------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Revived fears about radiation
Lax control puts secrets and world in danger
Engineer Pleads Not Guilty to Bomb Component Exports
Briefer Regimen May Fight Breast Cancer
Green group still campaigning against Honeymoon mine
Iron-loving bacteria can learn to consume uranium
Depleted uranium at issue in war
Depleted Uranium Conference 17th January 2002
Next Target in Terror War
Congress Checks N. Korea Reports
Pakistan Detains Nuclear Scientists
House OKs Nuke Plant Liability Limit
For Radiation, How Much Is Too Much?
Program offers aid to energy workers
Powell to Visit Turkey, Russia
Iraq's Weapons Could Make It a Target, Bush Says
Did bin Laden have help from U.S. friends?

MILITARY
Millions of land mines hinder Afghan recovery
Afghans suspect bin Laden is hiding in huge tunnel fortress
U.S. admits dangerous new situation in Afghanistan
Pentagon ready for fight to death at stronghold
Afghan South: Different War Than in North
U.S. Will Place 1,000 Troops on Ground
Congress looks into missile deal
Report: U.S. to Provide Egypt with Missiles, Boats
Plan for Smallpox Rules Out Mass Vaccination
Careful Plan Devised for Anthrax Letter
Could Iraq be next?
Inspectors must return to Iraq
U.N. May Not Overhaul Iraq Sanctions
Israeli Analysis Raises New Doubt About Arafat's Power
Independent TV Station In Moscow Faces Closing

POLICE / PRISONERS
Democrats Question Tribunal Concept
McAfee Virus Software Opens Your Computer to Feds
AV vendors split over FBI Trojan snoops
More Than 600 Held in Terror Probe
States
Professor to Be Deported After Secret Evidence Case
U.S. Pressures Foreign Airlines Over Manifests
Excerpts From the Justice Dept.'s Interview Instructions
Maryland juvenile-justice system beset by violence
McCain: Terrorists bypass laws by using gun shows
A Harvard Professor's Baffling Vanishing

ENERGY AND OTHER
A Practical Way to Make Power From Wasted Heat
German EnBW to increase wind energy to 10 MW Dec
British Energy, AMEC mull Scottish wind farms
Waste Heat Conversion Is Improved
Senate unlikely to act soon on cloning ban
A Breakthrough on Cloning? Perhaps, or Perhaps Not Yet
U.S. Details Response to Smallpox
California homeless
Religious freedom, a casualty of war?

ACTIVISTS
Impact on Global Social Justice Movement
World Economic Forum (WEF)
Big Greenaction Website Updates and Action Alerts



-------- NUCLEAR

Revived fears about radiation

Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2001
San Jose Mercury News
BY GLENNDA CHUI AND BARBARA FEDER
http://www0.mercurycenter.com/cgi-bin/edtools/printpage/printpage_ba.cgi

The fear that terrorists might set off a nuclear bomb or spread radioactive material through a city has revived a decades-old American worry: How can we protect ourselves from a radioactive attack?

In the 1950s and early 1960s, the answer seemed clear. The government handed out plans for building and stocking fallout shelters, and students practiced ``duck and cover'' drills in anticipation of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union.

But while Americans built some 200,000 fallout shelters in their back yards, the drive to prepare for a nuclear war quickly faded -- in part because of the expense involved, in part because of the seeming futility of trying to survive nuclear annihilation.

Now reports that suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaida network may plan to build a nuclear weapon -- or, worse, already have one in hand -- have forced the issue back into the spotlight. The weapons they might be capable of detonating are likely far smaller than those of the Cold War era, but still have the potential for spreading havoc and fear.

Analysts have been quietly warning for years that the nuclear threat persists in the form of thousands of nuclear weapons and tons of radioactive materials that could fall into the hands of terrorists or a rogue nation with no scruples about using them.

Some experts offer words of comfort in the face of such scenarios, saying the United States is far better prepared to deal with a nuclear problem than it is an all-out bioterror attack. But all agree the issue should get renewed attention -- quickly.

``I think what's happened after Sept. 11 is these threats have all become much more real,'' said Kevin O'Neill, deputy director of the Institute for Science and International Security, a think tank in Washington, D.C.

``The willingness of terrorists to kill thousands of people, which for many years has been an issue of academic debate -- I think that debate has been settled, so really all bets are off in terms of what they might use.''

The breakup of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War caused many people to breathe a sigh of relief and shake off any worries they had about the threat of nuclear weapons. Today's disaster preparedness brochures barely mention radioactive hazards, if they address them at all.

Likely attack scenarios

There are a number of ways terrorists could carry out a radiological attack, according to a report released last month by the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements. It's an organization chartered by Congress in 1964 to provide advice on radiation protection issues.

The most destructive but least likely scenario has a terrorist group stealing or manufacturing a nuclear weapon. Any homemade bomb would probably be crude and have the explosive power of fewer than 10,000 tons of TNT, the report said. For comparison, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II was the equivalent of 20,000 tons of TNT.

Even so, such a bomb would send out a powerful blast of air that shatters windows and sends shards of glass flying at high speeds. It would also produce a fireball, reaching temperatures of tens of millions of degrees, that incinerates objects and burns people over long distances. And it would loft material high into the atmosphere, which would settle over a wide area as radioactive fallout.

Another possibility: Terrorists set off a ``dirty bomb,'' a conventional explosive laced with radioactive material. Or they could accomplish much the same thing by crashing a plane into a nuclear power plant or nuclear waste pond, scattering and perhaps burning its radioactive contents.

In a third scenario, terrorists put a source of radiation in a place where a lot of people go by, or scatter it by dribbling it off the back of a bicycle or injecting it into a ventilation system.

``Something like that, unless you were very lucky or looking for it, you might not understand that the source was there until people started getting sick,'' O'Neill said.

Detecting radiation

Some experts think the people most likely to respond to the scene of a terrorist attack should be equipped with small, hand-held radiation detectors.

They should be installed in firetrucks and police cars ``just like the radio, the lights and all the other stuff,'' said John W. Poston, a radiation safety expert at Texas A&M University and chairman of the committee that wrote the radiation protection report.

The detectors could pick up radiation attacks that aren't obvious.

And they would also tell emergency crews how much danger they were facing on the scene of an attack, Poston said. He noted that of the 31 people killed by radiation in the worst nuclear accident in history -- the 1986 explosion and fire at the Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine -- 29 were firefighters.

This type of simple detector is already available, Poston said. ``It could be made in your garage,'' he added. ``We were hoping to entice one or more companies to make these things,'' which might cost $50 to $100 each.

If terrorists did detonate a dirty bomb, hospitals would be confronted with patients both injured in the blast and exposed to radiation. Some might be temporarily or permanently blinded from viewing an explosion.

Health workers would confront some unusual circumstances: Most would know how to safely dispose of radioactive clothing, but what about radioactive blood or body wastes? Radioactive metals or other materials embedded in wounds would have to be handled with care to avoid exposing doctors and nurses.

The National Council on Radiation Protection recommended that health workers wash victims with tepid water and perhaps a mild detergent. Patients would undergo radiation surveys: Doctors would take nasal swabs to check for inhaled radioactive material and check metal objects like jewelry or belt buckles for accumulated radiation.

In the early stages of radiation sickness, patients show symptoms such as nausea and vomiting, hair loss or cataracts. More severe radiation poisoning can cause infection, internal bleeding, fluid loss, diarrhea, reduced appetite and weight loss.

``The greatest concern is to make sure physicians are comfortable enough to deal with radioactive contamination so they can treat the traumatic injuries,'' said Dr. Jerrold Bushberg, a radiologist who directs the health physics program at the University of California-Davis.

The health effects of radiation depend on the dose and on which organs are exposed. Radiation can enter the body through the skin or a wound, by breathing radioactive gases or aerosols, or by eating contaminated foods or liquids.

Radiation can damage DNA, the genetic material within cells, causing mutations that can lead to cancer decades down the road. The death of bone marrow stem cells can hamper the production of new blood cells, leading to infection or tissue death.

Preparing for attack

Dr. Fred Mettler, chairman of radiology and nuclear medicine at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, has studied the nation's level of preparation for terrorist nuclear attack and helped to write the radiation protection report.

``The readiness is going to be a lot better a year from now than it is right now, but the capability to handle a radiologic incident is better than any chemical or biological incident,'' Mettler said. ``Nobody's got an anthrax meter, but everybody's got a Geiger counter. The whole thing would be assessed very fast and located very quickly. You wouldn't stand around waiting for someone to develop symptoms.''

Hospitals near nuclear power plants, such as the San Onofre facility outside San Diego, are required to hold regular drills and keep specialized decontamination supplies and medications on hand in the event of a nuclear accident. The same is true for hospitals along routes where nuclear materials are transported.

If you include the nation's hospitals with nuclear medicine departments, Mettler said, ``there really are 3,000 hospitals where somebody would have a clue if someone said `radiation.' ''

The California Department of Health Services has two teams of a dozen health physicists on call -- one for Southern California, the other for Northern California -- to respond to any releases of radioactive material, spokeswoman Lea Brooks said. In addition, medical advances are improving survival rates after radiation exposure. Doctors have learned from mistakes made at Chernobyl and in other nuclear disasters.

For example, bone marrow transplants, once thought to help contaminated patients, have been discredited as a therapy, Bushberg said. Effective only in patients whose bone marrow had been almost destroyed, the transplants were often performed on patients who didn't need them. Perfect bone marrow matches were difficult to locate. Some patients died because their bodies rejected the transplants.

Instead, physicians now rely on a class of drugs called interleukins to help stimulate the production of bone marrow stem cells.

Doctors would also use drugs intended to protect people from the harmful side effects of radiation cancer therapy, such as Ethyol. Another treatment, Trentol, helps strengthen red blood cells so they can survive the journey through blood vessels shrunken by radiation exposure.

Health workers might also give potassium iodide, a form of iodine, to keep patients' thyroid glands from absorbing the radioactive iodine that is produced in some nuclear blasts.

Some have worried that Americans might hoard potassium iodide like they did the antibiotic Cipro in the recent anthrax scare. Mettler said that while potassium iodide might cause thyroid dysfunction or rashes if people take too much of it, its effects aren't life-threatening. In contrast, Cipro is a powerful antibiotic that can cause fatal allergic reactions.

The report from the National Council on Radiation Protection cautions that because radioactive iodine is not present in all blasts, giving potassium iodide to large numbers of people may prove worthless. Still, federal officials are taking steps to stockpile potassium iodide in the event of an attack.

Long-term risks

Researchers for decades have studied the long-term health effects of radiation, examining thousands of survivors of the Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Chernobyl blasts.

``Basically, what it comes down to is cancer risk,'' Mettler said. ``You can get some kinds but not others. The point is, the risk of cancer from radiation is pretty low compared to the spontaneous risk'' of cancer in the general population.

For example, among 86,000 survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings who were studied from 1950 to 1990, there were only 334 more cancer deaths from tumors and 87 more deaths from leukemia and other blood-cell cancers than ordinarily would have been expected in a population that size.

Children, however, are more likely to develop cancer as adults than people exposed to radiation when they are older, Mettler said.

More attention is also needed, experts say, to the psychological impact of a radiation incident. Even a small release, not enough to affect human health, could send people pouring into hospitals and demanding testing and treatment, as they did during the recent anthrax scare.

And the scars of a radiological attack could run deep.

Imagine the agony of firefighters ordered not to enter an area where people are obviously in need of help, for fear they would be killed by dangerous levels of radioactivity; of parents worried about the health of their children, and of people from all walks of life who would worry, for decades afterward, if they were at increased risk for cancer.

Even after the contamination was cleaned up, the stigma could linger for people in the affected area.

``What we learned at Chernobyl is that getting accurate information to people quickly is what's important,'' Mettler said. ``In Chernobyl, there were as many psychological problems in the `clean' villages as there were in the `dirty' ones. People just didn't trust the government saying the villages were clean.''

Renewed interest

No one, so far, is recommending a return to the days of the fallout shelter boom, which had Americans heatedly debating such questions as whether it was OK to shoot neighbors who tried to force their way into the family shelter during a nuclear attack.

