirsch, president of the Los Angeles-based nuclear watchdog group, the Committee to Bridge the Gap, recently told reporters gathered at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. that nuclear reactors are "among the most high-value targets that we have in the United States."

NRC: We Are Ready

The NRC is vague but confident when asked if the 103 nuclear plants across the United States are braced against attack.

"Yes, we are ready. We can't say how, but we are ready," said NRC spokesman Victor Dricks.

One line of defense is the structures that enclose nuclear reactors. Although they vary slightly in design, NRC guidelines stipulate that containment buildings be designed to withstand the impact of a bomb or small plane. That durability was proven in a 1989 test when Sandia National Labs in New Mexico sent a rocket-propelled F-4 fighter jet into a containment wall at 480 miles per hour. The jet disintegrated while the wall sustained only 2.4 inches of penetration.

"Typically these are concrete structures that are reinforced with steel that can be 10 feet thick or more," said Al Ghorbanpoor, a civil engineer at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee who has provided consulting in design for nuclear power plants. "They have been designed to sustain a large bomb impact, and the impact of a small plane, but if you're talking about a 747, I'm not sure."

No similar tests have been done using large passenger airplanes like the ones that hijackers flew into the World Trade Center Sept. 11. But Dricks claims even a large plane could not penetrate to the reactor core of these facilities. Still, Hirsch and others have called for extra caution and for positioning antiaircraft weaponry around nuclear power plants to fend off aerial suicide attacks.

France's defense minister recently announced that such measures have been taken to protect that nation's main nuclear waste processing plant. The NRC has not responded, at least publicly, to such requests.

Nuclear Waste: Small Targets?

Although a strike against a nuclear reactor core would wreak the greatest damage, there are other elements at nuclear power plants that could also be vulnerable.

Nuclear reactors in the United States have generated an estimated 45,000 tons of waste, which emit high levels of dangerous radioactive particles. The waste is being stored in temporary tanks or concrete and steel bunkers on site at nuclear power plants as debate over where and how to store it permanently continues. Some fear these storage facilities could also be targeted.

Dricks says all pools containing nuclear waste are enclosed in "robust" structures and that the steel bunkers are also secure - to a degree. Their best defense, he says, is their size.

"They're not required to withstand the impact of a large airplane," Dricks said. "But striking one would be extremely difficult because they're small."

Kim Kearfott, a professor of radiation safety at the University of Michigan, spent last year working at Detroit Edison's Fermi II Nuclear Plant and other plants in Michigan and is confident materials from these plants are safe from attack.

"These places are tightly protected," she said. "In fact, I feel safer at the plant than I do here in my office."

Attack From Within

Even if nuclear facilities are bolstered against terrorist raids and attacks, there remains the prospect of undercover intruders gaining access to vital controls at a nuclear power plant.

To prepare for such incidents, the NRC conducts regular drills and sends in would-be terrorists to see if they could take over or disable a plant. The drills are taped and then reviewed for possible flaws. Reports have indicated that since 1991, about half of the drills have revealed potential vulnerabilities. According to Hirsch, these drills did not incorporate the possibility that there could be large groups of possibly suicidal terrorists.

But Dricks says that since identifying potential weaknesses, the NRC has rapidly increased security. And since the attacks, he says, "some scenarios or threats that had not deemed credible or likely have been reconsidered."

In addition to increased patrol of the sites, security background checks have been re-run for all employees at nuclear power plants - even ones who have worked there for years.

-------- us nuc politics

NUCLEAR COMMISSION PUTS TRIMMED WEBSITE UP

October 22, 2001
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/oct2001/2001L-10-22-09.html

WASHINGTON, DC, The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) website is back up, though in a far sparer form than existed before the September 11 terrorist attacks.

The website, which was closed down last week, was restored with a limited amount of information.

"Taking down the agency website was a precaution to make sure it did not contain information that could be helpful to terrorists," the NRC says in a statement on the pared down site. "As the agency's review continues, other information and documents deemed non-sensitive will be added to the site."

So far, the site allows access only to the agency's mission statement, news releases, information about employment, public meetings and rulemaking, and details on how to report safety concerns - including threats of terrorist activities.

Before the September 11 terrorist attacks, information on exact locations of nuclear power plants, design and construction information, and contingency plans for nuclear accidents were all available on the site.

The website carried information on the background of all U.S. nuclear power plants and other facilities regulated by the NRC. A great deal of background information on individual plants, their security problems, and various design issues, could have been used in planning attacks on nuclear facilities, the NRC feared.

"In support of our mission to protect public health and safety, the NRC is performing a review of all material on our site," the NRC states. "In the interim, only select content will be available. We appreciate your patience and understanding during these difficult times."

-------- us nuc waste

New UCS fact sheet on spent fuel security

From: Alden Meyer [mailto:ameyer@ucsusa.org]
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2001

Spent Fuel Security

Much of the discussion since the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon has focused on the resistance of reactor containment structures to aircraft strikes. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) needs to analyze this issue so that its answer is known rather than debated.

More importantly, the NRC must address the vulnerability of spent fuel storage at all US nuclear power plants now. Spent fuel pools contain more highly radioactive fuel than the reactor cores. And the spent fuel pools at all US nuclear plants are located outside the reactor containment structure. When the spent fuel pools fill up, spent fuel is stored in concrete casks outside the plant. Thus, spent fuel is a softer target that could yield graver consequences than an aircraft crashing through the reactor containment structure.

What is the spent fuel pool?

The spent fuel pool is a 45-feet deep concrete pit that stores highly radioactive fuel assemblies after their removal from the reactor core. Water storage is required because spent fuel assemblies continue to emit considerable amounts of both heat and radiation for many years. The fuel pool water is continuously cooled to remove the heat produced by the spent fuel assemblies. Without cooling, the fuel pool water will heat up and boil. If the water boils or drains away, the spent fuel assemblies will overheat and either melt or catch on fire. NRC studies have estimated that many thousands of people living within 50 miles could die from the radiation released when spent fuel assemblies melt or catch on fire.

Where are the spent fuel pools located?

The spent fuel pools at nuclear power plants with pressurized water reactors are located in buildings adjacent to the reactor containment structures. Typically called the Fuel Handling Buildings, these structures are designed to withstand nature (e.g., earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, and snow storms) but not man (e.g., sabotage and accidental or intentional aircraft strikes). The Fuel Handling Buildings are basically standard, industrial-grade buildings (much like K-Mart but without the neon signs).

The spent fuel pools themselves are generally below ground level within the Fuel Handling Buildings. Consequently, it is less likely for water to drain out of the spent fuel pool when its floor or walls are damaged than if it were located above ground.

The spent fuel pools for nuclear power plants with boiling water reactors are located above ground in the building surrounding the primary reactor containment structure. The photograph at left shows a boiling water reactor under construction. The steel foundation for the spent fuel pool's floor and walls is being erected. The large hole in the center of the photograph allows personnel to access equipment inside the reactor containment structure. A smaller hole in the lower left of the photograph, partially obstructed by reinforcing bar for an upcoming concrete pour, allows spent fuel assemblies to pass underwater from the reactor core to the fuel pool. As can be seen, the reactor containment structure is a steel-lined, reinforced concrete building whereas the spent fuel pool building is simplymade of reinforced concrete.

The picture below shows the spent fuel pool in the completely constructed plant. The racks visible in the bottom of the pool store the spent fuel assemblies. The gap in the concrete wall in the lower right connects the spent fuel pool to the transfer area. Fuel assemblies are lowered from the vertical position to the horizontal position in the transfer area for transport through the small containment hole to the reactor core.

The concrete wall on the far side of the picture, behind the railing and traversed by sheet-metal ventilation ductwork, is an outside wall. In the construction picture, this wall is represented by the reinforcing bars for the concrete.

An aircraft-or missile-would not need to completely level the fuel building to cause harm. It would merely need to crack the concrete wall or floor of the spent fuel pool and drain the water out. The spent fuel pool is designed to remain intact following an earthquake, but it is not designed to withstand aircraft impacts and explosive forces.

Some of the nuclear power plants with boiling water reactors are even more vulnerable. For example, the spent fuel pool is in the taller building on the left side of the nuclear plant shown below. The longer, shorter building on the right houses the turbine/generator. The photograph on the right shows the platform used to move fuel within the spent fuel pool. It rides on rails and spans the width of the spent fuel pool. The dark wall in the background is the blue panel shown in the picture on the left. It is corrugated metal siding that would hardly stop a Cessna from penetrating, yet alone a fully loaded commercial jet. As suggested from the photographs, the spent fuel pool at this plant is as high above ground as possible. About the only way to elevate it further would be to balance it on top of the red and white striped chimney in the background.

What about spent fuel stored in dry casks?

When the spent fuel pool in the "attic" of the nuclear plant fills up, some of the highly radioactive fuel assemblies are loaded into large casks and stored outside on concrete pads as shown below. Weapons available on the black market, and even some that can be legitimately purchased in the US, or explosives could cause the casks to be penetrated resulting in the release of large amounts of radiation. At some plants, the casks are line-of-sight visible from open access (i.e., unsecured) areas while other plants place casks inside unguarded chain-link fences.

What should the NRC do about spent fuel security?

Easy. Existing federal regulations (10 CFR 73.55) require plant owners to provide adequate security to protect spent fuel-whether stored in pools or casks-from radiological sabotage. All the NRC needs to do is simply enforce regulations already on the books. No more studies are required, no more rulemaking is needed, no more evaluations are necessary, and no more delays are warranted.

Alden Meyer
Director of Government Relations
Union of Concerned Scientists
1707 H Street, NW
Washington, DC 20006
phone: 202-223-6133, Ext. 127
fax: 202-223-6162
e-mail: ameyer@ucsusa.org website:
http://www.ucsusa.org


-------- MILITARY


Anti-Terrorism War Could Last Years - UK Military.
War Details Remain Secret for Years

AP; Reuters.
22 October 2001.

WASHINGTON and MUSCAT -- A decade later, Americans still don't know how far special operations forces went inside Iraq during the Gulf War. Some parts of the fighting in Kosovo and Vietnam -- even Korea -- remain sketchy.

Even in conventional wars, the secrets are many.

In the war against terrorism, where special operations forces play a crucial, almost unprecedented role, the public may never learn more than a sliver of what happens inside Afghanistan.

"If they catch someone on the most-wanted terrorist list, they might eventually acknowledge that," said John Pike, a military and intelligence analyst in Washington. "But not quickly. Anybody they'll catch, they're going to want to interrogate first" in secret, to help catch others.

And when American special ops soldiers die? "They'll tell us that," Pike said. "But they may not say where -- or how."

Saturday's overnight raids by 100 airborne Army Rangers and other special forces into southern Afghanistan were the first publicly acknowledged covert missions of the war -- and a bit of an anomaly.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Monday that no prisoners were taken.

But he said officials would never again provide such detail.

U.S. officials would not say what the raid's objectives were, beyond gathering "useful intelligence" on the movements of Taliban leaders, specifically leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. They wouldn't say what they found, beyond a cache of weapons and documents. They said two soldiers were killed in a helicopter crash in neighboring Pakistan, but provided almost no details.

Two U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said troops were still conducting secret operations inside Afghanistan -- including some operations that will be kept secret even when they're over.

"Some of the invisible operations we will provide information on," said Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"There will be other invisible operations where we will not say a thing."

Americans were so outraged by the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon that they will give the military much leeway to wage war, and will not demand constant accounting, said Ivo Daalder of the Brookings Institution.

But over time, "If people don't get a sense of movement, that this is the direction things are headed, they are going to get extraordinarily antsy," said Dan Goure, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute.

The military will announce its successes, most believe, perhaps omitting details of how they happened. But secrecy also allows officials to hide bad news, at least temporarily.

They might wait to announce troop deaths, for example, until they also can announce positive results.

Goure noted that many military operations, both special ops and conventional, become public only when former soldiers tell war stories -- sometimes decades later.

Details of the killing of refugees at No Gun Ri by Army troops in 1950 took a half-century to surface, Goure said.

Information about Sen. Bob Kerrey's actions as a Navy SEAL in Vietnam came out more than 30 years later.

Stories of special ops teams hunting Scud missile sites in the Gulf War have appeared, but there has been no hard information about how far the teams went into Iraq.

It's still unclear where all the Apache helicopters were based during the Kosovo air campaign, Pike said.

All of that secrecy will be magnified in Afghanistan -- and beyond.

"Here, almost everything we do will be behind the line of secrecy," Daalder said.

Meanwhile, Britain's military chiefs said on Monday that the international war on terrorism could go on for years and they are planning for the long haul.

The stark assessment was made by Air Force and Navy commanders who flew into Oman for operation Swift Sword, Britain's biggest military exercise since the 1982 Falklands War.

It was planned as a war game but now looks increasingly like a dress rehearsal for the real thing.

Rear Admiral Alan West's assessment was blunt: "I have taken the prime minister (Tony Blair) at his word that it will go on for years because I think it will. I have looked at how to maintain levels of commitment for years."

Air Chief Marshal Sir John Day, commander-in-chief of the Royal Air Force strike command, agreed: "We are into a long haul but it will depend on what the government decides it wants to do as its contribution."

Operation Swift Sword, which has been four years in the planning [N.B.], has brought more than 20,000 British troops to this Arabian peninsula nation just as U.S. and British forces go to war over Afghanistan 600 miles to the north.

-------- afghanistan

At Afghan Border, Many Want Out As Some Slip In

By John Pomfret
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, October 22, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31100-2001Oct21.html

CHAMAN, Pakistan, Oct. 21 -- A sea of Afghans, wearing turbans or skullcaps or covered head-to-toe, waited today to enter Pakistan at a run-down desert crossing. Behind them, trucks stuffed with smuggled goods, mattresses, personal belongings and possibly even heroin stretched into the dusty horizon.

Donkeys brayed. Women on the Pakistani side of the border, separated by a shout from their children in Afghanistan, wailed. Pakistani border guards barked "Stand back. Go back," and menaced refugees with canes and whips. At one point today, they fired warning shots, hitting a teenage boy, witnesses said.

About 150 feet back, dour Taliban officials wearing bright white turbans and perched on pickup trucks wielded AK-47s as they surveyed the crowd of hopefuls seeking a peaceful night outside their homeland.

On the Pakistani side, religious militants ready to fight the "devil America" plotted their passage into Afghanistan to join the battle against the United States.

Two weeks after the United States began its war against the Taliban and suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden, a trip to the Chaman border post in southwestern Pakistan, one of Afghanistan's main openings to the outside world, offers a view of the horror and the hope that war has brought that ravaged land.

"Afghanistan is slowly falling apart," said Abdul Wali, an Afghan from the southern city of Kandahar who was returning home to keep watch over his house after having brought his wife and children to Pakistan. "You can see it happening here."

Brutalized by days and nights of nonstop attacks, Afghans who can move are moving. The U.S. ground attacks have given new impetus to leave. Many say they want a new government and, in a marked change from several weeks ago, many say they are no longer afraid of the Taliban.

"Ninety-eight percent of us want a coalition government," said Wali, a former journalist who ended his career with the Taliban's official Bakhtar news agency when it stopped paying salaries. "We want the old king to return. What can the Taliban do if I say this? Everybody is saying it now."

An Afghan doctor walked by. Abdul Bari is a physician at Mir Weis Hospital, the only functioning civilian medical facility in Kandahar, the spiritual center of the Taliban movement.

Bari, who speaks softly and wears a finely knit pale yellow fez, was on duty Oct. 7, the night the U.S. strikes began in Kandahar. He provided the first witness account of a story that has been widely reported in Pakistan -- that the first round of strikes killed a son of Mohammad Omar, the leader of the Taliban, and the boy's uncle.

"Mullah Omar brought in his 10-year-old boy and his uncle and asked us to do what we could," Bari recalled. "The boy had injuries to his abdomen and a right femur fracture. We were in a hurry to help him, but he died."

Bari said that was the last time he saw the reclusive Afghan leader, who is believed to be hiding in caves above the city. "No one sees him now."

Bari said the hospital has about a 10-day supply of medicine. Water is a serious problem because the U.S. strikes knocked out electricity, so the city's pumps don't work. After three years working in that hospital, Bari said, he has decided to leave Afghanistan. He said his house is too close to Omar's residence -- a potential U.S. target.

Today he was crossing back into Afghanistan to pick up his wife and children. "We are hoping for a change," he said. "Many of us want the Taliban to go."

Moments later, another voice in the Afghan conflict surfaced.

Clothed in a fine pajama-like garment in shades of gray, his hazel eyes sparkling with passion, Faisal Mohammed strutted up to the chain-link fence holding the white-and-black striped flag of a Pakistani religious party and the white standard of the Taliban.

"Where are you going?" he was asked.

"To holy war," came the reply, incongruous for a man who appeared to be in his fifties. "To fight devil America. Long live the Taliban."

Within seconds he had disappeared into the crowd of Afghans waiting on the other side.

Next came a group of 20 youths, graduates of religious schools, or madrassas , that have sprung up throughout Pakistan in the last decade and profited from the collapse of state-funded schools. They marched toward the border, only to be turned back by a member of Pakistan's Frontier Corps. "Back!" the guard yelled, swinging his truncheon.

The youths hailed from all over Pakistan. They were young; some had barely any facial hair. None sported beards that would pass muster with the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the feared Taliban religious police. Beards on that side of the border have to be at least as big as a fist.

"We are going to die fighting the Americans," said one prospective warrior. Blocked at the crossing, he and his comrades took a side road and sprinted into Afghanistan a short while later. "Allah is all powerful!" one cried.

As they made an end run into Afghanistan, a train of donkey carts was making an end run out.

"Stop them!" an officer in the sole Pakistani watchtower yelled into a microphone. "Stop the cart men, stop the donkeys!"

Pakistan has refused to allow refugees to enter the country en masse -- although there have been exceptions for individuals, thousands of them. Pakistan's argument is that if it opens its borders, hundreds of thousands of Afghans will flood into the country. Nearly 5 million Afghans -- almost a fifth of the population -- already live as refugees, mainly in Pakistan or Iran.

In theory, only those who have Pakistani identification cards or relatives, or require medical treatment because of the airstrikes, can cross the border. Today, a stream of injured people -- eyes, legs and arms wrapped in bloody bandages -- trickled out of Afghanistan.

But the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is 1,400 miles long and there are many byways, both bureaucratic and through the mountains.

About 10 miles inside Afghanistan, in the town of Spin Buldak, a fast trade has emerged in counterfeit Pakistani identification cards. At the border, a faster trade has emerged in bribing the guards. Then there are the men on jerry-built Yamahas who will brave a fusillade of gunfire to take passengers -- and some smuggled goods -- into Pakistan cross-country for a fee. Today, a flock of them, like waiting buzzards, surveyed the scene from a nearby ridge.

