------- Index of Articles
NUCLEAR
BUSH'S NUCLEAR 'LUNACY'
Scientist Who Developed A-Bomb Dies
Rethink the Unthinkable
Canada to Seek Clarification of U.S. Nuclear Plans
China Wants U.S. Nuclear Explanation
Depleted Uranium May Cause Damage
Children at risk from uranium in army shells
Uranium weapons health warning
Depleted Uranium May Cause Liver Damage, Study Says
Report: U.S. soldiers most at risk from uranium shells
Depleted uranium may stop kidneys "in days"
Depleted uranium soils battlefields
Czech Temelin plant loads fuel into 2nd reactor
No date in sight for Brunsbuettel n-plant restart
India can build ICBMs: CIA
Statement of Japan Gensuikyo on US-Nuclear Policy
Nuke them all
Russia Assails U.S. Stance on Arms Reduction
Russian Official Had Dual Role in Uranium Pact
UPI hears ... nuclear devices aboard
Nuclear Threat in 1995 Went Unheeded
Sniffing Out Dirty Nukes
Itchy fingers on the trigger
'Rogue' Nations Policy Builds on Clinton's Lead
Cheney calms nations on nukes
Our evolving nuclear posture
Adults address the unthinkable
America as Nuclear Rogue
Little Nukes Are Good Nukes?
DOE to reveal part of data in Paducah ruling
Hole Found in Nuclear Reactor Cap
Bush's stealth policy on N-arms
Cheney Gets Warning in Jordan
Cheney & Co. Owe Thanks to Those Who Pressured Them to Unload Stock
House set to 'cloak' amnesty
Federal Report
Lawmakers Doubt Need for Defense Plan
U.S. Now Less Likely to Go Nuclear, Says Powell
MILITARY
Pentagon Rejects Possibility of Al Qaeda Negotiation
Russia Pledges Help to Rebuild Afghanistan
'Inadequate' US troops pulled out of battleground
Afghan Assault Winding Down, but Pentagon Denies It's Over
Ethnic Albanians Are Freed
Britain sparks fears with upgrades of Cyprus bases
Ga. Lockheed Workers Strike
Study Assesses Risk of Attack on Chemical Plant
Colombia's FARC guerrillas have a keen sense of the market.
A Village at Source of Heroin Trade Fears Crop Eradication
Huge Israeli offensive hits West Bank
Israeli Army Fires on Journalists
Peace push: US may use observers
In New Conflict, Narrowing Ratio of Dead Pressures Sharon
Death Tolls Climb as Israel Steps Up Its Military Offensive
Holocaust Survivor Angry at IDs
Bermuda says US bases deal near despite pollution
U.S. sends drones to the Philippines
Probe Spawns Unparalleled Intelligence-Sharing
CIA to go under congressional hammer
Intelligence Agents Or Art Students?
Debate over Iraq awaits Cheney in Turkey
Annan Calls on Israel to End 'Illegal Occupation'
New Trend Eases Fears of Population Explosion - UN
150 Million Children Suffer Malnutrition - UNICEF
'Inaction Is Not an Option'
Bush Vows to Aid Other Countries in War on Terror
The message from Bush is clear
Special Forces Get High - Tech Gear
Uzbekistan's empty promises
On Pro-Kremlin Site, All News Is Good News
POLICE / PRISONERS
FBI will open office in China
Ridge Unveils New Alert System
Cops, vigilantes deter Zimbabwe voters
Denver Police Keeping Illegal Files
Man charged with storing deadly cyanide
Terror War Glance
ENERGY AND OTHER
INTERVIEW - Cost casts dark shadow on UK solar power
White House proposes fish settlement
ADS LINK HUMAN, ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS
World Bank Answers Skeptics on Aid
ACTIVISTS
GE shareholder group calls on company to exit nuclear business
Exposing Your Superiors
Falun Gong Activists Irk Beijing
Denver Police Keeping Illegal Files on Peaceful Protest Groups
Resources on the Nuclear Posture Review
Building a Culture and Vision for Peace
-------- NUCLEAR
BUSH'S NUCLEAR 'LUNACY'
Horror at Dubya's secret attack plan on 7 countries
By Alexandra Williams and Bob Roberts
Tuesday 12 March 2002
UK Mirror
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=11691273&method=full&siteid=50143
PRESIDENT Bush faced world anger last night over America's seven-nation nuclear hit list.
British MPs joined the outcry after a leaked Pentagon report revealed contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against China, Russia, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Syria and Libya. The secret policy was denounced as warmongering "lunacy".
Alarmed officials from Moscow to Tehran warned that the "power crazy" President, buoyed up by the successful campaign in Afghanistan, could plunge the world into chaos. British politicians said the strategy threatened the stability of the Nato alliance.
International tension mounted as Washington pressed Britain to back an attack on Iraq - including the possible commitment of 25,000 British troops to topple Saddam Hussein.
Cabinet Minister Clare Short hinted that she might resign if Tony Blair supported a mass strike against Baghdad. She said: "We need to deal with the problem of Saddam Hussein - we don't need to inflict further suffering on the people of Iraq."
Labour MPs Alice Mahon and Tam Dalyell will today deliver a letter to 10 Downing Street warning the Prime Minister against joining any military action.
US Vice President Dick Cheney arrived in London last night for talks with Mr Blair which will cover the threat posed by Iraq.
No 10 insisted last night: "No decisions have been taken."
Amid mounting anger, the target nations accused America of intimidation and "wreaking havoc on the whole world" and branded the plans a "lunatic" threat to world peace.
In Britain, MPs said the sensational disclosures threatened the stability of the Western alliance.
Labour MP Alice Mahon said: "The lunatics have taken over the White House. This report must be ringing alarms throughout Nato." The Pentagon document, known as the Nuclear Posture Review, was leaked as the US lobbied Britain to join an invasion of Iraq.
International Development Secretary and Cabinet Minister Clare Short hinted she might resign if a strike went ahead.
The review says the US must be ready to use nuclear weapons against China, Russia, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Syria and Libya. It then identified four areas where the US should be prepared to press the button:
In an Arab-Israeli conflict, in a war between China and Taiwan, in an attack by North Korea on South Korea and in an attack by Iraq on Israel or another neighbour. Additionally, the weapons could be used against targets able to withstand conventional attack and in retaliation for the use of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.
They could also be used in the event of "surprising military developments", reflecting fears that rogue states or terrorists could deploy weapons against the US.
The review, leaked to the Los Angeles Times, orders the military to plan for the use of "smaller nuclear weapons" as a more effective deterrent against terrorist attacks. It also calls for cruise missiles to carry nuclear weapons. It is the first time the US has reviewed its nuclear strategy since 1994 and the first list of target nations to be made public.
Last night it was seen as a warning to those states who might be harbouring terrorists. In Russia, defence hawk General Leonid Ivashov said: "The heart of US political doctrine is to push powerful Russia off the political scene."
Russian politician Dmitry Rogozin added: "This is a nuclear stick intended to intimidate us." Vyacheslav Nikonov, of the Politika think tank, branded the plans a "very negative signal" which would be "received in an appropriate fashion by Russia's leadership".
Iran's former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, an aide to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said: "The US believes that by threatening countries they'll withdraw their demands. Their policy is one of intimidation.''
The Tehran Times newspaper said: "This indicates the US is going to wreak havoc on the world to establish its domination." Professor Michael Yahuda, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics, warned: "China won't be happy to be classified among rogue nations."
Liberal Democrat spokesman Menzies Campbell said: "America seems to be moving from nuclear deterrence to nuclear war fighting.
"It would drive a coach and horses through Nato's doctrine of nuclear strikes as a last resort."
US Secretary of State Colin Powell insisted the report did not signal imminent action.
He said: "We should not get carried away with some sense the US plans to use nuclear weapons in some contingency in the near future.
"It's not the case. What the Pentagon has done with this is sound military, conceptual planning.
"Not a single nation is being targeted by an American nuclear weapon on a day-to-day basis."
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice added: "We all want to make the use of weapons of mass destruction less likely.
"The way that you do that is to send a very strong signal to anyone who might use them against the United States that they'd be met with a devastating response."
Vice-President Dick Cheney arrived in London last night to meet Tony Blair. He is expected to appeal for military support against Iraq. It is reported the US will ask for up to 25,000 British troops to form part of an invasion force.
In the first sign of a Cabinet split, Ms Short denounced any invasion plans yesterday. She said: "An all-out military attack is, of course, not at all sensible.
"We need to deal with the problem of Saddam Hussein. We don't need to inflict further suffering on the people of Iraq."
Ms Short said the best answer was to allow UN inspectors back into Iraq, a move firmly ruled out by Iraq's Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan yesterday. Her warning amounted to a threat to resign if there is a strike against Iraq. Donald Anderson, Labour chairman of the Commons foreign affairs select committee, said military action on Iraq must only be a last resort.
He said: "I think there are reckless elements in the Pentagon who are on a roll because of Afghanistan.
"I would hope part of the task of our Government is to influence those who take a contrary view."
Downing Street played down the reports of an American request for British troops. A spokesman said: "No decisions have been taken, let alone any requests made."
-------- britain
Scientist Who Developed A-Bomb Dies
The Associated Press Tuesday, March 12, 2002; 10:16 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A13204-2002Mar12?language=printer
LONDON -- John Challens, the scientist who created the electrical firing circuits that detonated Britain's first atomic bomb, has died at 86, his family said Tuesday.
Challens collapsed while playing golf in his home town of Basingstoke on March 1 and died soon afterward of a heart-related illness, his son Bob Challens said.
Challens was one of a group of scientists who worked in secret at the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE) at Aldermaston, now the Atomic Weapons Establishment, created in 1950 by Britain's then-Labor government to develop a nuclear deterrent.
Britain had been forced to go it alone after the United States stopped all collaboration in the atomic field, limiting Britain's access to nuclear weapons material and to the knowledge needed to produce atomic weapons.
On Oct. 3, 1952 in the Monte Bello islands off the northwest coast of Australia, Challens and another scientist made the final checks on the bomb, which had been loaded aboard a frigate, HMS Plym. The device was detonated by the electronic firing circuits he had invented.
Born in Peterborough in eastern England on May 15, 1915, Challens studied at University College in Nottingham before joining the War Office in the 1930s to research the physics of heavy guns.
In 1939, he worked on missile guidance systems at the rocket development establishment at Aberporth, west Wales and after World War II he joined the British team that investigated Germany's V1 and V2 buzz bombs.
In 1947, Challens was recruited to work on Britain's atomic project by William Penney, who had worked on the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs.
Throughout the 1950s, he took part in British nuclear tests in Australia and later invented an electronic initiator to replace polonium as a firing agent.
In 1959, he became head of development at AWRE, producing new warheads for the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy. He became deputy director of AWRE in 1972, and later helped to modify the Polaris submarine's nuclear missile system so that it could penetrate Soviet defenses.
-------- canada
Rethink the Unthinkable
The idea of waging nuclear war is taking flight in Washington. Canada must protest, says DOUGLAS ROCHE, former chair of the UN Disarmament Committee
By Douglas Roche Toronto Globe and Mail (Canada's "national" newspaper) Tuesday, March 12, 2002 - Print Edition, Page A19
From: Delong <delong@nucleus.com>
Nuclear weapons are back on the front pages, with news of a Bush administration policy document, the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review, which projects the role of nuclear weapons into the future -- not as deterrents, but for the purpose of waging wars. The document even names potential targets. This document and the thinking behind it are reckless. They not only jeopardize international law but the support of America's closest allies. Canada must state its opposition immediately.
The document also breaks a commitment. In 2000, the United States joined the other nuclear-weapons states in making an "unequivocal undertaking to accomplish the total elimination" of their nuclear arsenals. The United States made this commitment at a review conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which, with 187 nations involved, is the world's largest arms-control and disarmament treaty.
There are still 31,000 nuclear weapons in the world, most of them American or Russian, with lesser amounts held by the United Kingdom, France and China, India, Pakistan and Israel. At least 5,000 of the U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons are maintained on hair-trigger alert, meaning they could be fired on 15 minutes notice.
The Bush administration has offered cuts in the nuclear weapons the United States deploys, but is reinforcing its maintenance of core stocks and planning the development of new ones. By rejecting the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, it is holding open the door to resumed nuclear testing. This has greatly worried many non-nuclear weapons countries and has already led to charges that the United States is acting in bad faith. The Non-Proliferation Treaty insists that negotiations for elimination should be held in "good faith."
Periodically, the United States reviews its policies on nuclear weapons; it did so last year, the results of which are seen in this week's alarming headlines. "Behind the administration's rhetorical mask of post-Cold War restraint," comments the U.S. National Resources Defence Council, a prestigious non-profit organization of scientists, lawyers and environmental specialists, "lie expansive plans to revitalize U.S. nuclear forces, and all the elements that support them, within a so-called 'New Triad' of capabilities that combine nuclear and conventional offensive strikes with missile defences and nuclear-weapons infrastructure."
According to the council's analysis, the Bush team assumes that nuclear weapons will be part of U.S. military forces at least for the next 50 years; it plans an extensive and expensive series of programs to modernize the existing force, including a new ICBM to be operational in 2020 and a new heavy bomber in 2040. The administration's Nuclear Posture Review says that there are four reasons to possess nuclear weapons: to "assure allies and friends"; "dissuade competitors"; "deter aggressors"; and "defeat enemies." Over the next 10 years, the White House's plans call for the United States to retain a total stockpile of intact nuclear weapons and weapons components roughly seven to nine times larger than the publicly-stated goal of 1,700 to 2,200 "operationally deployed weapons."
Moreover, the U.S. administration has ordered the Pentagon to draft contingency plans for the use of nuclear weapons against at least seven countries, naming not only the "axis of evil" (Iraq, Iran and North Korea) but also Russia, China, Libya and Syria.
This position has prompted the editors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to move the minute hand of their "Doomsday Clock" forward two minutes -- to seven minutes to midnight, the same position as when the clock made its debut in 1947. "Despite a campaign promise to rethink nuclear policy, the Bush administration has taken no significant steps to alter nuclear targeting policies or reduce the alert status of U.S. nuclear forces," said George A. Lopez, chairman of the Bulletin's board of directors.
The shift in U.S. policy has immense implications for Canada and the other members of NATO. NATO has traditionally presented its nuclear doctrine as one of deterrence, not war. Canada is now caught in the middle, between its international legal obligations to support negotiations for the elimination of nuclear weapons, or to support the United States in its determination to keep them. All this will come to a head at an important Non-Proliferation Treaty meeting at the United Nations, starting April 8.
Canada has higher obligations to international law, as it is being developed in the United Nations system, than it does to its friendship with the United States, which is violating the very law that Canada stands for. Good friends don't let their friends drive drunk. It's time for Canada to blow the whistle on its U.S. friends in Washington, who are veering out of control in their pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Because of its military strength and commanding position as the world's lone superpower, the United States occupies the central position when it comes to making progress on nuclear disarmament. NATO's stance -- that nuclear weapons remain "essential" -- would fold in an instant if the United States took action in entering comprehensive negotiations for elimination. Russia and China, struggling to move their economies into strong positions, do not want to engage in a new nuclear arms race, which is precisely what they fear will happen if and when the United States actually deploys a National Missile Defence system.
Most people do not realize that the United States spends $100-million (U.S.) a day maintaining its nuclear weapons. Because Washington is pouring huge new sums into its defence budget -- it will soon be spending, at $400-billion annually, more than the next 15 countries combined -- the international community has become rightfully alarmed about U.S. intentions.
Nor is the rest of the world reassured when we see the Pentagon's Web site proclaiming the U.S. intention to weaponize space and thus ensure "full-spectrum dominance" on land, sea, air and space. Douglas Roche is an independent senator from Alberta and Canada's former ambassador for disarmament. He is a former chairman of the UN Disarmament Committee.
----
Canada to Seek Clarification of U.S. Nuclear Plans
March 12, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-arms-nuclear-usa-canada.html
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien said on Tuesday he will ask President Bush to clarify Washington's position on nuclear weapons after reports the country was mulling a nuclear option against so-called rogue states such as Iraq and North Korea.
``I will raise it with the president,'' Chretien told reporters two days before he meets Bush at the White House.
The Los Angeles Times reported over the weekend that a Defense Department study has outlined a contingency plan for using nuclear weapons against at least seven countries -- China, Russia, Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Libya and Syria.
The report identified Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Libya and Syria as posing a new level of threat that could require a nuclear response. China and Russia were also named in the report but the document made it clear that Russia was no longer considered a U.S. adversary.
``I'm sure it is not a document that is subscribed to by the (Bush) administration. We have asked for clarification,'' Chretien said.
-------- china
China Wants U.S. Nuclear Explanation
The Associated Press
Tuesday, March 12, 2002; 9:14 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12980-2002Mar12?language=printer
BEIJING -- China said Tuesday it is waiting for "clear explanations" from Washington of a Defense Department report that lists it among possible targets for nuclear strikes.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi indicated he wasn't satisfied with explanations from Secretary of State Colin Powell and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice that the United States doesn't plan to use nuclear weapons.
"We are now waiting for the U.S. side to offer up further more formal and clear explanations," Sun said at a regular news briefing.
The classified Defense Department "nuclear posture review" submitted to the U.S. Congress outlined the possible use of nuclear weapons against countries that possess or are developing weapons of mass destruction.
Along with China the review cited Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Russia and Syria.
Sun repeated an earlier statement that China was "deeply shocked" to be in the group.
China and the United States have an agreement not to target each other with nuclear weapons.
Sun insisted that China's small nuclear arsenal is no threat to any other country.
-------- depleted uranium
Depleted Uranium May Cause Damage
By Emma Ross
AP Medical Writer
Tuesday, March 12, 2002; 7:30 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12507-2002Mar12?language=printer
LONDON -- A few soldiers - mainly Americans - might suffer kidney damage from depleted uranium munitions used in the Persian Gulf and Balkans conflicts if they swallowed or inhaled enough of the dust, according to a new report.
Most at risk are those involved in friendly fire incidents or involved in cleanup activities, said the assessment published Tuesday by The Royal Society, Britain's academy of scientists.
The report was prompted by concerns raised last year that the dust created by hits with depleted uranium shells could cause cancer or metal poisoning.
Italian researchers began studying the illnesses of veterans of Balkans peacekeeping missions after noting an apparently high number of cancers. Scores of other countries then announced they would also begin screening their troops for depleted uranium exposure and unexplained illnesses.
Italy subsequently reported it found the incidence of cancer in soldiers who served in Bosnia and Kosovo was lower than that in the general population.
In line with other expert groups that have studied the issue, the Royal Society panel determined that the majority of soldiers on the battlefields of Kosovo, Bosnia and the Persian Gulf would not have been exposed to high enough levels of depleted uranium to suffer harm.
"Levels of uranium in the kidneys of soldiers surviving in tanks struck by DU rounds, or of soldiers working for protracted periods in struck tanks, could reach concentrations that lead to some short-term kidney dysfunction," the report said. "But whether this would lead to any long-term adverse effects is unclear."
Most of the soldiers affected would be Americans in the Persian Gulf War, who were involved in friendly fire incidents or cleanup operations.
In a report last year, The Royal Society concluded that those same few soldiers could be at increased risk of lung cancer from intense exposure to the munitions, but that such cancers would take decades to show up.
The report, which entailed a review of the current state of scientific knowledge on the issue, also concluded that children playing at sites where the uranium munitions fell could be harmed if they ate the soil. In the long term, buried uranium shells also could eventually leach into local water supplies, it said.
U.S. aircraft used munitions containing depleted uranium, a slightly radioactive heavy metal, during the 78-day air campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, as well as in Bosnia in 1994 and 1995. The dense uranium shells, which can pierce tanks, were also used during the 1991 Gulf War.
NATO denies the ammunition could have triggered cancer in soldiers and many European Union and other experts have concluded over the last year that the risk was negligible.
The kidney is the most likely organ to suffer toxic effects from uranium. The few human studies that have been done indicate that kidney failure is likely to occur within a few days at concentrations above 50 micrograms of uranium per gram of kidney.
Minor kidney problems are thought to be linked with concentrations of about 1 microgram per gram of kidney.
The Royal Society estimated that most soldiers would have levels of 0.005 micrograms per gram of kidney, or less. Soldiers who survived a tank hit with depleted uranium ammunition would likely have kidney uranium levels of 4 micrograms per gram.
The report found that damage to the immune system from depleted uranium is unlikely. Exposure levels in combat were too low for that, said Brian Spratt, chairman of the group that prepared the report and a professor at Imperial College of Medicine, Science and Technology.
On the Net:
Royal Society, http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk
---
Children at risk from uranium in army shells
By Steve Connor Science Editor,
UK Independent
12 March 2002
http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=273513
Scientists have warned that children could suffer long-term damage to health if they play on former battlefields that are contaminated with depleted uranium (DU) shells.
The Royal Society, Britain's eminent body of scientists, called yesterday for the monitoring of soil, water and milk in regions of the world where DU rounds were fired, notably Iraq and Kosovo.
An inquiry by the society found chronic health hazards from DU shells might need to be assessed over a period of decades because of the continuing hazards posed by buried munitions.
An expert committee of independent scientists found that although the health risks were very small, they could still be significant - especially for children exposed to environmental contamination.
It is estimated that between 70 and 80 per cent the depleted uranium rounds fired in the Gulf War and Balkans conflicts still lie buried. About 340 tons of DU munitions were used in the Gulf and 11 tons were fired in the Balkans.
Professor Brian Spratt of Imperial College London, who chaired the Royal Society working party, said two of the main concerns were leaching of uranium into local water supplies and localised contamination of soil where children played.
"Infants can ingest surprisingly high amounts of soil. I think the long-term risk is from drinking water if uranium levels got above a certain point," Professor Spratt said.
Exposure levels for people living in areas where DU rounds are still buried are difficult to estimate, the report says. "These levels could range from being so small that they do not materially increase the concentration of uranium naturally present in the environment to worst-case scenarios such as the soil around a penetrator [shell] impact site, or a penetrator lodging directly in contact with groundwater that could feed uranium directly into a local water supply, such as a well.".
Uranium is a toxic substance and can cause potentially fatal kidney damage if enough is swallowed or inhaled. The Royal Society suggests soil from contaminated battlefields should be removed if the area is to be repopulated with civilians.
DU is used in anti-tank weapons because it can penetrate the thickest armour. In addition to being chemically toxic, DU is also slightly radioactive, raising fears it can cause cancers and other illnesses.
The scientists estimated, however, that even in the most heavily contaminated areas, the risk of extra cancers caused by inhaling depleted uranium in the soil was exceptionally low - amounting to about six extra cases of fatal lung cancer in a population of 10 million people.
An earlier report by the working party found the increased risk of lung cancer would only become significant for highly exposed soldiers, such as those who survived a direct hit on their tank or other military personnel involved in a rescue mission immediately after a direct hit.
"Any extra risks of death from leukaemia, or other cancers, as a result of exposure to DU are estimated to be substantially lower than the risks of death from lung cancer," the Royal Society report says.
"Under all likely exposure scenarios the extra lifetime risks of fatal leukaemia are predicted to be too small to be detectable," it says.
----
Uranium weapons health warning
A lot of effort has gone into assessing the risks
By BBC News
Ania Lichtarowicz
Tuesday, 12 March, 2002, 14:08 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1867000/1867138.stm
A small number of soldiers and civilians might suffer kidney damage from depleted uranium (DU) if substantial amounts are breathed in, or swallowed in contaminated soil and water.
A report by the UK's academy of science, the Royal Society, recommends that soldiers who may have been exposed to DU should be tested for the presence of uranium in their kidneys and in their urine.
Written by some of the country's leading scientists, the report also suggests that DU may contaminate water supplies - putting civilians at risk.
The society's recommendations include annual water sampling in areas of high contamination and more research into the health of veterans who may have been exposed to DU.
Inhaled dust
DU is used in weapons designed to pierce the heaviest armour, such as in tanks. It is a by-product of nuclear fuel development and is slightly radioactive.
Gulf war veteran Brian Tooze was rushed into hospital with suspected meningitis four years after he returned from the conflict.
But instead of the brain disease, doctors found there was evidence of DU in his urine.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that now he suffers from skin cancer, kidney trouble, irritable bowel syndrome, constant headaches, tinnitus and problems with balance.
Testing
"It is impossible to work and I may now have to have my right knee replaced with a false one," he added.
Mr Tooze does not put all his symptoms down to DU exposure - he blames a combination of that and post-traumatic stress disorder, but he has backed calls for proper testing of UK soldiers.
A previous report by the Royal Society, published in May last year, suggested the radioactivity associated with DU might increase the risk of individuals developing lung cancer.
Those most at risk are soldiers who breathe in high levels of DU dust which often occurs when a person is caught close to a DU impact.
On penetrating a tank, the weapon breaks up to form a fine dust that can be inhaled.
The dust can also settle on the ground and cause further danger to the clean-up teams who move into an area to remove the wreckage of war.
Heavy metal
Depleted uranium is also a dangerous chemical that can have other effects on the body.
This latest report by the Royal Society suggests that most soldiers on the battlefield will be exposed to levels of DU that are unlikely to cause heavy metal poisoning.
But those who inhale large enough quantities may experience short-term kidney problems.
Currently there is not enough data to assess the long-term damage. The scientists predict that very high exposure could lead to kidney failure within days.
The UN is recording DU hot spots - areas where DU weapons have been used.
Children at risk
Professor Brian Spratt from Imperial College in London and one of the authors of the Royal Society report said that children could be particularly at risk
"The main concerns are that children can ingest large amounts of soil when they're playing and ingestion of the heavily contaminated soil could give them high levels of uranium in their kidneys which could cause them some kidney damage," he told BBC News Online.
Another problem is water contamination. Local civilian populations could be at risk if DU leaked into water sources. Tests show this has not happened.
But Professor Spratt suggests that water sampling is carried out every year as it could take up to 40 years for the DU to filter into the water.
Recent conflict
If that did happen and dangerous levels of DU were present then drinking water would be unsafe.
DU weapons were used in the Gulf War and in the Balkans. The British Ministry of Defence has confirmed that no DU weapons have been used by UK forces in the conflict in Afghanistan.
It is not yet clear whether the US has used DU weapons.
Professor Spratt is hopeful that screening of veterans will start by the end of the year so more can be learnt about the effects of DU on the body.
----
Depleted Uranium May Cause Liver Damage, Study Says
March 12, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-health-uranium.html
LONDON (Reuters) - Soldiers exposed to high levels of depleted uranium may suffer kidney damage and it could pose a danger to civilians through contaminated soil or water supplies, scientists warned Tuesday.
But, in the latest contribution to a sometimes heated debate, a report by Britain's Royal Society said that only a small number of soldiers would have inhaled large enough amounts of depleted uranium (DU) to seriously damage their health and preventive measures could limit any danger to civilians.
It said most veterans of the Gulf War or Balkans conflicts were unlikely to suffer from heavy metal poisoning.
A by-product of nuclear reactors, depleted uranium (DU) is used not for its low radioactivity but as a cheap, heavy tip that helps armor-piercing shells batter through steel plate.
``For the majority of soldiers on the battlefield it is unlikely there will be any adverse effects on the kidneys,'' Professor Brian Spratt told a news conference.
``The concerns that we have are about soldiers who have the highest levels of exposure to DU, those surviving within struck tanks or those working for long periods cleaning up contaminated vehicles after a battle.''
Spratt said a few hundred U.S. servicemen and an unknown number of Iraqi soldiers would have been exposed to the most dangerous levels of DU.
The report also warned that DU particles in the ground near attack sites could contaminate the soil and pose a risk if some of the soil is swallowed by children. It also suggested the topsoil in heavily contaminated areas should be removed and water quality should be monitored for any contamination.
``It is very difficult to predict whether contamination of a local water supply will occur in these areas because there are too many uncertainties and variables,'' said Spratt.
Water samples in areas where DU shells were used have been examined and there has been no sign of contamination but the scientists said monitoring should continue because contamination could take decades.
FEAR OF CANCERS
Concerns about the health effects of the armor-piercing depleted uranium shells used in the Gulf War and the Balkans arose last year after peacekeepers in Bosnia and Kosovo said they had developed leukemia after exposure to the material.
Iraq also says there is a link between depleted uranium in weapons and an increase in leukemia and other cancers.
In an earlier report, the Royal Society concluded that the levels of DU soldiers were exposed to were not high enough to raise their risk of leukemia. But it added that very high amounts could cause a very small increased risk of lung cancer.
Scientists have been hampered in their research into the health effects of DU because there is no accurate test to measure very small levels of the element in the human body.
