------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Lawsuit Challenges Cross-Country Plutonium Shipments
A Bad Approach To Nuclear Waste
Facing a meltdown
Uranium Fuel Maker USEC to Cut Jobs
Finnish debate over new nuclear heats up
India rejects Pakistan allegations of fresh nuclear test
Pakistan warns of Indian nuke test
Arms control tug on our China posture
Bush Adviser Warns Cyberterrorists
US has no plans for another war: Powell
Gore Supports 'Final Reckoning' With Iraq
Bush blunder shows it's time for dissent

MILITARY
Ban on child soldiers goes into effect
Fleeing U.S. Bombs, Villagers Found No Place to Hide
Strike likely killed top terrorist
Scientist's Findings Could Aid Anthrax Inquiry
Colombia rules out U.S. ground forces
Drug overdoses kill hundreds of inmates in nation's prisons
Bush ties drug use to terrorist support
Bush Seeks Cut in Drug Use
Andean nations urge expanded trade as vital to drug-fighting
EU Ministers to Discuss Terror, Illegal Immigrants
Maluku factions sign a peace accord
Iran Reportedly Arrests Fleeing Al Qaeda Fighters
Afghan province says Iran gives shelter to al Qaeda
Saddam Urges U.S. to Avoid Use of Force
Bush reported to have decided to oust Saddam Hussein
Iraq Sees No Need for U.N. Arms Inspectors to Return
Cakewalk In Iraq
Arafat Pulls Gun on Security Chief
Israel Raids Towns and Refugee Camp in Gaza Strip
Sweden scraps "neutrality," opening to NATO seen
Russian Supreme Court Strikes Down Military Secrecy Order
CIA Often Calls Its Own Terror Shots
Sudanese envoy talks of peace

POLICE / PRISONERS
Rights Groups Oppose ID Card
Thousands Evacuated From LA Terminal
Men in Truck Arrested Near Pentagon
State Dept. presses for more info sharing

ENERGY AND OTHER
Senate Panel OK's Energy Incentives
White House ordered to save energy records
White House Is Told to Save Energy Task Force Documents
$2 billion given in EPA grants to nonprofits
AIDS Fund Falls Short of Goal and U.S. Is Given Some Blame
U.S. Rights Groups Issues 'Secret' Chinese Documents
China Deepens Assault on Faith
Report challenges media on green coverage

ACTIVISTS
Australians Largest Protest Yet Over Refugee Policy
Russian Reporter Aided by Ruling
Noam Chomsky in Turkey to Challenge Book Trial
House panel gets no answers about ecological terror
Hitler Secretary Dies Days After Publishing Memoir




-------- NUCLEAR

[Today's lead stories are both from the US, where activists continue to struggle for nuclear sanity in the midst of a wartime media blitz. Mobile Chernobyl and Yucca Mountain are hot topics which, in a small world, impact globally. I'm off to a demonstration outside the U.S. Capitol as soon as I end this sentence; good luck! et]

Lawsuit Challenges Cross-Country Plutonium Shipments

By Cat Lazaroff,
February 13, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-13-06.html

LIVERMORE, California - A coalition of environmental and community groups filed suit today to stop the Department of Energy's plans to ship weapons grade plutonium from Rocky Flats, Colorado to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. Critics of the plan say the shipping containers designated to carry the radioactive material cannot be certified as safe.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy (Photo courtesy LLNL)

At a news conference held today at the fence line of Lawrence Livermore, community groups and environmentalists announced the filing of a complaint arguing that the Energy Department (DOE) plans to ship plutonium in 45 gallon DT-22 containers that agency documents acknowledge do not satisfy applicable safety regulations.

The suit by Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment), filed by attorneys with Earthjustice, says the containers cannot pass a crush test, which is mandatory for such shipments under Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations. Documents obtained by Tri-Valley CAREs show that the container's manufacturer told the DOE the containers could not pass the test.

Surplus plutonium parts from the now mothballed Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant are scheduled to be trucked in DT-22s to Livermore Laboratory in the spring or early summer of 2002. The DOE's plan to ship the plutonium on interstate highways, which run through many populated areas between Colorado and California, is raising concern throughout the West.

Once in Livermore, the plutonium parts will undergo high temperature processing, and eventually be reshipped, some of it to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico and some to the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.

LLNL has developed a method of cutting open the radioactive cores of nuclear weapons destined for disposal. The plutonium is then extracted and converted to an oxide for permanent disposal (Photo courtesy LLNL)

"Plutonium presents an extreme health hazard to workers who handle it and to the public," said Marion Fulk, a retired Livermore Laboratory physicist with five decades of experience studying plutonium and other radioactive elements.

"A tenth micron sized particle of plutonium, once in the body, is enough to cause cancer or other health problems," Fulk continued. "New scientific studies show a wide range of negative health outcomes associated with radiation doses that authorities believed to be safe in years past. If we must err, we must err on the side of caution."

Tri-Valley CAREs says it has obtained documents show that the DOE is hurrying to meet an "accelerated closure" plan for dealing contamination at the old Rocky Flats weapons plant, located about 16 miles outside of Denver.

"Speeding up the project to meet an arbitrary 2006 closure date would save the agency money, but at the expense of public safety along the shipment route and in my community," said Marylia Kelley, executive director of the Livermore based Tri-Valley CAREs.

Cleanup worker handles wet combustible radioactive plutonium residue at the Rocky Flats nuclear facility (Photo courtesy U.S. Dept of Energy)

The lawsuit, filed under the National Environmental Policy Act, calls on the DOE to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the proposed shipments. An EIS, say plaintiffs and their attorneys, is needed to analyze the risks posed to communities along the route in case of an accident.

The law requires an EIS to contain a comprehensive "alternatives analysis," outlining other options for the plutonium, and to include the public in decision making through hearings and comment periods.

"First, the DOE improperly granted itself a 'national security exemption' from NRC regulations, so that it can more cheaply truck decades old, surplus plutonium parts in containers that cannot be certified safe in crush scenarios," explained Trent Orr, an attorney with Earthjustice. "Then, DOE compounded its egregious violation of law and agency discretionary powers by neglecting to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act, the basic environmental statute of the land."

"What we have here is an agency ignoring rules to get a job done quickly," Orr added. "While that may save the DOE some money, it might not be the safest way to solve the problem."

Repackaging radioactive salts at Rocky Flats (Photo courtesy U.S. Dept of Energy)

Earthjustice says that there are multiple alternatives to the truck shipments that were dismissed out of hand by the DOE - without benefit of NEPA analysis - as too expensive or time consuming. Among the options which the DOE discarded were:

Cutting the material to fit into safer containers for transport

Processing the material on site at Rocky Flats, and storing it there

Sending portions of the material from Rocky Flats directly to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, New Mexico, or to Savannah River, South Carolina, rather than to California first

Processing the material at one of several DOE sites that are not within urban boundaries

Citing the potential hazard of an accident, Marvin Resnikoff, an expert in radioactive transport issues, said, "These DT-22 containers cannot withstand all credible highway accidents. It makes no sense to transport plutonium in unsafe containers to Lawrence Livermore, process the plutonium, then transport it to other government facilities in New Mexico and South Carolina. All this transportation maximizes the risk of a transportation accident."

A container of radioactively contaminated wastes at the Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP) in New Mexico (Photo courtesy WIPP)

The shipments could also pose a national security issue, said Tri-Valley CARE's Kelley. "After the tragedy of September 11th, the DOE temporarily halted nuclear waste shipments knowing they pose an attractive target for terrorists. What assurances do we have that these shipments will now be secure?"

"Cleaning up the remnants of the Cold War is a worthy and difficult project, but communities should not be endangered in the name of expediency," Kelley concluded.

----

A Bad Approach To Nuclear Waste

By Arjun Makhijani
Wednesday, February 13, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1994-2002Feb12?language=printer

President Bush is due to make a decision soon of a kind that has never been made by any head of state. He will decide whether he agrees with the finding of Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham that Yucca Mountain in Nevada is a suitable site for a repository for highly radioactive nuclear waste.

Most of this waste is spent fuel from nuclear power plants, now stored at dozens of power plant sites around the country, generally in huge, swimming-pool-like concrete tanks. More than 40,000 tons of it, containing hundreds of tons of plutonium -- the stuff from which nuclear weapons are made -- have accumulated so far. It will remain dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years.

A great deal is at stake, including the integrity of today's decision-making for generations far into the future. There are immediate issues too. Spent fuel storage is the most vulnerable part of the nuclear power system today. Will declaring Yucca Mountain a suitable site advance the goal of securing spent fuel against terrorist attacks by consolidating it all at one site, as Secretary Abraham claimed?

To eliminate security risks arising from on-site spent-fuel storage, it is essential to remove all the spent fuel from the pools and put it into some form of sub-surface storage, either on site or in a deep repository. In the long term (several decades) no reasonable substitute for a deep geologic repository exists.

But the spent-fuel pools cannot be closed while their existing nuclear power plants are operating. Underwater storage for several years is essential, else the spent fuel will melt and release large amounts of radioactivity. In other words, to end the security vulnerability of spent-fuel pools, existing nuclear power plants must be phased out.

That is just a difficult technical reality. It will take decades to do that, since these plants generate about 20 percent of the country's electricity. But it can be done in an orderly fashion. Whether or not new nuclear plants that don't have the vulnerabilities of existing plants can be built is an open question. But that doesn't solve the security problem at hand.

Moreover, the Bush administration, like its predecessor, is encouraging re-licensing of existing power plants far beyond their current licenses. In this context, Abraham's claim is simply wrong. Yucca Mountain will not consolidate spent fuel at a single site. The administration's nuclear power policy ensures that dozens of sites will continue to operate with spent-fuel pools. Given re-licensing, Yucca Mountain, which is crisscrossed with geologic faults, may well run out of room before it can take the spent fuel from existing power plants, to say nothing of new ones.

Then there's the hundred million gallons of high-level radioactive waste in the nuclear weapons complex, mostly stored in dangerous liquid form, some of it in tanks that have leaked. These tanks are near some of the most important water resources of the United States: the Columbia River and the Snake River Plain aquifer in the Northwest and the Savannah River in the Southeast. Although Abraham has stated that military high-level wastes would also be sent to Yucca Mountain, the Energy Department has already floated a trial balloon to the contrary. It is exploring the possibility of simply declaring much high-level waste to be low-level waste by fiat, mixing it with cement, and disposing of it on-site.

Finally, Yucca Mountain is a poor site. Federal regulations have already been changed or set aside several times to accommodate it. The computer models that the Energy Department used to assess site suitability are riddled with uncertainties. The site's history carries the whiff of politics rather than sound science. By early 1986, the selection process, mandated by the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, included sites in New England, but it was abruptly abandoned in mid-1986. That happened just a couple of weeks after concerned New England residents went to see a top aide to then-Vice President George Bush, just as he was preparing to launch his presidential campaign. The next year Congress named Yucca Mountain as the only site to be investigated.

It is possible to do a far better job, but the Energy Department seems incapable of it. It has essentially ignored an excellent 1983 study that it commissioned from the National Academy of Sciences. President Bush should declare both Yucca Mountain and the Energy Department unsuitable for the job and create a blue-ribbon commission to recommend a new program to him. That approach stands a far better chance of actually restoring some confidence in public science and leading to a sound geologic repository program, which is needed for both security and environmental reasons.

The writer is president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. A study he co-authored in 1992 on nuclear waste was partially funded by the state of Nevada.

-------- business

Facing a meltdown

By Carter Dougherty
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 13, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/business/20020213-81002518.htm

The only U.S. company that produces fuel for nuclear-power plants faces a bleak financial future and could go bankrupt within six years, according to a confidential report prepared for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

USEC Inc., based in Bethesda, is suffering from high operating costs and a failure to invest in new, more-efficient technology that would allow it to compete with foreign companies, the report states.

"USEC's financial condition may not allow the expectation that the company can remain in business for an additional five years" after 2003, when the NRC will conduct a regular review of its five-year operating permit, the report states.

The NRC regulates the nuclear-power industry.

USEC spokesman Charles Yulish dismissed the assessment as part of a "cottage industry of reports predicting USEC's demise," he said.

USEC was created in 1998 through the privatization of the U.S. Enrichment Corp., the former government monopoly in charge of turning uranium into nuclear fuel. It operates a single plant, in Paducah, Ky., which is owned by the Department of Energy. It recently closed another facility in Ohio.

The company also administers a program called "Megatons to Megawatts" that funnels Russian uranium recovered from dismantled nuclear warheads to electric utilities. The failure of USEC would leave American utilities completely dependent on imported uranium to run their plants, said John Longenecker, a nuclear-industry analyst and former Department of Energy official who was involved in the privatization of USEC.

"If USEC were to go out of business, the Russians would meet the [American] demand easily," he said. "We ought to have a debate about that."

Though the NRC prepared the report with outside consultants in August 2000, the document has remained under wraps, labeled "sensitive and proprietary information." At the time, the NRC said the study of USEC's finances could be expanded, but that it probably lacked the legal authority to do so.

But nuclear-industry analysts said little has changed in the last 18 months that would change the report's assumptions.

"USEC is the high-cost supplier," Mr. Longenecker said. "And that's the vendor that usually exits the market first."

The company uses an outdated technology to "enrich" uranium into nuclear fuel. The company's financial weakness means it does not have the means to invest in new facilities that would make it more competitive, the NRC report states.

USEC's profits, which hit $9.5 million in the last quarter of 2001, are due largely to the liquidation of its inventories rather than efficient operations, the report adds.

As a result of its finances, USEC faces tougher terms from its creditors.

The company currently has a $150 million credit line for which it does not have to put up any collateral. Now, its creditors are demanding that it put up "certain assets" as security for the money, according to documents it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in January.

The NRC also has imposed tough financial conditions on USEC.

Federal regulators want to make sure that USEC takes care of lingering byproducts from the fuel-manufacturing process if the company abandons the Paducah plant.

The NRC required the company to pay an "insurance deposit" of $21.4 million to cover any clean-up costs, according to SEC documents.

"It's like saying if you have a $200,000 insurance policy, you don't just pay premiums, you pay $250,000 up front," a nuclear-energy industry source said.

Steven Toelle, USEC's director of regulatory affairs, dismissed such interpretations of the NRC's move.

"This requirement is made of all sorts of facilities in the nuclear industry," he said.

Financial markets recently have reached similar judgments about USEC, whose stock is now worth one-third of its value at privatization in June 1998.

Standard & Poor's rates the company's debt as junk status. On Jan. 23, the investment service put USEC on a "creditwatch negative" list, meaning its credit rating stands a good chance of being lowered in the next three months.

Most critically for USEC, the prices it receives for the uranium that it enriches into nuclear fuel are not enough to meet its cost of production, the report states.

Though prices have risen over the past year, USEC is still locked into contracts that put it at a disadvantage, according to Scott Sprinzen, an S&P analyst.

"Market prices are improving, but the prices in their contracts are getting worse," he said.

USEC stock fell 5 cents to $5.84 on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday.

---

Uranium Fuel Maker USEC to Cut Jobs

February 13, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-USEC-Job-Cuts.html or
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A6545-2002Feb13?language=printer

BETHESDA, Md. (AP) -- USEC Inc. (news/quote) will cut 440 jobs at an Ohio plant as it consolidates shipping operations at a Kentucky plant this summer as part of a plan to cut costs by $40 million a year, the company said Wednesday.

The cuts amount to 14.9 percent of its overall work force of 2,950 people.

USEC, a maker of enriched uranium fuel for commercial nuclear power plants, said the job cuts will occur over a six-month period at its Portsmouth, Ohio, plant beginning in June. Up to 50 jobs will be added at the Paducah, Ky., plant, the company said.

USEC spokeswoman Elizabeth Stuckle said the company employs about 1,465 people at Paducah, and about 1,350 at Portsmouth.

USEC said it expects the moves to cost about $29 million in restructuring fees and employee severance packages. The consolidation will generate about $40 million in annual savings beginning in the 2003 fiscal year, the company said.

Enriched uranium is currently shipped from the Paducah plant to the Portsmouth plant and prepared for shipment to fuel fabricators. The Ohio plant will remain open, but will not be involved in the shipping of fuel from the Kentucky plant after the consolidation.

``We are taking this action to improve our operational efficiency,'' said Morris Brown, USEC's vice president of operations. ``The Paducah plant is being modified to make it capable of shipping product directly to fuel fabricators. Consolidating these operations at Paducah will provide significant cost savings.''

In late trading on the New York Stock Exchange, USEC shares were down 10 cents at $5.74.

-------- europe

Finnish debate over new nuclear heats up

Environment Daily 1157,
13/02/02
From: Mika Ohbayashi <mika@jca.apc.org>

A cross-party group of 12 Finnish parliamentarians, including three government ministers, today voiced dissent over a government decision last month to approve in principle construction of a fifth nuclear power plant. The group asked instead for increased investment in natural gas-fired plants and renewables (ED 17/01/02 http://www.environmentdaily.com/articles/index.cfm?action=article&ref=11381).

In a poll reported yesterday by news agency FNB, public opinion was split on the project, with 49% opposing a new nuclear plant and 45% supporting it. A sizeable majority of 65% thought the issue should be put to a referendum.

On Monday, environmental groups WWF Finland, Greenpeace Nordic and the Finnish association for nature conservation issued a joint alternative climate strategy calling for energy-saving measures and greater use of renewable energy sources. The NGOs' plan responds to two strategic climate policy options identified by the government, one based on more use of natural gas and the other on increased nuclear capacity (ED 28/03/01 http://www.environmentdaily.com/articles/index.cfm?action=article&ref=9615).

Based on the same research the NGOs draw radically different conclusions. They argue that energy-saving measures "neglected" by the government could reduce demand by 4.5 terawatt hours (TWh) compared with the 90TWh in 2010 projected by the government. Finnish industry thinks 2010 demand is more likely to be 94TWh.

The groups also place greater emphasis on renewable energies. Biomass, they suggest, could produce 17TWh - 40% more than in the government strategies - as well as "develop profitable exports and create employment". The role of natural gas would be significantly reduced compared with the government's projections. Wind power capacity would rise to at least double the level planned by the government, to reach 2.2TWh.

Follow-up: Greenpeace Nordic http://www.greenpeace.se/fi/index.asp, tel: +358 9 68 43 75 40, and press release http://www.greenpeace.se/templates/template_27.asp?template_12.asp?lang=21& number=2161; Association for nature conservation http://www.sll.fi/, tel: +358 9 228 081; WWF Finland http://www.wwf.fi/, tel: +358 9 774 0100, and energy strategy http://www.wwf.fi/www/uploads/pdf/KIOtahti.pdf.

-------- india / pakistan

India rejects Pakistan allegations of fresh nuclear test

Wednesday February 13
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/020213/1/2h9tl.html

India dismissed as totally baseless suggestions by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf that it had either carried out or was considering a fresh nuclear test.

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee told a campaign rally in the Taj Mahal town of Agra that Musharraf was simply employing the "old tactics of Pakistan to mislead the world community."

"These accusations are totally without basis," foreign ministry spokeswoman Nirupama Rao told the Star television network in New Delhi.

"This is obviously a season for kite flying in Pakistan. We have seen a number of such false allegations made in recent days and we reject them in their entirety," Rao said Wednesday.

Musharraf had said in Washington on Tuesday that he had seen "indications" of a possible new nuclear test by India, which had flight-tested its nuclear-capable Agni missile last month.

"The missile test carried out by India and some information, some news even, of maybe a possibility of a nuclear test is most untimely and may I also say provocative," Musharraf said at an event hosted by the Woodrow Wilson Institute and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

India shocked the world in May 1998 when it conducted a series of nuclear weapons tests.

Despite intense foreign pressure, Pakistan followed suit, raising the terrifying prospect of a nuclear war between the arch-rivals.

While refusing to sign up to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, India has declared a voluntary moratorium on further nuclear testing.

"That continues to be our policy," Rao said.

Musharraf said he had shared his information of another possible Indian test with the US leadership.

"I can't give conclusive evidence of it, but I thought if at all there was a possibility, it should be checked," he said.