But there does seem to be resurgence of interest in creating reinforced ``safe rooms'' within homes -- ``not as protection against all-out nuclear war, but as protection against gas or germ attacks or the nuke in the suitcase,'' said Kenneth D. Rose, a historian at California State University-Chico and author of ``One Nation Underground: The Fallout Shelter in American Culture.''

In 1959, at the height of the Cold War, a 31-page booklet from the Office of Civil Defense and Mobilization showed how to build a family fallout shelter and stock it with two weeks' worth of supplies.

Today, the Federal Emergency Management Agency Web site on disaster response contains one brief mention of the danger of radioactive materials, under a section on chemical emergencies.

The same guidelines apply to both: People should evacuate the area of an attack if told to do so by authorities. If they can't get away, they should ``shelter in place'' by going indoors, sealing all windows and vents and turning off fans and heating or cooling systems.

``Nobody's recommending that people go out and dig bomb shelters in the back yard because of the minute percentage of a chance that kind of threat would be released,'' said Dallas Jones, director of the California Office of Emergency Services.

In a state where the risk of a devastating earthquake probably exceeds that of a nuclear attack, he said, ``it's a common-sense kind of approach.''

Contact Glennda Chui at gchui@sjmercury.com. Contact Barbara Feder at bfeder@sjmercury.com.

--------

Lax control puts secrets and world in danger
NUCLEAR MATERIAL HAS MANY SOURCES, IS EASY TO OBTAIN

BY GLENNDA CHUI
Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2001,
San Jose Mercury News
http://www0.mercurycenter.com/premium/scitech/docs/falloutsid27.htm

Small-scale nuclear attacks may be rare, but they are not unheard of. And experts fear that lax controls on radioactive materials may make these attacks easier to carry out.

In one such incident, separatists from the Russian region of Chechnya buried some radioactive material in a Moscow park in 1995, then called authorities to tell them it was there, said Lyudmila Zaitseva, a visiting researcher at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.

Security forces found it and cleaned up the site before it could do any harm.

The center has collected data on 700 cases starting in 1991 in which radioactive material was stolen, lost or abandoned, she said. They include 20 incidents involving plutonium or highly enriched uranium that could be used to make nuclear weapons.

But sources of radiation that could be used to make dirty bombs are much more common and would be easier to obtain, Zaitseva said. They're widespread in hospitals, research and industry.

``There are thousands and thousands of such sources available all over the world, and very often the control of these sources is very poor,'' she said. ``Some countries don't even have databases to account for all the sources they have, and to track them over their lifetimes.''

To many analysts, the most worrisome situation is in Russia.

A report from a high-level study commission in January called the prospect of theft of Russian nuclear technology ``the most dangerous unmet security threat'' the United States faces.

It recommended spending $30 billion during the next eight to 10 years to secure or neutralize all the material in Russia that could be used to make nuclear weapons.

Approximately 40,000 nuclear weapons are now spread among more than 100 sites there, many of them poorly guarded. And about a million Russian nuclear scientists and engineers are now out of work, or are in jobs that pay so little that they might be tempted to sell nuclear secrets, materials or expertise.

Contact Glennda Chui at gchui@sjmercury.com.

----

Engineer Pleads Not Guilty to Bomb Component Exports

New York Times
November 27, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/27/national/27TRIG.html?searchpv=nytToday also
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A19551-2001Nov26?language=printer

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 26 (Reuters) - A 72-year-old engineer from the Los Angeles area who had been on the run for the last 16 years pleaded not guilty today to charges of illegally shipping nuclear triggering devices to Israel.

The engineer, Richard Kelly Smyth, faces 15 counts of violating the Arms Export Control Act and 15 counts of making false statements to the federal government. If Mr. Smyth is found guilty, he could face life in prison.

He pleaded not guilty before Judge Pamela Ann Rymer at a hearing in Federal District Court in Los Angeles. Judge Rymer, assigned to the original case in the 1980's, set a trial date of Jan. 15.

Mr. Smyth, a former Air Force and NATO adviser, disappeared from the United States in 1985, three weeks after pleading not guilty to charges that he had exported 800 devices that could be used as nuclear triggers, worth about $60,000, to the Heli Trading Corporation in Israel. After 16 years as a fugitive, he was arrested in July in Malaga, Spain, shortly after filling out a bank application. He was extradited to the United States last week and is being held without bail.

In addition to the charges from the original indictment, Mr. Smyth could also be charged with fleeing the United States, prosecutors said.

The devices Mr. Smyth is accused of exporting are small glass bulbs called krytrons. Invented in 1934 for use in high-speed photography, krytrons have many applications including laser photocopying machines, strobe lights and nuclear weapons. Because they can be used to trigger nuclear bombs, federal law forbids their sale overseas without a permit.

Mr. Smyth, who at the time of the indictment was president of an export and engineering business in Huntington Beach, about 40 miles south of Los Angeles, is accused of illegally sending the krytrons to Israel between 1980 and 1982.

Mr. Smyth has not "made any assertions as to their intended use," said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the United States attorney's office here.

Israel, which has maintained that the krytrons were not intended for use in nuclear weapons, returned "a substantial number" of them after Mr. Smyth's indictment, Mr. Mrozek said.

At a hearing set for Dec. 17, Judge Rymer will also have to determine whether to admit statements made to news organizations by Mr. Smyth's defense lawyer, James Riddet, in 1985. In the statements, Mr. Riddet allegedly acknowledged that Mr. Smyth had shipped the triggers without a license. Prosecutors maintain that Mr. Riddet could be a potential witness because of those statements, Mr. Mrozek said.

---

Briefer Regimen May Fight Breast Cancer

New York Times
November 27, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/27/health/womenshealth/27BREA.html?searchpv=nytToday

CHICAGO, Nov. 26 (AP) - A single, concentrated dose of radiation may be as effective as six straight weeks of daily radiation treatment for women who have had a cancerous lump removed from a breast, preliminary research suggests.

The experimental treatment could make lumpectomy - a breast-saving type of cancer surgery in which only the lump and some surrounding tissue are removed - available to many more women.

About 180,000 new cases of breast cancer are diagnosed each year in the United States.

"Approximately three-quarters of women with breast cancer are candidates for lumpectomy, rather than mastectomy, which is total removal of the breast," said Dr. Jayant Vaidya, a surgeon at University College London Medical School, who led the study.

But lumpectomy is typically followed by radiation, and some women with early breast cancer decide against a lumpectomy because they cannot spend six weeks receiving daily radiation treatments, Dr. Vaidya said.

Instead, they choose mastectomy, which typically does not require radiation. Mastectomies are often the only option for women who live far from cancer treatment centers, cannot travel back and forth every day or find the standard radiation schedule unworkable.

An experimental technique called intraoperative radiotherapy uses a miniature radiation probe right after a lumpectomy, while the patient is still in surgery. The probe is inserted inside the cavity created by the removal of the tumor, and radiation equivalent to six weeks of daily doses is emitted for about 25 minutes.

The technique was just as effective as six weeks of radiation in preliminary results from Dr. Vaidya's study of 29 women, which was prepared for presentation today at a meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.

The women all underwent lumpectomies for tumors of less than about 1.5 inches. About half got the single dose and half received the standard six weeks of radiation. All have remained cancer-free during a year and a half of follow-up.

Since the peak time for cancer recurrence is two to four years after treatment, it is too soon to call the technique a success, said Dr. LaMar McGinnis, a senior medical consultant for the American Cancer Society.

But "so far, so good," Dr. Vaidya said.

Dr. Paula Schomberg, a Mayo Clinic radiologist, said the approach required more study.

"It would certainly be advantageous if there was some way to replace an extended course of radiation with a shorter course, for patient convenience," she said. "It remains to be seen whether it's safe to do that."

The technique will also be studied in the United States, and it is already used for the initial radiation treatment in lumpectomy patients in some American hospitals.

The report said the technique was not sufficient for a form of breast cancer called lobular carcinoma, which accounts for up to 15 percent of all breast cancers.

Dr. Vaidya said victims of such cancer still needed an extended period of radiation, but could start with one intraoperative treatment.

-------- australia

Green group still campaigning against Honeymoon mine

ABC Online
ABC Sci-Tech -
27/11/01
http://www.abc.net.au/news/scitech/2001/11/item20011127130356_1.htm

The Friends of the Earth say it still has a few hands to play before the Honeymoon uranium mine gets its mining licence.

The mine has been given the green light from the Federal Government, but still needs the approval of the South Australian Government before it can go ahead.

Friends of the Earth campaigner Bruce Thompson says state approval of the mine could become a major issue as the South Australian election draws nearer.

This is why he will encourage the state Labor Party to adopt similar policies as its federal colleagues who promised no new uranium mine licences if it was voted in.

Mr Thompson says environmentalists will also approach potential Canadian investors to advise them of the controversial aspect of the project.

"The Honeymoon mine back in 1982 was given the same approval but never got a go at a federal level," he said.

"We're back 17 years later [and] nothing has improved in terms of environmental protection, nothing has improved in terms of process, it's just that we have a Government that seeks to facilitate these projects."

However, Southern Cross Resources says it is not concerned about the Friends of the Earth lobbying potential Canadian investors.

Project manager Tom Hunter says environmentalists have been threatening they will contact investors for the past three or four years.

He says the main concern investors have is about the price of uranium, which he believes can only increase.

"At a time when uranium prices did bottom and are now increasing we've been able to manage to keep on track and to keep ourselves financed, our share price has gone up quite strong since the news came through," he said.


-------- depleted uranium

Iron-loving bacteria can learn to consume uranium

Monday, November 26, 2001
By Environmental News Network
http://enn.com/news/enn-stories/2001/11/11262001/iron_45659.asp

For more than 50 years the United States has used nuclear energy for power generation and for military purposes, resulting in the creation of a network of facilities engaged in research, development, production, and testing of nuclear materials. Now, the nation must deal with radioactive materials generated by these facilities that contaminate about 40 million tons of soil and debris, enough to fill 17 professional sports stadiums.

One researcher at the University of Missouri-Columbia thinks she has found a type of bacteria that can be modified to clean up uranium contamination. Biochemistry professor Judy Wall has been working with the bacteria known for creating the rotten egg smell of stagnant water with the goal of harnessing them to help remediate sites contaminated with radioactivity.

The radioactive contamination extends to 1.7 trillion gallons of groundwater in 5,700 distinct plumes, about four times the amount of water that Americans consume daily.

With the end of the Cold War threat in the early 1990s and the shutdown of all U.S. nuclear weapons production reactors, the Department of Energy (DOE) has shifted its emphasis to remediation, decommissioning, and decontamination of the immense volumes of contaminated water, sediments, and over 7,000 structures spread over 2,810 square miles. The DOE must characterize, treat, and dispose of hazardous and radioactive waste at more than 120 sites in 36 states and territories.

Wall believes she may have an answer, at least for the remediation of uranium contamination. For the past four years, she has studied one species of bacteria, Desulfovibrio desulfuricans, with the goal of determining its potential for bioremediation of sites contaminated by uranium spills.

Bioremediation is the use of living organisms to reduce or eliminate environmental hazards from toxic chemicals or other wastes.

Wall says her "bug" may be able to clean up sites contaminated by uranium spills from mining, processing and nuclear power plant accidents.

"This particular bacterium is found virtually everywhere," Wall said. "What makes it unique and a potential remediator for uranium is how it makes its energy. It doesn't create its energy through photosynthesis like plants or by burning oxygen like animals. Instead, it makes energy by pushing, or adding, electrons onto other compounds."

Wall believes this electron transport system could be used for bioremediation. By pushing electrons onto the very soluble but dangerous Uranium VI, a more neutral form -- Uranium IV -- is created.

This form is not soluble and can be more easily contained and filtered from contaminated water. Despite its miniscule size, the bacterium contains between 3,000 and 4,000 genes in its DNA. The idea is to identify the genes believed to be involved in controlling the electron flow.

Through such methods as creating mutant genes in the DNA, Wall hopes to decipher the code governing the bacterium's electron transport system. The result could be the release of a bacterium with a reduced appetite for sulfur or iron -- and a huge hunger for uranium.

Currently, Wall is working with researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to understand the proteins that deliver the electrons to Uranium VI. The researchers have identified at least one protein in the process, and in the future, they hope to learn how to increase the bacterium's affinity for uranium and increase its efficiency as a bioremediator.