Spratt said a sensitive test could be available by the end of the year but he added that just testing positive for DU does not mean someone will suffer from health problems.
The report called for more research into the effects of DU and long-term studies of soldiers exposed to high levels to determine any link to kidney disease and lung cancer.
Depleted uranium shells are favored by the United States, Britain and France among others as the best and cheapest ammunition available to smash enemy armor. Some 40,000 rounds were fired in the Balkans by U.S. ground attack aircraft during the Kosovo conflict and in 1995 in Bosnia.
------
Report: U.S. soldiers most at risk from uranium shells
By Emma Ross
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tue, Mar. 12, 2002
From: "Venus Val Hammack" jagmedic@gulflink.org
LONDON - A few soldiers -- mainly Americans -- might suffer kidney damage from depleted uranium munitions used in the Persian Gulf and Balkans conflicts if they swallowed or inhaled enough of the dust, according to a report published Tuesday.
Most at risk are those involved in friendly fire incidents or involved in cleanup activities, said the assessment by The Royal Society, Britain's academy of scientists.
The report was prompted by concerns raised last year that the dust created by hits with depleted uranium shells could cause cancer or metal poisoning.
Italian researchers began studying the illnesses of veterans of Balkans peacekeeping missions after noting an apparently high number of cancers.
Scores of other countries then announced they would also begin screening their troops for depleted uranium exposure and unexplained illnesses.
Italy subsequently reported it found the incidence of cancer in soldiers who served in Bosnia and Kosovo was lower than that in the general population.
In line with other expert groups that have studied the issue, the Royal Society panel determined that the majority of soldiers on the battlefields of Kosovo, Bosnia and the Persian Gulf would not have been exposed to high enough levels of depleted uranium to suffer harm.
Most of the soldiers affected would be Americans in the Persian Gulf War, who were involved in friendly fire incidents or cleanup operations.
In a report last year, The Royal Society concluded that those same few soldiers could be at increased risk of lung cancer from intense exposure to the munitions, but that such cancers would take decades to show up.
The report, which entailed a review of the current scientific knowledge on the issue, also concluded that children playing at sites where the uranium munitions fell could be harmed if they ate the soil.
In the long term, buried uranium shells also could eventually leach into local water supplies, it said.
U.S. aircraft used munitions containing depleted uranium, a slightly radioactive heavy metal, during the 78-day air campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, as well as in Bosnia in 1994 and 1995. The dense uranium shells, which can pierce tanks, were also used during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
NATO denies the ammunition could have triggered cancer in soldiers, and many European Union and other experts have concluded during the past year that the risk was negligible.
The kidney is the most likely organ to suffer toxic effects from uranium. The few human studies that have been done indicate that kidney failure is likely to occur within a few days at concentrations above 50 micrograms of uranium per gram of kidney.
Minor kidney problems are thought to be linked with concentrations of about 1 microgram per gram of kidney.
The Royal Society estimated that most soldiers would have levels of 0.005 micrograms per gram of kidney, or less.
Soldiers who survived a tank hit with depleted uranium ammunition would likely have kidney uranium levels of 4 micrograms per gram.
The report found that damage to the immune system from depleted uranium is unlikely.
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes/news/world/2843170.htm The information provided within this message is designed to serve as general information only. This information is not a legal brief nor does it state a legal position. It cannot be used as evidence of intent, interpretation or precedent in any legal action.
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DEPLETED URANIUM IN KOSOVO:
AN ASSESSMENT OF POTENTIAL EXPOSURE FOR AID WORKERS
David R. Meddings and Max Haldimann,
Health Physics, Volume 82, Issue 4
http://www.health-physics.com/
Abstract--Background: During the Kosovo conflict approximately 11 tons of depleted uranium munitions were used against armored targets, predominantly in the west. Potential exposure to uranium amongst employees of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement in western Kosovo was assessed. Methods: Individuals (n = 31) who had resided at least 3 mo in western Kosovo provided 24-h urine collections and completed an administered questionnaire. Specimens were analyzed for creatinine concentration, and uranium concentration was determined using inductively coupled mass spectrometry.
Findings: Subjects ranged in age from 22 to 45 y, and 77% were male. Mean duration of residency was 11 mo, and 14 individuals were in western Kosovo throughout the hostilities. Almost three quarters of subjects reported seeing destroyed tanks or vehicles, predominantly while passing by within a vehicle. Two individuals spent time within 50 m of a destroyed tank or vehicle while outside of a vehicle. Urinary uranium concentrations ranged from 3.5 to 26.9 ng of uranium per liter of urine (median 8.9 ng L-1). Creatinine normalized values ranged from 2.9 to 21.1 ng of uranium per gram of creatinine (median 7.4 ng g-1 creatinine).
These results fall toward the lower end of urinary uranium determinations made amongst non-exposed populations drawn from a literature review. Interpretation: These results do not indicate an increased exposure to uranium amongst adults living and working in western Kosovo who do not spend time in proximity to destroyed vehicles. Environmental sampling and replication of these results amongst a sample including children and individuals reporting intensive exposure to destroyed vehicles would further develop the exposure assessment.
--
Comment from Hans de Jonge hansdejonge@xs4all.nl
Health Physics is a periodical of the nuclear industry, the assessment of depleted uranium by ICP-MS (Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer) is not accurate enough.
It is more scientific to use the TI-MS (Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometer) which is a lot more accurate at much lower concentrations of DU in the sample.
The scientists in Health Physics translate the concentration of DU straight to the health-effects of DU. According to Chris Busby this is a scientific miscalculation. It ignores the local radiation dose to the cell-nucleus. (second event theory)
Len Dietz warns for the danger of inhaling HOT-ALPHA-RADIATION-EMITTING- PARTICLES made out of depleted uranium oxydes from burning du metal. These oxydes can travel very long distances by air and can be resuspended for billions of years. Until today nobody has proven the warning of Len Dietz is wrong or his calculations are wrong.
with regards, Hans de Jonge http://www.xs4all.nl/~stgvisie/ud_main.html
----
Depleted uranium may stop kidneys "in days"
12 March 02
New Scientist
by Rob Edwards
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992024
Soldiers who inhale or swallow high levels of depleted uranium (DU) on the battlefield could suffer kidney failure within days, according to a new report from the one of the UK's premier scientific bodies, the Royal Society. There are also long term risks for children who play in heavily contaminated areas, it says.
The high density of DU helps shells pierce armour and about 270 tonnes of it have been fired during wars in the Gulf and the Balkans in the last decade. Arguments over the potential risks to human health and the environment have raged ever since.
The Royal Society published a report on the radiological hazards in 2001, which concluded that troops in a tank who survived being hit by a DU shell could double their risk of dying from lung cancer. Now the society's team of 11 experts has produced a second report on the chemical and long-term environmental risks.
It concludes that most soldiers would not take in enough DU to damage their kidneys. But it points out that those in hit tanks, or who spend time cleaning them up, could suffer heavy metal poisoning.
"Kidney uranium levels in some of these soldiers could be very high and would probably lead to kidney failure within a few days of exposure," the report warns. There is also a danger of damage to reproductive health, which has been observed in mice.
Contaminated ground
DU shells in the ground could contaminate the soil, food and water of communities that return to live on the battlefields, the report says. This may be enough to harm local children, particularly if they swallow soil.
But the report is dismissed by anti-DU campaigners who think that the risks are worse that the Royal Society thinks.
"This is an attempt to give a scientific imprimatur to the stance of the government, which is unacceptable," argues Malcolm Hooper, a medical chemist from the University of Sunderland who advises the British Gulf War veterans.
He says it is wrong to separate the chemical and radiological effects. He has been told that three out of the 3000 veterans so far assessed by the UK government's programme have kidney cancer. This is 12 times the rate amongst civilians and indicates that the radiation emitted by DU is causing more problems than its chemical toxicity.
----
Depleted uranium soils battlefields
Report assesses chemical effects of Gulf war weapon
12 March 2002,
HELEN PEARSON,
Nature
http://www.nature.com/nsu/020311/020311-2.html
Depleted uranium in weapons may have left some soldiers with kidney damage and could cause long-term environmental contamination, say British scientists. Their independent review calls for accurate exposure tests and long-term environmental monitoring in combat zones. Depleted uranium (DU) is a dense radioactive substance. It was used in weapons to punch through heavily armoured vehicles during the Gulf War and Kosovo conflicts.
This created controversy: exploding missiles scatter radioactive and chemically toxic dust that war veterans claim has left them ill.
The majority of soldiers have not been exposed to sufficient levels of the heavy metal to be at risk from its toxic effects, the report by the UK's Royal Society concludes1. "For the majority of soldiers on the battlefield we consider it unlikely that there will be any adverse effects," said group leader Brian Spratt, of Imperial College in London.
This implies that DU is unlikely to explain Gulf War Syndrome, although the report does not tackle this question explicitly.
However, around 200, mainly US, Gulf War soldiers who were hit by friendly fire or spent time cleaning contaminated vehicles may have inhaled enough dust to cause kidney damage, says the report. Unknown numbers of Iraqis may also have been affected.
The report's main recommendation is that accurate, validated tests for low levels of DU in urine should be developed, and that those who are identified as exposed should undergo long-term health studies. "You want to use a battery of modern tests," says group member and metabolism researcher Barbara Clayton of the University of Southampton, UK, to identify subtle biochemical changes. Sensitive DU urine tests are expected to be available in the UK by the end of this year.
There may also be enduring environmental consequences: 70-80% of all DU weapons - around 250 tonnes in the Gulf War region alone - are thought to remain buried in soil. Children playing at the sites could be at particular risk. And decades on, corroding weapons may release DU into the soil, to be taken up by plants and animals or leached into human water supplies.
Long-term monitoring of such sites is required to assess future consequences, the panel say. Removing the weapon debris is virtually impossible because its exact location is unknown. "It's a knowledge gap," says Barry Smith, who studies pollution at the British Geological Survey in Nottingham, UK.
Uranium blitz
DU weapons were first used by Allied forces in the 1991 Gulf War: an estimated 340 tonnes were used then, and a further 11 tonnes in Bosnia and Kosovo in the late 1990s. Opinions differ on whether DU weapons are currently being used in Afghanistan.
An estimated 340 tonnes of DU weapons were fired during the Gulf War
In the first part of the Royal Society's report, which was published last year, the committee examined the health effects of radiation exposure from DU - and concluded that there is virtually no increased risk of death from lung cancer. The chemical toxic effects of DU and its environmental impact are dealt with in the second part, published today.
The panel of experts had little evidence to work with - few human scientific studies have assessed the long-term toxic effects of DU. Anecdotal accounts report that members of a Gulf clean-up team have become seriously ill. The panel based its conclusions on the available scientific evidence and the estimated DU intakes of soldiers based on battlefield scenarios.
References The health hazards of depleted uranium munitions Part II. The Royal Society, (2002).
-------- europe
Czech Temelin plant loads fuel into 2nd reactor
REUTERS CZECH REPUBLIC:
March 12, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14962/newsDate/12-Mar-2002/story.htm
PRAGUE - The Czech Temelin nuclear power plant, whose operation is strongly opposed by Austria, said yesterday that it has completed loading fuel into its second 981 megawatt (MW) reactor.
Temelin's owner, state-owned power utility CEZ , has been testing the plant's first 981 MW reactor since late 2000 amid fierce protests from neighbouring Austria which fears the plant is unsafe and should be closed.
Temelin spokesman Milan Nebesar said all 163 fuel units had been installed into the second reactor, which would be checked by international nuclear safety regulators later yesterday.
A controlled nuclear fission reaction is expected to be activated within six weeks.
The Soviet-designed station, which has been upgraded with western control systems, is located 60 km (38 miles) from the border of the fiercely anti-nuclear Austria.
This has made Temelin a source of unrelenting friction between the two central European neighbours. The EU, however, has said the plant is not an issue in the Czechs' drive to join the 15-nation bloc, expected in 2004.
----
No date in sight for Brunsbuettel n-plant restart
REUTERS GERMANY:
March 12, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14964/newsDate/12-Mar-2002/story.htm
FRANKFURT - Germany's Schleswig-Holstein state said it could not estimate when safety checks at Brunsbuettel nuclear plant in northern Germany will end.
The plant with a capacity of 806 megawatt (MW) was shut on February 18 on orders of the state government for safety experts to examine and repair tearing in the tube system, which became evident in a December 14 incident yet to be fully clarified.
"We have received some reports from the operator, but we have more questions and need more answers," Herbert Schnelle, spokesman for the state's energy and finance ministry which oversees nuclear power, told Reuters.
"There is no deadline, this in an ongoing process," he added.
The plant is owned two thirds by HEW and one-third by E.ON .
The operating company, Kernkraft Brunsbuettel, says while the extent of the damage is greater than initially assumed, it had fully complied with notification requirements and would continue to supply the necessary information.
State secretary for energy Wilfried Voigt said last week it could take weeks or months for the incident to be clarified and adequate measures put in place for the future.
-------- india / pakistan
India can build ICBMs: CIA
PTI
TUESDAY, MARCH 12, 2002
The Times of India Online
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Articleshow.asp?art_id=3530941
WASHINGTON: A top intelligence analyst of the United States has said that though India is capable of building inter-continental ballistic missiles, US does not view it as a threat taking into account New Delhi's "intent".
Presenting a statement before the Senate Subcommittee considering foreign missile developments, Robert Walpole, intelligence officer, Strategic and Nuclear Programmes of the Central Intelligence Agency said three other countries - Iran, North Korea and Iraq - are likely to build ICBMs and could pose a threat to the US.
He said that any country which is capable of launching a satellite could built an ICBM as the adaptation required is not much.
Walpole, who earlier submitted the report to the Congress, said that India believes a nuclear-capable missile delivery option is necessary to deter Pakistan from using the nuclear weapons first.
It would also serve as a hedge against a confrontation with China, he said.
"New Delhi views the development, not just the possession, of nuclear-capable missiles as symbols of world power and an important component of self-reliance", Walpole said.
Senator Pete Dominici said that the CIA official's report explains why the US is making an issue of the efforts by Iran, Iraq and North Korea to acquire nuclear weapons.
Walpole revealed that regarding Pakistan, the intelligence was asked to assess the safety and security of Islamabad's nuclear command and control
-------- japan
Statement of Japan Gensuikyo on US-Nuclear Policy
From: "antiatom" <antiatom@twics.com>
March 12, 2002
Mr. George W. Bush President of the United States of America
We demand from the US Government immediate cancellation of all plans on the use of nuclear weapons and fundamental shift of the nuclear policy to the abolition of such weapons
Dangerous contents of the U.S. Department of Defense's "Nuclear Posture Review" are now coming into the light. Press reports confirmed that in addition to Iraq, Iran and North Korea, whom President Bush in his State of the Union address this year labeled as an "axis of evil", Libya, Syria and even China and Russia were also included in the targets of the US plan for the use of nuclear weapons.
In addition to the ongoing war on Afghanistan being waged on the ground of a response to September 11 terrorist attacks, the Review is said to underline that nuclear weapons may be required in some future "Arab-Israeli crisis", to "retaliate against chemical or biological attacks" as well as "surprising military developments" of an unspecified nature. It even calls for swift development of new types of nuclear weapons.
As regards the eradication of terrorism, it is by nature a problem to be addressed as a matter of international crime, and the U.S. acts of war, which are causing untold numbers of casualties of innocent Afghans, must immediately be halted. It is totally insane to develop a plan to use of nuclear weapons on the grounds of preparing for international conflicts, and still more for such absurdity of "future uncertainty."
At the same time, the present development reveals the dangerous nature of the policy of the Japanese Government that has unquestionably accepted every bit of pressure from the U.S. government since the inauguration of President George W. Bush, and especially after the September 11 terrorist attacks.
The successive LDP-led Japanese governments have defended and accepted U.S. nuclear arsenals on the grounds that it provides "deterrence" or "nuclear umbrella." The US nuclear plan, however, is not confined merely to "deter" anything, but is aimed to use nuclear weapons in actual international conflicts. It must further be noted that the Bush administration is promoting the policy nowhere other than in Asia.
We demand that the U.S. government should make public the entire Nuclear Posture Review and immediately scrap the whole plan on the use of nuclear weapons. Also we strongly demand that the Japanese government should stop supporting the U.S. nuclear and war plans once and for all, to strictly abide by the Three Non-Nuclear Principles and give up legislation of "laws on contingencies", which would precipitate Japan into U.S.-initiated war, involving even a danger of nuclear weapons being used.
Japan Council against A & H Bombs (Japan Gensuikyo)
-------- missile defense
Nuke them all
THE ROVING EYE
By Pepe Escobar
Asia Times,
March 11, 2002
http://atimes.com/front/DC12Aa02.html
PARIS - Six months after September 11, the Masters of War - as in the Bob Dylan song - just can't get enough. According to a classified report obtained and published last Saturday by the Los Angeles Times, the Bush administration has told the Pentagon to plan the use of nuclear weapons - "on a contingency basis" - against at least seven countries: China, Russia, North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria.
The "contingencies" are: against targets able to withstand non-nuclear attacks; in retaliation for attack by nuclear, chemical or biological weapons; and in the event of surprise military developments. September 11 was certainly a "surprising military development" - all the more surprising for the Pentagon itself. If it happens again, one wonders who and what the Pentagon would start nuking.
Arno J Mayer - a survivor of Nazi concentration camps and Emeritus Professor of History at Princeton University - would call the Pentagon plans "preventive state terror". Gore Vidal - the most lucid of American intellectuals - commented at the time that shortly after September 11 Mayer wrote a crystal-clear text explaining why it happened. Everybody in America refused to print it. The text only appeared in Europe, in the widely respected French daily Le Monde.
Vidal quotes Mayer: "Since 1947, America is the pioneer and main actor of preventive state terror, exercised exclusively in the Third World and consequently under an almost pervasive indifference." Mayer lists well-known Washington tactics: political assassinations, death squads, "dubious freedom fighters [bin Laden]". He stresses that Washington was behind the deaths of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo and Salvador Allende in Chile, "not to mention assassination attempts against Castro, Gadafi and Saddam Hussein".
As the greatest living American literary historian, Gore Vidal knows as an insider the machinations of the American political class and the industrial-military complex. In a text called "September 11th and After", he writes that "for decades, the Muslim world is systematically demonized by the American media". He derides the "disturbing incompetence of the Bush administration in every domain". He reminds the "amnesiac media" that "we energetically supported Saddam Hussein in the war of Iraq against Iran ... and next day our 'employee' became Satan, and still is". And after stressing that "since 1945, we have been engaged in what the great historian Charles A Beard calls 'a perpetual war for perpetual peace'", he refers to the "Enemy of the Month Club": actually a long list of hundreds of American wars against all sorts of enemies (communism, terrorism, drugs or nothing much), compiled by the Federation of American Scientists.
During the Reagan years, the menace came from the Evil Empire - the Soviet Union. Now there's the Axis of Evil. During the Clinton years, the menace came from the "rogue states". Now there are "nukable" states, rogue or otherwise (these include recently acclaimed "friends" like Russia and China, although neither can even think of selling anything remotely suspicious to Iran or North Korea).
The motto of the day - even before September 11 - is "US fight, UN feed, EU funds". The US directs and controls all military operations, the UN picks up the pieces and distributes a bag of wheat or two, and Europe pays the bill. No wonder the rest of the world is afraid. Very afraid.
In Europe, in Latin America, in Southeast Asia, in Africa, there is an emerging consensus that what is being defined in the current turmoil is nothing less than the course of history in the 21st century. The war against terrorism may concentrate on the Islamist menace - trying to defuse it, but also to eradicate at least some of its causes. Or we could go back to a mechanism reminiscent of World War I in 1914: a deepening hatred and widespread contamination by violence. The risk of a really global confrontation, transcending states and cutting through any community and society, would be enormous. The "clash of civilizations" - an idiotic concept per se - would then become historical reality. And Osama bin Laden would win.
Analytical minds in Europe are deeply afraid of the emergence of a military logic of confrontation - the "Dr Strangelove" syndrome now characteristic of the hegemonic and unilateralist thinking of the White House and Pentagon. The ultimate motto of the day is really "I bomb, therefore I control". Donald Rumsfeld himself spelled it out in late January. According to this not so new military doctrine, the US should be able to "defeat two aggressors at the same time while keeping the momentum to scale a major counteroffensive and occupy an enemy's capital to install a new regime".
After studying the effects of the Gulf War, the Bosnian War, the Kosovo War and the New Afghan War, think tanks finally forged the definitive version of the key concept in the new American military doctrine: "strategic control". It involves selective massive bombing, no occupation of territory, minimal political objectives. It works, and the casualties are also kept to a minimum.
But this is only part of a mentality of Total War. There's the missile defense system, to protect the US, its military bases and theoretically its allies against ... nobody knows exactly who. It could be the "rogue states" - now promoted en masse to the nukable list. It could be China. Anyway, all candidates are now in the same bag: while there is no horrendously expensive missile defense system in place, they remain on the nukable list. In a report from the Joint Chiefs of Staff called "Joint Vision 2020", China is qualified in no uncertain terms as a potential adversary. In the considerably sweetened version published in 2000, China is qualified only as a "peer competitor".
If we refer to Vidal's "Enemy of the Month Club", the stars of the moment are the members of the Axis of Evil. It is nonetheless essential to point out that neither Iraq, Iran nor North Korea have any proven relationship whatsoever with al-Qaeda - the organization that actually managed to bomb the Pentagon with an American commercial aircraft. And neither Iraq, Iran nor North Korea are equipped with weapons of mass destruction.
It does not matter. The White House and the Pentagon have already decided that Iraq will be attacked first. This is the main priority. It may not be main priority for the Arab world.
Vice President Dick Cheney has already started his long Middle East tour while former Marine General Anthony Zinni has been sent back again to try to mediate between Israel and the Palestinians. Cheney's trip was planned months ago. It is supposed to reinforce the Arab world's support for the war against terrorism. But most of all it is meant to examine the possibility of Arab support for the inevitable attack on Iraq.
Last Friday was the bloodiest day in the Middle East for years: no less than 46 Palestinian dead, plus 6 Israelis. In the six years of the first Intifada (1987-93), there were 1,250 Palestinian deaths, and less than 200 Israeli. In only 17 months of the second Intifada, there are already 1,100 Palestinian deaths and 318 Israeli. Ariel Sharon may be the only political leader on Earth to get away with premeditated murder - actually announced in no uncertain terms for the whole world to hear. But his "policy" of killing as many Palestinians as possible totally collapsed. Even Washington could not take it anymore. And in the Arab world - which can be easily monitored in Europe - the anger against American inaction has reached boiling point.
Israel's "preventive state terror" is never denounced by Washington: the "terrorists" are always Palestinians. Soon the State Department will publish its Report on Patterns of Global Terrorism. The pressure on the Palestine Authority will be immense. The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a paramilitary group linked to Fatah, is bound to be included in the list of terrorist organizations. The report might even include the Tanzim - Fatah's military organization, extremely close to Yasser Arafat. Zinni will use the report to increase the pressure on Arafat.
A top European diplomat says off the record that Washington is sending Zinni to talk about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while Cheney will talk only about Iraq. But he is not convinced Arab countries will fall into the trap: they know Zinni is just a side player compared to Cheney. The Arab priority, especially little more than two weeks before a crucial Arab summit in Beirut, is not an attack on Iraq: the priority is a solution to the bloodshed in occupied Palestine. While a deadly military confrontation waits for a political solution, Washington has its sights on provoking a military confrontation elsewhere. There's no respite from the logic of Total War.
-------- russia
Russia Assails U.S. Stance on Arms Reduction
New York Times
March 12, 2002
By MICHAEL WINES
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/12/international/europe/12RUSS.html
MOSCOW, March 11 - Defense
Minister Sergei B. Ivanov of Russia warned today that the American proposal in arms reduction talks to "warehouse" excess warheads instead of destroying them would not only encourage nuclear proliferation, but could even set off a new kind of arms race.
Mr. Ivanov's statement, in written answers to questions from The New York Times, was issued as he flew to Washington for four days of talks on arms control, terrorism and other issues. It underscored the fact that despite hopes of sealing a major arms reduction agreement by late May, when President Bush plans to visit Moscow, the two sides remain at loggerheads as to what arms reduction actually means.
Russian negotiators, who propose cutting their nuclear force to as few as 1,500 warheads, insist that any excess warheads be destroyed, along with launch vehicles and other essentials. That was the practice in every previous nuclear arms reduction accord.
The Bush administration has said it wants to reduce the 6,000-warhead arsenal of the United States to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads. But it intends to keep an unspecified share of those excess warheads and their carriers in storage, ready for retrieval in a matter of weeks or months if necessary.
Today, Mr. Ivanov said Russian policy "is based on the irreversibility of the reduction of strategic weapons." The American proposal - to store the warheads, and retrofit some idled missiles and planes with high-precision conventional bombs - is unacceptable, he said.
"Can such a reduction be considered a real one? Make your own judgment," Mr. Ivanov said today. "If, at a certain point, the United States considers the situation to be taking an `unfavorable turn,' then within several weeks, months or years the number of operationally deployed warheads may be restored to the desired level."
He maintained that other nations would feel compelled to warehouse their own nuclear weapons for emergencies, worsening the problem of controlling nuclear arms stocks. He also predicted that the American plan would start a new kind of arms race by forcing other nations - presumably, Russia - to develop speedier methods of restoring idled nuclear weapons to battle readiness.
The Kremlin echoed Mr. Ivanov's sober view of the nuclear arms situation today by officially condemning a leaked Pentagon report that includes Russia among seven nations identified as plausible targets for American nuclear strikes. The report, a periodic review of nuclear strategy, focuses largely on the need to deter or defeat nations like Iraq that are thought to be developing weapons of mass destruction that could be used in regional wars against American allies or as terrorist weapons.
The report's authors conclude that while relations with Russia have dramatically improved, the United States should make contingencies for an unanticipated reversal that could revive cold war hostilities.
Today the Russian foreign minister, Igor S. Ivanov, called on the Bush administration to explain the report. His spokesman, Aleksandr Yakovenko, told reporters it remained to be seen "to what point this information corresponds to reality.
"If it does, how can you reconcile it with declarations of the United States that it no longer considers Russia as an enemy?" he said.
After two days of silence, China's government also issued a statement saying it was "deeply shocked" by newspaper reports that it, too, was among the seven nations labeled potential targets. The classified analysis identified Beijing as a potentially hostile power with an expanding nuclear force, and speculated that the United States could respond with nuclear weapons should China launch an attack on Taiwan.
The spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry, Sun Yuxi, demanded an explanation of the report, saying the United States and China had long agreed not to regard each other as targets for nuclear arms.
He also stressed China's opposition to using or threatening to use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear nation, an underlying theme of the Pentagon report. The report discusses at length the possibility of using small nuclear arms on precise targets to wipe out chemical or biological weapons sites in locations like underground bunkers that are invulnerable to ordinary bombs.
One rationale for considering this possibility is that chemical and biological weapons can be as devastating as nuclear ones, and that the United States might have no choice were it faced with clear evidence that such arms were about to be used against its citizens.
American officials have strongly defended the Pentagon analysis, saying it is a duty of military planners to prepare for any conceivable war. While the document outlines potential nuclear strategies, they say, it does not change American policy and does not imply that any of the nations mentioned have in fact been made nuclear targets.
At least one ally, Germany, weighed in with a similar assessment today, perhaps to blunt criticism in Germany itself of a Social Democratic-Greens government that is facing a tough election campaign this year and has allied itself with the Bush administration's war on terrorism, despite criticism from the left wing. "There are no U.S. plans for attack. That is an exaggeration that does not correspond with reality," said the government's spokesman, Uwe-Karsten Heye.
----
Russian Official Had Dual Role in Uranium Pact
Security: The former nuclear chief's links raise questions about the U.S.' decision to privatize the buying of weapon-grade chemical element.
By DAVID WILLMAN and ALAN C. MILLER, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers, March 12, 2002
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-031202uranium.story
WASHINGTON -- Two years ago, a small Pennsylvania consulting firm was quietly hired by another American company responsible for carrying out a sensitive nuclear security agreement between the United States and Russia.
As it turns out, one of the Pennsylvania firm's owners was Yevgeny O. Adamov, who then also headed the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy. At the time, Adamov's ministry was overseeing multimillion-dollar negotiations between Russia and USEC Inc., the same company that hired the Pennsylvania firm.
These circumstances have raised new questions about the U.S. government's decision to hand a momentous national security function to private industry.