Maj. Aftab, the Frontier Corps post commander, said that between 10,000 and 15,000 Afghans and 100 to 200 trucks were waiting to enter Pakistan but that he had received no orders to let them in.

"Over there it is horrible," said the dashing, mustachioed commander, pointing out the window of his watchtower at the throng waiting in 97-degree heat on the other side of a dirt patch and a few rolls of barbed wire. "There are sick people, injured people, patients. They have brought just one loaf of bread, two loaves of bread in a sack, which they will eat for a week."

Aftab, who declined to give his first name, said the exodus began in earnest last week, after electricity and water failed in Kandahar. On Friday, border guards let 3,500 people into Pakistan -- at that point the biggest single-day influx since the war began, although it was not clear why they were allowed entry. Upwards of 5,000 crossed there Saturday.

"The men are sick, the women are pregnant, the children are dying. The conditions are pathetic," Aftab said. "Some of them bring bodies from that side over here to bury."

But he added, "Pakistan can't afford to let them in."

Today in Islamabad, Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz said the war would cost Pakistan between $1 billion and $2.5 billion -- a staggering sum for a country deeply in debt.

U.N. relief agencies have urged Pakistan to open its borders, warning that a humanitarian crisis is imminent, and have identified several areas where refugees could be housed. Trucks of tents were seen heading toward the border, but there is no sign that the Pakistani government is ready to relent.

Today, at the border, U.N. agencies were negotiating with Pakistan for permission to cross into Afghanistan and help the refugees, said William Sakataka, head of the Quetta office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. "The situation is tense," he said. The United Nations says there will be a need to feed 6 million to 7 million people in Afghanistan this winter.

Soon after Sakataka left, thousands of Afghans streamed into Pakistan, Western relief workers said. Frontier corpsmen fired warning shots to slow the refugees, hitting a 13-year-old boy, witnesses said.

On a dirt patch near the border crossing, a wizened, middle-aged woman who identified herself as the widow of Sali Mohammed was crying. She would not give her name because Afghan customs view women as the property of their husbands. "I am a widow," she cried. "And they won't let me have my children."

She said she had been living on the dirt patch for three days. Pakistani border guards had allowed her daughter and two grandchildren to cross, but not her sons. "I don't have anything," she said. "I have nothing. Nothing to eat. And I have lost my family, too."

Scanning the scene, Aftab turned to a visitor and asked: "Are you Special Forces? SAS? A Green Beret?"

"Let me tell you, it is all useless, this air war," he said, leaning back in his chair. "More people are getting killed and more people are getting allied with the Taliban. . . . The only solution is by the ground. But you must start soon. In a few weeks, winter will be here."

--------

Building a nation in Afghanistan
The US is in discussions with Zahir Shah, the former king, and Pashtun leaders met yesterday.

Christian Science Monitor
October 22, 2001
By Scott Peterson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1022/p6s1-wosc.html

BAZARAK, AFGHANISTAN - Hundreds of men with long faces pile their shoes at the door and file into a simple yellow mosque here to mark the 40th day of mourning for Afghanistan's rebel chief Ahmad Shah Masood.

Many more, all paying respect to the assassinated guerrilla leader revered for his role in ousting Soviet invaders in the 1980s, are crowded on the roof of the mosque in Mr. Masood's home village.

But the somber mood is not only a reflection of their sorrow for their slain leader. It's also about the daunting challenges facing their Northern Alliance in the future, as it attempts to create a post-Taliban coalition for Afghanistan.

The US is counting on the alliance - a collection of ethnic minority groups once held together by the glue of Masood's unifying presence - to help topple the radical Islamic Taliban regime.

But US officials have put the brakes on alliance military plans to advance on the capital, Kabul, until a workable coalition - which includes Pashtun groups that make up nearly 40 percent of the population, and are dominant supporters of the Taliban - is formed.

"It's US juggling of military and political aims," says Martha Brill Olcott, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. "You can't create a power vacuum in Afghanistan, without some plan to fill it."

But details of that plan, she says, remain unclear even to policy planners. "Until the Taliban is more close to collapse, no one knows how the pieces are going to fit back together," Ms. Olcott says. "We are in an intelligence void, and will have to wait and see."

Nation-building, however, will not be easy here. The violent groove of factional fighting is far more familiar to Afghanistan's 20 million poverty-stricken people.

In an attempt to break that cycle, Northern Alliance and US officials have been in discussions with Zahir Shah - the former king of Afghanistan, who has lived in exile since 1973 and is ethnic Pashtun. A 120-member Supreme Council - with half its members appointed by the alliance, and half proposed by the king - is on the table.

Pashtun opposition leaders were also meeting yesterday in the Pakistani city of Quetta. And a CIA operation is reportedly under way inside Afghanistan - backed up by US Special Forces troops - to convince Pashtun tribal leaders to break from the Taliban.

The key is likely to be Northern Alliance efforts, since this group - which US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said was receiving US money and ammunition, which are most likely to make military gains on the ground.

"The alliance has matured enormously in the past two months," says Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani analyst contacted in Lahore, who has covered Afghanistan for 20 years and written a recent book on the Taliban. "Despite critics, you can't compare them with the Northern Alliance of the past. They have admitted mistakes.

"These new leaders are taking enormous risks to put a national agenda first," Mr. Rashid says. The reason is that Masood, alone among warlords here, insisted on creating a cadre of educated, intelligent advisers around him.

The result may be the current wisdom of Northern Alliance policies, says Rashid: "But we have to see if these intentions are born out in fact."

Overcoming Pashtun fears - after so many years of inter-ethnic fighting, blood feuds, and a built-up sense of revenge - will not be easy, even if the Taliban were to crumble.

"It's going to be important to prevent massacres and ethnic killings as these cities fall," adds Rashid. The reins of power should be handed over immediately to the Supreme Council as Northern Alliance forces advance, "to reassure citizens - and especially Pashtuns - that they will not be ruled by warlords."

The standard is low and bloody, and dates back to 1992, when mujahideen factions ousted the Soviet-installed regime that collapsed into a civil war that destroyed several districts of Kabul.

For residents of the capital, those four years of bloodshed remain fresh in the memory, despite the religious excesses of the Taliban. Alliance commanders today say they are mindful of that legacy, and trying to reverse it.

"We told [political leaders] that it is good not to go into Kabul, but to go to the gates and establish a security force," says alliance General Babajan, who controls the front north of Kabul. In 1992, he recalls, mujahideen "went to Kabul and took some places for themselves. They were not under one command. Now everybody is under one command, so we won't have the same problem."

Still, the Northern Alliance is fighting an uphill political battle - made worse by the fact that the charismatic Masood is now out of the picture.

"It's an enormous challenge for the Northern Alliance to put together a coalition that would win acceptance in the country," says Olcott. "These people start with lots and lots of strikes against them."

Breaking ties with drug dealers and gun runners may also be an issue, she says. And broadening a ruling coalition so that no single group has a majority will be critical - but possibly unacceptable to the Northern Alliance, if it is making military gains.

There may be a legitimate political or even peacekeeping role for the United Nations, Olcott adds, noting that under special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, it is the "only organization that has not discredited itself in the past five years" in Afghanistan.

Still, bringing an end to the Taliban is an American war aim explicitly spelled out by Mr. Rumsfeld on Friday.

"The military role will be over there when the Taliban and al-Qaeda [bin Laden's network] are gone," Rumsfeld said. "That's what this is about."

The Taliban are already feeling that pressure. A Taliban minister on Saturday called for both sides to bury their differences and "form one front against the [American] attacks."

But at the Panjshir mosque where Afghans mourned Masood, there is deep conviction that Masood's legacy of unity will see the Northern Alliance through to triumph - and Taliban hardliners are not welcome. "[Masood] gathered all the people under one roof," says Mohamed Aman, a commando and former Masood bodyguard.

"We want to follow Masood's way. He taught us," Mr. Aman says. "Whenever we capture places of the Taliban, we should give a seat [in the council] for every ethnic group. We should include them in a state. But Arabs, Pakistanis and Taliban that are treacherous - we will never let them in government."

--------

Soldiers of the Northern Alliance Prepare for a Ground Battle

New York Times
October 22, 2001
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/22/international/asia/22CND-MILI.html

WASHINGTON, Oct. 22 - American warplanes were reported to have carried out a second round of attacks today on the Taliban's front-line troops north of Kabul. After the first substantial raids on the positions, on Sunday, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell indicated that the United States would like the opposition Northern Alliance to advance toward the Afghan capital.

Today two jets circled over the Taliban front lines and fired at four targets, Reuters reported from the Bagram airbase, north of Kabul. The Taliban responded with heavy antiaircraft fire, the agency said.

In a second strike, an American jet released two missiles and two huge orange flashes erupted on the ground, Reuters said.

Sunday's raids drew cheers from the forces of the Northern Alliance, who appeared to be marshaling soldiers for an attack across the maze of trenches, bunkers and minefields that lie between them and Kabul, 35 miles to the south.

In recent days at least 1,000 of the Northern Alliance's better troops have arrived in the area around the Taliban's front-line positions, bolstering an estimated 2,000 alliance troops already there. Pentagon officials, however, have said that 10,000 to 15,000 Taliban troops are defending the front north of Kabul.

The rebel group has had few military successes in recent years. Whether it can succeed in advancing on Kabul is far from clear, and its political leaders have offered to stop short of entering the capital.

"The Northern Alliance is on the march in the north toward Mazar-i-Sharif, and I think they're gathering their strength to at least invest Kabul, or start moving on Kabul more aggressively," Secretary Powell said. As a retired general, he used the word "invest" in its military sense, meaning to surround and lay siege to an objective.

The bombing raids and Secretary Powell's virtual invitation to the rebels to surround Kabul suggest a growing sense of urgency in Washington about the military operation.

President Bush has said he is determined to carry on the search for Osama bin Laden and efforts to topple the Taliban leadership that shelters him even if takes a year or more. But the harsh Afghan winter will hamper American and British ground actions in Afghanistan.

Another factor is the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which begins in mid-November, about the same time that winter sets in. The Pentagon has said nothing to indicate that it is planning to suspend or slow its attacks during Ramadan. Military strikes during that period, however, would further inflame anti-American sentiment in the Islamic world, a concern that the Americans' sole military ally, the British, have noted.

So while the United States and the British are prepared for a long campaign, they are striving to achieve a breakthrough in the next four weeks.

"I think it would be in our interest and the interest of the coalition to see this matter resolved before winter strikes and it makes our operations that much more difficult," Secretary Powell told the Fox News television channel on Sunday, referring to Washington's crucial military objectives.

A senior British defense official also said that the allies were racing against time. Asked if the United States and the British were trying to achieve their war aims before winter and Ramadan, Adam Ingram, the British Armed Forces Minister said, "Clearly we are planning to try and achieve that very objective."

Other administration officials echoed Secretary Powell's desire to wrap up the campaign in Afghanistan. "There is some pressure to get as much done as we can by Ramadan," said a senior administration official. "But frankly I don't know what we're going to do when it comes to that time."

In a television interview, Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did not talk today as if Northern Alliance intervention would be decisive, nor did he seem to think that it was likely that Washington would achieve all of its war aims by the winter.

"As the president said, this is going to be a very, very long campaign," General Myers said on ABC television, referring to the fight against terrorism. "It may take till next spring. It may take till next summer. It may take longer than that in Afghanistan."

The American decision to bomb the Taliban front-line defense north of Kabul was a milestone. Since bombing started on Oct. 7, the Americans have not carried out such attacks, save for four bombs dropped on some Taliban front-line troops early last week, according to reports from the Northern Alliance.

Observers of Sunday's raids today there were at least two attacks on the Taliban front line north of Kabul.

A senior American official suggested that American forces had not retained control of a remote airfield 50 miles southwest of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, but could secure it again in the future.

On Sunday the Pentagon identified the two men killed as a result of the Friday raid. They were Pfc. Kristofor Stonesifer, 28, of Helena, Mont., and Spec. Jonn J. Edmunds, 20, of Cheyenne, Wyo. The two soldiers, who served at Fort Benning, Ga., with the 75th Ranger Regiment, were on an Army helicopter that crashed in Pakistan.

Administration officials said attacks on the Taliban's front-line troops had been a lower priority than efforts to strike at Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban leader, and the Qaeda terrorist network.

In addition, the Northern Alliance is dominated by ethnic Uzbeks and Tajiks and is therefore unacceptable to the Pashtuns of Afghanistan, the country's largest ethnic group and the one from which the Taliban emerged. Washington was concerned that more Afghans might rally around the Taliban if the Northern Alliance were to rush into the capital.

But, with time pressing, Washington appears to have altered its calculation. The Administration has secured a promise from the Northern Alliance that it will approach Kabul, but not enter the city.

"We are saying we want to go to the gates of Kabul and stop there," said Haron Amin, the senior Washington envoy for the Northern Alliance. "Basically, we want to have a demilitarized Kabul and have a security force in place."

Mr. Amin said the security force could be supervised by the United Nations in order to maintain a balance of power between Afghanistan's rival factions.

Before returning to Moscow from talks in Asia, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, stopped in Tajikistan, where he met with Burhanuddin Rabbani, the political leader of the Afghan opposition government, the Northern Alliance, telling him that Russia would continue to supply weapons to the alliance. Mr. Putin said the Northern Alliance should be included in a new government but that the Taliban should be excluded.

For the United States, there is a clear military utility in striking the Taliban's front lines. To strengthen the front lines and discourage defections, Arab and other troops recruited by Mr. bin Laden have taken up positions there.

Those troops are a high-priority target for Washington. A garrison of them near Mazar-i-Sharif was among the first targets struck in Washington's military campaign. So far, the Northern Alliance, which consists of four factions, is the only group mounting a military challenge to the Taliban. There is as yet no organized resistance on the part of Pashtun tribes in south.

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, who signaled the decision to lend more support to the Northern Alliance last week, has expressed frustration with the faltering efforts to build Pashtun resistance.

"We do not have the kinds of interaction with some elements in the south that I would have to have to see progress," he said on Friday.

The military ability of the Northern Alliance is still uncertain. In recent days, for example, fighting near Mazar-i-Sharif has see-sawed, as the alliance pushed to the edge of the airfield outside town only to pull back under a Taliban counterattack. The Americans began air attacks there on Saturday.

-------- biological weapons

Anthrax trace found in US House mailroom

by Jonathan Wright,
22/10/2001
Reuters
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12920/story.htm

WASHINGTON - A swab from a U.S. House of Representatives mail room proved positive for the potential germ warfare agent anthrax, a police spokesman said on the weekend, adding to the alarm about a spate of anthrax findings.

Close to 40 people in the United States, including 28 who work at the nearby U.S. Senate, have been exposed to anthrax bacteria in the past month. Eight people have been infected with the disease and one man has died.

U.S. officials said they do not know if the outbreaks, stretching from Florida in the southeast to New Jersey and New York in the northeast, are linked with the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, which Washington blames on the al Qaeda organization of Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden.

U.S. President George W. Bush, making his weekly radio address from Shanghai, called the anthrax mailings "an act of terror" and sought to enlist Pacific Rim leaders on Saturday in a global campaign to protect people from bioterrorism.

Capitol Police spokesman Lt. Dan Nichols said the staff who work in the contaminated mail room, in the Ford House Office Building three blocks from the U.S. Capitol, would be tested to see if they have been exposed to the bacteria.

Hours later, District of Columbia officials told a a news conference that a Washington postal worker was in the hospital in nearby Virginia and was being tested for the disease.

"A gentleman out at Fairfax Hospital (in Virginia) is now being treated. There is a possible situation. The Centers for Disease Control is now out there monitoring that situation and tests are being done," Mayor Anthony Williams said.

A doctor from the federal Centers for Disease Control, Rima Khabbaz, told the news conference that initial nasal swabs on the man had proven negative for anthrax but more tests were pending and results expected within 24 hours.

OTHER MACHINES ARE NEGATIVE

The positive swab in the Ford building turned up during a precautionary "environmental sampling" of the whole Capitol complex, ordered this week after a contaminated letter reached the offices of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.

It was from a machine that bundles mail for the Longworth House Office Building, which houses the offices of House Speaker Dennis Hastert and House Democratic leader Richard Gephardt, a written statement said.

"All other bundling machine tests are negative. Because of the suspension of mail delivery, it is not known whether any affected mail was delivered," it added.

Nichols said the investigators did not know if the latest trace of anthrax came from a second letter or through cross-contamination from the letter to Daschle.

All letters to the U.S. Congress pass first the mail handling center where the man in hospital works, before splitting into mail for the Senate and mail for the House of Representatives, officials said.

Senate physician John Eisold said the new finding was no surprise if you follow the trail of the mail.

"We will go ahead and test the workers in that facility and, pending results, will initiate prophylactic antibiotics," he added. Medical authorities are recommending a two-month course of the antibiotic Cipro for people exposed to anthrax.

Nichols said it was up to the House leadership to decide whether to go ahead with plans to reopen the House on Tuesday.

For the first time in U.S. history, the House closed at the end of business on Wednesday, because of the anthrax scare. The Senate, despite having confirmed cases of exposure, remained open as usual on Thursday.

The latest case of anthrax infection emerged yesterday when The New York Post said an employee at the tabloid newspaper had tested positive for the cutaneous, or skin-related, variety.

Though caused by the same bacterium, the cutaneous variety is less deadly than the inhaled variety that killed a tabloid photo editor in Florida earlier this month.

Along with the real cases, the United States and other countries have seen a spate of false alarms and apparent hoaxes with envelopes containing white powder.

----

Argentina tests confirm letter laced with anthrax

Story by Gilbert Le Gras,
22/10/2001
Reuters
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12926/story.htm

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - Argentine health authorities have confirmed that a letter sent from Miami to a woman in Buenos Aires was laced with anthrax spores but they believed she was not at risk of becoming infected.

After initial tests on Thursday showed it was "highly probable" there were anthrax spores in the envelope, further DNA tests conducted yesterday confirmed earlier suspicions.

"We are announcing that the test results were positive," Health Minister Hector Lombardo told a news conference, adding that a special fund was created yesterday to help pay for laboratory tests of suspicious letters.

Before Friday, Kenya was the only other country outside the United States to confirm the presence of the potentially deadly bacteria in a letter. That letter was mailed in Atlanta.

Many Argentines fear their country, the only Latin American nation to send troops to the 1991 Gulf War and a strong ally of the United States, could be a victim of attacks after the Sept. 11 suicide-hijack plane assaults on New York and Washington.

Brazilian officials in Rio de Janeiro said a letter sent to the New York Times bureau there from New York City "suggested bacteria or spores consistent with anthrax" after a preliminary test.