"Once we've determined the genetic pathway, we can begin to examine other factors that might affect the bacterium's use in bioremediation," Wall said. "We'll need to identify competitors for the electrons, such as other heavy metals, isolate environmental factors that could stop the transport system and determine methods to encourage growth of these helpful bacteria."

"If we can use the bacteria occurring naturally at a site, we can reduce the level of disturbance to the environment during cleanup," she said.

Wall believes that bioremediation should provide a cost savings, a prediction of interest to the DOE which funds Wall's research as part of the department's Natural and Accelerated Bioremediation Research program.

The DOE has spent more than $23 billion up to 1995 on the cataloging and preliminary characterization of radioactive contamination. Budget projections for these activities just for the next 10 years exceed $60 billion.

--------

Depleted uranium at issue in war

UPI From the Science & Technology Desk
11/27/2001
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=26112001-044840-7177r

TAMPA, Fla., Nov. 26 -- There are conflicting reports about whether the United States has used depleted uranium projectiles in Afghanistan as well continued questions about their potential effect on health.

Sources told United Press International Nov. 15 that ever since it opened its bombing strikes on Oct. 7, the United States has been using depleted uranium munitions against Taliban targets.

However, Maj. Brad Lowell, of the Central Command in Tampa, Fla. later told UPI, "Depleted uranium weapons have not been deployed in the Afghan theater."

When depleted uranium was used in U.S.-led air strikes in Kosovo, and prior to that in attacks on Iraq, it caused a storm of controversy over the short-and long-term side effects.

While Lowell denied DU weapons were used in Afghanistan, he reiterated the military's assertion depleted uranium is safe. He said an Army technical advisor "told me that depleted uranium is used in lots of things, including digital wristwatches."

Depleted uranium is a waste product that comes from the enrichment of natural uranium for use in nuclear reactors. Natural uranium is a slightly radioactive metal found in rocks, soils, rivers and seawater. It is mainly made up of two isotopes or forms of uranium, Uranium-235 and Uranium-238, in the proportion of about 0.7 percent and 99.3 percent, respectively. Nuclear reactors require U235 to produce energy so the natural uranium must be enriched to get the U235 by removing a large part of the U238. Uranium-238 then becomes DU.

DU is an extremely heavy, dense material that provides an extra punch when loaded in weapons and makes shielding more effective.

A RAND report from 1999 indicated use of depleted uranium projectiles in combat causes no immediate or long-term health hazards to soldiers or civilians who come in contact with the weapons or their residue. In addition to researching the long-term effects of natural uranium on workers in the uranium industry, the RAND review reported on the findings of the Baltimore Veterans Affairs Medical Center, which is tracking the cases of 33 Desert Storm veterans who came in contact with DU during the Gulf War more than 10 years ago.

According to the RAND review, this "cohort of individuals, about half of whom have embedded fragments, represents a group who received the highest levels of exposure to DU during the Gulf War.

"Although many of these veterans have health problems related to their injuries in the Gulf War, and those with embedded fragments have elevated urine uranium levels, researchers to date report neither adverse renal effects attributable to chemical toxicity of DU nor any adverse health effects as they relate to DU radiation," the report said.

John Capalinotto, a spokesperson for the International Action Center, a worldwide group that wants to ban the use of depleted uranium weapons, told UPI, "DU weapons pose a danger to both soldiers and the environment."

Capalinotto, based in New York, said studies in "Iraq after the Gulf War suggest an increase in childhood cancers," which he attributed to depleted uranium exposure. He said the "inherent cruelty and death-dealing effect" of the weapons violate international law.

Earlier this year NATO and the World Health Organization investigated claims exposure to the depleted uranium rounds increased the risk for leukemia and other cancers. In a report released last spring, WHO investigators concluded, "scientific and medical studies have not established a link between DU exposure and the onset of cancers, congenital abnormalities or serious toxic chemical effects on organs."

But WHO also stated it relied on military data and that "some scientists would like to see a larger body of independently -- i.e. non-military -- funded studies to confirm the current viewpoint."

DU munitions have been part of the U.S. arsenal since 1991. Reports claim the United States and its allies fired about 315 tons of DU during the Persian Gulf War and more than 30,000 rounds during the Kosovo conflict. Additionally, the United States fired more than 10,000 depleted uranium rounds during air engagements over Bosnia in 1994 and 1995. DU offers improved defense when used as armor shielding and enhanced power when used in armor penetrating munitions. Along with the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Thailand, Israel, and France are developing or already possess weapons systems that make use of DU.

According to the Federation of American Scientists: "DU is ideal for use in armor penetrators. These solid metal projectiles have the speed, mass and physical properties to perform exceptionally well against armored targets. "DU provides a substantial performance advantage, well above competing materials allowing DU penetrators to defeat an armored target at a significantly greater distance," FAS said.

It is the impact of the penetrators on armored targets that causes activists the greatest health concerns. Capalinotto said depleted uranium is dangerous when it explodes because it causes small amounts of still radioactive uranium to become aerosolized. Soldiers and civilians can then breathe in these dangerous particles, he said.

When a DU penetrator hits a solid object and burns, radioactive U-238 is released into the air in tiny particles called particulates, which can be blown by the wind or carried over water for miles. "Originally it was thought that up to 70 percent of the DU round may be aerosolized upon impact of a DU penetrator on its target or in fires in which DU burns. However, based on more refined testing, the percentage of the original material to aerosolize is now known to range from 10 to 35 percent with a maximum of 70 percent," the RAND report said. The report also said DU has been found useful in medicine as radiation shields, in aviation as counterweights, in aerospace for satellite ballast, and in petroleum exploration in drilling equipment, along with military applications.

In terms of environmental risk, the WHO report stated that DU shells buried in the ground "are unlikely to decompose quickly and hence, their addition to the natural environmental abundance of total uranium in soil will be small."

(Reported by Peggy Peck in Cleveland and Malcolm Visser in Washington.

----

Depleted Uranium Conference 17th January 2002

Commonwealth Institute,
Kensington High Street, London

From: uranium@t-online.de
Tue, 27 Nov 2001
Booking: http://www.srp-uk.org/formjan02.html

Morning Session - Chairman: Brian Spratt, Imperial College of Science, Technology & Medicine

09.30 Registration and Coffee

10.00 Chairman's Introduction

10.10 DU and Public Concerns Ron Brown, Dstl Radiological Protection Services, MoD

10.40 Transport, Pathways and Exposure Routes Barry Smith, British Geological Survey

11.10 Environmental and Personal Monitoring Nick Priest, Middlesex University

11.40 Biokinetics and Toxicology Neil Stradling, National Radiological Protection Board

12.10 Discussion Session

12.40 Lunch Afternoon Session - Chairman: Dudley Goodhead, Medical Research Council

14.00 Chairman's Introduction

14.10 US Perspective on DU Steve Shelton, Dowbiggin Ltd, USA

14.50 Unresolved Issues on DU Keith Baverstock, World Health Organisation

15.20 Future Research: MoD UK Perspective Phil Sutton, Director Research (Corporate), Ministry of Defence, UK

15.50 Discussion Session

16.15 Tea and Close Organisers: David Smith and Mike Thorne

Scope of the Meeting

There has been much recent interest in the issue of depleted uranium (DU) in the environment, especially its use in recent military conflicts. This meeting will set the scene with invited presentations on DU, pathways, environmental and personal monitoring. Further speakers will cover aspects of biokinetics, and toxicology. In conclusion, unresolved issues and future research requirements will be discussed.

For those under 35

A limited number of registrations will be available free on application. Travel expenses may also be applied for.

-------- iraq

Next Target in Terror War:
Bush Says It Could Be Iraq

New York Times
November 27, 2001
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/27/international/27PREX.html?searchpv=nytToday

WASHINGTON, Nov. 26 - President Bush warned Saddam Hussein today that if he did not admit United Nations inspectors to determine if Iraq is developing nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, he would face consequences.

Mr. Bush declined for now to say what those might be. "He'll find out," Mr. Bush said.

In issuing the threat, the president seemed to broaden his definition of terrorism to include the development of weapons that would "terrorize nations," a significant departure from the definition he used in an address to Congress in September about the purpose of the war.

"If anybody harbors a terrorist, they're a terrorist," Mr. Bush said today. "If they fund a terrorist, they're a terrorist. If they house terrorists, they're terrorists. I mean, I can't make it any more clearly to other nations around the world. If they develop weapons of mass destruction that will be used to terrorize nations, they will be held accountable."

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said tonight that Mr. Hussein should hear Mr. Bush's words as "a very sober, chilling message." In an appearance on CNN on "Larry King Live," Secretary Powell added, "There are many options available to the international community and to the president."

Mr. Bush's remarks came as his administration continues an internal debate over the next phase of the war, including whether it will undertake military action to try to oust Mr. Hussein. Mr. Bush has been criticized by conservative Republicans for not moving forcibly against Mr. Hussein, who has been accused of plotting to assassinate Mr. Bush's father and whose survival continues to torment Washington a decade after the Persian Gulf war.

For his part, Mr. Bush insisted that he had not widened the definition of what his administration considers terrorism, even though he did not mention weapons of mass destructions in his speech to Congress. "Have I expanded the definition?" Mr. Bush said. "I've always had that definition, as far as I'm concerned."

Mr. Bush made his remarks in a question-and-answer session with reporters after a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden welcoming two American Christian relief workers who were rescued this month by American forces in Afghanistan.

The president, whom one missionary, Heather Mercer, praised as "such a man of God," repeated some of the same strong language that he first used last week in a speech to cheering members of the 101st Airborne Division in Fort Campbell, Ky.

"Afghanistan is still just the beginning" of the war on terrorism, Mr. Bush said today, emphasizing that Americans would die there.

"It's going to happen," the president said. "I said this early on, as the campaign began: America must be prepared for loss of life. I believe the American people understand that we've got a mighty struggle on our hands and that there will be sacrifice."

Mr. Bush added that "as for Mr. Hussein, he needs to let inspectors back in his country, to show us that he is not developing weapons of mass destruction."

Other than this warning, the president gave no further hint of what course the war might take should Osama bin Laden be captured or killed and his Al Qaeda network be destroyed in Afghanistan.

Iraq is the most conspicuous example of a country that either has or is suspected of developing nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, but it is not the only one. Mr. Bush also said today, "We want North Korea to allow inspectors in, to determine whether or not" North Korea is developing nuclear weapons.

A showdown with North Korea in 1994 led the United States to reinforce its troops on the peninsula. The crisis was partly resolved with an agreement that froze the North's nuclear activity at one major site, but the Bush administration suspects there are additional plants capable of producing nuclear weapons.

The United States has also said it strongly suspects Iran, Libya and Syria of developing biological weapons. In each of these cases, the White House appears to be laying the groundwork for demanding international inspections. What administration officials will do if the nations refuse is unclear.

Iraq has refused to admit inspectors since 1998, when the Clinton administration and British forces responded with four nights of air and missile strikes against more than 100 targets, including military headquarters and air defenses. But Mr. Hussein remained in place.

During the the 2000 presidential campaign, Mr. Bush and his advisers pledged to confront Mr. Hussein more aggressively than Mr. Clinton had. Significantly, those advisers included Secretary Powell and Vice President Dick Cheney, who had helped Mr. Bush's father oust Iraqi forces from Kuwait in the gulf war in 1991. In February of this year, barely a month in office, Mr. Bush ordered air strikes with Britain against Iraqi radar stations and air-defense command centers, calling the action a necessary response to Iraqi provocation.

Since Sept. 11, a group of administration hard-liners has argued that the United States should move further against Iraq, but Secretary Powell has said there is no evidence linking Mr. Hussein to the Sept. 11 attacks and that the coalition against terrorism will not hold if Washington acts against Iraq.

The secretary said on CNN tonight that he was working with Russia for a compromise on what the administration calls "smart sanctions" against Iraq, which are intended to let in civilian goods but not military ones.

"What we don't want to have go in, are equipment that can be used for developing weapons of mass destruction," Secretary Powell said. "We're not doing this just to protect America, but to protect the region."

Mr. Bush has so far seemed to endorse the views of Mr. Powell, and the president said again today that he remained focused on the war in Afghanistan. "We're going to make sure that we accomplish each mission that we tackle," Mr. Bush said. "First things first."