USEC buys bomb-grade uranium stripped from Russian warheads as the exclusive agent for the U.S. government under a novel, post-Cold War agreement known as Megatons to Megawatts. The uranium is shipped to the United States, where it is resold as fuel for nuclear power plants.
The urgency of removing weapon-grade uranium from circulation in Russia has been underscored since the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. President Bush and other leaders have warned that terrorists, including Osama bin Laden, are intent on obtaining nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.
Adamov's Involvement Unknown, Officials Say
USEC executives say they did not know who owned the consulting firm, and did not learn of Adamov's involvement until he resigned his government post last year amid allegations of corruption.
They said the firm was hired for legitimate consulting work to identify prospective joint ventures between USEC and the commercial arm of the Russian atomic energy ministry. No projects were launched before the contract expired.
Peter R. Orszag, a Brookings Institution economist and critic of privatizing the nuclear security agreement, said the consulting deal involving the Pennsylvania firm reflects badly on USEC's management.
"I find it inconceivable that the United States government would sign a consulting contract with a firm owned by the [Russian] minister of atomic energy," Orszag said. "Most private sector entities would not undertake such a transaction."
Federal law discourages companies from making private business arrangements with public officials in foreign governments. The U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act makes it a crime for a U.S. business to make payments to a government official that could be construed as an inducement.
A USEC spokesman said the company did not violate the law, and he noted that the contract called for the consulting firm, Omeka Ltd., to comply with all applicable Russian and U.S. laws, including the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Interviews and records reviewed by The Times show that USEC paid Omeka $123,880 for consulting fees and expenses incurred from Jan. 1, 2000, to March 31, 2001. At the same time--under terms specified in its contract with USEC--Omeka also received payments totaling $90,000 or more from the commercial arm of Adamov's government ministry.
The contract ended around the time Adamov resigned from the Russian government in March 2001. Earlier that year, an investigative report circulated by a panel of Russia's lower house of parliament, or Duma, alleged that Adamov had mixed his private business dealings and public responsibilities. At the time, Adamov denied any wrongdoing.
Company Official Tells of Blind Trust
The report noted Adamov's ownership in Omeka; The Times could not confirm other allegations contained in the document. The report did not refer to Omeka's contract with USEC.
Adamov declined to respond to requests for an interview for this article or to answer written questions submitted to him in Russia. An Omeka executive said he did not believe Adamov received revenue from Omeka while he was a government minister.
"We more or less put it [Adamov's ownership] in a blind trust," said Mark M. Kaushansky, who co-founded Omeka in 1994 with Adamov.
Now based in Bethesda, Md., USEC once was a government-owned corporation, like Amtrak, and it processed the nation's uranium for use in nuclear power plants. As such, USEC had responsibility for carrying out the Megatons to Megawatts pact with Russia. The 1993 agreement calls for 500 metric tons of weapon-grade uranium to be stripped from the Russian warheads, blended to a lower level of radioactivity and sold to the U.S.
When the federal government sold USEC to investors for $1.9 billion in 1998, the privatized entity retained responsibility for the national security agreement between the U.S. and Russia.
The agreement calls for the publicly traded company to purchase a certain amount of uranium each year from the Russians. But it is up to USEC to negotiate the price for the uranium, which it resells to utilities in the U.S.
Analysts estimate that the Russians, over a 20-year period ending in 2013, would be paid approximately $12 billion for the uranium under the Megatons to Megawatts accord. The exact price, however, has been subject to recurrent negotiations between the Russians and USEC.
Indeed, the financial terms have been contested intensely; even a slight shift in price can be worth huge sums to the Russian government or USEC.
Both sides now are trying to reach an agreement for new pricing terms, through 2013. The negotiations got underway in early 2000--about the same time that USEC retained Omeka.
The discussions that led to the consulting contract between USEC and Omeka began in late 1999. In a series of interviews for this article, USEC executives and a representative of Adamov's company said the dealings had no connection with the negotiations regarding the national security agreement between the U.S. and Russian governments.
A USEC senior vice president, Philip G. Sewell, said Omeka was retained to provide "a speculative assessment" of opportunities with the commercial arm of the Russian atomic energy ministry, known as Tenex.
The contract specified that services were to be performed by "no one other than" Kaushansky, a Pittsburgh-based representative of Omeka who is Adamov's business partner and whose title is general manager. Noting that Omeka is privately held, Kaushansky declined to quantify Adamov's ownership, other than to say, "Yes, he had an equity stake in the company. . . . He is one of the owners."
USEC executives said they hired Omeka to gain the consulting services of Kaushansky, a nuclear engineer and Russian immigrant who speaks English and Russian fluently. Until the report of the Duma's Anti-Corruption Committee began circulating, they said they had no idea of Adamov's involvement with Omeka.
No Attempt to Identify Ownership of Firm
Charles B. Yulish, a USEC spokesman and vice president, acknowledged that the company did not attempt to identify the ownership of Omeka before hiring the firm. Yulish said this was consistent with standard practices at USEC.
Upon learning of Adamov's involvement with Omeka, the USEC executives said they had an in-house auditor review the contract and Kaushansky's performance. The audit, they said, upheld the propriety of the arrangements.
"There's nothing on its face or there's nothing behind the face that warrants looking at it askance, in terms of whether monies were paid for favors or for work that wasn't performed," Yulish said.
The hiring of Omeka was handled by Sewell, who was and remains USEC's chief negotiator with Adamov's former ministry on the national security agreement.
Sewell said officials from Tenex were the first to recommend Kaushansky's services, and that he relied on their word that Omeka was a bona fide entity.
Kaushansky told The Times that Tenex hired Omeka at some point before the company's contract with USEC. Sewell said he was surprised when he learned, through the Duma report that began circulating in early 2001, about Adamov's ownership stake in Omeka.
Should Kaushansky have disclosed Adamov's role to USEC?
"I wish he had," Sewell said. Company spokesman Yulish said USEC would not comment regarding whether it would have hired Omeka if the executives had known of Adamov's role.
Yet Adamov's involvement with Omeka was less than a secret:
On March 26, 1999, Energy Daily, a well-known industry publication in the U.S., reported that Adamov, his wife and Kaushansky had founded Omeka in the Pittsburgh suburb of Monroeville. In April 1999, this report was cited in the Moscow Times, an English-language daily.
Yulish said that USEC subscribed to Energy Daily. But he said the article, headlined "Russian Atomic Minister is Card-Carrying U.S. Capitalist," was not included in the daily summary of news clippings that USEC distributed among its employees.
Yulish, Sewell and USEC's general counsel, Robert J. Moore, said the national security agreement between the U.S. and Russia encourages USEC to pursue joint ventures with the Russians.
Kaushansky, while acknowledging Adamov's ownership in Omeka, said his partner ceased any operational role upon becoming atomic energy minister in 1998. "He had no control over it," said Kaushansky, who spoke with The Times by phone and at an office building in downtown Pittsburgh. Kaushansky said that he doubted that Adamov had been aware of Omeka's contract with USEC.
Official Was in Position to Influence Talks
This much is not in dispute: Adamov and his subordinates were positioned to influence the outcome of the Russians' negotiations with USEC regarding the Megatons to Megawatts accord.
And in May 2000--less than five months after hiring Adamov's firm--representatives of USEC say the Russians tentatively agreed to new financial terms that were advantageous to USEC. However, the terms were not ratified by both governments before Adamov left his ministry post. They remain unresolved to this day, although USEC and Tenex recently submitted new pricing terms to both governments. The new terms are also considered beneficial to USEC.
Times staff writer Carol J. Williams in Moscow and researcher Janet Lundblad in Los Angeles contributed to this reportMarch 12, 2002
-------- terrorism
UPI hears ... nuclear devices aboard
3/12/2002
United Press International
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=12032002-111223-2972r
A sudden flurry hit the White House Situation Room after a "plausible" report came in from Italian sources over the weekend that three ships of unknown origin are supposedly heading for U.S. ports with nuclear devices aboard. The report is unclear whether these are real nukes or radiological weapons, sometimes known as 'dirty bombs,' that pack nuclear waste around conventional explosives -- and can force mass evacuations. Despite several false alarms in the past, the FBI is taking it seriously.
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Nuclear Threat in 1995 Went Unheeded
March 12, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Nuclear-Warning.html
U.S. officials received a warning as early as 1995 that Islamic militants were plotting to attack an American nuclear site, but did not pass along the information to the agency that oversees nuclear facilities or to the plants themselves, The Associated Press has learned.
The warning came in police interrogations of convicted terrorist Abdul Hakim Murad and from a computer seized in the Philippines from Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. Both men were linked to Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida terrorist network, and are serving life in prison in the United States for plotting to blow up 12 U.S.-bound airliners.
The AP learned of the 1995 warning through secret intelligence documents and interviews with officials in the United States and the Philippines.
According to a secret Philippines report, a letter obtained from Yousef's computer indicated he was ``planning to attack any nuclear facilities in the U.S. and unspecified targets in France and Great Britain.''
Yousef, who ran the al-Qaida cell that targeted the World Trade Center in 1993, discussed the plan with Murad when the two met in October 1994 in Quetta, Pakistan, according to statements Murad made to interrogators.
But Murad, who was arrested in Manila in January 1995, said he was unaware of the specifics of the plan to attack nuclear facilities.
Rodolfo Mendoza, a former police official in Manila who was among those who supervised Murad's interrogations, said the details on the nuclear threat were immediately shared with U.S. authorities.
``During a debriefing session, Murad told us about this planned attack on an unspecified nuclear facility. We passed on that information from Murad to them (U.S. officials),'' Mendoza said.
Murad also told investigators that he and other Middle Eastern students took pilot training at U.S. flight schools in the early 1990s and that he had proposed a suicide mission in which he would fly a jetliner into a federal building.
That information, provided six years before the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, also was shared with FBI agents in Manila. An FBI agent who accompanied Murad back to the United States for trial, testified in 1996 that Murad spoke about plans for a nuclear attack.
Victor Dricks, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said the government agency charged with overseeing the country's 104 nuclear facilities had not heard of such a warning during 1995.
``We did not know of any credible threat against any specific facility that we would take seriously enough to take some action on,'' he said.
Carl Crawford, manager of nuclear communications at Energy Nuclear, which operates nine reactors in the South and the Northeast, said that in 1995 the company ``never received any formal communications from the NRC or any other federal law enforcement agency regarding such threats. We never received any request to go on high alert.''
In January, the NRC alerted nuclear power plants that the government had received a tip from an al-Qaida operative that terrorists might be planning a suicide attack on a power reactor.
An FBI official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said at the time that the NRC had acted on old information that had been deemed not credible. But the NRC communication said the agency decided to issue the alert after an FBI agent in Washington state contacted a nuclear power plant about the threat.
The NRC ordered the nation's nuclear plants operating in 31 states to their highest alert level after Sept. 11 and at least seven states are using National Guard troops to help secure reactors.
The Federal Aviation Administration banned private planes from flying within 11 miles of nuclear plants and the U.S. Coast Guard is patrolling the Great Lakes to keep ships away from plants on the coastline.
Some lakes with power plants on their shores have been closed to recreational activities altogether, although officials have said that at least portions of the lakes will be reopened soon.
Exelon Nuclear, which owns 10 plants, closed three Illinois cooling lakes after the attacks. A spokeswoman said the plants were reevaluating security, including how close boaters could get to the facilities.
In France, surface-to-air missiles were positioned near a major nuclear reprocessing plant and a military base for nuclear submarines six weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks. Radar systems capable of scouting out airplanes flying at low altitudes were stationed there as well.
Officials have declined to say what France was doing to protect its 20 nuclear power plants from terrorist attacks. France gets more than three-fourths of its power from nuclear energy.
Hungary also has placed surface-to-air rockets near the country's only nuclear power plant, about 60 miles south of the capital, Budapest.
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Sniffing Out Dirty Nukes
Technology to Spot Radiation Bombs
By Paul Eng
March 12, 2002
ABC News
http://printerfriendly.abcnews.com/printerfriendly/Print?fetchFromGLUE=true&GLUEService=ABCNewsCom
It's a nightmare scenario that could take place in the not-too-distant future, say some experts. Terrorists craft and explode a "dirty bomb" - an explosive weapon laced with nuclear or radioactive material such as cesium or cobalt.
Security experts recently testified before Congress that such bombs won't kill as many people as an outright explosion from a true nuclear weapon. But they said a dirty bomb could spread invisible and deadly radiation for miles and contaminate areas for years - making such devices an ideal weapon of terror.
In order to ward off such potential disasters, the U.S. government is taking several steps, including the use of new, "smart" radiation detectors.
According to experts, traditional radiation detectors - Geiger counters - don't tell users enough about material that's giving off waves of radiation.
"As you get closer, the Geiger counter clicks faster," says Ralph James, associate lab director for the Energy, Environment and National Security Group at Brookhaven National Labs in Upton, N.Y.
But that happens if the material is plutonium 239 - a material in nuclear weapons - or americium 241 - a material used in smoke detectors in every house. "That [clicking] is simply not enough information when detecting a radiological weapon," says James.
Seeking Radioactive Signatures
The new sensors, called gamma ray detectors, use exotic chemicals such as germanium and cadmium zinc telluride. More sensitive to certain types of radiation, these chemical sensors help give searchers a more accurate idea of the kind of nuclear threat they are facing.
Every radioactive element gives off a certain unique pattern or "signature" of energy, says James.
"They're just like different frequencies on a radio dial," he says. "In smart detectors, we have the ability to discern isotopes in weapons - like uranium or plutonium - from a wide range of naturally occurring isotopes."
In other words, the smart detectors will give security and law enforcement personnel a better way to screen out potentially false alarms - such as a shipping container that really contains only minute amounts of cesium for medical experiments.
Elite Tools for Now
Experts note that smart detector technology has been deployed with emergency groups such as the Nuclear Emergency Search Teams, groups that respond to the threat of nuclear weapons and materials. And after recent intelligence reports suggested that the al Qaeda terrorist network may have or will soon have dirty bombs, the U.S. Army's elite Delta Force counterterrorism group may also have acquired such detection capabilities.
But some experts note that it's unlike the technology will reach to where it may be most useful: among firefighters, emergency rescue and medical technicians, and police officers - the "first responders" who react to disasters such as terrorist attacks.
For one, the detectors are too expensive to put among every firehouse or police precinct in the nation. At about $20,000 to $30,000 per detector, experts say all but the largest of city fire departments and emergency organizations would be unable to afford such high-tech gear.
Using the Tools at Hand
But even without the new detectors, experts such as William Brobst Jr., an adjunct instructor at the Center for Terrorism Preparedness in the University of Findlay, Ohio, say that most first responders are prepared to handle any crisis involving radioactive material.
Brobst, who is also a captain of a special hazardous materials, or hazmat, unit for the Columbus Fire Department, says fire departments in most major cities do have radiation detectors - mostly Geiger counters or similar devices. "Under federal requirements for hazmats, we are expected to test for radioactive chemicals at any scene we're called out to," he says.
And while the new technology would be a help to rescuers arriving on the scene of a suspected dirty bombing, he's also confident in the protective clothing and gear that most first responders already carry. "The 1950s- and '60s-style detectors are still good," says Brobst.
At least, it's good enough to warn rescuers that they face a threat of radiation and thus need to limit their time in the dangerous area.
"We'll save victims and then we'll be wise enough to back out and turn it over to hazmat [teams]," says Brobst. "Radiation isn't a big killer. No one comes down with radiation sickness in 10 or 15 minutes."
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
Itchy fingers on the trigger
The weekend's leaked Pentagon report has underlined the growing number of US advisers who now advocate the use of nuclear weapons
Richard Norton-Taylor
Tuesday March 12, 2002
UK Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/analysis/story/0%2C3604%2C665855%2C00.html
No doubt Dick Cheney will have told Tony Blair yesterday not to worry about the Pentagon's contingency plans, leaked to American newspapers, for the possible use of nuclear weapons against China, Russia, Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Libya and Syria. A string of senior US officials toured television stations on Sunday, trying to play down the implications of the 56-page "nuclear posture review".
"What the Pentagon has done with this study is sound, military, conceptual planning, and the president will take that planning and he will give his directions on how to proceed," said Colin Powell, US secretary of state.
Richard Myers, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said the review "preserves for the president all the options that a president would want to have in case this country or our friends and allies were attacked with weapons of mass destruction". The Pentagon's report forsees the use of nuclear weapons in three situations: against targets able to withstand attacks by non-nuclear weapons; in retaliation for an attack with nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons; or "in the event of surprising military developments". It refers to a possible "Iraqi attack on Israel or its neighbours, or a North Korean attack on South Korea or a military confrontation over the status of Taiwan".
Referring to the Cuban missile crisis, the report says the US might be caught by surprise if a hostile country suddenly showed it had ac quired weapons of mass destruction. "North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya are among the countries that could be involved in immediate, potential or unexpected contingencies," it says.
US military planners and nuclear scientists developed new types of tactical nuclear bombs during the Clinton administration. In particular they designed the low-yield B61-11 bomb designed to penetrate underground bunkers, which have been deployed in Europe since 1997.
Advocates of the use of such small nuclear weapons claim their environmental impact would be limited. Yet the Washington-based Project of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) says that an attack on Saddam Hussein's presidential bunker in Baghdad with a B61-11 bomb "could cause upwards of 20,000 deaths".
Even Nato admits: "Any nuclear weapons use would be absolutely catastrophic in human and environmental terms... Such human cost would ensure an enormous political cost for any nation that chose to use nuclear weapons, particularly in a first strike."
One keen advocate of small, precision-guided, low-yield, nuclear weapons is Stephen Younger, a former director of the Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory and now head of America's Defence Threat Reduction Agency, responsible for "counter- proliferation" programmes. "Nuclear weapons pack an incredible destructive force into a small, deliverable package," Younger wrote last year in a paper entitled Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century.
A report published last year by America's National Institute for Public Policy, a conservative thinktank, declared that "nuclear weapons can... be used in counter-force attacks that are intended to neutralise enemy military capabilities".
Authors of the report include Stephen Cambone, now a senior Pentagon policy-making official, Stephen Hadley, Bush's deputy national security adviser, Robert Joseph, a member of the national security council, and William Schneider, one of Bush's defence advisers.
Bush's advisers argue that by advocating the possible use of nuclear weapons, and abandoning the cold war concept of mutual assured destruction (Mad) - replacing it by the prospect of "unilateral assured destruction" - they are simply offering a more effective deterrence. Yet the blurring of the lines between nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, says the PSR, "provides the best incentive imaginable for a potential foe of the US to move to development of nuclear weapons, since they would suffer the same consequences for nuclear use as for a chemical or biological attack". Moreover, it adds, "nuclear weapons are likely to have a stronger deterrent effect on US action as the effects of nuclear use against US targets are likely to be far more serious than any other threat".
Proponents of "war-fighting" nuclear weapons counter this argument by saying that they are much more difficult to acquire than biological or chemical weapons. Nevertheless, the Pentagon's policy shift can only encourage nuclear proliferation and undermine the non-proliferation treaty, whose signatories, including the US, are pledged to work for the elimination of nuclear weapons (the US subsequently pledged not to use nuclear weapons against states that do not possess them). And the development of new nuclear weapons might well lead to a resumption of nuclear testing, finally sabotaging the comprehensive test ban treaty.
"The US is desperately worried about the use of weapons of mass destruction against them," says Professor Paul Rogers, defence analyst at Bradford University. "If that ultimately means a pre-emptive strike, then they will do it." He adds: "If the US uses even a low-yield nuclear bomb in a crisis, that still breaks the threshold. The genie would be out of the bottle."
And what are the implications of the Pentagon's review for Britain, in particular for the "sub strategic" role - as the government describes it - of its (American) Trident missile system? "It is not necessarily a question we would wish to answer," a British defence official said yesterday.
· Richard Norton-Taylor is the Guardian's security affairs editor. Email him at richard.norton-taylor@guardian.co.uk.
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'Rogue' Nations Policy Builds on Clinton's Lead
No Nuclear Attack Planned, Cheney Says
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 12, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A10783-2002Mar11?language=printer
The Bush administration's nuclear posture review, which listed seven rogue nations as possible targets for U.S. nuclear weapons, follows a pattern set five years ago by a nuclear directive signed by then-President Bill Clinton.
The Clinton presidential decision directive, called PDD-60, reduced the number of U.S. nuclear weapons targeted for immediate launch on Russian conventional forces while adding several types of targets in China. PDD-60 was seen as preparing the groundwork for sharp reductions in U.S. nuclear weapons by declaring an end to the Reagan doctrine of fighting and winning a nuclear war.
The Clinton directive also introduced the post-Cold War concept of preparing targets in other countries, which it termed "adaptive planning," a former senior Pentagon official said. That same phrase is used in the Bush administration report.
Under that concept, contingency plans were drawn up during the Clinton administration to target countries other than Russia and China as had been done in earlier administrations, but this time to include "rogue" nations. Up-to-date intelligence was kept on weapons of mass destruction facilities in Iran, Iraq, North Korea and other "rogue" nations. Updates were continuously passed to nuclear target planners at the U.S. Strategic Command, this official said.
"There were no immediate plans on the shelf for target packages [for those countries] to give to bombers or missile crews, but we could produce targeting information for those countries within hours," the former official said.
He said visitors to the U.S. Strategic Command in the 1990s, who had the required security clearances, were shown the capabilities of adaptive planning. Classified charts displayed the chemical, biological or nuclear facilities in rogue nations that could be hit by nuclear weapons. In addition, the official said, "We could show even the distribution of the plumes of chemical or biological fallout after the attack took place."
"Nothing has changed," this official said, as far as he could tell from reading recent reports about classified sections of the Bush review, which was sent to Congress in early January. He noted that one author of the Clinton directive who worked on nuclear issues and PDD-60 in the Pentagon, Franklin Miller, today works in a senior position dealing with nuclear weapons as a staff member of President Bush's National Security Council.
Another former Pentagon official noted yesterday that contingency nuclear targeting of Iran dates to the hostage crisis of 1979, and that of Iraq to the Persian Gulf War in 1991.
In advance of Operation Desert Storm, then-President George H.W. Bush wrote to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein saying that any use of biological or chemical weapons against U.S. or coalition forces could result in "the strongest possible response," a phrase widely interpreted to imply nuclear retaliation.
The Clinton administration picked up that concept in 1996, when then-Defense Secretary William Perry said, "If some nation were to attack the United States with chemical weapons, then they would have to fear the consequences of a response from any weapon in our inventory. . . . We could make a devastating response without the use of nuclear weapons, but we would not forswear the possibility."
That idea also appeared in PDD-60 and is repeated in the Bush review.
Among other parallels between the Clinton directive and the recent Bush nuclear posture review is that nuclear weapons would remain the cornerstone of U.S. security for the foreseeable future. Bush's document, however, sets the need for such weapons out at least 50 years.
Clinton called for retention of the triad of land- and sea-based intercontinental missiles plus strategic bombers, while the Bush review calls for development of a new generation of these delivery systems: a new land-based ICBM by 2020, a new submarine-launched missile and submarine to launch it by 2030, and a new heavy bomber by 2040.
Some arms control specialists have criticized the Bush nuclear posture review for appearing to lower the threshold on the possible use of such weapons.
"What the nuclear posture review does is [it] details and confirms that the Bush administration is seeking to increase, not decrease, the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. foreign and military policy," said Darryl Kimball, director of the nonprofit Arms Control Association.
In London yesterday, the first stop on a tour that will take him to the Middle East, Vice President Cheney dismissed the idea that the posture review indicated that Washington was preparing preemptive nuclear strikes on Iraq or other nations mentioned.
Cheney described the report as one required by Congress "on the overall state of our capabilities and [it] gives some idea of the directions we'd like to move in in the future." The vice president went on: "But the notion that I've seen reported in the press that somehow this means we are preparing preemptive nuclear strikes . . . I'd say that's a bit over the top."
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Cheney calms nations on nukes
By Nicholas Kralev
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
March 12, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020312-707745.htm
The Bush administration insisted yesterday it has no plans to use nuclear weapons but said it reserves the right to a "full range of options" in response to threats from other countries.
Russia demanded an explanation and China said it was "deeply shocked" by reports about U.S. contingency plans to target them, along with Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Libya and Syria.
But Vice President Richard B. Cheney sought to assure the agitated world community that Washington had no immediate plans to use its nuclear arsenal. He described the press reports over the weekend, which quoted classified nuclear posture review texts, as "a bit over the top."
"Right now, today, the United States on a day-to-day basis does not target nuclear weapons on any nation," Mr. Cheney said at a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair in London, at the start of a 10-day, 12-nation tour of the Europe and the Middle East.
At the State Department, spokesman Richard Boucher said the nuclear review's main conclusion is that the United States will still have "enough [weapons] left to do a lot of damage," even after the cuts President Bush pledged to make in November.
"The policy is one to deter threats against the United States and deter others from trying to use weapons of mass destruction," he told reporters. "We are able to reduce the operationally deployed weapons by two-thirds, but we still have to maintain a deterrent."
During Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to the United States four months ago, Mr. Bush pledged to reduce the U.S. nuclear stockpile to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads from the current level of nearly 7,000 Mr. Putin responded with a similar proposal, which would bring Moscow's arsenal down to between 1,500 and 2,000 warheads, from nearly 6,000.
Mr. Boucher said yesterday the recommendations in the nuclear posture review, which was ordered by Congress, addressed the role the remaining weapons would play in the United State's military capabilities.
"Within that reduced level of operationally deployed forces, one does have to look at the threats that are out there and make sure that we are prepared to deal with contingencies, so that the president has a full range of options as he deals with the threats, including the developing threats of weapons of mass destruction in the world," he said.
In an interview with The Washington Times last month, John Bolton, undersecretary of state for international security and arms control, said, "We would do whatever is necessary to defend America's innocent civilian population."
In case of an attack on the United States, "we would have to do what is appropriate under the circumstances, and the classic formulation of that is, we are not ruling anything in and we are not ruling anything out," he said.
The weekend press reports, the first of which appeared in the Los Angeles Times, provoked strong reaction overseas.
"If it is true, it can only give rise to regret and concern, not only from Russia but from the entire world community," said Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov. "Such a plan can destabilize the situation and make it more tense."
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, speaking to reporters in Ireland on his way to the United States, said he expected further explanations. He said he would put his questions directly to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi said, "China, like other countries, is deeply shocked" to be a target in Washington's contingency plan.
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[To reply, mailto:letters@washingtontimes.com]
Our evolving nuclear posture
EDITORIAL
March 12, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20020312-5300253.htm
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's mandate was to transform the military into a force capable of defeating the post-Cold War threats America faces. Since September 11, Mr. Rumsfeld has correctly decided that he can - no, must - transform the force at the same time we fight a major war. Part of the transformation that is still in the planning stage is described in the January "Nuclear Posture Review." The issues concerning the production and possible use of nuclear weapons are vastly different from those we faced when NATO stood against the Warsaw Pact. Recognizing this, the NPR moves us out of the Cold War "Mutually Assured Destruction" dogma into the post-September 11 world. Mr. Rumsfeld is rethinking the unthinkable and coming up with some cold, clear ideas.
The facts are what they are. The NPR points out that 12 nations have nuclear weapon programs, 28 have ballistic missiles, 13 have biological weapons and 16 have chemical weapons. The NPR also says North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya are among countries that could be involved in immediate, potential or unexpected contingencies, meaning a nuclear war, sooner rather than later. The report says that an Iraqi-Israeli conflict could escalate into a nuclear conflict.
It is no surprise that most of the nations named in the NPR sponsor and harbor terrorists and have programs to produce weapons of mass destruction and missiles to carry them. To deal with these threats, the NPR proposes we develop new, cleaner tactical nuclear weapons that can root out the terrorists who dig so deep into mountain caves that our conventional weapons can't reach them. The moral bar against using nuclear weapons comes from the widespread destruction they cause, killing hundreds or thousands of civilians. If small, clean, nuclear weapons are developed that will not cause those kinds of casualties, there may be a place for them in our arsenal.
The most frightening part of the NPR raises the need to develop and use nuclear weapons to respond to chemical, biological and other attacks it euphemistically calls "surprising military developments." The threat of a suitcase-sized nuclear weapon being smuggled into the United States must be among them. The Russians have them, the Chinese may have them, and if anything is certain, terrorists are seeking them actively.
All of which leads us to the somewhat puzzling fact that Russia has been downgraded as a nuclear threat, reportedly at the bequest of President Bush himself. Mr. Bush obviously sets great store by his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but the fact remains that Russia is the only country in the world with a nuclear arsenal to match that of the United States. Even if Russia at this time may be an unlikely nuclear opponent, its lack of control of its weapons is a huge cause for concern.
