------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Chinese nukes are deterrent against U.S. threat
China Preparing To Release Some Noted Dissidents
"DU ammunition and the dying doctor"
Hitachi, Mitsubishi Plan Nuke Deal
Iran to deploy North Korean missiles
Moscow plans US trip amid arms discord
Russia, US could fail to sign disarm deal
U.S., Russia Divided Over Iran After Talks
Russian space chief dismisses US proliferation allegations
U.S., Russia reach stalemate on arms
The ABM Treaty's Quiet Demise
Cross Talk Among Allies
President Bush News Conference
Incumbent protection act

MILITARY
Flag is flying, but don't mention the war
US orders strikes on anti-Karzai warlords
Afghans Live and Die With U.S. Mistakes
In War, Mud Huts And Hard Calls
Priests plead for food in southern Africa
Belarus leader denies illegal arms trade
Milosevic Gets Win in War Crimes Trial
'Sunlight' needed in Milosevic trial
How The Hague Defines Justice And Tolerance, Feb 19
Colombian Rebels Kidnap Senator
High court hears case on evictions of aged
Drawbacks to Any Effort to Kill Saddam
Israeli Troops Kill 15 Palestinians
Death Toll in Mideast Mounts as Recriminations Spiral
Israel Accused of Attacks on Civilians
Pakistan Cutting Its Spy Unit's Ties to Some Militants
Bush Will Keep Wartime Office Promoting U.S.
ABC Brings Home Battlefront Reality
Rumsfeld Says Pentagon Plan Won't Include Lies
At Spy Stores, Era of 9/11, Not 007
PKK seeks image change with new name
Cyprus talks end without progress
U.N. dismisses 3 cops in Bosnia over war roles
Pentagon is arming with words
Drawbacks to Any Effort to Kill Saddam
Pentagon 'ready to lie' to win War on Terror
Revealed: Pentagon's new black propaganda unit
Defense Dept. Divided Over Propaganda Plan

POLICE / PRISONERS
Beefed-Up Global Surveillance?
Border skirmishes
Dozing screener shuts Kentucky airport
U.S. Wants to Help Georgia with Al Qaeda Problem

OTHER
German prompt power prices drift, wind power cited
UK offshore wind farms face long permit wait
PENTAGON REBUILDING WITH ECO-FRIENDLY PAINT
BIOMASS BURNING BOOSTS STRATOSPHERIC MOISTURE
Avoidable Causes of Breast Cancer May Include Mammography
Estrogen Alternative Offers Benefits for Heart Disease
Osteoporosis drug risky after cancer drug
Drug Reduces Appetite, Burns Fat in Mouse Tests
Bush Urges Jiang To Respect Religion

ACTIVISTS
First use of 'aggravated trespass' at Fylingdales
Re: Pentagon is arming with words
James Carville Dares Oppose Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Dump
Falun Gong protests at China embassy



-------- NUCLEAR

-------- china

Chinese nukes are deterrent against U.S. threat

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR,
February 20, 2002
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20020220-88105068.htm#2

Reacting to the first democratic elections in Taiwan in 1996, China "threatened Los Angeles with nuclear annihilation if the United States got involved," writes John Lenczowski in a Jan. 13 Commentary piece "Arms control tug on our China posture." It is time to discard this oft-repeated but mistaken assertion, based on a January 1996 New York Times mischaracterization of remarks by former Assistant Secretary of Defense Chas Freeman.

Ambassador Freeman subsequently clarified that the controversial statement attributed to a Chinese military official, "You care more about Los Angeles than you do about Taipei," was made in a deterrent context, and was in no way a threat to attack the United States. According to Mr. Freeman, the Chinese official remarked that the United States had decreased leverage over China because it could no longer threaten nuclear strikes, as it did in the 1950s, without fear of a similar response.

In fact, China's decision to acquire nuclear weapons appears to have been motivated in large part by American nuclear threats against the country during crises over Indochina, Korea, and Taiwan in the 1950s. Consistent with the notion that its weapons are intended solely for deterrent purposes, China has a longstanding policy of not using nuclear weapons first in a conflict, and its estimated 20 long-range nuclear-armed missiles capable of reaching the United States are maintained at a very low state of alert. The United States, on the other hand, maintains thousands of nuclear weapons capable of attacking China, many in highly alerted postures, and has long declined to enunciate a no-first-use policy, preferring instead to maintain a strategic ambiguity.

"American strength is not what threatens China," Mr. Lenczowski writes. But China's experience in the 1950s raises Chinese concern about American nullification of its proportionately tiny deterrent force, particularly in the face of U.S. efforts to deploy missile defenses. We ignore China's likely response to missile defense deployment, and the possibility of a chain reaction as India and then Pakistan follow suit, at our own peril.

PHILIPP C. BLEEK
Research analyst The Arms Control Association Washington

----

China Preparing To Release Some Noted Dissidents

By Philip P. Pan and John Pomfret
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, February 20, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A35710-2002Feb19?language=printer

BEIJING, Feb. 19 -- The Chinese government has told diplomats here it plans to release prominent political prisoners in the coming weeks and is prepared to negotiate a deal during President Bush's visit Thursday and Friday to address U.S. concerns about the spread of Chinese weapons technology to so-called rogue states.

Neither the release of prisoners nor an arms control agreement is guaranteed, diplomats said, but China appears determined to ensure that Bush's first state visit to Beijing goes smoothly and to strengthen the fragile partnership that emerged between the two countries after China lent its support to the U.S.-led war on terrorism.

Several other gestures of cooperation -- including Chinese approval of an FBI liaison office in Beijing, and announcements of a $10 million U.S. effort to promote the rule of law in China and joint programs on AIDS prevention and the environment -- are also expected during or soon after the president's visit.

In addition, China has agreed to U.S. requests for live, unedited broadcasts of Thursday's news conference with Bush and Chinese President Jiang Zemin and of Bush's speech Friday at Qinghua University -- significant concessions for a government that exercises tight control over the media.

The friendly spirit surrounding the visit reflects a remarkable turnaround in relations between two countries that less than a year ago were in a hostile standoff over the collision of a U.S. reconnaissance plane and a Chinese fighter jet. Now, the two seem intent on building on shared economic interests and opposing terrorism.

A key test of the warmer ties will be China's response to Bush's campaign to put pressure on Iran, Iraq and North Korea, countries he has branded an "axis of evil." In particular, Bush is seeking commitments from China to curb exports of technology that can be used to develop weapons of mass destruction -- what U.S. officials describe as a "make-or-break issue."

Nonproliferation talks between the two countries have been stalled for months, with Beijing denying U.S. charges that it had sold weapons to such countries as Pakistan. But diplomats said a breakthrough is possible during the visit.

"China is coming around to pressure from the international community not to proliferate," said one senior Asian diplomat. "They're realizing this is an issue the U.S. thinks is important, and that a good, solid relationship with the United States is more important than these sales."

In a recent interview, one Chinese official said the government was ready to compromise. He said China could quickly meet U.S. demands to publish a list of prohibited exports and regulations to enforce the ban if sanctions barring U.S. companies from launching satellites on Chinese rockets were lifted.

"Nonproliferation is a shared objective," the official said, speaking on the condition that he not be identified. "There's no reason for either party to pretend it is on higher moral ground."

Chinese officials have also told diplomats that the government is planning to take action on human rights, drafting new regulations that may make it easier for underground churches to register with authorities and releasing prominent dissidents and other prisoners in the next several weeks.

"The government has indicated to me and to the State Department that they are willing to release other prisoners, including very important ones. We're just working on the details," said John Kamm, a human rights advocate who helped arrange the release last month of Ngawang Choephel, a Tibetan scholar with ties to Middlebury College in Vermont who had served more than six years in prison.

Kamm declined to discuss the negotiations. But he noted that Clark T. Randt Jr., the U.S. ambassador to China, took the unusual step of naming five individuals in a speech last month. One of them, Li Guangqiang, a Hong Kong businessman jailed for smuggling Bibles into China, was released this month.

The others are Su Zhimin, an elderly Catholic bishop in the underground church who disappeared after being arrested in 1997; Jigme Sangpo, a 74-year-old Tibetan monk whowas arrested in 1983 and is serving a 28-year prison term; Xu Wenli, a co-founder of the banned China Democracy Party; and Liu Yaping, a U.S. resident and businessman who is ill and has been held in jail and other forms of detention for more than a year in Inner Mongolia without being formally arrested.

U.S. diplomats are also pushing for the release of Rebiya Kadeer, a businesswoman from the western province of Xinjiang arrested in 1999, apparently as part of a crackdown on ethnic Uighurs who favor greater autonomy for the Muslim region. Several U.S. senators have urged Bush to raise her case during his visit.

The possibility of releases comes as the Bush administration is considering a Chinese request to continue human rights talks that began last summer and weighing whether to press a resolution against China at an annual U.N. rights gathering in Geneva next month. The United States has angered Beijing by sponsoring such measures in the past, but it recently lost its seat on the U.N Human Rights Commission and would need to persuade another country to take up the resolution.

Officials expect Bush to seek China's support for his efforts to put pressure on Iran, Iraq and North Korea. China maintains close diplomatic and military relations with all three countries, but so far has offered only mild criticism of Bush's "axis of evil" speech.

Diplomats said China appears to be trying to use its influence with the three nations to curb their behavior as well as to increase its influence with Washington.

When Tariq Aziz, Iraq's deputy prime minister, visited Beijing on Jan. 28, for example, Premier Zhu Rongji restated China's opposition to any unilateral U.S. moves against Baghdad but also told Aziz publicly that Iraq should abide by U.N. resolutions requiring it to open its arsenal to weapons inspectors.

In private, Chinese officials went further, diplomats said, telling Iraq that if it did not respect the U.N. resolutions, China could do little to help protect Iraq's sovereignty. "Aziz came to China to get Chinese support," said a diplomat who followed the visit. "He got zilch."

By contrast, diplomats said, Aziz was feted by Jiang when he visited China two years ago.

China also appears prepared to engage North Korea and Iran more aggressively. Diplomats said Pyongyang's eccentric leader, Kim Jong Il, has expressed interest in traveling to Beijing after the Bush visit, and Jiang is considering visiting Iran in April.

In years past, the prospect of China holding talks with these three nations around the time of a summit with the United States would have caused worry in Washington and other Western capitals. But now, "We are seeing a pattern of the Chinese trying to influence the bad guys' behavior," said a Western diplomat. "We saw it in Pakistan. We are seeing it now with Iraq. Maybe Iran and North Korea will be next."


-------- depleted uranium

"DU ammunition and the dying doctor"

YellowTimes.ORG
By Ullas Sharma
Wednesday February 20, 2002
http://www.middleeastwire.com/world/stories/20020220_13_meno.shtml

The first communication I received from Prof. S.-H. Gunther was in June of 1997. It was a small article titled "Gulf War Syndrome - A Parallel to Tschernobyl." It included some photographs of deformed babies afflicted with cancer. My author, Professor Burchard Brentjes, wanted this article of his friend Prof. Gunther included in his forthcoming publication "Oil, Dollars and Politics." At the end of the article a brief resume of Prof. Gunther was attached. It said that Prof. Gunther, a German, was the president of Yellow Cross International (YCI), a humanitarian organization floated in 1992 by five individuals; two Polish and two Franco-Austrians and the professor himself.

They were active in distribution of aid and medical assistance to suffering children.

The YCI was working closely with Red Cross International, the Red Crescent Society, Caritas and some other organizations. YCI's major work was among the Iraqi children of Baghdad, Basra, Kerbala and Mosul. They had managed to personally deliver tons of food and medicines to the kids there and the Austrian authorities had been helpful in transporting the material free of charge.

The article itself was a brief account of Prof. Gunther's experiences in the Gulf after the Gulf war of 1991. From the reference in the article, I could see that Prof.

Gunther was a widely traveled man who also spoke about his work from various forums and had been interviewed on the television and the radio many times. Mother Teresa had signed a picture of hers and blessed him appreciating his work. I may add here that from his degrees I could see that he had most of his education in England.

According to the article, Prof. Gunther visited Iraq in March of 1991 and saw projectiles in Iraqi combat area that had the shape and size of a cigar and were extraordinarily heavy. He also found some children playing with these projectiles. By the end of 1991 he diagnosed an unknown disease among the Iraqi population which caused renal and hepatic dysfunction. Over the years Prof. Gunther conducted studies of the disease and came to the conclusion that the reason for the affliction was contact with depleted uranium (DU) ammunition; especially among children. The typical characteristics of the disease are: 1) An alarming increase in infectious diseases, caused by most severe immuno-deficiencies in a great part of the population.

2) Frequent occurrence of massive herpes and afflictions also in children.

3) AIDS like syndromes. Low radioactivity was possibly also related to virus infections in animals.

4) A hitherto unknown syndrome caused by renal and hepatic dysfunctions.

5) Leukemia or malignant neoplasm and aplastic anemia by disturbances of the bone marrow.

6) Congenital deformities caused by genetic defects - also found in animals.

7) Abortion and premature births among pregnant women.

Prof. Gunther also found similar DU side-effects in children of British and American Gulf War veterans. In the opinion of the American nuclear scientist Leonard Diets, the Gulf War in 1991 was the most toxic war in history. This disease came to be known as "Gunther syndrome." In 1972, the Canadian scientist A. Petkau published studies that said that very small chronic doses of radiation can be one hundred to one thousand times more lethal than what is generally believed even by experts.

Similarly, the American scientist J.W. Gofman, who was involved in the development of the atom bomb, cautioned against the effects of low ionizing radiation and said that now after knowing the effects of such exposure any carelessness on the part of the scientific community will amount to "murder" as he called it.

Prof. Gunther has done a lot of research on the effects of depleted uranium ammunition used by the allied forces during the Gulf War. The A1 tanks had a DU sheet over it as a safeguard against missiles and such other attacks.

When some of the British and American soldiers returned from duty in the Gulf the Geiger scale went "crazy" at the airport. Many have complained of memory loss, dysentery and AIDS like immune deficiency syndrome. The government in the West has brushed aside complaints from such victims. The situation in Iraq is much worse. While the Saudi's ensured that their deserts were "cleaned" before the allied forces left, the Iraqi's had no such luck. Kids have been found playing with such DU ammunition and this AIDS like syndrome is widespread there.

For the last 30 years depleted uranium ammunition has become standard ammunition for anti-tank guns in several armies and as per Prof. Gunther, it was used for the first time in the Gulf War of 1991 by the allied forces against Iraq. It is reported that more than 300 tons of depleted uranium ammunition was fired from planes and tanks against armored vehicles and strategic targets. The radioactivity of one cigar-size projectile that Prof.

Gunther found in an Iraqi combat area, are 11 mikroSv per hour. The body acceptable dose is limited to 300 mikroSv per year. By handling one such bullet you are getting the yearly dose within 27.2 hours, roughly in a day.

Prof. Gunther tried to examine one of these strange bullets and got it to Germany. He found the bullet highly toxic and radioactive. The projectile was subsequently seized by a large contingent of the police who had a special squad to carry the ammunition in a thick lead container and was then disposed off in a desolate place. Some weeks later Prof. Gunther was arrested and in prison maltreated. After 3 1/2 weeks of a hunger strike he was released - ill and in bad condition.

For more than a year he was under police surveillance and had to report to the police station twice a week. He was then summoned to a regional court where he was told that he could be forced to enter a psychiatric institution. A scientist and a doctor who had helped so many dying children in Iraq and other countries and the allied soldiers, was being told that if he did not mend his ways he will be thrown into solitary confinement.

His pension was slashed and he could not afford to buy food for his children.

This is not the end of the story. Prof. Gunther is now seriously ill and has cancerous development due to exposure to depleted uranium ammunition. He does not have enough to get himself treated and he does not have health insurance.

My question is not as to who is guilty. The fact is that such DU ammunition is still being used. This must be banned. And people like Prof. Gunther must be reinstated and it must be ensured that he receives his full pension and health insurance which he deserves.

We have a hero in our midst. Humanity will rue the day it turned its back on people like Prof. Dr. S.-H. Gunther because we have been shown by him and others what a big mistake it is to ignore the consequences of exposure to such radioactive material.

Prof. Gunther has lived and is now dying for a cause - a cause he believes in. Such men of conviction are rare. They need to be allowed to work and show us the way to a better, healthier tomorrow. It is because of men like him that this world is still a place worth living in.

Prof. S.-H. Gunther can be contacted at: Prof. Dr. S.-H. Gunther Achter de Dunen 14 D- 25826 St. Peter Ording Germany Ullas Sharma encourages your comments: usharma@YellowTimes.ORG

-------- japan

Hitachi, Mitsubishi Plan Nuke Deal

The Associated Press
Wednesday, February 20, 2002; 10:24 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38495-2002Feb20?language=printer
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Hitachi-Mitsubishi.html

TOKYO -- Two Japanese manufacturers, Hitachi and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, will work together on technologies for nuclear power to meet the growing need for energy, the companies said Wednesday.

The agreement covers technologies for boiling-water reactors and pressurized-water reactors, which are two types of nuclear power plants.

Hitachi and Mitsubishi Heavy will maintain their alliances with other companies.

-------- korea

Iran to deploy North Korean missiles in three years: Israeli expert

Tuesday February 19, 2002
Agence France Presse
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/020219/1/2iizr.html

Iran and other Middle East nations will be able to deploy North Korean medium-range Rodong missiles in two or three years.

Reserve Brigadier-General Shlomo Brom, ex-chief of the Israeli Strategic Planning Division, told the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper the North had exported missiles even after the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

North Korea's missile exports and its suspected weapons of mass destruction will be at the heart of talks between US President George W. Bush during his three day stay in South Korea from Tuesday.

Bush said last month that North Korea was part of an "axis of evil" with Iran and Iraq that was spreading weapons of mass destruction.

"Iran has already test-launched intermediate-range missiles imported from the North," Brom was quoted as saying, adding Iran would deploy the Rodong missiles aimed at Israel in two or three years.

Brom, a researcher at the Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies, is in Seoul for the first South Korea-Israel defense workshop. The seminar is sponsored by the Korean Institution of Defense and Analysis.

Brom said Iran had imported Rodong missile engines and developed its own intermediate-range Shahab-3 missiles. The Rodong missile, developed in the late 1980s, has a range of 1,000 kilometers (620 miles).

Brom said North Korea exported complete missiles, mostly Scuds with a range of 600 to 800 kilometers, in the 1980s and shifted its focus to sales of missile components and technology in the 1990s.

"North Korean cargo boats must be inspected on the high seas," he said.

He said negotiations between Israel and North Korea had broken off because the North demanded unreasonably high compensation in return for giving up missile exports.

The North's missile trade has been a major currency earner for the impoverished country.

The US Central Intelligence Agency said North Korea remains a major seller of missiles and related technology to the Middle East and other fraught regions.

Brom said pressure from Washington is the best means of persuading the North to end missile proliferation.

The Stalinist North declared a moratorium on missile launch tests in 1999, a year after firing a suspected ballistic missile carrier over Japan, demonstrating its ability to launch long-range warheads.

The United States now fears North Korean missiles could reach Alaska and that it could export its weapons' know-how to other unfriendly states.

US officials, who have struggled to curb North Korea's development and export of missiles, believe Pyongyang has pursued attempts to procure missile technology.

-------- russia

Moscow plans US trip amid arms discord

Wednesday, 20 February, 2002
BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1831000/1831248.stm
Photo: http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1750000/images/_1752897_300missile.jpg

The US plans to put some weapons in storage rather than destroy them By BBC Russian affairs analyst Stephen Dalziel

The Russian Defence Minister, Sergei Ivanov, has announced plans to visit Washington next month, a day after the failure of the two sides to reach agreement on nuclear arms.

Following a meeting in Moscow on Tuesday, Russian and American delegations admitted that there were still what they described as "difficult issues" between them.

They said it may not be possible to sign an agreement on nuclear arms reduction when the US President, George Bush, goes to Russia in May.

Mr Ivanov might have expected to visit Washington as part of the preparation for Mr Bush's first trip to Russia. But Tuesday's lack of success has given his trip an added urgency.

Mounting questions

After the break-up of the talks on Tuesday evening, the two sides were trying to play down their differences, even suggesting that it wouldn't be too serious if the agreement were not ready for signing when the two presidents met in May.

But both Moscow and Washington know that the failure to sign a deal would be a set-back for their new relationship, forged after the attacks on the US on 11 September.

Indeed, a number of questions are already being asked about the strength of the Russia-US alliance.

The two countries may be united in the war against terrorism, but they seem as far apart as ever in other strategic matters.

Going it alone

Washington announced its intention unilaterally to pull out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, despite Moscow's protests.

And while the Americans agree that it makes sense to reduce their nuclear warheads, they insist that they will put many of their undeployed warheads into storage, rather than destroy them - a prospect which has angered Moscow.

But the inability to reach an agreement this week suggests that, as with the ABM Treaty, Washington may end up simply doing what it wants.

Such a move will cause the hawks in Mr Putin's military to ask if there is any real gain for Moscow in this relationship.

----

Russia, US could fail to sign disarm deal: US official

Wednesday February 20, 2002
AFP
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/020219/1/2imcb.html

The United States and Russia could fail to sign a nuclear disarmament deal by a scheduled May summit due to "difficult issues" separating the two sides, US Undersecretary of State John Bolton revealed.

"We have a number of difficult issues, questions about how exactly to account for the offensive, strategic warheads, measures of transparency and verification and a series of issues that still have to be resolved," he told a press conference Tuesday.

"In any negotiation there is always a prospect that issues between the parties prevent the agreement from being ready by a particular time," he said after talks with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov.

Russia and the United States have repeatedly said they hope Us President George W. Bush and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin will be able to sign a legally binding document during a summit here in May.

"I can tell you that both presidents are extremely interested in reaching an agreement, but surprising things can happen beside the best intentions," Bolton said. "It may seem like a long time but May is just around the corner."

Russian Foreign Minster Igor Ivanov had conceded earlier the two sides still had "different approaches" to nuclear disarmament despite some "common understandings."

Moscow has sought a legally-binding document with Washington that would put a ceiling of 1,700-2,200 warheads on the two sides' respective nuclear arsenals over the next 10 years.

Moscow also wants to be freely able to check on the progress of US disarmament, and has opposed Washington's suggestions that most of the decommissioned warheads could be held in temporary storage rather than destroyed. The Putin-Bush summit has been tentatively scheduled for May 23-25.

----

U.S., Russia Divided Over Iran After Talks

By Sharon LaFraniere
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, February 20, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A35586-2002Feb19?language=printer

MOSCOW, Feb. 19 -- U.S. and Russian officials ended two days of summit preparatory talks here today sharply at odds over Moscow's cooperation with Iran on nuclear and missile technology, according to a top American negotiator.

Officials from both countries are seeking to arrive at agreements on arms control and other strategic issues in time for a planned May summit here between President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the differences over Iran could complicate that effort.

Washington has complained for years that Russia is giving Iran missile technology, while Moscow has said repeatedly that any help it provides Tehran is purely for civilian purposes.

John R. Bolton, undersecretary of state in charge of arms control, said the issue is more important than ever and must be resolved. The Bush administration puts "a very high priority" on drying up sources of technology that "rogue states" can use to develop weapons of mass destruction, he said.

"For us, this is a matter of fundamental importance in shaping of Russian policy to be consistent with that of the other major powers that have access to nuclear and ballistic missile technology to prevent its spread to countries like Iran," he said.

Bolton did not comment on the cancellation today of a scheduled visit to Moscow by Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi. The delay was due to "coordination problems in the foreign minister's agenda," said the official Islamic Republic News Agency, according to the Reuters news agency.

But a spokesman for Russia's Foreign Ministry, Alexander Yakovenko, said in a brief statement that the reason for the delay was "the need to work out certain questions of bilateral cooperation."

For their part, Russian officials used this week's talks to push for a limit on any U.S. missile defense system that Russia would consider a threat to neutralize its own nuclear forces.