Musharraf did not elaborate, nor did he provide proposed dates or locations of the alleged test or if it was merely planned or had taken place.

"Whatever way, the allegations are false," Rao told AFP.

Musharraf was due to hold talks with President George W. Bush on Wednesday.

Indian and Pakistani nuclear capability has been thrown into sharp relief by the current military tensions between the neighbours, who have massed hundreds of thousands of troops on their border in the wake of a December attack on the Indian parliament.

Indian blamed the attack on two Pakistan-based militant groups.

Despite a landmark speech by Musharraf last month in which he banned five militant groups and instigated a crackdown that led to the arrest of around 2,000 alleged religious extremists, India has insisted that Pakistan has not done enough to warrant a border de-escalation.

Both sides claim to have no desire for war and have all but ruled out the possibility of any kind of nuclear exchange.

However, border tensions remain high with frequent exchanges of fire that carry the threat of escalating into full-scale conflict.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since independence from British rule in 1947.

----

Pakistan warns of Indian nuke test

By Ben Barber
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 13, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020213-512894.htm

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf warned yesterday that India is preparing another nuclear test and said he would ask President Bush today to try to prevent it.

"There are certain indications I did share with the U.S. leadership" that India was preparing another nuclear test, Gen. Musharraf said.

In a speech at the Ronald Reagan building, Gen. Musharraf also said he would continue to crack down on religious extremists. "I keep telling everyone that Pakistan is a moderate Islamic society," he said.

He said religious party candidates have never garnered more than 5 percent of the votes in Pakistan, proving that "Pakistanis are religious, certainly, but we are not extremists."

He said his pledge in a nationwide speech Jan. 12 to crack down on extremists and religious hatred was "welcomed by the masses of people They are with me."

Speaking at a forum held by the Woodrow Wilson Center and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Gen. Musharraf offered little new response to Indian demands that Pakistan end support for terrorists, seal its border to prevent infiltration and hand over 20 accused terrorists.

India has massed hundreds of thousands of troops along their common border to pressure Pakistan to halt the flow of extremists into Indian-controlled Kashmir and India's heartland after an attack on its Parliament Dec. 13.

Gen. Musharraf simply noted that "Pakistanis are involved in the issue of Kashmir." He said he regretted that India refused to sign a joint statement after a summit in Agra last year that would have recognized Kashmir as a central issue in bilateral relations. He also called once more for international mediation, which India rejects.

Gen. Musharraf is seeking U.S. aid, relief of the $3 billion debt owed to the U.S. government, access to the U.S. market for Pakistani textiles and access to U.S. military equipment.

After seizing power in a 1999 coup against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Gen. Musharraf was shunned by U.S. officials even though the move proved popular in Pakistan.

Gen. Musharraf said yesterday that the spirit of democracy had never existed in his country, implying that its elected leaders provided only corrupt and ineffective rule.

After September 11, Gen. Musharraf won U.S. gratitude by providing official backing for the war on terrorism and access to Pakistani airspace and bases for raids on terrorist hide-outs in Afghanistan.

He said he did not fear that the United States would abandon Pakistan as it did after providing massive aid during the U.S.-backed Afghan resistance against Soviet rule in the 1980s.

And he noted that as a military man, he had seen two wars and was not a strong advocate of a military solution to the problems with India.

"Maybe I am the right man for peace," he said.

-------- missile defense

[To reply, mailto:letters@washingtontimes.com]

Arms control tug on our China posture

John Lenczowski
February 13, 2002
WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20020213-32514184.htm

After the September 11 attacks, we were told "everything has changed," that America will face unprecedented new threats, and that we will have to adjust our thinking accordingly. This diagnosis is only partially true.

We do indeed face new threats to American security that require new strategic thinking. But not everything has changed: Just because new threats emerge, other threats do not conveniently disappear.

Barely noticed amidst the post-September 11 coverage came intelligence that the Communist Chinese have recently tested a new submarine-launched missile called the Julang, or "Great Wave." The missile, with a range of 5,000 miles, will soon be deployed on China's newest ballistic missile submarines, and may well be outfitted with multiple warheads (MIRVs), thanks in part to the theft of secret U.S. technology.

One need hardly consult a map to realize the Julang's 5,000-mile range will allow the Chinese to hit any population center or military facility in the United States by firing missiles from the relative safety of international waters.

The sad fact is that the end of the Cold War did not end arms competition or great power rivalries. America and Russia are indeed reducing their nuclear arsenals and seeking greater cooperation. China, however, is racing harder than ever to establish its place as a dominant nuclear power, intimidating democratic Taiwan with massive military deployments, spending billions to expand and modernize its conventional and nuclear arsenals, transferring nuclear technology to "rogue" regimes and, in the case of the Julang, seeking ways to project its nuclear power on a global level.

During his meeting with Vladimir Putin late last year in Crawford, Texas, President Bush announced plans unilaterally to cut the number of U.S. nuclear warheads by two-thirds, from the current 6,000 to a range between 1,700 and 2,200, and Mr. Putin signaled his willingness to reduce Russian arms to similar levels. But now, at Mr. Putin's urging, the administration is ready to sign an arms control agreement to codify these reductions.

Unfortunately, the decision to reach such an agreement is seriously mistaken.

If the Crawford announcement and Mr. Putin's response demonstrate anything, it is how superfluous arms control treaties are between nations that decreasingly view each other as a threat. America does not negotiate strategic arms levels with the British or French. Thus, our force levels should be set according to one, primary calculation: what we need to ensure American security. The Russians should also cut according to their security needs. As relations between our governments improve, strategic reductions will naturally follow and arms agreements will be completely unnecessary.

But Russia is only part of the strategic calculus. There is an almost "Alice in Wonderland" quality in the call for "bilateral" arms control between Russia and the U.S. in what is becoming, at minimum, a trilateral environment. The danger is that by locking the U.S. into bilateral agreements, we will not have the flexibility to respond to the mounting Chinese nuclear threat (not to mention possible adverse developments in Russia).

Since China is arguably the greatest long-term external threat that Russia faces, it should be possible for us to realize some level of Russian cooperation on this score, but without formal agreements.

Unfortunately, when concerns about Chinese strategic intentions are raised, we increasingly hear that American strength is somehow threatening to China. It is reminiscent of the hoary Cold War warning about Soviet "insecurity." But American strength is not what threatens China. If any proof were needed, America's 10-year reign as the lone superpower has made it clear that overwhelming American military superiority is a force for stability and peace in the world.

The true source of tension between the U.S. and China is that America stands as a constant rebuke to dictatorships that deny their own people the same freedoms we enjoy. Whether we want it to or not, the American example of democracy always threatens to animate dissent among the Chinese people and thus underscores the Beijing regime's central political problem - its illegitimacy and therefore its precarious internal security.

How scared are the Chinese rulers of democratic liberty? Look at Beijing's hysterical reaction to the first democratic elections in Taiwan in 1996. China lobbed missiles over Taiwan's shipping routes, began the deployments of offensive weapons aimed at the island that continue to this day, and, lest we forget it, threatened Los Angeles with nuclear annihilation if the United States got involved.

As in the Cold War, American military superiority is not destabilizing. Dictatorships are - especially those that entertain ambitions of becoming aggressive regional, if not global powers, as Communist China clearly does.

Although it still is in a position of strategic inferiority, China's massive espionage and military industrial efforts have yielded it major strategic gains. But if we allow China to become a nuclear superpower while failing to retain an overwhelming superiority over it, we will have walked ourselves right back into the Cold War nightmare of mutually assured destruction that we only recently escaped with Russia.

A peaceful, stable world demands that America build a missile defense and retain an effective Triad of nuclear forces, including budgetary authority and plans for modernization and the development of new offensive weapons. The Bush administration's recently completed Nuclear Posture Review - more detailed than the reductions announced at Crawford - prudently provides for retaining our Triad of land-based and submarine-based ballistic missiles and bombers at levels sufficient to keep each of these legs viable.

But to maintain unmistakable strategic deterrence, we need to do more. We need to modernize these decades-old forces and avoid the temptation to eliminate any one of them. If we start modernizing now, the costs will be marginal and easily sustained over the years. If America has the will to maintain its current strategic advantage, the Chinese will not be able to compete. Perhaps sometime in the future, like the Russians today, they will no longer feel the need to do so.

Pursuing an arms control agreement with Russia not only ignores China but unnecessarily opens a Pandora's box of other problems such as the compliance issue. For example, Russia continues to violate existing agreements such as that on Conventional Forces in Europe, and does so for its own security reasons. Honesty and sound diplomatic practice dictate that we take such violations seriously and, for once, adopt a compliance policy that deters violations and circumventions.

But do we truly wish to create a framework of relations where tensions with Russia may arise over such issues? By avoiding an agreement, such concerns could fade away as each party pursued its own defense needs unilaterally.

If the administration insists on reaching such an agreement, then it must include a compliance policy and easy exit provisions. It should involve the least legally binding commitment and instead stress requirements for both sides to keep each other fully informed. If ever there was use for a lower-level diplomatic vehicle - such as a communique or an aide memoire, it is now. Above all, an agreement should in no way circumscribe our ability to deter the growing threat of Chinese nuclear missiles.

John Lenczowski is founder, director and professor at the Institute of World Politics in D.C. and served as director of European and Soviet affairs in the National Security Council from 1983 to 1987.

-------- terrorism

Bush Adviser Warns Cyberterrorists

By Jesse J. Holland
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, February 13, 2002; 7:18 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A6846-2002Feb13?language=printer

WASHINGTON -- The United States might retaliate militarily if foreign countries or terrorist groups abroad try to strike this country through the Internet, the White House technology adviser said Wednesday.

"We reserve the right to respond in any way appropriate: through covert action, through military action, any one of the tools available to the president," Richard Clarke said at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on cyberterrorism.

Clarke said Iran, Iraq, North Korea, China, Russia and other countries already are having people trained in Internet warfare.

"A well-planned and well-executed cyberattack on America wouldn't just mean the temporary loss of e-mail and instant messaging," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. "Terrorists could gain access to the digital controls for the nation's utilities, power grids, air traffic control systems and nuclear power plants."

Clarke refused to say what level of cyberattack might lead to a military response from the United States. "That's the kind of ambiguity that we like to keep intentionally to create some deterrence," he told reporters.

So far, the United States has not caught any foreign governments or terrorist group using Internet warfare, although that does not mean it has not been attempted, Clarke said.

"We cannot point to a specific foreign government having done a specific unauthorized intrusion into a U.S. government network," Clarke said. "There are lots of cases where there has been unauthorized intrusions but we have never been able to prove to our particular satisfaction that a particular government did it."

But, he added, "if I was a betting man, I'd bet that many of our key infrastructure systems already have been penetrated."

Clarke said a serious cyberattack is almost inevitable because it is cheaper and easier for a foreign country or a terrorist group than a physical attack. America does need better security at its critical communication locations, Schumer said. A train accident in a Baltimore tunnel last year caused major Internet slowdowns in the mid-Atlantic states after fiber optic cable running through the tunnel was damaged. A terrorist attack could do even more damage, he said.

The White House budget office said it expects the government to spend about $2.7 billion this fiscal year on computer and network security, a figure projected to rise to $4.2 billion in the 2003 federal budget.

The budget office, in its first report to Congress on computer information security, reported that "many agencies have significant deficiencies in every important area of security."

-------- us politics

US has no plans for another war: Powell

Wednesday February 13
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/020212/1/2h2uy.html

The United States has no plans to go to war with any nation, US Secretary of State Colin Powell revealed.

President George W. Bush "has no plans on his desk right now to begin a war with any nation," Powell told a Senate budget committee hearing on Tuesday.

"The president is not asking for a war budget."

With respect to Bush's controversial comments about "an axis of evil," involving Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, Powell said the administration favoured diplomacy over might in pursuing its goals with the regimes in these countries.

"With respect to Iran and North Korea, there are no plans to start a war with these nations. We want to see a dialogue."

But he made a distinction between these two members of the triumvirate and Iraq, which he described as causing a "higher level of concern."

"We are examining options with respect to regime change," in that country, he told US lawmakers.

--

[Note - Dave Boyer's article goes a little more tellingly into Powell's remarks]:

"He has no plan on his desk right now to begin a war with any nation," Mr. Powell told Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, North Dakota Democrat. "If he did, I probably wouldn't tell you anyway."

- "Daschle takes back criticism of Bush's 'axis of evil'"
By Dave Boyer,
THE WASHINGTON TIMES,
February 13, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020213-565804.htm

----

Gore Supports 'Final Reckoning' With Iraq
Former Vice President Urges Administration to Avoid 'Go It Alone' Approach

By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 13, 2002; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1358-2002Feb12?language=printer

NEW YORK, Feb. 12 -- Former vice president Al Gore said tonight there should be "a final reckoning" with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's regime in the war on terrorism, but that military power alone will not eliminate conditions that have bred terrorism in the Islamic world.

In a carefully worded speech, Gore praised President Bush for putting Iraq, Iran and North Korea on notice in the next phase of the campaign on terrorism. But he also gently chided the administration not to slip into a go-it-alone attitude as the war spreads from Afghanistan to other targets.

The speech, delivered at the Council on Foreign Relations, marked Gore's first significant policy address since losing the 2000 presidential campaign to Bush. Over the next few months he plans other speeches as he reenters the public arena and weighs another bid for the presidency in 2004.

Tonight, Gore saluted Bush's handling of the war on terrorism so far and embraced his former rival's description of Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an "axis of evil."

"As far as I'm concerned, there really is something to be said for occasionally putting diplomacy aside and laying one's cards on the table," he said. "There is value in calling evil by its name."

Iraq, he said, still represents "a virulent threat, in a class by itself." Noting that he had supported the resolution authorizing Bush's father, President George H.W. Bush, to go to war against Iraq in 1991, Gore said the decision to end that war with Hussein still in place was one that "we all had reason to deeply regret for the ensuing decade."

Eliminating Hussein's regime, he said, should be an option in the next phase of the war on terrorism. But he said that, if the United States decides to use force to eliminate the Iraqi regime, "Failure cannot be an option, which means that we must be prepared to go the limit."

Gore also said the administration must avoid potentially catastrophic consequences of going after Iraq, from instability in Pakistan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia to an escalation of violence in the Middle East to the potential shattering of the international coalition assembled since the attacks of Sept. 11.

Gore's posture puts him in line with several other Democrats who also are contemplating a 2004 presidential campaign, including his 2000 running mate, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) and Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.). But it left him somewhat at odds with Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.), who on Monday said he was concerned with Bush's use of the phrase "axis of evil." "I think we've got to be very careful with the rhetoric of that kind," Daschle said on PBS's "News Hour With Jim Lehrer."

Gore depicted Iran as an even more dangerous challenge than Iraq, despite the presence of moderate forces in the government and society there. He noted that the Iranians have flight-tested longer-range rockets and "loaded up at least one merchant ship with a cargo of death for Israel." Encouraging the moderates in Iran, he said, will be as important as confronting the hard-liners in charge of the military.

On North Korea, Gore said he agreed with Bush's characterization that the regime there constitutes evil, but said the Clinton administration had shown that working creatively with South Korea can move the North Koreans toward positive relations. "Such creativity and commitment to addressing our interests in Korea are needed more than ever now," he said.

Gore encouraged the administration to identify another axis of evil confronting the West, the poverty, corruption and political oppression that breed terrorism. Military power can help drain the swamp of terrorism, he said, but neither military force nor public diplomacy can drain "the aquifer of anger" in the Islamic world.

"We may well put down terror in its present manifestations," he said. "But if we do not attend to the larger fundamentals as well, then the ground is fertile and has been seeded for the next generation of those born to hate the United States of America."

Gore also said the United States must expand the definition of what constitutes a security threat; in that category he placed issues ranging from the scourge of HIV-AIDS worldwide to global warming to energy policies that keep the nation dependent on oil from the Middle East.

While generally supporting Bush in his actions to date, Gore made clear he believes the administration harbors a strain of unilateralism in its approach to foreign policy.

"The administration in which I served looked at the challenges we faced in the world and said we wished to tackle these 'with others, if possible; alone, if we must,' " he said. "This administration sometimes seems inclined to stand that on its head, so that the message is: 'with others, if we must; by ourselves, if possible.' "

Gore urged the administration to be more open toward NATO participation in the war on terrorism, saying the United States has conveyed "impatience and disdain" for the military capabilities of NATO allies and "little patience for their views about longer-term objectives." He conceded that NATO allies may have brought some of the criticism on themselves. But he added, "We cannot bind them to us for fierce battle over the long term if we take them lightly. We may be the world's only remaining superpower but we are going to need allies."

-------

Bush blunder shows it's time for dissent

Boston Globe
By Robert Kuttner,
2/13/2002
From: Joseph Gerson <JGerson@afsc.org>

[Bob Kutner is associated with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, and is a founder and co-editor of "The American Prospect" magazine.]

AFTER SEPT. 11, nearly all Americans rallied round our president. The act was so barbaric that we had little choice.

Yet some of us supported military action against the Taliban with grave forebodings. Among our concerns were these:

Treating the World Trade Center attacks as an act of war rather than a criminal conspiracy would have global and domestic repercussions that could not easily be foreseen or contained. One worry was wider war. Another was the risk of civilian casualties and political chaos in Afghanistan and elsewhere in South Asia. Another was the effect on the fragile Arab-Israeli peace process. Another was the erosion of civil liberty and tolerance at home.

Still another concern was that the Bush administration would wrap itself in the patriotic glow and ram through a domestic program that never would have commanded majority support on Sept. 10 and that America, after enlisting allies for a quick military campaign, would soon revert to dangerous unilateralism.

Much of this has come to pass. Though the war itself yielded a swift military victory against the Taliban, the aftermath vindicates many of our doubts about policies foreign and domestic.

America has not yet attacked Baghdad, but influential people in the administration think we should. The Bush administration has framed the security threat so broadly as to yield what every quasi-dictator craves - a state, seemingly, of permanent low-level warfare that frightens the citizenry and trumps dissent.

Now, emboldened by military triumph and by bloated public opinion polls, President Bush has stumbled. By lumping Iraq, Iran, and North Korea together with Al Qaeda as an ''axis of evil,'' Bush has managed to create an equally improbable axis of worry about America's reliability if not our sanity. As a Frenchman, Antoine Boulay, famously said after zealous revolutionaries executed a popular duke, this was ''worse than a crime; it was a blunder.'' Blunder comes from swagger. Not only has Bush set back the process of detente in Korea; he has done something the ayatollahs were unable to do - given new life to the anti-American hard-liners in Iran.

These nations are not even allies, much less an ''axis.'' When Bill Clinton left office, Iran was gradually liberalizing and North Korea was on the verge of negotiating peace with South Korea. Just as we can't practically ''nation build'' every benighted society on earth, we can't costlessly blow away every dictator. Nor can we lead an alliance if we are terrifying our allies.

Since Sept. 11, the general assumption has been that Bush is untouchable on foreign policy but politically vulnerable on the economy. Both premises need drastic revision.

In truth, the Democrats have been remarkably feeble about challenging Bush's domestic priorities. Until the opposition party grows some spine, his program, unpopular as it is, will win by default. And now that the shooting war in Afghanistan is over, it's time for Congress to revoke George W. Bush's free pass on foreign policy as well.

The axis-of-evil declaration, at last, has a few brave souls in Congress voicing some doubts. Several moderate Democrats have publicly objected. Democratic Representative Jim Moran of Virginia called it ''reckless,'' according to Roll Call. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska chided the president for not following his hero Teddy Roosevelt's dictum to speak softly and carry a big stick.

Bush's plans for the post-military phase of the campaign against terrorism are fair game for debate, and there's plenty more to challenge. The Afghan operation was brief and relatively inexpensive. So why is the Pentagon getting a blank check?

Why, with the surplus gone and the budget in deficit, are we still giving the richest 1 percent of Americans a tax cut that will imperil Social Security? Why, when even President Bush says Americans deserve secure health care, is his budget cutting hundreds of billions of dollars out of Medicare? The Taliban is gone, yet the world is, if anything, a more dangerous place. America today is less free and not noticeably more secure. Are we truly pursuing the best course?