Any nation that exports nuclear terrorism, or allows it to operate from within its borders, must know that America will do whatever it takes to prevent such an attack against us. The Soviets understood the "mutual" part of "Mutually Assured Destruction." Our new adversaries must come to understand that whatever horrible damage they may inflict on us, the retaliation will be such that the "destruction" will not be "mutual" at all.
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[To reply, mailto:letters@washingtontimes.com]
Adults address the unthinkable
Frank Gaffney Jr.
March 12, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20020312-82149519.htm
In the wake of September 11, millions of Americans have taken comfort from the fact that a group of mature, experienced and generally quite competent individuals are in charge of the nation's security at a time when we must wage a war on terrorism.
Fresh evidence of how different are the policies and plans of the "adults" running our government today from their immediate predecessors - and the team they defeated in November 2000 - was made public on Saturday when the Los Angeles Times published a sensationalized account of the classified Nuclear Posture Review (NPR).
This study was performed at congressional direction by the Bush Pentagon, with inputs from the Departments of Energy and State and the intelligence community. Its analysis formed the basis for the NPR's most publicized - and widely acclaimed - upshot: The presidential decision taken last year that the United States could safely reduce the number of its deployed strategic nuclear weapons from roughly 6,000 to somewhere between 1,750 and 2,200 over the next 10 years.
Critics of Mr. Bush among the ranks of former Clinton administration officials and those in the arms control community with whom they closely worked before, during and after their time in office were unable to get much traction on this score. The public seemed unmoved by their complaints that: the reductions envisioned are not all that different from what Mr. Clinton had in mind; still more weapons should be taken out of service and each one physically destroyed; and all this should be done pursuant to a legally binding arms control accord, not an informal, unilateral U.S. undertaking, or even two parallel ones by Washington and Moscow.
Such critics hope, therefore, that they can mobilize a public and congressional outcry over parts of the NPR that had, until last Saturday, been classified. Yet, on closer inspection, the objects of their criticism appear not only reasonable, but far more responsible than the approaches long advocated by anti-nuclear activists like William Arkin, to whom the NPR was leaked and who in turn provided this secret document to the media:
• Performing contingency planning for circumstances in which U.S. interests might be so jeopardized that the use of nuclear weapons could be contemplated, and perhaps ordered. This is the sort of preparation in which most of our countrymen expect the military to engage. Anti-nuclear types argue this kind of activity "lowers the nuclear threshold," making the use of such weapons more likely. In fact, such planning is an integral part of establishing and maintaining the credibility of our deterrent. The more credible it is, the less likely circumstances will arise in which our nuclear weapons have to be used.
Thoughtful Americans - in contrast to "politically correct" media and policy elites - intuitively appreciate this reality. Such common sense causes them to support as well activities that outrage these elites such as the wartime use of strategic influence operations (involving deception, if necessary), measures to ensure continuity of government in the event of "decapitating" attacks against us, and the fielding of effective anti-missile defenses.
Speaking of missile defense, it is ironic that many of those most vocal in their opposition to President Bush's decision to deploy such systems routinely declare that to be unnecessary since we can rely on the threat of nuclear retaliation to deter any missile strikes. As Joseph Cirincione put it in last Sunday's editions of The Washington Post: "Each of [the] countries [that have potentially threatening missile ballistic programs] would almost surely be deterred from attacking the United States by the certainty that swift retaliation would follow even a failed or thwarted attack."
Regrettably, but for the adjustments entailed in the Bush Nuclear Posture Review, the sorts of policies favored by Messrs. Arkin and Cirincione would inexorably have eviscerated the credibility of that retaliatory threat.
• Assuring the future modernity and security of the nuclear stockpile. Pre-eminent among the steps necessary to a credible deterrent are the ability to adapt existing weapons or to design new ones to ensure they are capable of working effectively if called upon to do so. The NPR reportedly gives considerable attention to the need to do just that. This marks a refreshing change from the Clinton team's refusal to afford our nuclear scientists the latitude they need to conduct underground nuclear tests - the one proven technique for assuring that obsolescing weapons still work and that new, optimized designs are available where needed and perform as advertized. While neither new designs nor a resumption of nuclear testing in Nevada have yet been explicitly ordered by the Bush administration, the latter's adults are, to their credit, opening these options for the first time since avowed proponents of "denuclearization" took over the U.S. government a decade ago.
• Re-establishing the design teams, production lines and testing facilities needed to perform the aforementioned work. The Bush NPR places similar priority on the need to resuscitate the nuclear weapons production complex as it does on the other two "legs" of what it calls the New Triad: modern nuclear and conventional forces and capable defensive measures (including, notably, missile defense). Alas, this urgently needed course correction will take considerable time, thanks to the systematic effort made by the Clinton administration effectively to shut down the complex, dispense with its unique and gifted work force and otherwise render it incapable of ever operating again as it once had - as the backbone of the U.S. nuclear deterrent.
These are the sorts of prudent, reasonable and, in all likelihood, absolutely necessary measures that must be taken now if there is to be any chance in the future of deterring regimes, and perhaps terrorists, equipped with weapons of mass destruction. Their adoption as part of the NPR does not mean the United States is bent on using nuclear weapons. Rather, it means the responsible adults now in charge understand that for deterrence to work, it must be based on real, credible and sustainable capabilities, not bluffs, a hollowed-out military and bankrupt arms control nostrums.
Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is the president of the Center for Security Policy and a columnist for The Washington Times.
----
America as Nuclear Rogue
New York Times
March 12, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/12/opinion/_12TUE1.html
If another country were planning to develop a new nuclear weapon and contemplating pre-emptive strikes against a list of non-nuclear powers, Washington would rightly label that nation a dangerous rogue state. Yet such is the course recommended to President Bush by a new Pentagon planning paper that became public last weekend. Mr. Bush needs to send that document back to its authors and ask for a new version less menacing to the security of future American generations.
The paper, the Nuclear Posture Review, proposes lowering the overall number of nuclear warheads, but widens the circumstances thought to justify a possible nuclear response and expands the list of countries considered potential nuclear targets. It envisions, for example, an American president threatening nuclear retaliation in case of "an Iraqi attack on Israel or its neighbors, or a North Korean attack on South Korea or a military confrontation over the status of Taiwan."
In a world where numerous countries are developing nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, it is quite right that America retain a credible nuclear deterrent. Where the Pentagon review goes very wrong is in lowering the threshold for using nuclear weapons and in undermining the effectiveness of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
The treaty, long America's main tool for discouraging non-nuclear countries from developing nuclear weapons, is backed by promises that as long as signatories stay non-nuclear and avoid combat alongside a nuclear ally, they will not be attacked with nuclear weapons. If the Pentagon proposals become American policy, that promise would be withdrawn and countries could conclude that they have no motive to stay non-nuclear. In fact, they may well decide they need nuclear weapons to avoid nuclear attack.
The review also calls for the United States to develop a new nuclear warhead designed to blow up deep underground bunkers. Adding a new weapon to America's nuclear arsenal would normally require a resumption of nuclear testing, ending the voluntary moratorium on such tests that now helps restrain the nuclear weapons programs of countries like North Korea and Iran.
Since the dawn of the nuclear age, American military planners have had to factor these enormously destructive weapons into their calculations. Their behavior has been tempered by the belief, shared by most thoughtful Americans, that the weapons should be used only when the nation's most basic interest or national survival is at risk, and that the unrestrained use of nuclear weapons in war could end life on earth as we know it. Nuclear weapons are not just another part of the military arsenal. They are different, and lowering the threshold for their use is reckless folly.
--------
Little Nukes Are Good Nukes?
An Interview With Jacqueline Cabasso of Western States Legal Foundation,
by Jennifer Bauduy, associate editor
TomPaine.com:
Mar 12 2002
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5245
Jacqueline Cabasso is executive director of the Western States Legal Foundation, an Oakland-based nonprofit that monitors U.S. nuclear weapons programs and policies. TomPaine.com's Jennifer Bauduy spoke with Cabasso about the recently leaked Pentagon report opening the way for the use of nuclear weapons against countries that may be developing them.
TomPaine.com: The plans outlined in the "nuclear posture review" show that the Defense Department no longer considers nuclear weapons as weapons of last resort, but as fair game in certain circumstances. How do you interpret this policy change?
Cabasso: This is an extremely dangerous and destabilizing position. It adds to the growing climate of global insecurity by making it more likely that more countries are going to want to acquire nuclear weapons. That's already happening with India and Pakistan.
Under the Nonproliferation Treaty, which includes almost every country in the world, the United States is obligated to end the nuclear arms race and to negotiate complete nuclear disarmament. That became U.S. law in 1970.
This [Pentagon report] represents a re-affirmation of the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. national security policy. That in fact is perhaps the most dangerous part of it. In the past, nuclear weapons have been viewed in their own category, only to be used to "deter" the use of nuclear weapons. Now, nuclear weapons have been fully integrated into a whole spectrum of war-fighting capabilities -- explicitly nuclear weapons with new kinds of capabilities are being developed here.
TP.c: The Pentagon argues that the United States needs more options to keep up with new threats.
Cabasso: If you look at the overall military budget request for fiscal year 2003, including nuclear weapons and all the other weapons systems, it is almost $400 billion. That is more than the combined military budgets of the next 26 countries [with the largest militaries]. It's more than 34 times the military budgets of the "axis-of-evil." It's more than three-and-a-third times the combined military budgets of the seven countries that are on the target list in this "nuclear posture review." [China, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, North Korea, and Russia.]
All this military hardware, all this strategic planning failed to protect us from the September 11th attacks, which were conducted without using weapons at all by making airplanes and box cutters into weapons.
Look at the military capabilities, and look at the war fighting scenarios that [the Defense Department] is talking about: an Arab-Israeli conflict; a possible attack on Israel by Iraq; an attack on South Korea by North Korea. These are tinderbox situations. It is inconceivable to imagine using nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Nobody would be immune.
TP.c: If the rationale is not to protect the United States from unexpected threats, what is it?
Cabasso: The overall purpose is to insure overwhelming U.S. military superiority, to protect American interests and investments around the world. It's to insure global domination through military means.
There are many applications that one can envision in the current world situation: it is to protect U.S. oil interests in Central Asia; it is to protect U.S. oil interests in the Middle East; one could go on and on.
TP.c: The Pentagon says it needs new lower-yield nuclear bombs, to penetrate underground complexes, and that these would produce less fallout. The implication is that these are just 'little' nuclear bombs. What exactly are lower-yield weapons capable of?
Cabasso: The Hiroshima weapon, which was about 15 kilotons, incinerated about 140,000 people, most of them civilians. The Nagasaki bomb incinerated about 70,000 human beings. These were small, crude, untested bombs by today's standards.
A typical modern nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal has a yield of about 150 kilotons. That's about 10 times bigger than the Hiroshima bomb. Depending on where it exploded, one of those weapons could kill more than eight million people. These are weapons of enormous violence and destruction. They involve not just heat, and not just blast, but also radiation, and radiation is very insidious. You can't see it. You can't smell it. It doesn't respect any kind of boundaries either geographical or in time, because it lasts virtually forever.
Even if you get down to low-yield, we are still talking about enormous destructive capability. Why would you want a nuclear earth penetrator? Unless a conventional earth penetrator wouldn't do the job. And that's essentially what we are being told.
If you count deployed, strategic warheads, nonstrategic bombs and warheads, strategic and non-strategic responsive forces, spare warheads, an inactive reserve stockpile, and stored components that could be reassembled into weapons, the permanent U.S. arsenal could be as large as 15,000 nuclear weapons. The use of one nuclear weapon would be a holocaust, even if it were a small nuclear weapon.
There's been an historic taboo against the use of nuclear weapons since the end of World War II. It seems that there's a real effort here to remove that taboo, and to make nuclear weapons more legitimate and more credible.
The other countries of the world are not going to tolerate this incredible arrogance, where one country says, not only can we have nuclear weapons, we must have them, and we will have them, despite the fact that we signed a treaty promising to get rid of them. None of the rest of you can have them, and if you even think about having them, we are going to target them. That's what the U.S. is saying. It's an absolutely unsustainable policy.
Related Links
The Western States Legal Foundation http://www.wslfweb.org/
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- kentucky
DOE to reveal part of data in Paducah ruling
About 2,000 pages on shipments to the Paducah plant are to be made public by September, with the rest to come later.
By Joe Walker,
Paducah Sun - jwalker@paducahsun.com,
March 12, 2002
http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news2002/nn11624.htm
The U.S. Department of Energy apparently intends to make declassification rulings by September on about one-third of 6,000 pages of overdue information about Cold War-era shipments of dismantled nuclear weapons to the Paducah uranium enrichment plant.
That is in response to a federal judge's order Feb. 5 that DOE submit a schedule for making the information public. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Phil Gilbert in Benton, Ill., said a backlog of hundreds of Freedom of Information requests was no excuse for DOE not responding to two September 1999 requests by Mark Donham and Kristi Hanson of Brookport, Ill., leaders of the Regional Association of Concerned Environmentalists.
Donham said DOE sent him a preliminary compliance schedule. DOE intends to set up a special area of its Freedom of Information Office in Oak Ridge, Tenn., to immediately start declassifying the material, Donham said. "It said they expect a determination on the first 2,000 documents by September, and the two other installments of 2,000 pages would be done in a couple of months' increments."
Gilbert said the FOI backlog was not an "exceptional circumstance" qualifying for the requested indefinite delay.
Although DOE should have already provided the information, a September partial compliance date is better than an "open-ended" schedule, Donham said. The request involves records of dismantled nuclear weapons shipments made during the Cold War between Paducah and the Pantex facility in Amarillo, Texas, for the recovery of precious metals, and burial.
Gilbert had given DOE until Monday to respond to a request by Donham and Hanson for documents relating to the once-proposed Vortec radioactive waste incinerator project at the plant.
Donham said he had received "three or four reams" of paper from DOE regarding Vortec, including documents showing DOE intended to seek a state air permit.
"I think we're basically talking about a project that isn't going to happen, at least in the form it was planned," Donham said.
The environmentalist group filed suit Feb. 16, 2001, in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois. DOE responded that it had a backlog of more than 600 FOI requests, handled on a first-come, first-served basis.
According to Gilbert's ruling, DOE said last April 25 that it would take four to six months to respond to the Vortec request, and as long as 18 months for the weapons information to reach final declassification review.
-------- ohio
Hole Found in Nuclear Reactor Cap
March 12, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nuclear-Plant-Hole.html
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) -- An acid leak inside a nuclear power plant ate a hole 6 inches deep into a steel cap that covers the plant's reactor vessel, federal inspectors said.
The hole, which was stopped by a layer impervious to the acid, does not pose a safety threat, said Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Jan Strasma.
If the acid had penetrated the massive cap and allowed steam to escape, safety systems would have immediately cooled the reactor, he said.
While the steam would contain some radioactive material, it would have been confined by the reactor containment building. Even if steam had escaped from the building, there would have been no danger to the public, Strasma said.
``It's only when you get into the what-ifs that you would have had any leakage from the reactor cooling system,'' Strasma said Tuesday.
``There was no hazard,'' he said. ``It's certainly very unusual. It's a deterioration of a very important safety feature.''
The regulatory commission is investigating to determine the cause and whether similar conditions could exist at other plants.
The commission has also alerted the nation's 102 other commercial nuclear plants to watch for similar problems. It said this was the most extensive corrosion ever found on top of a U.S. nuclear plant reactor.
The hole was discovered last week while the Davis-Besse nuclear plant was shut down for normal refueling and maintenance.
It could have been slowly leaking for years, Strasma said.
Trace amounts of boric acid, a byproduct of the nuclear fission process inside the reactor, are believed to have dribbled onto the cap from at least one of the reactor's 69 control rods.
The acid did not penetrate an inner layer of the cap, only about three-eighths of an inch thick, because that layer of steel is impervious to boric acid, said Richard Wilkins, a spokesman for FirstEnergy Corp., the plant's operator.
``We didn't expect to find it to advance as far as it had,'' he said Tuesday, adding that this much corrosion had not been seen in the industry before.
The corrosion problem will keep the plant closed an extra month, Wilkins said. The plant, located along Lake Erie and about 25 miles east of Toledo, has been shut down since mid-February. The utility said it would remain shut down until at least late April.
``We know this can be repaired,'' Wilkins said. ``We're confident the fix will be the right one.''
Plant officials discovered the corrosion during repairs to five control rod nozzles after cracks were found earlier during the shutdown.
The corrosion appears linked to at least one of those two leaking nozzles or to aging weld seams surrounding them, Wilkins said.
FirstEnergy plans to install a new reactor head during the plant's next refueling shutdown in 2004, Wilkins said.
The company said a new reactor cannot be installed now because it will take months to build.
``That's absolutely unacceptable,'' said Paul Gunter, a spokesman for the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, an industry watchdog group. ``They're going to risk public health and safety.''
The group wants the commission to shut down the plant until a new reactor can be installed.
-------- us politics
Bush's stealth policy on N-arms
By Thomas Oliphant
Boston Globe
3/12/2002.
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/071/oped/Bush_s_stealth_policy_on_N_arms+.shtml
WASHINGTON - IT IS NOT simply the fresh list of countries that the United States is willing to consider nuking someday.
What is truly significant - as well as stupid, scary, and outrageous - is the almost casual breaking of long-standing policy taboos about the unthinkable and the implications of this cavalier attitude for relations with the rest of the world and for future arms races.
The Russians and Chinese already know the United States is unilaterally departing from the 1972 treaty effectively banning missile defense systems. Now the world has reason to doubt the American commitment to the 1974 treaty to guard against nuclear proliferation as well as the honesty and good will of Bush administration ''pledges'' to cut back our post-Cold War nuclear arsenal and to maintain a moratorium on testing.
The cover story the administration sought to peddle on last weekend's TV talk shows - via Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice - is that contingency plans to target Syria, Libya, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Russia, and China are more theoretical exercises than serious policy work and that no special notice need be taken.
The cover story is belied by actual intentions as revealed to Congress in a freshly completed Nuclear Posture Review and in the very faint, fine print of the recently unveiled Bush budget. Over the weekend the headline-making list of countries leaked from Capitol Hill, but as part of a leak of the underlying policy document that began four weeks ago.
On Feb. 13, the Natural Resources Defense Council - well-known for its thorough, documented research - put out the first detailed summary of the posture review that had been ordered by Congress in late 2000 and of a special briefing the Defense Department had conducted on the document - without the secret list of countries.
At the time, no one really noticed. With the addition of the countries, The Los Angeles Times got noticed. Here's the council's highly critical but accurate summary view four weeks ago:
''Behind the administration's rhetorical mask of post-Cold War restraint lie expansive plans to revitalize US nuclear forces and all the elements that support them, within a so-called ''New Triad'' of capabilities that combine nuclear and conventional offensive strikes with missile defenses and nuclear weapons infrastructure.''
If the basic purpose of nuclear weapons since the end of World War II had been to prevent their use and proliferation, the deadly serious review by the Bush administration - with the force plans and massive spending as accompaniments - results in a doctrine that contemplates their use and appears indifferent to their proliferation.
Numbers tell a large chunk of the story. When the administration's intention unilaterally to abrogate the ABM treaty was made known, President Bush made much of a supposed intention to reduce its supply of deployed warheads from roughly 8,000 to below 4,000 in 2007 and eventually to between 1,700 and 2,200.
What the posture review actually reveals is a plan to cut ''immediate force requirements'' for ''operationally deployed forces.'' What's going on here is more a change of terms than in posture, hidden by a new, gobbledygook accounting system that the council properly declared ''worthy of Enron.''
Behind the clearly visible nuclear inventory, the council found a ''huge, hidden arsenal.'' It included, but no longer ''counted,'' warheads on two Trident submarines being overhauled at all times, as well as 160 more now listed as ''spare.'' It included nearly 5,000 intact warheads now in a status called ''inactive reserve,'' not to mention a few thousand more bombs and cruise missile warheads as part of a new ''responsive force.'' And on top of that there is to be a stockpile of weapons-grade plutonium and other components from which thousands more weapons could be assembled quickly. Extrapolating the information, the Defense Council estimated that the United States would have a total of 10,590 warheads at the end of 2006, compared with 10,656 this year.
And there's more. The administration's posture review also discloses plans to greatly expand the nuclear war infrastructure and to prepare for a resumption of testing, in part to make possible a new generation of warheads that could penetrate deep into the ground.
The rules of the nuclear road from the US perspective have never included a flat-out promise never to be the first combatant to resort to nuclear war. During the Cold War, the United States was always prepared to go nuclear to stop a massive, conventional attack from the east in Europe, and before the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein got a stern message that all bets were off if he used chemical or biological weapons.
But this is different. This is a plan to use nukes in conventional war-fighting and to maintain a Cold War-sized arsenal by stealth and deception. It is disgraceful.
Thomas Oliphant's e-mail address is oliphant@globe.com.
----
Cheney Gets Warning in Jordan
Tue Mar 12
By TOM RAUM,
Associated Press Writer
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&u=/ap/20020312/ap_on_re_mi_ea/cheney_trip_28
AMMAN, Jordan (AP) - Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) received a public warning Tuesday from Jordanian King Abdullah II that expanding the terrorism war to Iraq could destabilize the region and undermine gains in Afghanistan.
U.S. officials had hoped for a more muted message from the king, whose comments came as Cheney began a whirlwind tour of the Middle East.
Abdullah has been a top ally in the terror war, but like many Arab leaders he has been openly skeptical of U.S. hints of hostile action against Iraq.
During a private meeting with Cheney, Abdullah "expressed hope for a solution to all outstanding problems with Iraq through dialogue and peaceful means," said a palace statement.
It also said Abdullah voiced Jordan's concern about "the repercussions of any possible strike on Iraq and the dangers of that on the stability and security of the region."
The meeting with the king was the vice president's first stop on a tour of nine Arab nations, Israel and Turkey.
"Here and throughout this journey, I expect frank discussions on the urgent matters facing this region and all of the civilized world," Cheney said at an airport welcoming ceremony.
He was then whisked away to the private meeting and working dinner at Beit al-Barakeh palace with the king.
During the meeting, Cheney stressed the importance of having U.N. weapons inspectors return to Iraq and said the inspections must be "wide open, robust, everywhere, anywhere, anytime," said Cheney spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise.
She also said that the king and Cheney agreed a maximum effort must be made to get both Palestinians and Israelis back to the table in the Middle East peace process.
"As President Bush made clear last week, the United States will do all it can to help end the tragic violence between the Palestinians and the Israelis, and return the parties to a productive negotiating process," Cheney said.
He will meet later in the week, in Israel, with State Department envoy Anthony Zinni, whom Bush has sent to the region to try to get the peace process moving again.
Abdullah set an opening-day tone for Cheney's trip with a pre-emptive warning about U.S. military action against Iraq.
The United Nations "is the only way to resolve all outstanding issues," Abdullah said in an interview with the Saudi Al-Watan newspaper. He also spoke of ending "the sanctions on brotherly Iraq."
The remarks were carried by Jordan's official Petra news agency shortly before Cheney's arrival.
Bush administration officials have suggested that much of the recent rhetoric from Arab states is for domestic consumption. Jordan, for instance, has a large Palestinian population and borders Iraq.
U.S. officials hope that they can at least win private assurances from Arab leaders that they will not attempt to stand in the way of possible military strikes.
Cheney was welcomed at the airport by Jordan's prime minister, Ali Abul-Ragheb, who suggested that spiraling Israeli-Palestinian violence was one of the most urgent issues affecting the region and hoped the Cheney visit could help in "getting the process of peace back on track."
Arab nations want the United States to take a more active role, primarily by putting more pressure on Israel.
The palace statement issued late Tuesday by Jordan said that the king reviewed the "tense situation in the Palestinian territories."
Abdullah expressed hope that Zinni's mission will "succeed in salvaging the situation and enforcing a cease-fire."
"The American role is essential to ... end the cycle of violence and pave the way for putting the peace process back on the right track," the statement said.
Amid tight security, a 30-vehicle motorcade escorted Cheney across the Jordanian capital from the airport to Abdullah's hilltop residence of Beit al-Barakeh, or Blessing House, in Amman's suburbs.
A police helicopter hovered overhead, and streets along the nine-mile drive were sealed off by traffic police and lined with dozens of royal guards carrying machine-guns.
Cheney knew in advance he faced a hard sell trying to drum up Arab support for ridding Iraq of Saddam. He came to Jordan after a stop in London, where British Prime Minister Tony Blair voiced strong support for widening the terror war.
Jordan is the only Arab country to have sent forces to Afghanistan, U.S. officials noted.
----
Cheney & Co. Owe Thanks to Those Who Pressured Them to Unload Stock
By Allan Sloan
Tuesday, March 12, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11111-2002Mar11?language=printer
Sometimes it's better to be lucky than smart. Consider Vice President Cheney. He's got to be one of the luckiest former corporate chieftains on the planet.
No, I'm not talking about managing to pull out the election in Florida. I'm talking about how he came out about $20 million ahead because, at least partly because of public criticism, he cashed in stock options that would now be underwater if he had kept them. And how, luckily for him, he had left the executive suite before the roof fell in at Halliburton, the big oil-services company that he used to run.
This same "better lucky than smart" principle applies to the Bush people who had to liquidate their Enron holdings to take big jobs in the administration. Some of them complained about the supposed injustice of having to make such a financial sacrifice. Poor babies. Of course, they've totally lucked out. Enron stock, $70 a share when Bush was sworn in, now goes for 25 1/2 cents.
Cheney's worth a closer look because he's the luckiest of the group. And because a deal he made as Halliburton's chief executive has come back to haunt the company -- big time, as he would say.
Let me give you some history and take you through Lucky Cheney's math.
In August 2000, you may recall, George W. Bush picked Cheney to be his vice-presidential candidate. Cheney, a longtime politician who had been at Halliburton all of five years, promptly stepped down. He said he would sell his stock before taking office if the Republicans won -- but he wouldn't commit to unloading his Halliburton options. That caused an uproar because owning Halliburton options would have given Cheney exactly the same ethical problem as owning Halliburton stock: He would have a substantial personal interest in Halliburton's stock price. The company traditionally has good years when oil prices are rising and not-so-good years when they're falling. The conflict is obvious.
Cheney cashed in all the options he could, clearing $19 million by my math. Since I can't read Cheney's mind and I couldn't get any comment from him or his associates, I don't know if he sold because of the public pressure or because he wanted to sell. Regardless, it sure worked out well for him. He got around $10 million more from selling the Halliburton shares he owned outright. Total: around $30 million. I'm a bit vague on the numbers because no one in Cheneyland would discuss them with me. So I'm relying on public documents, work by Thomson Wealth Management and my own analysis.
Flash forward to the present. At Halliburton's current price of around $17, Cheney's options would be out of the money, because their exercise prices ranged from $21 to $54.50. Someday, of course, Halliburton's stock price may soar. But for now, Cheney is $19 million ahead because he cashed the options in. (His $10 million of stock would currently fetch $3 million.)
I don't think for a minute that Cheney bailed out of Halliburton knowing that trouble lay ahead. I think he just got lucky. If he were still Halliburton's CEO, shareholders would probably be screaming for his head. That's because his biggest deal -- Halliburton's $8 billion purchase of Dresser Industries in 1998 -- infected Halliburton with an asbestos liability. Think of it as financial plague, and you get a sense of how nasty the problem is.
To give you the short version, Dresser once had a subsidiary, Harbison-Walker, that used asbestos in some products. Dresser made Harbison-Walker a separate company in 1992, and HW agreed to take over the entire asbestos liability. But the claims became so enormous that HW and a European company that subsequently bought it both ended up in bankruptcy. So the asbestos lawsuits, searching for deeper pockets, have migrated to Dresser and its new owner, Halliburton.
A Halliburton spokesman said the firm didn't know it was taking on a potential asbestos problem when it bought Dresser in 1998: "We believed they were indemnified," she said. Indeed, in the past year or so, asbestos liability has exploded, becoming a threat to companies that barely know how to spell asbestos.
Halliburton, which lost some big asbestos verdicts that it's now appealing, has taken an active role in HW's bankruptcy, trying to pull off a fancy maneuver to keep the asbestos problem confined to HW. We won't know for years how the game ends.
Meanwhile, Cheney isn't giving any of his stock and options profits back to Halliburton or its shareholders. He gets the blame for this fiasco because he was in charge. That's the way the world works. Big time.
Sloan is Newsweek's Wall Street editor. His e-mail address is sloan@panix.com.