Although Mr. Bush has been criticized by some conservatives for what they consider his hesitation in dealing with Mr. Hussein, Senator John W. Warner of Virginia, the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, warned today about opening up another front in the war.

"The principal focus should be on achieving the goals of this mission," Mr. Warner said in a news conference on Capitol Hill. Before tackling terrorism in a new country or region, Mr. Warner added, the administration should conduct "a complete reassessment with regard to coalition support."

-------- korea

Congress Checks N. Korea Reports

By Barry Schweid
AP Diplomatic Writer
Tuesday, November 27, 2001; 5:26 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23777-2001Nov27?language=printer

WASHINGTON -- Congress is looking into reports North Korea is providing Egypt with long-range missiles even as the Bush administration plans to sell the Arab country more than 50 surface-to-surface missiles in a $400 million arms deal, a congressional source said Tuesday.

Administration officials have been asked to testify behind closed doors Friday on the reports of a North Korean missile deal. The U.S. plan to arm Egypt with 53 Harpoon Block II satellite-guided anti-ship missiles was reported by The Washington Post and confirmed on Capitol Hill.

Two senior members of Congress, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., D-Del., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., senior Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, have questioned the U.S. deal as a potential threat to Israeli ships. Presumably, the missiles could reach land targets, as well.

The deal was outlined in a classified memorandum to Congress in early November, said the congressional aide, speaking on condition of anonymity.

It surfaced as Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher was arriving in Washington for talks with Secretary of State Colin Powell and members of Congress on Thursday.

Lantos, in a statement to the Associated Press, said, "Egypt today faces no external threat that warrants the sale of advanced Harpoon anti-ship missiles."

"The greatest threat Egypt faces today is not external attack, but poverty and a lack of democracy, a sure recipe for future instability," he said.

Meanwhile, a senior State Department official plans to go to Saudi Arabia this week to confer with officials of the Arab kingdom about efforts to counter terrorism.

William Burns, the assistant secretary of state, will report also on new U.S. efforts to establish a cease-fire and start Israel and the Palestinians on a path of peacemaking.

Burns is in the region with Anthony Zinni, a retired Marine Corps. general, to try to mediate a cease-fire and rekindle peace talks.

Zinni is staying on, but Burns will make stops in a handful of Arab countries and return to Washington.

The New York Times, in a report from Riyadh, said Saudi Arabia was balking at American requests to freeze the bank accounts of those the United States says are linked to terrorism.

The report said a U.S. delegation would be sent to Saudi Arabia to persuade its officials to cooperate.

But Richard Boucher, the State Department spokesman, credited the Saudis with excellent cooperation in cutting off financial assets for terrorists. The Riyadh government has instructed banks to look for and freeze accounts linked to terrorists, Boucher said Tuesday.

An official at the Saudi embassy called the story in the Times "absolute nonsense."

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said later, "The Saudi Arabian government has done everything the United States has asked it to do in the war on terrorism."

Bush spoke by phone Tuesday with Jordan's King Abdullah, Fleischer said. He said they discussed the war in Afghanistan and the Mideast peace process, but he had no further details.

-------- pakistan

Pakistan Detains Nuclear Scientists

The Associated Press
Tuesday, November 27, 2001; 9:20 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A21361-2001Nov27?language=printer

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Two retired Pakistani nuclear scientists suspected of having ties to suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden were detained again for questioning, a spokesman for the military-led government said Tuesday.

Sultan Bashir-ud-Din Mehmood and Abdul Majid were first taken into custody Oct. 23. Authorities said last week that they had been released.

On Tuesday, Gen. Rashid Quereshi said the scientists were brought in for further interrogation but declined to say why. No charges have been filed, officials said.

The two men worked for Pakistan's Atomic Energy Commission until retiring in 1999. Both subsequently made frequent trips to Afghanistan and met bin Laden on two occasions, government officials have said.

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said Monday that authorities suspected the men of having links within Afghanistan. He did not elaborate, but said the two were not tied to Pakistan's atomic weapons program.

The scientists have said they visited Afghanistan on behalf of a charity organization that helped farmers and students. They deny passing nuclear secrets to Afghanistan's now-retreating Taliban regime or to bin Laden.

Officials in Pakistan, which conducted its first underground nuclear bomb tests in 1998, say there is nothing to suggest they revealed nuclear secrets to anyone in Afghanistan.

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

House OKs Nuke Plant Liability Limit

By H. Josef Hebert
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, November 27, 2001; 6:44 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A24208-2001Nov27?language=printer

WASHINGTON -- The House overwhelmingly approved legislation Tuesday to extend a law that limits the financial liability of nuclear power plant operators in a major accident or terrorist attack.

The measure also would require a review of security requirements for nuclear power plants taking into account the kind of terrorist attack that destroyed the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission already has begun such a review.

The House rejected arguments that the Price Anderson Act, which limits private companies' liability in a nuclear accident, is outdated and should be scrapped.

The law's supporters argued that in 44 years of the law's existence, the taxpayer has never had to pay on claims arising from a nuclear accident and that some liability limits are needed if the nuclear industry is to survive with a new generation of power plants.

The current law, enacted in 1957 and extended several times, requires individual nuclear power plants to have private insurance covering at least $200 million. In addition, the industry as a whole must have insurance for another $9.3 billion to be available for an accident at any of the plants.

Any costs above that would be borne by the government.

The House-passed bill would extend the law, which expires next August, to August, 2017. It now awaits Senate action.

Several Democrats joined in supporting the legislation after compromises were reached on new liability limits for private Energy Department contractors and on new security measures at reactor sites.

Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., called the federal liability limits "particularly odious" but urged colleagues to support the legislation because of its new security requirements.

The bill requires the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to reassess its security rules to establish more clearly what kinds of attacks the industry must guard against and what is the responsibility of the government.

It also calls on the NRC to more closely monitor and grade mock terrorist exercises, better track the transportation of nuclear materials, and tighten background checks for employees with access to such materials.

In the weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the NRC began a broad security review - much along the lines outlined in the bill - with an eye toward overhauling its regulations.

While the legislation passed by a voice vote, it prompted sharp criticism from a few lawmakers, who argued that a major accident or terrorist attack could inflict tens of billions of dollars in damages and leave the taxpayer holding the bill.

"It's nothing more than a giant government subsidy to keep the nuclear industry afloat," declared Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., whose state has been fighting a proposed federal nuclear waste site 90 miles from Las Vegas. She called the government's assuming of liability over a major nuclear accident "nothing short of highway robbery."

But Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., argued that "taxpayers have not spent one dime" although there have been 206 claims involving nuclear incidents. The claims, even those arising from the Three Mile Island accident, were covered by private insurance because they fell far below the trigger for government payments.

House Energy and Commerce Committee: http://energycommerce.house.gov
Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov
Department of Energy: http://www.energy.gov

----

For Radiation, How Much Is Too Much?

New York Times
November 27, 2001
By GINA KOLATA
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/27/science/physical/27RADA.html?searchpv=nytToday

In their efforts to protect Americans from the hazards of radiation, federal agencies have found themselves in a quandary. People are constantly exposed to radiation from natural sources - from cosmic rays, radon seeping out of the earth and radioactive substances in soil, water, food and even from potassium in the human body itself.

Compared with this radiation, the amounts coming from human efforts like nuclear plants are, relatively, minuscule. So, the question is, How closely must this radiation be regulated?

Up to now, regulators have typically acted as if every bit of excess exposure is potentially hazardous. But some scientists question this assumption.

The issue is becoming increasingly pressing as more than 100 nuclear power plants are being relicensed so they can continue to operate. At the same time, the country faces a growing predicament of what to do with nuclear waste from power plants and weapons sites.

"The issue rages because we are regulating doses that are lower than the natural background of radiation," said Dr. Arthur Upton. A radiation expert and former director of the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Upton is a professor of environmental and community medicine at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

In a report last year on radiation standards, the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said: "The standards administered by E.P.A. and N.R.C. to protect the public from low-level radiation exposure do not have a conclusive scientific basis, despite decades of research."

The situation is further confused, experts say, because regulatory standards are a hodgepodge.

The Environmental Protection Agency advocates a standard for all radiation exposure from a single source or site at 15 millirem a year, with no more than 4 coming from ground water. A standard chest X-ray, in comparison, gives about 10 millirem to the chest, which is equivalent to 1 or 2 millirem to the whole body. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission sets its acceptable level of radiation exposure from any one source at 25 millirem a year. In contrast, the natural level of background radiation in the United States, on average, is about 350 millirem a year, and in some areas of the country it is many times higher than that.

In New York, for example, people absorb about 100 millirem of radiation each year from cosmic rays alone, said Dr. John Boice Jr., a radiation expert, who is the scientific director of the International Epidemiology Institute in Rockville, Md. In Denver, exposure from cosmic rays averages 200 millirem a year, he said, and natural variation in radiation exposure is many times the amounts of radiation that are being disputed by regulatory agencies.

"We eat, breathe and drink low levels of radiation," Dr. Boice said.

At the same time, said Dr. Fred Mettler, chairman of the radiology department at the University of New Mexico medical school, major medical sources of radiation, like CAT scanners, have fallen outside the purview of any regulatory agency.

"A whole lot of places aren't regulated at all," Dr. Mettler said. "It's a bit of a nightmare."

"When you look at the exposure of the population from radiation, about two-thirds is due to natural background and about 15 percent is due to your friendly doctors and chiropractors," Dr. Mettler said. "Everything else is, to tell you the truth, very minimal. Less than a couple of percent is from all the nuclear reactors and all the research industry."

But, asked Dr. John Evans, a risk analyst at the Harvard School of Public Health, Why should the level of background radiation matter to the question of how much additional risk from human-generated sources is acceptable? "Why isn't the more relevant question, How much of this risk can be mitigated at what cost to you?" he asked.

The quandary over how to set radiation levels does not result from a lack of research or analysis, scientists say.

"Radiation's effects on people have been studied for over a century," Dr. Mettler said. "There's a vast literature. There are probably more studies on the harmful effects of radiation than for any other toxic or noxious agents in the environment."

And as scientists studied radiation, committees to evaluate the data proliferated.

"We have national and international standing committees that periodically review the world's literature on ionizing radiation," said Dr. Boice, who is a member of many such groups. "At the International Committee on Radiological Protection, we just celebrated our 75th anniversary and we meet two or three times a year."

Then, he said, there is the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. "That started in 1955," Dr. Boice said. "We meet every year in Vienna and we publish volumes."

In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements wrestle with the radiation standards question, and the National Academy of Sciences has been called upon periodically since the 1950's to weigh in with its committee, called the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation committee. The Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health conduct extensive research.

The science has grown rapidly. In 1980, Dr. Boice set up the radiation epidemiology section at the National Cancer Institute with just a handful of researchers. Now, he said, while he moved on to form the International Epidemiology Institute, which conducts research for industry and the government, the cancer institute's radiation department is no longer a section, it is a branch, and one of the largest branches there, with hundreds of scientists.

"A lot of people say, `Gee, we don't know a lot about the risks of radiation,'" Dr. Boice said. "I say: `We know a whole lot. We've studied populations all over the world since the turn of the last century. We know what happens at high doses. We know what happens at medical doses. And we know that at low doses the risks are low. The controversy is just how low are they. Are they really low or are they really, really low?'"

As with other toxic substances in the environment, the stricter the standards, the more it costs to meet them.

The G.A.O. report last year, which had the subtitle "Scientific Basis Inconclusive, and E.P.A. and N.R.C. Disagreement Continues," gave some examples of the costs of complying with standards setting different levels of radiation. The cost of cleaning soil around reactors and nuclear weapons facilities could range from thousands of dollars to more than $100 million, depending on whether the standard was an exposure of 15 or 25 millirem a year, the report said.

The report said that for groundwater, the cost of going from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's limits of 25 millirem a year to the level that the Environmental Protection Agency wants could be billions of dollars.

Scientists usually rely on a mathematical model in estimating radiation risk. The most widely used model is known as the linear-nonthreshold dose-response model. It assumes that there is no safe dose of radiation and that the risk of getting cancer or genetic damage increases along with radiation exposure.