Despite their differences, Bolton said the United States and Russia are much closer on strategic matters and hope to demonstrate that at the summit with a new declaration on key issues including counter-terrorism efforts, nuclear weapons cuts and cooperation in developing components of a U.S. missile defense system.

Bolton said it was possible that a pact to limit nuclear warheads would not be ready by the time the two presidents meet, but he said both sides are working hard to nail down an agreement.

Both sides have agreed to sweeping cuts in stockpiles of more than 6,000 warheads each. Russia would reduce its warheads to roughly 1,500 while the United States would limit itself to between 1,700 to 2,200.

But the two countries are sharply divided over what should happen to the weapons that they take out of use. Washington wants to warehouse them in case they are needed in the future while Russia wants to dismantle them.

Igor Sergeyev, Putin's military adviser, said today that "real and irreversible liquidation of nuclear weapons will show the world community how reliable and serious the course for nuclear disarmament is."

Russian and U.S. officials said they did not discuss Iraq.

----

Russian space chief dismisses US proliferation allegations

AFP
Feb 20, 2002
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/020220135622.98ngcnkw.html

The head of Russia's space program said Wednesday he had faced "meaningless" allegations about Moscow's military cooperation with Iran from a senior visiting US State Department official.

Yury Koptev, whose department oversees Russia's ballistic missile program, said US Under Secretary of State John Bolton expressed his concern about Russia-Iran ties during a meeting in Moscow on Monday.

"This so-called concern is fictitious in character. Bolton did not make any specific charges, and so we have no plans to continue leading meaningless, vague discussions" in the future, Koptev told reporters.

Koptev further stressed that "Russia closely follows all of its non-proliferation obligations."

Bolton, who was in Moscow on a two-day visit to help pave the way for a May 23-25 presidential summit between George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin, said he sounded out several top Russian officials about Moscow's ties to the Iranian weapons program.

Bolton said Tuesday that he and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov had a "disagreement" about the extent of Russia's cooperation with Iran on its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

In 1998, the United States slapped economic sanctions against 12 Russian companies which stood accused of delivering sensitive technologies to Iran, in breach of Moscow's international obligations.

Sanctions against two of those companies have since been officially lifted, although Koptev argued Wednesday that they remained effectively in place.

Bush has identified Iran as a component of an "axis of evil" that sponsors international terrorism and poses a danger to the world.

Tehran however remains a strategic Moscow trading partner, purchasing tanks, helicopters, military patrol boats and other conventional weapons from Russia's otherwise cash-strapped military.

----

U.S., Russia reach stalemate on arms

By Nicholas Kralev
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 20, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020220-23421004.htm

The United States and Russia ended their second round of nuclear arms negotiations in a gridlock yesterday over Washington's plans to build a missile defense and Moscow's nuclear and missile cooperation with Iran.

The two countries hoped to reach an agreement to cut offensive nuclear weapons before President Bush's visit to Russia in May, but a senior U.S. negotiator warned of potential failure if some "difficult issues" were not resolved.

"Both presidents are extremely interested in reaching an agreement, but surprising things can happen beside the best intentions," John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, told reporters in Moscow. "It may seem like a long time, but May is just around the corner."

At the State Department, spokesman Richard Boucher said Mr. Bolton and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov had worked on a "legally binding agreement on reductions in strategic offensive weapons and other associated documents."

They "will be meeting in a few weeks' time to continue their negotiations," Mr. Boucher said.

Mr. Bolton said that, after his talks with Mr. Mamedov, he met with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov to offer the U.S. view on where things stood.

"We have a number of difficult issues, questions about how exactly to account for the offensive, strategic warheads, measures of transparency and verification," Mr. Bolton said.

He said Washington would agree to an accord limiting only the number of "operationally deployed" nuclear warheads - not the number of warheads it could keep in reserve after taking them out of commission.

Washington's plans to build a missile-defense system and Moscow's economic and military cooperation with Iran emerged as the thorniest issues in the talks.

Mr. Bolton said the Bush administration was "not about to begin" negotiations on limitations for a missile shield, as the Russians demanded.

He also said the two countries had "disagreement" about the extent of Russia's cooperation with Iran on its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. "How could any Russian citizen see any benefit whatsoever from a nuclear-equipped, ballistic-missile-ready Iran?" he said.

Mr. Ivanov said Washington and Moscow still had "different approaches" to nuclear disarmament despite some "common understandings."

"For now, the two sides are keeping to different approaches concerning a document on radical cuts [in nuclear arms] and a framework agreement on new partnership relations between Russia and the United States," he said.

The Bush administration, abandoning its reluctance to lock the United States into a new strategic arms-control agreement with Russia, said earlier this month it would sign a legally binding document.

Although both Washington and Moscow committed to reducing their nuclear arsenals by two-thirds in November, the United States earlier had been resisting Russia's call for a formal accord.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Washington and Crawford, Texas, three months ago, Mr. Bush pledged to slash the U.S. arsenal to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads from the current level of about 7,000 over 10 years.

Mr. Putin responded by announcing cuts to between 1,500 and 2,000 warheads from about 6,000.

Mr. Bush suggested that a handshake would be enough to accept the mutual pledges. Mr. Putin, however, pointed out that "the world is far from having international relations that are built solely on trust."

-------- treaties

The ABM Treaty's Quiet Demise

By James Schlesinger
Wednesday, February 20, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36180-2002Feb19?language=printer

It's astonishing that there has been so little commentary on the prospective end to the ABM Treaty, which until recently was heralded as "the cornerstone of strategic stability" and the indispensable barrier to a renewed arms race. The eulogies have been surprisingly few -- a few dissents. The dire predictions have not been forthcoming. The intriguing question, as Sherlock Holmes might say: Why didn't the dog bark?

It's really quite simple. Defenders of the ABM Treaty had earlier undermined their own position, and it was just a matter of time before the logical consequences followed. In 1999, supporters of the ABM Treaty joined opponents in embracing the National Missile Defense Act. The vote in the Senate was 97 to 3. President Clinton signed that legislation. Thus, it was more than national policy, it was the law that the United States would deploy a missile defense "as soon as is technologically possible."

What the act revealed was that the technology was not in hand and had to be pursued vigorously. But the ABM Treaty had been specifically designed to impede the development of such technology. It prohibited the effective pursuit of technologies requiring deployment on the sea, in the air or in space. By a strict interpretation, it even prevented the development of the sensors, notably in space, that would be essential for an effective ballistic missile defense.

In the face of a new law mandating deployment of a missile defense as soon as "technologically possible" there appeared to be no alternative to abandoning those very barriers to technology that were the essence of the ABM Treaty. The treaty would have to be sharply modified or abandoned.

The Clinton administration only partially accepted this reality. It insisted that the treaty must be preserved, yet at the same time it sought to persuade the Russians to make modest changes in it. In that it was unsuccessful. The Bush administration, wholly committed to deploying ballistic missile defenses, sought far more vigorously to persuade the Russians, who were now somewhat more forthcoming -- but insufficiently so. They insisted, for example, that they be allowed to closely monitor the development of our technology. So, if the administration was serious, it had no choice but to withdraw. President Bush cut the Gordian knot.

What have been the reverberations? Scarcely any. Though many in Russia felt bruised by the decision, the Russians issued only the mildest of protests. (They have more important issues on the negotiating platter.) President Vladimir Putin indicated he felt the decision was "mistaken," but added that it was "not unexpected." He gave assurances to his people that this was "no threat to the national security of the Russian Federation." He commented that the world had changed in the years since the treaty, and pledged Russia's cooperation in seeking "new frameworks" to deal with proliferation. Rather than kicking off a bilateral arms race, the Russians and the Americans agreed further to reduce offensive forces.

The mild Russian reaction deflated the sometimes hysterical protests from the treaty's supporters abroad. European governments, which had denounced President Bush throughout the spring for undermining strategic stability, had the ground cut out from under them. They had been relying on a vehement Russian reaction and the prospect of a renewed arms race to buttress their position. The Chinese will continue in their methodical strategic buildup. Here at home there has been this remarkable silence.

What, as they say, are the "lessons"? Arms control agreements are not forever. Strategic conditions change. The bipolar world of the '70s and '80s is gone -- thus the feared two-sided competition to deploy additional offensive vehicles did not reappear. Rather than being "the cornerstone of strategic stability," the treaty turned out to be more like the cornerstone of arms control theology. As the treaty over time became less relevant, it was defended with increasing passion.

Where do we stand now? Striking down the treaty as a barrier to development of necessary technology represents an acknowledgment that the technology for missile defense is not now in hand. Thus, any deployment remains a considerable distance off. Only time will tell what is feasible. The conviction on which this decision was based -- that ballistic missile defenses are within reach and that a system that is both effective and cost-effective will be deployed -- still remains to be demonstrated.

The writer has served as secretary of defense, secretary of energy and CIA director. He testified in favor of the ABM Treaty in 1972.

-------- us politics

Cross Talk Among Allies

Wednesday, February 20, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36186-2002Feb19?language=printer

BLUNT AND unpleasant rhetoric has been flying back and forth between the United States and Europe in the past few weeks, at remarkably senior levels of government. President Bush has been publicly chastised by the British, French and German foreign ministers for his description of Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an "axis of evil"; he has been demeaned as pandering to domestic opinion, informed that he was too simplistic and warned against treating European allies as American "satellites." Mr. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell have replied in kind, dismissing the Euro-criticisms as the "vapors" of hyperventilating politicians. Coming as it does amid questions about Europe's slackening military commitment to NATO and America's drift toward unilateralism, the argument has an alarming tone. But it need not be destructive; in fact, it offers a vital opportunity for the United States and Europe to forge a new consensus on security strategy in the post-Sept. 11 world.

Though the Bush administration has occasionally been guilty of unilateralist leanings, it is wrong for Europeans to understand the "axis of evil" in those terms. Rather than a solo American project to eliminate hostile regimes, President Bush's State of the Union speech is better understood as the opposite: the beginning of a concerted campaign to convince key American allies in Europe, Asia and the Middle East that the status quo policies for containing Iraq, Iran and North Korea are no longer acceptable. The change is overdue: Sanctions against Iraq are being flagrantly violated, even as Saddam Hussein defies United Nations resolutions calling for him to give up weapons of mass destruction. Iran continues to acquire nuclear and missile technology from Russia and China even as it sponsors extremists in Afghanistan and the Middle East. North Korea has failed to reciprocate the "sunshine" policy of the democratic South, or to fulfill promises to allow international inspections of its nuclear facilities. After years of drift, Mr. Bush has effectively put U.S. partners on notice that the risk of living with these failed policies is no longer acceptable after Sept. 11 -- that new and more forceful strategies must be tried.

Mr. Bush's tour of Asia this week should mark the beginning of a concerted effort by the United States and key allies to develop those strategies. To his credit, Mr. Bush stressed in Tokyo that "we've got a coalition of freedom-loving nations that can work together" on the problem, and that "all options are on the table"; his aides add that there are no plans for early or unilateral U.S. military action. The president is now sounding out Japan, South Korea and China; Mr. Powell offered the assurance that talks with Europe will soon follow.

There may be more angry rhetoric, and it may even be necessary; with their vested economic and political interests in the status quo, European and Arab governments are unlikely to be moved without a fight. Like some past arguments between the allies, this one will be worth it if it succeeds in creating a new and more solid front of resistance to a common enemy -- in this case, anti-democratic regimes that pursue nuclear and biological weapons. For that to happen, European governments must drop their pointless rhetoric about unilateralism and make their own proposals for countering the threat; President Bush, for his part, must be prepared to fulfill his promise to listen as well as lead.

----

President Bush News Conference with South Korean President Kim Dae Jung

Wednesday, February 20, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38110-2002Feb20?language=printer

BUSH: Thank you, Mr. President. It is such an honor to be here. Laura and I are grateful for your hospitality and the hospitality of First Lady Hui Ho.

We look forward to a full day in your beautiful country.

The president's right; we had a great meeting. It was so good that we didn't want to go into the meeting room where there was more people. We had a very frank exchange. And that's important, when you're friends, to be able to discuss issues in depth.

A lot of times I find in the diplomatic world that people want to gloss over issues. They don't want to spend much time really understanding each other's positions.

Because of our friendship, because of the friendship between our countries, we had a very frank exchange and a positive exchange and one that allows me to safely say that this relationship has--it's 50 years old, the relationship between South Korea and America. And it's seen a lot of problems and we've dealt with those problems together. And I'm confident we'll be dealing with problems 50 years from now in the spirit of cooperation and openness.

I understand how important this relationship is to our country. And the United States is strongly committed to the security of South Korea. We'll honor our commitments. Make no mistake about it about it, that we stand firm behind peace in the peninsula.

And no one should ever doubt that, Mr. President. No one should ever doubt that this is a vital commitment for our nation.

It's also vital that we continue to trade together. And so we obviously discussed issues of security issues on the peninsula. We also discussed ways to make sure our trade was more open and fair to both sides.

I'm very impressed by the amount of investment capital, foreign capital, that has come in to South Korea in the last four years. It's a testimony to a country that understands open markets and freedom.

I'm going up to the DMZ here in a little bit, and it's going to be an interesting contrast to talk about the benefits and the dividends of freedom. And part of that is an economy that is vibrant and improving, thanks to structural reforms.

I assured the president we are doing everything we can in our country, as well, to make sure our economy recovers. It's hard to be a good trading partner if you don't have a good economy.

And we're beginning to see signs that there's economic vitality in America, which would be good for our partners here in South Korea as well.

And, of course, we talked about North Korea, and I made it very clear to the president that I support his Sunshine Policy, and I'm disappointed the other side, the North Koreans, will not accept the spirit of the Sunshine Policy.

We talked about family reunifications, the displaced family initiative that he started, which I think is a great initiative. And yet only 3,600 families, I believe it was, have been allowed to reunite.

I asked him how many--''What's the potential, what are the potential families on both sides of the DMZ that could reunite?'' He said, ``10 million people.''

In order to make sure there's sunshine, there needs to be two people, two sides involved. And I praise the president's efforts, and I wonder out loud why the North Korean president won't accept the gesture of good will that the South Korean president has so rightfully offered.

And I told him, we, too, would be happy to have a dialogue with the North Koreans. I've made that offer.

And yet there has been no response. Some in this country are--obviously have read about my very strong comments about the nature of the regime.

And let me explain why I made the comments that I did. I love freedom. I understand the importance of freedom in people's lives. I am troubled by a regime that tolerates starvation. I worry about a regime that is closed and not transparent. I am deeply concerned about the people of North Korea. And I believe that it is important for those of us who love freedom to stand strong for freedom and make it clear the benefits of freedom. And that's exactly why I said what I said about the North Korean regime.

I know what can happen when people are free. I see it right here in South Korea. And I'm passionate on the subject. And I believe so strongly in the rights of the individual that I, Mr. President, will continue to speak out.

Having said that, of course, as you and I discussed, we're more than willing to speak out publicly and speak out in private with the North Korean leadership. And again, I wonder why they haven't taken up our offer.

This is going to be a great visit for us, Mr. President. It's going to be a great visit because it's a chance for me to say clearly to the South Korean people, ``We value our friendship. We appreciate your country. We share the same values. And we'll work together to make sure that our relationship improves even better as we go into the 21st century.''

Mr. President, thank you, sir.

QUESTION (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): First, I have a question for President Kim. There is a difference between the axis of evil and the Sunshine Policy. Do you feel that the gap was overcome during this summit? And right now the Korean people are concerned about how inter-Korean relations will develop following the summit. How do you perceive the inter-Korean relations to develop in the future?

KIM (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): In my view, I believe that the U.S. policy and the Korean policy are fundamentally similar and there are no major differences. We both believe in democracy and market economy.

Furthermore, we are allies. Korea and the U.S. are strong allies. And I believe that this is important and vital for the national interests of both of our countries. And so that's our top priority.

Furthermore, in matters related to North Korea regarding the WMD or missiles or nuclear issues, our views have coincided. And during the summit meeting this morning, I believe that there was no difference in opinion between our two leaders. And we believe that it is through dialogue that we will be able to resolve this issue. And we agreed on this point.

Therefore, recently in the press, there were some indication that there might be some difference of opinion. But during the conversation that I had this morning with President Bush, we were able to reconfirm that there is no difference of opinion between Korea and the U.S.

And in the future regarding U.S.-Korean issues, we were able to reaffirm that we have made the proposal to North Korea to dialogue. And it is through dialogue that we hope to resolve all of the issues. And so we hope that North Korea will, at an early date, accept our proposal and that inter-Korean dialogue and dialogue between North Korea and the U.S. will resume.

On September 15, there was the fifth inter-Korean--inter-ministerial meeting and several issues were decided.

There were 10 agreements made regarding the meeting of separated families and the re-linking of the Kyongi (ph) railroad line, and we are implementing these agreements. Thank you.

QUESTION: Mr. President, some South Koreans, perhaps even President Kim, had some concerns about your comments about the axis of evil and North Korea. How do you think your approach fits with and helps the Sunshine Policy?

And if I may, President Kim, did you have any misgivings, sir, about the president including North Korea in the axis of evil? And secondly, why do you think that North Korea is genuine about opening up? We have heard here about their failure to participate in the reunification of families, they haven't built their end of the rail line, and they refuse to talk to the U.S. What makes you think they're sincere in wanting to open up?

BUSH: You know, during our discussion President Kim reminded me a little bit about American history when he said that President Reagan referred to Russia as the evil empire, and yet was then able to have constructive dialogue with Mr. Gorbachev.

I will not change my opinion on Kim Jong Il until he frees his people and accepts genuine proposals from countries such as South Korea or the United States to dialogue; until he proves to the world that he's got a good heart, that he cares about the people that live in his country.

I am concerned about a country that is not transparent, that allows for starvation, that develops weapons of mass destruction. I care very deeply about it because it is in the neighborhood of one of our very close friends.

I don't see--and so therefore, I think the burden of proof is on the North Korean leader to prove that he does truly care about people, and that he is not going to threaten our neighbor.

We're peaceful people. We have no intention of invading North Korea. South Korea has no intention of attacking North Korea, nor does America.

We're purely defensive. And the reason we have to be defensive is because there is a threatening position on the DMZ. But we long for peace. It is in our nations' interests that we achieve peace on the peninsula.

I also want to remind the world that our nation provides more food to the North Korean people than any nation in the world.

Nearly--we are averaging nearly 300,000 tons of food a year. And so, obviously, my comments about evil was toward a regime, toward a government, not toward the North Korean people.

We have great sympathy and empathy for the North Korean people. We want them to have food. And at the same time, we want them to have freedom. And we will work in a peaceful way to obtain that objective. That was the purpose of our summit today, to reconfirm that our nation--my nation is interested in a peaceful resolution of the--here on the Korean Peninsula.

And at the same time, of course, I made it clear that we would honor our commitments to help South Korea defend herself if need be.

I think we had a question for the president, I think.

QUESTION: Mr. Mike Allen of the Washington Post.

BUSH: We got cut off after. Just got filibustered.

QUESTION: Mr. President, in Beijing, do you plan to meet with any political dissidents or Christian activists? How did you decide that? And what do you plan to do to try to persuade the Chinese government to extend more rights to these individuals?

BUSH: Mike, I am not exactly sure of all the details of my schedule yet since I am focused here on this incredibly important relationship. I can tell you that in my last visit with President Jiang, I shared with him my faith. I talked to him in very personal terms about my Christian beliefs. I explained to him that faith had an incredibly important part in my life, and it has a very important part in the lives of all kind of citizens. And that I would hope that he, as the president of a great nation, would understand the important role of religion in an individual's life.

That's why I put it in that context.

I then segued into talk--discussions about the Catholic Church, and I will do so again. I will bring up the need that there be a--that I would hope the government would honor the request of the papal nuncio to be able to at least have dialogue about bishops that are interned there.

I also talked about the Dalai Lama, as well as Christian faiths, and I will do so again.

As to what my schedule is and who I'm going to see, I'm not sure yet.

QUESTION (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): I first have a question for President Bush.

During your presentation, you said that you are ready to dialogue with North Korea at anytime, anywhere. If North Korea accepts, then will you continue with the economic aid to North Korea? And also, in order to tell Pyongyang that you are ready to dialogue, are you willing to send an envoy?

My next question is to President Kim. You said that you were satisfied with the summit meeting. What do you feel is the largest, the biggest achievement of this summit meeting?

BUSH: Well, first, dialogue or no dialogue, we will continue to send food to the North Korean people. I reiterate: Our issue is not with the North Korean people. As a matter of fact, we have great sympathy for the North Korean people. Any people that live under a despotic regime has our sympathy.

And so I presume that's the economic aid you're referring to. We will send food.

As to how any dialogue were to begin, it obviously takes two willing parties. And as people in our government know, last June I made the decision that we would extend the offer for dialogue. We just hadn't heard a response back yet. And how we end up doing that is a matter of--you know, the diplomats, the great secretary of state will be able to handle the details.

But the offer stands. And if anybody's listening involved with the North Korean government, they know that the offer is real and I reiterate it today.

KIM (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Yes, this morning's summit meeting, I believe that I am most satisfied with the fact that we were able to have a frank and open discussion and that we were able to reconfirm that we are close allies. Not only are our two countries allies, but I believe that we have become close personal friends as well.

And so I believe that we will be able to learn a lot from each other and that we will be able to understand each other more and better in the future. And we were able to have an open and frank dialogue. And I am most satisfied about that.

And the second point is that, at today's summit meeting, even before we had the summit meeting, we had agreed that we would talk on the four main issues and that we wanted to have concrete results on four areas. And that is to reconfirm the Korea-U.S. alliance.

The second was to fight against terrorism. And that we would work on a global scale in order to uproot terrorism.

And that we would continue to cooperate in order to do so.

And third, is for the North Korean, WMDs and missile issue must be resolved. And this is--more than any other country in the world, it a matter directly related to the security issue of Korea.

The fourth issue, is that for inter-Korean relations to resolve the current issues such as the WMDs and the missile issue, we must resolve these issues through dialogue.

And so regarding these four points, I concurred and we agree--I agreed with President Bush. And as was mentioned earlier, President Bush is more than ready to dialogue with North Korea. And that he has reiterated his position. And the Korean people, I believe, will be assuaged by this reiteration.

And I believe that President Bush's visit to Korea will reaffirm the alliance between our two countries and will also lay the foundation for inter-Korean relations and improvement in those relations.

In the future, regarding economic issues, and also the Winter Olympics, which are being held in Salt Lake City, and also the World Cup, we are going to have to deal with security issues. And we agreed that there will be a lot of cooperation between our two countries in order to ensure the security in those events.

----

Incumbent protection act

Cal Thomas
February 20, 2002
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20020220-97020520.htm

To what can the orgasmic sound of Congress protecting itself from the sin of tainted campaign contributions be compared? It's like the owner of a house of ill repute who, during a raid by the vice squad, demonstrates her commitment to civic virtue by firing the piano player.

Lest we forget (and a majority of the House last week apparently did when it passed its version of a campaign finance reform bill), the Constitution says in the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech ... or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

What does "abridge" mean? It is defined in Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary as: "deprive; reduce in scope; diminish." "No law" means exactly what it says: no law. Congress is now crafting a law that will abridge the freedom of speech and reduce the ability of people to redress their grievances. The act is unconstitutional on its face.

With the exception of a provision that requires full disclosure by radio and TV stations about who is paying for political advertising, the rest of the bill is seriously flawed. Among other things, it would prohibit unions, corporations and some interest groups from broadcasting certain types of political ads within 60 days of a general election or 30 days of a primary. But this is precisely the period when most voters begin paying attention to a campaign. To deprive them of access to perspectives from various sources is to abridge the information voters need to thoughtfully choose among candidates.

Proponents of "campaign finance reform" say money has corrupted the system. No, it hasn't; otherwise, everyone who receives campaign donations would be corrupted. Corrupt people will always find ways to get money. They did following the "Watergate reforms" nearly 30 years ago and they will if this bill becomes law. Besides, whose money is it? The organizations and unions who donate to campaigns receive the money from their members and supporters. If donors don't like what is being done with their money, they can replace their leaders or stop giving.