Argentine authorities said they were studying tighter screening measures for incoming mail.

"There is no one in Argentina with anthrax, no one, all we have is an envelope with the bacillus (rod-shaped bacteria)," Lombardo said. "We are working with the post office to create a sterilization process with ozone for all letters that arrive."

The woman who received the letter in Buenos Aires, who has not been named, did not open the envelope but sent it for tests.

"The patient was identified and taken to the Muniz Hospital and I gave her a check up, I talked to her and the person is perfectly fine because she knew she did not have to open the envelope so she did not and she has not been in contact with the confirmed (anthrax) bacteria," said Dr. Jorge San Juan, head of intensive care at the Muniz Hospital.

San Juan and Lombardo said the envelope, mailed in Miami, bore the logo of Carnival Cruise Lines , but a spokeswoman for the company said it had not been contacted by Argentine authorities.

"At this point in time we do not believe the mail came from Carnival," said spokeswoman Jennifer de la Cruz. "According to information we've been provided by our sales office in Argentina it does not appear the Argentine authorities believe the letter came from Carnival."

Argentine Security Secretary Enrique Mathov said he did not know the origin of the envelope but it would likely be one topic discussed at a security meeting on Saturday morning.

Interior Minister Ramon Mestre said an emergency meeting of the Interior Security Council would be held to analyze additional safety measures and the president would call on the military to assist if their aid is deemed necessary.

Andres Ruiz, head of the state-run Malbran Institute, said that of more than 580 suspicious letters tested to date, only one had tested positive.

Governments around the world have become increasing fearful that anthrax smeared on letters is being used as a biological weapon. About 40 people have tested positive in the United States for exposure to the disease and one has died.

The anthrax case dominated news broadcasts in a nation where memories of the bombings of Israel's embassy and a Jewish community center in the 1990s - in which over 100 people died - are still fresh. (Additional reporting by Mayra Pertossi.).

----

Bioterrorism Preparations Lacking at Lowest Levels
Despite Warnings and Funds, Local Defenses Come Up Short

By Joby Warrick and Steve Fainaru
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, October 22, 2001; Page A07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31008-2001Oct21.html

The chaos, long lines and misinformation that roiled Washington in the wake of last week's anthrax attack has underscored a long-standing weakness in the nation's defense against terrorism:

In preparing for bioterrorism, the federal government has not always clued in the emergency workers, hospitals and physicians who must manage the front lines in any assault.

"Confusion reigns at the lowest levels," said Mohammad Akhter, executive director of the American Public Health Association, who watched with growing unease last week as a single anthrax-tainted letter pushed the Washington area's emergency response system to the limit. He added, "This is the one thing that causes us to shake in our boots."

The federal government has staged more than 200 training exercises in the late 1990s, some of which were designed to help local emergency officials prepare for future attacks by terrorists wielding everything from anthrax aerosols to crude nuclear devices. The exercises were part of an increased effort to prepare the nation for terrorist threats, an effort in which spending tripled to nearly $10 billion a year since 1996.

As recently as last year, however, special federal panels and government audits warned of critical gaps at state and local levels. Half of all U.S. states lacked even a single "disease detective" to investigate outbreaks, public health officials said. Ten percent of the nation's 120 largest city and county health departments did not have e-mail.

"The Executive Branch and the Congress have not paid sufficient attention to state and local capabilities for combating terrorism," concluded a December 2000 report by a White House advisory panel on terrorism chaired by Virginia Gov. James S. Gilmore III (R). A "disproportionately small" amount of the federal government's nearly $11 billion counterterrorism budget trickles down to the state and local readiness efforts, the panel said.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, the Bush administration has asked for an additional $1.5 billion to prepare the nation for a broad array of biological threats, including anthrax and the plague. Only a fraction of the money is aimed at preparing communities for future threats.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson on Friday called the additional spending a "first step" and predicted that more money would be found for communities. But public health officials say the experiences of the past two weeks have underscored an urgent need to strengthen local public health infrastructures, from hospital emergency rooms to local laboratories.

"My impression is that everyone is stretched to the limit," said Margaret Hamburg, a former New York City health commissioner and former assistant secretary of Health and Human Services. "It certainly does tell us that we have to make sure that we have greater depth on the bench for the future."

The Gilmore report and another high-profile advisory panel, the National Commission on Terrorism, both issued reports last year warning of other major gaps in the nation's bioterrorism defense, including inadequate research into technologies to detect, treat and decontaminate biological hazards in a terrorist attack.

They also criticized "insufficient" federal government controls on existing stocks of terrorism-friendly pathogens such as anthrax and smallpox, as well as the specialized equipment needed to transform them into weapons. Scores of universities and private laboratories maintain supplies of anthrax spores for research purposes and federal officials acknowledge they have no central database for tracking the stocks. Federal investigators believe anthrax cultures sold to an Iraqi university in 1988 by a Manassas, Va., lab were co-opted into Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program.

"None of the recommendations were enacted into law" until the Sept. 11 hijackings pushed domestic terrorism to the top of Congress's agenda, said L. Paul Bremer III, co-chairman of the National Commission on Terrorism and the former State Department "ambassador-at-large" for counterterrorism.

One reason for the inaction: Security experts were divided on whether the bioterrorism threat was real or merely theoretical. The General Accounting Office, drawing on interviews with top counterterrorism officials, concluded in a report last year that the risk of large-scale attack was small, owing to formidable technical obstacles involved in dispersing lethal pathogens over a large area.

"Much of the federal effort to combat terrorism has been based on vulnerabilities rather than an analysis of credible threats," the GAO said in its April 2000 report.

The anthrax scare that began with the death of a Florida photo editor two weeks ago is the first fatal instance of bioterrorism in the nation's history. After one death, seven confirmed illnesses and several dozen exposures, it remains unclear whether the deadly spores originated in this country or overseas, or if they were orchestrated by an international terrorist organization such as al Qaeda or a domestic copycat group.

What is clear is that that attack on the U.S. Capitol building rattled a public health system unaccustomed to dealing with such threats.

The first hours after the discovery of anthrax in the office of Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) were fraught with confusion as government agencies and hospitals moved on separate and sometimes conflicting tracks. Story lines changed by the hour: Were the anthrax spores of "weapons grade" or of a cruder variety amenable to treatment? Had anthrax entered the Capitol ventilation system or not?

To learn whether they had been exposed, anxious staffers and visitors at first consulted with the Capitol Physician's office for screening tests. Later, amid ever-longer lines and growing anxiety, House and Senate offices dispatched workers to private hospitals and physicians -- only to be referred back to the Capitol in many cases.

Employees were examined and tested by medical officials who in many cases had never seen anthrax, let alone treated it. At least one physician phoned the District Health Department asking for the names of labs that could test for anthrax.

After more than 100 people showed up at George Washington University Hospital, hospital officials called District Health Director Ivan C.A. Walks for guidance. "What are we doing?" one top hospital manager wanted to know.

Public health experts said Wednesday's chaos in Washington was emblematic of a national failure to coordinate a response to terror between federal, state and local governments.

"The reality is that we are underprepared and we need to do lots of work in addition to buying more vaccines and antibiotics," said the American Public Health Association's Akhter, who represents 55,000 public health workers. "We need to spend time shoring up the basic monitoring system that connects the hospitals, the public health departments, the clinics and the individual physicians. That system is either nonexistent or very, very weak."

America's vaunted public health institutions, such as the Centers for Disease Control, are much better at identifying outbreaks than helping communities cope with them, said John G. Bartlett, chief of the Infectious Diseases Division for the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

"If you had a big epidemic, you need the local health facilities," Bartlett said. "For a little anthrax thing where someone in the building receives some white powder in the mail, I think the public health system is fine. If there's a big one, you're going to need some friends, and the army of physicians and nurses in Washington is huge and to me they need to be in the information loop."

Since the outbreaks, the Bush administration has worked to speed production of antibiotics to treat anthrax and other potential hazards. But to Bartlett, a more vexing problem is guiding local health officials in distributing drugs to people with different symptoms and different conditions. Again, the Capitol Hill situation was instructive.

"It's a logistical problem: How do you give it out and how do you package it?" Bartlett said. "This person needs this much because they're under the age of 12. This person needs this much because they're pregnant. Once you dump it in New York, how do you give it out?"

Despite the shortcomings, health officials said the nation is far better equipped to deal with biological terror than it was a decade ago. Beginning with a presidential directive by the Clinton administration in 1995, the federal government dramatically increased spending on counterterrorism, including preparations for a biological attack.

The $1 billion in annual federal spending on defense against weapons of mass destruction has gone toward building up a national stockpile of antibiotics as well as high-tech kits for detecting the presence of dangerous pathogens and chemicals. In 1996, Congress approved the Defense Against Weapons of Mass Destruction Act, which provided funds for training and equipment.

More than 200 counterterrorism training exercises were held by the federal government, some of which involved local emergency crews and focused on biological and chemical threats. One of the biggest was "Operation TOPOFF 2000," which simulated a bioterrorist attack on Denver.

Tommy F. Grier Jr., director of Colorado's Office of Emergency Management, said the results of the bioterrorism exercise "got some folks quite concerned," showing how ill-prepared local emergency planners were for a real attack.

"We learned that it's absolutely essential to have prepared medical practitioners when people with symptoms start showing up in the emergency rooms," Grier said. "Quick detection makes a hell of a lot of difference. [But] we also learned that the distribution of those meds, once you get them, is an issue that you have to think through."

In a June 2001 exercise dubbed "Dark Winter," a dozen former senior government leaders portrayed members of a fictional National Security Council responding to an evolving smallpox epidemic in which as many as 2,000 people die.

Former Georgia senator Sam Nunn, who played the role of president in the exercise, said the experience showed a need for new levels of partnerships between public health, law enforcement and intelligence.

"We must act on the understanding that public health is an important pillar in our national security framework," Nunn said in testimony to Congress six days before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "In the event of a biological weapons attack, millions of lives will depend on how quickly doctors diagnose the illness, communicate their findings, and bring forth a fast and effective response at the local and federal level. This means, clearly, that public health and medical professionals must be part of the national security team."

"It's a lucky thing for the United States that this was just a test and not a real emergency," Nunn said. He added: "Our lack of preparation is a real emergency."

-------- colombia

Dozens Dead in Attacks By Groups in Colombia

Associated Press
Monday, October 22, 2001

BOGOTA, Colombia, Oct. 21 -- A wave of bombings and massacres by guerrillas and paramilitary groups in Colombia over the weekend killed at least 29 people, including five children, authorities said today.

In northwestern Colombia, a bomb hidden inside a hot dog cart ripped through an apartment building where families of several police officers lived, killing five people, including a 9-month-old boy, said police Col. Guillermo Aranda.

Police blamed the attack in El Penol, 130 miles northwest of Bogota, on Colombia's second-largest guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army.

In one of the worst attacks, paramilitary gunmen late Saturday shot and killed 10 peasants in the town of Alejandria in Antioquia province, 117 miles northwest of Bogota. They accused the peasants of collaborating with the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country's largest guerrilla group, said army spokesman Capt. Luis Hernandez.

The army said the FARC, which has waged war against the government for 37 years, was responsible for three attacks over the weekend.

In the northern province of La Guajira, FARC rebels bombed a gas pipeline, killing four brothers ages 5 to 9, the army said. FARC fighters also killed five men and a woman Saturday in the village of El Habra in the same province, the army said.

In the southwestern province of Valle del Cauca, the army said, rebels dragged four men and a woman from their car, then shot and killed them.

The violence came as the government and FARC rebels appear farther apart than ever in negotiations aimed at ending a war that claims about 3,500 lives a year.

-------- drug war

Rebels double opium output

Rory McCarthy in Islamabad
Monday October 22, 2001
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/0,1361,578453,00.html

Opium cultivation in territory controlled by the opposition Northern Alliance in north-eastern Afghanistan doubled last year, the UN said last night.

After the Taliban issued a successful edict banning farmers from growing poppies drug barons pushed their business into Badakshan, the mountainous province under opposition control. Now more than 80% of poppy fields in Afghanistan are in Badakshan, the UN drug control programme said in a report.

The findings are likely to be a source of concern to western governments who expect the Northern Alliance to play a role in a future Kabul government.

Bernard Frahi, head of UNDCP in Pakistan, said suppliers moved into Badakshan early in the year, frustrated by the Taliban ban on opium production.

"In February and March suppliers went and gave a high incentive to farmers in the form of cash advances and high prices for the forthcoming harvests," he said. "The price of opium in Badakshan is now 10 times what it was a year before."

The annual survey showed the area under cultivation in Badakshan rose from 2,458 hectares last year to 6,342 hectares (15,850 acres). In contrast the vast poppy fields under Taliban control in southern Afghanistan were virtually all replanted with wheat.

The total production of opium in Afghanistan slid dramatically from 3,276 tons last year to 185 tons this year because of the impact of the Taliban edict. That was still worth $56m (£39m).

"This was the one success story in Afghanistan," Mr Frahi said. "It came after three years of dialogue with the Taliban."

Now the future of the ban appears to be in doubt. In Taliban-controlled areas the price of opium has tumbled from $600 a kilogram in August to $90 last week.

Mr Frahi said the price had fallen because many expected the Taliban ban to lapse in the face of bombing. "People feel the Taliban will not be able to impose the ban and therefore there will be a large supply," he said.

-------- israel

Israeli tanks advance in West Bank

October 22, 2001
By Mark Lavie
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20011022-97820680.htm

JERUSALEM - Israeli tanks moved deeper into the West Bank yesterday, tightening their grip on biblical Bethlehem and five other towns in their widest operation against the Palestinians in years.

Three Palestinians were killed yesterday, and the Palestinian Health Ministry said a teen-age boy, wounded in fighting last month, died of his injuries.

The three-day assault, retaliation for the assassination of an Israeli Cabinet minister by a radical Palestine Liberation Organization faction, drew harsh international criticism and set off disagreements within Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's coalition government.

In New York, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan yesterday that Israel does not intend to stay in the areas it entered, according to a spokesman for Israel's U.N. Mission.

"We do not want to overthrow the Palestinian Authority," the spokesman quoted Mr. Peres as saying.

Some members of the centrist Labor Party threatened to bolt the coalition - a move that could seriously hobble the government - if the escalation continued.

The focus of violence yesterday was Bethlehem, where Palestinians said three persons - a police officer and a civilian in a nearby refugee camp and another civilian - were killed when an Israeli shell landed near a hospital. The Israeli army reported that Palestinians threw a bomb at an Israeli tank near the refugee camp, setting off an exchange of fire.

The army also said it was looking into the hospital incident.

Palestinians reported two injuries in yesterday's fighting when a tank shell exploded 50 yards from the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the traditional birthplace of Jesus. The Israeli military, holding tank positions several miles away, was also checking this report.

Palestinian gunmen, meanwhile, opened fire from nearby Beit Jalla on the Jewish neighborhood of Gilo in a disputed part of Jerusalem, Israeli police said.

A few miles north, Israeli troops also moved farther into Ramallah - the seat of Yasser Arafat's government in the West Bank - and took over the Palestinian Local Affairs Ministry.

Israeli officials said the moves were made necessary by Mr. Arafat's inaction against militant groups refusing to honor a Sept. 26 cease-fire, and dismissed as rhetoric Palestinian claims that Mr. Arafat had outlawed such groups in recent days.

Palestinians say Mr. Arafat arrested 20 members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which claimed responsibility for Wednesday's killing of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi. The PFLP said it was avenging the Aug. 27 killing of its own leader, whom Israel accused of attacks on civilians.

"The state of Israel has the right to defend the lives of Israelis. We don't have interest in staying in Palestinian cities. That's not the goal of this activity," said Israeli Cabinet Secretary Gideon Saar. "If there will be quiet, we'll pull out."

Arafat aide Nabil Abu Rdeneh said the Palestinian leader told U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell yesterday that the United States must pressure Israel to withdraw. "This issue will be a test [of] the willingness of the U.S. to keep its coalition, or to sacrifice the Arabs and Muslims to satisfy" Israel, Mr. Abu Rdeneh added.

--------

THE MIDEAST
Palestinian Authority Outlaws Military Wing of Radical Faction

October 22, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israeli tanks drove deeper into a West Bank town and a refugee camp Monday, drawing heavy Palestinian fire on the fifth day of Israel's broadest military strike against the Palestinians in years.

The violence came a day after the Palestinian Authority outlawed the military wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a radical PLO faction that has claimed responsibility for the assassination of an Israeli Cabinet minister.

Israel has said it launched the military strike, including incursions into six West Bank towns, in order to pressure the Palestinian Authority to arrest and hand over the assassins of Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi and the PFLP leaders.

Palestinian security forces have detained 20 PFLP members. However, Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said Monday he has learned that those responsible for the Zeevi killing were Palestinians from Jerusalem, which is under Israeli control and that four suspects were already in Israeli custody.

Israeli police officials refused comment on Abed Rabbo's contention.

Israeli officials, meanwhile, denied Palestinian accusations that Israel's real intention was to destroy the Palestinian Authority. ``There is absolutely no (such) plan,'' Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emannuel Nahshon said Monday.

Palestinian suspicions have been fueled by recent statements by hard-liners in the Israeli Cabinet who demanded that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat be expelled and the Palestinian Authority be dismantled. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said he considers Arafat an unrepentant terrorist and has compared him to Osama bin Laden, the accused mastermind of the terror attacks on the United States.

The incursions and the calls for Arafat's ouster have caused unease in the moderate Labor party, Sharon's junior coalition partner, with some Labor legislators demanding that the party leave the government.

However, Science Minister Matan Vilnai of Labor said the party needed to remain in the coalition to rein in the hard-liners, adding that like other Labor members, he was worried about the recent developments.

Vilnai dismissed reported complaints by fellow Labor ministers who said they were misled about the scope of the Israeli military operation. ``I am surprised that some of my colleagues did not understand the meaning of the Cabinet decisions,'' said Vilnai, a former army general.

In new fighting Monday, Israeli tanks moved deeper into the West Bank town of Ramallah and the Aida refugee camp on the outskirts of Bethlehem.

In Ramallah, tanks fired shells as they moved forward, and were met by Palestinian fire. One Palestinian was wounded, doctors said.

Overnight, Israeli army bulldozers destroyed the headquarters of Force 17, one of the Palestinian security services, in Ramallah. Israel said Force 17 members were suspected of having killed 10 Israelis in shooting attacks.

In Aida, a heavy gun battle erupted as tanks moved into the camp.

Also Monday, a 19-year-old Palestinian policeman from Bethlehem, who was injured in fighting two days earlier, died of his injuries.

In all, 23 Palestinians and an Israeli have been killed since Israel launched its incursions last Thursday.