For all the commentary about how much George W. Bush has grown in office, there is still reason to worry about how well he understands geo-politics and how clearly he thinks when he is momentarily untethered from the adults around him.

In a democracy, even a president with 83 percent approval ratings is not beyond challenge. The remarkably foolish axis-of-evil comment - Bush's own idea - should remind us that this president does not walk on water. The Afghan emergency is over; so is the moratorium on dissent.

Robert Kuttner's is co-editor of The American Prospect. His column appears regularly in the Globe.


-------- MILITARY

Ban on child soldiers goes into effect

World Scene
February 13, 2002
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020213-78051808.htm

GENEVA - A treaty banning the use of child soldiers took effect yesterday, and activists said they hoped it would turn the tide on a practice that sends more than 300,000 children to war worldwide.

The accord, which bans the recruitment of children younger than 18 by armies and rebel militias, was approved by the U.N. General Assembly in May 2000. It has been signed by 96 countries and ratified by 14.

"There can no longer be any excuses for using children for war," U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson said during a ceremony in Geneva.

-------- afghanistan

Fleeing U.S. Bombs, Villagers Found No Place to Hide
Missiles Killed 21 in Two Families, Survivors Say

By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, February 13, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1728-2002Feb12?language=printer

THORAI, Afghanistan, Feb. 12 -- On a dark dirt road in southern Afghanistan one night last October, 27 frightened villagers -- most of them young children -- sat huddled in a trailer, fleeing a U.S. bombing raid on a nearby town.

They heard two planes racing toward them.

"I saw a flash in the sky," said Radigul, 23, who recalled clutching her 18-month-old son as her four other youngsters pressed against her. "We were so afraid. We thought, 'They are going to hit us now.' There was no time to get off."

In an instant, a missile sliced through the front end of the trailer. Witnesses said the explosion that followed scattered the arms, hands and feet of children across the road.

Thirty minutes later, as rescuers struggled to carry the last of the injured and dead into a nearby house, two rockets slammed into the room where most had been taken, survivors said. Some bodies were thrown into a nearby stream, the rest buried under heaps of rock and dirt.

Interviews with a dozen villagers in this farming hamlet just outside the provincial capital of Tarin Kot paint a consistent picture of 30 chaotic minutes on the night of Oct. 21, when U.S. airplanes hit their intended targets with extraordinary precision. But instead of striking escaping Taliban or al Qaeda fighters, the missiles killed 21 members of two families -- 17 of them infants and other children, according to survivors.

Today, the room where the last rockets hit is nothing more than a heap of rocks and dirt in the midst of an otherwise undamaged house. Its mud walls are intact, sheep and cattle are penned safely in the courtyard, and debris from the attack has been carefully gathered by the house's owner. A few hundred yards up the road, the trailer that was hit still bears a 20-inch hole ripped by a missile.

A spokesman for the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla., said today that photographs taken after the Oct. 21 attack show that the only target in the area was a Taliban command and control center and that all of the precision-guided bombs that were dropped hit the target. The spokesman, Army Lt. Col. Jim Yonts, said there is no record of munitions being dropped on a nearby police compound or on a trailer in Thorai.

"The site that we struck was in the Tarin Kot area," Yonts said. "Tarin Kot is a city. The facility that we struck was a suspected Taliban command and control facility. It was a compound outside the city. It was a compound that we believed held Taliban leadership.

"We struck that compound with precision-guided munitions, and I can tell you every one of our munitions hit the target," he added. "From the pre-strike imagery and the post-strike imagery, we can confirm that the facility that we struck was the only thing that we hit -- no other damage was done to anything else."

The account by the villagers of Thorai, a community of mud-walled farmhouses where families eke out livelihoods from the bone-dry earth, recalls other incidents in the U.S.-led military operation in Afghanistan, a war in which precision-guided missiles and bombs have almost always hit their targets but sometimes have killed the wrong people.

The number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan remains to be independently determined. The Taliban, the country's former rulers, put the number in the thousands, but anecdotal evidence indicates this estimate is inflated. At the same time, the Pentagon has played down reports of innocent Afghans being killed, insisting that the vast majority of airstrikes hit Taliban and al Qaeda targets.

"The Americans say they can see anything on the ground," said Fazal Rabi, 30, who said he lost 12 family members in the attacks, including two sons and a daughter. "These were children. We are not Mullah [Mohammad] Omar or Osama bin Laden, we are poor farmers." At about 8 p.m. on Oct. 21, two weeks into the U.S. bombing campaign in Afghanistan, U.S. warplanes bombed a Taliban military base in Tarin Kot. After dropping five bombs on the Taliban compound, the planes began attacking a police station across town.

In the village of Thorai, just over a half-mile from the police station across neat squares of wheat fields and fruit orchards, Rabi's family had begun to panic as the explosions seemed to be drawing nearer to their farmhouse, he recalled today.

"Please take us away," Rabi said his family pleaded.

"They'll only bomb the Taliban," Rabi assured them.

But Rabi relented and led his wife, five children and 10 other members of his extended family across their fields, down mud-walled lanes and along a farm road. They piled onto a metal trailer hitched to a small tractor, he said.

"We were trying to escape," said Rabi's wife, Radigul. "We thought we were going to safety."

Qudratullah, 22, recalled being jarred awake at about the same time by an explosion on the family compound a few fields over from Rabi's house. A rocket or small bomb, he said, had smashed into the carrot field.

Qudratullah said he led 11 family members, mostly women and children, toward the farm road. They spotted the trailer and were invited aboard. Qudratullah, like most of the men whose families fled their homes, returned to guard the farm compound.

A few hundred yards down the road, the tractor stopped and a boy dashed across the tilled fields to collect more relatives, witnesses said. At about that moment, the approaching airplanes droned overhead.

"The planes, they came so low," said Radigul. "We turned out the lights of the tractor so the plane couldn't see us."

One of the two planes fired a missile, Radigul said, and it hit precisely where most of her children and other youngsters were clustered, in the front of the trailer.

Across the fields, Rabi, who was on his way back to guard his house, heard the explosion and looked back in horror.

"Where the tractor was, I saw a big fire," Rabi said. "I ran to the tractor. The first thing I saw were a child's feet lying in the road. I looked at the trailer and I saw injured, I saw dead."

Salam Jan, 45, was awakened by the noise and clambered to the roof of his house, barely 100 feet away. "People were crying and shouting," he said. "I ran to help them." With his shawl, he said, he tried to beat out the fire on the trailer.

Other relatives raced to the scene. They scrambled to move most of the victims into Jan's house, but with the darkness, the blood and the screaming, some recalled, they often couldn't tell who was dead and who was alive.

Rabi said he found his wife unconscious and bleeding. His infant son and one daughter were also hurt. He could find no sign of his two other sons, age 3 and 7, or his 6-year-old daughter.

As several rescuers were debating whether to take victims into Tarin Kot for medical treatment, Jan said, he saw two planes approaching over his apple orchard. "Run! Run!" he shouted.

The planes unleased a pair of rockets, according to the witnesses, and the guest room housing many of the survivors collapsed in a massive pile of rocks, mud walls and rubble.

The next morning, daylight revealed a gruesome scene. Villagers said they found the missing children strewed across the road and nearby field. "Some feet were missing, some arms were missing, one body was torn in half," said Qudratullah.

Behind Jan's house, 45-year-old Mauladad said, there were "bodies lying everywhere. I hardly recognized my sister and nephew. I found my sister in the stream."

He and others began digging through the rubble with shovels and their bare hands.

They collected the bodies and body parts, wrapped them in shawls and blankets, and buried them on a hilltop overlooking the spot where the trailer had been hit. They buried 10 of the children in two graves.

When townspeople inspected the military base and police station that the U.S. warplanes first hit, they discovered that the few Taliban fighters who were at each location had fled unharmed.

Asked about reports of civilian deaths near Tarin Kot shortly after the incident, Pentagon officials dismissed the accounts as Taliban propaganda. On Oct. 24, the chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, said: "On those two villages . . . I don't know exactly what you're talking about. But every instance of those kind of allegations, we can usually spot bomb craters near things. And when we make a mistake, we tell you when we make a mistake."

Staff writer Vernon Loeb in Washington contributed to this report.

----

Strike likely killed top terrorist

By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 13, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-2002213225013.htm

Intelligence analysts think the United States killed one of al Qaeda's top finance directors in the Feb. 4 Predator strike on a group of three suspicious figures in the Zawar Kili terrorist camp in Afghanistan, a military source says.

Despite media reports that three innocent civilians were killed by the CIA-operated Predator drone, two officials said in interviews they are convinced that al Qaeda terrorists were targeted.

A second senior U.S. official said last night that evidence is mounting that a senior al Qaeda member was killed in the attack. But he cautioned that the identity might not be confirmed by examination of human remains found at the scene by U.S. soldiers.

"We may never identify these remains," said the second official, who asked not to be named. "We only have small bits of remains, and unless you've got something to compare it to, you never know."

This source said it is "too hard" to obtain DNA samples from relatives. Other intelligence methods, however, may eventually determine who died in the attack by a missile fired from a remote-controlled aircraft.

The Predator spy plane had tracked the group for a number of hours as they and others moved around the Zawar Kili terror camp, one of Osama bin Laden's largest.

The drone sent back video images that captured the targets trying to "camouflage their movements," the military source said. Said the U.S. official: "People were observed in the camp doing things we associate with al Qaeda, making security arrangements and things like that."

When the CIA and U.S. Central Command concurred the three men were a legitimate target, a CIA team was authorized to fire the Hellfire missile and steer it to the targets, who appeared to be hiding under a tree.

"There were pretty classic intelligence indications," said a senior intelligence official. "We felt pretty confident it was the man himself, his deputy or the finance guy."

This official later said the CIA had ruled out that it killed "the man himself" - Osama bin Laden - because it has not detected any communications traffic reporting the terror leader's death. The source said some analysts calculate that an al Qaeda finance director was killed based on his physical characteristics and "other intelligence."

"We watched for several hours," this source said. "There were significant efforts to camouflage their movements."

The official said 80 percent of the intelligence on the group came from the Predator's video images. He said U.S. special-operations troops also played a role in confirming that the group was al Qaeda.

The official said one of the three men was dressed in Arab clothing - bin Laden and his top lieutenants are Arabs - and was shown deference by those around him.

The source declined to identify the al Qaeda finance director who may have been hit. Several al Qaeda members who specialize in finance remain at large, including Abdul Rahim Riyadh and Ahmad Said al Kadr.

The CIA has used Predator drones throughout the war to kill Taliban and al Qaeda guerrillas. The plane, developed by the Air Force, actually caught bin Laden himself on videotape as he walked among trainees in a terror camp last summer.

But at that time, technicians had not yet conquered the engineering challenges of affixing missiles to the Predator, which had been developed as an unarmed surveillance drone. By the time the plane was matched with the video-guided Hellfire missile, bin Laden had disappeared and was not seen again before he orchestrated the September 11 attacks.

The drone flies at an altitude beyond what its targets can usually see. Likewise, the targets are unable to hear the supersonic Hellfire until the missile is seconds away.

Intelligence sources acknowledged that the CIA's belief that the agency hit an appropriate target was rattled somewhat, after local Afghans were quoted in media reports as saying three peasant scavengers - not al Qaeda members - were killed.

But the U.S. senior military official said, "I would be absolutely blown away if that was a true statement based on what I know. If that's true, those peasants were awfully well-traveled. No one was observed [via the Predator] picking up any scrap metal."

One U.S. official suggested the surviving Afghan peasants could be seeking U.S. compensation. One administration source said the civilians might have died earlier, in battle or by stepping on a mine as they looked for scrap metal.

This official said the area is a hotbed of Taliban and al Qaeda supporters who have motive to discredit the U.S. military. "These people lie all the time," he said.

Central Command dispatched 50 helicopter-borne Army troops to the snowy site 11,000 feet above sea level. They cordoned off the area, interviewed locals, found the exact missile point of impact and collected human remains, including bits of bones and flesh.

The Pentagon says the soldiers found credit-card applications, airline schedules, rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition, rifles, and a case for a hand-held tactical radio - all the trappings of a terror group.

The CIA has declined to comment on the Feb. 4 strike, but the Pentagon has delivered a strong defense of the operation.

"There are no initial indications that these were innocent locals," Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem told reporters at the Pentagon on Monday. "I base that on the facts that this team, in addition to just looking at the site where the strike occurred, also did some exploration in the surrounding area, to include some caves, a nearby village, and talking to locals. So I think that that sort of puts us in a comfort zone. These were not innocents."

Yesterday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld declined to personally vouch for the target's appropriateness. "There is no change in opinion on the part of the people who were involved in the process," he told reporters at a press conference.

The CIA can operate the Predator by remote control from stations thousands of miles from Afghanistan, including Central Command in Tampa, Fla., the Pentagon, and CIA headquarters in Northern Virginia.

Mr. Rumsfeld said decisions to fire the Predator's Hellfire missiles are some of the few war operations the CIA may execute without approval from Central Command, whose head, Army Gen. Tommy Franks, is the war's overall commander. But officials said that in the Feb. 4 attack, Central Command concurred.

"They use human intelligence from the ground," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "They observe a variety of things from the ground and the air, and they connect those things, and then they make judgments. And they have, on a number of occasions, been successful in doing exactly that which they intended to do."

In other war developments yesterday:

•Top anti-Taliban officials disputed assertions by a few detained fighters that they were beaten by U.S. troops while in custody in Kandahar.

"That's wrong; that's absolutely wrong. They are bluffing," Reuters quoted Khalid Pashtun, a senior aide to the Kandahar governor, as saying. "It's not true."

The charges stem from the Jan. 24 special-operations raid on a compoud north of Kandahar the United States believed housed enemy forces. Central Command is investigating whether its forces made a mistake in an attack that killed 15 fighters and resulted in the capture of 27 others, a few of whom say they were beaten by the Americans. Those 27, some of whom U.S. officials labeled as criminals, were turned over to the new Afghan government.

Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, said yesterday the investigation to date shows the captives were not beaten. "All detainees were medically screened upon arrival in Kandahar, and there were no issues of beatings or kickings or anything of that sort," Gen. Myers said.

•The Associated Press quoted Mr. Pashtun as saying Afghan authorities are negotiating the surrender of 15 Taliban leaders, possibly including some Cabinet members.

The most senior Taliban member in custody, former Foreign Minister Mullah Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, turned himself in Friday and is being questioned by U.S. officials in Kandahar. Supreme Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar remains on the run.

-------- biological weapons

TRACKING THE DISEASE
Scientist's Findings Could Aid Anthrax Inquiry

New York Times
February 13, 2002
By NICHOLAS WADE
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/13/national/13ANTH.html

LAS VEGAS, Feb. 12 - In what could provide a major break in the hunt for the sender of anthrax-laden letters last fall, a researcher studying the case for the F.B.I. says he has distinguished between stocks of the anthrax strain kept in different laboratories.

The method should help tell which laboratory's stock of anthrax is closest to that used by the attacker. That could narrow the search to people with access to that particular laboratory and its stock of anthrax.

The researcher, Dr. Paul Keim of Northern Arizona University, made the announcement here at a national conference on microbial genomes.

Asked which laboratories had provided the stocks he studied, Dr. Keim said his agreement with the Federal Bureau of Investigation prevented him from discussing the case. The F.B.I., which refused to comment on his remarks, has said it has no firm suspects, but it has focused on insiders who may have had access to anthrax in laboratories.

Many strains of anthrax exist, but the one used in the attacks is called Ames, first isolated from a cow in Texas in 1981. Because of the strain's virulence, it was studied for years by the Army's laboratory for biological warfare defense at Fort Detrick, Md., and was distributed to several laboratories in the United States and abroad to help them test vaccines.

After the anthrax attacks, researchers tried to discriminate between the various stocks of Ames to see whether they could pinpoint the laboratory of origin. But since all the stocks came from a single source, the bacteria were essentially members of a single large clone, as alike genetically as identical twins.

A DNA fingerprinting test for anthrax bacteria, similar to the test used on humans in criminal cases, had been developed by Dr. Keim and colleagues.

Dr. Keim's fingerprinting test, which was based on eight points of difference, could not distinguish between the different stocks of Ames anthrax, and he set about trying to develop more markers, which are sites on the DNA at which some anthrax bacteria have a different sequence of DNA letters from other bacteria.

To help in the search for new markers, the National Science Foundation asked the Institute for Genomic Research in Rockville, Md., to decode the full DNA sequence of the anthrax bacteria recovered from Robert Stevens, the photo editor who died in the Florida attack. The institute was already sequencing the full genome of the Ames strain owned by the Fort Detrick laboratory, so it would be in a position to look for DNA differences throughout the bacterium's genome.

The institute focused on the main chromosome of the bacteria, a large ring of DNA now known to contain 5,167,515 DNA letters holding information for 5,960 genes. The bacterium also contains two small rings of DNA known as plasmids, which carry the genes essential for its virulence. The plasmid's DNA was decoded several years ago by scientists at the Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory.

Dr. Keim's success came from studying a site on the second of these plasmids called a poly-A tract. He found that Ames stocks held in different laboratories varied in the number of A's - one of the four units of DNA - they contained in the poly- A tract. The number of A's varied from 8 to 25, the exact number depending on the laboratory that provided the stock.

On the basis of the poly-A test, he said, he has been able to distinguish between the Ames strains of anthrax held in four laboratories, and in a natural Ames isolate taken from a goat in 1997. Because of his agreement with the F.B.I., Dr. Keim would not name the laboratories or say from how many other laboratories he had received samples.

But another anthrax expert at the meeting said that if Dr. Keim had samples from all laboratories having the Ames strain, he should be able to say which one the attack strain most resembled and might have already done so.

-------- colombia

Colombia rules out U.S. ground forces

By David R. Sands
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 13, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020213-6406188.htm

Colombia will "never accept" a direct U.S. military intervention to deal with leftist rebel groups and the giant drug-producing industry they protect, the country's foreign minister said yesterday.

"Colombia is not Vietnam. Colombia is not Afghanistan," Guillermo Fernandez de Soto said at a meeting among top diplomats of four Andean nations and editors and reporters at The Washington Times.

"Colombia is Colombia, and we are able to control our own national security," Mr. Fernandez said.

The Washington Times reported on Monday that the Bush administration was weighing a significant expansion of the military role in the anti-drug Plan Colombia begun under President Clinton.

Mr. Fernandez said his government was "very happy and very thankful" for U.S. support for its drug war, but dismissed the idea of U.S. ground forces fighting in his country as a fantasy worthy of a novel by Colombian Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

"It's very clear what [the United States] is doing in increasing the capability of our own armed forces," he said. "Colombia will never accept any kind of military intervention."

The Andean diplomats - the foreign ministers of Colombia, Peru and Ecuador, and the ambassador from Bolivia - argued that U.S. trade and drug policies had a direct bearing on the region's security.

The representatives for the four countries made an unprecedented joint foray to Washington to make their case, meeting with top administration and congressional leaders and attending President Bush's news conference in which he announced a 10 percent increase in U.S. drug interdiction efforts to $2.3 billion.

Ecuador, Colombia and Bolivia all face presidential elections this year.

Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Heinz Moeller said the United States risks increasing social tensions across the region if it insists on eradicating drug cultivation while not opening protected U.S. markets such as textiles and cut flowers.

The region's drug trade has proved resistant to efforts by individual governments to control and contain it. When governments in Peru and Bolivia sharply reduced drug production in their countries in recent years, the industry slipped across the border into Colombia.

In addition to the current training and support for Colombian anti-narcotics units, the Bush administration's proposal would finance two new brigades, including one to protect strategic infrastructure sites targeted by rebel forces.

U.S. officials fear that the limited advisory role of the Clinton plan has proved ineffective and that the government of Colombian President Andres Pastrana is losing ground in its struggle against the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by its Spanish initials as FARC.