During the last presidential campaign and more recently, President Bush has stated his position on campaign finance reform. His first priority, as he wrote to then-Senate Majority leader Trent Lott, Mississippi Republican, last March, was to "protect rights of individuals to participate in democracy." This bill fails to do that. The president also said that reform should not "favor any one party over another or incumbents over challengers." The new bill does both, and proof of its lack of sincerity is a provision that delays implementation until after this November's election. If campaign cash is so evil and corrupting, why not stop the flow immediately, as one defeated amendment to the measure sought to do?

President Bush should veto this bill if it reaches his desk. He can explain why and answer the demagoguery that will follow from the self-styled "reformers," many of whom take money they say is corrupting.

There's nothing wrong, and much that is right, with people participating in democracy through organizations ranging in perspective from the liberal ACLU to the conservative National Right to Life. Both groups oppose the new bill.

Free speech does not guarantee anyone the right to be heard but it does guarantee the right of the speaker to speak and not be silenced. For some, free speech means standing on a street corner and shouting that the president (or a member of Congress) is a fool or a crook. For others, it means buying TV and radio time in support of, or in opposition to, an incumbent or challenger. The answer to the problems that have arisen in political campaigns is not less speech, but more. All contributions to candidates and parties should be immediately disclosed and published on Web pages. That would enhance accountability and the public good. The airlines do this with frequent flier miles, which are posted on the same day passengers fly.

There may be other ways to right the wrongs of campaign financing, such as term limits, but violating the Constitution is not one of them. This bill protects incumbents and deprives voters of their constitutional rights.

Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist.


-------- MILITARY

Flag is flying, but don't mention the war

Wednesday, February 20, 2002
Sydney Morning Herald
OPINION
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0202/20/opinion/opinion4.html

The excessive secrecy demanded by defence forces in Afghanistan and the Australian Government can only arouse suspicion about their motives, writes Craig Nelson.

A surprise awaited me on Monday as I walked into the airport terminal outside Kandahar that serves as the base for coalition forces in southern Afghanistan. "You've been PNG'd", a colleague told me. Excuse me?

"PNG'd. Declared persona non grata," he explained. I didn't know whether to laugh or shake my head at the ludicrousness of it all. During my four months of reporting from Afghanistan, I've been threatened with guns pointed at my head, and been tied up and interrogated, but I had never been pronounced unacceptable with such rhetorical grandeur.

I had driven to the base for coalition forces at the airport 25 kilometres south-east of Kandahar to get comment from Australian and American military officials about the death of Australian Special Air Service Trooper Andrew Russell and to see what homages were there from his friends. Instead, within minutes of my arrival, an armed US soldier was assigned to escort me out of the base.

My offence, coalition spokesman Major Chris Lemay told me before he directed the soldier to usher me out, was writing in an article published in the Herald on Saturday that Australian special operations forces were at the base. Forget the publication elsewhere of the same information. I had broken the taboo of official secrecy.

My fall was fast and precipitous. Within a matter of days, the first reporter working for an Australian news organisation to gain access to Australian troops in Afghanistan had become the first reporter for an Australian news organisation to be expelled from their midst.

The absurdity is obvious. I had gone to the base for reaction to the first combat death of an Australian soldier since the Vietnam War - by any measure a momentous event. Now I was being escorted off the base in an effort to shore up the pretence that Australian forces weren't there in the first place. It is unclear who should feel sillier: the Australian Government for maintaining the charade or the Bush Administration for helping perpetrate it.

When the Herald first sought access to Australian troops in Afghanistan six weeks ago, our intention was not to embarrass the Australian Defence Forces or expose malfeasance. We simply wanted to tell readers what life for their troops in Afghanistan was like. We promised that any report would ensure the anonymity of Australian troops and disclose nothing that would jeopardise the conduct of military operations.

Despite our assurances, our request was turned down - due to "current operational security issues".

The ADF is not the only military force in the world that is stingy with information. The Pentagon has struggled mightily to control news about the war in Afghanistan, mostly with success.

Still, it understands that in the long run its legitimacy as a fighting force depends on the consent, not to mention the wallets, of an informed American public. As a result, it begrudgingly tries to balance safety and operational security with the media's responsibility to describe to the public what US soldiers are doing.

That sentiment obviously is not shared by the ADF and the Howard Government. To my knowledge no government in the global anti-terror coalition in Afghanistan has gone so far as to ask Washington to deny the very presence of its soldiers here - even as the Australian flag flies over their encampment at the Kandahar base.

The mantle of secrecy around Australia's national security establishment is so thick, the response to apparently reasonable requests so instantly defensive, that it is easy to draw the conclusion that it is fear of accountability and embarrassment, not the disclosure of legitimate secrets and the protection of lives, that most concerns the Defence Department and ADF.

The risk of the excessive secrecy craved by the Australian Government and military is clear. Until recently, the war in Afghanistan has been cast as an unmitigated success. But Osama bin Laden and Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar have not been apprehended, the interim administration of Hamid Karzai is not stable and the Pentagon is slowly becoming mired in allegations that it has inflicted heavy civilian casualties using information from politically motivated sources.

No-one has suggested that our special forces soldiers are a rogue outfit. Anything but. No-one has suggested that they have committed excesses during the war. But unless the ADF sheds more light on what it is doing here beyond "reconnaissance", what prevents the Australian public from assuming the worst? What prevents it from assuming that one reason, if not the primary reason, for fighting this war with special forces is precisely to avoid accountability and to provide Australia and other governments involved with the facility to deny mistakes and excesses?

-------- afghanistan

US orders strikes on anti-Karzai warlords

By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
20 February 2002
UK Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia_china/story.jsp?story=134301

The Pentagon's campaign in Afghanistan has entered a new phase with bombing raids now being aimed at non-Taliban and al-Qa'ida forces opposed to the interim government.

Until last weekend, the wide-ranging US military operation had focused on forces of the former regime and the assets and fighting force of Osama bin Laden's terrorist network. But it was reported yesterday that the Pentagon had ordered two bombing raids against Afghan militias opposed to the new administration led by Hamid Karzai. A statement issued by the US Central Command said American aircraft had dropped precision-guided bombs when "enemy troops" attacked forces loyal to Mr Karzai and his eight-week-old administration on Saturday afternoon. A second strike was ordered on Sunday. Both took place near to the south-eastern city of Khost.

When fighting started recently between various factions in northern and eastern Afghanistan, Mr Karzai said he would appeal to the US for support in halting that fighting.

The fragility of both the peace in Afghanistan and the country's interim government was underlined last week when the aviation and tourism minister, Abdul Rahman, was murdered by opposition elements within the government.

Mr Karzai said afterwards: "If the security situation in Afghanistan does not improve further, we will make sure the international security forces are asked, together with the Afghan forces, to take a stronger role.

"I will ask for every measure to bring security to the Afghan people. I will use international forces, Afghan forces, to make life good for these people.

"There is no way we will let the country go the way of the past. The gun-runners - those guys who think they can get away with murder - those days are over."

The New York Times said details of the American air strikes in support of Mr Karzai remained scant. A US Centcom statement said the bombing strikes had been requested by "pro-government forces" after "enemy troops" fired on them as they attempted to pass a roadblock. It gave no more information about the identity of either party involved.

The newspaper reported a claim by local Afghan commanders that the incident stemmed from a clash between two tribal militias - one from the Kochi clan, other from the Gorboz clan - about 20 miles from Khost. Another report said the bombing strikes were ordered after pro-Karzai forces tried to stop the two tribes clashing.

The Khost region is one of several in the country where rival warlords are operating. Padsha Khan Zadran and Zakim Khan Zadran, who are from the same tribe but otherwise unrelated, have carved out separate strongholds and recruited fighters who were loyal to the Taliban.

The US is aware of the dangers of being drawn into local conflicts and of being used to settle old scores. There has been at least one incident in which an American air strike was launched against a tribal group on the basis of false information supplied by a rival clan.

Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said earlier this week that the US military campaign to date was "just the beginning". He said the hunt was still on for Mr bin Laden and the Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, as were efforts to "try and make the situation more secure".

----

Afghans Live and Die With U.S. Mistakes
Villagers Tell of Over 100 Casualties

By Susan B. Glasser
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, February 20, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36012-2002Feb19?language=printer

CHOWKOR KARIZ, Afghanistan, Feb. 19 -- The Americans came back to this dead village last month, bearing words of contrition and a fragment of rubble from the World Trade Center in New York -- another place, they told survivors, where innocent people died.

The Pentagon continues to call the attack on Chowkor Kariz on Oct. 22 a legitimate military strike and has made no admission of error. But the small group of U.S. officials who traveled here told relatives of dozens of dead civilians that they were "very sorry about it," said Yusuf Pashtoon, a top Afghan official who accompanied the Americans. "They knew it was a mistake."

The intense air war that smashed the Taliban and still seeks to disable or kill its top leaders has left a string of mistakes across southern Afghanistan. In a succession of villages, precision-guidance munitions from U.S. aircraft sometimes hit precisely the wrong targets as pilots and their allies on the ground tried to distinguish between fleeing or hiding targets and vulnerable, exposed civilians.

Even as villages become accessible to outsiders, taking an inventory of civilian casualties is a difficult and inexact science. Visits to five villages near Kandahar over the last week yielded testimony about more than 100 civilian victims of U.S. airstrikes. The accounts from dozens of villagers were corroborated by local commanders, Afghan officials and firsthand inspection of the bomb damage.

The accounts indicate that while being very cautious about hunting Taliban or al Qaeda members on the ground, U.S. forces struck potential targets from the air with less discriminating firepower. As a result, U.S. bombs hit fleeing Taliban convoys, destroyed hidden weapons depots and chased targets who hid in civilian areas. But airstrikes also killed children in their homes, pulverized trucks regardless of their cargo and pounded a Muslim shrine into rubble.

"When the bombs came, I lost 19 of my relatives," Shamsullah, a resident of Chowkor Kariz, said today. He was perched on the remains of a home that belonged to his uncle, Dolat Khan, where seven of relatives died. In the rubble, there are shreds of clothes, pieces of hair, shards of plates.

As at other bomb sites, it is unclear what provoked the airstrike here on the night of Oct. 22. Residents said that the village was not a Taliban or al Qaeda base but was crowded at the time with refugees fleeing Kandahar, 34 miles to the north. A generator spread a beacon of light in the otherwise black landscape, perhaps attracting the warplanes.

Shamsullah said 45 civilians were killed; Pashtoon, the local official, said 39. The village is a ghost town today. Shamsullah said the visiting Americans told relatives, "'We will help you.' They themselves said this was a big mistake." But, he added, "Right now, we don't see any of this help."

KHAKRIZ

By contrast, the U.S. assault in November on Khakriz, a village 43 spectacular miles north of Kandahar, seems to have had a very clear purpose: to find and eliminate the Taliban's fugitive leader, Mohammad Omar, and his retinue.

Over several days of airstrikes, U.S. forces obliterated the local Taliban headquarters in Khakriz, where many of Omar's fighters had massed after fleeing the city, officials and others said. They blew up a weapons cache. They chased, without hitting, a four-car Taliban convoy. And, for five nights, they bombed a village just over the mountain, targeting a cave complex in Asmanzai reported to harbor the Taliban.

But no Taliban fighters were ever reported killed there. Instead, Taliban officials claimed that as many as 300 civilians died in raids on Nov. 8, 9 and 10.

Villagers said the casualty figure was much lower: between 30 and 70 deaths. A famous shrine to Shah Agha, a renowned Sufi mystic, was leveled by the bombing, as were dozens of stores and homes. Most of the civilian dwellings destroyed were less than a mile from the Taliban-controlled district building that was apparently the main target.

The villagers agree that the trouble started when the convoy of four Taliban pickup trucks -- one red, the others black -- came through in the morning of the first attack. "They came on this road," said Noor Ali, gesturing to the stone track behind him. "Because of these Taliban, the bombardment came. But at night, when the bombardment started, they had already evacuated from their places."

Residents said that 18 civilians were killed in Shah Mohammed's house. The bodies of two children were never recovered. The rest of the victims are buried in a common grave, beneath a collection of green flags that gives the impression from a distance of a ship's festive rigging.

"Some of them had their arms cut off, their heads cut off," said Wali Shah, Mohammed's brother. "We found pieces of the children, their hair, nose, bones."

Standing in the ruins, next to early blooming almond trees unscathed in the attack, Shah listed the dead. Five of the 18 were adults, he said, the rest children. "The Americans saw the Taliban vehicles come through this place, but they didn't hit them," he said. "They hit the civilians."

Just down the hill, Nik Mohammed said he lost his mother, father, niece and sister-in-law in the attack. While the bombs fell, he said, "the Taliban were escaping in both directions. Some climbed to the mountains, some to the town."

Villagers here say they do not know how much damage was inflicted on Asmanzai, 1 1/2 hour's walk over the mountain and inaccessible by car. But the Pentagon clearly thought Asmanzai was an important target. One morning about a month ago, the U.S. military returned, in two waves of six helicopters.

"One man showed us a piece of paper saying we are coming here for a search, we don't want to bother anybody," Noor Ali said. "They looked at the caves."

"They searched the caves, but they didn't find anything," said another villager, Khudai Rahim. "They were very suspicious about that place."

SANJIRI

In Sanjiri, nine miles west of Kandahar, nobody disputes that civilians were killed in a U.S. airstrike on Nov. 29. But they disagree about what prompted the attack.

It was the 12th night of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and 20 members of Faizal Saddiq's family were asleep. The first bombs struck a house nearby, killing two people, according to neighbors. A few minutes later, the planes returned and sent their missiles crashing into Saddiq's house.

Saddiq survived, but his wife, daughter, son, daughter-in-law, nephew and five grandchildren, ranging in age from 10 years old to 2 months, did not.

"We don't know why this happened," said Saddiq's son, Mohammed Shafiq. "There were some Taliban in this village, but no al Qaeda. And there were no Taliban leaders, just common people."

"No Taliban commanders," interjected Saddiq's other surviving son, Ghulam Mustafa. "Whatever the government is, we join the government. But we are just common people."

But some of their neighbors tell a different story. That night, several people said, important Taliban leaders gathered at Saddiq's house for a meeting; they left before the bombing. Asked about the allegation, Shafiq adamantly denied it. "Propaganda," he said.

KHAZI KARIZ

Similar doubt followed an attack on Dec. 1 in Khazi Kariz, eight miles south of Kandahar, close to the airport that today is the main U.S. base in Afghanistan. First, the bombs hit Faizal Mohammed's house, according to his neighbors, killing him, his wife, two daughters and son. A third daughter survived.

"I came and I pulled them out," said a neighbor, Wali Jan. The son died on the way to the hospital; the others were already dead. "I swear to God there was no Taliban, no al Qaeda here. If there had been Taliban here, we ourselves would tell America." While he claimed not to have an explanation, the crowd gathered at a second bombing site in Khazi Kariz offered one.

Villagers pointed to the hulk of an ancient turquoise Russian truck-turned-taxi parked next to a compound of six homes that were destroyed in a direct hit. Three witnesses said they heard someone driving the truck late that night. The truck's owner, Malik Fati Mohammed, had been visiting Faizal Mohammed and returned home around 1 a.m. The bombs that destroyed both of their houses came minutes later.

"This car came out that night and did this to us," said Ghulam Gilani, whose brother, sister-in-law and their two children were among the 10 people killed in the houses next to where the destroyed truck sits. Five more of the dead were the sons of the truck's owner. The 10th was a young man, Sali Mohammed, sleeping alone in his family's house. Five other people, including the truck's owner, were injured.

As Gilani spoke, four U.S. Humvees with machines guns mounted on top patrolled the road that leads to Khazi Kariz. The village is so close to the U.S. military base at the airport that it falls within the Americans' security perimeter.

SHAWALIKOT

By Dec. 5, Taliban fighters were fleeing Kandahar and Afghanistan's future leader, Hamid Karzai, had moved his headquarters to the village of Shawalikot, 21 miles north of the city. He was accompanied by about 30 members of the U.S. 5th Special Forces Group, who took over a medical clinic, fixing an "I Love New York" bumper sticker on the wall.

Although Karzai was negotiating by satellite phone for Kandahar's peaceful surrender, an estimated 2,000 Taliban had regrouped a few miles away, in the town of Sarband, and were moving toward Karzai's position. Targeting the Taliban, U.S. bombs crashed inadvertently into the ridge a few hundred yards above Karzai. He ran outside and was wounded in the face; three Americans and 19 Afghan fighters were killed.

Dozens of civilians were also injured or killed in the battle.

"This region was full of Taliban and al Qaeda, that's why innocent people died here," said Sardor Mohammed, district leader in Shawalikot. "The Americans couldn't differentiate between us, that's why people were hit."

By his accounting, at least 35 civilians died. He said two families of kuchis -- Afghan nomads -- were killed when their camp was mistaken for a Taliban position. Twelve are buried in a single grave on the spot; a small boy's prayer cap and a little girl's shoes decorate the resting place. Also killed in Shawalikot, according to the district leader, were four villagers and three visitors from neighboring Uruzgan province.

Down the hill, in the bazaar town where the Taliban fighters were massed, the bombing killed three civilians, he said, and 13 civilians were killed in the village of Argandab.

The town of Sokhchala had the misfortune of sitting between the Taliban position and Karzai. One resident, Malika, said that five people in her family were killed by U.S. missiles and bombs, and six were injured. "We were not the Taliban, we didn't know the Taliban, we were just sitting in our house," around 8:30 p.m., listening to the BBC's Pashto service on the radio. Three bombs hit the house, one after another. Next door, one neighbor was killed, she said.

Today, two of Malika's children are in the Mirwais Hospital in Kandahar. Six-year-old Roholha plays in the grubby yard, recovering from shrapnel that severed his penis. His 17-year-old sister, Maimona, lies in the ward with two legs seriously fractured.

Malika said that on the night of the attack she could find no one to drive her children to the hospital. "The driver was too scared. He said I will not go because the planes in the sky will blow us up," she said.

On the road, the Americans appeared to be hitting anything that moved. Bus driver Abdul Salam was taking four passengers toward Shawalikot when a bomb landed a few yards away around 5 p.m. They fled toward the river. Ten minutes later, the U.S. plane made another pass and this time destroyed the empty bus. Eight people in another bus died, according to Abdul Hakim, a transportation company manager in Kandahar.

"We think that Karzai was telling the Americans not to allow any vehicles to come toward him. That's why the Americans were shooting the vehicles," Salam said.

On Christmas Day, some of the U.S. Special Forces who had been there for the battle returned to Shawalikot to mourn the dead. They sang Christmas carols and raised a U.S. flag on top of the ridge where their fellow soldiers had died. They collected stones from the site and saluted. And when they left, they took the flag with them. Today, a scrap of black cloth tied to a stick is all that marks the place.

---

In War, Mud Huts And Hard Calls
As U.S. Teams Guided Pilots' Attacks, Civilian Presence Made Task Tougher

By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 20, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A35722-2002Feb19?language=printer

When the soldiers of U.S. Army Special Forces Team 555 went to work in Afghanistan, they found no shortage of targets for U.S. warplanes to strike: mud huts where Taliban soldiers slept, rusted jeeps they drove, shacks with suspicious antennas pointing toward the sky.

But to Navy and Air Force pilots flying thousands of feet above, they didn't look like military targets, and in the initial days of the war, the fliers were reluctant to attack. So "we started to play this terminology game," said Chief Warrant Officer Dave Diaz, who led Team 555.

He told the nine soldiers and one Air Force Special Operations combat controller with him: "Yes, it is a civilian village, mud hut, like everything else in this country. But don't say that. Say it's a military compound. It's a built-up area, barracks, command and control. Just like with the convoys -- if it really was a convoy with civilian vehicles they were using for transport, we would just say, hey, military convoy, troop transport."

The pilots quickly came to trust Team 555's judgment -- in their 25 days of round-the-clock target-spotting, the team directed 175 aircraft sorties -- but the early episode recounted by Diaz highlights the complexity of identifying targets in the Afghan war.

The U.S. military's targeting practices have come under question as Afghan villagers have reported civilian casualties from U.S. airstrikes. Pentagon officials have disputed the reports and insisted that the vast majority of airstrikes hit Taliban and al Qaeda targets. Other military leaders have noted that in a war like the one in Afghanistan, enemy forces may intermingle freely with noncombatants.

Team 555 infiltrated into Afghanistan on Oct. 19 and remained until Jan. 4; identifying targets was its primary mission. The team's experience, recounted in extensive interviews with several members, illuminates how they chose and checked targets, and how, in certain circumstances, civilians could find themselves in harm's way.

From the night they infiltrated, Team 555 members began working with the CIA and with Northern Alliance commanders to select targets for airstrikes. First, they were to destroy the Taliban front line around the Bagram airfield, where the alliance and the Taliban had faced off for three years. After that, the team was to send planes to destroy Taliban and al Qaeda strongholds in the 30-mile swath of barren land stretching south to the capital, Kabul. Finally, they were to help the alliance seize Kabul.

For nearly a week in late October, 555 was one of only two Special Forces teams inside Afghanistan, so it had the entire range of Air Force and Navy planes at its call: F-18, F-14 and F-15 fighters, B-52 and B-1 bombers, AC-130 gunships. To service all the targets, the team split into two groups and used one of three observation posts within two miles of one another.

From those and other positions, they could see through high-powered binoculars a plethora of targets: small columns of men walking ridge lines, cooking fires burning near trench lines, artillery and mortar pieces and tanks glistening in the afternoon sun, mortars embedded in courtyards. Sometimes they saw black-shrouded figures, which they took to be al Qaeda members.

To verify targets, pilots and targeteers working in a command center in Saudi Arabia had an unprecedented array of information: CIA intelligence from the ground, pictures from satellites, P-3 spy planes and, in some cases, live feeds of video shot by unmanned Predator surveillance aircraft hovering over the battlefield.

In the early going, when a pilot expressed reluctance to hit a certain target, members of Team 555 sometimes stopped their terminology game to plead their case explicitly.

"Yes, it's a mud hut," went the argument of one sergeant, who asked to be identified only as J.T. "We live in mud huts. They live in mud huts. We fight out of mud huts. They fight out of mud huts. There are no good guys there anymore."

A number of Taliban troops would spend their days in Kabul but return to Bagram for the night, believing it was safer there. Northern Alliance intelligence in Kabul kept track of nearly everyone who left on these evening treks. Sometimes the convoys included civilians.

"We knew the only people who were going to travel from here to Kabul were combatants, and in some cases, their family members," said Diaz. Although Team 555 members worked hard with the Air Force to avoid striking civilians, there were occasions when they saw a few women and children mixed in with Taliban forces they needed to strike at that moment. Then, Diaz said, "the guidance I gave my team, and the guidance from higher [headquarters], is that they are combatants."

Rear Adm. Craig R. Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman, said that war planners developed rules of engagement for Special Forces soldiers and pilots that took into account "the very unsettled and unconventional conditions that our forces would find themselves in in Afghanistan" to include times when the Taliban and al Qaeda kept families near them. As is standard, he would not describe the rules of engagement but said they "allowed clarity for forces on the ground." To date, Quigley added, "we have not taken any action against any of our forces for noncompliance with the rules of engagement."

International law requires that military forces take "all feasible precautions" to avoid civilian casualties, attack only military objects and weigh the value of military targets when some civilian casualties are likely to occur if they are struck. That is what Diaz and the other members of Team 555 believe they did.

By law, unarmed civilians can never be considered combatants, said Kenneth Roth, director of Human Rights Watch, which is sending investigators to Afghanistan to assess civilian casualties. "But we don't criticize things that are close calls," he added.

In unconventional warfare, he said, commanders have an obligation to weigh the value of hitting targets that will likely result in civilian deaths. "They need to make the argument, is that a trade-off that can be justified?"