In Jerusalem, a Palestinian mechanic shot and wounded his former boss in a dispute over money Monday, police said. The man then fled, shooting wildly as he ran and wounding three bystanders, including one who was in serious condition.

An Israeli soldier who was getting his car fixed in the area shot and killed the gunman, said police spokesman Gil Kleiman.

The gunman was from the West Bank village of Irtas. The shooting took place in Talpiot, a district of malls, outlets and car repair shops on the southern edge of Jerusalem near the West Bank.

--------

THE MIDEAST
U.S. Demands Israeli Withdrawal

October 22, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-US-Mideast.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States demanded the immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces Monday from Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank and deplored their killing of ``numerous'' Palestinian civilians during the weekend.

U.S. Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer was directed to convey the pointed message to the Israeli Foreign Ministry. The State Department complaint was the latest in a growing spiral of Bush administration complaints with its closest Middle East ally.

On the Arab front, Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League, said terror in the Middle East ``stems mostly from injustice to the Palestinians, who see no light at the end'' of ``foreign military occupation'' of their land.

Moussa, speaking to the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Arab American Institute, praised President Bush for declaring support for establishment of a Palestinian state.

The former Egyptian foreign minister said that while Osama bin Laden does not speak for the Arabs, ``frustration, despair and danger are sentiments which if unchecked can be channeled into destructive acts.''

Also in Washington, for talks Tuesday with Secretary of State Colin Powell and other administration officials, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres put heat on the Palestinian Authority's Yasser Arafat to arrest 10 to 15 Palestinians on the West Bank. Peres said they were responsible for most recent terror Israel has endured.

Peres, in a speech and at a news conference, held Arafat responsible only for not taking action against Hamas and other groups designated by the State Department as terrorist organizations.

In fact, the dovish foreign minister again offered Arafat a state, a ``position'' in Jerusalem and territorial concessions, saying a difference of only 1 percent exists between the offer and Arafat's demands. The Palestinians' traditional demands are for a Palestinian state in Gaza and most of the West Bank, with its capital in the eastern part of Jerusalem.

``We are not fighting a Palestinian state,'' Peres said. ``We want a Palestinian state. We do not want to see the Palestinian people suffer.''

Urging Arafat to take risks for peace, Peres said: ``We are not conducting a personal war against Arafat.''

But, Peres added, ``he has to arrest 10 to 15 troublemakers who are causing most of the terrorism.''

The foreign minister made the rounds Monday, meeting at the Pentagon with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, and then with Vice President Dick Cheney. Besides Powell, he is due to meet with Condoleezza Rice, Bush's assistant for national security affairs, on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said, ``We've made very clear to Chairman Arafat and the Palestinian Authority that they must act immediately to arrest all those responsible for the assassination'' last week of the Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi in Jerusalem, ``as well as moving decisively against planning and conducting other acts of terror.''

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a hard-line member of Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization, took responsibility for Zeevi's murder. On Sunday, the Palestine National Council outlawed the PFLP's military wing.

Reeker called that a positive step but said: ``Actions are required, not just words.''

Dissociating the PFLP from Arafat, Reeker said, ``Those who operate against the authority of Chairman Arafat and efforts to achieve a cease-fire act against the interests and aspirations of the Palestinian people.''

The brunt of Reeker's statement, however, was directed at Israel.

``Israeli incursions into Palestinian-controlled areas have contributed to a significant escalation in tension and violence.''

Acknowledging that Israel had informed the United States it does not intend to remain in those areas, Reeker said: ``Israeli defense forces should be withdrawn immediately from all Palestinian-controlled areas, and no further such incursions should be made.''

-------- pakistan

Pakistanis Fear Wider Clash

October 22, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Attacks-War-Fears.html?searchpv=aponline

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) -- From their front-row seats at the world's strange new war, some Pakistanis fear the United States may be headed into a clash of cultures it cannot win, with fallout no one can predict.

There is Syed Zaheer Ali, for instance, a dapper man of moderate politics who runs the Quetta Chamber of Commerce. He studied in New York and made American friends before coming home to Baluchistan, the province on Afghanistan's southern border.

``If this ends up as a world war, Americans will see things they cannot imagine,'' he said. ``Vietnam will seem like a picnic in comparison. A lot of humanity will be at stake.''

Across Pakistan, a thumping majority condemns the Sept. 11 attacks. Many speak with touching warmth of the grief over the more than 5,000 killed or missing from terrorism on American soil.

But even tolerant Muslims with liberal political views say the repeated pounding of a prostrate Afghanistan may strengthen its Taliban rulers, while eroding sympathy for the United States.

Washington has worked hard to get across the message that its war is against terrorists, not against Muslims. But many Pakistanis say the inevitable toll of innocents could become part of an easily exploited image of a Christian superpower raining more misery on a desperately poor Muslim backwater.

President Pervez Musharraf backs the United States, outraged by the attacks and also eager for better relations at a time when hard-pressed Pakistan can use a wealthy friend.

For diplomats and analysts, the crucial question is whether he can keep Pakistanis behind him as events unfold.

Abdul Basit, a Yale-educated Lahore lawyer who colleagues say has refused offers to be attorney general, believes Musharraf has made a fatal mistake.

Islamic extremism may have limited legislative clout, he said, but its undercurrents are strong and growing fast.

``Every Pakistani is extremely susceptible to the rhetoric,'' Basit said. Stroking his own clean-shaven cheeks, he added: ``You may find a very well-dressed man, but he might have a beard inside.''

Then there is Pakistan's nuclear capability.

``In a Talibanization of Pakistan, I see nuclear weapons being brandished in support of fanatics,'' Basit concluded. ``If all this gets into irresponsible hands, it's a horrible thought.''

Associated Press interviews suggest air attacks have hardened attitudes against America.

``Bombing is not good,'' said Sayeed Ahmed, 19, a science student in the megalopolis of Karachi. ``If you want to eliminate terrorists, you kill them, not women and children.''

Tariq Anwar, a 42-year-old exporter from Peshawar who stopped to watch the waves at Karachi's beach, made a similar point. Most Pakistanis, he added, simply see American bombs killing Muslims.

``This could very soon turn into something much bigger, spreading elsewhere in the world,'' he said.

In Quetta, the leather-trimmed lawyers' lounge at the High Court hums with conversation, and agreement is widespread: The terrorist attacks were contemptible, but Americans must retaliate within international law.

``On the one hand you lament the loss of innocent lives and on the other you are doing the same thing,'' said Raja Afsar, former Baluchistan advocate general.

Amanullah Kanrani, a provincial legislator and practicing attorney, said that Pakistanis admired individual Americans but most had a deep ``hatred'' for U.S. policies that could turn them against Washington.

Just outside of town, four young women who run a U.N. development project each eagerly volunteered that she would pick Osama bin Laden over George W. Bush as a hero under any circumstance. And all four said they were prepared to go to Afghanistan to help the war effort.

``What America is doing is totally wrong,'' said Ayesha Shah, 22. Her 28-year-old friend, Amna Khan, 28, chimed in: ``Who is America to change governments? What about its terror in Vietnam and Iraq?''

--------

Pakistan Threatens to Teach India Lesson

October 22, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-india-pakistan.html?searchpv=reuters

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan's military ruler General Pervez Musharraf accused arch-rival India Monday of threatening to attack across the disputed border in Kashmir and said Pakistan would teach it a lesson if it did.

In an interview with state-run Pakistan Television, he advised Indian leaders not to make threats and to follow the path of dialogue.

President Musharraf said Pakistan would not let India gain military advantage in Kashmir from the Afghan crisis, adding: ''Armed forces are fully prepared, not only defensively but we will teach them a lesson if at all they try to do anything.''

He accused Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes and Home (Interior) Minister L.K. Advani of engaging in rhetoric including threats to cross the military Line of Control dividing Kashmir and take ``specific action.''

``They should never attempt that. They will be paid back in the same coin,'' Musharraf said when asked about the possibility of an Indian attack.

``They should stop these threats and adopt the path of dialogue which I am trying to follow, because threats can cause harm rather than doing any good.''

Musharraf's remarks follow Indian statements accusing Pakistan of sponsoring ``cross-border terrorism'' in Kashmir before and after a visit a week ago by Secretary of State Colin Powell to soothe tensions between the two nuclear rivals.

India's Foreign Ministry said it was not surprised by Musharraf's remarks. ``This seems to be very much in the tradition of Pakistani statements,'' spokeswoman Nirupama Rao told Reuters.

Musharraf said Pakistan did not expect Western military aid against India in return for Islamabad's support of the U.S.-led coalition against terrorism. But he hoped other world powers would ``not join our enemy.''

``India wants to take a political advantage of the situation of turmoil in Afghanistan and pressurize us,'' Musharraf said in reference to Indian statements accusing Pakistan of backing ''terrorism'' in Kashmir while at the same time joining the international coalition against terrorism.

He said Pakistan had the strength to defend itself.

``I tell leaders across the border they should not have any misgiving,'' Musharraf said. ``Our armed forces are fully prepared and will give a reply to any adventure.''

India rules about 45 percent and Pakistan just over one-third of Kashmir, over which the countries have fought two of their three wars since their independence from Britain in 1947. China holds the remainder of the territory.

India accuses Pakistan of training and arming Muslim militants fighting New Delhi-ruled Kashmir. Pakistan denies the charge and says it only gives moral and political support to Kashmiri ``freedom fighters.''

Pakistan said last week it had put its military on the alert after observing Indian troop and air force movements in Kashmir. India said the movements were routine.

-------- russia

Russian veterans say U.S. campaign could be quagmire

October 22, 2001
By Yuri Karash
SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20011022-499888.htm

MOSCOW - The commander who oversaw the Soviet Union's humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989 cautions that U.S.-led forces face the same fate if they define their mission too broadly in the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

"The best tactics would be to surgically remove the tumor and malignancies of terrorism from the body of Afghanistan," said retired Col.-Gen. Boris Gromov, who fought in Afghanistan for five years in the late 1980s, eventually becoming the last commander of Soviet forces there.

"But if you consider as terrorists all Afghan people who support [the ruling Taliban regime] to this or that extent, the U.S. chances to score a victory in this war are then close to zero," Mr. Gromov told The Washington Times.

U.S. officials are keeping the experience of Mr. Gromov and his military colleagues in the 1979-89 Soviet campaign in Afghanistan in mind as they plot strategy against bin Laden's terrorist camps and the Taliban regime that shelters them.

Moscow's 1979 invasion and an occupying force of some 120,000 Soviet troops failed to preserve a puppet regime in Kabul. With substantial aid from the United States, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, Afghan resistance fighters - including bin Laden - harried demoralized Soviet troops and largely controlled the countryside and territory outside the major urban centers.

Suffering mounting casualties with no political end in sight, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev ordered his forces home in 1989.

Russian veterans of the Afghan campaign have been watching the U.S.-led strikes against the Taliban with deep interest, with many telling the Russian press that Washington must take extreme care as it considers the follow-up to the current air bombardment.

Gazeta.ru, a popular Russian Internet media site, headlined one of its first dispatches on the U.S. retaliation campaign: "America prepares for its second Vietnam."

But Mr. Gromov praised the apparent U.S. decision to avoid a massive Soviet-style ground invasion, relying instead on special operations missions and on the Northern Alliance, an existing Afghan coalition of opposition forces, to seek out bin Laden and pressure the Taliban.

"A large-scale land military operation may drag the United States and its allies into a multiyear military conflict that won't bring glory to their troops," he said.

"I believe that a limited number of well-trained U.S. Marines and Special Forces could conduct the land operation. They are competent enough to do both - detain or eliminate the Taliban leadership and destroy the terrorist bases."

The former commander repeatedly cautioned against expanding the scope of the mission to the point where it alienates all Afghans.

"Don't make the war against bin Laden and the Taliban a war against the Afghan people," Mr. Gromov said. "Otherwise, you'll get bogged into a multiyear massacre with no chances to win."

Russian military experts note, however, that the U.S.-led coalition has some significant advantages over the Soviet force.

Soviet generals saw both morale and discipline plunge as the war dragged on, with soldiers selling their weapons to Afghan fighters by the end of the conflict. The war was increasingly unpopular at home, in contrast to the strong public support being given to President Bush.

The Afghans this time cannot call on neighboring allies to ward off the invading force or supply their troops. Even Pakistan has broken ties with the Kabul regime and has pledged support for the U.S. counterterrorism effort.

Nonetheless, many top veterans of the Soviet Afghan debacle predict a rough ride for the U.S. effort.

Ruslan Aushan, president of Russia's Ingushetia region and a mechanized infantry battalion commander during the Afghan war, said the Afghan landscape gives defenders a huge advantage.

"Mountainous terrain provides the defensive side with perfect conditions for creating ambushes and fortified areas in the mountains, which are hard to take over even if you have modern and precise missile weapons," Mr. Aushan recently told the Russian newspaper Argumenty i Fakty.

"Our troops were stationed in all parts of the country, but they controlled only the area directly near them," he recalled. "The Americans are not going to be able to control Afghanistan even if they send the entire U.S. Army there."

Col.-Gen. Eduard Vorobyev, deputy chairman of the Russian parliament's defense committee and another Afghanistan veteran, told the newspaper that air strikes alone would not defeat the Taliban, while a ground campaign would severely tax U.S. supply lines.

"The major problem [for ground forces] is being separated from the rear support," Mr. Vorobyev said.

"Warfare in Afghanistan is hard regardless," he said.

"Success would depend on every little thing such as, for instance, whether the servicemen have appropriate supplies of warm underclothing and wool caps."

• David R. Sands contributed to this report from Washington.

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

MILITARY FRAUD DEPT.:

Behind the Scenes in the Beltway,
by Al Martin
http://www.almartinraw.com/column37.html

According to the Friendly Colonel, the Redstone Arsenal base commander was chortling over the fact that the accuracy of the missile strikes in Afghanistan thus far was 37%. He was actually chortling on how "high" the accuracy rate has been. The general's exact words were that "the defense contractors will get paid as long as the things go off and hit the right country."

Also, the Friendly Colonel realizes the reason the FBI didn't stop all those weapons shipments from Huntsville Alabama (See previous story http://www.almartinraw.com/column22.html)

What they were doing was pre-positioning materiel in Pakistan. That leads one to the conclusion which he had already made earlier - that somebody knew this war was going to happen, possibly as long as six months ago (May 2001). In other words, they didn't know specifically the target, but somebody thought it likely that a "terrorist event" would happen that would precipitate a response by the US in Afghanistan.

And Where Did the "Mushrooms" Go? (See previous column http://www.almartin.raw/column32.html) They were intended for use by US armed forces. In other words, they were pre-staging supplies. That's where the "mushrooms" (anti-personnel land mines) went. He got an explanation how these "mushrooms" are used by Special Forces when they are clearing an area. When an area is being swept, they drop this weapons system behind them - to protect their rear and also to prevent anyone else from re-infiltrating an are which has already been cleared. The specific use of these mushrooms is in a sweep operation. When forces sweep an area and they don't want the area re-infiltrated they leave this passive weapons system behind. These weapons are principally used in an urban warfare environment.

The only correlation that can be made is that there would be an attack against the United States of sufficient size which would warrant a response, hence the predisposition of these weapons system, like these mushrooms which are under intense international criticism by an anti-land mine group in London.

The general also said that they're "re-ordering missiles like crazy - the Cruise and Tomahawk missiles." They are being reordered and Rockwell is building them as fast as they can. Cruise Missiles are about $1.6 million each, and the Tomahawks, which are larger, longer range, more advanced with a heavier payload, are about $3.5 million each.

He estimated that about 300 missiles have been used so far. It's not big money, but these missile systems are extremely profitable to build. They have a simple guidance system, a simple conventional explosive, and the micro-processors necessary for the look-forward view capacity is pretty simple. All they have to do is not hit the side of a mountain on the way to their target.

----

U.S. intensifies strikes against Taliban posts

October 22, 2001
By Steven Gutkin
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20011022-93610100.htm

QALAI DASHT, Afghanistan - U.S. warplanes bombarded Taliban positions yesterday near a front line north of the capital, Kabul, marking what could be the start of a more aggressive campaign on behalf of opposition forces fighting the Islamic regime.

In Kabul, meanwhile, grieving neighbors pulled dust-covered bodies of seven civilians - three women and four children - from the ruins of two homes destroyed yesterday by a U.S. bomb. "This pilot was like he was blind," sobbed one neighbor.

Also yesterday, the British Broadcasting Corp. quoted an Afghan doctor as saying the 10-year-old son of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar was killed during U.S.-led strikes.

The boy died on the first night of bombing raids on the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, said Dr. Abdul Barri.

Dr. Barri, who spoke to the BBC as he crossed the border into Pakistan, said Mullah Omar's uncle was hit in the same raid but was believed to still be alive and receiving treatment at a hospital in Kandahar.

In Pakistan, the U.N. refugee agency renewed appeals for Afghanistan's neighbors to open their borders to the refugees - including up to 15,000 trapped in a no man's land near the Pakistani town of Chaman.

The attacks yesterday marked the closest and most intense U.S. strikes so far against Taliban positions defending Kabul from Northern Alliance forces, which had been stalled for years 12 to 25 miles north of the city.

U.S. jets streaked over the opposition-held Panjshir Valley, and opposition officials told a reporter in the area that they appeared to strike Taliban positions about one mile behind the front line.

Several witnesses, including journalists and residents, also reported Taliban positions bombed in the area.

"We are hoping this will be a big help for the future of our forces," said Waisuddin Salik, an opposition spokesman.

Afghanistan's anti-Taliban forces, an alliance mostly of minority ethnic Uzbeks and Tajiks, have been urging the United States to provide close air support for their forces so they can advance on the capital.

However, the United States and Britain have been reluctant to help the Northern Alliance seize Kabul until a broad-based government has been formed to take over from the Taliban.

Opposition groups were widely discredited in Afghanistan because of the chaos and infighting that marked their four years in power. Fighting among rival groups now part of the alliance destroyed large sections of Kabul and killed an estimated 50,000 people, most of them civilians.

Since the U.S.-led air campaign began on Oct. 7, U.S. attacks against Taliban frontline positions have been limited mostly to strikes near the strategic northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

U.S. warplanes resumed attacks yesterday in that area, striking targets in the provinces of Balkh, which includes Mazar-e-Sharif, and Samangan to the east of the city, the Afghan Islamic Press reported.

Taliban spokesman Mullah Amir Khan Muttaqi claimed Taliban forces drove back an opposition attack in the area despite the U.S. air strikes.

Afghan officials also reported more attacks near the western city of Herat and Kandahar in the south.

In Kabul, U.S. jets struck at midmorning in the Khair Khana section of the city. One bomb crashed into a residential neighborhood, destroying two houses.