Mr. Pastrana's decision to allow FARC virtual control over a large part of the country - an effort to lure the lefist guerrillas to the bargaining table - provided a massive haven for the illegal narcotics trade.

The Colombian navy, working with the U.S. Coast Guard, yesterday announced the seizure of some 10 tons of cocaine stashed in a fishing boat intercepted about 800 miles southwest of Colombia's Pacific coast.

But the seizure, one of the largest ever recorded, is just a fraction of the estimated 580 tons of cocaine exported annually from Colombia, 80 percent of the world's total supply.

Peruvian Foreign Minister Diego Garcia Sayan said his country's success in cutting drug production relied not on the military but on aerial interdiction and a concentrated government effort to eliminate the financing and transportation networks supporting the drug dealers.

"That made it so expensive that most areas were abandoned by the coca growers," Mr. Garcia said. "To have success against drugs does not necessarily mean in literal terms declaring a war."

Both Peru's Mr. Garcia and Ecuador's Mr. Moeller said they had seen scattered reports of drug traffickers moving across the border from Colombia as the U.S. effort there increased, but the shifts had not been significant.

Nevertheless, U.S. Ambassador to Peru John Hamilton announced in a Lima press conference yesterday that the Bush administration planned to triple anti-drug funding for Peru to more than $150 million this year, and hoped to resume anti-narcotics surveillance flights suspended in April after the accidental downing of a flight carrying U.S. missionaries.

Mr. Bush will visit Lima March 23, the first visit ever by an American president to Peru.

The leaders of Colombia, Bolivia and Ecuador have been invited to a summit meeting with Mr. Bush there, and anti-drug efforts in the region are expected to top the agenda.

Not on the guest list was leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, whose anti-American rhetoric and close friendship with Cuban leader Fidel Castro have brought increasing criticisms from Washington.

Venezuela also was accused of meddling in the affairs of its neighbors, including support for FARC and contacts with anti-government groups in Bolivia.

Mr. Fernandez of Colombia and Bolivian Ambassador Marlene Fernandez del Granado said they had confronted Mr. Chavez's government over the reports and received promises that Caracas would not interfere in their domestic affairs.

"Our government discussed the matter" with Mr. Chavez, Mrs. Fernandez said, adding that Bolivia for now was taking his "explanations at face value."

-------- drug war

Drug overdoses kill hundreds of inmates in nation's prisons

By Timothy W. Maier
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 13, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020213-80781506.htm

Despite sophisticated electronic and physical surveillance, armed guards and meticulous designs of modern penal institutions, at least 188 convicts died of drug overdoses in state prisons nationwide during the past decade.

Many of these deaths, and widespread drug trafficking inside the prisons, could have been prevented if state prisons had aggressive drug-screening policies and treatment programs, according to an investigation by Insight magazine, a sister publication of The Washington Times.

Between 1998 and 2001, Maryland had the second-highest number of officially reported fatal overdoses with 15 deaths - between California with 31 and Texas with 12, said the report, published in the magazine's Feb. 25 edition.

"I can't believe that," said Leonard Sipes, a spokesman for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. "That's just unbelievable. It doesn't make sense for those prisons such as in Texas with a larger prison population not to have more overdose deaths."

California has the largest inmate population, about 162,000, and Texas is the second biggest with 148,000. Maryland's inmate population is a relatively small 23,000.

Insight's nine-month investigation found that many state-prison systems fail to track drug overdoses, confiscations, arrests and convictions. Few rules at the state level, and apparently none at the federal level, require such record collection.

For example, Congress in 1998 provided federal grants to states that dedicated part of their funding to drug-treatment programs in prisons, but demanded little collection or tracking of statistics.

The reality of prison life, said corrections officials, is that dangerous but nonfatal overdoses are so frequent they are not even counted. Untreated addicts who die simply disappear as if their lives never mattered, their deaths opening other beds in an overcrowded prison system.

Karen Freeman-Wilson, chief executive officer for the National Association of Drug Court Professionals, which oversees about 1,200 of the nation's state drug courts, said, "It's a mistake to look at these as isolated incidents. The overdoses show there is clearly a problem. Not only are drugs getting in, but they are getting in at a level that people die from."

Insight filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with every state correctional agency to obtain the numbers of drug overdoses in their prisons during the past decade.

The agencies stonewalled, obfuscated and resisted. But after more than 300 follow-up telephone calls, 40 of the 50 states ultimately produced figures, previously undisclosed, relating to drug overdoses dating as far back as 1990. Prison officials for the District refused to cooperate, and Virginia did not have the information.

Insight's investigation also found that the 188 drug-overdose deaths in state prisons from 1990 to 2000 were probably well below the actual figures. More than 50 percent of the states did not have data on prisoner overdoses before 1995.

Maryland, for example, said it could not produce records prior to 1998. Other states classified some prison deaths without explanation. In 1999, for example, Alabama reported 69 deaths, labeling 52 as unexplained.

Who should be held responsible? "The person who overdoses," said Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the front-runner to become the state's next governor.

Although inmates are in the care and custody of the state, Maryland is not responsible for their deaths from drugs trafficked in its prisons, she said.

"They know they are not supposed to do drugs in there," said Mrs. Townsend, whose brother, David Kennedy, died of an overdose in 1984.

Mrs. Townsend said aggressive investigations, shakedowns and drug testing show a 33 percent decline in drug use in Maryland prisons since 1998.

She said Maryland targets for drug rehabilitation mostly those on parole and probation and not inmates.

This is because, she added, studies indicate 50 percent of heroin and cocaine users are on parole or probation and represent three times the population of inmates.

"Our focus is those who are re-entering the community," she told Insight. "We want to make sure they live a crime-free life. That is critical."

Barbara A. Boyle, director of social work and addiction services for Maryland, said this approach may not be the best.

"My belief is that treatment could easily work if it begins farther back in incarceration," Miss Boyle explained. "Problems could be addressed then during a formalized treatment period. I might not begin it right away, but I might begin within two or three years as opposed to a few months before they are released."

For George Brosan, deputy secretary for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, stopping the flow of drugs into the state's prisons is essential to curbing fatal overdoses. He has hired his own team of 20 detectives - a move that is rare among prisons, where most rely on state police to investigate prison incidents.

How did it work? "I found out that we did not have the investigative expertise to do this, or the manpower, so we just brought in a retired IRS agent on a grant to pay him to work on Operation Inside/Out," he said.

Mr. Brosan, a former New York street cop and retired U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent, said drugs enter prisons primarily through three main sources: visitors, vendors and correctional officials.

He said drugs enter prisons when visitors exchange watches or shoes. Women hide drugs in their bras or stuff them into a baby's diaper.

The most common method, he said, is mouth-to-mouth by passing a balloon full of heroin with a passionate kiss.

In Maryland, inmates get away with it because, in some cases, as many as 90 prisoners are packed into "secure gymnasiums" where rows of bunks are about a foot apart. One correctional officer is assigned to the catwalk and asked to do the impossible: watch everyone.

Mr. Brosan said it will take more money and resources than Maryland's current $897 million correctional budget to free the state's prisons of illegal drugs.

"I spent 10 years in the U.S. Customs Service. You can't find all the drugs on a ship when it comes in and you can't find all the drugs in prison. It's like crabgrass. Do you think you can find all the crabgrass in your lawn? If you think you can, I got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you."

• Timothy W. Maier is a writer for Insight magazine.

----

Bush ties drug use to terrorist support

By Bill Sammon
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 13, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020213-5546008.htm

President Bush yesterday vowed to cut illegal drug use in America by 25 percent within five years and equated drug use with aiding terrorists, since many are funded through the drug trade.

"If you're buying illegal drugs in America, it is likely that money is going to end up in the hands of terrorist organizations," Mr. Bush said in the East Room, where he was joined by drug policy director John Walters. "Just think about the Taliban in Afghanistan.

"Seventy percent of the world's opium trade came from Afghanistan, resulting in significant income to the Taliban, significant amount of money to the people that were harboring and feeding and hiding those who attacked and killed thousands of innocent Americans on September the 11th," Mr. Bush said. "When we fight drugs, we fight the war on terror."

The president's budget, which he submitted to Congress earlier this month, asks for $19.2 billion to fight illegal drugs, a 2 percent increase over current spending. He said that will help cut drug use by 10 percent within two years, a first step toward his goal of a 25 percent reduction within five years.

Mr. Bush made clear that he is relying heavily on Mr. Walters to achieve that goal.

"Progress must be measured," he said. "I've told John when he signed on I'm the kind of fellow that likes to say, 'What are the results?'

"I'd like to know, actually: Are we making a difference?" he said. "Here's a goal [on] which I'll be measured first. And then John will definitely be measured, if I'm measured."

Mr. Walters said one of the tools at his disposal is a new advertising campaign that links drug use with terrorism.

The campaign began with the airing of several stark TV spots during the Super Bowl.

"We tested these ads more extensively than any ads done," Mr. Walters told reporters later in the day. "The focus group results of the tests showed some of the most powerful results reported by young people, young adults and parents, in telling us these would help them reconsider their attitude toward drug use in a positive direction."

Mr. Walters said he was somewhat surprised to discover that parents found the anti-terrorism argument "enormously helpful to them in talking to their children about drugs, in addition to all the other reasons they would give their kids for not using drugs."

The president put particular emphasis on the impact of drugs on families.

"Drug use wreaks havoc on our families," the president said. "Drug use destroys people's ambitions and hopes. More than 50 percent of our high school seniors have said that they've experimented with illegal drugs at least once prior to graduation."

The administration's anti-drug strategy is focused on reducing supplies from foreign countries, undermining domestic demand and providing effective drug treatment to addicts.

Mr. Bush said the last goal can be accomplished with the help of churches and other religious institutions.

"You see, there is a moral reason for this fight," the president said. "There is a moral reason to achieve this grand national objective, and it's this: Drugs rob men and women and children of their dignity and their character. Illegal drugs are the enemies of ambition and hope."

---

Bush Seeks Cut in Drug Use
Aides Say Plan Stresses Treatment Rather Than Enforcement

By Dana Milbank and Cheryl W. Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, February 13, 2002; Page A10
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1456-2002Feb12?language=printer

President Bush yesterday called for cutting the domestic use of illegal drugs by a quarter over the next five years in what aides described as an effort to reorient federal drug policy toward treatment rather than enforcement.

Bush set as targets a 10 percent reduction in drug use over two years and a 25 percent reduction over five years. He urged a 6 percent increase in federal funding for drug treatment for next year -- to $3.8 billion -- part of a 2 percent increase in the overall anti-drug budget, to $19 billion. Funding for interdiction efforts would increase 10 percent, to $2.3 billion.

Advocates of an overhaul of U.S. drug-control policy called the proposal insufficient, arguing that the administration plan represents little change in emphasis. But key lawmakers welcomed Bush's high-profile call for focusing on decreasing the demand for drugs.

"Ours is a concerted effort to reduce demand," the president said in the East Room of the White House. "As demand goes down, so will supply. As we reduce demand in America, it'll take the pressure off of our friends in the south."

White House officials said Bush's remarks demonstrated that his policy disproves perceptions that Bush cares only about drug interdiction and enforcement, perceptions that were bolstered by Bush's choice as head of the White House drug policy office, John P. Walters, who is aggressive on enforcement. "Everyone expected [Bush would] be all counternarcotics and enforcement," a Bush aide said. "This has been on his mind a lot. The root of the problem is demand."

As he has done with other domestic policies in recent weeks, Bush placed his anti-drug initiative in the context of the anti-terrorism campaign. The message, that terrorists profit from the drug trade, echoed the theme of two ads aired during the Super Bowl by the Office of National Drug Control Policy. The ads were part of the office's $180 million-a-year media campaign.

"Drugs help supply the deadly work of terrorists," Bush said. "Make no mistake about it: If you're buying illegal drugs in America, it is likely that money is going to end up in the hands of terrorist organizations."

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who with Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) passed legislation in the Senate that would more dramatically increase drug treatment efforts, said he welcomes Bush's words. "I hope he will work with Congress so that we can actually do it," he said. House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) called Bush's proposal "ambitious, thoughtful and comprehensive," and he promised "whatever support is needed in this pressing effort."

But Rep. John Conyers Jr. (Mich.), the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said that despite "the shiny new wrapping paper, this is the same old failed and racially biased drug policy. . . . While the president claims that we need to aggressively promote treatment, he actually proposes to spend seven times more money on drug interdiction than treatment."

Conyers's view was shared by liberal drug policy groups. Eric E. Sterling, president of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, said Bush's strategy is "very unlikely . . . to produce any different result than we've seen so far. We ought to be saying, 'How do we save more lives?' "

Administration officials said Bush's proposal is a practical way to help the 3.9 million drug users in the United States who do not receive help. They noted that efforts would be made to help young users in the 12 to 17 age group. For next year, for example, Bush has requested $644 million for the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Program, they said.

U.S. Customs Service Commissioner Robert C. Bonner, attending Bush's speech, said he was "heartened" by the emphasis on treatment over enforcement.

Stephen J. Pasierb, president of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, who also attended the speech, applauded Bush for "bringing this issue back to the center of the national agenda. . . . The president has set clear goals."

Asa Hutchinson, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said in a telephone interview from California: "Clearly, his budget reflects what he's talked about -- the importance of combining strong enforcement with treatment programs and education."

----

Andean nations urge expanded trade as vital to drug-fighting

By Carter Dougherty
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 13, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/business/20020213-92340299.htm

Foreign ministers from Andean countries yesterday urged U.S. lawmakers to approve expanded trade benefits, which they said were essential to fighting drugs and promoting economic development in South America.

The failure of Congress to renew the Andean Trade Preferences Act, which has boosted trade with the United States during the past decade, has hampered the region's economic progress, the ministers said.

"The expiration of the trade preferences is starting to create a lot of difficulties for some sectors of our economy," Colombian Foreign Minister Guillermo Fernandez de Soto said during a meeting among top diplomats of four Andean nations and editors and reporters at The Washington Times.

Mr. Fernandez said the program's expiration in December threatened the livelihoods of 100,000 female heads of household in his country working in the flower industry. Allan Wagner, Peru's ambassador, added that 40,000 Peruvian jobs depended on duty-free access to the U.S. market.

Both ministers, along with their colleagues from Ecuador and Bolivia, traveled to Washington this week to lobby for the renewal of the act. Created in 1991, the program was designed to foster economic growth in Andean countries and give workers other self-sustaining economic opportunities besides growing the coca used to manufacture narcotics.

"We're not asking for money to be given to us," said Heinz Moeller, Ecuador's top diplomat. "We're asking the market to open [to Andean products]."

President Bush has repeatedly stressed his support for the program, and most Democrats back the bill as well. But it is part of a larger trade bill that is bogged down amid partisan wrangling in the Senate.

The House approved the expanded trade benefits in December. The Bush administration assured the ministers this week that it was working to secure passage of the bill, they said.

The Andean diplomats stressed that the trade program had a proven track record of giving workers in their countries other options. They said the narcotics underworld also played a key role in financing terror.

"It's a matter of national security," Mr. Moeller said. "Drug trafficking is linked with terrorism and crime."

Despite bipartisan support in Congress, U.S. textile industry representatives criticized the trade bill, arguing that additional imports would hurt American companies.

"The textile industry right now is going through its worst economic crisis since the Depression, so we are extremely concerned when bills like this come up which would throw more U.S. textile workers out of their jobs," said Cass Johnson of the American Textile Manufacturers Institute.

But Mr. Wagner dismissed this argument, saying Andean producers do not ship enough products north to disrupt the American market.

"The amount of textiles coming into the United States [from the Andean region] is less than 1 percent of imports," Mr. Wagner said.

He added that American cotton growers would benefit from a vibrant Peruvian industry, which uses cotton imported from the United States to manufacture textiles.

-------- europe

EU Ministers to Discuss Terror, Illegal Immigrants

By REUTERS
February 13, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-eu-terrorism.html

SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, Spain - EU justice and interior ministers are set to discuss closer cooperation with the United States in the war on terrorism as well as ways to fight illegal immigration when they meet in Spain this week.

Madrid, current holder of the European Union's six-month presidency, has pledged to build on progress achieved by the bloc since September 11 in the fight against terrorism, which has included an EU-wide arrest warrant and a common definition of terrorism.

``Ministers will discuss what is being done and how the EU can improve. This includes deepening judicial cooperation with the United States,'' one diplomat told Reuters.

The ministers' talks take place Thursday and Friday in Santiago de Compostela, a jewel of medieval architecture and a center of Catholic pilgrimage in the northwest region of Galicia.

The focus on police and judicial cooperation increased within the EU after the attacks on New York and Washington.

Last month, for example, French police arrested six people suspected of belonging to the Basque separatist group ETA, which has killed more than 800 people since 1968 in its campaign for independence from Madrid.

Goaded into action by the events of September 11, the EU and the United States also signed in December a general agreement to exchange information on terrorism and other serious crimes.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

The interior and justice ministers will also discuss how to clamp down on growing numbers of illegal immigrants who arrive each year in hope of a better life inside the wealthy bloc.

The EU's executive Commission has put forward several proposals on how to combat illegal immigration and the criminal networks who profit from smuggling people into Europe, a trade estimated at some $30 billion annually.

This week, the Commission urged member states to offer short-term residence to victims of human trafficking or people smuggling who help authorities to uncover the criminal networks.

``Illegal immigration is growing...The most common form involves transnational criminal networks operating for profit, displaying complete disregard for human dignity and endangering the lives of their victims,'' the Commission proposal said.

``It is therefore necessary to offer incentives to the victims to cooperate, and the incentives must be tailored to their concerns,'' the Commission said.

Under its proposals, any non-EU national who has fallen victim to criminals operating illegal immigration or trafficking rings should be given 30 days to decide whether or not to cooperate with the authorities.

If the victim decides to cooperate, a six-month residence permit should be issued and access to labor markets, education and medical care should also be granted.

-------- indonesia

Maluku factions sign a peace accord

World Scene
February 13, 2002
Combined dispatches and staff reports
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020213-78051808.htm

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Rival Christian and Muslim factions from Indonesia's Maluku province agreed yesterday to end their three-year war that has devastated the province and killed 10,000, a top Cabinet minister said.

The government says it is hoping the accord will emulate the success of a recent truce between Christians and Muslims from Sulawesi island that succeeded in ending a similar, though smaller, sectarian conflict.

"Both sides have agreed to end all conflicts and hostilities," said Welfare Minister Yusuf Kalla, who held the talks in the hill town of Malino in south Sulawesi, 1,000 miles northeast of Jakarta.

-------- iran

Iran Reportedly Arrests Fleeing Al Qaeda Fighters

By REUTERS
February 13, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-attack-iran-arrests.html

TEHRAN - Iranian security forces have arrested some al Qaeda fighters fleeing Afghanistan and are hunting others who have slipped across the border, an Iranian newspaper reported Wednesday.

``Some al Qaeda members who have illegally entered Iran have been arrested and the security forces are searching for the rest,'' the daily Khorasan quoted Mohsen Tarkashvan, a member of Iran's parliamentary national security commission, as saying.

``Because of Iran's geographical position there may be some al Qaeda members among Afghan trespassers who have slipped into Iran with fake passports and visas,'' he said.

Iran has strongly denied U.S. accusations that it has given refuge to al Qaeda militants who crossed into Iran after the defeat of their Taliban protectors in Afghanistan.

Intelligence Minister Ali Younesi said last week a ``large number'' of Taliban supporters who had illegally entered Iran had been arrested, but no members of Osama Bin Laden's al Qaeda network were among them.

Bin Laden is the prime suspect behind the September 11 attacks on the United States.

London's Guardian newspaper said Wednesday al-Qaeda fighters were fleeing Afghanistan via drug routes to Iran, paying thousands of dollars to tribal drug traffickers to help them escape back to their own countries.

The paper cited accounts from witnesses, al Qaeda sympathizers and sources close to the Taliban indicating that many fighters loyal to bin Laden had crossed into Iran through desolate mountain passes, avoiding military patrols.

``The Arab al Qaeda are trying their best to leave the country and to reach the Gulf,'' Hamid Mir, a Pakistani newspaper editor close to the Taliban regime told the Guardian.