Sgt. 1st Class Tom Rosenbarger, a 14-year Special Forces veteran, vetted the requests for strikes that Team 555 called in. He sat 1,500 miles away in the space-age Combined Air Operations Center (known as the CAOC, or "KAY-ok") at Prince Sultan Air Base outside Riyadh. From there, he tracked the movement of every Special Forces team in Afghanistan, monitored the teams' radios and helped analyze all kinds of data on the targets that the teams requested be struck.

Rosenbarger was also the mediator between high-tech, high-precision aviation and seat-of-the-pants, in-the-dirt unconventional warfare. At the start of the war, many CAOC staffers had no idea what the Special Forces teams' capabilities were.

"Understand, this is UW," he recalled telling one skeptical Air Force officer, using the abbreviation for "unconventional warfare," which is what Special Forces are expressly trained to wage.

"What's UW?" the Air Force officer asked.

"Unconventional war, it was something we have practiced, but we had not seen in a long time," said one high-ranking Air Force official with experience in the CAOC. "The trust we had in the military people on the ground" built as the days passed.

Team 555's Air Force representative, a Special Operations combat controller from the 720th Special Tactics Group, taught the team how to call in close air support using binoculars, a laser target designator, Global Positioning System devices and other equipment. But with a 15,000-foot minimum altitude imposed on pilots for their safety, it was sometimes impossible for pilots in the cockpits to see what the team saw from the ground. Some would fly near the target, use their own binoculars to peer down, and talk about what they saw with the Special Forces team members.

"The general lay of the land, it's brown and dusty mud," said J.T. "So a lot of the lower fighting positions, they really couldn't see. It's really hard to pick up the contrast, or the lack of it. They'd say, 'I see a city. I see a town.' I would say, well no, you see a cluster of five buildings. In one of these buildings you'll see a cluster of vehicles. While they may look like Toyota Land Cruisers, they are used to move troops and ammunition. This area here is all bad guys."

Some pilots refused to drop munitions if they weren't convinced. But, Rosenbarger said, his Air Force colleagues adapted quickly, especially after he sneaked them copies of initial bomb damage assessment reports showing ample amounts of military equipment destroyed in "villages" occupied by Taliban forces.

Sometimes, the nature of the war made targeting easier. Many Afghan Taliban and Northern Alliance soldiers were friends who had found themselves drafted into opposing armies. They would communicate over rudimentary radios, sometimes taunting each other in the heat of battle.

"Your bomb missed us," one would say, recalled members of Team 555.

"Where did it land?" a Northern Alliance officer would respond with some coaching from the Americans.

Five hundred meters to the north, would come the answer. Or 1,000 meters to the south. The combat controller would immediately recalculate the coordinates and pass them to the nearest aircraft, which could restrike the target within minutes. Team 555 members said that in a week, they killed many Taliban commanders this way and destroyed much of their communications network.

Military planners at the U.S. Central Command in Tampa had calculated that it would take five months before conditions would be ripe to begin an offensive against Kabul. After the airstrikes directed by Team 555, Northern Alliance forces began their march on the capital in 20 days, and it took them less than 24 hours to take the city.

-------- africa

Priests plead for food in southern Africa

World Scene
February 20, 2002
WASHINGTON TIMES
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020220-32628788.htm

LILONGWE, Malawi - Catholic priests in the southern African nation of Malawi issued a plea for food aid yesterday saying people are dying from hunger after the poor corn harvest last year.

Throughout southern Africa, the 2001 corn harvest - the region's staple crop - was down a quarter from the previous year because of bad weather, the Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said yesterday. Worst-hit were Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia, the agency said.

-------- arms sales

Belarus leader denies illegal arms trade

World Scene
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 20, 2002
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020220-32628788.htm

MINSK, Belarus - Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko yesterday denied accusations by the opposition and reports in the news media that his country was involved in arms smuggling in breach of U.N. sanctions. "Belarus has never breached international norms and the laws of arms trading," Mr. Lukashenko was quoted by the media as saying, one day before a State Department delegation was scheduled to visit.

-------- balkans

Milosevic Gets Win in War Crimes Trial

Wed Feb 20,
By DUSAN STOJANOVIC,
Associated Press Writer
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&u=/ap/20020220/ap_on_re_eu/war_crimes_milosevic_118

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - In a first victory for Slobodan Milosevic, the U.N. war crimes tribunal excluded testimony Wednesday from the prosecution's senior investigator, saying it was based on inadmissible hearsay.

But in a personal setback, the former Yugoslav president complained the Dutch government denied his wife a visa for a weekend visit, and asked the three tribunal judges to intervene.

Kevin Curtis, the prosecution's chief war crimes investigator for Kosovo, was due to testify about "the killing sites" where thousands of Kosovo Albanians were allegedly murdered by Serb forces during the 1999 war in the province.

But the judges ruled his testimony would be irrelevant, since he was repeating stories he had heard from others.

Milosevic chided the prosecution for preparing what he said were hundreds more such statements.

"You will probably get down to the prosecutor's driver or a hairdresser," Milosevic said, before presiding judge Richard May cut him short: "Mr. Milosevic, we are with you. We are going to exclude it."

Curtis and Stephen Spargo, the prosecution's intelligence analyst, were summoned as witnesses to outline Milosevic's alleged plan to ethnically cleanse Kosovo of its majority ethnic Albanian population.

Only Spargo testified Wednesday, displaying a series of maps which he said show the routes taken by some 800,000 ethnic Albanian refugees who were deported or fled from Kosovo by Serbian forces in 1999.

Cross-examining Spargo, Milosevic asked whether he knew 100,000 Serbs left Kosovo at the same time, trying to support his contention that people fled from the NATO bombing, not from Serb forces. Spargo answered that he had not been assigned to document Serb displacements.

Since Albanians outnumber Serbs 10 to 1 in Kosovo, "proportionally more Serbs left the province than Albanians," Milosevic concluded. He said it was "malicious" to describe the exodus as forced deportations.

The first ethnic Albanian who was part of the flood of refugees is due to testify in the court later Wednesday.

Milosevic, the first former head of state to be charged with war crimes while in office, is accused of crimes against humanity in Kosovo and Croatia, and of genocide in Bosnia during the 1991-99 Balkan wars. He could be sentenced to life imprisonment if convicted on any one of 66 counts.

In another exchange with the prosecution, Milosevic challenged the court's right to convict him for "command responsibility" for crimes committed by his subordinates even if they were not acting under his orders.

"Regarding the crime sites, you are duty bound to clarify - even in an illegal trial of this nature - that I was present at the site of the crime and that I committed those crimes, or if those crimes actually did take place," he said.

The tribunal, which already has tried 31 defendants and convicted all but five, has set precedents for convicting commanders on the grounds that they knew about, or had reason to know about, crimes by subordinates but did nothing to prevent them or punish the perpetrators.

Meanwhile, the Dutch Foreign Ministry confirmed that a visa application by Milosevic's wife, Mira Markovic, had been denied, saying she had applied too late. Milosevic had asked the court to adjourn early this week, anticipating a long weekend with his wife.

"We only received her request last Wednesday," spokesman Frank de Bruin told The Associated Press. "In that short time it was impossible to arrange for her protective measures. When she is in the Netherlands she needs nonstop security."

Milosevic told the court the application had been made "well in advance" and pleaded to the court to "do all you can" to overturn the decision. "I consider this to be part of my physical mistreatment," he said.

Markovic, considered to be the power behind the scene during Milosevic's decade in power, has been granted regular three-day visas since last July, and has visited her husband nearly once a month at the U.N. detention center in The Hague suburb of Scheveningen.

Judge May said the court had "no power in relation to this. We will pass on what you said and voice it with the registry now."

On Tuesday, Milosevic cross-examined the first trial witness, Mahmut Bakalli, an ethnic Albanian politician who claimed the former Yugoslav president coldly destroyed Kosovo and was responsible for thousands of deaths in the province.

----

'Sunlight' needed in Milosevic trial

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR,
February 20, 2002
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20020220-88105068.htm#2

As David A. Keene so ably illustrated in the Feb. 14 Op-Ed, "Yesterday and today," for good or ill the United States had considerable involvement in shaping the events now being recalled in the trial of Slobodan Milosevic at the International War Crimes Criminal Tribunal for the Formal Yugoslavia. . American intelligence let us know very early exactly what Mr. Milosevic was up to. Unfortunately, the U.S. government backed Mr. Milosevic until the overpowering stench from his accumulated victims became publicly embarrassing to an administration that was supposed to care about such things.

U.S. policy changed in 1995 largely as a result of the 8,000 people who were killed by the Serbs in the U.N. "safe areas" as Dutch U.N. peacekeepers stood by at Srebrenica. Not long after that, the job of forcing Mr. Milosevic to the peace talks by shoving the Serb military out of Croatia and most of Bosnia was accomplished by Gen. Ante Gotovina and the Croatian army at the urging - and under the watchful eye - of the U.S. government.

Unfortunately, neither the magnitude of Mr. Milosevic's crimes, the rectitude of U.S. intentions, nor the innocence of Gen. Gotovina is likely to be honestly portrayed until chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte insists that all of the evidence and witnesses are made available to the tribunal. Justice demands at least that much - even if it means embarrassing the Clinton administration. As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis observed in his 1913 book, "Other People's Money": "Sunlight is the best disinfectant."

FRANK BROZOVICH
President Croatian American Association Seattle

----

How The Hague Defines Justice And Tolerance, Feb 19

February 20, 2002,
Serbian Unity News
http://news.serbianunity.net/bydate/2002/February_20/8.html

Please overlook both the tone and phraseology of the following dispatch, understandable given the source and the pressures brought to bear on Western journalists in the current state of veritable occupation by the professional Serbophobes. Mr. Mahmut Bakalli, hardly a disinterested party, in his testimony yesterday passed on second generation hearsay 'evidence'; that is, he relayed what one local Serbian official ostensibly said that then Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic may have said concerning events in Kosovo.

In any traditional or reputable court of law the first link in this dubious chain would have been challenged by Judge Richard May's supposed friends of the court and ruled inadmissable by the judge himself. The second would never have been permitted to be uttered.

Mankind is always willing to believe the impossible but never the improbable, as the Irish poet and dramatist Oscar Wilde observed in the 1800s, and never has this insight seemed more true. Kosovo under Serbian and Yugoslav control guaranteed under both provincial and federal law eduational instruction, legal proceedings and all other modes of social discourse the use of all languages spoken in the province, including, of course, Albanian. Yugoslavia and Serbia in fact established an international example of linguistic and cultural tolerance perhaps unmatched in the world in this regard. Scores of government-subsidized academic, journalistic and popular publications were printed in the Albanian as well as dozens of other languages. This is what Mr. Bakalli chooses to dismiss as 'apartheid.'

And please keep in mind that this is Carla Del Ponte's first and presumably key prosecution witness. Since the joint triumph of ethnic Albanian separatists and chauvinists and their NATO sponsors, the Serbian province of Kosovo has degenerated into a monoethnic nightmare in which all ethnic and religious groups - Serbs, Roma, Goranci, Turks, Aeskalis, Egyptians, Croats, Magyars, Jews, Bosnians and ecumenical Albanians - have had their languages, religious faiths, cultural traditions and political beliefs insulted and suppressed to the point of forceable eviction and murder.

This, according to Mr. Bakalli, His Honour Richard May and Madame Carla Del Ponte is not apartheid. Neither, presumably, is the coldblooded murder of at least 3,000 Kosovo residents of all backgrounds since June of 1999, the 'disappearing' of a comparable number, the purging of some third of a million - in a province of barely two million - and the virtual house arrest of any brave souls still remaining.

The cultural genocide of Serbs, who have had over one hundred churches, monasteries and convents destroyed; of ethnic Turks who have been threatened, at gunpoint, to renounce their ethnic and linguistic heritage and declare themselves 'Albanians'; the centuries-old Jewish community of the capital city of Pristina who have fled to a person; the Aeskalis who, as was documented in an Irish Times report some two years ago, have been exterminated almost to a person. All this and more. much more, demonstrates the demoniacal hypocrisy of the inquisitors of the Hague. The crimes committed against the people of Yugoslavia and of Serbia over the past decade are an open, festering wound on the conscience of humanity. We can address and rectify it now or we will perish of it later.

Ananova February 19, 2002

Milosevic cross examines first prosecution witness Slobodan Milosevic has cross examined the first witness in his war crimes trial. He sought to discredit a Kosovo Albanian politician who said the Yugoslav government imposed a form of apartheid in the Serbian province.

At times sarcastic and patronising, Milosevic read from a stack of hand written notes as he vigorously questioned the former head of the Communist Party in Kosovo, Mahmut Bakalli.

Milosevic confronted Mr Bakalli on his testimony on Monday in which he said Milosevic had known of the 1998 killing of 40 members of the Jashari family in early 1998.

Describing one of his meetings with Milosevic in 1998, Mr Bakalli said: "I told him: 'You are killing women and children,'" referring to the police action against the Jasharis in the village of Prekaz. "He knew about the incident."

In a series of rapid-fire questions, Milosevic asked the witness: "Did you know that they did not want to surrender and they shot at policemen? Do you know that the ones that came out did not get killed? Do you know of any police that would flee when they are fired at from a barricaded position?" Mr Bakalli said he did not have details of the killing, but that he knew women and children wereamong the victims.

He accused Milosevic of responsibility for the deaths of "12,000 people, women and children, pregnant women, claiming you were fighting terrorism." His figures of Kosovo casualties was far higher than commonly accepted.

Mr Bakalli said a parallel, underground education system was set up in Kosovo to reintroduce classes on Albanian history, culture and language: "The parallel provincial system of schools was set up because of apartheid."

Milosevic asked Bakalli, a university professor, to explain the meaning of apartheid and then recommended he read the UN definition of the word "before he use it again."

-------- colombia

Colombian Rebels Kidnap Senator

Wed Feb 20
By JARED KOTLER,
Associated Press Writer
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&u=/ap/20020220/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/colombia_hijacking_7

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - Leftist guerrillas hijacked a Colombian domestic airliner Wednesday, forcing it to land in a rural town and kidnapping a senator who was on board, officials said.

The legislator was identified as Jorge Gechen Turbay, a member of a prominent provincial family that has been the target of several kidnappings and killings by rebels in recent years.

The plane's remaining 29 passengers and crew members were freed unharmed on the ground, Aires airlines officials said.

Gen. Gonzalo Morales, operations chief of the Colombian Air Force, accused the country's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, of being behind the hijacking.

Government helicopters and warplanes were sent to the area, he said.

Raul Reyes, a top commander in the group known as the FARC, told Colombia's Caracol Radio station that he had no information about the hijacking but did not deny the guerrillas may have been behind it.

The Dash-8 turboprop had departed from the provincial capital, Neiva, and was heading to the capital, Bogota, when it was forced to land near the town of Hobo about 27 miles to the south, said Martin Gonzalez, spokesman for the civil aviation authority.

Hobo is close to a southern rebel stronghold that President Andres Pastrana's government ceded to the FARC as part of peace negotiations begun three years ago.

The talks, which have yielded scant results, have been shaken before by hijackings carried out by the FARC.

In January 2001, a disaffected guerrilla seized a plane with 31 passengers and crew on a flight from the safe haven to the capital. The rebel was disarmed when the plane reached Bogota.

In September 2000, a FARC rebel hijacked an Aires flight heading from the city of Neiva to Florencia and forced it to taken him to the guerrilla safe haven.

The prominent Turbay family is a frequent target. FARC rebels were accused in the 1999 roadside slayings of two of Sen. Turbay's close relatives - Congressman Diego Turbay and his mother, Ines Turbay.

Two years before, a brother of Diego Turbay who was also a congressman reportedly died in a riverboat accident while being held hostage by the FARC.

The rebels have long hated former Colombian President Julio Cesar Turbay for the hard-line security policies he put into place during his 1978-82 term.

-------- drug war

High court hears case on evictions of aged

ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 20, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020220-96583857.htm

The Supreme Court should stop the government from evicting elderly public housing tenants who are unaware of relatives' drug use, lawyer representing senior citizens told justices yesterday.

The court is considering a case that tests a zero-tolerance drug policy for federally subsidized housing. Entire families may be evicted for the drug use of one member.

Innocent housing residents have become victims of aggressive housing authorities, said Paul Renne, the lawyer for four California tenants.

"The end result ... is to throw them into the streets," he told the court.

The outcome will affect anyone who lives in public housing, but the attention in this case is on senior citizens who could be oblivious to younger family members' drug use.

Public housing directors contend they are doing what Congress intended, cleaning up housing projects by getting rid of drug users and those who enable them.

The four Oakland, Calif., senior citizens, including 63-year-old Pearlie Rucker, sued over the one-strike-and-you're-out rule. They had received eviction notices because of the drug use of relatives or caregivers.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor seemed skeptical of the senior citizens' legal arguments while sympathetic to their plight.

"One wonders why the government wants to take such an extreme position," she said. "They [rules] sound pretty Draconian."

However, Justice O'Connor told the lawyer for the tenants that the federal law does not give an exception to people who were unaware of drug dealing.

An appeals court had blocked enforcement of the law.

At issue is whether housing directors are being more aggressive than Congress intended. The law was passed in 1988 and endorsed by the Clinton administration in 1996 and by the Bush administration last year.

Families can be removed for the drug use of one member, whether the drug activity is in the home or somewhere else.

Under the Department of Housing and Urban Development's enforcement program, tenants may not avoid eviction simply by claiming ignorance of the crime or an inability to stop it.

Gary T. Lafayette, the attorney for Oakland's housing authority, described serious drug problems and said residents expect safe housing.

More than 1.7 million families headed by people over age 61 live in government-subsidized housing, the AARP and other groups told the Supreme Court. Those people should not be punished for something they knew nothing about and had no control over, the groups argued.

A public-safety group, the Center for the Community Interest, said such tough rules are needed to combat savvy dealers.

"Drug dealers entrench themselves in public housing communities, terrorize the majority of law-abiding residents, then exploit legal procedures to thwart housing authorities' attempts to remove them," the group stated in a filing.

Pearlie Rucker's mentally disabled daughter was caught with cocaine three blocks from the apartment she shared with her mother and other family members, court records show.

Mrs. Rucker and the other three senior citizens in the case remain in public housing, pending the court's decision. The four were not expected to attend the court argument.

The cases are Department of Housing and Urban Development v. Rucker, 00-1770, and Oakland Housing Authority v. Rucker, 00-1781.

-------- iraq

Drawbacks to Any Effort to Kill Saddam

February 20, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Iraq.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- It's called ``regime change'' -- the administration's deceptively polite term for deposing Saddam Hussein.

Among options being discussed are support for a local insurgency, fostering a coup by the Iraqi leader's closest lieutenants and an outright U.S.-led invasion.

Much less is heard about what could be the swiftest avenue to the post-Saddam era: taking him out with a well-placed military strike.

Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, notes that the killing Saddam is the ``the ideal minimalist solution'' if a way were found to track him and there were high assurances of success.

But when it comes to blowing away foreign enemies, the U.S. record is poor.

During the U.S.-led Gulf War 11 years ago, there were repeated, unsuccessful efforts to kill Saddam. Laurie Mylroie, an Iraq analyst and regime change supporter, recalls that U.S. ``deep penetration'' bombs were used against suspected underground hideouts but Saddam proved too elusive.

Having learned from that experience, Saddam probably has refined his detection-avoidance capabilities, says Mylroie.

Saddam is not the first foreign leader to survive being in America's cross hairs.

A 1975 Senate committee report uncovered eight failed U.S. attempts on the life of Cuban President Fidel Castro over the years. (Castro has said the figure was much higher.)

There also was an unacknowledged attempt to kill Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in April 1986 after U.S. officials linked his government to a terrorist incident in Germany that left two U.S. soldiers dead.

Richard Murphy, who then headed the State Department's Middle East bureau, said there was never any discussion of going after Gadhafi personally, but that the target selection included Gadhafi's compound. The Libyan leader was unharmed but an adopted infant daughter was killed.

In theory, assassination attempts are a violation of an executive order signed by President Reagan in 1981. ``No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination,'' the order states.

The directive does not seem to have been a deterrent, as demonstrated by the attempts on Gadhafi and Saddam and by the cruise missile attacks President Clinton ordered in 1998 against supposed terrorist camps operated by Osama bin Laden.

Former CIA Director Robert Gates has said Reagan's executive order should not be interpreted too literally.

``I make a distinction between military operations and the CIA going out and targeting someone for assassination. In military operations, people usually get killed,'' Gates says.

As for Saddam and his perceived ``axis of evil'' regime, Mylroie says if President Bush sees the executive order as an impediment, he could simply revoke it.

Cordesman believes the there are formidable reasons for not going after Saddam personally. If the operation is successful, it might not make much difference if Saddam is succeeded by his like-minded sons.

Also, he says, there should be a moral constraint on the United States, a victim of international terrorism, in the way it acts against perpetrators of terrorism.

The downside of an attack on Saddam is that it ``may convince people that you have just committed an act of terrorism,'' he says.

The notion of eliminating Saddam in a single stroke may look nice on the surface, he says, adding that ``it is far from clear that the people who are advocating that have thought out the consequences.''

EDITOR'S NOTE: George Gedda has covered foreign affairs for The Associated Press since 1968.

-------- israel / palestine

Israeli Troops Kill 15 Palestinians
Sharon Faces Pressure as Violence Leaves 37 Dead Since Monday

Compiled from Wire Reports
Wednesday, February 20, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37725-2002Feb20?language=printer

JERUSALEM -- Firing missiles, tank shells and machine guns at Palestinian Authority positions, Israeli troops killed 15 Palestinians on Wednesday in reprisals for a Palestinian shooting ambush that killed six Israeli soldiers - one of the deadliest attacks on Israeli troops in 17 months of fighting.

Under pressure to stop the Palestinian attacks, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon signalled a shift in policy that could intensify the military's actions against Palestinians.

The latest bloodshed threatened further escalation of violence that has killed 10 Israelis and 27 Palestinians, including two suicide bombers, since Monday. The six Israeli soldiers killed Tuesday were shot at close range at a West Bank checkpoint by gunmen linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.

Tuesday's ambush on Israeli troops ignited debate on the military's tactics, including the effectiveness of checkpoints, and intensified pressure on Sharon to take more decisive action in stopping Palestinian attacks. "It's clear that the strategy that we've had until now can't continue," said the Israeli president, Moshe Katsav.

Israel's security cabinet met Wednesday to decide on the scope of retaliation. Sharon announced after the session that he had approved a "different course of action" in fighting the Palestinians, but did not elaborate.Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, an advocate for restraint who participated in the meeting, cautioned that there are no quick solutions.

Sharon spokesman Raanan Gissin declined to specify what measures would be taken but said the overnight strikes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip "might be a small example of the kind of operations that would come to end the terror."

Perhaps signalling the depth of Israel's fury, a helicopter gunship fired a missile at an intelligence facility inside Arafat's compound in Ramallah which hit a few yards from the Palestinian leader in his office, Palestinian officials said.

It was the closest Israel has come to harming Arafat in nearly 17 months of bloodshed which U.S. and international mediation has failed to curb.

Arafat, under siege at his West Bank headquarters since early December, emerged defiant.

A defiant Arafat later said that "neither tanks nor planes can scare us, they won't prevent us from achieving our demands," and he urged President Bush to intervene. "The Israelis insist on avoiding the peace process but we will raise the Palestinian flag on the walls of Jerusalem."

In all, 15 Palestinians were killed, according to Palestinian officials: four in a missile attack on Arafat's Gaza compound, seven in Israeli shelling of two Palestinian police checkpoints near the West Bank town of Nablus, two in a firefight outside the Balata refugee camp close to Nablus, one in an airstrike on a Palestinian police post in the town of Ramallah, and one in a firefight near Ramallah.

The Palestinian dead included 12 policemen, two gunmen and a civilian.

Arafat adviser Abdel Rahman said the Palestinians had a right to fight the Israeli occupation, implying support for the ambush on the Israeli soldiers.

"The Palestinian people have a legitimate right to resist, which will not stop without ending the occupation," Abdel Rahman said, adding that the Palestinian Authority remained opposed to attacks in Israel.