A reporter saw the bodies of seven dead at the scene and later at a city hospital.

All were said to be related.

At a nearby hospital, Dr. Izetullah, who like many Afghans uses only one name, wept as he pulled back bloodstained sheets to show the bodies of the four children - all boys, ages 8 to 13. Dr. Izetullah said 13 dead had been brought to the hospital.

"This pilot was like he was blind," neighbor Haziz Ullah said. "There are no military bases here - only innocent people."

The neighborhood holds no known Taliban military sites, although a Taliban army garrison and other installations are several miles away.

Attending an economic summit in Shanghai, President Bush said the United States had been "as careful as we possibly could" to avoid killing civilians.

More than 5,000 American civilians were killed in the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York.

Mr. Bush ordered the attacks in Afghanistan after the Taliban repeatedly refused demands to surrender Osama bin Laden, the chief suspect in last month's terror attacks in the United States, and his lieutenants.

A senior administration official said yesterday that Mr. Bush had signed an order after the Sept. 11 attacks directing the CIA to kill bin Laden and destroy his communications, security apparatus and infrastructure.

In Islamabad, the Taliban's deputy ambassador to Pakistan, Suhail Shaheen, said the order constituted a "terrorist act."

Faced with unrelenting attacks, the Taliban's Cabinet met at a secret location yesterday and appealed to fellow Islamic countries to donate humanitarian supplies and medicine to victims and survivors of the U.S.-led bombings.

The Taliban also announced plans to disperse air defense and other weapons to villages, presumably to allow them to defend themselves against attack and to protect the material from U.S. jets hunting for depots and troop concentrations.

--------

'Bullets will fly' to take bin Laden

October 22, 2001
By Joyce Howard Price
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011022-36866675.htm

U.S. troops in Afghanistan will take Osama bin Laden alive if possible, but are prepared to eliminate him if circumstances dictate, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said yesterday.

"If it's a defensive situation, bullets will fly," Gen. Richard B. Myers, the nation's top military officer, said yesterday in an interview on ABC's "This Week."

Asked if he believes bin Laden, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, will survive the war on terrorism, Gen. Myers said, "I don't know for sure the military is only a small piece of this overall effort. And the goal right now is to try to bring down al Qaeda [bin Laden´s terrorist network] and to try to bring down the Taliban, who support him."

The Joint Chiefs chairman made his comments amid published reports that President Bush signed an order last month directing the CIA to use lethal covert action against bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist network.

The order specifically called for the destruction of bin Laden and al Qaeda and gave the CIA an additional $1 billion for its anti-terror campaign, according to the reports.

News of the order comes at a time of concern about bioterrorism on U.S. soil, resulting from a growing list of people who have been infected by the bacterium anthrax that has been sent through the mail and thousands who have been tested for exposure.

A third case of the potentially fatal inhaled form of anthrax, involving a D.C. postal worker, was confirmed yesterday, fueling more fears of germ warfare, which some suspected could be tied to al Qaeda, Iraq or both.

The White House would neither confirm nor deny the reports that the president wanted the CIA and U.S. military to assassinate bin Laden and his top officials. But less than a week after the terrorist attacks that killed more than 5,000 people at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the president said he wanted bin Laden captured "dead or alive."

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell refused to discuss the reports when asked about them on CNN's "Late Edition." But he said, "I think it's quite clear we are anxious to see Osama bin Laden brought to justice or justice brought to him."

Two key senators interviewed yesterday on NBC's "Meet the Press" said the president's order to take bin Laden has their full backing. "It's not only the right thing to do. It's the moral thing to do, because it will save many more lives, both in Afghanistan and in the United States," said Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, Connecticut Democrat.

Said Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican: "The unprecedented aspects of what we are facing, clearly, I think, warrant using whatever means necessary."

Asked later by "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert what bin Laden would be for Halloween, Mr. McCain replied: "Dead."

Sen. Richard G. Lugar, Indiana Republican, said on CNN's "Late Edition" he would prefer if bin Laden were killed rather than captured alive.

Sen. Evan Bayh, Mr. Lugar's Democratic colleague from the Hoosier state, said he "wholeheartedly" agreed. "There's no reason to have him in a jail someplace serving as the inspiration for further attacks or hostage takings," Mr. Bayh said.

The anthrax attacks in this country, which have killed one person and infected eight others since Oct. 1, were a major topic on network news talk shows yesterday.

Although the source of the anthrax still was unknown, some lawmakers and a senior Bush administration official who were asked about it suggested the episodes could be "state-sponsored" bioterrorism.

Members of Congress have a personal interest in anthrax, since evidence of the germ has been found at four sites on Capitol Hill. Both the House and Senate are scheduled to reconvene tomorrow as investigators continue to search the Capitol for any new discoveries of anthrax.

Speculation is running high among many that Iraq may have ties to the recent wave of anthrax attacks, and that the administration may target Saddam Hussein's regime after the Taliban militia is toppled from power.

On ABC, Gen. Myers said, "This is a global war on terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Afghanistan is only one small piece. So, of course, we're thinking very broadly."

The general's reference to a war on weapons of mass destruction prompted speculation the Bush administration might be laying the groundwork for a future attack on Iraq, which is known to have continued producing biological and chemical weapons in violation of U.N. sanctions imposed after the 1991 Persian Gulf war.

Mr. Lieberman said the anthrax that went to the office of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, South Dakota Democrat, last week was "significantly refined" and could not have been produced by "a couple of guys in someone's kitchen stirring things up."

"So it says to me that there's either a significant amount of money behind this, or this is state-sponsored, or this is stuff that was stolen from the former Soviet program" in which anthrax was developed into a biological weapon, he said.

Mr. Lieberman said he sees Iraq as a potential supplier of the anthrax now causing havoc in the United States. He outlined the reasons for his suspicions on NBC.

"We know that Saddam would like to do us the worst kind of ill. Saddam is a terrorist and it should be a centerpiece of our policy, after we've finished the business in Afghanistan and bin Laden, to end that regime," he said.

Both Mr. Lieberman and Mr. McCain said they would not object to having Saddam added to the order the president gave the CIA last month.

Mr. Powell, interviewed on CNN's "Late Edition," suggested Iraq could be the source of the anthrax causing problems in this country.

"I don't put it past Iraq. We know they have been working on this kind of terror weapon, and we keep a very close eye on them," he said. But Mr. Powell added that it was "premature to make any judgments yet because we just don't know" where the anthrax came from.

Mr. Bayh, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said on CNN that Iraq "probably does" have anthrax in its arsenal.

Asked whom Mr. Bayh believed was responsible for the U.S. anthrax scare, he said he didn't know. "We do know that al Qaeda was attempting to develop biological capabilities. There are some interesting facts around that might suggest some outside involvement."

In other developments yesterday on the anthrax front:

• A total of nine Americans have tested positive for anthrax. The list includes three who have developed the serious inhalation form of the disease, which has killed one of the nine victims.

• Tests for anthrax at ABC-TV, where a 7-month-old boy was believed to have contracted the disease, and other media organizations in New York have come back negative, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani said yesterday.

• On Capitol Hill, an environmental sweep through 19 buildings continued yesterday. A total of 28 persons have tested positive for exposure to the bacterium, but none has been diagnosed with the disease.

--------

U.S. Jets Strike Taliban Front Line

October 22, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Attacks-Afghanistan.html

BAGRAM, Afghanistan (AP) -- U.S. jets struck Taliban front-line positions Monday as the United States tried to pave the way for the opposition to advance on Kabul and other major cities. In an appeal for Muslim support worldwide, the Taliban accused America of waging a campaign of ``genocide.''

The president of neighboring Pakistan, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, said he hoped military operations in Afghanistan would be over by mid-November, when the Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins. Leaders throughout the Muslim world fear a backlash if operations continue against Muslim Afghanistan during Ramadan.

While saying the U.S.-led campaign should continue until its objectives are met, Musharraf said bombing during Ramadan ``would certainly have some negative effects in the Muslim world.'' During Ramadan, Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset.

``So one would hope and wish that this campaign comes to an end before the month of Ramadan, and one would hope for restraint during the month of Ramadan,'' he said on CNN's ``Larry King Live.''

The Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, claimed U.S. and British jets attacked a hospital in the western Afghan city of Herat on Monday, killing more than 100 people.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld denied the claim, and Britain said none of its planes took part in any raid against Herat. Rumsfeld also denied Taliban claims that they had shot down two U.S. helicopters.

With pressure mounting to break the Taliban grip on the country, U.S. jets have shifted from cities to Taliban positions fending off the opposition northern alliance -- especially those units around the capital Kabul and the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

Losing those cities would be a major setback for the Taliban, who have refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, chief suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Along the front near Kabul, U.S. jets roared in at least twice during the day Monday, bombarding Taliban positions in parched, abandoned villages about 25 miles north of the capital.

Bombs sent up plumes of black smoke and dust over the countryside, littered with rusting military equipment from Afghanistan's two decades of conflict. The Taliban held their ground and responded with mortar fire toward alliance positions.

Opposition spokesman Ashraf Nadeem also reported daylong U.S. attacks against Taliban positions in Dar-e-Suf in Samagan province, about 30 miles east of Mazar-e-Sharif, and around the Kishanday district southeast of the city.

There was no opposition advance around either Kabul or Mazar-e-Sharif after the airstrikes. Opposition forces have been trying unsuccessfully to capture Mazar-e-Sharif, which would cut Taliban supply lines in the north and enable anti-Taliban units to receive weapons and ammunition from Uzbekistan to the north.

``Our efforts clearly to are assist those on the ground occupy more ground,'' Rumsfeld said in Washington.

In other developments:

-- A 23-year-old Afghan refugee died of gunshot wounds suffered when Pakistani border guards opened fire to drive back angry Afghans demanding entry. Up to 15,000 Afghans in flight from U.S. bombs were crowded into the southern border no-man's-land with Pakistan, U.N. officials said.

-- Pakistani police worked to prevent an anti-U.S. demonstration planned for Tuesday in Jacobabad, site of a base being used by the U.S. military. Police prevented the head of a major Islamic party from traveling to Jacobabad and arrested several hundred of his supporters.

-- Al-Jazeera television in Qatar reported that the Taliban in Mazar-e-Sharif had executed a number of Afghans accused of spying for the United States.

-- President Bush has asked European Union leaders to consider a range of new measures to fight terrorism, including improvements to border controls and transportation safety, EU officials said.

During a press conference in Islamabad on Monday, the Taliban envoy Zaeef claimed Washington was playing down the number of civilian casualties from the air campaign.

``It is clear that American planes are targeting the Afghan people to punish the Afghan nation for having chosen an Islamic government,'' Zaeef said. ``America has resorted to genocide of the Afghans.''

With the shift toward front-line targets, U.S. jets spared Kabul for the first time since the bombing was launched Oct. 7, aimed at rooting out bin Laden and his chief lieutenants in the al-Qaida terrorist network and punish the Taliban for sheltering him.

Opposition commanders were clearly pleased to see American jets striking Taliban positions and expressed hope there would be more attacks.

One commander, Bismillah Khan, pointed to strikes Monday on two Taliban forts outside Mazar-e-Sharif. ``We are happy because these two bases were major fortifications,'' he said. ``And now we are optimistic about launching a successful attack.''

The United States has been reluctant to allow the opposition to enter Kabul until Afghan factions had agreed on a broad-based government to replace the Taliban.

Pakistan had been urging the United States to restrain the alliance, arguing that the ethnic minority Tajik and Uzbek-dominated coalition would never be accepted by the Pashtun majority, which forms the core of the Taliban.

Opposition figures were also widely discredited after the brutal infighting which marked their four-year rule. An estimated 50,000 people were killed in Kabul until the Taliban ousted the alliance from the capital in 1996.

However, little progress has been made in forming a new government. More than two weeks of air attacks have also failed to break the Taliban grip on most of the country or prompt any major defections in their ranks.

By the time Ramadan ends, the brutal Afghan winter will have set in and many of the roads and mountain passes will be blocked by snow, making military operations difficult.

The Taliban have insisted they remain firmly in control. The movement's supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, issued a statement Monday expressing condolences to families who had lost members in the American bombardment.

``We are not afraid of death because martyrdom is a great gift of God,'' Omar said in a statement distributed in Kabul. ``Every man has to die one day, but we pray that we should die a martyr.''


-------- OTHER

-------- energy

Attacks make energy bill key - US energy chief

22/10/2001
Reuters
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12925/story.htm

WASHINGTON - The Sept. 11 attacks on the United States have amplified the need for an energy security bill that decreases American dependence on foreign oil, U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said in an interview broadcast on the weekend.

"Without energy security, you don't have national security. Without energy security, you don't have a strong economy, and so I think the arguments are even greater today than they have been during earlier times this year," Abraham said during a segment scheduled to be aired on Saturday on CNN's "Capital Gang."

Abraham said he was not concerned by the possibility that U.S. retaliation for the attacks might prompt a Middle East oil embargo, such as occurred in the United States in the 1970s.

For nearly two weeks, American forces have been waging an anti-terror military campaign in Afghanistan, attacking the forces of the ruling Taliban government and Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, the alleged mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks against Washington and New York with hijacked jetliners.

"But obviously all these events do have implications in the Persian Gulf. America now imports more than 50 percent of its oil, and that's why we need an energy piece of legislation, to reduce dependence on foreign oil," Abraham said.

He stressed the importance of opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, a key part of U.S. President George W. Bush's proposed national energy policy.

"The average projection right now in terms of the amount of additional oil, which we could derive from drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, would be enough to offset 50 years of imports from Iraq, 10 years of import from the entire Persian Gulf region," Abraham said.

The refuge, on Alaska's northern coast near the immense and very rich Alaska North Slope oil fields, is believed to hold more than 16 billion barrels of oil. Bush, a former Texas oilman, has endorsed opening 1.5 million acres (607,500 hectares) of the refuge's 19 million acres (7.7 million hectares) to exploration.

Democrats oppose the opening as a shortsighted step that would harm a prize wilderness area and do little for energy independence. The refuge is home to snow geese, caribou and polar bears and has been described by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as "one of the finest examples of wilderness left on the planet."

Earlier this month, Senate Democrats abruptly stopped work on an energy bill, causing Republicans to complain that it was a stalling tactic to preclude any vote on opening ANWR.

-------- environment

Sludge dumps put Corps on the carpet

October 22, 2001
By Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011022-86259600.htm

The U.S. Corps of Engineers is being called before a congressional panel to explain why it is dumping tons of sludge into the Potomac River.

The sediment far exceeds the limit allowed by many states, and critics say this is to blame for a diminishing fish population.

First reported by The Washington Times, the discharges contain 40,000 to 70,000 milligrams of suspended solids per liter, and in one location is piped through the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historic Park. Many states are only allowed to discharge 30 milligrams of suspended solids per liter.

"We should all be very concerned about toxic dumping into one of our national parks, not to mention the Potomac River, a national heritage river," said Rep. George P. Radanovich, California Republican and chairman of the House Resources subcommittee on national parks, recreation and public lands.

"It's particularly troubling that this activity is happening right here in our back yard," Mr. Radanovich said.

The Corps dumps the sediment from the Washington Aqueduct under a permit issued by the Environmental Protection Agency. Officials from that agency have also been called to testify before the panel tomorrow.

"The black, smelly discharge has coated the banks of the river and the canal, apparently killing aquatic wildlife and plant life," said the panel's hearing notice.

"The sludge has also coated other waterways throughout the C&O National Historic Park. Park visitors have complained about both the sludge's presence and its strong smell," the notice said.

The sludge is being dumped at a site above Chain Bridge and two sites above Georgetown.

The National Wilderness Institute has notified the Corps it intends to sue for violation of the Clean Water Act.

"We're encouraged Congress is taking these steps and hope it will cause these agencies to quit defending an indefensible practice, and stop the environmental harm that would not be tolerated anywhere else," said Rob Gordon, NWI director.

The permit issued by the EPA expired in 1994 but the Corps is permitted to dump indefinitely unless the EPA sets standards for the discharges or issues a new permit. Thomas Jacobus, chief of the Washington Aqueduct, says it is "operating exactly in terms of the existing permit" in dumping unlimited amounts of the sentiment, which contains alum.

He has, however, acknowledged that the water used to flush the sediment from the holding tank to the river contains chlorine, which is harmful to fish eggs. The sludge is not believed to hurt human health.

Agency officials say they have been studying whether the dumps pose environmental risks, but have not explained why the dumping was allowed to continue for seven years while its safety is, as they say, undetermined.

----

Green army on US carrier guards the environment

Story by Claudia Parsons,
22/10/2001
Reuters
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12927/newsDate/22-Oct-2001/story.htm

ONBOARD THE USS CARL VINSON - The U.S. aircraft carrier Carl Vinson aims to be an environmentally friendly warship.

"We want to make sure we don't put anything over the side that's not biodegradable," says Dennis, the man in charge of recycling and waste processing on board the carrier whose 5,500 crew members produce around 500 sacks of rubbish a day.

The Carl Vinson has four waste processing plants that deal with plastic, glass, paper, food, cans and fabric and makes its own fresh water from sea water.

Sean, who manages the four distilling plants, says about 40 percent of the fresh water is used in the propulsion systems and other machine rooms and drives the steam catapult that launches up to 90 aircraft a day on bombing missions in Afghanistan.

None of the crew members' surnames can be given because of military ground rules on security.

A $150,000 electronic compressor managed by a technician who used to service helicopters can squash two sacks of plastic down to a thin disc about a foot across. The discs produced by 11 such compressors are stored until they can be taken ashore.

"There's a plant in California that's working on a way to use them as fuel," Dennis said, though he says it is difficult as so many different sorts of plastic go into the discs.

Paper and food are piled into a pulping machine that reduces everything to a small size before it is thrown overboard.

"It's fish food, there's a lot of protein in it," said Dennis.

A hazardous materials department deals with batteries, oily rags, medical waste and similar rubbish that is eventually taken ashore. Even the water that is used in the many machine rooms on ship is cleaned before it returns to the sea.

"They have a thing called a cyclonic separator, it spins round and removes the oil so the only thing that goes overboard is water," Dennis said.

Fabric and cans are squashed into sacks and weighed down so they sink to the bottom, where Dennis says they will quickly corrode in the salt water.

CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS INCINERATED

The ship has one incinerator used mostly for burning classified documents that cannot just be tossed overboard.

The various departments on board, from combat mission planning to radar rooms and even just payroll administrators, produce around 50 sacks of paper that needs to be burned each night. "We don't want to interfere with flight operations. The smoke can cause some issues on the flight deck," Dennis said.