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House set to 'cloak' amnesty
By August Gribbin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
March 12, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020312-14737528.htm
House Republican leaders will attempt to slip through an unrecorded vote this evening to give amnesty to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, allowing them to remain legally in the United States.
The amnesty measure will come before the representatives by way of a special arrangement between the White House and the House leadership. It will appear among a batch of uncontroversial bills that typically win pro forma approval without amendment or debate.
House Majority Leader Dick Armey, Texas Republican, said House approval "will send a message to the world that our country will continue to be a beacon to all who love freedom and the opportunity to live, work and raise a family."
The legislation is listed on this evening's so-called "suspension" or "consent" calendar, which lists bills that are expected to win automatic approval. The voting is "cloaked," meaning there is no record and no explanation of the way individual representatives vote, and each member is said to cast a "shadow vote."
Opponents say the Bush administration is using stealth tactics to get its way. They say the Republican Party is trying to schmooze Hispanic voters and appease Mexican leaders.
"Under pressure from the White House, the leadership of the House has chosen the sneakiest possible way to get amnesty passed so the president can go to Mexico this month and tell [Mexican President] Vicente Fox [that] amnesty has been approved," said Rep. Tom Tancredo, Colorado Republican. "This is so incredibly frustrating."
Mr. Tancredo, who chairs the Congressional Caucus on Immigration Reform, opposes efforts to exempt from deportation or legal sanction people who have broken immigration law by infiltrating the border or overstaying their business, school or travel visas.
The bill's supporters say that opponents' characterization of the measure as an amnesty for illegal immigrants is an exaggeration. White House officials and their congressional backers argue that the U.S. economy depends on workers from Mexico to take on the kinds of low-skill, low-paying agricultural and service jobs that Americans avoid.
The administration favors making some sort of exemption for many of those undocumented workers by "legalizing," "normalizing" or "regularizing" the immigration status of laborers from Mexico.
Those who oppose such measures insist that making exemptions for illegal aliens compromises national security and, among other things, encourages others to violate the border.
The legislation in question is called the Section 245i Extension Bill. It refers to a portion of the Immigration and Naturalization Act that eases the requirements for seeking immigration status and defines who may obtain it.
An extension of Section 245i was up for a vote on September 11. As a result of the terrorist attacks, the vote was deferred and the 245i extension died. Until now, efforts to revive the measure have failed.
The 245i extension will apply to undocumented workers who pay $1,000 to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and have family members or employers willing to sponsor them for residency. It allows such illegal aliens to remain in the United States while applying for permanent residency and the right to work here rather than returning to their homeland and applying, as the basic law requires.
The exemption will last for six months. It will be a boon to illegal workers because applying from abroad for legal U.S. residency - which can lead to citizenship - can take many months, and the result is not certain. Then, too, applicants sometimes wind up on a long waiting list.
Mr. Tancredo says passing the 245i extension is "a slap in the face to all in the world who are waiting to come into the country legally. It tells those who waited and came to us legally that, 'You all are a bunch of suckers. You should just have sneaked in. We will not trace you down. Stay under the radar screen, and we will give you amnesty.' That's the message this sends."
Responding to news of the impending vote, Dan Stein, head of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), wrote INS Commissioner James Ziglar, asking him to estimate the cost and burden on the service of changing the status of the illegal aliens who will apply for the exemption. FAIR lobbies for tighter immigration restrictions.
"On the six-month anniversary of the tragedy of September 11, it is shocking to find that the nation's leaders haven't yet understood the lessons of that day," Mr. Stein said in a statement. "Granting amnesty to those who have broken our laws and about whom we know virtually nothing is playing games with national security. ... To assume the INS is even remotely prepared or equipped to absorb the huge administrative burden of extending 245i is irresponsible. ... Few if any federal agencies have a worse track record than the INS when it comes to mismanagement, corruption, inefficiency, and ineptitude."
But backers of White House efforts to ease the burden on "hardworking, tax-paying" Mexicans pursuing the American dream contend all these objections are wrongheaded.
"The anti-immigration portion of the Republican Party wants to call this a giant, mass amnesty. It isn't," said one Hill staffer involved with the 245i extension issue, who asked to remain anonymous. "And those in the party who want to keep the economy moving will vote 'yes.' We need these workers."
----
Federal Report
Mike Causey
March 12, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020312-78651502.htm
Much has been said about the 100-member shadow government ready to take over if Washington is hit by a major terrorist attack. But what about the 330,000 federal civilian workers who aren't hunkered down in a bunker?
Actually, Uncle Sam has thought of them, too.
Civil servants who are evacuated from Washington (or New York, Los Angeles, Detroit or Oklahoma City) because of war, a terrorist attack or even natural events - like flooding or earthquakes - will be able to carry on or, at least, get paid.
"Returning to normalcy, to the extent possible, is important after a major event," an official said. "Getting paid on payday is one of those regular life events that need to continue."
The so-called Evacuation Payments program applies to U.S. citizens who are federal or postal workers ordered out of an area because they can no longer do their jobs there. It authorizes the heads of federal agencies to make advance payments that include pay, allowances and differentials for 30 to 60 days. In extreme cases the payments can continue for a total of 180 days.
Salary payments, where possible, are to be made on the employees' regular pay day. Workers whose offices are destroyed or unusable can also get per diem payments to cover food, travel and lodging, just as if they were traveling on official business.
After 180 days, the employees must be returned to their duty stations or reassigned.
--------
Lawmakers Doubt Need for Defense Plan
March 12, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Nuclear.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republican and Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday questioned the Bush administration's spending on missile defense, arguing that a terrorist is more likely to attack by truck or by boat.
``Why would someone send a missile when they can just put it in a suitcase?'' Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., asked a panel of experts at a hearing on protecting the United States from terrorism. ``It's inexcusable for this administration not to recognize that possibility and act on it.''
``We can't afford to waste billions of dollars'' because of the Bush administration's ``theological fascination with missile defense,'' said Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio. ``No threat assessment exists to justify the spending.''
U.S. intelligence agencies say it is far more likely that a bomb would be delivered by a truck or a boat than by a ballistic missile. A non-missile attack would be cheaper and more reliable and it could not be traced easily to the country responsible.
Kucinich also railed against recent administration comments that the United States might use a nuclear weapon in a first strike, calling it the ``height of immorality ... to throw that stuff around as if it were casual locker-room banter.''
The administration comments followed news reports on its new Nuclear Posture Review, which says the Pentagon is developing contingency plans for using nuclear weapons against countries developing weapons of mass destruction.
The United States has never ruled out using nuclear weapons against a nuclear-armed enemy, said Secretary of State Colin Powell, contending the policy should deter any would-be attacker.
``We think it is best for any potential adversary out there to have uncertainty in his calculus,'' Powell said Sunday.
``People are playing with the apocalypse,'' said Kucinich, top Democrat on the national security subcommittee. ``These are doomsday scenarios ... (and) it needs to be challenged.''
Shays, the subcommittee chairman, said he hesitated to mention the first-strike comments ``because I don't give them any validity.''
Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., raised the issue with Powell at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing. The senator cited news reports that led him to believe ``we are at least suggesting the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons'' while developing new types of nuclear weapons. ``It seems to me that we are turning away from what was our traditional approach to arms control,'' he said.
Trying to dampen the concerns, Powell said: ``There is no way to read that document and come to the conclusion that the United States will be more likely or will more quickly go to the use of nuclear weapons. Quite the contrary.'' He noted America's ``overwhelming, conventional non-nuclear capacity'' made its potential use of nuclear weapons even more remote.
The United States will continue to reduce its nuclear weapons stockpiles, which have already fallen below 10,000, less than half the 20,000 in the arsenal a decade ago, Powell said.
At the House hearing, Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace played down the need for a missile defense system, saying, ``A major reason why the United States was so unprepared for terrorist attacks is that our national threat assessments for the past few years have consistently pointed policy-makers in the wrong direction.''
But former Attorney General Edwin Meese III, now at the Heritage Foundation, called creating a missile defense system a top priority. He cited studies led by current Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that found a number of nations have ballistic missile capability as well as weapons of mass destruction.
Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III, chairman of the National Commission on Terrorism, supporting Meese's view, said he doesn't have confidence in predictions 10 to 15 years in the future, like those made by the intelligence agencies.
``One cannot say what the world will look like in 10 years,'' Bremer said.
Randall Larsen, director of the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security, said the nation's top focus should be bioterrorism: ``Our enemies know how poorly we responded'' to the anthrax letter attacks.
Henry L. Hinton of the General Accounting Office called anew for the administration to develop a threat and risk assessment, which the committee supports.
--------
U.S. Now Less Likely to Go Nuclear, Says Powell
March 12, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-arms-nuclear-powell.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Colin Powell on Tuesday dismissed suggestions the United States is moving toward nuclear recklessness, saying its superiority in conventional weapons made nuclear conflict less likely.
But the United States is looking at the possibility of adding new items to its inventory of nuclear weapons, he told a subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Democratic senators questioned Powell about a classified Nuclear Posture Review by the Pentagon, portions of which appeared in U.S. newspapers last weekend.
Potential targets of U.S. nuclear weapons, including Russia, China, Iran, Iraq and Syria, have reacted angrily to press reports suggested that the Bush administration might be lowering the threshold for using the weapons against them.
But Powell said, ``There is no way to read that document and come to the conclusion the United States will be more likely or will more quickly go to the use of nuclear weapons.''
``Quite the contrary. ... The discrepancy in conventional capabilities between the United States and any other nation or combination of nations is greater than it was 10 years ago so we're not going to suddenly say, 'Let's more quickly go to nuclear weapons','' he added. ``There is no change in the threshold, there is no more intention to preempt than there might have been in some previous administration,'' he added.
Powell said the United States has offered to reduce its nuclear arsenal to between about 1,700 and 2,200 nuclear warheads, in parallel with similar reductions by Russia.
He also repeated denials that the United States had any countries on what he called a ``day-to-day target list'' for nuclear attack -- a variant of a phrase that he and Vice President Dick Cheney have used over several days.
He added, ``With respect to the development of new nuclear weapons, we are examining whether or not in the current inventory an improvement can be made or there are new things we should be looking at. That's sensible.''
The New York Times said the study had stressed the need to develop earth-penetrating nuclear weapons to destroy heavily fortified underground bunkers that could store chemical and biological weapons. It also called for improving the intelligence and targeting systems needed for nuclear strikes and argued the United States may need to resume testing.
On Sunday Powell denied the administration was recommending new nuclear weapons or further testing.
``What we are looking at, and what we have asked the Pentagon to do, is to see whether or not ... we might want to modify, or update or change some of the weapons in our inventory to make them more effective,'' he said on Sunday.
``But ... there is no new design out there, no new nuclear weapons about to be commissioned into production that would require testing. We remain committed to a moratorium on testing,'' he added on Tuesday.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Pentagon Rejects Possibility of Al Qaeda Negotiation
By Pauline Jelinek
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, March 12, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A13922-2002Mar12?language=printer
WASHINGTON -- U.S. commanders in the biggest ground operation of the war in Afghanistan have rejected an Afghan ally's proposal to halt bombing and allow al Qaeda and Taliban to surrender or escape, officials said Tuesday.
"We have made it very clear that we are not going to halt things ... we are not going to stop the fighting to make any deals," said Lt. Col. Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman.
Victoria Clarke, a spokeswoman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, was less precise about U.S. intentions. "It depends on the individual," she said when reporters asked whether the United States would oppose allowing the holdouts to surrender and go free. "I don't know how many of them are farmers."
Later Clarke said it was "very, very unlikely we would want" al Qaeda fighters to go free. She said they faced a choice of surrendering or fighting to the death.
Asked about reports from Afghan commanders that the battle in the Shah-e-Kot Valley was virtually over, Air Force Brig. Gen. John Rosa told reporters at the Pentagon, "I wouldn't characterize it as over."
Rosa said U.S. and allied Afghan forces were continuing to engage small pockets of enemy forces in that area Tuesday. He said U.S. strike aircraft had dropped more than 100 bombs there since Monday, bringing the total to more than 2,500 bombs since the fighting began March 2.
Rosa also said U.S. forces had begun searching abandoned al Qaeda caves in the area. He said there were "upwards of 40" caves there and that U.S. forces had suffered no additional casualties.
Earlier, Lapan said commanders in the field have stressed to allied Afghan fighters that they will pursue their plan to destroy remnants of the al Qaeda terrorist network and former Taliban government remaining in a 60-square-mile area.
Lapan was responding to questions about the U.S. position on a proposal to allow remaining enemy fighters to leave the province where the fighting is occurring.
The offer was made by Gul Haider, commander of an Afghan force sent to the battle near the eastern town of Gardez last week by interim leader Hamid Karzai, according to the deputy police chief of Surmand, Ghulam Mohammed Farooq.
Farooq said Haider told local leaders that if they wanted to extend a peace offer, he could guarantee a 10-day halt in the fighting if the al Qaeda and Taliban commander "is ready to join us or leave the area."
Efforts to contact Haider were unsuccessful. However, several local officials confirmed that discussions about a peace overture were under way.
Local Afghan leaders were considering whether to extend the offer. Farooq said Haider guaranteed that the Americans would accept the peace offering if the Afghans decided to extend it.
Without commenting specifically on the idea, Central Command spokesman Maj. Ralph Mills said war commanders "are still focused on our goal to eliminate al Qaeda and non-Afghan Taliban" in that area.
In Washington on Tuesday, Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a national gathering of American Legion veterans that the battle near Gardez is one fight in the longer, larger war against terrorism.
"This war is far from over," Myers said. "If we capture Osama bin Laden tomorrow, this war would still go on, in my estimation, for years."
He also called the hijacked airliners used to attack the World Trade Center and Pentagon "weapons of mass destruction," and said bin Laden's followers are seeking more, in the form of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
"If they could obtain them, they would use them," Myers said.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Monday that the fighting near Gardez could be completed by the end of the week.
Several members of the terrorist network have been captured, he said, adding that he had no indication that those killed or captured were senior leaders of al Qaeda.
Rumsfeld and other officials indicated they hope to gain valuable information about Osama bin Laden's terrorist network - not only from interrogations of prisoners, but also from cave complexes the al Qaeda fighters had fiercely defended during the heaviest ground fighting of the war.
The fighting has taken place in the Shah-e-Kot Valley, a mountainous region near the Pakistani border. Some officials have estimated that more than 700 al-Qaida fighters were killed and at least 200 were still holding out Monday.
----
[Note this "help" includes arms sales. et]
Russia Pledges Help to Rebuild Afghanistan
By REUTERS
March 12, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-russia-afghanistan.html
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Moscow's disastrous occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s haunted the first visit to the Kremlin by the new Afghan leadership on Tuesday, but Russia offered its expertise to help rebuild the war-ravaged country.
Interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai, touring the world in search of aid and political support, twice reminded Russian President Vladimir Putin that his country's woes had started with the 1979 Soviet invasion, which ushered in war and instability.
``More invasions followed. Bloodshed did not stop for 23 years,'' Karzai said, as he stood at Putin's side after an hour of talks.
Putin acknowledged relations between the two countries had been ``uneven,'' but vowed that the days when Moscow sought to dominate the mountainous Central Asian state had gone for good.
``The main thing I have to say is that Russia sees no other goals in Afghanistan other than wanting to see Afghanistan independent, prosperous and neutral and friendly toward Russia. Full stop. We need nothing else,'' he told Karzai.
The Afghan leader, who took office last December after an agreement was clinched between Afghan ethnic groups, thanked Putin for his role in bringing peace to Afghanistan and Moscow's support for his government.
Washington launched a military campaign in Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11 suicide airliner attacks, which it blamed on Islamic militants that were guests of Kabul's then Taliban rulers. Fighting has continued in the east of the country.
RUSSIA READY TO HELP
Putin, who reoriented his foreign policy to back the U.S.-led campaign, said Moscow was well positioned to help rebuild Afghanistan.
``During Soviet times, more than 140 enterprises were built with the direct participation of the Soviet Union. Today, many of them need repairing, rebuilding, and it is a good basis for joint work,'' he said.
Moscow also pledged to sell military equipment to Kabul and advise it on forming multi-ethnic armed forces. Putin promised to carry on sending humanitarian aid to Afghanistan and promote business ties.
The delegations signed 17 agreements covering areas from aid to the war-torn state's infrastructure, exploitation of oil and gas reserves and transport and equipment.
Putin said Moscow was ready to help clear up Afghanistan's vast minefields. He noted an incident earlier this month when two German and three Danish soldiers were killed disarming a Soviet-era missile as proof that Russian expertise was needed.
``Most mines in the Afghan soil are Russian or Soviet-made,'' he said, adding Moscow was ready to send in experts or to train Afghans to do the demining work. Karzai said he preferred Russian trainers.
Putin threw his weight behind President Bush's anti-terrorist campaign and allowed ex-Soviet Central Asian states to offer Washington airbases.
Russia sent no troops to take part in operations to oust the Taliban, but had long backed and armed the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, which now controls top portfolios in Karzai's government. With the Taliban routed, Moscow quickly sent teams offering medical and other help.
Russia has already provided more than $12 million in aid.
----
'Inadequate' US troops pulled out of battleground
From Catherine Philp in Leg Diwawl, Afghanistan
March 12, 2002
UK Times
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,13-233669,00.html
HUNDREDS of American troops were pulled out of the ground battle with al-Qaeda forces because they failed to adapt to the guerrilla tactics required for fighting in the mountains, according to their Afghan allies.
More than 1,000 Afghan troops rushed to the front line yesterday to take up the slack after the withdrawal of 400 US troops from the mountains of eastern Afghanistan.
The American military has described the withdrawal as a tactical reappraisal of their battleplan, but Afghan commanders told a different story of inexperienced American soldiers unable to advance through the unfamiliar mountains to track down al-Qaeda and Taleban foes.
"They were not trained for the kind of fighting we do in the mountains and, in these conditions, their kind of fighting is useless," Commander Allah Mohammed said. "They were weakening our morale, it was better for them to go."
As dawn broke, hundreds of Afghan fighters mounted their creaking Soviet-era tanks and set off towards the snow-covered ridge of Shahi-Kot, where the remaining al-Qaeda forces are hiding. Belching black smoke, the tanks chugged their way to a mud-walled fort, where troops were assembling around their leader, the Tajik commander, Gul Haider.
The last time that these forces met the Taleban was on the northern Shomali Plain, from where they swept into Kabul as the Taleban fled south. It is hoped their familiarity with the Taleban's tactics will help them to succeed where American troops failed.
Shah Mahood Popal, their deputy commander, believed it was self-preservation that stopped the Americans from launching a more decisive attack. "They didn't want to risk losing lots of fighters. Afghans don't care if they lose lots of fighters, so we are better suited for the task. They should stick to bombing," he said.
As he finished, the dark shape of a warplane swept the blue sky above and a loud boom ricochetted off the mountains. Three puffs of black smoke rose up from the snowy ridge. "They are still trying to wipe out the al-Qaeda from the air," Habib Afghan, a commander said, "but if forces don't go in, it is impossible to finish them off."
The new troops were dispatched from Kabul last week after it became clear that the Americans had underestimated the number of militants still left hiding up in the mountains. Afghan commanders believe that the US has exaggerated the number of casualties in the bombing campaign, saying that at least several hundred al-Qaeda forces are up in mountain caves ready to fight back.
"We have been very close to their positions and we have seen no dead bodies," Commander Mohammed said.
Afghan leaders say the many pathways through the mountains are providing not only escape routes for the fighters but a means of replenishing their ranks.
Shahi-Kot has been called the last bastion of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, but there is evidence that other pockets of resistance still exist in provinces to the south. Commanders say that before Operation Anaconda began, there had been only a small number of al-Qaeda in the mountains.
They were attempting to negotiate a surrender when the offensive began, bringing al-Qaeda forces from all over the south running to Shahi Kot to help in the battle. "We were communicating with them, but the Americans would not allow us to negotiate," Commander Mohammed said. "This paved the way for the other Arabs to join them."
The Arabs are thought to have made their way here from a number of locations in southern Pakistan and Afghanistan, in particular, a secret Taleban base in Zabul Province, north of Kandahar.
Former Taleban sources predict that the base could be the scene of the next operation against al-Qaeda. "This battle will not be the last," one former official said. "The network is far from dead."
Nineteen countries contributing troops to the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in Kabul are expected today to agree to stay in Afghanistan for the full six months of the peacekeeping mandate (Michael Evans writes). Britain, which had initially limited its involvement in Isaf to three months, has already said it will stay for the full term. The 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment is in training to replace the 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment at the end of next month.
--------
Afghan Assault Winding Down, but Pentagon Denies It's Over
New York Times
March 12, 2002
By TERENCE NEILAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/12/international/12CND-AFGHAN.html
The Pentagon said today that it was winding down its operations in eastern Afghanistan, but military officials sought to play down claims by a senior Afghan general that coalition forces had overrun Al Qaeda and Taliban positions and that the biggest battle of the war had ended.
"I wouldn't characterize it as being over," said Brig. Gen. John Rosa Jr., the deputy director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He added that American and allied Afghan forces were continuing to engage small pockets of Al Qaeda and Taliban forces in the Shah-i-Kot area today.
A similar appraisal was offered by the Pentagon spokeswoman, Victoria Clarke.
"The characterizations we feel comfortable with are winding down," she said, as well as the term "mopping up" used earlier by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.
"There is clearly still work to be done," she said, "and there are clearly other pockets of resistance we expect will pop up in other parts of Afghanistan."
In Afghanistan, however, Gen. Abdullah Joyenda, one of several generals in charge of the fighting, told Reuters that American and Afghan forces now controlled the entire Shah-i-Kot area, about 20 miles east of Gardez.
"The battle of Shah-i-Kot is over," he was quoted as saying. "A coalition of both Afghan and U.S. forces has taken control of the entire Shah-i-Kot Valley."
The general, who had just returned from the front line, said, "The Taliban and Al Qaeda are retreating toward the frontier with Pakistan." He said about 800 Afghan troops led by American advisers were involved in the final advance on a 60-square-mile combat zone.
At a Washington news briefing today, General Rosa said United States forces had begun searching "upwards of 40" abandoned Qaeda caves in the area.
He also said American strike aircraft had dropped more than 100 bombs on the area since Monday, bringing the total to more than 2,500 bombs since the offensive began on March 2. The general said there had been no new American casualties and that 39 of the 44 Americans wounded were back on duty. He estimated that a total of 1,200 Americans were involved in the offensive.
Questioned on reports that Afghan officials were pressing a plan to allow Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters to go free if they laid down their weapons, Ms. Clarke said she was not aware of any major deals to bring about a surrender.
"They still have the means to surrender if they want," she said, "but we haven't seen any indications that they want to do that."
Ms. Clarke said it was "very, very unlikely we would want" Al Qaeda fighters to go free. She said they faced a choice of surrendering or fighting to the death.
"It depends on the individual," she added when reporters asked whether the United States would oppose allowing the holdouts to surrender and go free. "I don't know how many of them are farmers."
Later, Ms. Clarke issued a written statement saying her remarks "may have left the wrong impression."
"Our mission is to capture or kill all Al Qaeda and Taliban leadership," she said. "It is not in anyone's interest for Al Qaeda or Taliban leadership to be permitted to go free."
She said the Afghan interim government, headed by Hamid Karzai, was aware of Washington's position and had been fully cooperative. Her statement was confined to the rebel leadership and did not refer to rank-and-file fighters.
Earlier, another Pentagon official, Lt. Col. Dave Lapan, said United States commanders had rejected an Afghan proposal to halt the bombing and allow Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters to surrender or escape.
"We have made it very clear that we are not going to halt things," he said. "We are not going to stop the fighting to make any deals."
-------- balkans
Ethnic Albanians Are Freed
WORLD In Brief
Tuesday, March 12, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11121-2002Mar11?language=printer
SKOPJE, Macedonia (Reuters) -- Dozens of ethnic Albanian former rebels walked free from jail into the arms of their loved ones under a landmark amnesty designed to seal Macedonia's peace process.
After 11 months behind bars for weapons possession, Ismet Guri ran laughing through pouring rain from a prison gate to hug waiting friends. "I don't think there can be a more beautiful feeling than finally being free," he told reporters. "For a year, I have been dreaming of this moment."
By midnight, prisons were due to release 10 convicted former guerrillas and 18 awaiting trial, under a provision of the Western-backed peace accord that ended last year's six-month insurgency. Charges against 270 others will be dropped.
Ferid Sakiri from the village of Tanusevci, a flash point early in the conflict, chain-smoked and paced around a parking lot awaiting the release of his son Rufat, 22, who was arrested in January on terrorism charges.
"I can't wait to see him. This was the second time they took him away from me," he said. With tears in his eyes, he interrupted an interview and sprang to kiss his son.
The amnesty, first proclaimed as a decree last year, finally became law last week after months of opposition from nationalists who resent pardoning people they consider terrorists. The measure seeks to defuse lingering ethnic tensions that brought the former Yugoslav republic close to all-out civil war, while enabling Macedonian police and refugees to return to the northern rebel heartland safely and soon.
It also is intended to help former fighters come down from the hills and resume civilian jobs without fear of arrest.
-------- britain
Britain sparks fears with upgrades of Cyprus bases
By Andrew Borowiec
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
March 12, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020312-7820875.htm
NICOSIA, Cyprus - Britain has announced plans to upgrade its military bases in Cyprus, setting off alarms that the Eastern Mediterranean island nation will be dragged into a war against "rogue" nations in the Middle East.
Cypriot officials are expressing concern that the country, which has no say in the matter, could be exposed to reprisals with devastating consequences.
Under a 1960 independence agreement, the bases here are considered sovereign British territory.
Expansion of the base facilities was announced after a three-day inspection by Lt. Gen. John Reith, chief of joint operations at the Permanent Joint Headquarters in Britain.
It came at a time of rising speculation that the United States may be planning to leave its bases in Saudi Arabia because of security concerns and worsening relations between Washington and the Arab oil kingdom.
If that happens, the British bases in Cyprus would be invaluable to the United States and its allies, diplomats say.
The British announcement, which included notification of a change in status from a "staging base" to a "forward operating base," immediately triggered concern about preparations for a strike against Iraq.
Normally manned by 3,500 troops, the bases were used as staging areas for the abortive 1956 Anglo-French Suez Canal expedition and played major roles during the 1991 Operation Desert Storm to oust Iraqi forces from Kuwait.
The bases cover 99 square miles and include an air base at Akrotiri, the adjacent command post at Episkopi in the south and a large army installation at Dhekelia on the eastern coast.
The Cypriot authorities are particularly concerned about the proximity of the Akrotiri air base to the port city of Limassol, which is a major tourist resort.
Nicos Rolandis, Cypriot tourism minister, said any involvement of the bases in military activity in the Middle East would be "very, very negative, coming in the aftermath of Afghanistan, adding to the problems we have faced in the past six months and worsening recession." Tourism is the main source of income for Cyprus.
Another disturbing factor for the Cypriot government is the apparent lack of specific information from British military authorities. "We simply have no idea as to what they might do with these bases," one official said.
Government spokesman Michalis Papapetrou issued a cautious statement expressing concern about "activities that might endanger Cyprus." He added: "We were not consulted either before or after the gulf war."
Sources at the Sovereign Base Areas said that instead of being used as transit points or for logistics purposes, the bases would be reconfigured to "prepare troops for actual operations."
-------- business
Ga. Lockheed Workers Strike
Tuesday, March 12, 2002; Page E02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11135-2002Mar11?language=printer
Lockheed Martin said about 2,600 workers in Georgia walked off the job after rejecting a final contract offer. About 100 workers manned the pickets at Lockheed's plant in Marietta, near Atlanta, according to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.
Lockheed has about 6,000 employees at the plant, which works on the C-130J and the new F-22 fighter. Management workers are performing the duties of the striking workers. The union also represents workers at facilities in California and Florida, who accepted Lockheed's contract offer.
-------- chemical weapons
Study Assesses Risk of Attack on Chemical Plant
By Eric Pianin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 12, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A10616-2002Mar11?language=printer
A previously undisclosed study by the Army surgeon general concludes that as many as 2.4 million people could be killed or injured in a terrorist attack against a U.S. toxic chemical plant in a densely populated area.
The medical hazard threat assessment, completed less than a month after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, suggests that terrorist assaults on chemical industry complexes could result in twice as many casualties as previously assumed in other worst-case scenarios envisioned by the government.
Even middle-range casualty estimates from a chemical weapons attack or explosion of a toxic chemical manufacturing plant are as high as 903,400 people, according to the analysis, a copy of which was obtained yesterday by The Washington Post.