Israeli Foreign Ministry official Gideon Meir said Israel will retaliate for "this terror campaign which was imposed on us ... by Yasser Arafat and his gang."

The past week has been one of the bloodiest since fighting began in September 2000. Seventeen Israelis were killed, including 13 soldiers, a policeman and three civilians. In the same period, 45 Palestinians were killed, including nine civilians, 22 members of the security forces and 12 assailants and suspected militants.

The ambush on the soldiers was carried out at about 9 p.m. Tuesday at an Israeli military checkpoint near the village of Ein Arik, west of Ramallah. The post was manned by eight soldiers who had arrived for a tour of duty just several hours earlier. A leader of the Al Aqsa Brigades, a Fatah-affiliated militia which claimed responsibility for the ambush, said the gunmen had carefully watched the checkpoint for some time before the attack.

Two or three gunmen approached the checkpoint from a dirt path and opened fire, taking the soldiers by surprise. Five soldiers were killed on the road and a sixth in a nearby trailer that served as shelter for the troops. Another soldier in the trailer was wounded. A soldier in a lookout position was unharmed, the reports said.

A Fatah leader in the West Bank, Marwan Barghouti, said such attacks are "the only way for the Israelis to understand that they should put an end to their occupation."

The three gunmen made a video ahead of the attack, explaining their motives, as is customary in what are considered suicide missions - though it would not be released since the gunmen survived and escaped, members of the Al Aqsa Brigades said.

Tuesday's strike on Israeli troops was bound to put right-wing pressure on Sharon to strike a crippling blow against Arafat's Palestinian Authority and from the left for a pullout in the West Bank and Gaza.

Israeli political commentators decried the ambush as another blow to the image of the Middle East's mightiest army, already stained by the destruction last week of one of its Merkava-3 tanks, a key symbol of the Jewish state's military prowess.

Israeli military commentators sharply criticized the army's performance. "In the killing fields of the intefadeh (Arabic for Palestinian uprising), Israeli soldiers have gone from being the hunters to being hunted. Sitting ducks," wrote commentator Alex Fishman in the Yediot Ahronot daily.

In the Haaretz daily, commentator Zeev Schiff wrote that the incident raised serious questions "about the very existence of the checkpoints and about the need for an overall strategy."

Israeli reprisals began around 3 a.m. Wednesday.

In the Gaza Strip, Israeli F-16 warplanes bombed a four-story police compound, razing the building and sending debris and shrapnel flying in all directions.

For the first time in 17 months, Israel attacked Arafat's seaside compound. Navy vessels fired missiles at the complex, punching holes into one of the walls, killing four guards and wounding eight.

Palestinians in nearby buildings fled in panic. Carrying her 9-month-old baby, with her 3-year-old son behind her, Ilham Johfur, 26, said: "This is another night of terror." Hundreds of people were in the streets, fearing their buildings would be hit.

In all, Palestinians counted at least 40 explosions in the Gaza raids.

In Ramallah in the West Bank, helicopter gunships fired a missile at a trailer serving as sleeping quarters for policemen in Arafat's compound. The officers had left the trailer in anticipation of an Israeli strike.

Elsewhere in Ramallah, a Palestinian policeman was killed in a missile attack on his post and a gunman died in a firefight with Israeli troops west of the city.

Near Nablus, Israeli troops fired heavy machine guns and tank shells at two Palestinian police posts, Palestinian security officials said. Six policemen were killed in one attack, and one was killed in a second strike.

South of Nablus, Israeli tanks moved close to the Balata refugee camp. Two Palestinians, a civilian and a gunman, were killed in a firefight, doctors said.

The Israeli military said Palestinians would be banned from using roads in and out of main West Bank towns.

----

Death Toll in Mideast Mounts as Recriminations Spiral

New York Times
February 20, 2002
By JAMES BENNET
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/20/international/middleeast/20MIDE.html

JERUSALEM, Wednesday, Feb. 20 - In an audacious attack on a West Bank outpost on Tuesday night, Palestinian gunmen killed six Israeli soldiers and then escaped, stunning an army that had already been reeling from the deaths of seven soldiers since Thursday.

It was the most lethal attack on Israeli soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in more than 16 months of fighting.

In apparent reprisal, Israeli forces attacked Yasir Arafat's official compound in Gaza City early today, killing at least four members of his elite guard, Palestinian officials said.

The raid on the Israeli soldiers followed a dizzying 24 hours of shooting, shelling, bombing and rocket attacks that, before Tuesday night's toll, had claimed the lives of at least 16 people, including attackers and attacked - Palestinian militants, Israeli soldiers and civilians on both sides who were cut down in the intensifying cross-fire.

The Israeli Army said late Tuesday night that it believed that two squads of Palestinian gunmen attacked the soldiers, at an Israeli checkpoint at Ein Ariq, in the stony hills west of the Palestinian-controlled city of Ramallah.

One squad opened fire on two soldiers on duty at the checkpoint, wounding one man slightly and the other moderately, the army said. At the same time, at least one gunman burst into the outpost where six other off-duty soldiers were relaxing and killed them all at close range, the army said.

An Israeli medic, Baruch Borer, described the attack to Israeli television as "a cold-blooded massacre."

Further Israeli reprisals for the attack on the soldiers were likely. Before the Tuesday night attack, Israel's military and political leaders, under heavy criticism from the right, were already searching for some more effective means of combating violence with Israel's own force of arms.

Palestinian militants are compensating for the inferiority of their weaponry and armor by relying on surprise, speed and suicide. Vaunted for years for their flexibility and toughness, Israel's defense forces have started to seem slow and vulnerable as they battle fighters who hide in the civilian population and then attack without fear of death.

As the army is criticized by the Israeli right for doing too little, it is under fire from other quarters, at home and abroad, for doing too much. Today the Israeli Supreme Court weighed in, temporarily blocking the army from demolishing some homes in the Gaza Strip. The court plans a hearing on the army action on Thursday.

Separately, an Israeli human rights group accused the army today of recklessly shooting and firing tank shells into a civilian area, killing three Palestinian civilians in the course of repelling an attack on a Jewish settlement in Gaza.

The army said that it was investigating the episode, but that the soldiers had not intentionally fired toward civilians.

In uncertain numbers but with rising voices, Israelis have begun calling on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to abandon his refusal to negotiate with Palestinian leaders while violence continues. Other Israelis counter that such demands provide aid and comfort to the enemy, which they say brooks no democratic dissent.

For more than two months, Mr. Sharon has confined Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, to Ramallah, in what Israel insists is an effort to pressure him to stop the violence. Mr. Arafat's aides say he is not politically strong enough to stop militants while Israel confines him and holds out no possibility of negotiations.

The Israeli Army has relied on a number of military tactics to combat violence: blockades of Palestinian areas, incursions into Palestinian- controlled areas, arrests and killings of suspected militants, and air raids. Some of those tactics, and their limitations, were on display today.

From a clear blue sky Tuesday morning over the Jabaliya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, an Israeli rocket whistled into the cinderblock wall of an office rented by the Islamic group Hamas. Israel said it was not trying to kill any wanted militants, but instead to send a message of reprisal to Hamas for recent attacks.

But the rocket killed two low-ranking Hamas members, one of them a volunteer in the office, and injured several children who were playing or sitting outside. One of children, a 9- year-old girl, was severely wounded by shrapnel.

Minutes later, Hamas members inside the office the were collecting scarlet human remains on the smashed door of a cabinet. Blood had spattered the open pages of a Koran as well as the pitted, scorched walls, and a bloody handprint marked the bent door frame.

If the rocket was intended not merely as revenge but as deterrence, they insisted it would have the opposite effect. "The Israelis always surprise with their terrorist attacks," said Ribhisi al-Rantisi, a Hamas member, as he stood by the five-foot hole in the office wall. "So Hamas feels obliged to answer back. This time, Hamas has to take revenge and answer back with an assassination."

The complex mission assigned the Israeli Army was demonstrated as well by its operation overnight Monday near the Khan Younis refugee camp, also in the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces killed one Palestinian gunman and chased another off after the two men tried to attack the settlement of Morag.

The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem said that, in firing north of the settlement's greenhouses, the soldiers raked shacks belonging to Palestinians, killing a man, a woman and a 17-year old girl, and wounding several more people. Palestinian officials confirmed the deaths.

B'Tselem accused the army of preventing an ambulance from reaching the woman and teenager. The group said one of its field- workers was riding in the ambulance when soldiers opened fire at it, shattering its windshield.

The army denied that its soldiers intentionally fired toward civilians, saying that they were under orders not to. An army spokeswoman expressed frustration at not being able to respond in detail tonight to the accusations, pending a complete investigation.

For the third time in 48 hours, an alert Israeli foiled an attempted suicide bombing on Tuesday. Near the West Bank settlement of Mehola in the Jordan Valley, a bus driver, Shalom Drei, thought a man climbing onto the second step of the bus looked suspicious. "He wore an aviator's jacket, zipped all the way up," Mr. Drei told Israeli television. "It looked strange to me."

Mr. Drei pushed the stranger back off the bus, then, as the bus pulled away, the man exploded.

Palestinian militants regard soldiers and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as legitimate targets because Israel occupied those lands during the 1967 war. Although Israel rejects any such distinction between its citizens, some Palestinian leaders have urged that the fight be concentrated in those areas in the hope of gaining international support.

With the death toll mounting and more Israelis drawing a parallel between this fight and the army's 18- year war of attrition in Lebanon, some politicians and analysts are urging the expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip; others are calling for a partial or complete reoccupation of the territories, some of which Israel has ceded to Palestinian control; and still others are demanding the unilateral withdrawal of Israeli soldiers.

The debate has not gone unnoticed by Palestinians. Speaking in Hebrew, one Palestinian analyst of Israeli affairs said on Palestinian television, "Israeli society is disintegrating and fragmenting. Sharon is now in a historic dilemma, and he is completely hopeless."

--------

Israel Accused of Attacks on Civilians

February 20, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Military.html

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israeli soldiers fired indiscriminately and without justification at civilians and paramedics in the Gaza Strip earlier this week and apparently used illegal anti-personnel shells in the incident, an Israeli human rights group said Wednesday.

The Israeli fire left three Palestinian civilians dead and four wounded, including three children, ages 4, 11 and 16. One of the dead was a 17-year-old girl.

The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the report by the Betselem group which sent a fieldworker to the take statements from survivors.

Betselem said it suspected the army used so-called Flechette tank shells, which are packed with thousands of darts for greater deadliness. In the current conditions of Gaza, the use of Flechette shells is illegal, Betselem said.

A Betselem fieldworker found a large number of such darts at the scene of the shooting, the report said.

The Israeli army has admitted using Flechette shells in the past.

The shooting took place on Monday evening near the Jewish settlement of Morag and the Palestinian town of Khan Yunis, in an area called Kizan a-Nijar, where Palestinian families live in tin shacks.

The incident began when soldiers shot at two armed Palestinians spotted near Morag's greenhouses, killing one, Betselem said. The other militant fled the scene.

Soldiers directed intensive gunfire at the nearby Palestinian residential area, killing a farmer who was hit as he ran from shack to shack seeking cover, the report said.

Troops also fired tank shells toward Palestinian shacks, Betselem said.

In one, Sami Bahabsa huddled with his two wives and seven children. One of the wives and her baby daughter fled unharmed. An 18-year-old daughter was seriously wounded, reached a neighboring shack and collapsed. Two other daughters and two sons were injured in Bahabsa's shack, but were rescued by their father, Betselem wrote.

With his second wife and 17-year-old daughter still in the shack under fire, Bahabsa tried to make one more rescue run, but was held back by heavy fire, the report said. Instead, he remained near an ambulance close to the scene.

Soldiers then fired at the ambulance that tried to reach the shack, shattering its windshield and forcing the driver to leave the area, Betselem said. The next morning, Bahabsa reached the home to find his wife and daughter dead.

``The army intentionally fired shells toward inhabited houses,'' Betselem wrote. ``The shelling was conducted in complete disregard to the danger it posed civilians.''

The group called on the army to open an investigation against the soldiers involved.

-------- pakistan

Pakistan Cutting Its Spy Unit's Ties to Some Militants

New York Times
February 20, 2002
By DOUGLAS JEHL
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/20/international/asia/20STAN.html

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Feb. 19 - In a significant signal of its change in course, Pakistan has begun to disband two major units of its powerful intelligence service that had close links to Islamic militants in Afghanistan and Kashmir, senior Pakistani military and intelligence officials said today.

The change has not been publicly announced. But the officials described it as one of the most significant shifts emerging from Pakistan's decision to align itself with the West during the crisis in Afghanistan and to reduce ties with Islamic militants there and in Kashmir, a disputed region that has long been the source of conflict with India.

The officials said the move would result in the transfer of perhaps 40 percent of forces assigned to the secretive organization, the Inter- Services Intelligence agency, which draws its manpower from the military. The agency's size is an official secret, but some officials said the cut could amount to at least 4,000 people, from a force of perhaps 10,000.

Last month, President Pervez Musharraf pledged in a speech that his country would fight terrorism in all its forms. Since then, his government has banned several Islamic groups and has announced the arrests of about 2,000 militants. The changes described within the intelligence service would be an even more tangible sign of his resolve.

The changes were described by the officials as highly sensitive. The organization, whose headquarters here is surrounded by brick walls and guard towers, is one of the country's most powerful forces, and quests by the American government and forces within Pakistan for its reform have until now been rebuffed.

The senior officers of the Afghanistan and Kashmir units have already been transferred, and the others are being ordered to return to other military units, the officials said. None have been disciplined, but the United States has requested permission to interview several dozen of them to learn more about their ties to the militants. That request is still being weighed by the Pakistani authorities, several officials said.

Working closely with the American Central Intelligence Agency, Pakistan's intelligence agency established close ties with Islamic militants in Afghanistan during the 1980's, at the time of the American- backed effort to support the mujahedeen forces working to oust the Soviet occupation force.

While the Afghanistan department appears to have been shut down entirely, the officials indicated that it is proving more difficult to cut off what has been a steady flow of covert intelligence and other support for militants in Kashmir.

Closing down the Afghan unit is a signal that Pakistan intends to support the new government in Afghanistan and serves General Musharraf's purpose of curtailing support for the Islamic militant movements in Pakistan that provided strong support for the Taliban.

For years, the Pakistani intelligence agency has also been the principal liaison with the Islamic militants fighting in Indian-controlled Kashmir, including groups regarded by the United States as terrorist organizations.

As early as 1988, under the government of Benazir Bhutto, a commission led by the Air Force chief, Marchal Zulfikar Ali Khan, warned that the intelligence organization had the makings of a de facto government. Over the last decade, it has been credited with making and breaking of political careers and with causing civilian governments to fall.

General Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 coup, has long had close relations with many officers within the agency. But in October, at the time he agreed to break relations with the Taliban, he also dismissed the agency's chief and later sidelined several others, in a first attempt to sever connections with Islamic militants in Afghanistan and Kashmir. But other senior officers within the agency, and particularly the Afghan and Kashmir units, were thought to have maintained close ties with militant organizations.

The ties between the intelligence agency and militant organizations has become an issue in the case of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal correspondent who was kidnapped last month in the Pakistani city of Karachi. He is still missing, even though the chief suspect in his disappearance, the British-born militant Ahmed Omar Sheikh, has been in custody for more than a week.

Still, the broad hints in Pakistani newspapers and from some Pakistani officials that what are described in print only as "non-police agencies" have detailed knowledge of the case have raised questions about a possible connection to the intelligence agency. Two former officials linked to it were detained for questioning last week in an effort to learn more about the case.

A senior intelligence officer said in an interview today that he had no doubt that the plans to eliminate the two units represented a major about- face. "This has been a major change for Pakistan," he said.

"The Afghanistan cell has been completely closed down and the Kashmir cell has been reduced to an intelligence-gathering detachment," a second Pakistani military intelligence official said. "Senior officers of the two cells have already been repatriated to their parent units while others are under transfer."

Still, new signs have emerged of opposition to General Musharraf's change of course.

Pakistani authorities said today that on Monday, they intercepted an apparent effort to fire rocket-propelled artillery rounds at an airport in Karachi where international forces, including those of the United States, are based.

In a search that began after one rocket hit a home on Saturday, at least four 107-millimeter rounds were recovered, they said, all linked to timing devices that had apparently failed to carry out a planned launch.

No one was arrested in a raid that uncovered the rockets, but their discovery was described by Pakistani authorities as further evidence of a backlash against General Musharraf and his decision to crack down on Islamic militants, including Jaish-e- Muhammad, the group linked to Mr. Pearl's abduction.

In the changes under way, Mr. Musharraf is thought to be carrying out only limited reforms, in that they would still leave the agency as the leading force for intelligence operations. He is depending on Lt. Gen. Ehsan ul-Haq, a loyal friend and moderate whom he installed last fall as the agency's chief, to carry out the changes.

General Ehsan had previously served as the head of Pakistan's military intelligence branch, and is respected within the army and by American intelligence officials, with whom he has worked closely. A senior intelligence official said today that the 40 percent reduction would primarily be in military personnel who had been temporarily assigned to the intelligence service, mainly to its Afghan unit, and who would be reassigned to their parent units in the army's infantry, armor, artillery and other forces.

As part of the changes, the army's corps of military intelligence is now supposed to be the main source of intelligence officers, instead of those officers being drawn from all kinds of military units. Domestic political intelligence is to be transferred gradually to the civilian Intelligence Bureau.

Some of the most covert functions of the intelligence agency might also be relocated in the Intelligence Bureau, one senior official said, noting that the civilian agency is heavily populated by retired officials of the

Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

Still, it may be hard to break with the past. "The reluctance to shut down Kashmir-related operations has two reasons," one intelligence official said. "One, Pakistan cannot trust India and cannot close down intelligence gathering or even special operations against its traditional enemy. Second, the military and intelligence officers are disturbed by the loss of Afghanistan already. It is not prudent to disturb them further with the loss of the Kashmir front altogether."

-------- propaganda wars

Bush Will Keep Wartime Office Promoting U.S.

New York Times
February 20, 2002
By ELIZABETH BECKER and JAMES DAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/20/international/20INFO.html

WASHINGTON, Feb. 19 - President Bush has decided to transform the administration's temporary wartime communications effort into a permanent office of global diplomacy to spread a positive image of the United States around the world and combat anti-Americanism, senior administration officials said today.

"The president believes it is a critical part of national security to communicate U.S. foreign policy to a global audience in times of peace as well as war," said Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director.

While discussions are at a preliminary stage, officials said there was general agreement in the administration that the intense shaping of information and coordination of messages that occurred during the fighting in Afghanistan should become a permanent feature of national security policy.

The White House office to be created to carry out the policy will coordinate the public statements of State, Defense and the other departments like the Voice of America to ensure that foreign correspondents in Washington as well as foreign leaders and opinion-makers overseas understand Mr. Bush's policies.

"What is important is we want to do a better job of using the government seamlessly to give direction to the president's global diplomacy," a senior administration official said.

Officials said the new office would be entirely separate from a proposed Office of Strategic Influence at the Pentagon, which would use the media, the Internet and a range of covert operations to try to influence public opinion and government policy abroad, including in friendly nations.

That office is contemplating plans, which are being reviewed by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, to disseminate information, and possibly even disinformation, in foreign media as part of an aggressive campaign by the military to promote American policies overseas.

Today, the president of the Radio- Television News Directors Association, Barbara Cochran, wrote a letter to Mr. Rumsfeld objecting to any plans involving the spread of false or misleading information by the Pentagon.

Like the office of Homeland Security, the efforts to centralize public diplomacy following the Sept. 11 attacks have grown in importance and urgency in the last six months.

So far, the new White House office has no name, no director and no budget, though officials say Mr. Bush has said money will be no obstacle in pursuing the effort. The earlier White House push to create a more positive image of the United States after Sept. 11 was led by Karen P. Hughes, senior adviser to the president and is known as the Coalition Information Center.

The major goal, officials said, is to stem what the White House sees as a rising tide of anti-Americanism.

"A lot of the world does not like America, and it's going to take years to change their hearts and minds," said a senior official involved in the discussions.

The president broached the possibility of a permanent mission in a meeting with the top people who speak for the administration in September. "He told us that we were going to be at this for a long, long time," one participant said, "that we were setting a template for future presidents, that we had to think big, strategic, historic thoughts."

Global diplomacy as envisioned in the new office will inject patriotism into the punishing 24-hour, seven-day news cycle, officials said. It will include information campaigns about Mr. Bush's domestic policy - like education bills - as well as traditional information about the military, diplomatic and economic sides of national security policy, officials said.

Rather than create agencies, the new office would take advantage of the huge communications network of American embassies, their media offices and the broadcast network already in place under the State Department.

Charlotte Beers, a former advertising executive now in charge of public diplomacy at the State Department, has used her marketing skills in an attempt to make American policies as familiar as American culture.

Officials involved in the global communications effort said it required clear direction from the White House to break down the bureaucratic walls built up around the government after the cold war ended and the focus on defeating a clear-cut enemy disappeared.

Foreign journalists say they have given up getting meaningful interviews from American officials here. Only the most senior ambassadors from allied countries meet regularly with government policy makers.

"There was often the feeling that we were either taken for granted or considered irrelevant," said Patrice de Beer, the former Washington correspondent for Le Monde, the French daily. "We don't expect anyone to deliver state secrets to us but to be accessible to explain what the policy was. That's all."

In the earlier White House effort, Ms. Hughes joined forces with her British counterpart to put together the Coalition Information Center, known as the war room.

When Washington decided to highlight the Taliban's policy against women's rights, officials enlisted not only First Lady Laura Bush but Cherie Blair, the wife of the British prime minister.

"The Afghanistan women's campaign was the best thing we've done - giving insight into their vision of the future," said Jim Wilkinson, the head of the Coalition Information Center.

----

ABC Brings Home Battlefront Reality

Wed Feb 20
By Josef Adalian and Michael Schneider
Variety
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020220/tv_nm/television_battlefront_dc_1&printer=1

HOLLYWOOD - ABC is doing a little more than its TV rivals to bring the war on terrorism into America's homes.

The network is turning the war into a weekly reality series, "Profiles From the Front Line," which could end up on the air as soon as this summer.

It will follow U.S. troops as they combat terror in global hot spots such as Afghanistan (news - web sites), the Philippines and South America. ABC has given the docudrama series a 13-episode commitment.

In addition, the Pentagon (news - web sites) has given its approval to the "Front Line" concept and will allow wide access to its producers, Bertram van Munster and Jerry Bruckheimer ("Black Hawk Down").

Van Munster -- who helped pioneer the modern reality genre with "Cops" -- said he came up with the idea for "Profiles" in the weeks following the Sept. 11 attacks. He immediately pitched his idea to Bruckheimer, who produces "The Amazing Race" with van Munster. Bruckheimer quickly jumped on board.

"His relationship with the military got the ball rolling," van Munster said, noting that Bruckheimer had the Pentagon's cooperation during the filming of "Black Hawk Down."

According to van Munster, vice president Dick Cheney (news - web sites) and defense chief Donald Rumsfeld signed off on the project without reservation.

"They haven't given me any restrictions as of yet; they're very enthusiastic about the thing," van Munster said. "Obviously we're going to have a pro-military, pro-American stance. We're not going to criticize."

Andrea Wong, ABC Entertainment senior VP for reality and specials, said the network bought the concept as soon as it heard the pitch.

"We've been given complete access to everything, and we couldn't pass up that opportunity," she said. "We are going to bring to viewers the stories of the real men and women, the heroes, who are fighting the war on terror."

While "Front Line" will likely bow this summer, it's possible ABC could hold the series for fall -- much as CBS decided to delay the original "Amazing Race" after seeing early content from the show.

Van Munster and Bruckheimer are in pre-production on "Profiles," and hope to deploy cameras in a few weeks. "Profiles" will focus on a handful of personnel from all walks of military life; the casting process has just begun.

"We want to go into their lives in real time and follow specific people," van Munster said. "We will cast our cast of characters from all levels of the military. It is a reality show. It has to be entertaining, dramatic, and the characters in this have to be appropriate."