Even though the ship is nuclear-powered, there is no spent fuel to be taken off until the end of the 30 years the reactors are designed to keep working. "We're still on an initial fuel source," said Chief Petty Officer Eric, a nuclear electrician.

Kevin, a 27-year-old welder from Charleston in West Virginia, is in charge of sewage, pumped straight into the sea when the ship is more than three miles (five km) from land.

"Once it hits the ocean it's biodegradable. The salt water breaks it down," he said. Rubbish bins around the Carl Vinson are divided into waste categories to make life easier, but not everybody has learned.

"It's been a long and painful time," says Mark, the electronics specialist who keeps the plastic compressors working. "After it's been rejected a few times they learn."

The 23 people working in the waste plants admit it is not the most glamorous job.

"The most awful thing we had to deal with was rotten potatoes," said Dennis. "That was a whole two-day adventure. We had to sterilise everything afterwards."

-------- genetics

Modified bananas could deliver anthrax vaccine

22/10/2001
Reuters
http://www.planetark.org/avantgo/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=12921

SHANGHAI - Genetically modified fruit and other food could be used in future to deliver medicine, including a vaccine against anthrax, an Australian bio-technology fund manager said on the weekend.

"The distinction between food and drugs will gradually disappear," said Peter Carre, chairman of Xcelerator Life Sciences Funds Group.

"Medicine will be in milk, it'll be in stuff we ingest every day. Food will be the most widely used form to distribute medicine," Carre said at a business conference on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

Carre said bananas were already being genetically modified in research laboratories for all types of medicinal purposes, including immunisation against four strains of anthrax.

"Why bananas? They grow quickly, people like them and they took early. You could have done it in a tomato if you wanted," Carre told reporters after a speech to the conference.

Carre said Cornell University in upstate New York was leading development work on genetically modifying food to deliver medicines to people.

Governments around the world have become increasing fearful that anthrax smeared on letters is being used as a biological weapon.

An eighth case of anthrax infection was confirmed yesterday in the United States, further unnerving a country still recovering from hijacked plane attacks on September 11 that killed some 5,400 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. One man has died.

Argentine health authorities confirmed yesterday that a letter sent from Miami to a woman in Buenos Aires was laced with anthrax spores but they believed she was not at risk of becoming infected.

Kenya is the only other country outside the United States to have confirmed the presence of the potentially deadly bacterium in a letter, which had been mailed in Atlanta.

-------- human rights

Mazar-e Sharif Seen Pivotal in Getting Aid to Millions
Uzbekistan Won't Open Corridor for Food Transport Until Alliance Controls Key Northern Town

By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, October 22, 2001; Page A11
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31066-2001Oct21.html

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, Oct. 21 -- In the continuing battle for control of the northern Afghan town of Mazar-e Sharif, more is at stake than military victory. Aid officials said today that the town is acrucial gateway for delivering food to millions of Afghans who face hunger in the approaching winter.

The town, now controlled by the ruling Taliban militia, has been at the center of attention in recent weeks as units of the Northern Alliance, a loose coalition of anti-Taliban fighters, have tried to dislodge their rivals.

Relief agencies expressed hope that an ouster of the Taliban from Mazar-e Sharif will put much of northern Afghanistan under the control of the Northern Alliance, and persuade the Uzbek government to open a corridor from the southern Uzbek town of Termez, 50 miles away, to move massive amounts of desperately needed food.

"We need Termez. It has the basic infrastructure. It has the bridge. We could do thousands of tons a day through Termez," Ardag Meghdessian, a top U.N. World Food Program official, said by phone from Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

Without solid control of the north by the alliance, Uzbek authorities have said they will not open the corridor at Termez into Afghanistan. The bridge there, once the major access route for Soviet troops, has been closed since the Taliban seized control on the Afghan side in 1997.

Ending that control requires a conclusive victory by the Northern Alliance at Mazar-e Sharif, but the reports of fighting there have been contradictory. Today, the alliance seemed to be further away from taking the town than before, according to a resident who spoke by satellite phone.

"The Northern Alliance forces have retreated farther from town," he said. The fighting was now far enough away that only the deep-throated tank fire -- and not the rattle of small arms -- could be heard, he said.

U.S. warplanes struck a radio station in the town, according to the resident, who for his safety asked not to be named. But he said they still seemed restrained in their bombardment of the Taliban forces.

"The Americans don't want [the Northern Alliance] to take this town now. When they do, it will happen," the resident said. He added, "Then I will dig up the Kalashnikov I buried and help them."

Northern Alliance commanders have complained that the U.S.-led coalition forces have offered token bombing of the Taliban on the front lines. They say the United States appears willing to let the alliance remain stuck in the battlefield while American forces strike behind Taliban lines.

This has implications for the relief effort. The Bush administration has said that 1.5 million Afghans are at risk of starvation after what some authorities call the worst drought in 70 years. Relief officials say the drought throughout the region, which has devastated the food supply, threatens disaster on a far larger scale than the war.

The war, however, is complicating relief efforts. Aid organizations have pulled out most of their international staff. U.S. bombs destroyed one Red Cross warehouse holding relief supplies, and the Taliban seized two World Food Program warehouses, although Meghdessian said that one of those has been returned to the group's control with its supplies intact.

The United States has dropped packets of food, but officials have acknowledged that they have more symbolic value than significant impact. Major quantities of food aid must come by truck or barge. U.N. agencies on Sept. 30 resumed aid shipments, which were suspended after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

"The food is moving," Meghdessian said. "The real heroes in this humanitarian race against time are our Afghan colleagues who have remained inside and are distributing food despite the death threats, despite the bombings."

He said contact with them has been "spotty" because the Taliban has banned workers inside Afghanistan from using satellite or radio communications. "If anyone communicates with the international staff, it's execution on the spot," he said.

Meghdessian estimates that 6 million Afghans will need food. Shipments are now coming into southern Afghanistan from Pakistan, and in more limited quantities to northern Afghanistan from Tajikistan, Iran and Turkmenistan. But winter weather on the mountain passes will choke these northern routes.

"Winter makes everything worse. And it will be there in two to four weeks," said Dominic Caron of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Tashkent.

That heightens the need for relief agencies to use Termez. "Termez may be the best Central Asian corridor for humanitarian aid," said Parvin Paidan, program director for Central Asia of Save the Children-U.K. But "everybody is trying to plan in a vacuum," she noted. "The border is closed and everyone is trying to second-guess the government."

The Uzbek government "does have legitimate security concerns. They are afraid the Taliban may find an escape route," Paidan said. "We feel they won't open the border until the area is completely cleared of Taliban."

Termez "is not the only way in, but it's the best," said Daniel Brechbuhler, a surgeon who works with the Red Cross, which is attempting to resupply the warehouse destroyed by U.S. bombs.

"The problem is the central provinces of Afghanistan," he said. "Substantial relief, to get to them, has to come on the ground. But in order to put in the logistics, you have to have security in the region. It has to be safe."

-------- police / prisoners

"Citizen, Can I See Your ID."

Behind the Scenes in the Beltway,
by Al Martin
http://www.almartinraw.com/column37.html

What has not been explained to the American people is the reason why 35,000 Army Reservists and 65,000 National Guard have been called up. It is to maintain internal checkpoints. It has nothing to do with the external "War on Terrorism." All of these people are being trained at the US Army School of Urban Control at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. CNN actually showed an urban training mock-up, what they're training on, and what the new Internal Security checkpoint is going to look like. It was mighty sinister looking.

There was a barrier that went across the road. To the right was an elevated shed like structure, elevated perhaps fifteen feet in the air. It had a small second story that was open. On it was a sign that read "Homeland Security Internal Checkpoint." There were sandbags and the wooden arm that crossed the road read "100% ID Checked." Then there was a small shed to the right with a small barbed wire area behind that. On this structure was a sign, which read, "All citizens not having proper identification will be detained. All foreign nationals will be detained. All citizens who are deemed to be acting in a suspicious manner will be detained." At each of these posts there will be six armed Army or National Guard reservists with M-16's with full field kit. On top of the structure to the rear, the open structure on top, there's a man with a machine gun emplacement.

They showed the actual mockup used for training purposes. They had new uniforms. They weren't in their regular uniforms. It's a new gray uniform with a gray helmet and a visor so you can't see their eyes. The only thing you can see is from their lips down because they said that's "to prevent any retribution" from people who don't like this new idea.

This uniform looked exactly like the Imperial Storm Troopers from "Star Wars" except instead of white, it was gray. All the helmets have little transceivers so they can communicate with each other. There will be six guards at each internal security checkpoint. And there's another warning on the inside of the barbed wire enclosure, "Any detainees attempting to escape will be shot." It was a yellow and red sign inside the detainment area.

The only person who actually spoke on camera during this story was a sergeant, an Army Reservist sergeant. You could tell that he completely disagreed with what was going on. You couldn't hear the question being asked, but he was looking at the camera and he said, "We're here to protect the people." Then he put his head down and shook his head, and you could tell he didn't believe a word of what he was saying -- like it was some big frigging joke.

Then they showed the procedure they were using to train these guys. An average American car, like a Ford or a Chevy, drives up and there's supposed to be a husband and wife in the front seat and a couple of kiddies in the back. So they drive up to the checkpoint, and the corporal comes up to the car and says, "May I see your identification, citizen."

They call everyone "citizen." I swear to God, I'm not making this up. Then the guy asks for his driver's license, then something else and something else. Then he says, "Very good, citizen."

There's a spot on the gate that goes across the road that they had x-ed out. But you could tell what it said because the sergeant alluded to it. It said, "All citizens are required to present their National Identification Cards." But they left it blank as a black spray-painted out spot because the legislation for that hasn't happened yet.

The big sign on the side of the one and half story shed with the machine gun nest on top said "Homeland Security Internal Checkpoint." And now we're all supposed to say, "Hail the Republic." That's the new mantra. They showed a bunch of guys being trained at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, probably enlisted and reservists and such. And they kept raising up their right arm saying, "Hail the Republic."

The sergeant even said that they are duplicating the ancient Roman Legions salute to Caesar, using the right arm upraised with the fist. Instead of "Hail Caesar," though they say, "Hail the Republic."

This is what's coming. People don't believe it or people don't understand it but when 80% of the people support whatever "security" measures are necessary.

What does it all mean? We all better start worrying when George Bush starts to play the fiddle.

Congress is supposed to be recessed for the rest of the year, but they will be giving the Administration extraordinary wartime authority -- pursuant to all remaining legislation. In other words, they will simply allow the Administration to act under pending statutes. They are simply going to transfer to the Administration emergency wartime power to act under bills, which are still pending, even though they haven't been passed.

The implication is that we will be under a defacto state of martial law soon. There are 100,000 military being trained for these internal security checkpoints.

When they were showing the lines of enlisted and reserve people being trained in this camp, with M-16s in their hands, I can tell you I don't think any of them would hesitate to shoot at American citizens. I think they're being indoctrinated. The indoctrination they're going through is obvious. The enlisted people are being told by the drill sergeant that they are being given extraordinary authority that "your job is to protect the security of the State at all costs."

There is a direct parallel between the old Soviet Union and the East Bloc and what we are doing. We are establishing internal travel restrictions on the American people. We are essentially following the Soviet textbook. In the Soviet Communist Bloc, for example, there were checkpoints in every city. You had to have what's called an "internal travel visa." You had to have that visa stamped at every checkpoint in every city. Then they checked you out at every entrance to every city. Then if you checked out, they would affix a visa stamp and charge you ten marks for it. It was a real racket.

What will be interesting to see is what kind of a racket is going to go along with these internal security check points. In other words, how much of a "toll" are they going to charge? They're going to have to do something to pay for all of this and one of the obvious ways to pay for it would be to charge everyone a one or two dollar "toll."

And this is what we should be looking forward to - toll booths around the nation. They're not saying this yet, but obviously in an effort to pay for this, there's going to be some sort of a "security tax." Since this system is incredibly cumbersome (having to stop every single vehicle and check identification) and we've been taught to be suspicious of driver's licenses because it's so easy to obtain false driver's licenses, the implication is that national security cards are the only thing that will eventually be accepted as identification. The further implication is that in order to accommodate traffic (this will create traffic jams miles and miles long), there would be a separate line for those carrying pre-approved internal visas whose allegiance to the government has already been checked.

The sergeant on the news report said that all the people involved (100,000 military people) are being forced to swear new loyalty oaths to the United States. He just mentioned the government's overall policy, which Bush talked about last week, that all federal civilian employees are going to have to take new oaths of allegiance to the "Republic." And that extends to some members of the military who will be involved in internal security.

Surprisingly enough all these border checks, you would think, would be handled directly by the military - or under the auspices of the military. They're not. They're under the auspices of "Homeland Security." What it means is that you have 100,000 troops (reservists and national guards people) based in the United States, which will be seconded to the Office of Homeland Security. Their ultimate jurisdiction is being transferred from the Department of Defense to the Office of Homeland Security.

In other words, the Office of Homeland Security is gaining a militarized division of 100,000 troops.

It's finally getting some of the liberals nervous. But it's coming. Day after day, they're showing polls that seventy to eighty percent of the American people are prepared to approve whatever security measures are "necessary" to "fight terrorism."

EDUCATION/ INDOCTRINATION DEPT.: A warning of note -- Mothers of America beware. Last week during National Patriotism Day, sixty million American schoolchildren were supposed to stand up and say the Pledge of Allegiance together.

There was a little known and briefly shown incident on TV about a teacher in New Jersey. He was a fifth grade teacher who changed the words of the Pledge of Allegiance from "I pledge allegiance to the flag" to "I pledge allegiance to the Office of Homeland Security." Subsequently it was noted that in his opinion children are never too young to be taught obedience to the State. It should also be noted that the teacher in question who professed to be a loyal Vietnam veteran with a flat top hairdo, a Marine Corps. tattoo on his arm and a Timex watch, and replete with a polyester tie. He rather looked like some sort of reject for the corner stool at the local VFW, when he explained that "he never saw a commie he didn't want to bomb."

HISTORY OF FBI ANTI-TERRORISM SUCCESS DEPT.: In 1995, pursuant to the first round of "anti-terrorism" legislation a/k/a HR1701, the FBI was given a special $300 million grant to track down terrorist assets worldwide.

After a five-year search and an expenditure of $300 million of American taxpayers' money, they managed to find one bank account belonging to the Hamas terrorist group. It was in a savings bank in New Jersey, and it had $17000 in it.

The Treasury Department's current pronouncements that the terrorist assets they're freezing every day is just so much nonsense. They're not giving us any details about who owns these accounts or how they know they're connected to terrorist groups. One of the accounts they seized in California? Upon further investigation, it turned out that the account with $346 in it was in fact the coffee and donut fund for the local Arab American Chamber of Commerce.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH DEPT.: Having gone out to the $8.99 All You Can Eat Chinese Buffet with a bunch of cohorts, we found out that unbeknownst to us, there was an FBI agent sitting in the booth nearby. He was there not in an official capacity, but just having dinner with his wife. Anyway, we were talking about the new Office of Homeland Security and what the internal checkpoints were going to look like and what the new parameters of our new National Identity cards will be and, of course, referencing George Bush as George "Never Saw a Document He Didn't Want to Shred" Bush. And we talked about the number of civil rights that the American people will be giving up in this new campaign against terrorism.

When we got up to leave, the FBI agent said to me, "Hey pal, best flap your gums while you can because a year from now I'll have the power to arrest you for such seditious talk."

He was wearing his FBI badge on the inside to ensure that he would get his 15% discount at the restaurant.

My pals are all older and they're afraid that they'll get their Social Security checks taken away from them for hanging out with me. Then I told the FBI agent that, "Hey, we're just speaking the truth." And he said, "Like I said, seditious talk."

So remember - the new government mantra is "Speaking the truth about government misdeeds and abuses of power equals sedition."

AS SEEN ON TV DEPT.: The new checkpoints have been established and they look just like the mockups that were shown on TV. There's a large red and yellow placard that says "Homeland Security Internal Checkpoint." You have to show your driver's license to go through and you're told that soon even that will not be sufficient. There was a company of National Guard setting up an ancillary facility. They had their new gray helmets with the visors on, so you couldn't see their eyes. And it is true. We went through the checkpoint.

And yes, they really do address you as "Citizen."

AL MARTIN is America's foremost whistleblower on government fraud and corruption. A retired US Navy Lt. Commander and former officer in the Office of Naval Intelligence, he has testified before Congress (the Kerry Committee and the Alexander Committee) regarding Iran-Contra. Al Martin is the author of "The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran Contra Insider" (2001, National Liberty Press, $19.95; Toll FREE order line: 1-866-317-1390) He lives at an undisclosed location, since the criminals named in his book have been returned to national power and prominence. His column "Behind the Scenes in the Beltway" is published regularly on Al Martin Raw: Criminal Govt Conspiracy (http://www.almartinraw.com)

----

ACLU BITTERLY DISAPPOINTED WITH JOINT HOUSE-SENATE PASSAGE OF ANTI-TERRORISM LEGISLATION

From: CroneSpeak@aol.com
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 14:02:49 EDT

The ACLU is bitterly disappointed with the joint House-Senate passage of anti-terrorism legislation that closely mirrors the highly controversial anti-terrorism package originally proposed by the Bush Administration.

"Most Americans do not recognize that Congress has adopted legislation that would give the government expanded power to invade our privacy, imprison people without due process and punish dissent," said Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU Washington National Office.

Late last Thursday night, the Senate passed the "USA Act of 2001" with a vote of 96 to 1 and little debate. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) was the only Senator to vote against the bill. He also introduced three amendments -- all of which were defeated -- that would have fixed several of the bill's more glaring problems.

The next morning, the House GOP leadership adopted language that mirrored both the Senate bill and the Administration's anti-terrorism package. It replaced the language of the PATRIOT Act, a bill that had undergone significant revision in the House Judiciary Committee to protect civil liberties. The House adopted the new version of the bill by a vote of 337 to 79.

Both the Senate and the modified House anti-terrorism legislation now include many troubling provisions, most notably those that would:

-- Allow information obtained during criminal investigations to be distributed to the CIA, INS, Secret Service, military and others without judicial review.

-- Authorize expanded use of covert searches for any criminal investigation, thus allowing the government to enter your home, office or other private place and conduct a search, take photographs, and download your computer files without notifying you until later.

-- Expand the definition of terrorism in such a way that could potentially allow the government to levy heavy penalties for relatively minor offenses, including political protests.

-- Permit authorities to indefinitely detain non-citizens without meaningful judicial review.

-- Minimize judicial supervision of law enforcement wiretap authority.

A final version of the anti-terrorism legislation is expected to be on the House and Senate floors on Tuesday.