``The smuggling mafia have started a new business helping these people to leave.''

Authorities in southern Afghanistan repeated the U.S. charges against Iran Wednesday, and said camps had been set up in Iran near the Afghan border for Taliban and al Qaeda fighters.

``We have received reports that special camps have been opened,'' Khalid Pashtoon, a senior aide to the governor of Kandahar province, Gul Agha, told Reuters. ``One name I can reveal is Nusratabat, about 20 miles west of Zahedan.''

The Iranian town of Zahedan sits just across the border from Pakistan and from Afghanistan's Nimroz province, where Kandahar officials say pockets of Taliban and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network are still active.

Iranian officials were unavailable to comment on the report.

----

Afghan province says Iran gives shelter to al Qaeda

By Andrew Marshall
Wednesday February 13, 5:08 PM
Reuters
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/reuters/asia-89202.html

KANDAHAR - Authorities in southern Afghanistan accused Iran on Wednesday of giving shelter to Taliban and al Qaeda fighters, saying there were reports of camps across the border for enemies of the new Afghan administration.

"We have received reports that special camps have been opened," Khalid Pashtoon, a senior aide to the governor of Kandahar province, Gul Agha, told Reuters.

"One name I can reveal is Nusratabat, about 30 km (19 miles) west of Zahedan."

The Iranian town of Zahedan sits just across the border from Pakistan and Afghanistan's Nimroz province, where Kandahar officials say pockets of Taliban and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network are still active.

Officials in Kandahar say Taliban and al Qaeda fighters are believed to be moving back and forth across the border.

Kandahar's post-Taliban administration, dominated by Sunni Pashtuns, has frequently accused Iran's Shi'ite government of trying to destabilise the region.

But Iranian authorities have emphatically denied interfering in Afghan affairs or seeking to undermine the six-month interim government that took office in December.

Iran has also rejected U.S. allegations that it was letting members of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network escape from Afghanistan through Iran. Bin Laden is the prime suspect in the September 11 attacks on the United States.

"DON'T INTERFERE"

Complicating the situation is rivalry between Kandahar and the western Afghan city of Herat.

Kandahar officials have accused Herat's governing warlord Ismail Khan of working with a former mujahideen faction leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and members of Iran's Pasdaran militia to stir up trouble in southwest Afghanistan.

Hekmatyar, who has been in exile in Iran for years, is one of the most vocal opponents of Afghanistan's new interim government and the involvement of foreign forces.

Iranian media reported on Sunday that Iranian authorities closed down Hekmatyar's offices amid mounting calls for him to be expelled.

The move, which the media said was made because Hekmatyar had acted against Iranian national security, was seen as an Iranian effort to demonstrate goodwill towards the U.N.-backed interim government in Afghanistan. But it seems to have done little to ease suspicion of Iran in Kandahar.

"Iranian interference is continuing on a daily basis," Pashtoon said.

"Of course, we inform the central government in Kabul on a daily basis. It's their job to take action and tell the Iranians not to interfere in Afghanistan."

He said Iran was providing opponents of the Afghan regime with "arms, ammunition, humanitarian aid, cash -- all kinds of stuff".

Tensions between Kandahar and Herat, as well as turf wars between rival warlords, are widely seen as the greatest immediate threat to Afghanistan's interim administration.

Talks between officials of the two cities averted a potential confrontation, but Kandahar officials say the road to Herat is not yet safe and that this is damaging trade and confidence.

-------- iraq

[Reuters deserves gratitude for a more balanced perspective than US papers these days. et]

Saddam Urges U.S. to Avoid Use of Force

By REUTERS
February 13, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-iraq-austria.html

BAGHDAD - The United States is on the path of destroying itself by using force instead of reason in its war on terrorism, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein said Tuesday.

Saddam, whose country, according to some U.S. officials, could be the next target in the U.S. war on terror, said European countries must help the United States see reason.

The official Iraqi News Agency said Saddam made his comments at a meeting in Baghdad with Austrian far-right leader Joerg Haider, de facto leader of Austria's Freedom Party.

``Europe should shoulder the responsibility of restoring reason to America so it does not destroy itself. America does not only want to destroy the world, but rather as a result destroy itself too,'' Saddam said.

``When the Americans reach the position of power they suffer from power dizziness and instead of ruling on the basis of wisdom they use force ... against peoples,'' Saddam said.

``Instead of following the path of wisdom, which is the path that leads to a deeply stabilized world, America adopts the method of force,'' he added.

He said the United States should open doors with keys rather than destroy the doors.

The White House said Tuesday no military action was imminent against Iraq despite a U.S. newspaper report saying President Bush was preparing for armed strikes.

There has been widespread speculation that Iraq could be the next target of the war on terrorism following the U.S.-led campaign that toppled the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan who hosted accused Sept. 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden.

In one hint Bush may be laying the groundwork to move against Iraq, he said last week he was sending Vice President Cheney to the Middle East next month to rally support for the U.S. war on terror and tell allies ``we mean business.''

SIGNS OF COMPROMISE

Bush said this month Iraq helped make up an ``axis of evil'' with Iran and North Korea that threatens U.S. interests. He has also said Washington would stop nations that were developing weapons of mass destruction from teaming up with terrorists.

In Istanbul, Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said Tuesday that Iraq's Foreign Minister Naji Sabri had signaled Baghdad may be ready to seek a compromise to avert possible U.S. military strikes for Iraq's refusal to accept arms inspectors.

Haider had earlier met Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz, who called for concerted action against ``international plots'' against Iraq, Baghdad newspapers said.

The newspapers said Aziz gave Haider an analysis of the current situation and ``international plots led by the United States and Zionism against Iraq.'' He called for confrontation against these alleged plots at the international and European level.

Haider had arrived in Baghdad Monday. A Foreign Ministry statement said he had been invited by the nongovernmental Iraqi Friendship, Peace and Solidarity Organization.

The Freedom Party is part of Austria's ruling coalition along with conservative Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel's People's Party.

A provincial governor in Austria, Haider is not a member of the government and no longer formally leads the Freedom Party. But he sits on the policymaking coalition committee in Vienna and is the undisputed, if unofficial, leader of his party.

----

Bush reported to have decided to oust Saddam Hussein

Wednesday February 13, 10:03 PM
Reuters
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/reuters/asia-89253.html

PHILADELPHIA - U.S. President George W. Bush has decided to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, and has ordered the CIA, the Pentagon and other U.S. agencies to devise plans to remove him, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported on Wednesday.

The newspaper said no military strike was imminent. But it quoted unnamed U.S. officials as saying Bush had decided that Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs pose too great a threat to U.S. national security for Saddam to remain.

"This is not an argument about whether to get rid of Saddam Hussein. That debate is over. This is how you do it," the Inquirer quoted a senior Bush administration official as saying.

The newspaper said the White House was determined to act even if U.S. allies do not help, and is now waiting for government agencies to come up with a combination of military, diplomatic and covert plans aimed at achieving Saddam's ouster.

Escalating U.S. rhetoric on Iraq has alarmed Russia and America's European allies in recent weeks, while causing concern among experts about the political and human costs of a lengthy U.S. military campaign in the Middle East.

But the Inquirer said the CIA recently presented Bush with a plan to destabilize Saddam's well-entrenched regime in Baghdad, through a massive covert action campaign, sabotage, information warfare and significantly more aggressive bombing of the so-called no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq.

The president was reportedly enthusiastic, and although it could not be determined whether he gave final approval for the plan, the CIA has begun assigning officers to the task, the newspaper reported.

Vice President Dick Cheney is also expected to tell Middle East leaders about U.S. intentions to get rid of Saddam during a tour of 11 Middle Eastern nations next month, the Inquirer said.

"He's not going to beg for support," a senior official was quoted as saying. "He's going to inform them that the president's decision has been made and will be carried out, and if they want some input into how and when it's carried out, now's the time for them to speak up."

----

Iraq Sees No Need for U.N. Arms Inspectors to Return

New York Times
February 13, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-iraq-un-inspection.html

BAGHDAD - Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said Wednesday there was no need for ``spies'' of the U.N. weapon inspection teams to return to the country.

The United States has hinted it may use military force against Iraq if it does not allow U.N. inspectors, who left the country in 1998, to return to check Baghdad's weapons of mass destruction.

``There is no need for the spies of the (U.N.) inspection teams to return to Iraq since Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction,'' the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) quoted Ramadan as saying.

Ramadan made his comments at a meeting with a group of pro- Baghdad Kurdish figures, the agency said.

Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, after meeting Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri Tuesday, said Iraq had indicated it may be ready to seek a compromise to avert possible U.S. military strikes.

``Words that could be understood as meaning Iraq is ready to find compromise were said,'' Ecevit said.

President Bush has suggested Iraqi President Saddam Hussein allow inspectors back into Iraq or face the consequences to see whether the country is producing nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

Bush last month branded Iraq as part of an ``axis of evil'' with Iran and North Korea. He vowed Monday that the United States would prevent nations developing weapons of mass destruction from teaming up with terrorists.

``These statements reflect the criminal and terrorist nature of the American administration,'' Ramadan said.

``Iraq will defy American-Zionist plots against it in all their forms,'' he added.

Northern Iraq has been outside Baghdad's direct control and protected by U.S. and British air patrols since after the end of the 1991 Gulf war.

Some Washington hawks see the Kurds, whose peshmerga guerrillas fought Baghdad on and off for decades, as acting as a local ground force in a U.S.-campaign to oust Saddam, likening them to Afghanistan's anti-Taliban Northern Alliance.

----

[Here's a Washington hawk who needs a reply: Letters to Editor: mailto:OPED@washpost.com; internet Message Board: http://forums.delphi.com/wpeditorials/start]

Cakewalk In Iraq

By Ken Adelman
Wednesday, February 13, 2002; Page A27
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1996-2002Feb12.html

Even before President Bush had placed Iraq on his "axis of evil," dire warnings were being sounded about the danger of acting against Saddam Hussein's regime.

Two knowledgeable Brookings Institution analysts, Philip H. Gordon and Michael E. O'Hanlon, concluded that the United States would "almost surely" need "at least 100,000 to 200,000" ground forces [op-ed, Dec. 26, 2001]. Worse: "Historical precedents from Panama to Somalia to the Arab-Israeli wars suggest that . . . the United States could lose thousands of troops in the process."

I agree that taking down Hussein would differ from taking down the Taliban. And no one favors "a casual march to war." This is serious business, to be treated seriously.

In fact, we took it seriously the last time such fear-mongering was heard from military analysts -- when we considered war against Iraq 11 years ago. Edward N. Luttwak cautioned on the eve of Desert Storm: "All those precision weapons and gadgets and gizmos and stealth fighters . . . are not going to make it possible to re-conquer Kuwait without many thousands of casualties." As it happened, our gizmos worked wonders. Luttwak's estimate of casualties was off by "many thousands," just as the current estimates are likely to be.

I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk. Let me give simple, responsible reasons: (1) It was a cakewalk last time; (2) they've become much weaker; (3) we've become much stronger; and (4) now we're playing for keeps.

Gordon and O'Hanlon mention today's "400,000 active-duty troops in the Iraqi military" and especially the "100,000 in Saddam's more reliable Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard," which "would probably fight hard against the United States -- just as they did a decade ago during Desert Storm." Somehow I missed that. I do remember a gaggle of Iraqi troops attempting to surrender to an Italian film crew. The bulk of the vaunted Republican Guard either hunkered down or was held back from battle.

Today Iraqi forces are much weaker. Saddam's army is one-third its size then, in both manpower and number of divisions. It still relies on obsolete Soviet tanks, which military analyst Eliot Cohen calls "death traps." The Iraqi air force, never much, is half its former size.

Iraqi forces have received scant spare parts and no weapons upgrades. They have undertaken little operational training since Desert Storm.

Meanwhile, American power is much fiercer. The advent of precision bombing and battlefield intelligence has dramatically spiked U.S. military prowess. The gizmos of Desert Storm were 90-plus percent dumb bombs. Against the Taliban, more than 80 percent were smart bombs. Unmanned Predators equipped with Hellfire missiles and Global Hawk intelligence gathering did not exist during the first Iraqi campaign.

In 1991 we engaged a grand international coalition because we lacked a domestic coalition. Virtually the entire Democratic leadership stood against that President Bush. The public, too, was divided. This President Bush does not need to amass rinky-dink nations as "coalition partners" to convince the Washington establishment that we're right. Americans of all parties now know we must wage a total war on terrorism.

Hussein constitutes the number one threat against American security and civilization. Unlike Osama bin Laden, he has billions of dollars in government funds, scores of government research labs working feverishly on weapons of mass destruction -- and just as deep a hatred of America and civilized free societies.

Once President Bush clearly announces that our objective is to rid Iraq of Hussein, and our unshakable determination to do whatever it takes to win, defections from the Iraqi army may come even faster than a decade ago.

Gordon and O'Hanlon say we must not "assume that Hussein will quickly fall." I think that's just what is likely to happen. How would it be accomplished? By knocking out all his headquarters, communications, air defenses and fixed military facilities through precision bombing. By establishing military "no-drive zones" wherever Iraqi forces try to move. By arming the Kurds in the north, Shiites in the south and his many opponents everywhere. By using U.S. special forces and some U.S. ground forces with protective gear against chemical and biological weapons. By stationing theater missile defenses, to guard against any Iraqi Scuds still in existence. And by announcing loudly that any Iraqi, of any rank, who handles Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, in any form, will be severely punished after the war.

Measured by any cost-benefit analysis, such an operation would constitute the greatest victory in America's war on terrorism.

The writer was assistant to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld from 1975 to 1977, and arms control director under President Ronald Reagan.

-------- israel / palestine

Arafat Pulls Gun on Security Chief

By KARIN LAUB
Associated Press Writer
FEBRUARY 13, 08:09 ET
http://wire.ap.org/?SLUG=PALESTINIANS%2dARAFAT

JERUSALEM (AP) - The Palestinian security chief in the West Bank pledged his loyalty to Yasser Arafat on Wednesday, a day after witnesses said the Palestinian leader pulled a gun on him during a heated argument.

Arafat was shaking at the time and the pistol fell from his hand, said a Palestinian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Arafat's aides declined comment on the incident.

The rift between Arafat and Jibril Rajoub, head of the Preventive Security Service in the West Bank, came at a time of growing disagreements in the Palestinian Authority over the scope of the crackdown Arafat has repeatedly promised against suspected Palestinian militants.

Arafat is under intense pressure from the United States and Israel to dismantle militias, including the Al Aqsa Brigades linked to his own Fatah movement, and to arrest suspected militants. But many Palestinians oppose such moves without concrete gains to show for more than a year of fighting.

Israel has said it will not permit Arafat to leave the West Bank town of Ramallah until he takes decisive action.

Arafat's Israeli-imposed isolation coincides with - some say is the cause of - growing lawlessness in the Palestinian areas, with militiamen increasingly defying orders by the Palestinian leader.

On Sunday, Arafat and members of the Fatah Revolutionary Council decided to dismantle the Al Aqsa Brigades militia, which has carried out many shooting attacks on Israelis in the past 16 months of fighting.

On Tuesday, Arafat met with Rajoub and confronted him with reports that the security chief had told associates he would not take actions against Fatah militiamen, said the Palestinian official. Nearly all of Rajoub's men are Fatah members, and Rajoub, while endorsing a crackdown on Islamic militants, has shied away from a confrontation with Fatah gunmen.

Arafat also blamed Rajoub for the escape of 17 Palestinian security prisoners, including Islamic militants, from a West Bank jail earlier in the week. The prisoners were freed by a crowd that stormed the lockup in the town of Hebron.

Arafat and Rajoub had a heated argument, with the Palestinian leader accusing Rajoub of defying his orders, the official said. At one point, Arafat pulled his pistol, but his hand was shaking and the weapon dropped to the floor, the Palestinian official said. Rajoub got up and left.

In a statement published Wednesday in the Palestinian daily Al Quds, Rajoub pledged loyalty to Arafat.

``Any differences with the symbol of national freedom (Arafat) and the Palestinian struggle, at a time when Israeli tanks are parked 70 meters (yards) from the presidential headquarters, are treason, and I can't be part of it,'' Rajoub wrote.

Rajoub is one of the most powerful Palestinians after Arafat, and is widely seen as a future kingmaker. He is also known to have maintained relatively good relations with Israeli security officials and he has mostly kept the men under his direct control out of the current rounding of fighting with the Israelis.

--------

Israel Raids Towns and Refugee Camp in Gaza Strip

February 13, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html

BEIT HANOUN, Gaza Strip (AP) -- Responding to rocket fire, Israeli troops and tanks swept through three Palestinian towns and the outskirts of a refugee camp Wednesday in the biggest operation in the Gaza Strip since violence broke out nearly 17 months ago. Five Palestinians, including a civilian, were killed in exchanges of fire that began before dawn.

Islamic militants said they will keep firing rockets at Israel, despite Israeli warnings that such attacks will trigger more large-scale operations.

In the West Bank, there were exchanges of fire after two Israeli tanks and several other vehicles entered the town of Jenin, Palestinians said. The Israeli military spokesman's office said it had no knowledge of an incursion in Jenin.

In a clash late Wednesday with Israeli soldiers near a Jewish settlement in Gaza, a Palestinian gunman was killed and three others escaped, Israel Radio reported. Israeli and Palestinian officials had no comment.

The moves came amid increasing tension within the Palestinian Authority and exasperation in Israel, whose persistent military efforts have failed to prevent the Palestinians from using an ever-expanding arsenal of weapons including the Qassam-2 rocket, which puts Israeli cities within range.

After nightfall, Israeli forces were pulling out of Beit Hanoun, a town in the northeast corner of the Gaza Strip. They left Beit Lahiya, a small part of the nearby Jebalya refugee camp and Dir al-Balah, a town in central Gaza, several hours after entering.

Israeli Cabinet Minister Ephraim Sneh said the operation would continue for several days, until rocket factories were found, and warned of more large-scale, long-term raids if rocket fire persists. ``This is a threat we cannot tolerate,'' he said.

Palestinians in Beit Hanoun described an unusual scene: Israeli tanks firing at rock-throwing Palestinian teen-agers near buildings draped with banners in Arabic and English that read, ``Better have pains of peace than agonies of war'' -- a quote from Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli prime minister who nine years ago signed Israel's first interim peace accord with the Palestinians.

``I believe in this quote,'' said a Palestinian gunman, his face covered with a red Arab headdress. ``I hope the soldiers in the tank will believe it, too,'' he said, brandishing an AK-47 assault rifle. He refused to give his name.

Three Palestinian policemen were killed when Israeli forces destroyed three police positions on the outskirts of Dir al-Balah, across from several Jewish settlements, Palestinian security officials said. The Israeli military said they had been trying to ambush Israeli soldiers.

In Beit Hanoun, a farming town of about 20,000, a Palestinian was shot and killed as he stood in his field, Palestinians said. Another Palestinian, who was armed, died in a gunfight, they said. The Israeli army had no comment.

On Sunday, Palestinians fired two Qassam-2 rockets from Gaza into Israel. The rockets, with an 11-pound warhead and a range of four to six miles, exploded in open fields and caused no damage.

A senior Israeli security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Palestinians also fired such a rocket at a West Bank settlement on Tuesday, but missed. On Monday, Israel said its soldiers intercepted a truck carrying eight Qassam-2 launchers near the West Bank city of Nablus.

The leader of the militant group Hamas, Mahmoud Zahar, said the Israeli incursion would not stop the rocket fire at Jewish settlements and Israel.

``Hamas does not differentiate between settlements in the Palestinian territories and cities in the so-called Israel,'' said Zahar, whose group has never accepted the existence of the Jewish state.

An aide to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Nabil Abu Rdeneh, blamed Israel for the upsurge in violence. ``The United States must put an end to this Israeli policy,'' he said.

The Israeli commander in Gaza, Brig. Gen. Israel Ziv, addressing reporters allowed into Beit Hanoun under army escort, said the incursion in Gaza was ``part of a new mode of operation whereby we will be in the field as we see fit.''