-------- spy agencies

Rumsfeld Says Pentagon Plan Won't Include Lies

February 20, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Pentagon-Media.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Pentagon officials on Wednesday denied planning to use a new Office of Strategic Influence to plant false information in the news media to promote U.S. war goals.

``The Pentagon does not issue disinformation to the foreign press or any press,'' Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said.

Rumsfeld and his aides said the exact limits of the office's mandate have yet to be defined, but that in any case its efforts to shape world opinion would not include deliberately spreading falsehoods.

Rumsfeld said the Pentagon might engage in strategic or tactical deception, as it has in the past. For example, if U.S. troops were about to launch an attack from the west, they might ``do things'' that would make the enemy believe an attack was instead coming from the north, Rumsfeld said.

``That would be characterized as tactical deception,'' the secretary said.

The main reason for creating the new office last fall was to centralize oversight of what the military calls ``information operations,'' such as spreading messages on a battlefield by leaflet or airborne broadcasts, said Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy. He oversees the new office.

The office also may explore ``all kinds of ways of affecting enemies' perceptions'' of U.S. military activities in wartime, he said.

``We have an interest in the enemy not knowing, not being comfortable about what we are going to do'' on the battlefield, Feith said in a breakfast interview with a group of reporters.

He stressed that this would not include lying to the public.

``We have an enormous stake in our credibility, and we're going to preserve that,'' he said. ``But we're not going to give up on the obvious usefulness of managing information of various types for the purpose of helping our armed forces accomplish their missions.''

Rumsfeld stressed that the new office's mandate is still under discussion. Asked if it would do anything the Pentagon has not done in previous wars, he said: ``We do have to think of it in a different way'' because of the unique nature of the war on terrorism. ``How it will play out over time, I don't know.''

The New York Times reported on Tuesday that the Office of Strategic Influence, which is headed by Air Force Brig. Gen. Simon P. Worden, has begun circulating classified proposals calling for aggressive campaigns that use not only the foreign media and the Internet but also clandestine operations.

Feith indicated that some proposals would have gone too far. He said senior Pentagon officials, in creating the office after the Sept. 11 attacks, saw a need to ``have oversight over all kinds of information.''

``What happens is, when you put together an operation to do that, somebody immediately comes forward with suggestions that go beyond this very sensible and rather narrow concept,'' he said.

Asked whether the Pentagon might secretly enlist a nongovernment entity to spread false or misleading information to the news media, Feith replied, ``We are going to preserve our ability to undertake operations that may, for tactical purposes, mislead an enemy. But we are not going to blow our credibility as an institution in our public pronouncements.''

Critics worry that the Pentagon is planning to plant false information abroad that could get back to Americans.

``In this age of global communication, misleading information disseminated overseas would quickly become known to U.S. news organizations,'' Barbara Cochran, president of the Radio-Television News Directors Association, wrote in a letter to Rumsfeld.

``There would be no way to ensure that falsehoods told abroad would not also be told to the American public,'' she added.

--------

At Spy Stores, Era of 9/11, Not 007

New York Times
February 20, 2002
By JACOB H. FRIES
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/20/nyregion/20SECU.html

It did not take Arielle Jamil, a new sales clerk, too long to pick out the paying customers at the Counter Spy Shop: men who wanted a 007 after their names.

These men gravitated to gizmos. They nearly drooled at the sight of night-vision goggles. They wanted the pens that doubled as cameras. They bought the telephones that detected lies.

And so it went at the store for 10 years. Until September.

"It's shifted from the kitschy James Bond, money, excess, fast cars market to the more serious side of personal protection," said Ms. Jamil, the onetime sales clerk at her father's company and now its spokeswoman. "After Sept. 11, all of a sudden the silly toys weren't so important. People were more worried about what life's going to be like in the new age of antiterrorism and how they were going to protect their families."

The shop, on Madison Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets, sold more than 2,000 gas masks and 1,500 hazardous- materials suits in September alone, Ms. Jamil said. Sales of letter-bomb detectors and bulletproof vests also jumped, she said.

But since then, Counter Spy Shop's owners have been amazed to find that sales of their expensive products have remained strong. The wobbly economy may have slowed the frenetic pace of shoppers half a step, but every government warning of a possible terrorist strike keeps people on edge and coming through the doors, Ms. Jamil said.

This public anxiety has enabled the store to defy sagging retail trends, nearly doubling its normal sales of personal security equipment, to $4 million from $2.25 million, over the past five months compared with the same period a year ago, Ms. Jamil said.

In fact, sales at stores around the city that sell antiterrorism devices have remained strong over the past five months.

They are so strong that, despite the sputtering economy and the sorry state of Wall Street, the Counter Spy Shop's parent company, CCS International, plans to go public next month. Aside from running the retail shops around the world, CCS, with headquarters in New Rochelle, N.Y., manufactures special product lines for law enforcement agencies and governments and maintains a training division.

Why does CCS think this is an especially good time to offer stock? Its chief executive, Ben Y. Jamil, believes that since Sept. 11, consumers have been willing to shoulder the high cost of personal security.

"The rose-colored glasses are being taken off," Mr. Jamil said. "There's public acceptance that the good days are gone and that there are serious people out there who hate us. The technology that we have developed is giving us a serious advantage."

Some financial experts have their doubts. Arnold Ursaner, an industry analyst at CJS Securities in White Plains, said he was a little skeptical because much of the security market was already cornered by the largest companies. "Wall Street is always looking for the next fad du jour, but I don't know if this niche market has broadened all that much," Mr. Ursaner said. "The hardware is not where the money is."

But it is easy to see why spy shops may be looking at stock offerings. Sales, primarily of gas masks, also surged at Army surplus shops and survival stores immediately after the attacks and continue to ride a swell, store managers said last week.

Jim Korn, a manager at Kaufman's Army and Navy on 42nd Street west of Times Square, said some people have been so unnerved that they will buy anything, even junk, if it gives them peace of mind. The whole thing got out of hand, Mr. Korn said, so the owners decided to pack away the remaining gas masks and sell them only to collectors or to theaters as props.

"We'd tell them, `Do you realize there's not any warranty? The warning label in red says there's no guarantee it will protect you,' " Mr. Korn said last week. "But people just didn't want to know. They all say, `It's better than nothing.' "

Quark Spy Centre, on Third Avenue near East 36th Street, has begun to market a $65,000 device to detect plastic explosives, figuring it could become the next big thing, said Gregg Graison, vice president of Quark International. "We all got a quick education right after the attack," Mr. Graison said. "Now we're trying to look into the crystal ball."

The new demands have even begun to draw veterans of the Israeli military, intelligence and security forces to the United States looking for their cut of the pie. Yesterday, at a conference in Midtown Manhattan, the Israeli government introduced about 40 of the country's security and technology companies to potential American customers.

Roy Bordes, council vice president of the American Society for Industrial Security, a trade group, said the security market had moved beyond knee-jerk fear to a more long-term fear. "In the beginning, everyone was just confused," he said. "But in the last two months, more average Americans are calling, asking, `How can I really make my life safe?' "

While the security industry finds it hard to predict growth, and no one dares to estimate the impact of another attack, one thing is certain: the products are not getting cheaper.

At the Counter Spy Shop, hazardous materials suits to be worn in the event of a nuclear, biological or chemical threat are priced at $299. Gas masks range from $299 to $499. The large bulletproof leather jacket is $1,800.

While costly protection is selling strong, many of Counter Spy Shop's die-hard customers - the 007 fans and the gadget lovers - have begun to return, said Dan Gallo, a sales representative.

Last week, Eric Richman, 29, an entertainment lawyer, was in the store browsing. "I'm always looking for interesting gadgets, usually for gifts for men," he said. "My dad just loves cutting-edge toys."

Out on the street, the store's window display - a mannequin dressed for the apocalypse - caused pedestrian rubbernecking along Madison Avenue. Those who stepped inside were caught off guard by an old Cabbage Patch doll modeling an Israeli-made safety suit for infants.

The price tag: $499.

-------- turkey

PKK seeks image change with new name

THE WASHINGTON TIMES
From combined dispatches
February 20, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020220-78684316.htm

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey - The new name says it all. A Kurdish rebel group with a history of ruthless guerrilla attacks is trying to shed its bloody image and become a legitimate political force.

What was the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, will become the Democratic Republic Party, said Kurdish sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

"The coming days will be decisive for the PKK's future," said the group's leader, Abdullah Ocalan, who is being held on a remote island while he appeals a death sentence.

His statement, appearing in the Germany-based Kurdish paper Ozgur Politika, indicated he is trying to reshape his party from behind bars, where he has been held for three years.

But the government is unlikely to accept the group and says giving in to Kurdish demands could break up the country along ethnic lines.

The PKK's attempts to clean up its image are likely aimed at Europe, where the group has a strong presence, analysts say. Turkey is pressing the European Union to include the PKK on its list of terrorist groups, as the United States has done.

"The PKK is the old PKK with a different tactic," said Michael Radu, an expert on terrorism with the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute. "Ocalan is a much more effective public-relations strategist than Turkey, and he is telling Europe how nice his organization is."

The PKK was founded 24 years ago in 1978 with the goal of getting Turkey to grant autonomy to the Kurdish minority. It turned to armed struggle in 1984, and the fighting has claimed 37,000 lives.

There are some 12 million Kurds in Turkey, most living in the southeast. Although they represent about 20 percent of the population of 67 million, the government doesn't recognize them as an official minority. Kurdish language is outlawed in schools, at official events and in broadcasts other than music.

"People can speak Kurdish if they want," Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said on Friday. "But we cannot accept Kurdish education."

Ocalan called a cease-fire after his arrest, but the government rejected it, and fighting continues, though it has decreased considerably in recent years.

While most Turks consider the Kurdish rebels a barbaric terrorist group, there is considerable sympathy for them outside the country.

Ocalan's fate has become a key issue in Turkey's relations with the European Union. The EU has demanded that Turkey lift Ocalan's death sentence and says allowing Kurdish education is crucial for Turkey's hopes of joining the union.

On the third anniversary last Friday of Ocalan's arrest, Diyarbakir - the largest city in the Kurdish-dominated southeast - was surprisingly calm.

Previous anniversaries have seen clashes, but on Valentine's Day the bars and restaurants were crammed with romantic couples. That's quite a change from the days before the cease-fire, when the streets would have been empty after dark.

Many Kurds in Diyarbakir supported the PKK's decision last week to rename itself and halt activities under the old name. In turn, they say, authorities should end discrimination against Kurds.

Veysi Bolca, who manages local Gun TV - a station that was banned for a year last week for airing a Kurdish song critical of Turkish soldiers - expressed his frustration. "They are always looking for something to punish us for," he said.

Meanwhile, Turkey and Iraq - its neighbor to the southeast, which is also concerned about Kurdish nationalism - began discussing their economic ties this week amid mounting concern in both countries that Baghdad could be the next target of U.S. military strikes.

A Turkish diplomat told Agence France-Presse that senior diplomats from Iran and Iraq met in Ankara on Monday and "took up the economic aspect of our relations, and also international developments." The diplomat said the talks were part of regular political consultations between the two countries.

The head of the Iraqi delegation, Mohammed Ahmed, said Baghdad was willing to boost trade with Turkey.

"Trade is constantly improving, and both sides are willing to further develop the relations," Anatolia news agency quoted him as saying.

Turkey, a member of NATO and a key Muslim ally of the United States, has recently stepped up efforts to revitalize trade with Iraq, which has been badly affected by U.N. sanctions imposed on Baghdad for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Turkey puts its trade losses as a result to about $40 billion.

While the Iraqi diplomats met with their Turkish counterparts, a group of U.S. congressmen held a separate meeting at the Foreign Ministry in Ankara to promote Turkish-American friendship.

---

Cyprus talks end without progress

THE WASHINGTON TIMES
World Scene
February 20, 2002
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020220-32628788.htm

NICOSIA, Cyprus - The leaders of war-divided Cyprus ended the first phase of renewed reunification talks yesterday without any sign of a breakthrough.

President Glafcos Clerides, the Greek Cypriot leader, and Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash agreed to resume their U.N.-sponsored talks March 1.

The prolonged Cypriot issue has taken on a new urgency ahead of the expected entry of Cyprus to the European Union by the end of 2003 and warnings by Turkey that it will annex the island's Turkish-occupied north if this happens before a settlement is reached.

-------- un

U.N. dismisses 3 cops in Bosnia over war roles

THE WASHINGTON TIMES
World Scene
February 20, 2002
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020220-32628788.htm

SARAJEVO - The U.N. mission in Bosnia said yesterday it had sacked three Bosnian Serbian policemen after discovering they worked in wartime detention camps cited in the indictment accusing Slobodan Milosevic of genocide.

The move brings to 20 the number of mainly Serbian but also Bosnian Croatian and Muslim policemen dismissed by the United Nations over the past four years for their involvement in the 1992-95 war, spokesman Stefo Lehman said at a news conference.

He said it was conducted in cooperation with the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

-------- us

Pentagon is arming with words
Office would plant news, true or false, in foreign media

The New York Times
James Dao and Eric Schmitt
International Herald Tribune
Wednesday, February 20, 2002
http://www.iht.com/articles/48682.htm

WASHINGTON The Pentagon is developing plans to provide news items, possibly even false ones, to foreign media organizations as part of a new effort to influence public sentiment and policymakers in both friendly and unfriendly countries, military officials said.

The plans, which have not received final approval from the Bush administration, have stirred opposition among some Pentagon officials who say they might undermine the credibility of information that is openly distributed by the Defense Department's public affairs officers.

The military has long engaged in information warfare against hostile nations - for instance, by dropping leaflets and broadcasting messages into Afghanistan when it was still under Taliban rule.

But it recently created the Office of Strategic Influence, which is proposing to broaden that mission into allied nations in the Middle East, Asia and even Western Europe. The office would assume a role traditionally led by civilian agencies, mainly the State Department.

The small but well-financed Pentagon office, which was established shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was a response to concerns in the administration that the United States was losing public support overseas for its war on terrorism, particularly in Islamic countries.

As part of the effort to counter the pronouncements of the Taliban, Osama bin Laden and their supporters, the State Department has already hired a former advertising executive to run its public diplomacy office, and the White House has created a public information "war room" to coordinate the administration's daily message domestically and abroad. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, while broadly supportive of the new office, has not approved its specific proposals and has asked the Pentagon's top lawyer, William Haynes, to review them, senior Pentagon officials said.

Little information is available about the Office of Strategic Influence, and even many senior Pentagon officials and congressional military aides say they know almost nothing about its purpose and plans.

Its multimillion-dollar budget, drawn from a $10 billion emergency supplement to the Pentagon budget authorized by Congress in October, has not been disclosed.

Headed by Brigadier General Simon Worden of the air force, the new office has begun circulating classified proposals calling for aggressive campaigns that use, not only the foreign media and the Internet, but also covert operations.

The new office "rolls up all the instruments within DOD to influence foreign audiences," its assistant for operations, Thomas Timmes, a former army colonel and psychological operations officer, said at a recent conference, referring to the Department of Defense. "DOD has not traditionally done these things."

One of the office's proposals calls for planting news items with foreign media organizations through outside concerns that might not have obvious ties to the Pentagon, officials familiar with the proposal said.

Worden envisions a broad mission ranging from "black" campaigns that use disinformation and other covert activities to "white" public affairs that rely on truthful news releases, Pentagon officials said.

"It goes from the blackest of black programs to the whitest of white," a senior Pentagon official said.

Another proposal involves sending journalists, civic leaders and foreign leaders e-mail messages that promote American views or attack unfriendly governments, officials said.

Asked if such e-mail would be identified as coming from the American military, a senior Pentagon official said that "the return address will probably be a dot-com, not a dot-mil," a reference to the military's Internet designation.

To help the new office, the Pentagon has hired the Rendon Group, a Washington-based international consulting firm run by John Rendon Jr., a former campaign aide to President Jimmy Carter. The firm, which is being paid about $100,000 a month, has done extensive work for the Central Intelligence Agency, the Kuwaiti royal family and the Iraqi National Congress, the opposition group seeking to depose President Saddam Hussein.

Officials at the Rendon Group say terms of their contract forbid them to talk about their Pentagon work.

But the firm is well known for running propaganda campaigns in Arab countries, including one denouncing atrocities by Iraq during its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

The firm has been hired as the Bush administration appears to have united around the goal of removing Saddam. "Saddam Hussein has a charm offensive going on, and we haven't done anything to counteract it," a senior military official said.

Proponents say the new Pentagon office will bring much-needed coordination to the military's efforts to influence views of the United States overseas, particularly as Washington broadens the war on terrorism.

But the new office has also stirred a sharp debate in the Pentagon, where several senior officials have questioned whether its mission is too broad and possibly even illegal. Those critics say they are disturbed that a single office might be authorized to use not only covert operations like computer network attacks, psychological activities and deception, but also the instruments and staff of the military's globe-spanning public affairs apparatus.

Mingling the more surreptitious activities with the work of traditional public affairs would undermine the Pentagon's credibility with the media, the public and governments around the world, critics argue.

"This breaks down the boundaries almost completely," a senior Pentagon official said.

Moreover, critics say, disinformation planted in foreign media organizations could end up being published or broadcast by American news organizations.

The Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency are barred by law from propaganda activities in the United States.

Critics of the new Pentagon office also argue that governments allied with the United States are likely to object to attempts by the American military to influence media within their borders.

----

Drawbacks to Any Effort to Kill Saddam

By George Gedda
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, February 20, 2002; 2:19 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36839-2002Feb20?language=printer

WASHINGTON -- It's called "regime change" - the administration's deceptively polite term for deposing Saddam Hussein.

Among options being discussed are support for a local insurgency, fostering a coup by the Iraqi leader's closest lieutenants and an outright U.S.-led invasion.

Much less is heard about what could be the swiftest avenue to the post-Saddam era: taking him out with a well-placed military strike.

Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, notes that the killing Saddam is the "the ideal minimalist solution" if a way were found to track him and there were high assurances of success.

But when it comes to blowing away foreign enemies, the U.S. record is poor.

During the U.S.-led Gulf War 11 years ago, there were repeated, unsuccessful efforts to kill Saddam. Laurie Mylroie, an Iraq analyst and regime change supporter, recalls that U.S. "deep penetration" bombs were used against suspected underground hideouts but Saddam proved too elusive.

Having learned from that experience, Saddam probably has refined his detection-avoidance capabilities, says Mylroie.

Saddam is not the first foreign leader to survive being in America's cross hairs.

A 1975 Senate committee report uncovered eight failed U.S. attempts on the life of Cuban President Fidel Castro over the years. (Castro has said the figure was much higher.)

There also was an unacknowledged attempt to kill Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in April 1986 after U.S. officials linked his government to a terrorist incident in Germany that left two U.S. soldiers dead.

Richard Murphy, who then headed the State Department's Middle East bureau, said there was never any discussion of going after Gadhafi personally, but that the target selection included Gadhafi's compound. The Libyan leader was unharmed but an adopted infant daughter was killed.

In theory, assassination attempts are a violation of an executive order signed by President Reagan in 1981. "No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination," the order states.

The directive does not seem to have been a deterrent, as demonstrated by the attempts on Gadhafi and Saddam and by the cruise missile attacks President Clinton ordered in 1998 against supposed terrorist camps operated by Osama bin Laden.

Former CIA Director Robert Gates has said Reagan's executive order should not be interpreted too literally.

"I make a distinction between military operations and the CIA going out and targeting someone for assassination. In military operations, people usually get killed," Gates says.

As for Saddam and his perceived "axis of evil" regime, Mylroie says if President Bush sees the executive order as an impediment, he could simply revoke it.

Cordesman believes the there are formidable reasons for not going after Saddam personally. If the operation is successful, it might not make much difference if Saddam is succeeded by his like-minded sons.

Also, he says, there should be a moral constraint on the United States, a victim of international terrorism, in the way it acts against perpetrators of terrorism.

The downside of an attack on Saddam is that it "may convince people that you have just committed an act of terrorism," he says.

The notion of eliminating Saddam in a single stroke may look nice on the surface, he says, adding that "it is far from clear that the people who are advocating that have thought out the consequences."

EDITOR'S NOTE: George Gedda has covered foreign affairs for The Associated Press since 1968.

----

Pentagon 'ready to lie' to win War on Terror

From Damian Whitworth in Washington,
UK Times
February 20, 2002
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,13-213439,00.html

THE Pentagon has set up a covert unit to wage an information war that could include feeding false stories to foreign media, according to a report yesterday.

A senior Pentagon official was quoted as saying that the information battle "goes from the blackest of black programmes to the whitest of white".

The proposals appeared to have been leaked by Pentagon officials who fiercely oppose them and hope to ensure widespread outrage at home and abroad and increased scepticism about US statements on the War on Terror, especially in countries where they are expected to have an impact.

As the Bush Administration attempts to build support for expanding the War on Terror, officials at the new Office of Strategic Influence are aiming to form opinion in friendly and unfriendly countries with carefully placed information that supports their case.

Under plans that have yet to be approved by Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, disinformation, or "black programmes", could be one of the weapons in the new campaign, The New York Times reported.

It was unclear under what circumstances false news items would be relayed, but the plan is to influence public opinion and policymakers in the Middle East, Asia and even Western Europe. A White House official said that the UK media were not likely to be a target. "They are not exactly thinking about Britain," he said.

Among the suggestions are that the job of disseminating disinformation be undertaken by outside groups that reporters would not immediately realise were linked to the Pentagon. E-mail, which would not carry a Pentagon address, would also be employed to spread the US message to foreign journalists.

American agencies have long engaged in information warfare, including radio broadcasts and leaflet drops seen in Afghanistan, but the new office, with a multimilliondollar budget, was set up after September 11 to take the message to a wider audience.

One complication could be US laws that ban the Pentagon and CIA from undertaking propaganda activities in America. The Defence Department could fall foul of the law if stories placed by the unit are picked up by the American media and later found to have been false. In the 1970s CIA disinformation was picked up from the foreign media by American news organisations.

In September Mr Rumsfeld was asked if there would be any occasion when defence officials would be authorised to lie to the media. He recalled Sir Winston Churchill's line: "In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."

Then he said: "No, I cannot imagine a situation. I don't recall that I've ever lied to the press; I don't intend to, and it seems to me that there will not be a reason for it. There are dozens of ways to avoid having to put yourself in a position where you're lying. And I don't do it."

Victoria Clarke, the Pentagon spokeswoman, would not discuss the Office of Strategic Influence. "Clearly the US needs to be as effective as possible in all our communications. What we're trying to do now is make clear the distinction and appropriateness of who does what."

----

Revealed: Pentagon's new black propaganda unit

By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
20 February 2002
UK Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=134367

The Pentagon is developing a major covert news and disinformation campaign to help Washington win the propaganda war against terrorism in the Islamic world.

The plan, worrying to some US defence officials, is being elaborated by the Office of Strategic Influence (OSI), a recently created unit funded from an extra $10bn (£7m) of emergency funds voted by Congress to the Pentagon after 11 September. The main target is the Islamic countries of the Middle East and Asia, but the campaign may also be directed at Western Europe, where criticism has mounted in recent weeks of the Bush administration's strategy to fight terrorism.

Little is known of the OSI other than that it is headed by an air force general, Brigadier General Simon Worden, and is being advised by a powerful Washington communications consultancy, the Rendon Group. Its budget and staffing is unknown. Rendon has previously worked for the CIA, the Kuwaiti government and the Iraqi National Congress opposition group, and is being paid fees of about $100,000 a month, according to The New York Times, which disclosed the existence of the OSI yesterday.

The blueprint for the propaganda offensive is being studied by the Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, and by Pentagon lawyers, and has not yet been formally approved by President Bush. But Mr Rumsfeld is said broadly to back the idea, and Rendon's background is further evidence of how Mr Bush intends to ratchet up the pressure on Saddam Hussein and achieve "regime change" in Iraq.