Lyn Kukral, a spokeswoman for the Army's office of the surgeon general, said the data were meant to be more illustrative than a precise casualty projection. But officials used the casualty estimates during an internal government conference last fall to plan medical responses to a broad range of terrorist scenarios.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, lawmakers, federal officials and environmental groups have repeatedly warned the chemical industry that terror attacks could turn hazardous-materials plants into weapons of mass destruction. Industry officials say they have instituted important safeguards, but critics say much more is needed.
Yesterday, the Natural Resources Defense Council, a 400,000-member advocacy group, filed a lawsuit in federal court charging that the Justice Department has failed to submit a report to Congress on U.S. chemical plants' vulnerability to terrorist attacks, as required by an amendment to the Clean Air Act.
The Justice Department missed an August 2000 deadline for filing an interim report, and Bush administration officials have notified Congress that they will not meet an Aug. 5 deadline for the final report because of inadequate funding.
"Chemical plants are an incredibly urgent priority for homeland security, but they are being ignored at the highest levels of government," said Rena Steinzor, an attorney at NRDC.
A Justice Department spokesman said yesterday that officials have not seen the suit and were withholding comment.
Reps. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) and Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.), senior members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, recently asked the General Accounting Office to conduct a detailed review of chemical manufacturing plants'preparedness for acts of terrorism.
According to an analysis last year by the Environmental Protection Agency, at least 123U.S. plants each keep amounts of toxic chemicals that, if released, could form deadly vapor clouds that would endanger more than 1 million people.
The Army surgeon general's analysis, dated Oct. 29, showed that attacks on toxic chemical plants or chemical stockpiles could produce more than twice as many casualties. The study ranked the threat of attacks against chemical plants second only to the widespread use of biological weapons, such as the introduction of a smallpox virus or contamination of the country's water or food supply, which could generate as many as 4.18 million casualties.
The study did not assess the potential casualties from a nuclear attack.
The U.S. Public Interest Research Group and other environmental groups have called for legislation to require operators of chemical facilities to reduce the quantities of hazardous chemicals stored at their sites or switch to safer materials.
The American Chemistry Council, an industry group, issued guidelines last fall suggesting ways to improve physical security at facilities and protect the transportation of hazardous materials. The council recently decided to require its members to complete security studies and make necessary changes, using a framework developed by the Justice Department.
Chris VandenHeuvel, a spokesman for the council, said the industry remains "one of the safest manufacturing sectors in America" and is doing "everything feasible to make the facilities as safe and secure as possible."
Staff writer Bill Miller contributed to this report.
-------- drug war
Colombia's FARC guerrillas have a keen sense of the market.
UPI hears ...
3/12/2002
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=12032002-111223-2972r
Learning that the Taliban two years ago launched a clampdown on opium production, the FARC saw a market opportunity and began planting poppies in their 16,000-square-mile "demilitarized zone." Last week, drug agents descended on the area in three U.S.-supplied Black Hawk helicopters, while a crop duster sprayed the herbicide "Round-up Ultra," manufactured by Monsanto. The landing zone was considered potentially "hot" with an estimated 200 FARC guerrillas protecting their stash, but they failed to show and "Operation Balcillas" was deemed a complete success. A thousand acres were treated and half a ton of opium worth $30 million destroyed. That leaves only an estimated 12,355 opium acres in the zone to go -- and an estimated 335,896 acres of coca plants.
--------
THE OPIUM TRAIL
A Village at Source of Heroin Trade Fears Crop Eradication
New York Times
March 12, 2002
By AMY WALDMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/12/international/12OPIU.html
SANGIN, Afghanistan - The heroin trade that ends on the streets of Europe and America often begins here, in the Afghan countryside, with luckless tenant farmers like Abdul Hakim.
"The Americans already bombed Afghanistan, so you might as well destroy the fields, and then you might as well kill me too," Mr. Hakim, 52, shouted in Lear-like rage on a recent day.
He was trotting through his poppy field, flinging fertilizer on the livelihood that he was sure his government had come to destroy. His 9- year-old son, one of the 14 children and two wives to be fed, was at his side.
"People want a lot of money from me," he said, referring to his debts. "I have no choice."
Mr. Hakim's situation is pitiable, but his bankrupt government's is equally so. Donor countries, primarily the United States, have indicated that aid may depend on the destruction of this year's poppy crop.
Afghanistan's government risks their sanction by turning a blind eye to the crop, but it risks the wrath of men like Mr. Hakim, and those who make the real profit from his labor, by destroying it. Poppies are by far the best crop in much of this drought- parched land.
Like most Afghan poppy farmers, Mr. Hakim last year acceded to the Taliban's ban on poppy cultivation. The strictly enforced ban reduced the opium yield by about 95 percent but also left hundreds of thousands of farmers jobless and hungry. It turned many into refugees, and others, like Mr. Hakim, into bigger debtors. It also turned them against the Taliban.
Last fall, with the Taliban under siege, Mr. Hakim and hundreds of thousands of others rushed into the interregnum with poppy seeds in hand. By the time Afghanistan's new interim government banned poppy cultivation too, in January, the planting had been done.
Now, all across the southwest and east, rows of weedlike greenery have thrust through the mud and dirt. Within two months the plants will be poppies in bloom, topped by capsules heavy with opium resin.
A recent United Nations survey estimated that this year Afghanistan might produce 2,100 to 3,000 tons of opium, heroin's raw material. That is less than the 1999 record of 5,000 tons, but far more than last year's yield.
So now the government must decide whether to eradicate this year's crop and, if it does, whether - and how - to compensate the farmers.
The governor of Kandahar, who putatively also rules Helmand and the rest of the southwest, has said the fields will be destroyed without compensation. To compensate would be to bribe, said Kandahar's antidrug chief, Ahmadullah Alizai, 28, not mentioning that there is also no bribe money to be had.
For now, no one seems to have a plan for eradication, no one has the resources and at the local level, it seems, not many have the heart.
Helmand Province produces just over half of Afghanistan's opium. Poppies require about half the water of wheat and yield about 10 times the profit. Farmers with large families and little land say they have no other way to live.
Men like Mr. Hakim do not get rich. For his toil he will come away with nothing except the right to toil again next year. He owes $550, for the food, clothes and other staples he bought during last year's ban, and for the seeds, fertilizer and tractor rental for this year's harvest.
Landowners and opium traders have often made poppy cultivation, which is far more labor-intensive than growing wheat, a condition of access to land and credit. Mr. Hakim's half-acre is owned by his smirking, much younger neighbor, Ahmad Shah, 20, who will take half of Mr. Hakim's yield.
For now, the interim government has banned the buying and selling of opium, which the Taliban left unhindered - in part, Afghans say, because the mullahs profited from the sales. Under their rule, opium bazaars like the one in Sangin, a dusty market town, flourished. About 200 merchants brazenly sold wet and dry opium, mostly to Iranians cruising through in four-wheel-drive vehicles.
But at the end of February the Karzai government ordered the shops closed down. A week later the only indication that Muhammad Qasem, 35, ever sold anything other than gas burners in his small store were the brown stains over the doorway and the pungent smell inside.
"The men who buy from me will know where to find me," he said. "No one can stop the smuggling until we have jobs, factories, schools."
Just about everyone in this district is tied into the poppy crop. The deputy mayor, a military commander, has an opium shop. The director of education owns two acres of poppy fields. The elders who run the local decision-making council grow poppies too. With the stores closed, they said they would hide their stockpiles and arrange liaisons with buyers in the vast desert or nearby mountains.
It would take uncommon courage to stop the smuggling. The district chief in Nad-i-Ali, Afghanistan's most prolific poppy producing district, was killed recently. The elders heard that he had gone to investigate a report about men transporting opium.
Drug traffickers have long wielded their own cruel power here. In the 1980's and early 1990's much of the poppy crop in Helmand was controlled by a family of strict mullahs led by Mullah Nasim Akhundaza, local people say.
Today, Mullah Nasim's nephew is the governor of Helmand and a close ally of Hamid Karzai, the leader of the interim national government. The nephew, Mullah Shir Muhammad Akhundaza, who is in his 30's, said he did not think the poppies in his territory would be eradicated this year unless someone paid the farmers. Otherwise the people would starve, he said, and turn against him.
Mr. Akhundaza, like every new leader in Afghanistan, is watching his back, and not just because two uncles of his were assassinated. He knows that well-financed drug barons could easily arm dissatisfied rivals. "Next year we will definitely stop," the governor said of his province's poppy habit.
Fear and politics aside, practical exigencies may decide the day.
Abdul Sattar, 27, is the antidrug chief of Helmand Province, theoretically responsible for eradicating up to 100,000 acres of poppies. He works in a totally bare office and has 10 employees but no money to pay them, two Kalashnikovs and no car.
Mr. Sattar was asked what job he wanted in the government and chose this one because he had taken a drug control course in Pakistan - all of four days, consisting mainly of mullahs saying that people should be told that drugs are against Islam.
"You know the people are compelled to grow these poppy fields," he said. "The foreign community or U.N. should give some money to the farmers."
Mr. Sattar listened as the elders of Sangin described the effects of the drought, now in its fourth year, and of a canal system clogged with silt. All of them were ensnared in a web of debt, they said, their lives like unsolvable word problems.
To get cash, many farmers essentially sell their poppy crops in advance, at about half the rate they would get when harvest came around. That is what Abdul Wahid, 35, did, to get $700 to plant the one and a half acres he rents and to get his wife to a doctor in Pakistan.
At harvest he must give his creditor, a shopkeeper named Abdul Bari, who also is 35, 20 pounds of opium, with which Mr. Bari would double his investment.
"If he doesn't give it to me I'll go the government and have him put in jail," Mr. Bari said, noting in his own defense that he owed $1,166 to a Kandahar shopkeeper for extending him credit.
The stories were all the same. "This year we don't have enough time to cultivate something else," Hajji Masoon said, popping his teeth into his mouth so he would be clearly heard. "Please, this year let us harvest. Next year we promise we won't."
Mr. Sattar listened quietly. "I don't know what to say, or do," he said afterward.
If ordered, he said, he will destroy the fields by force, but he said he hoped that it would not come to that. Like most Afghans, the people in Helmand are well armed. And they are his people; his own brothers have poppy crops.
He said the mullahs' advice - to tell people that drugs are against Islam - would not work. The Taliban sowed cynicism, not faith, so the farmers believe that the original ban's only purpose was to allow Taliban or Arabs who had stockpiled opium and poppy fields to cash in.
They knew drugs were bad, but so was hunger. "It is against Islam, it is against human beings, it is against international law, it is against everything, but it is something we have to do," Hajji Abibullah, the watchman at Mr. Sattar's office and a district police chief, said of his own poppy fields.
In truth, said Abdul Hakim, the raging farmer of Sangin, Islam compells a man to do whatever is necessary to feed his family, and so he will.
A bit down the dusty road, a boy knelt for his afternoon prayers in a poppy field.
-------- israel / palestine
Huge Israeli offensive hits West Bank
March 12, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/12032002-081221-8491r.htm
GAZA, March 12 (UPI) -- At least 35 Palestinians were killed and dozens of others injured Tuesday as Israel launched one of the largest military offensives since the start of the current intifada, sending scores of military vehicles -- including Apache helicopters and more than 30 tanks -- into the West Bank.
In a separate battle, seven Israelis were killed in an attack on vehicles near the Lebanese border. An Israeli Defense Forces spokesman said there was "no indication" the attackers, two of whom were killed, had entered the area from Lebanon.
The West Bank operation began just after midnight Monday when the Israelis entered Jabalya, a camp in the northern Gaza Strip that houses some 200,000 Palestinian refugees.
"It was quiet in the camp last night, and we never expected that the Israeli army would reach it, but suddenly we heard the roars of the tanks at midnight, and then the intensive shooting began," said Salim Easa, who lives in the camp.
"People were killed as if hunters were hunting for ducks in the forest," Easa said. "The Israeli army tried for about four hours to break into the camp from three directions, but failed to enter."
Official Palestinian medical sources told United Press International 35 Palestinians were killed and at least 50 people were injured in the first 15 hours of the assault. Most of the dead were security personnel, although there were some civilian victims. Israel said it went into the area to destroy several Palestinian security buildings and a factory that allegedly was used to manufacture weapons, including Kassam-2 rockets.
Ahmed, a 25-year-old Palestinian who refused to give his last name, said Israeli special undercover units, disguised as nurses, used two U.N. ambulances and tried to break into the northern entrance, but also failed after they encountered fierce Palestinian resistance.
"Most of the people were killed by the special undercover units when they pretended that they want to take some of the wounded -- they opened the back door of the ambulance and opened fire at the people," said Ahmed.
There was no Israeli comment on whether the ploy actually was used.
Chief of Palestinian public security in northern Gaza, Brig. Gen. Saeb El Aajez, said the Israeli army operation to raid Jabalya had achieved a great failure in the history of the Israeli army.
"The operation shows that the Israeli army was not looking for achieving security, the Israeli soldiers were just highway men and murderers who came for four hours killed 19 people and then left," El Aajez said.
In addition to the 19 killed in the refugee camp, five died Tuesday in fighting in Ramallah; four in each Khan Younis and the Nitzarim Jewish settlement in the southern Gaza Strip; and one person in violence in Hebron, Deir El Ballah and Tulkarem.
At midday Tuesday, thousands of angry mourners carried the bodies of the 19 residents of Jabalya killed during the raid. Dozens of Palestinian militants headed the biggest funeral since the beginning of the intifada 17 months ago, fired weapons into the air and shouted revenge slogans against Israel.
"It is an awful massacre carried out by criminal soldiers. Our revenge would be painful to teach those criminals a lesson," said a masked young man wearing black, holding a rifle and heading the funeral.
Deputy chief of preventive security in the Gaza Strip, Col. Rashid Abu Shbak, said the aim of the operation into Jabalya was to tell the United States that sending its peace envoy Anthony Zinni to the region is useless.
"The operation was also carried out to reassure the Israeli people that their army had carried out a big military operation against wanted Palestinians," said Abu Shbak.
----
Israeli Army Fires on Journalists
Israeli Army Fires on Hotel Where Journalists Were Filming Assault on Al-Amari Refugee Camp
The Associated Press,
March 12, 2002
http://www.abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20020312_665.html
RAMALLAH, West Bank - Israeli forces fired for 10 to 15 minutes from tank-mounted machine guns on a hotel where journalists were photographing armor targeting the al-Amari refugee camp early Tuesday.
No one was injured in the shooting, which sprayed the glass-enclosed stairwell and nearby rooms where about 40 journalists were working. An ABC television camera left running on a tripod when the journalists took cover was hit by seven bullets one directly in the lens.
The army said the tanks were returning fire from a gunman located somewhere on the upper floors of the hotel and that they were unaware journalists were working from the building. "It was dark," a spokesperson said. An investigation was continuing, the army said.
The reporters said there were no gunmen in the four-story New City Inn, where about 40 television and photo journalists covering the army assault on al-Amari were working from the upper floors.
"If there is a gunman, I would not stay in the building for one minute," said ABC television news producer Nasser Atta, who has 13 years experience covering conflicts in the Middle East.
The journalists, working mostly for U.S. and European media outlets, had chosen the hotel some 300-400 yards from the camp's perimeter because it was well-situated to observe the army assault without being caught in the cross fire, Atta said. All the rooms were occupied by journalists, except for four rented to a Swedish company, he said.
He said the tanks earlier had driven by the hotel parking lot containing about 20 media vehicles clearly marked with large lettering.
The journalists recorded the assault on the camp undisturbed for about 40 minutes before a two tanks turned and opened fire from machine guns without warning about 3 a.m. The army surrounded the al-Amari camp in Ramallah as part of raids on several Palestinian towns and refugee camps in recent days aimed at detaining militants and seizing weapons.
"The minute the first round hit, we just all hit the ground," Atta said. "It was a terrifying experience. We did not expect it."
The fire shattered glass in the stairwell and adjoining rooms, damaging walls and furniture and bursting a water pipe, Atta said.
The firing stopped after the journalists contacted the army to inform officials they were in the hotel, Atta said. The army said it apologized to the journalists for any damaged caused to equipment.
Journalists in the hotel at the time were working for the U.S. networks ABC and CNN, Italy's Rai Uno, Germany's ARD, the Qatar-based satellite broadcaster Al-Jazeera, Reuters, AFP and The Associated Press.
photo credit and caption: Journalists lie on the floor after the Israeli Army fired upon the New City Inn Hotel in the West Bank town of Ramallah early Tuesday March 12, 2002. Heavy shooting took place during the Israeli incursion into Ramallah and surrounding Al Amari refugee camp. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
----
Peace push: US may use observers
By Ross Dunn,
Sydney Morning Herald Correspondent in Jerusalem and agencies
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0203/12/world/world1.html
For the first time, the United States is proposing to station American observers in Palestinian territories as part of a new diplomatic effort to halt escalating Middle East violence.
The move may be seen as something of a political victory for Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, who has repeatedly appealed for international monitors. He also appears to be winning on the diplomatic front to get Israel to lift its travel ban on him.
US special envoy to the Middle East, Anthony Zinni, a retired marine corps general, is expected to put forward the observers proposal when he returns to the region on Thursday amid signs the Bush Administration was prepared to get more involved in the Middle East.
Vice-President Dick Cheney is embarking on a tour of the region and American Secretary of State, Colin Powell, said that Mr Zinni would remain in the area.
"We have a vision. We have a plan to solve this crisis but it begins with ending the violence," Mr Powell said.
The American monitors would oversee the implementation of an Israeli-Palestinian cease-fire brokered last year by the head of the CIA, Mr George Tenet.
It is not clear how Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, will respond. He has opposed the use of observers in the past but in recent days has shown a greater willingness to compromise.
He has dropped his demand for a week of complete calm as a precondition for entering into negotiations on a truce. And, in advance of Mr Zinni's visit, he has indicated he would be prepared to allow Mr Arafat to leave Ramallah in the West Bank, where he has been confined by Israeli forces since December.
Mr Sharon plans to allow Mr Arafat to travel freely within the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but the Palestinian leader would have to seek permission before going abroad to attend the Arab League summit scheduled for Beirut this month.
The Arab League meeting is expected to discuss a Saudi peace initiative which has been well received by the US.
At the same time, the Israeli Cabinet has instructed the army to intensify its operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Israeli troops ringed a West Bank refugee camp with tanks yesterday and stepped up its searches in another camp nearby.
Palestinians also reported tanks entering the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, where they wounded three people, Gaza hospital sources said. The army confirmed troops had taken over a Palestinian security building at the camp.
Witnesses reported that 10 tanks were stationed around the small Al-Aza camp in northern Bethlehem overnight and troops entered several houses on the fringes of the camp after dawn.
In the much larger Deheishe camp south of Bethlehem, troops fired up to 20 shells at buildings overnight, Palestinian security sources reported.
Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, called for a halt to the Israeli military offensive.
"The shortest way to peace ... is to end this occupation and to have a Palestinian state next to the state of Israel," Mr Erekat said.
"Let us resume a meaningful peace process. Let us resume a meaningful negotiation," he pleaded.
----
NEWS ANALYSIS
In New Conflict, Narrowing Ratio of Dead Pressures Sharon
New York Times
March 12, 2002
By JAMES BENNET
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/12/international/middleeast/12ISRA.html
JERUSALEM, March 11 - During the first 17 months of the first intifada, or uprising against Israel, almost 15 years ago, roughly one Israeli died for every 25 Palestinians killed.
During the first 17 months of this current conflict, with many more dead on both sides, the overall ratio has steadily narrowed to about one to three.
Since the beginning of last month, 31 Israeli soldiers - fighters in one of the best-trained, toughest armies in the world - have died in the conflict, more than were killed during an average year of Israel's military occupation of southern Lebanon.
The Israeli Army and the police are struggling to combat the essential Palestinian weapons of speed, surprise and suicide. Palestinian militants - some of whom, as boys, threw stones at Israeli soldiers 10 years ago - are now better armed, better trained, and more ruthless. In the enhanced deadliness of its opponent, Israel sees the hand of Iran, and particularly of Hezbollah, the Lebanese extremist group that has Iranian backing.
"It's much better than the past," said Dr. Nizar Rayan, a leader in the Gaza Strip of the Islamic group Hamas, when asked what he made of the state of the conflict. "Now, if one Israeli is killed, it equals only three Palestinians." Early in this conflict, he said, the ratio was more like 1 to 12.
The death toll, on both sides, is putting tremendous pressure on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel. Put simply, Israelis are demoralized, their faith in their prime minister eroded.
Mr. Sharon has undertaken a major military campaign to scour Palestinian refugee camps, rounding up hundreds of suspects in attacks against Israelis and unearthing some weapons laboratories in what since March 1 has become the largest Israeli military operation against the Palestinians since the Oslo agreements of 1993. [Page A6.]
But with dozens of Palestinians having died in the raids - at least 17 more were killed by late tonight - and attacks on Israelis multiplying, he has also had to make conciliatory gestures, under pressure from the Bush administration. Today, Mr. Sharon freed Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, from confinement in Ramallah, but forbade him to travel outside the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Israel, a nuclear power, retains the overwhelming force of arms, including American-made warplanes and helicopter gunships that it no longer hesitates to use even against packed refugee camps. It has fenced off the Gaza Strip, and it has set up armed checkpoints throughout the West Bank to choke off Palestinian-controlled areas.
But its enemy is broad and shows growing military capacity. In a fight combining a terror campaign with a guerrilla war, some Palestinian groups, such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, are out to destroy the state of Israel. Others, notably the fighters associated with Mr. Arafat's Fatah faction, say they are fighting to drive Israeli soldiers and settlers out of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which Israel occupied in the 1967 war.
But the present struggle has made these differences in goals moot, and now even the groups' tactics are becoming indistinguishable.
Rather than attacking just soldiers and settlers - the stated policy of their political leaders - Fatah fighters, known as Tanzim, are blowing themselves up among civilians within the boundaries of pre-1967 Israel, just like fighters from Hamas.
Recent high-profile assaults - some militants refer to them as "quality attacks" - have increased the confidence of Palestinian attackers. Even Israel's raids on the refugee camps do not appear to have caused disquiet among militant leaders, who say their fighters have been able to withdraw and regroup.
For some Fatah militants, eluding Israeli forces to strike inside Israel sends a particularly potent message. "This is the meaning of such attacks: to prove to the Israelis that the Palestinian resistance fighter can go through checkpoints with his rifle and reach his target," said Naser Badawi, a member of Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades. "These are quality attacks."
Israelis believe that their security forces stop many more attacks than actually take place, but they are nonetheless disheartened. In a sign of the rising fear of suicide bombings, a popular pair of cafes here switched this week to offering only carry-out service.
"Never before has the country sustained so many casualties from terror attacks as it has during the days of Mr. Security," read a news analysis today in the newspaper Haaretz, referring to Mr. Sharon's campaign promise of peace and security.
That kind of criticism explains why Mr. Sharon is moving so fast right now in opposite directions: toward the left on symbols, like loosening Mr. Arafat's bonds, and toward the right on substance, like storming the refugee camps.
Yuval Steinitz, a member of the Israeli Parliament from Mr. Sharon's Likud Party but a frequent critic of the prime minister from the right, said that, in yielding on symbolic matters, Mr. Sharon was gaining latitude for the Israeli Defense Forces.
"It is quite tricky," he said. "On the one hand, it seems like softening his position, but on the other, it gives the I.D.F. more freedom of action."
Although rage at Israel is widespread in the territories, this uprising is not the same kind of mass movement as the first intifada, which began in late 1987. Then, in huge demonstrations, boys threw stones at soldiers who did not rely as often as they do now on live fire as a means of crowd control. In the first 17 months of the conflict, 17 Israelis died, and 424 Palestinians. In the first 17 months of this new conflict, more than 340 Israelis have died, and more than 1,000 Palestinians.
This conflict pits armed men in loosely affiliated Palestinian factions operating from territory that, according to the Oslo peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, is under full Palestinian control.
"The autonomous area became a warehouse for ammunition, smuggled arms," said Yoni Fighel, a colonel in the Israeli reserves and an expert on counterterrorism. "This gave the opportunity to build the infrastructure for armed struggle."
Militant groups have seized on the model of Hezbollah. From Israel's unilateral withdrawal after 18 years in May 2000, they concluded that if they caused Israel enough pain, it would run from the West Bank and Gaza Strip and perhaps from all of historical Palestine.
With training by Hezbollah, Israel says, Palestinian extremists began using mortar fire to sow terror in Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip, much as Hezbollah used Katyusha rockets again northern Israel.
Israeli officials say Iran is fanning the flames of the conflict. At the beginning of the year, Israel intercepted a ship, under Palestinian command, that was smuggling tons of weapons to the Gaza Strip. Israel and the Bush administration said the weapons came from Iran.
The group Islamic Jihad is believed to be financed and influenced by Iran, but a senior Israeli military official said there were also Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza who were under "direct Iranian control."
"Iran has a plan for how to destroy Israel," he said.
--------
Death Tolls Climb as Israel Steps Up Its Military Offensive
New York Times
March 12, 2002
By JAMES BENNET
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/12/international/middleeast/12CND-MIDE.html
RAMALLAH, West Bank, March 12 - In their fiercest assault since invading Lebanon 20 years ago, Israeli ground forces backed by helicopter gunships killed at least 30 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip today.
Israel continued to press its offensive, rounding up masses of Palestinian teenagers and young men in what it described as a hunt for terrorists, just two days before the expected return to Jerusalem of a Bush administration envoy, Anthony C. Zinni, who is hoping to achieve a cease-fire.
At the United Nations, Koffi Annan, the secretary-general, urged both sides to "lead your peoples away from disaster," but he reserved his most stinging criticism for Israel.
Calling on Israel to end its "illegal occupation" of the West Bank and Gaza, which it conquered in the 1967 war, Mr. Annan urged it to abandon "the bombing of civilian areas, the assassinations, the unnecessary use of lethal force, the demolitions and the daily humiliation of ordinary Palestinians."
He said that situation was at its "worst in ten years," a reference to the start of the Oslo peace process, which has all but collapsed.
As the pace of attack and retaliation accelerated, two gunmen disguised as Israeli soldiers opened fire on a bus and cars near the border with Lebanon, killing six before being gunned down themselves.
Dozens of Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers invaded Ramallah, the unofficial Palestinian capital, a day after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made a nod to American pressure for restraint by lifting a two-month siege here on Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader.
As the crossfire raged, with the boom of Palestinian grenades competing with the metal-press clatter of Israeli machine guns, several Palestinian women in the doorway of one home screamed for a passing vehicle to carry a young man, shot in the leg, to a hospital. Ambulances had been unable to reach them, they said. Moments later, a Red Cross vehicle arrived.
On both sides, some recoiled in horror today from their own camp's tactics. In the central square here today, al-Manara, a mob shot dead a Palestinian accused of collaborating with Israel, then hung his bloody body by its ankles among the four sculpted lions that face the points of the compass.
Some Israeli politicians harshly criticized the army for writing identification numbers in washable ink on the forearms of Palestinian prisoners. "It is totally unbearable for me," said Tommy Lapid, a member of the Israeli parliament and a survivor of the Nazi death camps. "This is something that was done to us in Auschwitz."
The Israeli chief of staff, Shaul Mofaz, said he had halted the practice, which the army said had been used to identify some prisoners.
-------
Holocaust Survivor Angry at IDs
March 12, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Numbering-Palestinians.html
JERUSALEM (AP) -- An Israeli lawmaker who survived the Nazi Holocaust expressed outrage Tuesday over Israeli troops writing identification numbers on the foreheads and forearms of Palestinian detainees awaiting interrogation during an army sweep of a West Bank refugee camp.
Yugoslav-born Tommy Lapid said he told army chief of staff Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz and Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer that the practice must cease immediately.
``As a refugee from the Holocaust I find such an act insufferable,'' Lapid said, adding that Mofaz and Ben-Eliezer also were displeased with the practice and that both had pledged action.
During World War II, concentration camp inmates, most of them Jews, had numbers tattooed on their forearms.
Mofaz later said in a radio interview that he had ordered an immediate halt to the numbering, which the army said was done to identify and keep track of prisoners last week in the Tulkarem refugee camp.
In a statement, Ben-Eliezer said he viewed the matter gravely and the issue would be investigated.
One photograph showed a detainee who had just been released with a large number written across his forearm. Other detainees said they had three-digit numbers written across their foreheads.
The army has said the marking, in ink that could be washed off, was a one-time occurrence and not military policy. Television footage of detainees in another West Bank camp on Monday showed no such markings.