The Foreign Press Association, representing foreign correspondents, issued a statement protesting the army's ban on free access to the Gaza Strip on Wednesday. The army's ``sweeping closure went well beyond what is justifiable under these circumstances,' the statement said.

The use of new weaponry and the harsh Israeli responses added to existing tensions.

Israel has surrounded Arafat's West Bank headquarters with tanks and kept him a virtual prisoner there, demanding his security services crack down on Palestinians waging violence against Israel.

Palestinians say they cannot fulfill the Israeli demands to stop attacks by militants if the Israelis won't give their security forces freedom of movement.

Tensions within Palestinians ranks were exposed in recent days in a spat between Arafat and his West Bank security chief, Jibril Rajoub. Palestinians said that at a meeting Monday, Arafat accused Rajoub of insubordination and waved a pistol in his face, then dropped it because he was shaking. Arafat suffers from an ailment that causes tremors. On Wednesday, Rajoub pledged his loyalty to Arafat.

-------- nato

Sweden scraps "neutrality," opening to NATO seen

Wednesday February 13, 2:36 AM
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/020212/1/2h341.html

Historically neutral Sweden unveiled a new defense policy formally endorsing cooperation with other countries to counter future security threats, a shift that some experts said presaged Swedish membership in NATO.

The new policy, published by the Swedish Foreign Ministry, states that while Sweden "pursues a policy of non-participation in military alliances" it was now apparent that "threats to peace and our security can best be averted by acting concertedly and in cooperation with other countries."

"As a member of the European Union, we are part of a community based on solidarity, whose primary purpose is to prevent war on the European continent," the four-paragraph policy statement said.

Sweden, which has not fought a war since 1813 and remained neutral through the World Wars, has since the 1950s pursued a policy of "non-alliance during peacetime and neutrality in wartime."

The new policy line retains the non-alliance reference, but drops the reference to "neutrality in wartime" in favour of "cooperation with other countries" to avert threats to peace.

The result of an agreement finalized Monday between four political parties represented in parliament including the governing Social Democrats and the conservative Moderates, the new policy does not specify whether any future cooperation would be with NATO or with individual countries in ad hoc alliances.

However, Swedish officials have frequently stressed that Sweden's new security orientation should place civilian conflict-prevention activities above military operations of any kind.

Prime Minister Goeran Persson stressed Tuesday that NATO membership was not in Sweden's plans.

"The heart of our policy is military non-alliance. I see nothing in Sweden's development that indicates that we are going to join a military alliance," he told Swedish news agency TT.

"The heart of NATO's security policy is mutual defense guarantees, and we do not want to be a part of that so we should not be a part of the decision-making process," Persson said.

"But we do however want to cooperate with NATO countries and in those projects we want to have influence," he added.

He also said Sweden intended to "participate in international cooperation efforts with the EU and the UN."

Persson said Swedish security policy was designed to be applied "from case to case with the aim of keeping Sweden out of war."

Despite the non-alliance policy, Sweden is already associated institutionally with NATO through its "Partnership for Peace" (PFP) program and has in recent years dramatically stepped up participation in NATO-led operations including joint military maneuvers and peacekeeping missions.

In editorial commentary, Sweden's two top daily newspapers described the new policy as an historic shift for the Nordic kingdom.

"Rest in peace, Swedish neutrality policy," the conservative daily Svenska Dagbladet said. "Farewell to neutrality," the more liberal Dagens Nyheter wrote in an editorial headline.

Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, a staunch opponent of Swedish membership in the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), admitted that security concerns in Europe and therefore in Sweden were in a state of flux.

"It is unlikely that we would remain neutral if a neighbour or an EU state were to be attacked," Lindh was quoted as saying in Svenska Dagbladet.

"We may not always have the same security policy situation that we have today." The new policy, she added, was "a better description of our reality."

Bo Lundgren, leader of the Moderate Party which backs Swedish membership in NATO, said the new wording meant the door was now open for that to happen in the future.

"We are not committing ourselves to this solution or that solution ... But for us, NATO is a natural next step," he told the Swedish news agency TT.

The policy shift comes as Sweden's Baltic neighbors Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia continue to lobby for NATO membership, a development Washington says it supports, and amid steadily closer security ties between the alliance and its erstwhile arch-nemesis, Russia.

-------- russia / chechnya

Russian Supreme Court Strikes Down Military Secrecy Order

February 13, 2002
By MICHAEL WINES
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/13/international/europe/13MOSC.html

MOSCOW, Feb. 12 - Russia's Supreme Court handed civil-liberties advocates here a potentially crucial victory tonight, striking down a 1996 military secrecy order used to convict the journalist Grigory Pasko and other state gadflies of espionage and treason.

The court's military collegium, which hears cases involving the armed forces, ruled that Mr. Pasko could not be held liable for violating the 1996 order because it had never been published, as Russia's Constitution requires.

That strikes at the heart of a practice, common in Soviet times, of silencing dissidents and cowing ordinary citizens by jailing people for violating laws which they could not have known existed.

Mr. Pasko, a former Navy captain and military journalist, has been convicted of treason twice, in part because he violated the secret order by helping Japanese journalists document the Russian Navy's mishandling of nuclear waste.

His case has become both an international cause among human rights activists and, increasingly, an embarrassment to the Kremlin, which is trying with only partial success to mold itself in a European image.

The outcome of the case, an appeal of his most recent conviction, was especially striking because the government's own military prosecutor unexpectedly joined Mr. Pasko's lawyer in arguing to the justices today that the secrecy order should be nullified.

Mr. Pasko's lawyer, Ivan Pavlov, was ebullient after learning of the decision. "What happened was, we won," he told Reuters news service. He said he would ask that the case against Mr. Pasko be thrown out based on the decision.

But other supporters said that Mr. Pasko, who already has weathered 22 months of a four-year prison sentence, still faces at least one legal barrier before his release is assured.

He will confront the next one on Wednesday, when the Supreme Court considers whether to invalidate a second order, dating to the Soviet Union's last days in 1991, which bars servicemen from any unapproved contact with foreigners.

The Supreme Court decision tonight nullified the Russian Defense Ministry's order No. 55, issued in 1996, which classified as state secrets more than 600 items of military information.

The order is the centerpiece of what has, over time, become an ever- thinner set of charges against Mr. Pasko, 40, a former and correspondent for the Pacific Fleet newspaper Boyevaya Vakhta, or Battle Watch.

In that job, Mr. Pasko had become a crusading environmental journalist by the mid-1990's, and traded on that skill by working as a consultant for news organizations near his Pacific coast home base of Vladivostok.

He apparently came under government suspicion after NHK, Japan's largest television network and one of his employers, used his videotape in a report on the Russian Navy's practice of dumping old weapons and nuclear waste at sea.

The Federal Security Service, Russia's counterintelligence agency and the domestic successor to the K.G.B., arrested Mr. Pasko as he returned from a business trip to Japan in 1997.

Tonight the Federal Security Service, which prepared much of the case against Mr. Pasko, fired a volley in response to the ruling, telling state television that Mr. Pasko had come under suspicion because he regularly met with Japanese journalists after attending meetings of navy officials that dealt with classified issues

-------- spy agencies

CIA Often Calls Its Own Terror Shots

By Robert Burns
AP Military Writer
Wednesday, February 13, 2002; 8:40 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A7230-2002Feb13?language=printer

WASHINGTON -- The CIA, with a long history of secret involvement in Afghanistan, sometimes calls its own shots in the campaign to destroy Osama bin Laden's terror network.

The spy agency's role has entered the public spotlight since the CIA became part of the broader military campaign following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Before that the agency was keeping watch on bin Laden but didn't have the offensive air power or paramilitary troops it now uses in Afghanistan.

The Army four-star general who is the top war commander, Tommy Franks, has no authority to veto the Central Intelligence Agency's military operations, although he is consulted. Franks drew up the battle plan that began unfolding Oct. 7, but the CIA was there before the first U.S. military troops.

In fact the CIA, on presidential orders, had been on its own covert hunt for bin Laden in Afghanistan long before the Sept. 11 attacks. Director George Tenet says the agency has "been at war" with al-Qaida for more than five years.

Now the spy agency is not just helping the military search for terrorists, it's sharing in the killing.

Agency personnel are operating by remote control a drone aircraft, known as the Predator, armed with missiles - one of which targeted and killed three people suspected by the United States of being bin Laden operatives. Some Afghans say the Feb. 4 strike killed innocents, not terrorists.

That episode, yet to be fully clarified, brought to light an aspect of the campaign that had been little understood - that the CIA in some cases is waging its own war in Afghanistan. Pentagon officials acknowledge that the spy agency has authority to conduct its own operations there, although they stress that intelligence and military officials cooperate and consult regularly.

"The relationship between the Defense Department and the CIA today is as good as I've ever seen it," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld - who also was Pentagon chief in the mid-1970s - said Tuesday.

Rumsfeld said that when the CIA is operating in parts of Afghanistan where the U.S. military is not present, the agency "has the reporting relationship straight up through the CIA and we're not involved."

A senior official on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem, referred to instances in which the spy agency is "doing its thing" independently of U.S. military forces.

The CIA also has shared in the war's casualties. One of its officers, Johnny Micheal Spann, was killed Nov. 25 in a prisoner uprising at Mazar-e-Sharif where Spann had been interrogating prisoners.

Spann was the first U.S. battlefield death in Afghanistan; another CIA operative was wounded in an ambush Jan. 4 in which Army Sgt. Nathan Ross Chapman became the first soldier killed by hostile fire.

Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA official who specialized in counterterrorism, said the nature of the war explains why the CIA has taken a key role and not kept it entirely secret.

"There is no need to hide CIA's role," he said, unlike in previous conflicts such as the covert support for Contra rebels in Nicaragua, where the Reagan administration sought to hide U.S. involvement.

The CIA has done much more in Afghanistan than operate Predators in search of bin Laden. On the ground, its officers have functioned much like the Army's Green Berets, working with local tribal leaders and anti-Taliban commanders to collect intelligence, supply weapons and provide training.

These CIA operatives led the effort to organize anti-Taliban forces in southern Afghanistan while the Green Berets were taking the lead in the north.

Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the CIA's long experience in Afghanistan - dating to its assistance to anti-communist forces fighting Soviet occupiers in the 1980s - was a key to developing a military plan of action that worked faster than many had expected.

"It's not without significance that the first Americans on the ground in Afghanistan were CIA agents," Graham said recently.

Throughout its half-century history the CIA has kept a hand in military operations, but usually has kept it secret. Although the agency itself has not spoken publicly about the specifics of its efforts in Afghanistan, others have.

"They've been doing it for weeks and weeks and weeks now, and they've got a darn good record," Rumsfeld told reporters in describing CIA's use of the armed Predator in pursuit of bin Laden's al-Qaida operatives.

Elsewhere in the world, the CIA is beginning to quietly arm and train counterterrorist teams and intelligence services of U.S. allies in the war on terrorism.

U.S. intelligence officers have also made contact with tribal leaders - potential allies - in Somalia, where some al-Qaida operatives have arrived after fleeing Afghanistan.

Associated Press Writer John J. Lumpkin contributed to this story.

-------- sudan

Sudanese envoy talks of peace

By John Sheridan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 13, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020213-14786640.htm

Sudan's top diplomat says that after nearly two decades of civil war and millions of casualties, the military government is ready to share power and its newfound oil wealth with the southern rebels if the recently signed peace agreement holds.

Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail, in Washington last week for the National Prayer Breakfast, told The Washington Times that the Nuba Mountain peace agreement, negotiated last month by a U.S. special envoy and Switzerland, has put an end to violence in the region.

John Danforth, a former Republican senator from Missouri, was named by President Bush to seek a truce between the Islamic fundamentalist regime and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA).

"The effort by the United States through Senator Danforth achieved something," Mr. Ismail said. "We want Senator Danforth to continue to achieve a cease-fire and political settlement to this problem."

Since 1983, an estimated 2 million people have been killed and 4 million displaced by civil war in Sudan.

Mr. Ismail said the peace agreement indicates the National Congress Party, led by Gen. Omar Hassan Bashir, who seized power in a 1989 military coup, is on track to improve its civil rights record. However, a Human Rights Watch report last year found "torture and impunity remained a government policy."

"This year is better than last year, last year is better than the year before and next year definitely is going to better," Mr. Ismail said.

He said the December trial of an 18-year-old pregnant woman sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery, conducted in Arabic, a language she does not speak, was the result of a lower court ruling. He said the decision was subsequently overturned by an appeals court decision, confirmed by a Reuters report on Monday.

The success of the six-month cease-fire could hinge on the distribution of oil found in the contested southern region. A 940-mile pipeline funneling the oil to the north was completed in 1999, marking the first time oil was produced in the country. Today, Sudan produces more than 220,000 barrels a day.

But the wealth has yet to spread to people in the south. Mr. Ismail said the country will share the resources with the south once there is sustained peace. However, not all observers are convinced the leadership is sincere.

"There has been no demonstration this regime is serious about the peace process," said Jim Philips, a Heritage Foundation researcher.

"It could just be buying time to crush the southern forces," he said and noted that the country's military spending has doubled since the pipeline was completed.

Mr. Ismail defended the spending, saying the government must defend itself against the SPLA, which he said is not yet ready for peace.

He said the "warlords" use money provided by humanitarian relief agencies for arms and supplies.

[The U.N. World Food Program said yesterday two children were killed by bombs dropped by a government plane near a spot where it was handing out food. The agency said the incident occurred Monday in the town of Akuem in the southern province of Bahr El Ghazal, where government troops are battling rebel forces, Reuters reported.

["The WFP condemns firmly these bombings," the agency said in a statement. "It is the responsibility of the government to ensure that food aid can be distributed in complete safety to the people who need it to survive."]

Mr. Ismail blamed the former U.S. administration of President Clinton for the prolonged civil war in Sudan.


-------- POLICE / PRISONERS

Rights Groups Oppose ID Card
State Agencies Want More Secure Driver's Licenses

By Robert O'Harrow Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 13, 2002; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1526-2002Feb12?language=printer

Civil-liberties and consumer groups are urging President Bush to oppose efforts to create a national identification system, saying that it would intrude on privacy.

The American Civil Liberties Union, the Free Congress Foundation and more than three dozen other liberal and conservative groups took particular aim at a proposal by state motor-vehicle officials to link the driver databases of individual states. The states also want cards that verify a person's identification through a fingerprint or other unique identifier.

The American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators has said it needs as much as $100 million from the federal government to implement its plans, which include standardizing licensing procedures, improving authentication of drivers and more closely scrutinizing applications from foreigners.

The association said it is not seeking a national ID card, only a more secure driver-licensing system to help stop identity fraud and terrorism and to promote public safety. On Monday, they met with lawmakers about possible funding.

"We are trying to strengthen this nation's driver license and state-issued ID-card system," said Linda Lewis, the association's president and chief executive. "This is not about a national ID system."

But in the letter to Bush, civil-liberties and privacy groups said the association's plan "would establish a national ID and an unparalleled system of personal information sharing."

"The administration should not take any steps to implement such a system or fund any proposals that would result in a national ID, including the study or development of standardized state drivers' licenses," said the letter, delivered on Monday.

Calls for a national ID system emerged soon after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. At least 11 hijackers used false identities or obtained driver's licenses fraudulently.

Although Bush has said he didn't think a national ID system was necessary, some government officials have begun studying technical standards for such a system.

Motor-vehicle administrators said it could improve security by linking state databases and adopting uniform standards for cards and by taking other measures to improve the security of state identification systems.

Lewis said one of the first goals will be to "shore up the initial application process" to prevent frauds and to keep potential terrorists from getting legitimate IDs through deception. The group will seek restrictions on the data that could be collected from the IDs, she said.

In their letter, critics questioned whether such an initiative could prevent terrorism. "Terrorists and criminals will continue to be able to obtain -- by legal and illegal means -- the documents needed to get a government ID," the letter said.

They also said that a single ID system could make it easier for identity thieves and private companies to obtain information. It would also expose individuals to abuses by law enforcement authorities, tax collectors and other government agencies.

"It facilitates information sharing and tracking by the government and private entities," said Chris Hoofnagle, legislative counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, one of the groups that signed the letter.

----

Thousands Evacuated From LA Terminal

Wed Feb 13, 2002
AP
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&u=/ap/20020213/ap_on_re_us/airport_evacuation_2

LOS ANGELES - Three Los Angeles International Airport terminal buildings were evacuated Wednesday after a mysterious package was found in a planter.

The package was found on the second floor of the Tom Bradley International Terminal, airport spokesman Gaby Pacheco said.

Buildings on either side of the international terminals were also evacuated, including one used by American Airlines and another shared by several carriers.

Television news helicopters showed hundreds of travelers leaving the terminals as police cars and the bomb squad surrounded the buildings.

The evacuations come a day after the FBI (news - web sites)'s most recent warning about possible terrorist activity in the United States.

The agency issued warned of a possible attack "on or around" Tuesday, based on an unusually detailed warning on information from interviews by U.S. officials with detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan (news - web sites).

Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites) urged Americans to adopt "the highest state of alert" in the search for 17 men possibly linked to Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s terrorist network and believed to have planned an attack against the United States or its people in Yemen.

The airport remained open with arrivals and departures continuing during the emergency. No flights were diverted, officials said.

"We certainly want to err on the side of caution," police Lt. Horace Frank said.

Frank said evacuees were moved to other parts of the airport that remained opened.

The international terminal was evacuated on Dec. 25 after someone reported finding a "suspicious package" that turned out to be wrapped Christmas presents.

---

Men in Truck Arrested Near Pentagon

Wed Feb 13, 2002
By LAURIE KELLMAN,
Associated Press Writer
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&u=/ap/20020213/ap_on_re_us/attacks_truck_stopped_2

WASHINGTON - Two men in a tow truck carrying fake identification were arrested near the Pentagon (news - web sites) after ignoring signs that prohibit commercial vehicles on that road, law enforcement officials said.

One of the men, Imad Hamed, was to appear in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., Wednesday on a charge of document identification fraud, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

The other man detained after the incident Monday night is in the custody of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

The men also had been charged with state traffic violations, said Virginia State Police spokeswoman Lucy Caldwell.

It was not immediately clear whether the men resembled those named Monday by the FBI (news - web sites) as possible conspirators in a terrorist attack to be carried out this week, she said. A Justice Department (news - web sites) official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a check of immigration records indicates that none of the 18 men named Monday had ever been in the United States.

"Their motivations are still unclear," Caldwell said Wednesday morning, referring to those arrested near the Pentagon.

The men were carrying a number of fake identification papers, Caldwell said. The state filed traffic charges, which included possession of a suspended driver's license and possession of a fictitious license, Caldwell said.

Federal officials were releasing little information Wednesday. Spokesmen for the Department of Justice (news - web sites) and the FBI did not return calls for comment. The INS is trying to determine whether immigration rules had been violated.

Traveling south on Route 110 Monday night, the tow truck drove past signs erected in November that prohibit commercial vehicles on the road, which passes within a few dozen yards of the Pentagon, Caldwell said.

Alerted to the truck by officers stationed along the road, a second team stopped the truck, a few hours after the FBI issued its warning about a possible terrorist threat.

The officers questioned the driver and passenger and found "several false government documents" inside, Caldwell said. The truck bore the name of a Virginia company and carried Maryland tags, she added, but declined to name the company.

The state police then alerted the FBI, which brought dogs in to search for explosives and weapons.

None was found, she said.

Just four hours before the arrests, the FBI issued a terrorist alert asking law enforcement and the American public to be on the lookout for a Yemeni man and several associates who might be plotting a terrorist attack as early as Tuesday.

The agency scrambled to put the warning out after information emerged that one or more people were involved. Officials said the intelligence, while deemed credible, was not specific about possible targets.

---

State Dept. presses for more info sharing

By Eli J. Lake
UPI State Department Correspondent
2/13/2002
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=13022002-073329-4132r

WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 (UPI) -- The State Department has suggested a number of steps for the newly created Office of Homeland Security to manage the government's internal flow of information regarding terrorist threats to American citizens abroad.