"For better or worse, that is our model," said Stephen Page, the director of the environmental agency's office of radiation and indoor air. And with that model, he said, "the E.P.A. has tried to be as protective as possible." The agency, he added, uses that model to make sure the risk from radiation is within the allowable range from toxic chemicals, 1 in 10,000 to 1 in a million chance of developing cancer.

Some say that the linear model is the best way to estimate radiation risk, but others say that there is, in fact, a threshold below which radiation poses no hazard to health. And still others say that low doses of radiation are actually beneficial.

The linear hypothesis had its origin in 1927, when the geneticist Dr. H. J. Muller published a paper on his work eliciting gene mutations in fruit flies by bombarding them with radiation from X-rays. In a paper published in the journal Science, Dr. Muller showed that the number of mutations in fruit flies was proportional to the dose of X-rays that had struck the insects.

"He said: `Aha! There's a linear relationship,'" said Dr. Dade W. Moeller, a radiation expert and professor emeritus at Harvard who runs a consulting company, Dade Moeller & Associates in New Bern, N.C. Yet, Dr. Moeller points out, those studies by Dr. Muller used very high doses of radiation, and he elicited gene mutations, not cancer. But the idea that radiation's effects were directly proportional to its dose caught hold and soon was being used to predict cancer cases. The difficulty was in demonstrating it.

The risks of getting cancer from exposure to radiation increase with dose. But since a third of all people get cancer anyway, at some time in their lives, the problem is to find evidence that low doses of radiation cause cancers that would not have otherwise occurred. Even for people exposed to large radiation doses, like the 80,000 to 90,000 survivors of the atomic bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it has been hard to find excess cancers.

"They were exposed in 1945 and nearly half are still alive," Dr. Moeller said.

Dr. Mettler said the latest data show that 12,000 of these atomic bomb survivors had died from cancer. He said the number of excess cancers in the group is about 700.

Those data, Dr. Mettler said, show that there is a small risk of cancer with an exposure of tens of thousands of millirem of radiation.

"There's a group that says that if you can't see it, it doesn't exist," Dr. Mettler said. "Then there's another group that says, `That's nice, but it doesn't mean it doesn't happen.'"

Now, some scientists even say low radiation doses may be beneficial. They theorize that these doses protect against cancer by activating cells' natural defense mechanisms. As evidence, they cite studies, like one in Canada of tuberculosis patients who had multiple chest X-rays and one of nuclear workers in the United States. The tuberculosis patients, some analyses said, had fewer cases of breast cancer than would be expected and the nuclear workers had a lower mortality rate than would be expected.

Dr. Boice said these studies were flawed by statistical pitfalls, and when a committee of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurement evaluated this and other studies on beneficial effects, it was not convinced. The group, headed by Dr. Upton of New Jersey, wrote that the data "do not exclude" the hypothesis. But, it added, "the prevailing evidence has generally been interpreted as insufficient to support this view."

In the meantime, the regulatory agencies are at a stalemate, continuing to disagree on radiation standards. And the committee reports and committee meetings on radiation standards go on.

A recent report, issued in June by the National Council on Radiation Protection and Risks, is 287 pages long and devoted entirely to evaluating the linear-nonthreshold model. It explains that the council "has sought to leave no significant aspect of the subject unaddressed."

Its conclusion?

For lack of a better model, it recommends keeping the linear one.

"There is not conclusive evidence on which to reject" the model, the report says, adding that "it may never be possible to prove or disprove the validity of the linear nonthreshold assumption."

-------- nebraska

Program offers aid to energy workers

BY KEVIN ABOUREZK
Lincoln Journal Star
November 27, 2001
http://www.journalstar.com/nebraska?story_id=4890&date=20011127&past=

The two widows spoke slowly, sharing tragic, similar details of their lives.

Both had husbands who worked at the Hallam Nuclear Power Facility.

Both men died abruptly from cancer.

"My husband died within two months of being diagnosed with colon cancer," said Marcia Philippi of Beatrice.

"My husband died within three months," said Marge Etherton of Lincoln.

The women came together briefly Monday to hear U.S. Department of Labor representatives explain the benefits they might be eligible for under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act. About 10 people attended the presentation at the Federal Building in Lincoln.

The federal act went into effect July 31. It provides $150,000 in lump-sum compensation, as well as related medical expenses, to workers who are seriously ill because they were exposed to beryllium, silica or radiation while working for the Department of Energy, its contractors or subcontractors in the nuclear weapons industry.

It also provides benefits to some survivors and $50,000 in lump-sum payments and medical expenses to some uranium workers.

Between 15,000 and 20,000 claims have been filed with the Labor Department, which has paid out $21 million in benefits.

"This is the extent of what we can do to make it right," claims examiner Susan Atwood told those who attended the presentation. "It doesn't even begin to replace what you've lost."

The only Nebraska site confirmed to be a location where Department of Energy employees could have become ill was the Hallam Nuclear Power Facility, about 20 miles south of Lincoln, she said.

"At some point in time, it must have had something to do with development of nuclear weapons," Atwood said. The Hallam site closed as a nuclear plant in 1971 and now serves as a coal plant.

To qualify for compensation, workers or their survivors must provide the Labor Department with the worker's employment history and medical records showing evidence of a covered disease. The only diseases covered by the act are cancer caused by radiation, chronic beryllium disease and chronic silicosis.

During the presentation, Etherton asked Atwood how survivors would find medical and employment records from 30 or 40 years ago. While she agreed such records might not still exist, Atwood said survivors should file claims anyway.

"Tell us everything you know that you can remember," she said.

Philippi, whose husband died in 1990 at the age of 46, has many memories of her husband's death.

"I remember a lot because I didn't want him working there in the first place," she said, "but he wouldn't listen to me."

Reach Kevin Abourezk at 473-7237 or kabourezk@journalstar.com.

-------- us politics

Powell to Visit Turkey, Russia

By Barry Schweid
AP Diplomatic Writer
Tuesday, November 27, 2001; 8:58 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A21278-2001Nov27?language=printer

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Colin Powell will solicit support from Turkey and Russia for an expanded U.S. campaign against terrorism during an eight-day trip to Europe.

With U.S. forces routing the Taliban in Afghanistan and postwar planning under way, the focus on efforts to counter terrorism is shifting to Iraq and other nations accused of sanctioning terror.

Powell's stop in Turkey provides a chance to ponder strategy against Iraq, if it is the next U.S. target, as some Pentagon officials have proposed. Terrorism also is on the agenda for his stop in Moscow.

Russia is a strong ally of the United States in the war in Afghanistan. Mindful of its own problems with some of the separatists in the Chechnya republic, Russia shares President Bush's view that terrorism is a worldwide issue.

Powell spoke by telephone Monday with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov mostly about a U.S. move in the U.N. Security Council this week to ease economic sanctions on the Iraqi people while tightening controls on weapons technology.

"Our goal is to bring Russia on board," department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

Evidently, Russia's resistance to the so-called "smart sanctions," which Iraq also opposes, was not overcome. "We'll keep working on that," Boucher said.

Powell is due to begin his trip Monday after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who will be in Washington on a two-day visit.

The main issue is how to reduce violence and start down a road to renewed peacemaking with the Palestinians.

In Moscow, Powell also is likely to begin planning Bush's anticipated visit to Russia next year for another meeting with President Vladimir Putin. The meeting is unlikely to be held before the spring.

Talks between Bush and Putin earlier this month in Washington and Crawford, Texas, boosted U.S. relations with Russia and produced announcements by the two leaders that they would slash their stockpiles of long-range nuclear warheads.

But Bush and Putin did not agree on Bush's ambitious program for mounting a defense against missile attack, which critics say could throw decades of arms control efforts into disarray.

The Pentagon is eager to proceed with anti-missile tests that could bump up against a 1972 treaty that prohibits a nationwide anti-missile shield, and Bush may be edging closer to withdrawing from the agreement.

A dust-up on anti-missile defenses could be avoided if Russia went along with the tests. Powell may try to find out how much leeway, if any, Russian policy-makers may be willing to extend on the issue.

The State Department announced Monday that Powell would stop first in Bucharest, Romania, for a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He plans to then go to Brussels, Belgium, for a series of meetings at NATO headquarters with the 18 NATO allies and with Russia and Ukraine, which are gradually strengthening ties with the military alliance.

He then flies to Turkey and later Russia. Other stops, in Central Asia, may be sandwiched in. Powell is due to return to Washington on Dec. 10.

--------

Iraq's Weapons Could Make It a Target, Bush Says

By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 27, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A19205-2001Nov26?language=printer

President Bush offered a new justification for future military strikes against Iraq yesterday, declaring in blunt and personal terms that countries that develop weapons of mass destruction could be a target in the U.S. war on terrorism.

Bush was emphatic that much work remains to be done in Afghanistan, where U.S. ground troops landed Sunday for the first time, and he warned that casualties are likely as soldiers hunt cave to cave for Osama bin Laden and other suspected perpetrators of the Sept. 11 hijackings. "This is a dangerous period of time," he said.

But Bush, when asked at a Rose Garden appearance about whether Iraq could be a target as the United States looks to expand the war on terrorists, said, "Afghanistan is still just the beginning. . . . If you develop weapons of mass destruction that you want to terrorize the world, you'll be held accountable."

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said the president's comments represented a "restatement of a long-standing American policy." Since Sept. 11, the administration has appeared divided about where to take the war after Afghanistan, with some key Bush advisers urging a more aggressive stance versus Iraq.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has barred United Nations weapons inspectors from searching for chemical and biological weapons depots since 1997. U.S. officials have said satellite photographs and intelligence reports suggest that Hussein has continued his quest for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

"As for Mr. Saddam Hussein, he needs to let inspectors back in his country, to show us that he is not developing weapons of mass destruction," Bush said.

Asked the consequences if inspectors are not admitted, Bush said, "He'll find out."

The president also said North Korea must allow weapons inspectors. "We've had that discussion with North Korea," Bush said. "I made it very clear to North Korea that in order for us to have relations with them, that we want to know: Are they developing weapons of mass destruction? And they ought to stop proliferating."

Kenneth Allard, a former Army colonel who is a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said administration officials have been disciplined about not dwelling publicly on their grievances with Iraq, but now "are allowing themselves the luxury of looking ahead."

"They have been very careful not to bite off more than they could chew," Allard said. "It is very clear that Iraq looms as the major continuing terrorist threat, and they just didn't want to talk about that until they were ready to go."

In Bush's address to Congress on Sept. 20, he said, "Any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime." On Oct. 30, he was more specific, saying, "If you feed a terrorist, if you provide sanctuary to a terrorist, if you fund a terrorist, you are just as guilty as the terrorist that inflicted the harm on the American people."

Bush said yesterday that he was not consciously expanding his list of possible targets by citing countries, like Iraq, that possess weapons of mass destruction. "I've always had that definition, as far as I'm concerned," Bush said.

The series of recent administration remarks about Iraq began with an appearance by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice on CNN's "Late Edition" on Nov. 18. She said the United States is monitoring Hussein and added, "We'll deal with that situation eventually."

Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz said during a briefing on Wednesday, after noting that the focus remains on Afghanistan, "We see a good deal of evidence -- chemical, biological, and even nuclear -- that the Iraqis are working both with their indigenous capabilities and acquiring what they can illicitly in the international market."

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said last night on CNN's "Larry King Live" that Hussein should take Bush's comments as "a very sober, chilling message."

Powell said Iraq remains dangerous. "They continue to try to develop these weapons, and we will keep the pressure on them to make sure that these weapons do not become a serious threat to the region or to the world," he said.

Despite the drumbeat, White House officials said it would be a mistake to assume that Iraq is the next target, or even that the next phase in the war would be military. Officials have said strikes against bin Laden's al Qaeda network are possible in Sudan and Somalia. Actions are also possible, probably in coordination with the host governments, in the Philippines and Indonesia.

"The military has been making plans and contingencies with regard to Iraq for 10 years," a senior administration official said. "We are focused on what we're doing right now, which is in Afghanistan."

Bush's Rose Garden remarks were part of an appearance with two U.S. aid workers who had been detained in Afghanistan on charges that they had promoted Christianity. As Bush took questions, he said he was "not the least bit concerned" about international concern over his plan to establish secret military tribunals for certain terrorist suspects from abroad.