Still, Col. Gal Hirsh, a regional commander in the West Bank, conceded the numbering of prisoners at Tulkarem was a mistake.
``I don't think that putting numbers on the (arms) of Palestinians that were arrested is a good idea,'' Hirsh said.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Monday equated the action with the treatment of Jews in Nazi concentration camps.
``Did you see them put (numbers) on people they've arrested in the Tulkarem refugee camp?'' Arafat said on Abu Dhabi Television. ``Isn't this the sort of thing they used to say the Nazis did against the Jews? So what do they say about these things? Isn't this a new Nazi racism?''
Hirsh said the incident had been blown out of proportion and he condemned the comparison between Jewish soldiers and Nazis. ``This makes me sick,'' he said.
Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon acknowledged that numbering prisoners in such a way did not create an attractive media image.
``If the idea was to convey a message of deterrence, clearly it conflicts with the desire to convey a public relations message,'' he told Israel Army Radio.
Israeli military commentator Ron Ben-Ishai said commanders in the field often scribbled on their own arms, to note down such things as radio frequencies and call-signs, but acknowledged that to do so with Palestinian prisoners was insensitive.
-------- nato
Bermuda says US bases deal near despite pollution
REUTERS BERMUDA:
March 12, 2002
Story by Stephen Breen
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14971/newsDate/12-Mar-2002/story.htm
HAMILTON - The United States is poised to sign a deal renouncing long-standing claims to reoccupy military bases in Bermuda but refuses to pay for environmental clean-ups estimated at $60 million, according to the island's premier.
After arguing for years, Washington will not pay to clean oil, sewage and asbestos at the bases but will give $11 million to repair a bridge and may provide the mid-Atlantic British colony with a coast guard vessel, Premier Jennifer Smith said.
The planned deal will terminate the 1941 Leased Bases Agreement between Britain and the United States, which expires in 2040, and allows Washington to occupy the bases and surrounding land and sea by declaring an emergency.
Since U.S. forces left in 1995, the United States and Bermuda, backed by Britain, have disagreed about the clean-up.
"This settlement will bring to a close a chapter in Bermuda's history. We are now entering a new era in our relationship with the United States," Smith told lawmakers last week in the island's House of Assembly.
The former U.S. Navy annex in Bermuda's Southampton Parish was left with raw sewage and oil had leaked into underlying caves. Bermuda, a resort and offshore finance center 560 miles (900 kilometers) east of North Carolina, is hoping to transform the unoccupied land into a leisure and housing complex.
A former U.S. Navy air station in St. David's still has asbestos, but is now partly used for housing and business.
Under the planned accord, the United States will give up the right to reoccupy the bases in a crisis, but Britain will allow NATO troops, including Americans, to use Bermuda if needed.
The leader of the opposition United Bermuda Party, Dr. Grant Gibbons, said the United States had paid to clean up bases in Canada and should have done the same for Bermuda.
Smith said the Pentagon believed it could make a counter-claim against Bermuda for the cost of improvements it made, including building an airport, roads and bridges.
-------- philippines
U.S. sends drones to the Philippines
World Scene
March 12, 2002
Combined dispatches and staff reports
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020312-39040196.htm
ZAMBOANGA, Philippines - The U.S. military has shipped unmanned spy planes to the Philippines to take part in anti-terrorism training exercises aimed at wiping out a group holding two Americans, officials said yesterday.
The Gnat UAVs - which are similar to the Predator drones being used in Afghanistan - would give "that extra edge" to the Philippine military, said Maj. Cynthia Teramae, spokeswoman for the U.S. contingent.
The UAVs are for surveillance and intelligence gathering during the six-month exercise in this southern port city and on nearby Basilan island, Maj. Teramae said.
-------- spies
Probe Spawns Unparalleled Intelligence-Sharing
By Walter Pincus and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, March 12, 2002; Page A09
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A10755-2002Mar11?language=printer
For a glimpse into the new world of U.S. intelligence gathering since Sept. 11, consider the meandering path of a simple telephone number.
Retrieved from the rubble of Afghanistan -- whether from an address book, a computer hard drive or a scribbled note -- this hypothetical telephone number is first reviewed by Defense Intelligence Agency analysts at Bagram air base, north of Kabul.
From there, the number is sent to the U.S. air base in Khanabad, Uzbekistan, where it is entered into a computerized database and compared with other numbers found in Afghanistan, Europe and elsewhere as part of the U.S. government's anti-terror investigation.
Perhaps the number will lead to a prisoner being held at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who used the number himself or knew those who did. Or perhaps, in one real example from recent months, the number is identified as an al Qaeda "switchboard" used by one of the Sept. 11 hijackers.
Telephone numbers are only part of the mountain of evidence that U.S. officials are struggling to analyze from thousands of pages of computerized and paper documents, hundreds of computer hard drives, scores of videotapes and millions of voice and data communications scooped up since U.S. forces entered Afghanistan. Added to the hours of interrogations of suspected al Qaeda and Taliban detainees, it amounts to what is likely the largest and most complex intelligence operation ever mounted by the United States.
Hastily assembled after Sept. 11, the methods for analyzing this information have become a linchpin in U.S. efforts to thwart future attacks and track down al Qaeda members who may be planning other operations. By bringing together analysts from the military, the CIA and the FBI, the new system also reflects an unprecedented level of cooperation among agencies that historically have had a difficult time sharing even crucial information. Many U.S. officials hope the system will serve as a blueprint for the future.
Intelligence officials, while hesitant to supply detailed examples, say the system has been vital to deterring other terrorist plots since Sept. 11 and to dramatically improving U.S. understanding of the al Qaeda network and its leader, Osama bin Laden, blamed for the attacks on New York and the Pentagon.
Numerous officials familiar with the new system acknowledge that it still faces significant problems, hobbled by its crazy-quilt structure and slowed by a dearth of linguists to translate and interpret the data. The agencies also do not have all the equipment or analysts they need overseas to crack scores of encrypted hard drives, which must often be sent back to the United States for decoding.
"Is there a danger that something could slip through? Sure there is," said one senior U.S. official. "But a lot of the information has been useful. . . . We've been very surprised at the volume and value of the documents. Relatively speaking, they kept good records."
All the materials coming in from Afghanistan and increasingly, neighboring Pakistan, are passed through a rapid sifting process, according to administration and intelligence officials.
The first priority is to identify any information that qualifies as tactical intelligence, which either could help U.S. forces find al Qaeda or Taliban hideouts or alert them to imminent threats. In such cases, the Defense Intelligence Agency handles the documents, while the CIA processes the computer files, one source said. Officers of the DIA, CIA and the U.S. Central Command, which runs the war, forward information deemed most crucial to ongoing military operations to officers in Afghanistan almost immediately, sources said.
The remaining material is then divided into intelligence information, which receives special scrutiny from the CIA, and law enforcement information, which is handled by the FBI. Although the FBI is more involved in overseas operations than ever before, it has generally had no more than a dozen agents in Afghanistan and Pakistan at any one time, and conducts most of its analysis in the United States.
One of the persistent problems during the initial screening of documents and other written materials at Bagram is language. DIA and CIA officers have specific sets of tactical and strategic questions to answer -- where Taliban or al Qaeda military units may be hiding, for example -- but there are gaps at the first level in translation. Materials are written in Arabic, Pashto, Urdu, Chinese and Russian, one official said.
At Bagram, located 35 miles north of Kabul, the capital, materials that may have immediate value go to the handful of local staff for quick translation. The remainder goes to the base in Uzbekistan, where there are more translators and analysts and where computers can transmit copies to allied intelligence services.
There are also officials from the FBI, Treasury and other agencies at Bagram andKhanabad, a former Soviet air base, to supervise distribution of materials involving terrorist-related financing and criminal cases, officials said.
The agencies are receiving an increasing volume of information in Pakistan as well, with the help of local police and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, one U.S. official said. U.S. investigators are focusing particular attention on visa applications and other legal documents to help them identify suspects who passed through Pakistan in recent years on the way to al Qaeda training camps in neighboring Afghanistan.
For now, much of the information is being put to use as fodder for ongoing interrogations of alleged al Qaeda and Taliban members held in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In both places, the questioning is done under the control of the U.S. military, with significant input from the FBI and CIA, sources said.
The interrogators in Afghanistan work at two levels, sources said. The initial screening is conducted of prisoners being held by Afghan forces. The interrogators are trying to determine who the individuals are and what they know, questions that often take repeated sessions since many suspected al Qaeda fighters give pseudonyms and some had training in what to say and do when captured.
"If they say, 'I'm a humanitarian aid worker caught up in the fighting,' " one Defense official said, "they likely have been through training. That's the answer they were told to give." Those individuals are taken aside for continued questioning, with a few sent to Bagram or Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan.
The individuals sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where 300 are being held, are those who interrogators believe have more to say and who, with time, would cooperate.
In Guantanamo, as at Bagram, intelligence reports are generated from the questioning and the results are entered into databases. All detainees are asked a predetermined list of questions at the outset, followed by repeated questioning on more specific topics.
U.S. officials also have taken blood samples from all 300 Guantanamo detainees as part of a Justice Department plan to set up a DNA database of suspected terrorists.
In the end, much of the information is merged in suburban Washington, where the FBI, CIA and other agencies have set up a joint computer center that serves as a final clearinghouse for the data.
Special paths within the computerized intelligence network allow analysts with the proper clearance to access the data, which is organized in the style of Web pages, several sources said.
"This is the wave of the future," said one U.S. official. "If it's stuff coming out of Bosnia, that's going in; if it's coming out of the Philippines or Indonesia or wherever, it's all going to go into a central place. . . . This is how we're going to proceed from now on."
----
CIA to go under congressional hammer
By RICHARD SALE
UPI Terrorism Correspondent
March 12, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/11032002-113948-2460r.htm
March 11 (UPI) -- A major shake-up of the CIA's senior management could result from a joint congressional probe of the Sept. 11 World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, according to several current and former agency officials.
But the same officials caution that the probe must be thorough, independent, and not just an empty exercise.
Several officials identified what they said were serious failings in the way the agency was run, resulting in the United States being blindsided by the Sept. 11 suicide hijacking attacks.
The concerns voiced by the officials -- who all spoke to United Press International on condition of anonymity -- center on three areas: the personnel who will head the staff side of the inquiry; whether the CIA leadership will look for scapegoats; and whether the probe will ask the right questions.
The Senate and House intelligence committees announced last month a single, joint review of U.S. intelligence operations -- focused on the U.S. response to terror over the last 16 years, and in particular on the Sept. 11 attacks and other bin Laden operations.
Open and closed hearings are looking to find out if any intelligence failures helped to account for Sept. 11, a congressional staffer said, but cautioned: "No one is hunting for scalps."
Former CIA Inspector General Britt Snider has been named staff director for the inquiry.
Snider served under CIA Director George Tenet both at the agency and when the latter worked for the Senate intelligence committee at the end of the 1980s. He is seen by some in the intelligence community as too close to Tenet and his appointment has puzzled and deflated several former CIA officials.
"I don't know what the appointment of Snider means," said a former senior CIA operations official. "Will the investigation be a whitewash? The agency is being investigated by one of its own. You tell me."
"If Congress really goes after this with a spirit of attack, I think heads will roll," said a former senior CIA analyst. "The question is whether scapegoats will be targeted or whether some substantive changes can be made."
The agency and Tenet will face critical scrutiny from Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., who said of the inquiry: "At the end of the day, what we're interested in is finding out why we've had so many strategic failures. Is it lack of funding? Is it a lack of emphasis? Is it a lack of training? Is it an aversion to risk?"
Shelby told UPI he has confidence in Snider and in the upcoming probe.
"I voted for Snider, and I think he's going to assemble a first-rate staff and do a credible job."
That was imperative, Shelby said because, "We've suffered too many intelligence failures in the last eight or nine years, and we can't stand that. We can leave no rock unturned."
He explained: "The investigation has to be deep, it has to be credible to go anywhere and do any good, and I would not be a party to any investigation that was not going to be described in that way."
Tenet has many defenders in the intelligence community. A former agency national intelligence officer said that he had done a lot to restore morale in the CIA, adding that he is "good at getting down to the troops. He's not aloof or cerebral like some other directors but a solid, work-a-day guy."
In any case, Tenet is not in any danger of being fired, according to a very senor former agency official, since he "clearly enjoys the confidence of the president." A few days after the Sept. 11 attack, President Bush visited the CIA headquarters at Langley and publicly expressed his full faith in Tenet.
But this source said that if the probe got intense, Tenet might "toss a few bodies over the side as part of his defense strategy," to deflect criticism of his own and the agency's performance.
"The problem of Tenet's hanging on is that the record under investigation is in the hands in the man who helped create it," he said.
But another former official of equal rank discounted this: "I don't think there's much substance to rumors of a purge at the agency." He added: "You might see some reassignments or early retirements but a lot of these were already in the works." Nonetheless, interviews with more than half a dozen serving and former agencies officials produced the names of four people in the directorates of intelligence and operations whose jobs could be in jeopardy, if the agency is forced to save face.
When UPI gave those names to the CIA and asked if their employment was under any special scrutiny, agency spokesperson Anya Guilsher said: "I think it's premature to reach that conclusion. The congressional hearings haven't even begun yet."
In spite of that, several current and former CIA operatives believe a shake up is possible and that reforms are badly needed in the organization. There was concern from some that the inquiry might end up looking in the wrong places.
A former agent and veteran of Vietnam operations said: "It's like working in the U.S. Post Office. It's big, it spends a ton of money, and it doesn't get a lot done."
Another longtime agency operative who uses deep cover in his work said: "We pay billions of dollars a year for intelligence, and our product is not that good."
A former very senior CIA official agreed. Speaking of Sept. 11, he said: "we had a strategic warning, in the Cold War sense. We identified an adversary and the level of his hostility; we identified his rising level of activity, his willingness to target us, and his escalation of attacks. Yet we didn't turn the strategic warning into a tactical warning, which would have meant we were ready for war."
He said the agency people said afterward that the attacks succeeded because al Qaida was too hard to penetrate. "Yet John Walker Lindh penetrated it, along with a couple of dozen Brits, a couple of Australians, and Germans all over the place," he said.
Another CIA officer told UPI that the Russian mission at the United Nations gave the U.N. Security Council "extremely detailed knowledge" of the location of 55 bin Laden training camps in Afghanistan six months before the World Trade Center attacks but that the agency did not give it the attention it deserved.
The report was presented May 9 to the U.N. Security Council's committee on Afghanistan and also went to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, he said.
The most significant challenge the CIA faces is its corporate culture, according to the majority of the officials with whom UPI spoke.
Former State Department and CIA counter-terrorism official, Larry Johnson, said the agency had become "rigidly ossified" and "too corporate" in the way it handles its affairs.
"I recently spoke with a retired (agency official), and he joked about the fantasy that agency employees have of walking in the CIA cafeteria and feeling someone tap them on the shoulder and telling them, 'Congratulations. You're finally going to work for the real CIA,'" Johnson said. "Agency employees think they have signed up for this life of espionage and adventure.
"Boy, are they wrong."
The very senior former agency official agreed: "The pervasive problem is a combination of syndromes that have sapped professionalism and professional élan, that have sapped aggressiveness and judgment as everyone looks to cover their ass."
He concluded that while the CIA "has to be judicious and accountable," it must also have "the energetic resolve needed to accomplish the mission." Another former senior official said: "The present agency environment has tended to produce, by self-selection, a certain kind of bureaucrat, a certain kinds of leadership," he said, adding that virtually none of the agency's top ranks "made their bones on a Cold War agenda."
Many in senior positions lacked significant intelligence experience, he said. He shared the view of several colleagues that the inquiry must focus on these issues.
Usually, he said, talk of CIA reform centered on its budget or the authority of its director or the balance between military and non-military requirements, but he called these "all secondary issues" next to bureaucracy and the failure of the agency's analytical ability.
----
Intelligence Agents Or Art Students?
Investigative Report By Paul M. Rodriguez
Insight on the News - National Issue:
3/12/02
http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm/include/detail/storyid/207226.html
From Paris to Washington to New York City and back again, a story has reverberated about an alleged Israeli spy ring that was busted in the United States last year. Intelligence Online, a well-respected Internet news service broke the explosive story, which quickly was picked up by Le Monde in France, then the Associated Press (AP) in Washington and other news outlets.
These stories all seem to track a similar report last December by Carl Cameron of Fox News outlining concerns among U.S. law-enforcement and intelligence agencies that an Israeli-based network of operatives was spying or otherwise engaged in information-gathering activities within the United States. All the news agencies said or mentioned that many of those under investigation subsequently were deported by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) for visa violations. Most also quoted named and unnamed Israeli spokesmen as saying that Israel doesn't spy on the United States and that whatever these Israeli citizens were doing was not criminal even if inappropriate and in violation of their visas.
Insight already was investigating such allegations and had obtained numerous documents for what from the beginning was planned as an investigative report. Amid the breaking news of the so-called "Israeli spy-ring bust," it is time to clear the air on a variety of real and half-baked charges reported by others. Specifically:
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) began an "unprecedented" internal-security investigation early last spring following reports from field agents and regional offices involving suspicious activities by Israeli citizens engaged in the sale of artwork and paintings throughout the Southeast, South and Southwest, including Florida, Texas and California.
The "Israeli art students" - so dubbed because that's how they described themselves to various law-enforcement officials when confronted - were both male and female and, as appropriate to their ages and required under Israeli law, served that nation's military.
These alleged students traveled in "organized" teams of eight to 10 people, with each group having a team leader.
Reports of Israeli art students calling on DEA employees began at least as early as January 2000 and continued through at least June 2001.
These unusual visits at both the homes and offices of DEA officers were expanded to include employees of "several other law-enforcement and Department of Defense agencies."
"The number of reported incidents has declined" since spring 2001, though the "geographic spread of the incidents has increased to Wisconsin, Oklahoma and Los Angeles."
The stories offered by the Israeli art students "are remarkable in their consistency" insofar as they state they either are from the University of Jerusalem or the Bezalel Academy of Arts in Jerusalem."
Despite the students' claims that they had themselves produced the artwork or paintings they were offering for sale, "information has been received which indicates the art is actually produced in China."
All this is contained in official DEA documents obtained by Insight, including one produced in early June 2001. These represent an extraordinary compilation by DEA's Office of Security Programs chronicling not only contacts of DEA personnel at home or at their offices, but also similar incidents involving employees of other agencies and the military.
"It is a very alarming set of documents," says one high-ranking federal law-enforcement official when told of the cache of materials collected by Insight. "This shows how serious DEA and Justice consider this activity."
Indeed, says a senior Justice Department official briefed on an ongoing multiagency task force, "We think there is something quite sinister here but are unable at this time to put our finger on it." But, said another federal law-enforcement source: "The higher-ups don't want to deal with this and neither does the FBI because it involves Israel."
One report, Suspicious Activities Involving Israeli Art Students at DEA Facilities, lists more than 180 documented-incident cases. Analysts tell Insight they appear to be attempts "to circumvent the access-control systems at DEA offices" and to capture personal information about private lives of DEA law-enforcement officers, such as where they live, what cars they drive and how they behave outside of their official offices. This was concluded, in part, based on photographs made of U.S. law officers and other materials seized by a variety of federal and local law-enforcement officers during searches.
"The nature of the individuals' conduct, combined with intelligence information and historical information regarding past incidents involving Israeli organized crime, leads IS [DEA's Internal Security division] to believe the incidents may well be an organized intelligence-gathering activity," a classified document euphemizes.
The documents do not clearly label the activities of the so-called art students as a government-sanctioned spying operation, as widely reported. But they do make clear there is a covert nature to the well-orchestrated activities. In one reference, DEA said telephone numbers obtained from one encounter with its agents in Orlando, Fla., "have been linked to several ongoing DEA MDMA [the illegal drug Ecstasy] investigations in Florida, California, Texas and New York now being closely coordinated by DEA headquarters" in Washington.
A review of passports obtained by law enforcement also showed that a majority of the students traveled to numerous countries, including Thailand, Laos, India, Kenya, Central and South America, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands and Canada.
Besides federal law-enforcement incidents, DEA's IS unit found that several military bases also had experienced unauthorized entries by some of the students, including two bases from which Stealth aircraft and other supersecret military units operate. Unauthorized photographing of military sites and civilian industrial complexes, such as petroleum-storage facilities, also was reported to the DEA, the documents show and interviews confirm.
In virtually every incident of the many reported by the entire DEA field-office structure the pattern was similar: Students would attempt to enter secure buildings, take photographs, follow federal agents when they left buildings, show up at their homes, take pictures of their cars and circle their neighborhoods, visiting only their houses and then departing.
"This is very odd behavior under any situation," says a current DEA official who had heard but not yet seen the reports until Insight shared them. "The patterns are clear and they pose a significant danger to our officers in the field." Maybe U.S. national security.
On March 4, Intelligence Online reported that U.S. authorities had busted an Israeli spy ring in the United States that had sought to penetrate various federal law-enforcement agencies and military establishments. According to one wire report, the online service also said that documents it had obtained showed "a huge Israeli spy ring operating in the United States was rolled up by the Justice Department's counter-espionage service" last year.
Once newspapers and the AP picked the story up, FBI officials downplayed it, telling reporters that no charges of espionage had been filed. The carefully worded statements left out any mention of whether spying was suspected. FBI and INS officials told newsmen that most of those involved - an estimated 100 or so "Israeli art students" - overstayed their visas and had been deported. Some also were found to have illegal drugs or admitted to illegal-drug usage and were deported for this, too, documents showed and officials confirm to Insight.
A spokesmen for the Israeli Embassy in Washington says suggestions of espionage are nonsense and that all that might have been involved was a few visa violations. "If there were crimes committed then why weren't any of these people charged?" a spokesman asked. "That's not to say that there isn't any organized crime involving Israeli citizens," said another Israeli official when asked about DEA concern that the art students might have been tied to a criminal syndicate. "If that is so, I hope they put them in jail. We don't need those types of people, no matter who they are, loose on the streets."
This Israeli government official also tells Insight that his government's police and intelligence services cooperate fully with their counterparts in the United States, including the ongoing Ecstasy investigation mentioned in one of the DEA documents this magazine has obtained. "It is unfortunately a big problem, and we are working to help stop it," the Israeli official confirms.
FBI and Justice spokesmen have sought either to downplay or knock out the stories - even discredit the DEA reports and their authors. But if DEA was wrong then how can Justice explain this item Insight discovered that was circulated by a little-known but sensitive White House agency called the U.S. Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive.
That agency not only circulated an internal warning to intelligence, federal law enforcement and White House planners - three full months before DEA issued its own internal report - but also posted on its site a warning to all federal employees about Israeli art students aggressively trying to enter federal facilities and going to the homes of senior federal agents. The same thing apparently was going on with a non-Israeli outfit with possible ties to a Middle Eastern Islamic fundamentalist group.
Paul M. Rodriguez is managing editor of Insight.
email the author mailto:prodriguez@insightmag.com
-------- turkey
Debate over Iraq awaits Cheney in Turkey
By Peter Sisler
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
March 12, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020312-14000176.htm
ISTANBUL - Turkish officials braced yesterday for the arrival of Vice President Richard B. Cheney amid fears he was seeking support for a campaign against Iraq that would devastate Turkey's shattered economy.
"It would be futile to expect foreign investments into Turkey as long as the Iraqi issue hangs above us like a nightmare," Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said on Turkish national television.
"Even speaking of [war] would cause great harm to Turkey. We will be explaining this to our American friends," the prime minister said.
Mr. Cheney is due to visit Ankara for talks with Mr. Ecevit and other members of his coalition government, as well as the powerful Turkish military leadership.
The vice president's 10-day trip to Britain and the Middle East began with a stop in London to meet yesterday with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Mr. Cheney said he had come to Britain because "the president wanted me to check in first with the prime minister."
Mr. Cheney said he and Middle Eastern leaders would discuss both the Afghanistan campaign and the next steps in the war on terror, but emphasized that he was not announcing decisions on where the next battleground might be.
In recent days, Mr. Blair has attempted to prepare Britain for potential military action in Iraq as part of the next phase in the war on terrorism.
So secret was the itinerary for Mr. Cheney's trip that even the date of his arrival in Turkey had not been announced by yesterday afternoon.
As the defense secretary during the 1991 Gulf war, Mr. Cheney is widely believed in Turkish circles to be on a mission to drum up support among neighboring countries for a future campaign against Iraq.
Turkey's role as a base for U.S. warplanes engaged in missions over Iraq would be vital in any attempt to unseat Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
U.S. and British planes now use those bases to patrol no-fly zones over northern Iraq.
Mr. Ecevit, a left-leaning politician who opposed Turkey's participation in the Gulf war a decade ago, had put pressure on the Iraqi dictator to allow U.N. weapons inspectors back into Baghdad.
Mr. Ecevit last month sent Saddam a letter urging compliance with the U.N. resolutions but received a sharp rebuke from Baghdad that criticized Turkey for allowing allied warplanes to fly from its territory.
Turkey's primary task this year was to deal with an economy that shrank by 8.5 percent last year, the country's worst recession since World War II.
Early figures for this year show the economy continues to sputter despite an emergency $16 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The IMF has said Turkey requires billions of dollars in direct foreign investment, but the country continues to languish well behind emerging Asian and Latin American countries in terms of attracting new foreign capital.
"The Turkish economy is on a very sensitive balance," Mr. Ecevit said. "Tourism has started to develop, but it would be shaken if a worrisome situation in terms of security emerges in our region. The economy would also be shaken.
"We are trying to tell this to our U.S. friends. We do not know their intention. Have they taken a new decision? When Vice President Dick Cheney comes to Ankara, we will openly discuss it with him," he said.
Mr. Cheney and Anthony Zinni, President Bush's special envoy to the Middle East, will be visiting the region at the same time.
Middle Eastern leaders have indicated the Israeli-Palestinian violence is the region's most critical issue, but Mr. Cheney says the United States has the responsibility to work on both the war against terror and the Israeli-Palestinian crisis.
-------- un
Annan Calls on Israel to End 'Illegal Occupation'
March 12, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-mideast-un.html
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan appealed to Israel on Tuesday to end its ``illegal occupation'' of Palestinian lands and curb its attacks on civilians in his toughest criticism to date of the Jewish state.
In an emotional plea delivered at a public meeting of the U.N. Security Council, Annan said the scale of the Middle East carnage had soared to horrifying levels and urged leaders on both sides to ``lead your peoples away from disaster.'' In his harshest words to date to Israel, he said, ``You must end the illegal occupation'' of lands captured in the 1967 Middle East war. Aides said it was the first time Annan had branded the occupation as illegal.
And he appealed to Israeli defense forces to stop ``the bombing of civilian areas, the assassinations, the unnecessary use of lethal force, the demolitions and the daily humiliation of ordinary Palestinians.''
``Such actions gravely erode Israel's standing in the international community and further fuel the fires of hatred, despair and extremism among Palestinians,'' Annan said.
He also urged the Palestinians to stop all acts of terror, saying they had ``played their full part in the escalating cycle of violence, counter-violence and revenge.''
He was ``particularly disturbed'' by the rise in Palestinian suicide bombings deliberately targeting civilians, he said, calling such attacks ``morally repugnant.''
The Palestinian U.N. representative, Nasser al-Kidwa, quickly praised Annan's statement as ``the strongest, the clearest position the secretary-general has come up with'' in the 18 months since the start of a Palestinian uprising that the United Nations says has claimed some 1,550 lives.
OPINION DIVIDED
But in a closed meeting following Annan's statement, opinion was divided among the U.N. Security Council's 15 members.
Sources said some questioned Annan's decision to refer to the occupation as illegal, speculating he had hardened his stance after Israeli soldiers last week shot and killed a Palestinian U.N. guard riding inside a clearly marked U.N. Relief and Works Agency ambulance.
Syria's envoy expressed anger that Annan had appeared to equate Israeli and Palestinian actions, the council sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Al-Kidwa asked the Security Council to quickly adopt a resolution, endorsed by Arab nations, demanding that Israel stop all acts of violence and calling on both sides to resume negotiations and ``implement all of their obligations'' under previously reached agreements and peace plans.
But there was no immediate response from Norway, this month's council president. And envoys speculated the United States, Israel's closest ally, would likely use the threat of its veto to block council action on such a resolution.
U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte declined comment on the draft resolution but called Annan's statement ``a fair characterization'' of the situation in the Middle East although ''we might not endorse every single word of it.''
Washington, which argues peace efforts must come from the two sides, has announced plans to send its Middle East envoy Anthony Zinni back to the region this week to press for a cease-fire.