In the aftermath of Monday's FBI announcement of a pending terror attack on American targets at home and in Yemen, the State Department urged the Justice Department to better coordinate dissemination of threats against Americans at a meeting at the White House on Tuesday.

"We have been working with the Office of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice to try to improve the process and system by which these post-9-11 warnings have been issued," a State Department official told United Press International on Wednesday. "We have provided those other agencies extensive background -- both written and orally -- on how we go about assessing threats overseas and have emphasized to them that the State Department has primary responsibility for the well-being of Americans outside of the United States." This official added, "They need to coordinate with us in a way that they have not done to date."

An FBI official in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Monday evening sent a fax message informing the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa, Yemen, that American law enforcement agencies were on the lookout for Fawaz Yahya Al-Rabeei, 23, a Yemini man born in Saudi Arabia, who the bureau said may be involved in a potential attack on either American assets in Yemen or in the United States.

But UPI learned on Tuesday that the FBI did not clear the new information through an interagency group that normally handles the assessment and dissemination of credible terror threats on Americans.

This procedure requires U.S. intelligence agencies to cable diplomatic security at the State Department, who then make an assessment whether the information is credible, counterable and specific enough for U.S. embassies to warn Americans in their host countries. On Monday no such cable was sent.

U.S. officials on Wednesday told UPI that the U.S. Embassy in Yemen did conduct an "emergency action committee" meeting to discuss the latest threat. One U.S. official familiar with the information on the threat told UPI that it differed from many threats against Americans in Yemen because it was verified by two different sources of information. Nonetheless, the embassy did not send out a warning to Americans in their host country until later that afternoon, despite the fact that the FBI warned that the attack would occur on Feb. 12.

This is not the first time the Justice Department has failed to coordinate with the State Department on counter-terrorism concerns. A questionnaire released on Jan. 20 to determine whether male applicants ages 16 to 45 for temporary visas from nearly 20 predominantly Muslim countries was written almost entirely by the Justice Department, despite the fact that U.S. embassies oversee the dispersal of visas abroad.


-------- OTHER

-------- energy

Senate Panel OK's Energy Incentives

By Curt Anderson
AP Tax Writer
Wednesday, February 13, 2002; 7:15 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A6830-2002Feb13?language=printer

WASHINGTON -- Legislation providing more than $14 billion in tax incentives for energy conservation and production was approved Wednesday by a Senate committee, which added new breaks for energy-efficient household renovations and home appliances.

The bill, which cleared the Senate Finance Committee on a voice vote, includes several of President Bush's proposals for tax breaks to encourage energy conservation and efficiency. The bill is less generous for traditional oil, gas and electricity production than a $33.5 billion tax package passed last year by the House.

"We should strike a balance between conservation and production. We've tried to strike a balance for about 50-50," said committee chairman Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont.

The measure, to become part of broader energy legislation on the Senate floor, would provide $14.6 billion in tax incentives over 10 years. Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said unspecified offsets would be found to meet the bill's costs, but they would not involve delaying or repealing any of last year's big tax cut.

Under the bill, the oil and gas industry would get $3.2 billion in production tax incentives, while utilities could qualify for almost $2 billion in credits for use of clean coal technology. Utilities could also get more than $1 billion to meet the costs of taking nuclear plants offline.

More than $1.9 billion would go for a variety of energy conservation and efficiency tax credits, including up to $1,000 for people who buy hybrid cars that run on gas and electricity and up to $2,000 for homeowners who install solar water heaters and other equipment.

To that list, the Finance Committee added nearly $500 million for a credit of up to $300 for people who do energy-efficient home improvements, such as insulation or doors and windows. And the panel included tax credits of up to $250 per unit for homeowners who install such things as electric heat pumps and air conditioners certified as efficient.

Another $3.2 billion would go to extend until 2007 a credit for production of electricity from wind, plant matter and chicken waste - and expand it to cover hog and cattle waste, as well as a range of other agricultural and forestry byproducts.

Beyond the cost offsets for the tax provisions, the broader energy measure faces controversial Senate floor votes such as whether to permit drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and what level to set for future vehicle fuel economy standards.

On the Net: Joint Committee on Taxation: http://www.house.gov/jct

----

White House ordered to save energy records

Around the Nation
February 13, 2002
Combined dispatches and staff Reports
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020213-94494751.htm

A federal judge ordered the White House yesterday to save records from energy task force meetings and warned the Bush administration it must take seriously a private group's lawsuit seeking the records.

President Bush has refused to turn over records of meetings with Enron executives and others who advised the administration on energy policy last year.

Congress' investigative arm, the General Accounting Office, is expected to sue soon for the records' release. Yesterday's hearing, presided over by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, involved a lawsuit filed by the private group Judicial Watch.

----

White House Is Told to Save Energy Task Force Documents

By Neely Tucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 13, 2002; Page A08
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A875-2002Feb12?language=printer

A federal judge yesterday ordered the Bush administration not to destroy documents that detail whom Vice President Cheney and his advisers met with last year while formulating a new energy policy, giving the clearest indication yet that the administration's fight to keep records of the meetings secret will face sharp legal challenges.

President Bush and Cheney have refused to disclose the substance and detail of meetings they had with Enron Corp. officials and other energy executives last year, despite two "demand letters" from the General Accounting Office and three lawsuits by public interest groups.

While the GAO is preparing a fourth lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan conducted the first hearing in a case filed last May by Judicial Watch, a public interest law firm that is seeking the minutes, membership and records of decisions reached after meetings of Cheney's National Energy Policy Development Group.

Justice Department lawyers had sought to have the case dismissed but were instead castigated by Sullivan for filing incomplete motions and for taking the case lightly.

"I don't think the government is taking this case seriously," Sullivan told Justice Department lawyer Anne L. Weismann at one point. "You say there's no factual dispute in this case just because you say there's no dispute. . . . That's an incredible statement."

Sullivan asked if the administration still had records of the meetings. When Weismann said yes, the judge said, "Then I'm now directing the government to maintain those records."

Weismann apologized repeatedly, eventually persuading Sullivan to give the agency until April 9 to better explain the administration's legal position.

"[We] intended to show that discovery wasn't necessary, and obviously that wasn't successful. . . . I can only apologize for incomplete lawyering on our part," Weismann said.

A spokeswoman for Cheney, however, adamantly defended the government's stance. "As the government made clear, Judicial Watch has no case," said Jennifer Millerwise.

The skeptical reception for the administration's claims emboldened lawmakers who have been seeking access to records of the energy task force. The GAO has advised congressional leaders of plans to file a lawsuit against the administration, probably in the next couple of weeks.

"The administration won't be able to spin its way through federal court," said Phil Schiliro, chief of staff to Rep. Henry A. Waxman (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee. "No privilege exists that would allow them to keep secret the names of the campaign contributors and lobbyists who met with the task force."

Judicial Watch and two environmental groups -- the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council -- initially filed suits because they were concerned about the undocumented role of energy companies in the formation of the administration's policy, eventually unveiled by Bush on May 17. The suits gained momentum after Enron's bankruptcy filing in December.

The White House told Congress last month that Cheney or his aides met with Enron officials six times in 2001, including a half-hour meeting with then-Enron Chairman Kenneth L. Lay on April 17.

The content of those meetings should be made public, said Judicial Watch Chairman Larry Klayman, urging Sullivan not to let the administration "stonewall and delay" requests for details.

The National Energy Policy Development Group was composed of Cheney and the secretaries of the treasury, interior, agriculture, commerce, transportation and energy, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, along with aides and other administration officials. But the group also met with dozens of executives in the energy industry, along with union leaders, academics and other experts. It was created by presidential order on Jan. 29 and disbanded on Sept. 30.

The administration has balked at providing the names of non-government participants in those meetings, as well as the substantive details of what was discussed.

Weismann, the Justice Department attorney, said yesterday that the Federal Advisory Committee Act, the 1972 law on which Judicial Watch is basing its lawsuit, does not apply to the policy group because of those protections.

Staff writer Dana Milbank contributed to this report.

-------- environment

More than $2 billion given in EPA grants to nonprofits, often without competitive bidding

Wednesday, February 13, 2002
By Larry Margasak,
Associated Press
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/02/02132002/ap_46380.asp

WASHINGTON - The Environmental Protection Agency has given more than $2 billion to nonprofit groups since 1993, often without competitive bidding, an Associated Press computer analysis found. The agency's internal watchdog says some groups may have received favored treatment.

The grants went to a wide variety of groups, including environmental lobbies that sue the agency and senior citizen centers that function like temporary worker agencies.

Among the grants listed in agency documents as awarded to nonprofits:

· A $1,500 grant to help a university group create a "solid waste board game" titled the Can Man Game.

· More than $47,000 to help the Seattle Mariners professional baseball team, which had an $80 million payroll last year, develop a recycling program at its new stadium.

· $150,000 to research the "role of lighting in human performance and productivity."

· More than $300,000 over eight years for a "golf and the environment" project to encourage golf courses that rely on pesticides and fertilizers to be more environmentally friendly.

· Nearly $100,000 to study how to reduce methane gas emissions from livestock in the Ukraine. That was part of millions of dollars in grants that benefitted countries outside the United States.

The AP analysis of EPA grants and grant extensions to nonprofits found that six of the top 10 recipients between 1993 and 2001 weren't environmental groups or researchers but rather seniors groups that received tens of millions of dollars to hire older Americans as temporary workers for environmental projects. About 1,800 seniors are currently employed under the program.

The AARP Foundation topped the list with $98.5 million, followed by the National Older Worker Career Center at $90.6 million, the National Senior Citizens Education and Research Center ($74 million), the National Caucus and Center on Black Aged ($72 million), and the National Association of Hispanic Elderly ($43.9 million). The grants, created by Congress, cover the workers' pay and benefits as well as the groups' costs for arranging the employment.

Larry Anderson ran the seniors program for AARP until the senior lobby dropped out, and he now works for the Career Center. He said workers 55 and older were recruited for EPA jobs ranging from clerk to scientist, but few earned more than $30,000 a year. "This allows the EPA to get experienced people while educating their managers on the value of younger people and older people working together," Anderson said.

Many of EPA's grants have been awarded without competition and left to the discretion of agency employees, the agency's internal watchdog has found.

In a scathing report last May, the inspector general said the EPA was unable to justify its award of more than $1 billion in noncompetitive grants in the 2000 fiscal year alone. The figure included awards to nonprofits plus grants to state and local governments. There were "implications of preferential treatment in the selection of grantees," the report said.

It said EPA officials justified no-bid grants by calling recipients "uniquely qualified." The designation was "based solely on the project officers' beliefs, without any documented proof that no other organizations were able to perform the desired work," the report concluded.

Howard Corcoran, director of the EPA's grants office, said changes are being made to increase competitive bidding beginning Oct. 1. "The agency has become much more sensitive since (the report) of the need for competition in grants," he said.

Corcoran added, however, that some projects with titles that sound trivial to some people in fact are important to protecting the environment. "I understand pesticides in golf courses are a big problem," Corcoran said, addressing the agency's more than $300,000 in awards for the golf course research.

Some in Congress have become concerned at the growth of grants to nonprofit groups that also lobby federal officials, engage in politics, or file lawsuits against the government. The number of EPA grants to nonprofits more than doubled from $167.8 million in the first year of the Clinton administration in 1993 to nearly $350 million in 2001, George W. Bush's first year, the AP analysis found.

"We've learned that a very small fraction of these grants are ever audited," said Mark Levin, president of the Landmark Legal Foundation, a conservative law firm. "Most of them are awarded without competition and with virtually no public notice." Levin's group sued to obtain the grant records from EPA and provided them to AP for its computer analysis. Landmark is pursuing litigation at other agencies seeking similar grant records.

The General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, said in a report last year that one problem with EPA grants is that nonprofit groups have been "spending funds for unallowable activities such as lobbying." Despite these concerns, the GAO noted, EPA hardly ever audited nonprofits that got grants.

Levin said his group also is concerned that nonprofit recipients could be using grant money to help pay for lawsuits against the government. The AP review identified several EPA grants that went to organizations that had filed environmental lawsuits against the government.

For instance, the National Association of Homebuilders, whose research arm received $2 million in grants, sued to eliminate a rule barring developers from excavating in swamps, bogs, and marshes without approval. And the Natural Resources Defense Council, which received $4.9 million in grants, filed lawsuits over arsenic standards for water and pesticide regulations.

Elliott Negin, spokesman for the council, said the grant money cannot be used to sue the agency. "EPA grants are for very discrete projects, and you have to identify ahead of time what you're planning to do. We have to submit a report on a periodic basis, and they reimburse us for what we spent. We have to verify what we've done," Negin said.

Groups that receive EPA money say the grants spur important research and conservation.

Brian Kealy, director of Bat Conservation International of Austin, Texas, said his $30,000 project produced literature on places where bats are endangered and forged an alliance of researchers and industry representatives from the United States, Canada, and Mexico to preserve bats.

The North American Development Bank, the top nonprofit recipient with at least $125 million in grants, is helping to build water and sewer facilities along the U.S.-Mexico border.

And Seattle's new $500 million Safeco Field is now something more than a baseball park where a team won a record number of games last season. "We can now recycle cardboard, plastic, etc., right there," said Bill Anderson, who was involved with the EPA-funded recycling project.

-------- health

AIDS Fund Falls Short of Goal and U.S. Is Given Some Blame

New York Times
February 13, 2002
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/13/health/13AIDS.html

WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 - Nine months after Secretary General Kofi Annan called on wealthy nations to contribute at least $7 billion a year to a global fund to fight AIDS, donations have fallen far short of that goal. Advocates and some lawmakers blame the White House, saying its pledge of $200 million this year sets a poor example for other countries.

The Bush administration's commitment "just does not come close to meeting the need," said Senator Richard Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, who introduced legislation today that would authorize an annual commitment of $1.2 billion. "It is a totally inadequate response to a problem that could literally overwhelm the world."

The fund, proposed with much fanfare by Mr. Annan last spring, has collected $2 billion in pledges, but less than half that will be available this year, officials say. All told, the United States has pledged $500 million - $100 million in 2001, $200 million this year and the same amount for 2003.

United Nations officials, including Dr. Peter Piot, executive director of Unaids, say they would like nations to increase their pledges by 50 percent each year. One official noted that the United States would contribute more this year to rebuilding Afghanistan than to the global fund.

"The tremendous disappointment, although no one will say it publicly, is the United States, and that the $200 million per year is really not setting the example that is required," the official said. "In everyone's mind, there is the juxtaposition with Afghanistan."

A White House spokesman today defended the administration's pledge. "The United States is a global leader in the fight against AIDS," said the spokesman, Scott McClellan. He noted that the United States had committed more money to the fund than any other government.

On Wednesday, Mr. Annan will be in Washington, where he is scheduled to meet privately with members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to talk about the fund's progress. While Mr. Annan's speechwriter, Edward Mortimer, said the secretary general was "not going to Washington to beat up on the administration," he is nonetheless expected to make the case for more money.

Prior to the meeting, several top administration officials, including Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, will testify before the committee, whose members say they intend to raise the issue.

"What I'm going to say, as subtly and politely as possible, is: half a billion bucks? Does that do it here?" said Senator Joseph Biden, Democrat of Delaware and the chairman of the committee.

Another Democrat on the committee, Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, described the Bush administration's pledge as "in the de minimus range." He said that he and Senator Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee, were working on bipartisan legislation that would authorize more money, but he would not say how much.

At a time when the United States is focused on terrorism, Mr. Biden hopes to use the hearing on Wednesday to draw attention to AIDS as a security concern. If the epidemic is not turned around, he said, "We will have much more than a health problem, we will have a security problem," because unstable countries "are susceptible to the future bin Ladens of the world."

An expert panel convened by the World Health Organization drew much the same conclusion in a report issued in December. But with more than two million people dying of AIDS each year in Africa alone, the panel's chairman, Prof. Jeffrey D. Sachs of Harvard University, said the most compelling reason to fight AIDS was the humanitarian one.

"What every study, including our own, has shown is that this fund needs in the neighborhood of what Kofi Annan originally said," Dr. Sachs said, referring to the secretary general's plea for $7 billion to $10 billion a year. "We will have millions of people dying if we fail to look at the real need."

The global fund, which operates out of Geneva as an independent nongovernmental organization, is intended to help poor nations pay for prevention and treatment of AIDS and two other public health scourges, tuberculosis and malaria. Anders Nordstrom, who serves as the fund's interim executive director, said the fund is currently soliciting grant applications and hopes to make its first awards in April, after its board meets in New York.

Dr. Nordstrom said he hoped pledges would increase, both from industrialized nations and the private sector, once the fund demonstrated that it could do good work. But advocates for people with AIDS worry that if governments do not commit enough money to the fund soon, it will be unable to demonstrate that it is making a difference.

"We're saying, let's get the $10 billion now," said Dr. Paul Zeitz, founder of the Global AIDS Alliance, an advocacy group. "The virus is outpacing the response."

-------- human rights

U.S. Rights Groups Issues 'Secret' Chinese Documents

By REUTERS
February 13, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-religion-china.html

BEIJING (Reuters) - A U.S. religious rights group has published what it says are top secret Chinese government documents detailing a crackdown on illegal religious groups including the underground Christian church and Falun Gong.

The seven documents describe tactics used by security forces against such groups including interrogation, surveillance and infiltration by secret agents, said a statement on www.freedomhouse.org, the Web site of the Washington-based human rights group Freedom House.

If genuine, the papers illustrate in rare detail the Chinese leadership's determination to crush all religious activity outside state-sanctioned bodies following persistent protests by members of the banned spiritual movement Falun Gong.

They also throw the spotlight again on religious freedom in China a week before a visit by President Bush.

Only four days ago, Beijing released a man sentenced to two years in jail for smuggling bibles to a banned Christian group.

``These documents provide irrefutable evidence that China remains determined to eradicate all religion it cannot control, using extreme tactics,'' the statement quoted Nina Shea, director of Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom, as saying.

``President Bush, who has repeatedly voiced concern for religious repression in China, must speak out forcefully and publicly in support of religious freedom during his state visit to China next week.''

The Chinese constitution enshrines freedom of religious belief but in practice the Communist Party restricts all worship to state-controlled religious bodies, whose leaders it appoints.

SYSTEMATIC CRACKDOWN

The documents, available on the Web site, described a systematic campaign against a variety of unofficial religious groups, including underground Catholics and Protestants and 14 groups labeled as ``evil cults.''

One of the most revealing papers is a transcript of a speech by Sun Jianxin, vice director of public security in the eastern province of Anhui, in which he warns that foreign powers have infiltrated many of these groups.

``Hostile organizations both in our country and abroad have shifted their focus to the inside of our country and have hastened their infiltration through various methods, such as via foundations or academic delegations, and all kinds of media,'' he said.

He called for a fierce crackdown on Falun Gong -- banned in 1999 after members shocked the leadership by protesting outside their compound to demand official recognition of their faith.

``Find out the details about them and tighten control on them,'' Sun said. ``Make sure to keep them to their local areas and prevent them from connecting and gathering, or going to Beijing to stir up trouble. Put them in classes by force and use forceful measures if necessary.''

DESTABILISING THE NATION

Sun accused the Vatican, whose authority is not recognized by the official Chinese catholic church, of plotting to destabilize the country.

``The Vatican is still waiting for any opportunity to intervene in the internal affairs of Catholic churches in our country,'' he said. ``They will draw the patriotic religious believers up to them and incite them to rebel.''

Even during recent talks between Beijing and the Vatican on opening diplomatic ties, his security forces ``began to search, educate, convert, reconnoiter and control some key members of the underground Catholics,'' he said.

He urged his forces to use secret agents to infiltrate Falun Gong, underground Catholic groups, businesses, people with ``complicated political backgrounds'' and universities.

``Secret forces are the heart and soul in covert struggles and the crucial magic weapon in our battle against and victory over the enemy,'' he said.

REAL GOD RIVALS FALUN GONG

Another document focused on a group called the Real God church, which it said rivaled Falun Gong in its reach and the threat it posed.