To learn more about this legislation and how the ACLU is working to keep America SAFE and FREE in this time of crisis,
http://www.you-click.net/GoNow/a15545a44273a80479599a9

--------

THE LAWMAKERS
Lawmakers Seek Inquiry Into Intelligence Failures

October 22, 2001
By ALISON MITCHELL and TODD S. PURDUM
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/22/national/22CONG.html

WASHINGTON, Oct. 21 - After a month of consensus that Congress should do nothing to demoralize the nation's intelligence agencies or distract them from preventing terrorist attacks, crucial lawmakers now say that an unflinching investigation into why the Sept. 11 attacks were not forecast or prevented is inevitable.

Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, proposed today that the inquiry be the job of a special commission. "I absolutely believe that we have to go back and see what happened," Mr. McCain said on NBC's "Meet the Press," adding, "not in order to hang somebody at the yardarm or to disgrace anyone, but so that we will not make the mistakes again that we made before and can reorganize our intelligence services."

Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, reached back to Franklin D. Roosevelt's appointment of a commission headed by a Supreme Court justice to investigate the attack on Pearl Harbor. "I hope the president will do something just like that real soon," he said.

Questions of how thorough an inquiry is needed, who should do it and, most of all, when it should be done, have simmered for weeks inside the House and Senate committees that oversee the nation's intelligence agencies.

The House committee initially proposed a special commission with subpoena power, the right to hold hearings and to grant immunity. But the full House, after some senior committee members had second thoughts, backed away from giving an outside group such wide powers.

Still, interviews in recent weeks with leading members of the intelligence panels in both houses revealed growing sentiment for a major inquiry to take place - sooner rather than later, depending on whether the terrorist threat intensifies. Such an inquiry is bound to be politically volatile as it digs into now-familiar questions of whether the C.I.A. and F.B.I. sufficiently shared information, what harm was done by a shortage of covert agents and translators, and whether restrictions on the Central Intelligence Agency's methods had kept it from waging an effective war against terrorists.

It is still not clear who will conduct any inquiry or what form it will take. But Representative Porter J. Goss, a Florida Republican who is chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said that an inquiry was coming, but that even when it was done, historians would argue for decades over how the Sept. 11 attacks occurred.

"It will be a little bit like the Kennedy assassination, I'm sure," said Mr. Goss, himself a former C.I.A. clandestine case officer. "It'll go on forever and ever because we are never going to be totally certain, I think, about who did what to whom. You have to get into the minds of the perpetrators, and obviously there was more than one and those who have been incinerated are obviously unavailable."

In the Senate, the ranking Republican on the intelligence panel, Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, has been pressing not just for an inquiry, but for the removal of George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence. The Bush administration has strongly rallied around Mr. Tenet, a Clinton administration holdover.

"I think that George Tenet has done some good things, a lot of them that I'm not at liberty to talk about," Mr. Shelby said in an interview. "But," he added referring to past terrorist attacks on United States facilities overseas, "I also believe that there have been two too many failures on his watch."

Congress's reluctance to jump in instantly with oversight hearings stood in contrast to its determination over the last decade to investigate such issues as China's efforts to learn America's nuclear secrets, former President Clinton's efforts to hide a relationship with an intern, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's deadly standoffs at Ruby Ridge and Waco.

The initial reluctance reflected a bipartisan wariness to haul intelligence and law enforcement officials before Congress for a backward look at a time when the country seems to be facing new perils every day, from anthrax sent by letter to general threats that have been passed along by the Justice Department.

"Protecting against the next waves is job No. 1, job No. 2 and job No. 3," said Representative Jane Harman, Democrat of California, a member of the House intelligence panel.

Senator John Edwards, a North Carolina Democrat who serves on the Senate panel, said, "It's a balance between needing to fix anything that's wrong and making sure that we have as much in the way of resources out there doing the job against terrorism as you can have."

Any inquiry will doubtless cast blame widely and could cause tensions between the two parties and between rival intelligence bureaucracies at a time when leaders are trying to rally and unite the nation.

Representative Doug Bereuter, Republican of Nebraska, says the F.B.I. will have to face questions about how it shared intelligence about suspected terrorists with other domestic agencies like the Federal Aviation Administration and the immigration service.

Lawmakers of both parties say some of today's problems trace back through numerous administrations to the mind-set created in the 1970's when the revelation that former C.I.A. employees were involved in the Watergate break-in helped fuel Congressional hearings into dubious C.I.A. activities including assassination plots. And they criticize an overreliance on electronic reconnaissance instead of covert agents.

But in a sign of the political shoals, Republicans also say much of the responsibility for diminished intelligence capacities rests with former President Bill Clinton.

"This is going to sound partisan, and I try not to be partisan on this matter," Mr. Goss said. "But the fact is that the Clinton administration was not very interested in our intelligence community, did not spend very much time worrying about, or using it, or investing in it." He added, "It's impossible not to go there if you really do an anatomy of why we are where we are today."

Similarly, Senator Fred Thompson, Republican of Tennessee, recalled former President Clinton's 1992 campaign mantra about the economy, saying, "For a decade or so we've had peace and prosperity - `it's the economy stupid' - and matters of military and intelligence have become secondary considerations."

Former members of the Clinton administration have insisted recently that they determinedly waged a broad campaign against Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network, and that a cruise missile attack against his Afghan camps after the 1998 embassy bombings in East Africa missed him by only an hour or so.

Tensions also exist inside the Congress, even among members of the same party. Mr. Shelby has shown little patience for Mr. Goss's strong support for Mr. Tenet and has suggested that Mr. Goss is too close to the agency he once worked in, a charge that Mr. Goss waves off.

"A part of our job," Mr. Shelby said, speaking of the intelligence committees, "is to rigorously examine what our agencies do, what they need in resources, where are they lacking, and not to get too cozy with them."

Mr. Lieberman said today that members of Congress should not be the ones to carry out any inquiry. "It ought to be citizens," he said. "A lot of their meetings ought to be in private. But then they ought to tell the president and us to the best of their ability what went wrong, so we can make sure it never happens again." Mr. McCain proposed that former Senators Warren B. Rudman, a New Hampshire Republican, and Gary Hart, a Colorado Democrat, could run an inquiry. The two headed an earlier commission on national security that had warned that the nation was ill-prepared to face the terrorist threat of the new century.

Many lawmakers on the intelligence committee argue just as vociferously that this is precisely their role. "Farming this out to other groups, I think, is inappropriate," Ms. Harman said. "I think we should do it in private and public."

Aware of how explosive the subject could become, she added, "We don't need a witch hunt now, or certainly not next year in an election year."

-------- spying

THE INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES
Job Seekers Flood Spy Agencies

New York Times
October 22, 2001
By ERIC SCHMITT
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/22/national/22RECR.html

WASHINGTON, Oct. 21 - The nation's intelligence agencies have experienced a surge in job seekers since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, a boom born of lofty patriotism and cold economic realities, recruiters say.

Résumés are pouring in to the Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency at a rate four to six times as high as before the attacks.

The applicants range from freshly minted Ph.D.'s in chemical engineering to retired military personnel with foreign-language skills to laid-off high-tech workers eager to join the war on terrorism.

Agency officials say applicants are expressing a desire to help the nation at a time of need. But in the weakening economy, many applicants are also seeking refuge in government jobs.

The overall quality of applicants is good, officials say, and some may fill shortages in the badly depleted ranks of Middle Eastern and Central Asian regional and linguistic experts, as well as technical areas like satellite reconnaissance analysis.

"A lot of patriotic citizens are coming forward wanting to serve, but the economy has also had a bearing on the number of applicants," said Frederick G. Wong, a retired one-star Army general who is chief of human resources for the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Congress has already pressed to lift restrictions on the hiring of unsavory foreign agents. But most job seekers sending résumés over the transom are not budding spies. And they appear unswayed by criticisms that the terrorist attacks amount to the worst intelligence lapse since Pearl Harbor.

Before the attacks, the C.I.A. received 500 to 600 job applications a week. The agency is now receiving that many each day, with a peak of nearly 1,100 on Sept. 17, officials said. About 20 percent of the applicants are strong enough on paper to warrant a follow-up phone call, the officials said. Of that 20 percent, about half will probably get a face-to-face interview.

These percentages are roughly the same as before Sept. 11.

"There are always wackos who apply, but we're definitely seeing qualified candidates," said Anya Guilsher, a C.I.A. spokeswoman.

The intelligence agencies are receiving most cover letters and résumés online, like this one that the C.I.A. shared on the condition that the applicant's name not be revealed:

"The recent tragedies of Sept. 11 could be prevented if America had stronger intelligence," wrote an Iraqi-born New Yorker who recently applied, listing his fluency in Arabic and English, and his proficiency in computer science and information technology, as qualifications.

Last Tuesday, the agency posted on its Web site (www.cia.gov) new job listings for linguists fluent in Arabic, Dari and Pashto, languages spoken in and around Afghanistan. Starting salaries for these and other entry-level positions range from $35,000 to $50,000.

At a career fair on Oct. 12 at Yale University, students stood 10 deep at the C.I.A.'s booth, Ms. Guilsher said. Hundreds of candidates with doctorates in physics, biochemistry and public health, as well as master's degrees in engineering and various foreign languages, left their résumés with recruiters.

At the Defense Intelligence Agency, which employs 7,000 people and provides intelligence to the military, applications have nearly quadrupled from the pre-Sept. 11 rate of 125 to 200 a month.

About 30 percent of the applicants are fresh out of college and the remainder are from both the public and private sectors, General Wong said.

Many applicants are former military personnel, including defense attachés at United States embassies in Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries.

More than two dozen retired D.I.A. specialists are being recalled. In a sign of the urgent need to bring new experts on board, the defense agency has been able to reduce the time needed to conduct security clearances and background checks on candidates to 55 days from four to six months.

Even the National Security Agency, once so secretive that officials jokingly said its initials stood for No Such Agency, has benefited from the outpouring of people interested in shoring up the nation's security and securing a challenging job.

Since Sept. 11, the N.S.A. has received more than 12,000 résumés. In the same period a year ago, agency officials said, it received about 2,200 applications. The agency, which has 15,000 employees, last year hired about 600 people.

"There are still some students who don't know about us, who confuse us with NASA, but interest is very high," Ken Acosta, the N.S.A.'s college relations manager, said at a recruiting session at Howard University here last week.

The N.S.A., which is the nation's premier maker and breaker of codes, expects to bring back as many as 100 retired employees, including analysts, linguists and security officials. The agency, which has its headquarters in Fort Meade, Md., is offering $10,000 signing bonuses to qualified computer scientists and engineers.

Applicants to all the intelligence agencies must be American citizens at least 18 years old.

The upswing in applications coincides with revamped recruiting efforts at the intelligence agencies. Three years ago, the C.I.A. beefed up its Internet site and rolled out a new advertising slogan appearing in newspapers and magazines: "Quite possibly, the most demanding job in the world."

The Defense Intelligence Agency, under its new director, Vice Adm. Thomas Wilson, increased its advertising budget for recruiting to nearly $400,000 this year from $86,000 a year ago.

"If I go to John Doe in Manhattan, Kan., they have no clue about the D.I.A.," General Wong said. "We don't have that name recognition."

Résumés are not the only encouraging missives arriving in the mail. The C.I.A. has received a handful of checks, said an agency spokesman, Bill Harlow.

One anonymous benefactor sent his $600 tax rebate check with a simple message: "Put it toward the cause."

-------

Bush tells CIA to eliminate Osama

Economic Times
October 22, 2001
http://www.economictimes.com/today/22worl01.htm

WASHINGTON US President George W Bush has directed the Central Intelligence Agency to eliminate terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden and destroy his al-Qaeda network, senior government officials said.

Bush signed an intelligence order last month directing CIA to undertake the "most sweeping and lethal covert action," calling for the destruction of bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network, the officials were quoted as saying by the Washington Post.

The officials also said that Bush has allotted over $1 billion to the CIA's war on terrorism, most of it for the new covert action, the report said.

US intelligence has identified new and important specific weaknesses in bin Laden's organisation that are not publicly known, and these vulnerabilities will be the focus of the lethal covert action, the officials said. (PTI)

-------- terrorism

Al Qaeda's Tracks Deepen in Europe
Surveillance Reveals More Plots, Links

By Peter Finn and Sarah Delaney
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, October 22, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31080-2001Oct21.html

MILAN, Oct. 21 -- Telephone wiretaps and listening devices planted in the apartment of a 33-year-old Tunisian here have produced evidence that a network of terrorist recruits trained at Osama bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan has fanned out to a half-dozen European countries, according to Italian investigators.

The Tunisian, Essid Sami Ben Khemais, moved to this city in March 1998 after completing two years of training at camps run by bin Laden's al Qaeda network, the investigators said.

Khemais was put under surveillance by the Italian authorities, who found a trove of fresh information about terrorist cells sent to Europe. Many members of the network may still be at large, law enforcement officials said.

"In the past we had seen some links to Afghanistan, but we saw them as more or less acting here without close connections to al Qaeda," said a senior German intelligence official. "Now we are seeing more and more links between cells and to al Qaeda. We are rethinking everything."

"Before September 11, we had no idea of the depth of the problem," added a senior Italian official.

Details of the Milan cell, which was run by Khemais, are spelled out in 300 pages of Italian court documents, including police reports, arrest warrants and transcripts of the bugged conversations and tapped phone calls. The documents, obtained by The Washington Post, paint a picture of conspirators discussing bombings and other attacks in Europe. They also made cryptic remarks about a mysterious, dangerous chemical that suffocates people. It could be put in a tomato can, they said, and released when the can is opened.

The records also offer an example of how the terrorist attacks on the United States have jolted Europe to the presence of an interlocking set of terrorist cells that is believed to span Italy, Germany, Spain, Britain, France and Belgium, with supporters in numerous other countries, including Switzerland.

Indoctrinated with combat videos from Chechnya, absorbed into al Qaeda by bin Laden agents in Europe, and trained in Afghanistan for operations against the West, these cells of determined young men are a major challenge for law enforcement in Europe and the United States, according to investigators.

According to European court, police and intelligence sources, the cells were organized under two large umbrellas. One was an Egyptian movement called Anathema and Exile. The other was an Algerian group called the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat. These umbrella networks, multinational in membership, coalesced through the efforts in Europe of three key individuals anointed by al Qaeda, the sources said.

The first is Abu Doha, 36, an Algerian who moved to London in 1999 after a stint as a senior official at a terrorist camp in Afghanistan. He was charged with organizing attacks on the United States and is in detention in London, fighting extradition to the United States.

The second is Mohamed Bensakhria, 34, an Algerian who was arrested in Spain in June, after fleeing a police raid in Frankfurt, Germany, where he was based. The third is Tarek Maaroufi, a Tunisian with Belgian citizenship. Maaroufi is wanted on an Italian warrant issued by anti-terrorism prosecutor Stefano Dambruoso, but remains free because of his Belgian citizenship, which prevents his extradition to Italy.

According to European law enforcement officials, the three men were tasked by al Qaeda with forming strong links among groups across the continent and organizing terror attacks in Europe.

"These are the critical figures," said the German intelligence source.

The Milan cell was one part of the larger network. When Khemais moved to Milan, the sources said, the structure of terrorist networks in Europe was changing. A group of violent, radical militants had left behind conflicts in Egypt and Algeria, and wars in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya, all of which were over or in abeyance. The "brothers," as the militants called themselves, soon found a new organizing principle in bin Laden's campaign against targets in the West, according to Italian investigators.

"The Algerian situation, for years the epicenter, has in the past few years lost its centrality in favor of a new binding capability represented by the project of bin Laden," according to an April report by the Digos, the Italian anti-terrorism police.

The taped conversations in the Milan cell bolster the conclusion that the young men had Europe in their sights.

For example, in March, bugs in Khemais's apartment picked up a conversation between the Tunisian and Lased Ben Heni, a 31-year-old Libyan veteran of the Afghan camps. "God loves us because Europe is in our hands," said Heni, who was arrested this month in Germany on an Italian warrant. He added, "Now we are mujaheddin muhajirun [fighting immigrants]. This is our duty that we have to carry on with honor. . . . We have to be like snakes. We have to strike and then hide."

Khemais said in the bugged conversation, "Al Qaeda exists from Algeria to the Philippines. They're everywhere."

It is not clear whether these European networks of al Qaeda were connected with the cell in Hamburg led by Mohamed Atta, who is suspected of being the ringleader of the Sept. 11 hijackers. A senior German intelligence official said in an interview that the connections are still tentative. British, Italian and German sources said, however, that it is likely that Atta and his associates operated autonomously, without relying on other cells, even if, as the authorities now believe, the leaders of all these groups were trained in Afghanistan and sponsored upon their return to Europe by bin Laden.

The records from Milan suggest that the smashing of a terrorist cell in Frankfurt in December 2000 averted some kind of chemical attack that was being planned, as well as a bombing at a marketplace in Strasbourg, France.

In a conversation bugged on March 13, Khemais and three others spoke of "an extremely efficient liquid that suffocates people." And they suggested it could be secretly placed in tomato cans and would be dispersed when the cans were opened. The investigators said they do not know what kind of chemical was being discussed.

"You want to try it," asked Heni. "Where? In France?"

"Yes," replied Khemais.

Heni then asked if it was "better" than another product held by someone called Mohamed. The leader of the Frankfurt cell was Mohamed Bensakhria, and he and the Milan group were in regular contact, according to officials here and court documents.

"It's better than that product and more efficient because as soon as you open this liquid, it suffocates people," Khemais said.

Accompanying notes by the Italian police state that when the German police broke up the Frankfurt cell three months earlier, they "found detailed handwritten instructions on how to make and use the handmade products which were of high, explosive worth and how to use toxic substances in lethal doses."

And Khemais, apparently referring to the Frankfurt raid, said, "They arrested them while they were preparing the gas."

There are links among all of the groups, officials said. Khemais, the head of the Milan cell, for instance, visited and phoned suspected terrorists in Spain. And he and his lieutenant in the Milan cell, Mehdi Khammoun, called two of the alleged point men in the terrorist umbrella network, Doha in Britain and Bensakhria in Germany, shortly before the Frankfurt raid, according to the Italian court documents.

In another example of the links among the various groups, Khemais called Maaroufi in Belgium on a cell phone after the Frankfurt raid to warn him that "they have arrested our brothers . . . half the group." He told Maaroufi, "You need to cover yourself." Khemais had "constant and intense links with Maaroufi," according to the Italian documents.

Khemais visited Maaroufi in Brussels on Feb. 10, 2000, where they also met another Tunisian extremist, Essoussi Laaroussi, who had served jail time in Belgium. Maaroufi has repeatedly denied any involvement with terrorism, including in an interview with a journalist from the Italian newspaper La Repubblica in February.