Bush is to meet Wednesday with Jose Maria Aznar, the prime minister of Spain, which has cited the possible use of the tribunals as a reason for not extraditing eight suspects as conspirators in the Sept. 11 attacks.

"A president must have the option of using a military tribunal in times of war," Bush said. "It makes sense for national security purposes, it makes sense for the protection of potential jurors. It makes sense for homeland security. It is the right decision to make, and I will explain that to any leader who asks."

Staff writer Steven Mufson contributed to this report.

--------

Did bin Laden have help from U.S. friends?

Thomas Walkom
COLUMNIST
Nov. 27, 02:00 EDT
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_PrintFriendly&c=Article&cid=1006790798783

AN INTRIGUING new book, just published in France, details the curiously amicable relationship between the regime of U.S. President George W. Bush and Afghanistan's Taliban, a relationship that turned hostile only after the terror attacks of Sept. 11.

Ben Laden: La Verité Interdite (Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth) is written by former French spook Jean-Charles Brisard and journalist Guillaume Dasquie. Both are said to be plugged into the murky world of intelligence. During his time with French intelligence, Brisard was regarded as something of an expert on bin Laden's finances.

The nub of their argument is that the Bush regime's attitude toward the Taliban - and even to bin Laden - was driven by the new president's fixation on energy. A stable regime in Afghanistan would allow construction of an oil and gas pipeline from the former Soviet republics in Central Asia to Pakistan and the sea. And initially, Washington's best bet for a stable regime in Afghanistan was the Taliban.

From February, when the Taliban first offered to extradite bin Laden in exchange for U.S. recognition, until August when negotiations stalled, the Bush administration and the government it later labelled a terrorist regime got along just fine.

Indeed, the book quotes John O'Neill, a former director of anti-terrorism for the Federal Bureau of Investigation as complaining that American and Saudi oil interests acting through the U.S. State Department kept interfering with efforts to track down bin Laden.

In particular, the authors say, O'Neill was irked after the State Department refused to let his FBI team return to Yemen to investigate the terrorist bombing of the USS Cole there last year. Frustrated, he quit to take a private sector job. Unfortunately for him, that job was as head of security in New York's World Trade Center. O'Neill was killed on Sept. 11.

Skeptics might argue that his death proved convenient for the authors. Now there is no one to dispute their account of what he said. Certainly, Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth has the whiff of an old-fashioned conspiracy theory starring the usual panoply of villains.

Still, the details that Brisard and Dasquie provide (including the fact that the Taliban hired the niece of former CIA director Richard Helms to orchestrate their publicity) do not contradict what was already known about the relationship between Washington and its soon-to-be arch-enemy. In fact, they support it.

Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid's well-regarded book Taliban: Islam, Oil And The New Great Game in Central Asia outlines how oil politics has affected U.S. policy in Afghanistan. The Taliban's unprecedented offer to extradite bin Laden to a third country, well before the Sept. 11 attacks, was reported by the Times of London in February. In September, this newspaper reported on the often cozy relationship between Washington and the Taliban.

Last month, the Washington Post reported that Sudan had offered in 1996 to extradite bin Laden, who was wanted at that time for attacks on U.S. servicemen in Saudi Arabia.

However, the U.S. declined that offer. Instead, it agreed with Sudan's decision to deport bin Laden and his entourage to a place where he couldn't do any damage - Afghanistan. The official reason for U.S. reluctance was that it wasn't sure a case against him could stand up in court. Saudi Arabia, the other extradition destination proposed by the Sudanese, refused to take him

But there is a pattern. Earlier this month, the Guardian, a U.K. newspaper, reported that FBI agents had been told by the Bush administration to back off investigating members of the bin Laden clan living in the U.S. In September, the Wall Street Journal documented the lucrative business connections between the bin Laden family and senior U.S. Republicans, including the president's father, George Bush Sr.

What are we to make of all of this? One possible conclusion is that the bin Laden terror problem was allowed to get out of hand because bin Laden, himself, had powerful protectors in both Washington and Saudi Arabia. If that's true, no wonder the Bush administration prefers that he be killed rather than allowed to testify in open court.

The other conclusions - questions really - have to do with the justification for the war on Afghanistan. If the Taliban unilaterally offered in February to extradite bin Laden (an offer they repeated after Sept. 11), were they just kidding? If not, was the war necessary?

This question will become particularly important if the U.S. fails to find the terrorist it says started this war, the man it allowed to go to Afghanistan in the first place.

This weekend, Spain announced it would not extradite suspected Al Qaeda terrorists to the U.S. as long as Bush plans to try such people in military tribunals. We should recall that the Taliban imposed conditions on their extradition offer, too, conditions the U.S. deemed unacceptable. Will Madrid be the anti-terror coalition's next target?

Thomas Walkom's column appears on Tuesday. He can be reached at twalkom@thestar.ca


-------- MILITARY

-------- afghanistan

Millions of land mines hinder Afghan recovery

USA Today
11/27/2001
By Tim Friend, USA TODAY
http://usatoday.com/news/acovwed.htm

KABUL, Afghanistan - When he saw his left foot was gone, Abdul Majid was confused. Six weeks later, as he lay in a hospital bed in the northern Afghan town of Khoja Bahauddin, Majid pieced together what happened. He had been leading a donkey loaded with cookies, cooking oil and soap from his village in Takhar province to the bazaar at Khoja Bahauddin. A blanket of stars and a half moon illuminated the narrow path ahead. Majid, 60, was thinking about how many more trips the aging pack animal could make across the rugged trails. A good donkey costs $200 - 4 or 5 months' pay. An instant later, there was a flash, then a deafening explosion. Majid's blood - black under the moonlight - quickly soaked the ground around him. His left foot was gone. So was the donkey, which he now assumes ran away.

"I felt dizzy, and I couldn't understand what had happened," Majid says through an interpreter.

Majid is one of about 150 to 300 civilians in Afghanistan who are maimed each month by land mines - the seeds of war planted along the country's roads and paths, under fields and irrigation ditches, during the past 2 decades of nearly constant war. An unknown number of people have died - experts presume many more than have been injured - because they bled to death before reaching hospitals.

The problem, experts say, is enormous. "Afghanistan is the country most contaminated with land mines and unexploded ordnance in the world," says Abdul Latif Matin, regional director of the United Nations Mine Action Center for Afghanistan.

The last estimates of the number of land mines here, made in 1992 before 9 more years of civil war between various factions, put the number at 10 to 14 million. Matin and U.N. officials say there must be many more land mines now.

"How many mines are there in this country? We have a saying: When we pull the last one out, we'll tell you how many there were," says Ross Chamberlain, demining field coordinator for the U.N. Mine Action Program in Kabul.

The invisible costs

As Afghan leaders struggle to form a new government and the United States and its allies try to bring peace to this country, no one at the table is discussing how Afghanistan will deal with the mines. Clearing them would cost hundreds of millions of dollars, money this nation does not have.

But until they are removed, the mines will continue to drain the country of resources - crippling its workforce and leaving vast stretches of valuable farmland and roadways useless and dangerous.

Land mines also pose significant risks to U.S. forces on the ground and to humanitarian groups attempting to deliver aid.

Older mines, laid by Soviet armies during their unsuccessful battle for control of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, were designed to kill. Newer mines, laid by Afghanistan's own fractious military regimes, primarily those of the Northern Alliance and Taliban, are designed simply to maim.

Local surveys by the United Nations indicate that 4% of the population is disabled because of injuries from mines and unexploded bombs. The legacy: deafness, blindness, amputations and severe psychological trauma.

Mines have forced people to abandon entire villages and have prevented many from returning to their homes. The empty villages and idle farmland can be seen across northern Afghanistan.

All roads leading to Kabul, including the country's two main highways, A76 and A01, are laden with the destructive pieces of plastic and explosives. Many roads are simply too dangerous to travel. Others are risky at best.

"Eleven people traveling in a minivan were killed near here a week ago when the van dodged a pothole and went only inches onto the shoulder," Chamberlain says.

Drivers are forced to take treacherous mountain trails and carefully follow the tire tracks of other vehicles. When a vehicle strays onto a road that has no fresh treads, even war-hardened veterans tense and carefully back up until they find the right trail. Small craters and smoldering tires are common sights on the roads.

The country is also littered with unexploded bombs and bomblets, including those dropped by U.S. fliers since Oct. 7 in and around Kabul and the other cities targeted in the war on terror. Officials at the U.N. Mine Action Program say at least 434 square miles of land, mostly in narrow bands along highways and roads, are known to contain mines and bombs that failed to explode on impact.

The not-so-invisible victims

Soldiers routinely die or are injured in encounters with land mines. Three weeks ago, doctors in Dasht-i-Qaleh, near what were the northern front lines at Kalakata, performed a dozen amputations by flashlight in one night. All the injuries were caused by mines.

Civilians, though, are hurt more often than soldiers. Most civilian victims of land mines are males ages 18 to 40. They are most likely to be out working on farms or as drivers and run the greatest risk of hitting mines. But in cities, including Kabul, children bear the brunt of the carnage. Maimed children can be seen on the streets of Kabul and in the markets of small villages. They walk with makeshift crutches, and many have badly scarred faces and bodies. Few receive even basic rehabilitation care or prosthetic limbs.

Some children are injured when they pick up mines out of curiosity or because they hope to sell them on the black market. "Poverty is a real issue that gets tangled with mines. Kids go looking for them. They strip them of the explosives and parts and sell them for money," Chamberlain says.

The United Nations, working with 22 international organizations, has made some progress in removing mines and unexploded ordnance from high-concentrations areas, including Kabul. Matin says the Mine Action Program in Afghanistan removed about 226,000 mines and 1.3 million pieces of unexploded ordnance from 1989 through 2000. The U.N.-led group also provides mine awareness training, which has reached 7 million people since 1989. The result is a more than 50% reduction in accidents.

In Kabul, which was designated as a high priority mine-removal area, accident rates have fallen in the past 2 years from about 50 a week to less than five because of efforts to clear mines from parks, schools and streets. An agreement 2 years ago by the Taliban to crack down on the resale of mine parts at bazaars also has made a difference, Matin says.

Though the situation has improved for now, accident rates are expected to soar again because of unexploded bombs left by the U.S. military campaign and because, as refugees return home, some will wander into minefields.

Chamberlain has spent several weeks interviewing Kabul residents in areas where U.S. bombs were dropped. He estimates that 10% to 30% of bombs dropped by coalition forces, many of which released smaller bomblets and minelets, did not explode.

There's no doubt U.S. bombing has added a new layer of danger to a countryside already littered with explosives.

Earlier this month, a crowd of 40 children was found around an unexploded, 5-foot long olive green bomb in the right lane of a busy Kabul street. The bomb had been covered by sandbags, but a truck ran over it the night before and exposed it. The children were poking and prodding it. One said it had been making sounds like hissing when it first landed on the street after a raid Nov. 12.

Chamberlain shook his head in disbelief and ordered the kids to block the highway with rocks to prevent more cars from running over it. "The ground vibrations could cause some problems," he said at the time, "and these kids would (try to) strip it if they could figure out how to take it apart."

Across the road was a crater more than 30 feet across and 10 feet deep where the bomb's twin had detonated on impact. Both had missed a Taliban commander's house just up the road.

Matin, with a map of heavily mined areas around Kabul on a wall behind his desk, sighs at such news. He says the U.N. has had to halt its demining expeditions for the next month and a half to retrain its personnel on how to handle unexploded U.S. ordnance.

Working with other organizations, the U.N. staff here coordinates the efforts of 124 mine-clearing teams in Afghanistan. Mines in cities and fields are cleared manually by teams equipped with metal detectors and explosives used to detonate the mines. Dogs are used to sniff out mines along roads and tank battlefields. On farmland and irrigation canals, crews use backhoes, bucket loaders and steam rollers to explode any buried mines.

The country has no resources of its own to clear mines. Afghanistan has a fragile infrastructure and at the moment doesn't even have an official government. Almost all the limited resources are spent on war.

About the size of a saucer

A typical mine, the Russian PMN, is about the size of a coffee cup saucer. There are also many made in Italy, Iraq and China that cost as little as $2 each. Chamberlain says he has seen no evidence of U.S.-made mines in Afghanistan. Mines usually detonate on contact, but some designs pop up into the air before exploding, sending shrapnel flying at eye level.