The group had also recruited members from the ``inner circles'' of the Communist Party, it said.

The documents, said to be classified speeches and memos issued between April 1999 and October 2001, were provided by the New York-based Committee for Investigation on Persecution of Religion in China, Freedom House said.

Neither organization was available for comment and there was no immediate reaction from the Chinese government.

---

China Deepens Assault on Faith
Documents Confirm Resolve to Expand Crackdown

By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, February 13, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1607-2002Feb12?language=printer

BEIJING, Feb. 12 -- A religious rights group in the United States has published a set of internal Chinese government documents describing in remarkable detail the suppression of unauthorized religious groups, including efforts to crush underground Catholic churches, use of secret agents to infiltrate illegal Protestant congregations and orders for "forceful measures" against the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement.

The eight documents, which include classified speeches and memos by security officials, were smuggled out of the country by Chinese Christians working with sympathetic local police officers and a former Chinese intelligence official, according to the group that released them, the Committee for Investigation on Persecution of Religion in China, which is based in New York.

The documents confirm the ruling Communist Party's determination to expand its crackdown on Falun Gong into a nationwide campaign against a wide range of unauthorized spiritual organizations, and they offer a rare glimpse into the workings of the vast, secretive security apparatus assigned to carry out the assault.

Robin Munro, a China specialist at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London who examined the documents, said they appeared to be authentic and could be among the most significant internal documents on religious persecution in China seen in the West.

"I've never seen anything like it in such quantity," he said. "These documents are from all around the country, all consistent, all quite draconian, and all expressing implacable hostility toward these groups and determination to eradicate them. The party sees these groups as a mortal threat, and it's really going into overdrive now."

The papers were published this week as part of a 141-page report outlining the results of an unusually extensive study on Christians in China. The committee said it identified more than 23,000 people arrested since 1983 for unauthorized religious activity and collected statements from 5,000 victims of torture and persecution in 22 provinces and 200 cities.

There was no immediate reaction from the Chinese government, which was closed for the week-long Spring Festival holiday. China allows religious activity, including Christianity, but only within the framework of state-authorized churches. Catholics attend Mass freely in the Beijing cathedral, for instance, but the officially sanctioned church takes orders from the government, not the Vatican. The report's release comes slightly more than a week before President Bush is scheduled to make his first state visit to Beijing. The Chinese government may be considering concessions on human rights to ensure the visit goes smoothly. A Hong Kong businessman imprisoned for smuggling Bibles into the country was released last weekend, for example, after Bush expressed concern about his case.

"We want to use this momentum to push further for religious freedom for the Chinese people," said Bob Fu, the committee's executive director and a former underground pastor in Beijing. He said the documents prove that the Chinese government is engaging in "dangerous double talk" by hinting at softer policies while issuing secret orders to crush illegal religious groups.

Li Shixiong, president of the committee, said half the documents were passed to him by Chinese Christians who obtained them from sympathetic provincial police officials. He said he received the others from a former Ministry of State Security official, who also used Christians to carry them out of the country and who has since gone into hiding. The documents describe the government's campaign against a wide range of churches, sects and cults flourishing across China, and they focus particularly on those with ties overseas.

"Hostile organizations both in our country and abroad have shifted their focus to the inside of our country and have hastened their infiltration through various methods, such as via foundations or academic delegations, and all kinds of media," warned Sun Jianxin, vice director of public security in Anhui province, in the longest of the documents. "Hostile Western powers headed by the U.S. have hastened to carry out their strategies of Westernizing, splitting and weakening our country."

He warned that the Vatican "is still waiting for any opportunity to intervene in the internal affairs of Catholic churches in our country," then said that even as Beijing and the Vatican were discussing diplomatic relations, his security forces "began to search, educate, convert, reconnoiter and control some key members of the underground Catholics."

He also urged an intense, methodical crackdown on members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement. "Find out the details about them and tighten control on them. Make sure to keep them to their local areas and prevent them from connecting and gathering, or going to Beijing to stir up trouble. Put them in classes by force and use forceful measures if necessary."

The government has declared Falun Gong "an evil cult." Its adherents, who practice a mix of spiritual exercises, say that more than 1,600 fellow believers have died as the result of police abuse in a three-year-old suppression campaign. Officials have attributed most of the deaths to suicide or refusal to accept medical care.

Several documents describe efforts to infiltrate religious groups using secret agents, as well as members who are "forced upon secret arrest to work for us." One refers to an order to establish "mobile reconnaissance teams" throughout the country to conduct electronic surveillance of suspects.

"Secret forces are the heart and soul in covert struggles and the crucial magic weapon in our battle against and victory over the enemy," it says, urging security agents to focus on Falun Gong members, underground Catholics and private businessmen with complicated political backgrounds, as well as university professors and students.

Another document suggests that China's most senior leaders are involved in plotting strategy against unauthorized religious groups, some of which have hundreds of thousands of members. Hu Jintao, designated as successor to President Jiang Zemin, is quoted discussing a sect known as Eastern Lightning and instructing police to "be watchful of its movement, and then deal with it according to law in a timely manner."

The minister of public security, Jia Chunwang, added, "We need to work more, talk less to smash the cult quietly."

-------- propaganda wars

Report challenges media on green coverage

Wednesday, February 13, 2002
By GreenBiz.com
http://enn.com/news/enn-stories/2002/02/02132002/s_46356.asp

NEW YORK - Between 1961 and 2001, news programs tended to focus on "unusual" episodes of pollution and ecological disasters and largely ignored the trends that produced them. That's the lesson a strategic management consultancy took from its recent review of the media's treatment of green issues.

The review, produced by U.K.-based SustainAbility in cooperation with the United Nations Environment Program, analyzed 10 years of news coverage on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainable development (SD) issues, including globalization, ethical investment, climate change, genetic modification, and key nongovernmental organizations such as Greenpeace, Global Exchange, and Transparency International.

"Good News and Bad: The Media, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Sustainable Development" also finds that, as businesses themselves, key media institutions are among the least transparent and accountable organizations in the world. They also are likely to come under increasing scrutiny in their own right.

"Good News and Bad" is based on interviews with more than 50 editors, reporters, advertisers, business reps, researchers, and campaigners and covers what SustainAbility says is the bulk of the advent of the corporate social responsibility and sustainable development era to date.

Key findings of the report:

· European media are most reliable at covering corporate social responsibility and sustainable development issues, typically "incubating" stories that U.S.-based media later pick up.

· American media are paying more editoral attention to corporate social responsibility and sustainable development issues, spurred by increased outreach from NGOs.

· Companies and organizations often view media relations as a crisis management tool or "just PR" and need to develop a strategic and integrated approach to communicating with key audiences, including media, in order to build their confidence and ensure informed decision making.

· The report predicts that stakeholders, particularly socially responsible investors, will begin to scrutinize the media sector's own corporate social responsibility and sustainable development performance.

AGENDAS LINKED, NOT IDENTICAL

On its Web site, SustainAbility says it is important to note that though the corporate social responsibility and sustainable development agendas are linked, they are not identical. CSR champions often view sustainable development as a subset of their agenda, and vice versa.

"Progress with sustainable development requires the involvement of all sectors of society, not just business, and much longer timescales. So sustainable development, not CSR, is the big story that the media too often are missing," the site says.

According to report authors John Elkington and Francesca Müller, both of SustainAbility, the editors and journalists interviewed "are among the best brains on the subject in the world," but they find these issues tough to communicate in a sound-bite culture.

"While the media tend to cover dramatic events, such as antiglobalization protests or the destruction of [genetically modified] crops, there is typically less examination of the broad CSR agenda," Elkington said. "As Greenpeace campaigner Chris Rose observed in our interviews, 'This is equivalent to covering economies by only reporting bank robberies.'"

LOOKING AHEAD

According to report authors, "contrary to current evidence," the media should model the very highest standards of corporate governance. Specifically, SustainAbility suggests, media companies should:

· Establish at board level whether the balance between public interest and commercial imperatives is being strategically reviewed, properly managed, and publicly disclosed.

· Review their goals, targets, and performance against leading governance codes (including the U.N. Global Compact, the Global Sullivan Principles, and SA 8000) and socially responsible investment (SRI) criteria.

· Consider compliance with laws, regulations, and industry codes as the absolute minimum for good governance - and commit to "beyond compliance" standards wherever possible.

· Adopt and publicize ethical codes of conduct and clear statements of their corporate values and principles.

· Engage regularly with key stakeholders, ensuring that inclusive policies and processes are adopted across the business.


-------- activists

Australians Rally for Largest Protest Yet Over Refugee Policy

New York Times
February 13, 2002
By JOHN SHAW
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/13/international/europe/13AUST.html

CANBERRA, Australia, Feb. 12 - Some 2,500 people representing political, labor, community and church groups gathered outside Parliament House here today in the largest demonstration so far against the government's policy of mandatory detention of refugees.

The demonstration was timed for the first meeting of Parliament since Prime Minister John Howard was re-elected in November on a strong stand against illegal immigration and support for a policy of indefinite detention of illegal immigrants, most of whom are smuggled from the Middle East and neighboring countries.

Although the detention policy was endorsed only three months ago in the national election, it is now beginning to divide and disturb many in the country, as Australians see news reports of detainees denouncing their conditions with hunger strikes, self-mutilation and threats of suicide.

At the rally today, a refugee from Iraq, Ali Mahdi, held up a photograph of his three daughters who drowned along with nearly 400 other refugees when their boat capsized in October. "They died in the ocean," he told the crowd. "We escaped Saddam, but then Prime Minister Howard finished my family."

The protesters demanded an end to the Howard government's support for a policy of mandatory detention for illegal immigrants while their asylum claims are processed - which sometimes takes years - as well as the release of some 2,200 asylum seekers currently being held in five detention camps.

Another 1,500 boat people have been arrested at sea by naval patrols and sent to the South Pacific island nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea for detention.

Today, 10 members of Parliament for the opposition Labor Party joined in the protest to advocate changes in the detention policy.

On Monday, four moderate members of Mr. Howard's conservative coalition questioned the government's treatment of detainees, especially women and children.

The most senior women in the Labor Party, Dr. Carmen Lawrence, a leading member of Parliament, and Sharon Burrows, the president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, were among 15 speakers at the rally, which included former detainees from Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.

Dr. Lawrence said Labor should push harder for the quick processing of asylum claims for refugees without detaining them.

Ms. Burrows said asylum seekers should be released and Australia's annual refugee quota, now about 12,000, increased.

Several of the country's best known writers also went public today, expressing their disapproval of mandatory detention in an open letter.

The policy is "wrong, shameful and a dark episode in Australian history," wrote the novelists Peter Carey, Thomas Keneally and Tim Winton, and the playwright David Williamson.

The government reaffirmed its detention policy today and said it would allow a representative from the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights to visit the largest of the country's detention camps, Woomera, in the central Australian desert.

The inspection is not scheduled before May. By then, according to officials here, the camp, which is managed under contract by an American company, Wackenhut Corrections Corporation, is likely to be much smaller, with detainees having been sent to smaller compounds elsewhere and most of the women and children placed in welfare and community care.

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Russian Reporter Aided by Ruling
Court Annuls Military Secrecy Order

By Sharon LaFraniere
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, February 13, 2002; Page A22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A2032-2002Feb12?language=printer

MOSCOW, Feb. 12 -- Russia's Supreme Court handed a partial victory today to military journalist Grigory Pasko, throwing out a military secrecy order that was used to convict him of treason.

Pasko's defenders said the court ruled on the side of free speech by annulling a 1996 order from the Defense Ministry that classified certain information as secret. The court found the order was illegal because it was itself secret, so no one could know if they were violating it, Pasko's attorneys said.

But Pasko's supporters said the journalist still faces an uphill legal battle to overturn his conviction and his four-year prison sentence.

"One of the most important bricks in the foundation of the case is gone," said Alexei Simonov, president of the Glasnost Defense Foundation, a human rights group. "But it's not the end of the story. And we are not sure how it will end."

Pasko's case has drawn international attention as one barometer of press freedom in Russia at a time when the Kremlin appears to be on a campaign to control the national media. Pasko, a navy captain, was arrested in late 1997 after he exposed nuclear waste dumping by the navy in articles published by the Russian Pacific Fleet's newspaper.

After four years of criminal proceedings, including two trials, a military court found Pasko guilty in December of one count of treason. The judge ruled that Pasko had gathered information on secret military exercises with the aim of passing it to Japanese reporters. Pasko's attorneys claimed the evidence amounted to little more than notes Pasko took during a meeting of military officers.

Human rights groups denounced the verdict as the military's revenge for Pasko disclosing that it had polluted the environment. The European Parliament last week said it was stunned by Pasko's imprisonment.

President Vladimir Putin's allies in the Russian legislature joined in the criticism, urging Pasko to appeal for a presidential pardon. In Paris last month, Putin said he would consider a request from Pasko. But Pasko said he wanted to be found not guilty, rather than pardoned for a crime he says he did not commit.

Whether he is successful, his defenders say, will depend partly on whether the Supreme Court upholds a second government order they say prosecutors used to justify the treason accusation. That order, issued by Soviet authorities in 1990, forbids military officers to engage in contact with foreign citizens unless it is part of their duties.

Ivan Pavlov, Pasko's attorney, said: "It is quite clear that this provision is a vestige of the times we inherited from the Cold War. The order is not applied in most cases, but then the time comes when it turns out to be quite handy, which is exactly what happened in the Pasko case."

The court could rule on Pasko's challenge to that order as soon as Wednesday.

A Defense Ministry official said it was not clear whether military prosecutors would appeal today's ruling. But Col. Vladimir Mirovanov, an aide to the chief military prosecutor, seemed to take Pasko's side. He told the Interfax news agency tonight that the 1996 secrecy order was illegal.

----

Noam Chomsky in Turkey to Challenge Book Trial

By REUTERS
February 13, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-rights-turkey-chomsky.html

ISTANBUL - U.S. academic Noam Chomsky arrived in Istanbul Tuesday, aiming to force a Turkish court to try him alongside a publisher who faces jail for printing Chomsky's political essays in Turkish.

The latest high-profile test of Turkey's sometimes draconian limits on freedom of expression comes as the country enacts reforms designed to bring it closer to European Union membership and Istanbul hosts an international conference.

Fatih Tas of Aram Publishing faces up to a year in jail for publishing ``American Interventionism,'' a collection of Chomsky's writings in Turkish that prosecutors charge is ''propaganda against the indivisible unity of the Turkish state.''

In one section of the book the linguistic professor, more famous for his attacks on U.S. foreign policy than his academic studies on how humans learn language, accuses Turkey of oppressing its Kurdish citizens.

``The essence of what I wrote, that Kurds are under oppression in Turkey and that the United States of America is part of this activity, was taken from documents of leading human rights organizations, respected and serious works and official documents of the U.S. government,'' Chomsky said in a Turkish statement released through the publishing house.

``(The trial) is an extremely serious attack on the most basic human rights and civilized rights. I believe state officials will accept this and withdraw the charges without delay,'' he said.

Chomsky is due to attend a state security court hearing in Istanbul Wednesday, and supporters said he would petition the court to add his name to the charge sheet.

``He will say 'I am here, I wrote this book and if there is a crime I should be tried too,''' said Elvan Og of a Turkish free speech group working with Chomsky.

``But we have no way of knowing whether the court will allow that,'' she said.

Adding the name of a world-famous academic to the charge sheet would be potentially embarrassing for Turkey, especially as it is hosting a meeting of scholars and politicians to discuss relations between Christianity and Islam.

Chomsky, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and seen by many as the father of modern linguistics, is also due to visit Diyarbakir, capital of Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast region.

Most of the allegations of human rights abuses against Turkey stem from fighting between security forces and Kurdish rebels that broke out in 1984.

The fighting killed more than 30,000 people and thousands of villages were destroyed or emptied. Violence has faded since Turkey captured and tried rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan in 1999.

--

[Compare the Washington Times' sour note on Noam Chomsky. et]

Briefly
February 13, 2002
Combined dispatches and staff Reports
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020213-279620.htm

U.S. left-wing academic Noam Chomsky arrived in Istanbul yesterday, seeking to force a Turkish court to try him with a publisher who faces jail for printing Mr. Chomsky's political essays in Turkish. The test of Turkey's limits on freedom of expression comes as the country enacts reforms designed to bring it closer to European Union membership.

----

House panel gets no answers about ecological terror

ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 13, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020213-30497141.htm

A former spokesman for an environmental group that has carried out 600 attacks since 1996 took the Fifth Amendment more than 50 times during questioning before a House panel yesterday.

The efforts by the House subcommittee on forests and forest health to shed light on the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and its companion, the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), were frustrated when Craig Rosebraugh repeatedly refused to answer questions from members of Congress.

"I'll take the Fifth Amendment," Mr. Rosebraugh said more than 50 times to questions including whether he worked on an ELF training film and who paid for his lawyer.

Mr. Rosebraugh was subpoenaed to testify at the request of Rep. Scott McInnis, Colorado Republican and the panel's chairman.

Mr. Rosebraugh has said he relayed anonymous messages on ELF's behalf from 1997 until he quit in September, but had no firsthand knowledge of any attacks.

FBI specialist James F. Jarboe said that since 1996, the ALF and ELF have caused $43 million in damage in more than 600 attacks, including spray-painting buildings; breaking windows; and firebombing fur farms, research centers and a ski resort.

Nobody has died yet in an ELF or ALF attack, but Mr. McInnis said it is wrong to think of the eco-terrorists as "nature-loving hippies."

"These are hardened criminals," he said.

"They are dangerous, they are well-funded, they are savvy, sophisticated and stealthy it is only a matter of time before their parade of terror results in a lost human life."

----

[This woman waited an unconscionably long time to tell her story. One would hope the secretaries of today have more sense. et]

Hitler Secretary Dies Days After Publishing Memoir

By REUTERS
February 13, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-germany-hitler-secretary.html

BERLIN - Adolf Hitler's last secretary, who was in the Nazi leader's bunker when he committed suicide in 1945, has died just days after publishing her memoirs and making a film appearance, director Othmar Schmiderer said Wednesday.

Traudl Junge, who was 82, died from cancer Sunday night, filmmaker Schmiderer told Reuters.

Junge became Hitler's private secretary in 1942, at the mid-point of World War II. She served him until the bitter end, and took down the Fuehrer's last will and testament before escaping from the Berlin bunker days later.

After keeping a low profile for half a century, Junge told her story in depth in a film screened at the Berlinale film festival Sunday and in a book ``Through the Final Hours'' published days earlier.

``She said I have now told my life story and now I am ready to die,'' said Schmiderer, the director of the film. ``We had the impression she felt that a great burden was lifted after she told her story.''

Schmiderer said he had spoken with Junge just days before.

``The longer I live and the older I become, the greater my feeling of guilt,'' Junge said in the documentary film ``Blind Spot, Hitler's Secretary.''

``Today I can say that he was a real criminal,'' she says.

She had wanted to be a ballet dancer, but when she heard of a vacancy in the chancellery she played up her typing and shorthand skills to land the job. She first met Hitler at his Prussian Wolf's Lair complex in what is now Poland.

``He was a pleasant elder man who welcomed us with real friendliness,'' she recalled about her first meeting. ``I thought I would be at the source of all information. But I was really in a blind spot.''

She and other secretaries frequently dined with Hitler but he shied away from controversial topics.

``Sometimes I think if I had the chance to meet Hitler again, I would ask him if he discovered he had Jewish blood in his family tree, would he have gassed himself?'' she said in the film.

Under Hitler, the Nazis systematically exterminated six million Jews. Junge's account of the last days in the bunker helped provide historians with a picture of despair and banality during the final days of the Third Reich.

She was there when Hitler kissed his companion Eva Braun in front of others before marrying her and killing her and himself.

She also spent time alone with Hitler in his final hours as he dictated a final testament.

``I thought, now I'll find out what really happened,'' she said. ``It was all the old phrases such as the Jews were to blame ... it was maddeningly senseless.''

Junge had no children but is survived by a sister who lives in Australia.


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