After the interview, Maaroufi and Khemais spoke in a conversation recorded by authorities. "I said to him I only know poor people," Maaroufi said of the journalist. The two then broke into laughter.

The Milan cell documents reveal constant paranoia about the possibility that its members were being recorded. "The fault is all in the telephones," said Khemais, not suspecting his apartment was also bugged. "You have to be like wolves -- clever. In different cases, those who discovered those people, even if they didn't find major things, were the American secret services." At another moment, Khemais warned others in the Milan cell to be careful to not write to contacts in Europe because they could be detected.

Most of those in the Frankfurt and Milan cells, including Khemais and Bensakhria, are now in custody, but the Italian documents make clear that the European terrorist ranks are easily replenished with recruits.

According to the Digos report, the European cells send their members to Afghanistan. The recruits assemble in Geneva, and using false Italian documents, fly to Pakistan, where they are escorted into Afghanistan. "To finance all this, evidence suggests that it is Khemais who takes care of it by means of drug-trafficking, counterfeiting money and documents, recycling dirty money," the Digos report said. "Groups who are versed in the use of explosives are sent to Europe to fill in the losses from various police roundups."

"The moment to strike has arrived because they're arresting everyone," Heni said in a recorded conversation with Khemais after the Frankfurt arrests. "We have to show them we are here. We have to show them who the mujaheddin really are.

But he continued, "We have to await the orders" of bin Laden.

While waiting, they sat around in seedy apartments, such as the one outside Milan where the conversations were recorded, speaking of their heroics in Chechnya and watching gory video footage from various holy wars.

In March, for instance, Khemais's lieutenant, Khammoun, in a bugged conversation, boasted of his experience in Chechnya. "When the order came from the emir . . . it was very nice," he said, "because first we studied the structure and after with the plastic [explosive] boom!

"The building collapsed and then there was dust," Khammoun said. "And then a fire broke out and that way the enemies of God were buried and burned."

Everyone in the room laughed, according to the Italian transcript.

Later that evening, commenting on a videocassette apparently of action in Chechnya, another man, Moktar Farid-Bouchoucha, said: "This cassette is really scary. If the commandos see it they'll know what it means to have your throat slit by real soldiers -- the best commandos in the world. If they see this video, they'll tremble. It's really nasty stuff. They end up like sheep."

The terrorists also have a wide range of targets. "Our enemy is not just the Americans or the Israelis or all the enemies of God," said Heni. "We have the enemy in our own home because these are negotiating with them." He mentioned Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and the Tunisian president.

And throughout the Italian transcripts there is constant reverence for bin Laden's power and reach.

Bin Laden "is also a state," Heni said, "because he has those who take care of movements for him, of projects, of finance, of studies. For them and for the sheik [bin Laden], every attack must be studied well and it must succeed well."


-------- activists

Waging their own war
After decades out in the cold, anti-nuclear protesters are back in the spotlight

Kirsty Scott
Monday October 22, 2001
Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/nuclear/article/0,2763,578720,00.html

It was meant to be an anti-nuclear protest, yet the talk could be of little else but the horrors of a more conventional war.

As dawn broke this morning, roads outside the Faslane Trident nuclear submarine base on the Clyde started to fill with demonstrators - hundreds of them, chained and chanting, banging drums and holding hands.

The organisers, CND and Trident Ploughshares, said their blockade, an event they run twice a year, had been given "additional sharpness" by the terrorist attacks on the US and the bombing of Afghanistan.

Faslane is home to the UK's four-strong fleet of nuclear submarines and the nuclear-powered hunter-killer submarines, some of which are already operating in the theatre of war.

To the protesters, the facility is an abomination. To local people in the communities of Garelochhead and Helensburgh, it is an economic lifeline in an area blighted by lack of opportunity.

There is now almost a routine to these demonstrations. A small group of protesters chain themselves inside plastic and cardboard tubing directly outside the main gate and are then cut free by police and carted off to be charged with breach of the peace at the local courts.

One of the first to be lifted was Tommy Sheridan, Glasgow MSP and leader of the Scottish Socialist Party. He has been jailed twice for his involvement in previous protests at the base and was unrepentant.

"We would much rather the police officers were deployed in more socially useful work this morning," he said, as he was led away.

"Nuclear weapons have no place in the 21st century. We should be channelling resources towards pensioners, the homeless and fighting the war against poverty, which are a scar on Scottish society.

"No one at this demonstration has acted in anything other than a peaceful fashion. We are here in peace to campaign in peace and can't understand why we are subjected to mass arrests."

CND said more than 800 people had turned up from all walks of life and all parts of the globe. By late morning the police had made 150 arrests.

"This blockade is made all the more poignant because of the current worldwide climate," said a CND spokesman. "There is growing concern among a large number of people about the civilians in Afghanistan who have become innocent victims of ongoing action.

"Trident cannot be used in situations like this without causing major destruction to many, many people."

At mid-morning, the protesters held a minute's silence for all the victims of military might. Banners proclaiming "Resist the War Machine" and "Trident is Terror" were briefly laid aside.

Even the police stopped cutting as the chanting faded away and the home of Britain's nuclear arsenal fell quiet.

----

Mass Blockade of Faslane

Monday 22nd October 2001, 7 a.m.
From: Stephen Kobasa <skobasa@pop.snet.net>

Faslane naval base in the Clyde estuary is where the UK's four Trident nuclear weapon submarines are based. Trident is an indiscriminate weapon of mass destruction designed to destroy whole cities and kill millions of civilians. It pollutes the environment with radiation and is outlawed under international humanitarian law. It is an outrageous waste of public money at a time when basic public services are under threat.

In spite of many years of campaigning and lobbying the UK government still refuses to face up to its moral and legal obligations and get rid of Trident and is now supporting US plans to put weapons in space, risking a new arms race. Responsible citizens cannot fold their arms and let this intolerable and dangerous situation drift on. Anti-Trident campaigner Anne Kobayashi has put it this way:

"If voices cannot be heard through normal channels the ultimate act is to put your body where it cannot be ignored."

--

MSP's among 150 arrests at Faslane

22nd October 2001, 11am

Two MSP's, an MEP and four veteran peace campaigners are among the 156 people arrested so far today at Faslane naval base.

The Trident Ploughshares/Scottish CND blockade of the nuclear submarine base started at 7am and within minutes police began arresting protesters.

Politicians arrested include SNP MSP Lloyd Quinan, SSP MSP Tommy Sheridan, and the Irish Green Euro MP Patricia McKenna.

Lifelong activists Pat Arrowsmith (71), from London, Judith Pritchard (79), from Malvern, Worcestershire and Dumbarton couple Bobby (86) and Margaret (83) Harrison are the oldest arrestees from among the 1000 people demonstrating against Trident today.

Jane Tallents, (43) from Helensburgh, who helped to organise today's blockade, said: "Today's action shows that people will come back to Faslane time and again in their determination to have this monstrous weapon banned.

"Trident is an indiscriminate weapon of mass destruction and a true war on terrorism would rid the world of all such obscenities."

Anti-Trident campaigners hail OKBLOK a success Faslane blockaders will be back

Anti-Trident campaigners today hailed the mass blockade of Faslane naval base as a success.

Over 160 people were arrested at the nuclear submarine base as 1,000 protesters shut down the main gates for over five hours early today.

Organisers vowed to return to Faslane in February 2002 in an intensifying campaign. But they challenged the police decision today to ignore the criticism of mass arrests in a court decision earlier this month, when Tommy Sheridan MSP was acquitted of a breach of the peace.

David Mackenzie, of Trident Ploughshares and Scottish CND, said: "To have these numbers shutting down the Trident base on a wet Monday morning shows the determination of protesters to keep going until this obscene weapon is banned.

"We are keeping up the momentum with an intensifying programme of actions including a further blockade at Faslane in February 2002.

"It is a real pity that Strathclyde police today continued their discredited policy of mass arrests. Tommy Sheridan was arrested today for doing exactly the same thing for which he was acquitted in court just two weeks ago, when the magistrate questioned the mass arrest policy.

"This yet again illustrates the mess the police and the courts are in over how they respond to peaceful acts of conscience by people exercising their democratic rights.

"In spite of the seriousness of our message and the work we are engaged in, this protest today celebrated life in an amazingly enjoyable and hopeful atmosphere."

Faslane Security Breached Again

Faslane staff told a Belgium-based peace campaigner wandering inside the nuclear submarine base during today's blockade to "go away."

The base was supposed to be on a high security status because of the mass protest of over 1,000 people demonstrating against Trident nuclear weapons.

But as police arrested around 170 people sitting in the roads outside, David Heller (25), of the For Mother Earth group, cut through the base perimeter fence and reached a 'sentry box' near the submarine berth.

David said that personnel there showed no interest in him when he knocked on their door and he was only arrested by Ministry of Defence police after approaching another sentry box.

"I cut through the fence and the razor wire and walked down past a number of uniform and civilian personnel and was not challenged at all," David said.

"I was right down at the sentry box type cabin at the end of a gangplank going over to one of the submarines. When I knocked they waved me away so I went to the next one but was arrested there."

David has been charged with breaching the bye-laws that apply to the base. His exploration of the base is the latest in a series of embarrassing security lapses at the submarine base. This year peace activists have swum to the Trident submarines inside their high security on several occasions.

----

Police, Protesters Stand Together

October 22, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Scotland-Nuclear-Protest.html?searchpv=aponline

GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) -- Police and anti-nuclear protesters joined in a minute of silence Monday for the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, but the harmony soon unraveled and police arrested 168 of the demonstrators.

The arrests came after protesters blockaded a base that houses Britain's nuclear submarines. About 500 people participated in the protest at the Faslane naval base, on the River Clyde in western Scotland, police said.

Organizers said their concerns were heightened by the terror attacks on America and the subsequent bombing of Afghanistan.

``No matter what happens, we will continue to vehemently oppose these barbaric and inhumane weapons of mass destruction,'' said Brian Quail, a leader of Scotland's Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Lawmakers from the Scottish and European parliaments were also detained along with two Church of Scotland ministers.

``We are here to campaign in peace and can't understand why we are subjected to mass arrests,'' Tommy Sheridan, leader of the Scottish Socialist Party, said.

Protesters and police officers earlier joined for a minute's silence to remember those who died in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and to reflect on events since.

The Faslane base is the site of frequent protests, including one in February that led to 385 arrests.

Police Chief Superintendent Harry Bunch said most of the arrests were for minor public order offenses.

-------

Bastion of Dissent Offers Tribute to One of Its Heroes

October 22, 2001
By EVELYN NIEVES
The New York Times

OAKLAND, Calif., Oct. 21 - Danny Glover, the actor, called her a hero. Alice Walker, the writer, called her inspiring. The crowd, 3,500 strong, awaited her appearance with the giddiness of autograph seekers awaiting their favorite Hollywood star.

It is not often a fairly new member of Congress is honored so publicly, by so many, for a single vote. But Barbara Lee, the Democratic representative of the Ninth Congressional District since 1998, was honored today with songs, poetry and speeches for being the only lawmaker in the House or the Senate to vote against granting the president the authority to use military force against terrorism.

When Mr. Glover walked Ms. Lee to the podium about two hours into the program, the crowd gave her a Super Bowl touchdown roar.

"We wanted to show the world that Barbara Lee's vote represented her constituents," said Nancy Nadel, an Oakland City Council member who helped organize what she called "a community gathering for Barbara Lee" outside City Hall this afternoon. "We wanted to show that she spoke for us and that we support her and that the press was not reflecting that. Not to mention, that we think what she did was so courageous."

Few here would argue that Ms. Lee would have received this hearty a celebration anywhere in the country. In the weeks since she cast her dissenting vote on Sept. 14 (because, she said that day, "I am convinced that military action will not prevent acts of further international terrorism against the United States") Ms. Lee has received great attention, but much of it has not been welcome.

Beyond being bombarded with calls, letters and e-mail messages questioning her patriotism, she has received death threats, enough to cause pause. She travels with bodyguards these days, and her schedule is secret. (Members of her local district staff said they did not know if she was in town, when she was already here.)

And while she has also received plaudits for her vote, or the courage to cast it, from all over the country, nowhere has that one vote been more popular than in her own district, a bastion of left-liberal politics where the two-party system means Democrats and Greens. (Just the other day, the Berkeley City Council, which had already voted to honor Ms. Lee, officially called for an end to the bombing in Afghanistan.)

In her district, which includes Berkeley, where the Free Speech Movement was born, Oakland and the neighboring city Alameda, Ms. Lee would probably have raised more hackles had she voted otherwise.

"It would have been very surprising if she hadn't voted against the resolution," said Tim Redmond, executive editor of The San Francisco Bay Guardian, an alternative weekly that keeps close tabs on the area's politics. "It was the right thing for her to do as the representative of one of the most progressive Congressional districts in the country."

Bruce Cain, a professor of political science at the University of California at Berkeley, said that Ms. Lee's district, where she won 85 percent of the vote, "is the best district in the country to cast that vote."

While the vote has spawned a challenger - Audie Bock, a former state assemblywoman, who hopes to unseat Ms. Lee come the Democratic primary in March - it will also probably earn her votes from the liberal voters who had considered Ms. Lee not liberal enough, Mr. Cain said.

"There are people so far left of Barbara Lee that they never would vote for her," he said. "They would vote Green, or Independent."

Ms. Bock, a Democrat who became a Green Party member, then an Independent, then a Democrat again, has begun a challenge to Ms. Lee based on the lone vote. Ms. Lee, she said, "cowers behind her bodyguards, knowing she has wronged both the living and the dead." Ms. Bock has also started a Web site, dumpbarbaralee.com.

Ms. Lee's supporters say her vote took courage because it could marginalize her in Congress. But Ms. Lee, a former state assemblywoman and senator who was former Representative Ron Dellums's chief of staff, has voted alone before. In 1999, she was the sole House vote against President Bill Clinton's plan to use force against Serbia. In 1998, she was one of five House members to vote against bombing raids on Iraq.

She has also pushed for more money for H.I.V. and AIDS treatment in Africa, opposed military aid to Colombia and protested the Boy Scouts' policy of excluding gays. A former social worker, she recently introduced legislation to increase the worldwide affordability of AIDS drugs and to link international debt relief to the prevention and treatment of H.I.V. and AIDS.

Today, Ms. Lee was honored twice: in front of City Hall and, later, by a women's group, the Women of Color Resource Center, which honored Ms. Lee with its third annual award for women who have made significant civic, cultural, artistic or political contributions to society.

She was clearly moved by the outpouring of support this afternoon at City Hall.

"I want to thank you for being the greatest and most progressive Congressional district in the country," she said, in her brief remarks to the crowd.

That received the loudest applause of the day.

--------

Academics critical of war face harassment in US

World Socialist Web Site
By Shannon Jones
22 October 2001
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/oct2001/acad-o22.shtml

Free speech is under attack on university campuses across the United States, with those critical of US policies facing mounting harassment and threats.

In many cases university officials are caving in to pressure to discipline or censure faculty and staff that engage in protests against US militarism or express opposition to the patriotic hysteria whipped up by the media and government officials since the September 11 terrorist attacks. Professors have faced threats and calls for dismissal for expressing even mildly oppositional views or engaging in "inappropriate speech." In the majority of cases those victimized have been left-wing critics of US foreign policy.

City College of New York faculty and students who attended an October 2 teach-in sponsored by the Professional Staff Congress were denounced by the media and the City University of New York (CUNY) Board of Trustees. The event, "Threats of War, Challenges of Peace," sponsored by the campus professors union, was open to all points of view, including support for US military intervention in Afghanistan. During the course of the teach-in a number of participants attempted to explain the historical context underlying the resort to terrorism by Islamic fundamentalists.

An October 4 op-ed piece in the New York Post, titled, "CUNY vows crackdown on Anti-US hatefest," called the event "a hard core America-bashing festival." It quoted CUNY trustee Jeffrey Wiesenfeld who declared, "They're fortunate it's not up to me. I would consider that behavior seditious at this time."

CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein denounced the teach-in and announced his intention to convene a special meeting of the board of trustees to consider resolutions condemning the event.

At Brooklyn College, the school administration blocked a scheduled public meeting on campus opposing the war in Afghanistan organized by the Third World Within-Peace Action Coalition. Campus officials imposed additional fees and demanded identification checks of all attendees. Further, the school issued a warning about holding campus activities that challenged the so-called consensus in the US supporting the war against Afghanistan. As a consequence organizers were forced to move the event to an off-campus location.

The University of South Florida placed Professor Sami Al-Arian on indefinite leave after he appeared on a TV news program where he discussed his previous association with several academics now labeled suspected terrorists by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Following the TV appearance the university received angry phone calls, including death threats. The university claimed the suspension was to protect Al-Arian.

A library assistant at the University of California at Los Angeles received a five-day suspension without pay after he sent out an e-mail criticizing US support for Israel and the ongoing bombing of Iraq. He was responding to a patriotic mass e-mailing by a coworker. In issuing the suspension the school cited a policy banning the sending of unsolicited electronic communications and a new policy against the sending of political, religious or patriotic messages. The suspended staff member, a 22-year employee of the university, said he was unaware of the policies and noted that he was the only person disciplined in the incident.

A professor at the University of New Mexico was forced to leave campus for one week after he made an off-the-cuff joke in class about the attack on the Pentagon the day of the terrorist hijackings. Several state legislators called for the academic to be fired. University officials said they were conducting an internal investigation of the incident.

The school's provost defended the administration's actions against the professor. "Our position is that faculty members have certain responsibilities to their students. It's not a free speech issue, it's a professional issue," he claimed.

The Foundation for Individual Freedom, a Philadelphia-based organization that provides legal help to faculty members who feel their rights have been abused, said academic freedom of expression has been eroded since September 11. The group is currently providing assistance to 10 professors who say they have been victimized because of their views.

The fact that the attempt to silence academic free speech enjoys support at the highest levels of government was indicated by the reaction to remarks made by one New York City school official, Judith Rizzo, deputy chancellor, who said the terrorist attacks demonstrated the importance of teaching about Muslim culture. She was denounced by Lynne Cheney, wife of US Vice President Dick Cheney, who claimed the statement implied the events of September 11 were the fault of the United States.

A number of media reports have noted the attacks on academic free speech but have downplayed the incidents, suggesting they are an understandable overreaction. They have pointed out that there have also been attempts by school officials to censor views deemed excessively chauvinist or racist.

As history has shown, all suppression of democratic rights, no matter against whom it is initially directed, inevitably rebounds hardest against the most progressive elements in society. By seeking to crack down on views deemed outside the mainstream within the educational establishment, the ruling elite and its academic lackeys are seeking to stifle all critical thought. Such policies pose a grave threat not just to academics, but to the democratic rights of the entire working population.


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