Greg Long, a retired U.S. special operations officer and founder of the Cambodian demining operation Me Boun Foundation, says old mines can become new problems after being exposed by rains or heavy winds. Long has been in Afghanistan as a member of Pathfinders International, a humanitarian group made up of retired and active military officers, to evaluate mined areas and secure drop zones for humanitarian aid.

Though it is easy and inexpensive to mine an area, Long says, it costs about $60,000 to clear an area the size of a football field. Who would pay to clear millions of mines is hard to say.

The United Nations, through donations to groups such as Save the Children and the Organization for Mine Clearance and Afghan Rehabilitation, expects to spend $20 million this year to clear stretches of territory that added together equal about 50 square miles of contaminated land. "Afghanistan desperately needs clearing ops around the villages," Long says. "Not only is it the right thing to do, it is the only thing to do if you hope to move these people out of the Stone Age. I hope we can do something. If the U.S. walks away from this one, it would be a shame."

---

Afghans suspect bin Laden is hiding in huge tunnel fortress

By Chris Tomlinson,
Associated Press,
11/27/2001
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/331/nation/Afghans_suspect_bin_Laden_is_hiding_in_huge_tunnel_fortress+.shtml

ALALABAD, Afghanistan - Osama bin Laden has no shortage of hiding places, from the thickly forested region west of Kandahar to an impregnable fortress built with US aid during the Afghan war against the Soviet Union.

Yet if the United States knows where bin Laden is hiding, no one in the Bush administration is saying so publicly. In Afghanistan, rumors of his whereabouts abound.

Militia leaders in eastern Afghanistan suspect bin Laden may be holed up in a mountain base called Tora Bora that veteran Afghan guerrillas describe as an impregnable fortress.

Built with US aid, Tora Bora sits about 35 miles south of Jalalabad, atop a 13,000-foot mountain, and is three hours by foot from the nearest road. Carved 1,150 feet into the mountain are a series of rooms and tunnels, reportedly with room for hundreds of people.

''I am sure he is there, 70 percent sure,'' Hazrat Ali, a militia leader in charge of security around the eastern city of Jalalabad, said yesterday. He contends that bin Laden wants to stay near the Pakistani border in case he wants to leave Afghanistan.

However, Tora Bora is about 300 miles northeast of the Kandahar area where hundreds of Marines landed Sunday, suggesting Washington is eyeing other possible hiding places more accessible to the Taliban stronghold.

Mullah Mohammed Khaqzar, a former Taliban intelligence chief, contends that bin Laden and the Taliban might head for the towering mountains that rise up to the northwest of Kandahar beginning at Argandab.

However, Khaqzar said bin Laden would probably not stay there because the area has been heavily bombed since the start of the air campaign on Oct. 7. Instead, he says, bin Laden would push deeper into Islam Dara, a well-fortified, area that is difficult to reach.

US jets have also struck around Islam Dara, which is tucked into the crevices of a mountain near Khaqrez, some 30 miles northwest of Kandahar. However, the bombs may not have caused serious damage to the caves, Khaqzar said.

Another possible destination could be Kajakai in neighboring Helmand province, where the mountains are nearly 10,000 feet.

''Bin Laden could go to Kajakai, and from there he could lose himself in the mountains,'' Khaqzar said. ''It would be very difficult to get him.''

To the west of Kandahar lies another former base from the war against the Soviets - Maiwand. The area is overgrown with trees.

Still, officials in Jalalabad stick by their theory that bin Laden is in Tora Bora. Ali said he has heard reports that bin Laden was riding on horseback between caves at night in the White Mountain range, south of Jalalabad and that he had been seen in Tora Bora as recently as Wednesday.

When Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters abandoned their camps near Jalalabad in early October, about 6,000 of them, led by bin Laden, headed south toward the White Mountain range, said Abdul Qadir, the new governor in Jalalabad. But he said he could not confirm reports that bin Laden, who visited Tora Bora in the 1980s, was hiding there.

Ali, who used the base to launch attacks against the Soviet Army in the 1980s, said Tora Bora was almost impossible to take by force. The Soviets bombed and attacked it repeatedly for a decade with little effect, he said.

Afghan guerrillas used US funding to carve the anthill-like Tora Bora complex into the side of Ghree Khil mountain, a day's walk from the Pakistani border.

Inside Tora Bora - the name means ''black dust'' - are a series of rooms and tunnels, said an Afghan who says he visited the complex six months ago with Arab fighters. The man, who did not want to be identified for fear of retribution, said it can comfortably house 1,000 people.

The mouth of the cave is hidden behind tall pine trees. The 50-foot-long tunnel to the entrance is wide enough for a car, and a wooden door opens to a maze of hallways.

''After the door, the way is divided into branches, just like a hotel, with doors on the right and left,'' he said.

The caves have a ventilation system, and the Taliban have installed electrical wiring. They use a hydroelectric generator powered by mountain runoff.

Inside, the walls are concrete, but the ceiling reveals the location - mountain rock, black with tiny crystals. The man said the rooms vary in size from large to very small and include bedrooms, offices, and communal rooms.

People from nearby villages sell supplies to the Taliban and Al Qaeda members, said Sorhab Qadri, one of Ali's intelligence officers.

''The Arab people in the mountains are giving a lot of money to them to work'' to expand Tora Bora), he added. Qadri said sympathizers sometimes slip into Jalalabad to buy supplies and then take them back to Tora Bora.

Only certain people are allowed to approach the heavily defended valley, which is flanked by cliffs crowned with fighting positions.

''Osama warned the villagers that if they come near the cave,'' he said, ''they will be killed.''

----

U.S. admits dangerous new situation in Afghanistan

USA Today
11/27/2001
http://www.usatoday.com/news/attack/2001/11/27/new-situation.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - The stepped-up pace of the war inside Afghanistan also means increased risks: A CIA operative remains unaccounted for, five soldiers are recovering from friendly fire and more casualties are likely with Marines on the ground. In addition, the enemy is so dedicated to its cause that fighters are "willing to have hand grenades wrapped around themselves and blow themselves up, so they can kill a half-dozen other people in close proximity," said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "The thought that they'll surrender," Rumsfeld warned, "is not likely."

The increased danger was apparent Tuesday as some of the 600 Marines already setting up base at a remote southern airstrip began to set out on patrol, in Humvees loaded with anti-tank weapons and heavy machine guns.

The eventual deployment of 1,000 Marines at the airstrip will more than double the number of U.S. troops on the ground, raising the chance of combat casualties. And those forces face the task of wiping out the last pockets of the hardest-core Taliban and al-Qa'eda fighters, including terror suspect No. 1 Osama bin Laden.

"This is a dangerous period of time," President Bush said Monday. "We're now hunting down the people who are responsible for bombing America."

During the war's first seven weeks, the United States mostly bombed from aircraft in support of Northern Alliance fighters who swept the Taliban from all territory except for a few pockets. A few Americans advised the rebels, and a few hundred special operations forces were put on the ground to guide bombers to targets and, later, to blockade roads and search for bin Laden.

Although there have been injuries and accidental deaths outside Afghanistan, no American military commandos have died so far while fighting alongside anti-Taliban forces.

But in the last few days, the fighting has entered a more aggressive, messier and potentially more deadly phase.

The Marines sent to the airstrip, 60 miles southwest of the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, will help block escape routes for Taliban and al-Qa'eda leaders, Rumsfeld said.

The Marines also will make quick strikes when they can and help identify targets for U.S. bombing. Shortly after arriving, some of the Marines participated in an attack by Navy F-14 Tomcat jet fighters on an armored column, keeping Marine Cobra helicopters nearby and ready to fire if needed.

The Marines face an enemy "who've made the decision to fight to the end," said retired Rear Adm. Stephen Baker, an analyst at the Center for Defense Information in Washington. "For that reason, they are extremely dangerous."

In the north, meanwhile, the Northern Alliance - aided by U.S. and British special forces - finally managed to put down a riot by al-Qa'eda fighters inside a prison fortress.

But the days of brutal fighting took a toll: Five American soldiers were hit by a misguided bomb as they called in air attacks over the weekend on the al-Qa'eda troops. And the fate of an American CIA operative caught inside the fortress during the rioting remains unclear, although he is feared dead.

-------

Pentagon ready for fight to death at stronghold

November 27, 2001
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20011127-68157649.htm

Taliban militia forces are battling to hold their last remaining bastion in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar and could end up fighting to the death, the Pentagon's top general said yesterday.

"In Kandahar, it's sort of the last bastion, we think, of Taliban resistance," Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters.

Fighting was reported around Kandahar yesterday as several hundred U.S. Marines landed on an airstrip captured Sunday about 12 miles from the city. It is the first base inside Afghanistan for U.S. ground troops.

In Mazar-e-Sharif, five U.S. special-operations commandos were injured by an errant U.S. air strike they had called in to help quell an uprising by captured Taliban fighters.

The five soldiers were evacuated by air to a hospital in neighboring Uzbekistan and were listed in serious condition.

Mixed reports from the area indicate that the last Taliban holdouts around Kandahar could either surrender or refuse to give up, Gen. Myers said.

Gen. Myers said he agreed with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld who said a fight to the death is a more likely option.

"We think they'll dig in and fight, and fight perhaps to the end," Gen. Myers said.

In Afghanistan, a Taliban spokesman quoted by the Afghan Islamic Press as saying the Islamic movement's forces would fight U.S. troops "to our last breath."

Anti-Taliban forces had moved to within five miles of Kandahar and heavy bombardment was reported near the city yesterday.

Gen. Myers said there were no reliable estimates of the number of Taliban fighters in Kandahar. One U.S. official said that about 4,000 Taliban soldiers remain in Kandahar.

The focus of U.S. military operations is shifting toward Kandahar following the fall of the northern city of Kunduz over the weekend.

Mr. Rumsfeld said the fight at Kunduz was "a long, hard battle and a lot of people were killed" and some prisoners were taken.

Taliban fighters also have formed a pocket of resistance near the northeastern city of Jalalabad, near Kabul.

Kandahar is where most of the senior Taliban leadership is believed to be right now, including Mullah Mohammed Omar, the top Taliban leader.

The U.S. Marines' first battle took place yesterday against a column of Taliban armored vehicles that came close to the new, captured air base. The 15 tanks and armored infantry vehicles were struck by F-14 jets flying from the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, a senior military official said.

Mr. Rumsfeld, appearing with Gen. Myers at a Pentagon briefing, said captured Taliban fighters are being interrogated as part of the hunt for Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader believed to be behind the September 11 terrorist bombings.

"We get information [about terrorists in Afghanistan], to be sure, but how far it moves us in the direction we want to go, it has to remain an open question until we get where we want to go," Mr. Rumsfeld said, referring to efforts to find and kill terrorist leaders.

Regarding the prisoner uprising, which was ongoing yesterday, Mr. Rumsfeld said it involved some of the foreign Islamic fighters who are fighting on the side of the Taliban.

Mr. Rumsfeld said U.S. Special Forces troops were working with the local opposition commander about 100 miles west of Mazar-e-Sharif when the uprising started, some time on Sunday.

Hundreds of prisoners were able to get hold of weapons and escaped from a fort that was being used to hold them. At least 300 of the prisoners were killed in the fighting, according to news agency reports from Afghanistan.

Mr. Rumsfeld said putting down the uprising could be difficult.

"If you have people who are willing to have hand grenades wrapped around themselves and blow themselves up so they can kill a half-dozen other people in close proximity to them, the thought that they'll surrender readily is not likely," he said.

Asked about the outcome, Mr. Rumsfeld said: "I'm hopeful that some will surrender. I suspect some won't, and I suspect the result of that will be that the opposition forces will kill them."

The al Qaeda and non-Afghan troops were "among the toughest of the fighters and the most determined and the least likely to surrender," Mr. Rumsfeld said.

Mr. Rumsfeld declined to comment on reports that an American working in the region of the uprising near Mazar-e-Sharif had been killed.

"Until the compound is secured, which, at the last word I received this morning, it has not been, we will not know the answers to those questions," he said.

The defense secretary said the global war against terrorism is "making some progress," although he expressed concerns that the United States needed better international cooperation.