None the less there are misgivings within the Pentagon at its seemingly imminent venture into an area traditionally the preserve of the CIA and the State Department. The main fear is that by feeding slanted and possibly false information to foreign government officials and the international media, the OSI might undermine the credibility of the Pentagon's official press department.

One Defence Department official said: "We shouldn't be in that business. Leave the propaganda leaks to the CIA, the spooks. If we get the reputation for spreading false information, then what is anyone to believe and not believe that comes out of this building?" Other officials fear the initiative, once revealed, might weaken support for the US among its allies.

Victoria Clarke, the official Pentagon press spokeswoman, said her department was not involved with the OSI, calling it "a work in progress". Though the Pentagon has been far from generous with information about the war, Mr Rumsfeld has more or less kept his promise not to lie to reporters, often telling reporters investigating sensitive issues: "I know, but I won't tell you." The New York Times said the plan, if approved, would embrace "black" disinformation and other covert activities in addition to accurate news releases. It would feature e-mail messages, distributed by an outside source to conceal their origin, which would promote US policies and attack unfriendly governments.

----

Defense Dept. Divided Over Propaganda Plan
Critics Fear 'Information Operations' Could Backfire, Hurt Pentagon's Credibility

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 20, 2002; Page A10
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A35664-2002Feb19?language=printer

A Pentagon plan that would involve the U.S. military in overseas propaganda efforts has divided the Defense Department, officials said yesterday.

At the center of the controversy is a new Office of Strategic Influence, created in recent months to more directly influence foreign public opinion about U.S. military operations. Just what the new office will do remains unclear, and its tentative plans have not been approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, said one Pentagon official. "There are some proposals, suggestions and ideas being talked about," he said.

But the official said that even those initial discussions have sparked widespread concern inside the Defense Department among officials who feel that the new office, by seeking to manipulate information and even knowingly dispense false information, could backfire and discredit official Pentagon statements.

Military public affairs officials have expressed concern to top officials that the new office, if it continues on its proposed course, will blur the distinction between intelligence operations and public relations operations, one defense official said. "You could get guys from the black world dealing with issues like what to tell kids in Pakistan," said another official.

But there also is concern in the military that the field of "information operations" is one of the few areas in which the armed forces have had major problems during the Afghan war.

Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, singled out that area for unusual public criticism. "One area in particular I think we've been slow to get going has been our information operations campaign," he said in November. "Despite our best efforts, we took too much time to put together the team, if you will." The result, he said, was that, "occasionally, we missed the opportunity to send the right message."

Myers did not elaborate on those missed opportunities, but others in the Air Force were surprised that the media placed so much emphasis on civilian casualties caused by bombing mistakes. The military was especially surprised by that emphasis because Air Force planners believed that they were operating under unprecedented constraints designed to minimize civilian injuries. They complained to top commanders that, because of those limits, they frequently missed hitting al Qaeda leaders, especially in the first three weeks of the Afghan campaign, which began on Oct. 7.

The dissension at the Pentagon over the new information effort, which was first reported in yesterday's New York Times, focuses on the intention of some officials to operate in peacetime as well as wartime. The military has long tried to influence public opinion in countries at war under the title of "psychological operations." But the new office apparently plans to extend such operations into nations in which the United States is not a combatant.

The division at the Pentagon over the plan is only the latest manifestation of a long-running battle inside the military between public affairs officials and the new community of "information warriors," said retired Col. Virginia Pribyla, a former head of the Air Force's press desk. "Information war" has been a major growth area in the military over the past decade, said Pribyla. "The problem is they don't see anything wrong with not telling the truth," she said.

An additional concern of public affairs officials is that those involved in the new effort do not have backgrounds that give them expertise in shaping public opinion. Air Force Brig. Gen. Simon P. Worden, the head of the Office of Strategic Influence, is an astrophysicist who has worked extensively in space operations and missile defense.

Worden in turn reports to Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy, a lawyer whose background is in Middle Eastern affairs and strategic arms control. Through a spokesmen, Feith declined to be interviewed for this article.

Worden's office also coordinates its work with retired Army Gen. Wayne Downing, who has been overseeing the U.S. counteroffensive against terrorism on the National Security Council. Downing is a former head of the U.S. Special Operations Command.

But others said that the public affairs officers are overreacting. "I don't see the great, nefarious plot in this office [of Strategic Influence] that some people do," said Dan Kuehl, a specialist in information warfare at the National Defense University. "It just makes common sense" to use the power of information, he said.


-------- POLICE / PRISONERS

Beefed-Up Global Surveillance?

By Declan McCullagh
Feb. 20, 2002
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,50529,00.html

WASHINGTON -- An addition to an international treaty could permit police to cooperate more closely on intercepting and decrypting the communications of suspected terrorists.

The Council of Europe (http://www.coe.int/), which includes nearly all European nations, is meeting this week to prepare additions to a controversial "cybercrime" treaty (http://www.legal.coe.int/economiccrime/Default.asp?fd=cybercrime&fn=IndexE.htm) that would cover decoding terrorist messages. The United States, Canada and Japan are non-voting members of the council. Peter Csonka, the head of the Council of Europe's economic crime division, said when the drafting process for the so-called Second Protocol is complete, the document will address "how to identify, how to filter, and how to trace communications between terrorists."

Details are scarce, and the Council of Europe has repeatedly refused to elaborate. Csonka would not confirm or deny whether the Second Protocol will advance limits on encryption technology, coordinate code-breaking efforts among member nations, or increase electronic surveillance performed against people linked to terrorism.

This week's closed-door meeting, reportedly taking place at the council's headquarters in Strasbourg, France, includes representatives from the U.S. Justice Department, which was one of the most enthusiastic backers of the original treaty.

Privacy groups and civil libertarians have spent nearly two years criticizing the existing cybercrime treaty, which is now awaiting ratification by the legislatures of member nations. If the council plugs additional surveillance powers into the treaty, opposition seems certain to increase substantially.

In December, the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers asked the Steering Committee on Crime Problems (http://cm.coe.int/stat/E/Decisions/2001/776/d01_6.htm) to draft the "Second Protocol to the Convention on Cybercriminality to cover also terrorist messages and the decoding thereof." That is scheduled to happen after an antiterrorism working group completes its report by April 30, 2002.

This week's meeting is a preliminary one. After the drafting process begins in earnest later this spring, the steering committee will prepare a detailed proposal in June and send it back to the Council of Ministers by the end of September, according to the Csonka.

The still-secret Second Protocol will be, as the name implies, the second set of additions to the underlying treaty. Currently the Council of Europe is busy working on the First Protocol, which criminalizes "hate speech" and racist remarks and likely will run afoul of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Some observers predict the U.S. delegates to the Council of Europe will not sign the First Protocol. But the underlying cybercrime treaty, without the "hate speech" components, is likely to go to the U.S. Senate for a vote.

"There is a group of experts working on the First Protocol. Once this committee produces the First Protocol in June, then the steering committee will consider giving terms of reference for a new committee," Csonka said. "The second group of experts operate on terms of reference that will be drafted by the European Steering Committee on Crime Problems."

Bryan Sierra, a spokesman for the U.S. Justice Department, confirmed that his agency's computer crime section sent representatives to this week's meeting on the Second Protocol but steadfastly refused to say what they were doing.

"We're not at liberty to discuss our position or even what's going on," Sierra said. "We would prefer to talk about these matters with the people we're meeting with instead of with reporters."

The French activist group Imaginons un Réseau Internet Solidaire (http://www.iris.sgdg.org/) obtained a list of participants (http://www.iris.sgdg.org/actions/cybercrime/pc-rx/part-notelnomail-181201.html) from a December 2001 meeting relating to the "hate speech" protocol. The three U.S. representatives are: Jason Gull, a trial attorney at the Justice Department; Kenneth Harris, the associate director of the criminal division's Office of International Affairs; and Richard Visek, an attorney in the State Department's law enforcement and intelligence section.

"This shows that the cyber rights community was justified in its opposition to the cybercrime treaty," David Sobel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (http://www.epic.org/) said of the Second Protocol. "It is becoming the vehicle for an ever-expanding list of invasive intergovernmental activities."

Privacy groups have opposed the underlying treaty (http://www.gilc.org/privacy/coe-letter-1200.html), which, according to the Council of Europe, no countries have ratified so far (http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/searchsig.asp?NT=185&CM=8&DF=). Among the objections: Encouraging self-incrimination, no clear limits on police eavesdropping powers and unwarranted traffic data collection and storage.

One industry representative who attended a meeting on the cybercrime treaty at the Justice Department earlier this month said it was suprising that the government attendees never mentioned the Second Protocol: "It was interesting because it didn't come up. This was a clear opportunity to have that discussion."

A foreign affairs officer at the U.S. State Department said the department is monitoring the process, but hasn't taken a position on the Second Protocol. The person referred calls to the Justice Department.

Robert Zarate contributed to this report.

----

Border skirmishes

By Nicholas M. Horrock and Mark Benjamin
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
February 20, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/business/20020220-70352971.htm

Canadian and U.S. officials are squaring off over how to improve border security without putting the brakes on $1.3 billion in trade each day, a battle complicated by disagreements within the Bush administration, government sources say.

The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the two sides have clashed over efforts by the Bush administration to impose new security controls. Canadian and U.S. officials have publicly crossed swords over controlling truck cargo.

In Washington, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge and Immigration and Naturalization Service officials apparently have different views on tracking the passage of Canadians across the border.

Historic allies, Canada and the United States agreed in December to a plan for a "secure and smart border" that both U.S. and Canadian officials said would protect against terrorist attacks while facilitating this vital stream of trade. Seventy percent of the trade with Canada is truck-borne, with a truck crossing the border every three seconds in a stream of 200,000 vehicles each day.

The essence of that agreement was that the United States and Canada would devise ways to identify regular, unthreatening traffic in people and cargo and separate it from unknown or questionable goods and individuals. The idea was backed by Mr. Ridge and Canadian Deputy Prime Minister John Manley.

But talks to implement that agreement have become difficult, people involved with the talks on both sides of the border said.

"The talks now look mired in the ground," said David Bradley, chief executive officer of the Canadian Trucking Alliance, which represents 4,000 trucking companies. Mr. Bradley said some parts of the American government "want an inspector to check every truck."

"That just won't work," he said.

On Feb. 1, just before Mr. Ridge and Mr. Manley were to meet at a World Trade Forum meeting in New York, U.S. Commissioner of Customs Robert C. Bonner was quoted in the New York Times as saying, "We're looking at increased security against terrorists at the border. I don't think Canadians are looking at it the same way."

"There are at least a certain number of al Qaeda terrorists in Canada," he said. "One of them could get a job at one of these (Canadian manufacturing) plants and then you may have nuclear material inserted in that truck."

Mr. Bonner's remarks reverberated across Canada in front-page news from Vancouver to Nova Scotia.

On Feb. 2, as he left to meet with Mr. Ridge, Mr. Manley told reporters he would not bow to U.S. pressure. "It's not a matter of satisfying the Americans," he said, "it's a matter of satisfying ourselves," pointing out how vital this trade was to Canada. But he admitted there had been a "push-back by the Americans," as they had assessed their security needs.

"I think what you are seeing happen is that our government is absolutely saying to the Americans that we appreciate the security issues, but we have got to make sure this two-way trade is not impeded," said Bob Keyes, senior vice president international for the Canada Chamber of Commerce.

Customs is a Treasury Department agency, and Mr. Ridge is known to have clashed with Attorney General John Ashcroft on security issues. The Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Border Patrol are under Mr. Ashcroft's control.

When Mr. Ridge and Mr. Manley met Feb. 2 at the World Economic Forum in New York, Mr. Manley pressured Mr. Ridge about President Bush's plans to track the flow of individuals back and forth, according to Mr. Ridge.

Mr. Bush has proposed spending $380 million next year to establish a high-tech system that would track people entering and exiting the United States. Mr. Bush has said he wants that system in place by 2004.

Mr. Ridge agreed to Mr. Manley's demands that the new, high-tech system proposed in the Bush budget would not apply to the millions of trips by Canadians crossing the 4,000-mile border into the United States.

"I assured him that we understand we've got a very unique relationship with them," Mr. Ridge said. "I think this is geared - this is not geared to Canada, but basically the balance of the world."

INS officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said, however, the system will definitely apply to Canadians eventually.

On the truck issue, one administration source said that Mr. Bonner's remarks will stand and that no one will rebuke him. Another administration source said Mr. Ridge is having "turf battles" with several agencies as he tries to put together a homeland security plan.

Canadians like Mr. Bradley believe U.S. Customs is unwilling to accept electronic systems that would pre-certify trucks from major shippers and their drivers.

----

Dozing screener shuts Kentucky airport

THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Around the Nation
February 20, 2002
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020220-29392920.htm

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - A dozing security screener led authorities yesterday to clear the Louisville International Airport of passengers and delayed 25 flights, officials said.

Roughly 1,500 people were ordered to go back through the screening procedure, including passengers and crews on two planes that had already pushed away from their gates, an airport spokeswoman, Rande Swann, said. Normal operations had resumed by 10 a.m.

A National Guardsman at a security checkpoint noticed that a male screener was asleep at 6:30 a.m., resulting in the decision by authorities to clear the airport.

-------- terrorism

U.S. Wants to Help Georgia with Al Qaeda Problem

February 20, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-attack-georgia-usa.html

WASHINGTON - The United States wants to help the former Soviet republic of Georgia root out al Qaeda fighters hiding in a lawless gorge near the Russian region of Chechnya, a senior U.S. official said on Wednesday.

But Washington's desire to combat followers of Osama bin Laden does not extend to enlisting Russian help to crush the militants accused of using Georgia's Pankisi gorge as a conduit to the separatist conflict in mostly Muslim Chechnya, he said.

Georgia, which has found a sympathetic ear in Washington with complaints of interference from its former Kremlin masters, says it sees no need for foreign help to fight the drug smuggling and kidnappings that have gripped the area since Russia unleashed its second campaign in Chechnya in 1999.

The U.S. official flatly denied a report on Wednesday by Russia's Itar-Tass news agency -- described as a trial balloon by one analyst -- that quoted an unnamed U.S. official as saying Washington had outlined a plan for a joint anti-terrorism action with Moscow in Pankisi gorge.

Russia has linked Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network to Chechen guerrillas since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States that were blamed on bin Laden.

Moscow has accused the West of double standards for not pursuing the Chechens with as much vigor as it has hunted down the Saudi-born exile's followers in Afghanistan.

``The Russians have said it's a Georgian problem, and we're trying to help the Georgians get a handle on it,'' the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. ``There is a problem, and we're looking at ways to help support the Georgians.''

ANTI-TERRORIST FORCE

He declined to say what Washington was considering but gave no hint it would take its war on terrorism to Georgia.

Remarks this month in Tbilisi by U.S. charge d'affaires Philip Remler that fighters had fled to Pankisi gorge from Afghanistan have fueled speculation that the United States might take action in the area.

The Bush administration has other options short of military action, like training or other support to Georgian forces.

Remler said in an interview with a Georgian weekly the United States wanted to create anti-terrorist forces within the Georgian defense ministry.

He said dozens of Afghan mujahideen had escaped to the Caucasus, including to the gorge, where they had contacts with Khattab, a senior Arab commander active in Chechnya.

Analysts say Russia would love to get a green light to pursue militants in neighboring Georgia.

The West's unrelenting criticism of Moscow for the scale of the bloodshed in Chechnya has grown quieter since Sept. 11, but the United States has sustained its criticism of reported Russian attacks in the Pankisi gorge area.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher made clear at a news briefing that there had been no shift in this policy.

``Our goal in all this, what we have discussed with the Georgians and frankly what we've always told the Russians is that we've felt that this situation is best dealt with through ... cooperation with the United States and Georgia.

``That continues to be our approach,'' he said.

Georgian Security Minister Valery Khaburzania told Reuters in an interview in Tbilisi that his country saw no need to conduct an operation with foreign forces in the gorge.

He said Georgia had seized several kidnapping and drug trade suspects. ``We will not stop there. We will conduct more anti-criminal, anti-terrorist operations,'' he said.


-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

German prompt power prices drift, wind power cited

REUTERS GERMANY:
February 20, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14619/story.htm

FRANKFURT - German prompt power prices eased this week - with the exception of steady day ahead baseload - as additional wind power supply outweighed the bullish effects of two nuclear outages in France and Germany.

Traders said windy and wet weather helped fill water reservoirs and boosted river levels.

"Temperatures are higher than expected, which is bearish for demand...at the same time, a lot of wind energy is in the market," one said.

"I also think there has to be a downward correction after the high levels seen lately," he added.

Day ahead baseload remained at the 23.25 euros seen at the close last Friday, but peakload declined 0.5 euros on the day to 28.5-29.5 euros.

The LPX cleared day ahead power at 22.07 euros and 26.05 euros for baseload and peakload at its midday auction, down from 22.98 euros and 28.07 euros respectively.

Power for the week ahead in the OTC market was last indicated at levels 1.5 euros below those last Friday, with baseload costing 23.75-24 euros and peakload 32.75-33 euros.

March prices were also slightly down at 23.55-23.8 euros and 33.05-33.2 euros respectively for the two positions.

French nuclear operator EdF said it had shut the export-oriented 1,300 megawatt nuclear reactor at Cattenom on Sunday for "significant" maintenance work, without giving a time for its return to the grid.

The 771 MW northern German Brunsbuettel reactor had been taken off-line from early Monday morning for safety checks and likely repairs, the local state government told Reuters.

A time schedule was also not obtainable.

Curve prices reflected the weaker spot market tendency, with Calendar Year 2003 easing 0.1-0.2 euros to 23-23.05 euros in baseload, and shedding 0.15-0.2 euros in peakload at 32.65-33.1.

----

UK offshore wind farms face long permit wait

REUTERS UK:
February 20, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14626/story.htm

LONDON - British offshore wind farm developers face a wait of up to eight months to get a raft of official consents needed to push ahead with their schemes, delegates at a conference heard this week.

"Realistically they need six to eight months to see the consents process through," Geoff Bowles, head of the Marine Consents and Environment Unit at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), said.

Offshore schemes are not expected to face the planning hurdles encountered by onshore wind farms but companies need to spend at least a year studying the environmental impact of their projects before they apply for the permits, Bowles said.

Offshore wind projects need to have at least seven consents from central government and local authorities.

One small pilot offshore scheme is already operating but another 18 are in the wings as Britain looks for ways to boost production of green energy.

Powergen, whose 78-megawatt project at Scroby Sands off eastern England is one of the 18 schemes, applied for permission last March and expects the go ahead by mid-year, Chris Morris, general manager of Powergen Renewables said.

"This is the first large scale project the department has considered," he told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference.

DEFRA and the Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions, two of the main government departments involved in authorising wind farms, have set up a central unit, the Marine Consents and Environment Unit, to deal with consents, said DEFRA's Bowles.

He added the Department of Trade and Industry might also join the unit, whose Internet address is www.mceu.gov.uk.

-------- environment

PENTAGON REBUILDING WITH ECO-FRIENDLY PAINT

February 20, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-20-09.html

HATTIESBURG, Mississippi, An environmentally friendly paint developed by University of Southern Mississippi (USM) polymer science researchers will be used in the repairs of the Pentagon in Washington DC.

The paint formulation, dubbed American Pride, was unveiled to the public Tuesday at USM along with the first shipment of the paint - 100 gallons of off white paint. In all, at least 20,000 gallons will be used to paint one-fifth of the interior walls in the Pentagon, as well as repaint the wing damaged in the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001.

"It will be 12-14 months before we start painting the rebuilt wing," said Bob Billak, who is in charge of maintenance at the Pentagon. "Before then, we will use the paint on the corridors and offices in the [rest] of the building."

Billak said the paint has been tested and shown to be more durable than conventional paint. More tests await the paint in Washington, DC.

"They will take this paint and use it on a mock up of Pentagon offices," said Dr. Shelby Thames, distinguished professor of polymer science at the Southern Miss School of Polymers and High Performance Materials. "By this summer, they will be ready to start ordering it in big volumes."

The paint, developed by a USM research team led by Thames, was unveiled during an Earth Day celebration last April.

The paint includes a chemical building block derived from castor oil. The component, called a "castor oil acrylated monomer," takes the place of a solvent in the formulation of the paint. That reduces the amount of toxic pollutants given off by the water based paint into the atmosphere.

Conventional paint, Thames said, contains volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which pollute the air and give fresh paint its unpleasant odor. The new technology developed at USM will remove the VOCs from the paint, cutting the level of pollutants from about 200-400 grams per liter of paint to as low as three grams.

"The bottom line is this technology uses castor oil, soybean oil or lesquerella oil to allow us to make latex polymers that have wide applications," Thames said. "Not just paints, but inks, adhesives, carpet backings, coating for fibers, coatings for concrete steel, just a huge potential for applications. And we can make these coating systems that have no odor and release no pollutants into the atmosphere."

The paint will be a money saver for the Pentagon and, by extension, U.S. taxpayers, Billak said.

"Since the paint has no VOCs, there is no downtime in painting," said Billak. "We repaint every five years, and by using this paint, we won't have to shut down offices and move personnel out while we paint."

----

BIOMASS BURNING BOOSTS STRATOSPHERIC MOISTURE

February 20, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-20-09.html

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut, Tropical wildfires and slash and burn agriculture have helped double the moisture content in the stratosphere over the last 50 years, a Yale researcher has concluded after examining satellite weather data.

"In the stratosphere, there has been a cooling trend that is now believed to be contributing to milder winters in parts of the northern hemisphere," said Steven Sherwood, assistant professor of geology and geophysics. "The cooling is caused as much by the increased humidity as by carbon dioxide."

"Higher humidity also helps catalyze the destruction of the ozone layer," added Sherwood, whose article appears in this month's issue of the journal "Science."

Cooling in the stratosphere causes changes to the jet stream that produce milder winters in North America and Europe. By contrast, harsher winters result in the Arctic.

Sherwood said that about half of the increased humidity in the stratosphere has been attributed to methane oxidation. It was not known, however, what caused the remaining added moisture.

In a study funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Sherwood examined a combination of data from a NASA satellite launched in the 1990s and operational weather satellite data archived at the Goddard Institute for Space Science in New York.

In particular, he studied monthly and yearly fluctuations of humidity in the stratosphere, relative humidity near the tropical tropopause - the place where air enters the stratosphere - ice crystal size in towering cumulus clouds, and aerosols associated with tropical biomass burning.

Tropical biomass burning is any burning of plant material. In the tropics, the burning is often associated with the clearing of forest or grassland for agricultural purposes.

"More aerosols lead to smaller ice crystals and more water vapor entering the stratosphere," Sherwood explained. "Aerosols are smoke from burning. They fluctuate seasonally and geographically. Over decades there have been increases linked to population growth."

-------- health

Avoidable Causes of Breast Cancer May Include Mammography

February 20, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-20-01.html

WASHINGTON, DC, Mammography centers around the country have been scaling back operations and closing their doors for the past two years because of inadequate insurance reimbursements. The trend comes at a time when a growing population of older women is increasing the demand for the radiological breast exams. But a prominent cancer prevention physician warns that mammography is a risky, unreliable, profit driven technology.

Breast cancer is the second most common cancer affecting women in the United States, with over 200,000 new cases diagnosed each year.

Currently, the average cost of a mammogram is between $90 and $100, and Medicare only reimburses $82 for the procedure. The private insurance reimbursement rate is somewhat lower. According to the American College of Radiology, nearly 400 mammography programs nationwide have been forced to close since March of last year, 40 of them in New York State.

New York Senator Chuck Schumer (Photo courtesy Office of the Senator)

"Thousands of women across Westchester County could be forced to wait months for mammograms because there aren't enough radiology centers that can afford to screen them," said New York Senator Chuck Schumer, a Democrat.

The New York senator is co-sponsoring legislation with Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, that would raise Medicare reimbursement rates to more accurately reflect the cost of the procedure. "The bottom line is that we need to raise reimbursement rates, which would keep mammography centers open and provide incentives to attract the next generation of radiologists," Schumer said.

But cancer prevention physician Dr. Samuel Epstein, professor of environmental and occupational medicine at the University of Illinois-Chicago School of Public Health, says mammograms are at best ineffective in detecting cancers, and at worst, may themselves trigger cancers. The safe, effective, low cost route to cancer prevention, he says, is monthly breast self examinations (BSE) coupled with annual clinical breast examinations (CBE) and education about the avoidable causes of cancer.

"Mammography poses a wide range of risks of which women worldwide still remain uninformed," warns Dr. Epstein who is chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition.

Dr. Samuel Epstein (Photo courtesy Naturally Healthy)

In a September 2001 article published in the International Journal of Health Services, Dr. Epstein claims that radiation from mammography "poses significant cumulative risks of initiating and promoting breast cancer."

"Contrary to conventional assurances that radiation exposure from mammography is trivial - and similar to that from a chest X-ray or spending one week in Denver - about 1/1,000 of a radiation absorbed dose (rad) - the routine practice of taking four films for each breast results in some 1,000 fold greater exposure, one rad, focused on each breast rather than the entire chest," Dr. Epstein writes.

Premenopausal women who get annual mammograms for 10 years are exposed to a total of about 10 rads for each breast, "each rad of exposure increasing breast cancer risk by one percent," he writes.

New experimental findings reported this week by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory cell biologist Mary Helen Barcellos-Hoff support Dr. Epstein's warnings.

Barcellos-Hoff showed that exposure to ionizing radiation creates a microenvironment in the tissue surrounding breast cells that can cause even nonirradiated cells and their progeny to become cancerous. "Radiation exposure can cause breast cancer by pathways other than genetic mutations," said Barcellos-Hoff who presented her study in Boston this week at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Barcellos-Hoff and her team focused on the signaling - crucial to normal functioning - that takes place between a cell and the microenvironment of its surrounding tissue. The director of Berkeley Lab's Life Sciences Division, Mina Bissell, has shown that breakdown in these communications can initiate the cancer process.

"Our data is pointing to the tissue surrounding breast cells as a primary target of ionizing radiation damage," Barcellos-Hoff said.

Radiation damage to this surrounding tissue generated signals that changed how the breast cells' genomes were expressed. A new cell type was created with physical characteristics that were cued to act cancerous by the signals coming from outside the cell.

A normal breast as it appears in a mammogram (Photo courtesy McGill University School of Medicine)

The discovery suggests new and possibly more effective means for preventing breast cancer. "Repairing damaged tissue so that it once again suppresses instead of promotes carcinogenesis is a simpler strategy for stopping the cancer process, compared to trying to repair individual damaged cells," says Barcellos-Hoff.

But Senator Schumer says he is concerned for the health of New York women who must wait as long as four or five months to get a mammogram. "Early detection is the key to treating the disease effectively and routine mammograms reduce the risk of dying from breast cancer by 40 percent."

"These shortages are putting thousands of Westchester County women at risk because delayed diagnoses often result in tumors being detected at less treatable stages," the senator says.

"We need to push this bill through Congress and get it to the President's desk immediately because when it comes to treating breast cancer, every day counts," Schumer said of the Assure Access to Mammography Act, first introduced in March 2001.

But mammography is "not a technique for early diagnosis," says Dr. Epstein, who points out that the radiological screenings miss many cancers, and mistakenly diagnose other conditions as cancer, particularly in premenopausal women.

"Overdiagnosis and subsequent overtreatment are among the major risks of mammography," he warns.

"Despite long-standing claims, the evidence that routine mammography screening allows early detection and treatment of breast cancer, thereby reducing mortality, is at best highly questionable," writes Dr. Epstein. He quotes a 1997 study by M. Napoli published as a monograph by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute that concluded, "the overwhelming majority of breast cancers are unaffected by early detection, either because they are agressive or slow growing."

This is a fine needle aspirate of a breast mass that contains both benign (left) and malignant (right) cell clumps. The benign cells are small, uniformly sized and shaped. The cancerous cells are larger and vary in size and shape. (Photo courtesy University of Wisconsin-Madison, Dept. of Surgery, Dr. William Wolberg Tutorial)

No nation other than the United States routinely screens premenopausal women by mammography, although professional associations are divided on the need to do so. The American Cancer Society acknowledged in 1985 that most breast cancers are found by the women affected. "We must keep in mind the fact that at least 90 percent of the women who develop breast carcinoma discover the tumors themselves," the society said.

Effective self examination for breast cancers "critically depends on careful training by skilled professionals," and confidence is enhanced with annual clinical breast exams by experienced professionals, Dr. Epstein emphasizes.

A "large-scale crash program" for training nurses in how to perform clinical breast exams and how to teach breast self examination is immediately needed, particularly for underinsured and uninsured women in the United States and in developing countries, he urges. Clinics offering this training "could be established nationwide, and eventually worldwide" in schools, community hospitals, churches, synagogues and mosques, he envisions.

These clinics could also serve as sources of reliable information on how to reduce the risks of breast cancer. "From an environmental standpoint," says Dr. Epstein, "the most important thing is the contamination of animal and dairy fats with carcinogenic industrial pollutants. That's a very major source. Living near hazardous waste sites in another major thing, living near industry."

"In your body fat and in my body fat, there's probably about 150 to 200 carcinogenic industrial pollutants," he said. "And animal and dairy fats, they concentrate the stuff. They are mainly chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides, PCBs, they're aldrin, dieldrin, chlordane, heptachor, DDT which have permeated the totality of our environment, our air, our water, our workplace, in the North Pole you find them."

GE 800T mammogram system at Memphis, Tennessee's Delta Medical Center (DMC) (Photo courtesy DMC)

In the senator's view, the problem is financial. "The average increase in the Medicare rate - 1.5 percent per year between 1997 and 2000 - has lagged far behind the medical inflation rate. Since other government insurance programs and private insurers base their reimbursement rates on Medicare, low Medicare rates create a ripple effect which lead mammography clinics to receive insufficient reimbursements from private and government insurers alike," he said.

Dr. Epstein too acknowledges that the costs of mammography are high and rising. "The dangers and unreliability of mammography screening are compounded by its growing and inflationary costs," he writes, citing an annual cost of $10 billion if all women, both before and after menopause were screened annually.

"Such costs will further increase some fourfold if the industry, enthusiastically supported by radiologists, succeeds in its efforts to replace film machines, costing about $100,000, with the latest high tech digital machines, approved by the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] in November 2000, costing about $400,000," he writes.

But while the senator would fund the increasing costs of mammography, the doctor would have women utilize low cost breast self examinations supplemented by annual clinical exams and education about the environmental factors that contribute to the disease.

----

[There's another debate here...}

Estrogen Alternative Offers Benefits for Heart Disease

FINDINGS
Wednesday, February 20, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36198-2002Feb19?language=printer

An osteoporosis drug marketed as an estrogen alternative may significantly lower the risk of heart attacks in postmenopausal women prone to heart disease, a study shows.

Moreover, the drug, called raloxifene and sold under the brand name Evista, does not raise the short-term, one-year risk of heart attacks in such women -- a danger seen in some studies of estrogen supplements.

The drug had no effect on the risk of heart trouble in healthy women, according to the study, which was funded by Evista manufacturer Eli Lilly and Co. Doctors and the company said it would be premature to use the drug to prevent heart problems.

Studies suggesting heart disease patients could face an increased risk of heart attacks in the first year of taking estrogen supplements have confounded patients and doctors, who for years have relied on research suggesting the supplements could help protect the heart. The studies have heightened the dilemma millions of women face about whether to take menopause hormones, which can relieve symptoms such as hot flashes and protect bones but also have been linked to breast cancer when used for many years.

In the new study, led by Elizabeth Barrett-Connor of the University at California at San Diego, high-risk women who took raloxifene for four years were 40 percent less likely than women who took dummy pills to have heart attacks or other cardiovascular "events," such as strokes or chest pain. Women were considered high-risk if they had previous heart trouble or had a combination of risk factors such as diabetes and high blood pressure.

The findings, published in today's Journal of the American Medical Association, come from a reanalysis of a study of 7,705 women that showed raloxifene reduced the risk of spinal fractures.

---

[Compare previous article to the following, and bear in mind while pondering the comparison that George H.W. Bush (W's dad) once worked for Eli Lilly family, and Dan Quayle was born to it. Wonder what their investment is in it? et]:

Osteoporosis drug risky after cancer drug

2/19/2002
UPI
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=18022002-075125-9310r

CHICAGO -- A new study released Tuesday finds women using the osteoporosis drug raloxifene need to be careful if they also have taken the cancer-fighting drug tamoxifen as that combination may be linked to increased chances of getting cancer of the uterus lining.

Researchers at Northwestern University in Chicago said the increase was found in studies of mice but translates into a risk for women taking raloxifene after taking a five-year course of treatment with tamoxifen.

To accommodate the relatively short life span of a mouse, tumor cells were transplanted through more than a dozen generations of mice so the experiment could run five years. The raloxifene was found to stimulate growth of injected endometrial cancer cells but not to cause endometrial cancers to begin.

One author of the Northwestern University mouse study, V. Craig Jordan, told United Press International: "The clinical trial to look at the safety of raloxifene following tamoxifen would require tens of thousands of women. What we've done is used animal model systems that we have proven with tamoxifen had veracity."

The report, published this week in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, comes as an experimental study of 22,000 postmenopausal women at risk of breast cancer begins. The main goal is to determine if raloxifene is as effective as tamoxifen in reducing the chance of getting breast cancer.

Jordan said the study showed the increased risk of using raloxifene after tamoxifen was about the same as continuing to take tamoxifen. He said about four cases of endometrial cancer a year per 1,000 women could be expected as compared with two cases per 1,000 in women who had never taken either drug. Jordan said it was important to note the four cases per 1,000 were an estimate based on research with mice and not in humans.

Tamoxifen has been prescribed for more than 20 years to help prevent a recurrence of breast cancer among women who had breast cancer surgery. In 1997, it was approved as a breast cancer preventative for high-risk woman. It is known tamoxifen increases the risk of getting cancer of the lining of the uterus, called endometrial cancer.

Tamoxifen, produced by Zeneca Pharmaceuticals in Wilmington, Del., and marketed under the brand name Nolvadex, interferes with the action of estrogen, a hormone that promotes breast cancer.

Raloxifene, prescribed under the brand name Evista, produced by Eli Lilly Co. in Indianapolis, was approved about three years ago for the treatment of osteoporosis, and has a mechanism similar to tamoxifen.

A study of 7,700 postmenopausal women with osteoporosis, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1999, found as a side effect women who received raloxifene were 76 percent less likely to get invasive breast cancer during three years of treatment with raloxifene.

Dr. Cliff Hudis, chief of breast cancer medical service of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, told UPI he believes the study is valid but added studies in humans are essential.

"This is interesting because it addresses a frequent clinical situation and provides a possible rationale for how to approach this issue," Hudis said. "This paper suggests that taking raloxifene after tamoxifen might be similar to simply taking a longer duration of tamoxifen. In that case, it would be possibly harmful since the mechanism of resistance to tamoxifen appears similar to raloxifene."

Vincent Idemyor, a clinical pharmacologist with Advocate Health Care in Chicago, also said clinical studies will be needed.

"Since the findings of this study raise questions about the use of raloxifene as a replacement for tamoxifen after five years of adjuvant (post-surgical) therapy, both long-term efficacy and carcinogenic studies with clinical relevance to their tumor findings are needed," Idemyor said.

The experiment was much more a model for tumor growth than a model for tumor development, according to Deborah K. Armstrong, assistant professor of oncology and gynecology and obstetrics at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore. Armstrong said she was not surprised at the results, given what clinical studies and experience have shown and given the similar nature of tamoxifen and raloxifene.

(Written by Joe Grossman in Santa Cruz, Calif.)

----

Drug Reduces Appetite, Burns Fat in Mouse Tests

FINDINGS
Wednesday, February 20, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36198-2002Feb19?language=printer

A single dose of an experimental drug called C75 can cut the appetite of a fat mouse by 90 percent and seems to burn extra fat as well, researchers reported yesterday.

While warning that any tests of the drug in people are years away, they said their study sheds light on the complicated factors that affect appetite and weight.

Daniel Lane of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and colleagues at the University of Alabama at Birmingham said C75 had different effects on normal, lean mice, mice genetically engineered to be obese and mice that were made obese by overfeeding.

"A single dose causes a rapid (more than 90 percent) decrease of food intake," the researchers wrote in their report, published in yesterday's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, "With lean mice, C75 suppressed food intake by about 50 percent and with obese mice by 85 to 95 percent during the first day of treatment."

They said C75 may increase metabolism as well as cause the mice to eat less.

Lane and colleagues said C75 blocks the action of four different signaling chemicals in the brain that are associated with appetite. Usually when an animal fasts, molecules such as neuropeptide Y kick into action to get the appetite going again. C75 stops this from happening.

-- Compiled from reports by the Associated Press and Reuters

-------- human rights

Bush Urges Jiang To Respect Religion

February 20, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Bush-Asia.html

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- President Bush urged Chinese President Jiang Zemin on Wednesday to respect religious freedoms and consider the Vatican's plea to free Catholic bishops, sticking points in otherwise improving U.S.-Chinese relations.

Bush, beginning his two-day trip to Beijing, said he hoped that Jiang, ``as a president of a great nation, would understand the important role of religion in an individual's life.''

He planned to address U.S. troops in Seoul before leaving Korea.

In addition to human rights, Bush and Jiang are at odds over U.S. missile defense plans, the fate of Taiwan, nuclear proliferation, trade and the president's claim that North Korea, Iran and Iraq form ``an axis of evil.''

Yet their meetings are unlikely to be contentious, at least partly because of the new U.S.-China alliance against terrorism, according to White House aides and outside analysts.

``The president will raise the tough issues of religious freedom and proliferation, but the Chinese right now are thoroughly occupied with economic and political transformations, and Bush is preoccupied with the war,'' said Sandy Berger, national security adviser in the Clinton White House.

``They both want there to be calm water,'' he said.

Bush's visit comes on the 30th anniversary of the groundbreaking trip by President Nixon -- a milestone that ended a two-decade estrangement. While Nixon opened the door to China, Bush hopes to use the war on terrorism to develop a mature relationship in which differences can be resolved amicably.

Only a few months ago, administration officials feared relations with the world's most populous country were headed in the other direction. They cited China's emergence as a power rivaling the U.S. in Asia, the diplomatic confrontation in April over a downed U.S. spy plane and Beijing's determination to unify Taiwan.

But as Bush makes his second visit to China in five months, both leaders see advantages in uniting against terrorism

The United States benefits from China's intelligence information and acceptance of rapidly expanded U.S. action in Asia. And China is using the war to justify harsh treatment of separatist Muslims in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, also known as East Turkestan

Beijing links the group to Osama bin Laden.

At a news conference Wednesday, Bush said, ``I can tell you that in my last visit with President Jiang I shared with him my faith. I talked to him on very personal terms about my Christian beliefs.''

Human rights and religious freedom will be the focus of Bush's address Friday at a Chinese university, expected to be broadcast nationally.

Bush said he urged Jiang in October to honor the request of the Vatican ``to be able to at least have dialogue about bishops that are interned there.'' The president said he would repeat the request Wednesday.

China has detained dozens of bishops and priests loyal to Pope John Paul II and is closely watching many more as part of its efforts to weaken the underground Roman Catholic Church, according to the Vatican.

China has a state-sanctioned Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association that does not recognize papal authority. Millions of Chinese Catholics faithful to the Vatican worship in underground churches, where they risk arrest. Church leaders have sometimes been imprisoned for years.

The Catholic dispute is not the only difference over religion. China expelled 33 Americans who had been detained during a protest by foreign members of the Falun Gong meditation group.

Bush also said he will discuss the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader.

While in Korea, Bush peered through binoculars into North Korea and heard stories of ax-wielding North Korean soldiers killing American troops in 1976.

``No wonder I think they're evil,'' Bush said, shaking his head.

It was as close as he came to reviving his ``axis of evil'' comment that reverberated in several world capitals, including Beijing.

Chinese officials were alarmed by Bush's declaration, which fed their fears that the United States' surging military presence in Asia will not be temporary. Bush is expanding the anti-terror war to several Asian countries with terrorist cells, including the Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia.

Adding to the Chinese consternation is Bush's plan to build an anti-missile shield. The project could neutralize Beijing's modest nuclear force.

Among the other issues on the US-Chinese agenda:

-- The sale of advanced missile and nuclear technology to nations like Iraq and Pakistan.

-- Chinese worries that Bush will sell Taiwan advanced arms.

-- The upcoming end of Jiang's term. Bush expects to meet briefly Friday with the front-runner to replace Jiang, 59-year-old Hu Jintao.


-------- activists

First use of 'aggravated trespass' at Fylingdales
Re-Trial at Pickering Magistrates' Court - 19 February 2002

From: "CAAB" <caab@btclick.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002

Lindis Percy - Joint Co-ordinator with Anni Rainbow of the Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases (CAAB) was found guilty of an offence under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 by Pickering Magistrates on Tuesday 19 February 2002. She was fined £200 and ordered to pay costs of £220.

During the trial the Magistrates would not allow Lindis to cross examine the Ministry of Defence Police on any questions to do with military land byelaws; one of the issues related to the background to this case.

Lindis challenged the lawful credibility of Sergeant James Carr (arresting officer - MDP) who had failed to attest as a constable as required by the Ministry of Defence Police Act 1987. The Magistrates deliberated for about an hour before finally ruling against this point. Probably a third of serving MDP officers have not lawfully attested.

On 9 September last year Lindis was arrested by Ministry of Defence Police (MDP) after going to Fylingdales to observe the security of the base and also to continue the protest against the American Missile Defense System.

She was arrested under section 69 ('aggravated trespass') of the CJPO Act 1994 - stringent bail conditions severely limited the regular monitoring of the land for any developments re AMD. However Anni Rainbow continued the weekly checking of Helmsley Planning Office for any new planning applications.

For the first time the MDP at Fylingdales have used this particular law. This heralds a worrying and repressive development concerning peaceful protest. 'Aggravated trespass' has also been used against Lindis at JAC Molesworth and USAF Mildenhall on many occasions in the past. By using this draconian law instead of the byelaws the MDP have again cynically manipulated and abused the law.

Lindis has been arrested and dearrested many times under the byelaws at Fylingdales over the years but has only once been charged. The case was later discontinued. This has meant that it was not possible to bring a challenge to the validity of the byelaws and furthermore there was no public record of the arrests by the MDP.

In a recent case involving Lindis PC Dobbs and another officer said under oath that the MDP had been instructed 'not to go further' if they arrested under the byelaws.

For advice and information re s.68 adn s.69 CJPO Act 1994 please contact:

Lindis Percy and Anni Rainbow Joint Co-ordinators CAMPAIGN FOR THE ACCOUNTABILITY OF AMERICAN BASES (CAAB) www.caab.org.uk

----

Re: Pentagon is arming with words (February 20)

International Herald Tribune
Wednesday, February 20, 2002
http://www.iht.com/articles/48682.htm

You'd think the Pentagon never lied before! I hope you will all attend the next Covert Operations Working Group meeting scheduled for Wednesday, March 6 from 2-4 pm at the Mott House, 122 Maryland Avenue, NW. Covert operations, increasing secrecy and disinformation and deception campaigs are the central part of the new 10-year war we are asked to support. Come join us and unravel the lies.

John Judge 202-583-5347

ps - At today's meeting Dick Ochs and I strategized on ending the media silence about the startling fact that Ft. Deitrich, center of US chemical and biological warfare experiments for many years, is the source of the anthrax envelopes sent to Bush's main domestic agenda opponents on the Democratic side of Congress.

There is much more to this story.

----

James Carville Dares Oppose Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Dump
("Tracy-Hepburn or War of the Roses?")

By Lloyd Grove
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 20, 2002; Page C03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36646-2002Feb20?language=printer

In the decade since James Carville and Mary Matalin worked against each other in the 1992 presidential campaign -- he for Bill Clinton, she forthe first George Bush -- we've grown accustomed to their Tracy-Hepburn act.

But now Matalin is a trusted adviser to Vice President Cheney, and Carville is one of his harshest critics. On Sunday's "Meet the Press," he slammed the vice president for allegedly:

• Declining to disavow a Republican ad comparing Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle to Saddam Hussein: "You gave Vice President Cheney every opportunity to condemn that ad," he told host Tim Russert, "and he refused to do that."

• Doing the bidding of the nuclear power industry: "We see now that seven nuclear power lobbyists met with Vice President Cheney, gave God knows how much money. They've turned around and broken their word to these poor people in Nevada that they swore they would never do. We see that they're running wild in Enron, appointing heads of agencies, they're hiding stuff over that."

• Misleading Nevada voters by claiming to oppose storing nuclear waste in their state: George W. Bush "sent Cheney out there to say we'd never do it. . . . This is a classic example of somebody going out and saying something a week before the election to get votes and then turning around, knowing they're going to do exactly the opposite thing." ...

----

Falun Gong protests at China embassy

By Arlo Wagner
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 20, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/metro/20020220-68546364.htm

Two D.C. practitioners of Falun Gong protested with a group yesterday in front of the Chinese Embassy on Connecticut Avenue NW, asserting that they were illegally detained and persecuted in Beijing on Valentine's Day.

The Chinese government believes the practitioners were there only to disrupt and damage Chinese New Year celebrations, according to news reports.

Donna Scott Ware and Brian Marple were among 11 Washington-area residents who were detained with about 60 practitioners in China last week when they planned to stage a protest, or appeal, in Tiananmen Square against the Chinese government's persecution of Falun Gong practitioners.

"I felt deep sorrow in my heart for the Chinese people and wanted to let them know the truth about Falun Gong - that it is truthfulness, compassion and tolerance," said Mr. Marple, a Georgetown University freshman majoring in the Chinese language, explaining why he decided to go to Tiananmen Square.

Falun Gong, which describes itself as a personal, physical meditation for good rather than a religion, claims the Chinese government has killed more than 1,600 practitioners since the movement went worldwide in 1999. According to Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom in the 1300 block of 18th St. NW, China's government aims to repress religious expression outside of its control.

Falun Gong practitioners have appealed directly to the White House and through U.S. senators and representatives to President Bush, who is in China this week. They encourage President Bush to urge Chinese President Jiang Zemin to end the campaign to eradicate Falun Gong.

No reaction was seen in the Chinese Embassy yesterday as some of the detainees displayed protest banners, went through the mild physical exercises while meditating, and spoke about their experiences.

"The plainclothes police officer pulled my hair and shoved me into the van at the same time," said Mrs. Ware, 36, a technical writer living in Capital Park near the waterfront. "I didn't see my husband again until we were forced onto the plane."

Mr. Marple, 19, of Whitefield, Maine, said, "When I and another practitioner nearby began to sing the Falun Dafa Hao song, the thug slapped me hard in the face multiple times. When a nearby elevator opened, he kicked me in the back, shoving me into the elevator with his foot ... slamming my head into the wall."

A black-and-blue mark was still visible under the left eye of Mark Gardner of Los Angeles, who said "a number of police" pinned him to the ground "before I could unfold my banner." When they told him to put his head down between his legs, "I refused to cooperate," he said.

David Lee Jerkey, of Tacoma, Wash., displayed a maroon shirt, its buttons missing and the left sleeve tattered as a result of his encounter with police. "I never experienced such viciousness, sheer hostility in my life," he said.

Most of the Chinese officers were in their early 20s, Mr. Jerkey said. "They're just following orders, just like in Nazi Germany in the 1940s."

Other area residents who were detained are Robert Nappi, 47, a postal service employee from Alexandria; Heide B. Malhotra, early 60s, of Vienna; software engineer Duwon Kang of Chantilly; gym manager Keith Ware, 43, husband of Donna; public relations firm manager Nathea Lee, 45; Jeff Priore of Alexandria; Heide B. Malhotra of Vienna; German citizen Bjorn Neumann, 33, and Steven Reani of Capitol Hill.


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