"We've applied steady pressure on terrorist networks across the globe," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "We've frozen some of their assets, and in my view, we need more cooperation from more countries if we're going to dry up their financial assets."

Administration officials have pointed to Saudi Arabia in particular as one state that has moved too slowly in taking steps to block funds being used by terrorists. Several charity groups based in Saudi Arabia have been used by al Qaeda terrorists for raising funds.

Mr. Rumsfeld said most Taliban strongholds have fallen to opposition forces and the Taliban leaders "are clearly forced to move around and having difficulty managing their remaining capabilities and assets and forces."

Gen. Myers said nine planned targets were bombed on Sunday, including cave and tunnel complexes used by Taliban and al Qaeda forces.

"We also remain focused on providing support to opposition groups throughout Afghanistan and on establishing airfield hubs for humanitarian assistance efforts," he said.

----

Afghan South: Different War Than in North

New York Times
November 27, 2001
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/27/international/asia/27ASSE.html

KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 26 - For all the Pentagon's talk about waging an unorthodox war, the campaign in northern Afghanistan has been fairly conventional, culminating today in the fall of the city of Kunduz. But the situation in southern Afghanistan, where hundreds of United States marines are now deployed near the Taliban's last stronghold, Kandahar, is strikingly different.

The Pentagon lacks a strong proxy ground force in the south and has a more demanding mission there: to take the fight to the adversary's heartland and roust Osama bin Laden, his Qaeda fighters and the Taliban from their sanctuaries and pursue them, even if they flee into caves and mountains that make Afghanistan one of the most rugged places in the world.

The goal in the north has been to undermine the Taliban regime and Al Qaeda by killing their fighters and taking control of the major cities, many of which had little loyalty to Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban leader.

The strategy for pursuing those goals was not dramatically new. In an echo of the 1999 campaign over Kosovo, the American military provided the air power while its proxies on the ground, the Tajik and Uzbek-dominated force known as the Northern Alliance, did the brunt of the fighting.

In the south, the American military has some newfound allies, Pashtun commanders like Hamid Karzai, who has been taken in and out of the south at least once with American help. But none of those allies are capable of winning the war in the south with only the support of American airstrikes.

The Northern Alliance, dominated by ethnic Uzbeks and Tajiks, cannot do the fighting in the Pashtun-controlled south. The alliance's reach extends barely 20 miles south of Kabul, stopping short of Ghanzi.

More than 100 British and American commandos scouring southern Afghanistan have lacked the punch and speed to take on concentrations of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters on their own and perhaps to prevent their escape.

That is why the marines are now establishing what Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld today called a forward operating base near Kandahar. The move will enhance the American military's combat power as the Pentagon steps up its search for Mr. bin Laden and his key lieutenants. Many military experts have, in fact, been predicting such a step for weeks.

Still, the move is a calculated risk. The gamble is that the arrival of the American troops will be seen by Pashtuns in the south as heralding the inevitable demise of the Taliban and not be taken as yet another foreign trespass - one of many in Afghanistan's history - that is to be resisted at all costs.

Before the decision to send the marines, the United States had some success in the south. But despite the airstrikes and Special Operations raids, the Taliban had not relinquished Kandahar.

There was a sense that the Northern Alliance was consolidating its power in the north while the Taliban was digging in the south, a dynamic that threatened to partition the nation and may yet draw out the war.

Fearful that the success in the north will raise public expectations for a speedy victory, the Bush administration has been working hard to lower public expectations and prepare the American public for the first substantial casualties.

"The degree of difficulty is increasing as we work hard to achieve our objectives," President Bush said recently. "It may take longer than some anticipate."

The establishment of a forward base with some 1,000 marines will strengthen the American position in the south in several ways.

Cobra helicopter gunships, armored vehicles and larger number of troops should enable American commanders to respond quickly and with more firepower to reports that Taliban or Al Qaeda leaders have been located.

Until now, the United States has been limited to smaller and lightly equipped teams of Special Operations forces on the ground and larger numbers of commandos who took hours to fly in from the carrier Kitty Hawk in the Arabian Sea or from Oman and who lacked armored force when they arrived.

The marines could be used to press the fight against small concentrations of Taliban. In conjunction with Special Operations commandos, they could assist in the search for Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders, perhaps by cordoning off an area and providing needed backup.

They could also, as Mr. Rumsfeld said today, attack any Taliban and Al Qaeda forces who might be trying to escape into neighboring Pakistan, or even Iran, along Afghan roads or mountain passes.

"The highways that connect the north and the south and the east-west in the southern part, going toward Iran, exits or entrances from Iran and Pakistan, can be interdicted from those locations," Mr. Rumsfeld said.

The deployment will also ease the enormous logistical strains. The United States military has struggled in this campaign with limited access to bases in Pakistan, Central Asia and the Middle East. Now it will have a base of its own on enemy soil, a jumping-off point for the marines and also a possible bridgehead for yet more ground troops, an option Mr. Rumsfeld pointedly left open.

The move also puts strong psychological and military pressure on the Taliban forces in Kandahar. The marines do not plan to rush into the city for a round of bloody house-to-house fighting, as the Russians did at huge cost in their battle in Chechnya for its capital, Grozny.

But the deployment will help the United States and any Pashtun allies it does acquire to cut off Kandahar and methodically hunt Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders still left there as they try to flee.

While the northern campaign went more quickly than many experts expected, the administration is still cautioning that the southern campaign could prove to be more problematic. Nobody at the Pentagon is claiming that victory is at hand.

"You get mixed reports on whether they're about ready to leave and give it up or not," Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said today, referring to the Taliban fighters in Kandahar.

"We think they're going to dig in and fight and fight perhaps to the end."

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U.S. Will Place 1,000 Troops on Ground

New York Times
November 27, 2001
By THOM SHANKER and JAMES DAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/27/international/asia/27MILI.html

WASHINGTON, Nov. 26 - Just hours after establishing a base in Afghanistan, American marines helped direct air attacks today on an armored column, inaugurating a new phase in the war that will deploy 1,000 American ground troops, Pentagon officials said.

About 500 marines dug in today at a primitive desert airstrip less than 80 miles southwest of Kandahar, the Taliban stronghold, but still within easy helicopter striking distance of the city. Officials said the Marine vanguard, along with another 500 marines who were expected to land Tuesday, will intercept military traffic, cut off escape routes for enemy fighters and, given credible intelligence, strike at leaders of the Taliban and at Osama bin Laden's organization, Al Qaeda.

The marines will operate from a base set up alongside an airstrip first surveyed during a daring nighttime parachute raid by United States Army Rangers on Oct. 19, the first significant mission of ground troops in the war, Pentagon officials said.

"They are not an occupying force," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said today. "Their purpose is to establish a forward base of operations to help pressure the Taliban forces in Afghanistan, to prevent Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists from moving freely about the country."

From the base and rudimentary airstrip, where marines installed runway lights today, the American troops will focus attacks on the road system that Mr. Rumsfeld noted connected the "exits or entrances from Iran and Pakistan" and converged at Kandahar, the location of the last large concentration of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters.

The conduct of the war has been fairly conventional so far, but the situation in southern Afghanistan is strikingly different from that in the north.

Mr. Rumsfeld did not rule out a broader role for the marines, who will more than triple the number of American forces on the ground in Afghanistan, said to be about 300 members of Special Operations units. But senior Pentagon officials cautioned against viewing the marines as an advance guard for an even larger number of troops or aircraft into Afghanistan - at least for now.

"They will be looking for opportunities to mount a series of raids," one senior Defense Department official said. Said another official: "Could we put more troops in there? Yes. But it's not in the plan now."

The violent prisoner uprising by Taliban fighters on Sunday near Mazar-i-Sharif, to the north, was viewed within the Pentagon as more evidence that the Taliban leaders and its most hard-core troops plan a fight to the death at Kandahar. One senior military officer, anticipating a fierce, drawn-out battle for the city, said the marines - aided by a heavy American bombing campaign - could play a supporting role for southern opposition forces battling the Taliban, but would certainly not lead any attack on Kandahar.

The Afghan Islamic Press had said that Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban supreme leader, was still in command of forces at Kandahar, and Mr. Rumsfeld said it was unlikely he would be captured alive.

"From everything I've read about him, he's a rather determined, dead- ender type," Mr. Rumsfeld said, adding, "He just doesn't feel to me like the surrendering type."

Gen. Richard B. Myers of the Air Force, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that in contrast to Mullah Omar, who continues his efforts to rally his troops, Mr. bin Laden appears to have done little except seek refuge.

"I would only comment to that that Omar seems to be trying to organize the fighting of the Taliban, and bin Laden, on the other hand, seems to be concentrating on hiding," General Myers said today.

Pentagon and military officials said Cobra helicopter gunships flown by the marines from the base were dispatched to help attack an armored column of up to 15 vehicles today. The officials said the Cobras did not fire on the vehicles, but marines aboard helicopters or on the ground helped coordinate strikes by Navy F-14 fighter jets flying off the carrier Carl Vinson.

The 1,000 marines expected to be sent to Afghanistan are members of the 15th and 26th Marine Expeditionary Units, which have been afloat on their amphibious assault ships in the North Arabian Sea for weeks. About 700 or 800 will be infantry, military officials said. The rest are pilots and mechanics for the helicopters and other aircraft that may accompany the marines, including Harrier attack jets, and those marines responsible for logistical issues like communications, power and water.

Members of the expeditionary units routinely travel with artillery, 155 millimeter Howitzers that have a range of 10 miles - 18 miles with rocket-assisted projectiles. The marines also bring with them Humvees and light armored vehicles, each of which has a small cannon. The marines can be self-sufficient for up to 30 days.

"The Marines have landed and we now own a piece of Afghanistan," Brig. Gen. James Mattis, commander of the attack task force, told reporters who accompanied the marines to the air base. "Everything went without a hitch."

The complexities and dangers of the new phase of the war were underscored by General Myers, who confirmed today that five American soldiers were seriously injured by "friendly fire" in a United States bombing strike. The injuries occurred Sunday when the troops were helping quell the prisoner uprising at a mud fort near Mazar-i-Sharif.

They had radioed in their location and that of the target. A senior Pentagon official said preliminary inquiries indicated that the coordinates were reversed, bringing a Joint Direct Attack Munition, a 500- pound satellite-guided bomb, onto their location. The five injured soldiers were evacuated to Uzbekistan for initial treatment and are likely to be airlifted to a military hospital in Germany.

The Pentagon continued to scour Afghanistan, hunting for Mr. bin Laden and other members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda leadership, sending pilots aloft to scout for activity around caves suspected of sheltering them. Aerial surveillance and on-the-ground intelligence have identified possible hideouts, "and there are several hundred caves on our list," a Defense Department official said today.

General Myers said that in the previous 24 hours, bombs and missiles again were "concentrated on the Al Qaeda and Taliban cave and tunnel complexes, as well as Taliban military forces, primarily in the Jalalabad and Kandahar regions."

Two senior members of the Senate Armed Services Committee who have returned from a weeklong tour of Central Asia, the Persian Gulf and Eastern Europe, warned today that rooting out Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters from a maze of tunnels and caves along the Pakistan border could take weeks or months.

Both senators, Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the committee, and John W. Warner of Virginia, the panel's ranking Republican, said Afghan opposition forces would conduct the cave-by- cave hunt, not American marines or other United States ground forces.

"It will be the Afghan forces that will ultimately be the ones, with our technical assistance, who will be successful in rooting out Al Qaeda from those caves," Mr. Levin said.

The senators said they met with senior American commanders in the region, as well as top Pakistani officials, including President Pervez Musharraf.

Mr. Levin said there were differences of opinions among both American and Pakistani officials over whether capturing or killing enemy forces would take weeks or months.

Mr. Rumsfeld stressed again today that the war on terrorism would be prolonged, and that the first front that opened in Afghanistan on Oct. 7 was still far from over. But he expressed certainty that Al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan and their Taliban hosts would be captured or killed.

"We are pursuing them across the country, from north to south and east to west and intend to continue following them wherever they go," Mr. Rumsfeld said.

-------- arms sales

Congress looks into missile deal

USA Today
11/27/2001
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/nov01/2001-11-27-korea-missiles.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - Congress is looking into r