Israeli U.N. Ambassador Yehuda Lancry played down the significance of Annan's demand that Israel withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories, saying Israel had already agreed to do so in principle.
``In September 1993 we entered a process in order to negotiate the end of the situation as it is with the Palestinians. Even Prime Minister (Ariel) Sharon envisioned the establishment of a Palestinian state,'' he told reporters, saying this would be subject to negotiations.
He said Israeli defense forces were ``compelled'' to follow their current strategy by a relentless ``Palestinian terrorist campaign'' and said Palestinian suicide bombings were often more deadly and did more damage than the Israeli army.
----
[They don't mention here environmental factors contributing to reduced fertility. et]
New Trend Eases Fears of Population Explosion - UN
By REUTERS
March 12, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-un-population.html
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - In a major shift that has stunned demographers, fertility rates in much of Asia, Africa and Latin America have begun dropping, easing fears of a future global population explosion, population experts said on Tuesday.
While fertility rates have been falling in the West for the past 30 years, demographers until now assumed fertility would remain high in many of the world's most populous developing nations, maintaining the overall growth trend over the long term, the experts said.
Demographers now ``see fertility coming down to lower levels than we have ever anticipated,'' said John Caldwell, a professor at the Australian National University in Canberra.
``For the first time, we think it possible that within a hundred years or so, we will have a world declining from, say, (a population of) 10 billion people. We may some day pass our present level on the way down again,'' Caldwell told reporters on the sidelines of a weeklong U.N. conference on demography.
The world population is now about 6.1 billion, according to U.N. figures.
The key to the change was a surprise drop in the fertility rates of a bloc of the world's most populous developing nations.
Experts were divided on the reasons behind the shift.
Caldwell said one popular explanation was that women in those countries were now striving to join the work force and simply lacked the time to care for children as they got little help from their husbands or their governments.
Alaka Basu, a professor at the Harvard University Center for Population and Development Studies, blamed consumerism stoked by radio and television advertising.
``You are getting to know about the wonderful world of goods outside before you are in a position to afford all these goods,'' she said. ``And you are discovering that, given that your income is not growing that fast, you'd better cut down on something, and it makes sense to cut down on children.''
'REMARKABLE DECLINE'
A fertility rate that fell below roughly two children per woman would mean a country's population had stopped replacing itself and would begin shrinking, while a rate above two would mean the population would be growing.
Caldwell identified 13 countries in the category he said now appeared likely to slip soon below the replacement level.
They were Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico in Latin America; Africa's Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and South Africa, and Indonesia, Iran, the Philippines, Turkey and Vietnam in Asia, he said.
Two other huge countries in the group, India and Bangladesh, might also slip below replacement fertility levels, he added, noting the 15 nations accounted for nearly half of the population of the entire developing world.
``We see that many of these countries, though not all, are likely to go below average and achieve patterns similar to those seen in the West,'' said Joseph Chamie, director of the U.N. Population Division.
``This is a remarkable decline, and it is something which we should view as good news as it is giving people more control over the number and spacing of their children -- something that couples throughout history have tried to do,'' Chamie said.
----
150 Million Children Suffer Malnutrition - UNICEF
By REUTERS
March 12, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-health-unicef.html
LONDON (Reuters) - While ``spectacular gains'' have been made against some nutritional deficiencies, one-third of children in the developing world are malnourished, according to a report released Wednesday.
The report by the United Nations Children's Fund found that child malnutrition in the developing world had fallen from 32 percent to 28 percent, or about 150 million children in all. But nearly half the children in South Asia and less than one-third in sub-Saharan Africa were malnourished, it said.
``The familiar symbol of the visibly starving child misrepresents the problem. In reality, most malnutrition is totally invisible,'' according to the report ``Malnutrition: The News.''
Frequent illness, not a lack of food, is the major factor in malnutrition, the report said. The overwhelming majority of malnourished children live in homes with enough food, according to the study. Illness can cause a lack of appetite, calories are used up fighting infections and vomiting and diarrhea drain away vital nutrients.
The vast majority of malnourished children develop the condition in the first three years of life -- a critical period for brain and body growth.
``The greatest tragedy of malnutrition is that it prevents children reaching their full potential,'' said former James Bond actor Roger Moore, a UNICEF goodwill ambassador.
On the up side, the report said 18 countries -- including China, Mexico, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Vietnam -- reduced child malnutrition by 25 percent or more.
More than 70 percent of the developing world's households now use iodized salt -- a rise of 50 percent --- protecting an estimated 12 million children a year from suffering brain damage as a result of iodine deficiency.
Vitamin A supplements now reach half the world's children, saving about 333,000 lives a year, the report said. And the decline in breast-feeding -- key to good nutrition -- appears to have ended.
The study was conducted in more than 100 countries. Its figures were compiled from the largest-ever data collection on infant well-being and the first released in a decade.
-------- us
'Inaction Is Not an Option'
Bush Offers Military Aid In Continuing Terror War
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 12, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A10814-2002Mar11?language=printer
President Bush marked the passing of six months since the Sept. 11 attacks yesterday by appealing for world support for a second phase of the war on terror, which will be aimed at denying al Qaeda a new home base and access to nuclear weapons.
For the first time, he publicly promised U.S. military training and equipment to nations fighting terrorists on their soil, adding a potentially costly dimension to his vow to fight terrorism to an end.
"We will not send American troops to every battle, but America will actively prepare other nations for the battles ahead," he said.
Framed by the billowing flags of 174 countries that supported the initial stage of the war in Aghanistan, Bush said "the civilized world" must stay with him as he moves against nations that have stockpiled weapons of mass destruction, with aides calling Iraq a chief offender.
"These weapons, in the hands of terrorists, would unleash blackmail and genocide and chaos," Bush said during a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House. "Our coalition must act deliberately. Inaction is not an option."
The president's call came on a day when Americans, steadily returning to routines even as the government warns the danger has not dissipated, paused to mourn formally the nearly 3,000 victims of hijackers' suicidal flights into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.
In New York, hundreds of people marked moments of silence at 8:46 a.m. and 9:03 a.m., when the towers of the trade center were hit. Several hours after Bush's speech, he unveiled a stamp showing the famous photo of three firefighters raising a flag in the charred ruins at ground zero. "Heroes USA," says the stamp, to be issued in the spring.
At the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told grieving survivors, "September 11th was truly an attack against the world."
Bush did not use his address to articulate a new policy, but instead continued to build a case against rogue states capable of nuclear, chemical or biological attack. Although he did not name Iraq, officials said President Saddam Hussein's regime was among those Bush had in mind when he said the world must face "the growing threat of terror on a catastrophic scale."
"Some states that sponsor terror are seeking or already possess weapons of mass destruction; terrorist groups are hungry for these weapons, and would use them without a hint of conscience," the president said.
Administration officials said that besides Iraq, Bush believes the primary threats are Iran and North Korea -- the "axis of evil" he warned of during his State of the Union address in January. The officials said that to a lesser degree, Bush also views Syria and Libya as dangers.
The speech did nothing to resolve the fierce debate within Bush's administration about how to replace Hussein, even as Vice President Cheney flew to the Middle East for a week of consultations that include the Iraqi threat as a top item on his agenda.
Appearing in London yesterday with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Cheney said he sees "a lot of evidence" that Hussein possesses "and is continuing to develop weapons of mass destruction."
A senior administration official said Bush has made no decision about action against Iraq, but was signaling other nations that this is a "time to talk about the future of Iraq, a post-Saddam Iraq, which I think everybody would welcome."
Allies in Europe and elsewhere have reacted with skepticism and opposition to the possibility of military action against Iraq, but the official said the White House is optimistic about support for future phases of the war.
"What you're hearing from the allies are cautions, but not by any means resistance or a rejection," the official said. "We're cautious, too."
Bush's address, given into a chill breeze under a sky that grew sunnier as he spoke, did not satisfy the Democratic lawmakers who have urged him to elaborate on his war plans. Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) said in an interview that Bush had articulated "many important goals" that he must explain to Congress and the nation in the days ahead.
"What we have to do now is to better understand how we accomplish those goals," Daschle said.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), who has questioned Bush's approach to the war, said the country remains united against terrorism but cautioned Bush against moving immediately beyond Afghanistan. "Clearly, the job is not finished," he said.
The South Lawn ceremony had an audience of 1,300, making it among the largest events held at the White House while Bush has been president. Hundreds of rescue workers and victims' relatives listened silently as the Boys Choir of Harlem opened with an a cappella rendition of the national anthem.
The ambassadors from Nigeria, Turkey and South Korea made opening remarks praising Bush for his resolve. But he made it clear he saw the occasion as no time for bows, calling six months "a short time in a long struggle."
In outlining his effort at "driving terrorists from place to place," Bush pointed to training and manpower the U.S. military has agreed to provide to the Philippines, Yemen and the Republic of Georgia in the former Soviet Union. He broadened an offer of troops and other military aid that he had made privately in November to Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
"I have set a clear policy in the second stage of the war on terror: America encourages and expects governments everywhere to help remove the terrorist parasites that threaten their own countries and the peace of the world," he said. "If governments need training, or resources to meet this commitment, America will help."
Some of the victims' family members criticized Bush for not spending more time paying tribute to the victims. "I guess I expected more of a memorial commemorating the six months," said Zenovia Cuyler, whose mother, Ada Davis, a civilian Army budget analyst, died at the Pentagon.
But aides said Bush's orders from the earliest planning for the event had been that it be a forward-looking event, focused on the war effort.
Bush said the United States is winning the battles against holdouts in Afghanistan's Shahikot Valley, which has produced the highest casualties of the war. But he said it "will not be the last battle in Afghanistan, and there will be other battles beyond that nation."
He made no reference to Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the al Qaeda terrorist network, whose capture Bush had once cited as a prime goal. Instead, he said, "Victory will come over time, as that network is patiently and steadily dismantled."
Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, speaking to attorneys general and justice ministers from the Organization of American States, meeting in Trinidad, called for collective action against terrorists by lowering barriers to extradition.
"Only the criminals will benefit from restrictions on our ability to cooperate in ensuring that justice is done," Ashcroft said.
Staff writers Susan Levine and Avis Thomas-Lester contributed to this report.
----
Bush Vows to Aid Other Countries in War on Terror
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
New York Times
March 12, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/12/international/12PREX.html
WASHINGTON, March 11 - President Bush declared today that the United States was willing to train and provide military aid to "governments everywhere" for the fight against terrorism and for what he made clear would be battles beyond Afghanistan.
In a forceful speech made six months after the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Bush significantly expanded the commitment of the United States to a global campaign against terrorism, saying America would "actively prepare" other nations for the fight.
"I have set a clear policy in the second stage of the war on terror: America encourages and expects governments everywhere to help remove the terrorist parasites that threaten their own countries and peace of the world," he said at a commemorative ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House. "If governments need training or resources to meet this commitment, America will help."
Mr. Bush's remarks, delivered on a brilliant but cold morning with the Washington diplomatic corps in attendance and the flags of 179 nations behind him, seemed an attempt to reassure nations unsettled by the unilateralist tone of his State of the Union Address on Jan. 29. Today the president reached out to the same allies he had not even mentioned in the earlier speech, praising them as a "mighty coalition of civilized nations" in what appeared to be a calming predicate for action against Iraq.
Mr. Bush thanked 16 nations by name, from Britain to Uzbekistan, and did not distinguish between deaths of allied and American troops. "Each life taken from us is a terrible loss," he said. "We have lost young people from Germany and Denmark and Afghanistan and America. We mourn each one."
Although he did not mention Iraq, he seemed to suggest that action was inevitable against a government that the administration believes is developing weapons of mass destruction.
"Terrorist groups are hungry for these weapons, and would use them without a hint of conscience," Mr. Bush said. "America is now consulting with friends and allies about this greatest of dangers, and we're determined to confront it."
The president added that "our coalition must act deliberately, but inaction is not an option."
Mr. Bush's 20-minute speech - delivered to more than 1,300 diplomats, members of Congress, military officials and relatives of those who died in the Sept. 11 attacks - offered his most definitive outline of the next phase of the campaign against terrorism. His remarks came at a time when some Democrats say they have not been adequately informed about the broadening war and the administration's long-term military goals.
He described American military action in the Philippines and Yemen, and announced that the United States would send 150 military trainers to the former Soviet republic of Georgia, where he said terrorists working with Al Qaeda operate in the Pankisi Gorge near the Russian border.
Mentioning the Philippines - where 500 American troops have been sent to train forces in an effort to stamp out a Muslim extremist group, Abu Sayyaf - Mr. Bush said the United States stood behind President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, "who is courageously opposing the threat of terror."
As for Yemen, where the administration plans to send 100 troops to train the military against terrorists, he said, "We are working to avert the possibility of another Afghanistan." He added that many Qaeda recruits had come from near the Yemen- Saudi border, and that "Al Qaeda may try to reconstitute itself in remote corners of that region."
Mr. Bush did not mention Indonesia, a country that senior American military officials would like to help in rooting out Islamic extremists with possible ties to Al Qaeda.
He once again described the terrorists threatening the United States in frightening terms, but he did not mention the "axis of evil,"either in whole or in part. It was that formulation that so angered allies, including those in Europe, which the White House announced today the president and Mrs. Bush are to visit in May.
"We face an enemy of ruthless ambition, unconstrained by law or morality," he said. "The terrorists despise other religions and have defiled their own. And they are determined to expand the scale and scope of their murder."
He added: "The terror that targeted New York and Washington could strike any center of civilization. Against such an enemy, there is no immunity, and there can be no neutrality."
Democrats generally praised Mr. Bush's speech as a solid overview of what he sees as the task before the United States.
"I think he defined the goals," said Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the majority leader, who a week and a half ago said the administration was expanding the war without a clear explanation of its aims. But the senator added, "I think we still have a lot of work to do in making sure we understand how we reach those goals."
He said his questions were now specifically focused on Mr. Bush's pledge to provide any nation with military training and aid in the campaign against terrorism.
"How do we do that?" Mr. Daschle asked. "What is the cost and the time frame and who are we talking about?"
Mr. Bush spent little time in his remarks on the language of sorrow and loss that marked the speech he gave on Dec. 11, three months after the attacks. "A great writer has said that the struggle of humanity against tyranny is the struggle of memory against forgetting," he said in the opening sentence of that speech.
Today he offered only a paragraph of solace to the victims' families, saying that "each day brings new pain, each day requires new courage," yet "your grace and strength have been an example to our nation." Americans, he added, "will not forget the lives that were taken, and the justice their death requires."
Then he quickly moved on to describe the second phase of the war against terrorism, which he defined as "a sustained campaign to deny sanctuary to terrorists who would threaten our citizens from anywhere in the world." In Afghanistan, he said, "hundreds of trained killers are now dead" as a battle in the Shah-i- Kot Mountains continues.
"And we're winning," Mr. Bush said. "Yet it will not be the last battle in Afghanistan, and there will be other battles beyond that nation."
----
The message from Bush is clear:
War against Saddam is inevitable
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington and Andrew Grice Political Editor
12 March 2002
UK Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=273533 George Bush vowed to wage an unrelenting war against terrorism and the states that sponsored it yesterday, and called on the rest of the "civilised world" to join him.
Speaking at a White House ceremony exactly six months after the devastating attacks on New York and Washington, the American President did not mention Iraq by name, but left no doubt he was determined to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
States that sponsored terrorism were seeking weapons of mass destruction and terrorist groups hungry for these weapons "would use them without a hint of conscience".
The anti-terror coalition had to confront these facts. "They cannot be denied. Inaction is not an option," Mr Bush said.
Dick Cheney, the US Vice- President, warned that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction must be dismantled before President Saddam formed an alliance with al-Qa'ida or other terrorist groups.
Speaking after almost two hours of talks with Tony Blair in London, Mr Cheney said: "We know that clearly, given their past track record, they [Saddam's regime] would use such weapons should they be able to acquire them. We have to be concerned about the potential marriage between a terrorist organisation like al-Qa'ida and those who hold or who are proliferating knowledge about weapons of mass destruction."
However, Downing Street admitted last night there was still no evidence linking Iraq to the 11 September attack.
As Mr Bush addressed an audience of 1,300 dignitaries, including 100 ambassadors in Washington, his resolve was strengthened by a new opinion poll showing Americans united behind him.
A massive 88 per cent endorsed his handling of the war against terrorism, and a large majority of his countrymen supported the dispatch of US troops to carry the war into other countries. More than three quarters of respondents were confident America would not be bogged down in another unwinnable Vietnam.
Mr Bush spoke as the 10-day battle of Shah-i-Kot, the bloodiest of the ground war so far in Afghanistan, was winding down. But, he warned, "Shah-i-kot won't be the last battle in Afghanistan, and there will be other battles beyond Afghanistan."
Every terrorist, he said, "must be made to live as an international fugitive with no place to hide, no government to hide behind and not even a safe place to sleep". The US expected every country to "remove the terrorist parasites that threaten their own countries and the peace of the world". If friendly governments needed help America would provide resources, he promised, citing the Philippines, Georgia and Yemen.
The mission, Mr Bush declared, would only end "when the work is finished", when terror networks of global reach have been destroyed - "and they will be destroyed".
But in contrast to the recent go-it-alone approach in Washington, Mr Bush went out of his way to stress the importance of the international alliance against terrorism. He praised some 20 countries, and referred repeatedly to the "community of civilised nations" engaged in a common struggle.
Mr Blair is believed to have warned the US Vice-President that it was vital to create as wide an international coalition as possible for any action against Iraq.
Mr Cheney told a joint press conference with Mr Blair at Downing Street that if United Nations weapons inspectors were allowed back into Iraq, it would have to be "a go anywhere, anytime" inspection regime.
Mr Cheney, who will also visit 11 Middle East countries, said he would "engage in frank discussions and solicit opinion from our friends and allies". Both Mr Cheney and Mr Blair played down any link between Iraq and the Middle East after warnings that attacking Iraq could undermine efforts to revive the peace process.
The Prime Minister said: "There is a threat from Saddam Hussein and the weapons of mass destruction that he has acquired. It is not in doubt at all. The coalition that we have assembled has acted in a calm and a measured way and this will continue." Downing Street emphasised that no decisions were taken about military action, saying: "It is important to get away from the idea that something is imminent."
The domestic pressures on Mr Blair to act with caution mounted when David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, joined a number of cabinet ministers expressing doubts. He called for an "intelligent debate" about Iraq's weapons and added: "Britain has not only been a good friend [to America] but the best friend and best friends sometimes tell you what you don't want to hear."
----
Special Forces Get High - Tech Gear
March 12, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-High-Tech-Troops.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- When U.S. special forces troops began directing airstrikes in Afghanistan, they quickly discovered they needed different equipment to pinpoint targets.
In less than two weeks, the Pentagon had shipped them high-tech binoculars that use a laser to calculate the precise coordinates of a target, special forces commanders told a Senate panel Tuesday.
``As soon as it was approved, we could go out and buy it,'' said Harry Schulte, the top purchasing executive for the U.S. Special Operations Command.
The war against terrorism has smoothed the way for American commandos to get what they need quickly, Schulte and Gen. Charles Holland, head of the special operations command, told a Senate Armed Services subcommittee.
President Bush's 2003 budget request calls for a 10 percent increase -- about $430 million -- in research and development for special forces, the clandestine operatives who have been at the front lines of the U.S. ground war in Afghanistan.
The budget proposal also calls for a $350 million increase in money to buy equipment for special operations forces soldiers, Schulte said.
The overall budget for special operations forces would rise from $4 billion this year to about $4.9 billion next year under Bush's plan. Both represent about 1.3 percent of the overall Pentagon budget.
Schulte and Holland showed off examples of several of the high-tech gadgets that the commandos use. The new laser range-finder delivered to troops last October looks like an elongated pair of binoculars. A wire from the range-finder attaches to a handheld global positioning system unit that displays the precise coordinates of the target.
The soldiers then use a new radio -- which looks like a common walkie-talkie -- to relay the coordinates directly to the pilots who drop satellite-guided bombs onto the targets. Those new radios replace up to nine separate radios the commandos once had to use to communicate with each other and with aircraft, Holland said.
The radio has seen its first combat use in Afghanistan, where it has been ``exceptionally effective,'' Holland said.
The military is working on a system of robotic explosive sensors to check vehicles entering military bases in Afghanistan and other countries, Schulte said. That system should be ready for use in the next several months, he said.
Special operations forces also are involved in developing several other futuristic technologies, including ``high bandwidth'' communications to quickly transfer large amounts of information. Researchers are looking for ways to make aircraft, vehicles and individual soldiers harder for enemies to detect.
Holland's command is scheduled to take over development of the ``advanced tactical laser,'' a high-energy laser weapon. The special operations forces are also researching ways to develop smaller, more powerful batteries to run all of their high-tech equipment.
``If you're carrying batteries, you're not carrying that much food or water or ammunition,'' Schulte said.
-------- uzbekistan
Uzbekistan's empty promises
Tom Malinowski and Acacia Shields
March 12, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20020312-16892034.htm
President Bush is meeting today with the only world leader who honestly can say he has won the war on terrorism. Uzbekistan's President Islam Karimov, now making his first visit to the White House, is a lucky man. Before September 11, his regime was threatened by a violent al-Qaeda-affiliated group known as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, or IMU, which raided Uzbek territory from Afghanistan under the protection of the Taliban. So Mr. Karimov offered U.S. forces a base to strike at Afghanistan and, more reluctantly, a bridge to bring in relief. Now, thanks to America, IMU fighters in Afghanistan have suffered huge losses.
The IMU's leader, and Mr. Karimov's greatest enemy, was reportedly killed by U.S. bombing. Uzbekistan's ethnic allies in the Northern Alliance have gone from near defeat to a share of power in Kabul. Meanwhile, Uzbekistan's U.S. aid budget has tripled. It has new stature as America's closest ally in Central Asia. While America's war goes on, Uzbekistan's is virtually over. What makes Uzbekistan's triumph awkward for the United States is that it seems to undercut Mr. Bush's pledge that the war will advance freedom. Uzbekistan is a relic of the Soviet past - a place where government opponents are purged, jailed or exiled, where authorities hold Stalin-style public denunciations of "enemies of the state," where dissidents are forced into psychiatric institutions, and where Muslims are jailed and tortured for practicing their faith outside state controls.
Mr. Karimov himself came to power in a flawed election amid the chaos of the Soviet empire's collapse. Before his last "re-election," even his handpicked opponent announced he was voting for the incumbent president. When the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) criticized Uzbek elections, Mr. Karimov offered a charming reply: "The OSCE focuses only on establishment of democracy, the protection of human rights and the freedom of the press. I am now questioning these values."
You might think there is a dilemma here: On the one hand, Uzbekistan is ruled by ruthless people; on the other, the country is vital to America's war effort. Indeed, Uzbekistan helped the United States defeat a state-sponsor of terrorism in Afghanistan. But it is itself a state-spawner of terrorism - a country that denies its people all peaceful avenues for dissent, thus driving opposition underground, into the shadows, right into the hands of radical Islamic groups. Uzbekistan's help in the war must be weighed against the harm these policies do.
To its credit, the Bush administration seems to agree. Elizabeth Jones, the assistant secretary of state responsible for Central Asia, argues: "If the people of this country feel they have no choices, feel they have no voice in determining their parliament, their president . . . [they] are going to find a much more congenial home in extremist organizations." In recent weeks, the administration has pressed Uzbekistan hard to release political prisoners and to open up some space for peaceful political organizations. Just before the summit, it convinced Mr. Karimov to let one of Uzbekistan's banned human rights groups function openly and legally for the first time.
Still, with U.S. aid flowing unconditionally, Mr. Karimov probably believes he can avoid more fundamental change. The administration has not tied the millions it is pouring into Uzbekistan to specific demands because it hopes aid will do good, strengthening education, health care and civil society. But the aid, much of which in fact goes to the Uzbek military, could just as easily help Mr. Karimov delay tough political and economic reforms. It could associate America with another abusive regime in the Muslim world.
The key is to link U.S. engagement directly to U.S. concerns about human rights. For example, Mr. Karimov has asked the United States to make its military bases in Uzbekistan permanent. The Pentagon has expressed little interest. But the administration should not give up its leverage by rejecting Mr. Karimov's offer outright. It should tell him bluntly that the nature of its security partnership will depend on his progress in ending human rights abuses and openness to political change.
Above all, the administration should not allow Mr. Karimov to keep playing on America's gratitude for his role in the war. Uzbekistan's president helped America in his own self-interest and benefited from the war more than any other U.S. ally. Meanwhile, his repression continues to threaten America's interests by alienating peaceful Muslim believers in a region where terrorist groups may still be looking for recruits.
Mr. Bush should make clear today that Uzbekistan owes America more than a base and a bridge. If Mr. Karimov is serious about helping defeat terrorism, he owes his people, America, and the world a more open society.
Tom Malinowski is Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. Acacia Shields, the group's Central Asia researcher, lived in Uzbekistan from 1999-2001.
-------- propaganda wars
On Pro-Kremlin Site, All News Is Good News
Putin Takes Media Strategy to Internet
By Sharon LaFraniere
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, March 12, 2002; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A10913-2002Mar11?language=printer
MOSCOW -- The government has had an extremely successful two years. The number of poor people has fallen. The currency is stable. Peace is taking hold in a war-torn region.
Headlines such as these are a rare treat for the leaders of most countries. President Vladimir Putin, however, can find them any day on strana.ru, a pro-Kremlin Internet site. So, hopes the Kremlin, will Russian citizens.
As Russia slowly embraces the West's computer-driven lifestyle, strana.ru represents the Kremlin's attempt to establish a presence on the information highway. It is part of an overall Kremlin media strategy -- a strategy critics say is transforming parts of Russia's once-feisty broadcast media into bland mouthpieces for the state.
The Kremlin's information war has already claimed two national independent television stations.
A state-controlled natural gas monopoly last spring seized control of the popular NTV television network, while a state-connected shareholder managed to put TV-6 out of business this year using an obscure, now-defunct statute aimed at shutting down nonprofitable companies. A daily newspaper that was part of the NTV empire also went under.
Strana.ru and its ilk are the flip side of that trend. Secure in its niche as the Kremlin's unofficial voice on the Internet, the Web site has 500 employees as well as branches in almost all of Russia's 89 regions. Its owners -- a group of businesses whose identities have never been disclosed -- are considering expanding from the Internet to radio and television.
Strana.ru is a private project, but some would argue only in name. As in much of Russia governance, the distinction between public and private is heavily blurred in a project that marries political power with business interests.
The Web site was conceived in the Kremlin, according to former officials, and funded by business leaders who wanted to be considered the Kremlin's friends. Their goal is not to make a profit, but to put out Putin's message on the Internet, according to Marina Litvinovich, general director of strana.ru.
"It is not a business project," she said. "It's a political project. The idea is to support Russian authorities and the Russian president."
The Web site has been at least moderately successful with both the public and the Kremlin -- t -- although Kremlin officials have hinted they want it to be simpler and more positive. More than 25,000 people accessed the site one day in February -- less than one-third as many as visited Russia's leading Internet news site that day, rbc.ru, run by RosBusinessConsulting, a Russian technology firm that provides online news and other information services, including e-mail. But it was 22 times as many as typically log onto the government's official site, gov.ru.
One recent headline on strana.ru gives its flavor: "Vladimir Putin: Raising people's well-being must be politicians' primary goal."
If the number of hits on the Web site is relatively low, the potential audience is growing rapidly. An estimated 10 million people in Russia use the Internet. That's just 7 percent of the population, compared to more than 60 percent of Americans and 39 percent of Europeans. But it is six times as many Russians as logged on in 1998. And in political terms, Russia's Internet visitors are an important group -- mostly well-educated, with above-average salaries.
Thanks to strana.ru's investors, the Kremlin now has a channel to these readers. Without knowing who the investors are, it is hard to speculate about what favors they might want in return.
What is clear is that their project is part of a Kremlin response to Vladimir Gusinsky and Boris Berezovsky, two tycoons -- and enemies of Putin -- who until recently controlled the most important independent media outlets in Russia.
The Kremlin argues, with some justification, that both men grossly abused their media power to advance business aims and to savage political enemies. Gleb Pavlovsky, the Kremlin's astute political consultant, cites Berezovsky's recent allegation that the Federal Security Service engineered the 1999 bombings of apartments in Moscow and elsewhere, killing more than 300 people, to bolster support for a Russian war to subdue separatist Chechnya.
"We have to recall the psychological state of people who at the end of the nineties had to watch and listen how they were accused of blowing up buildings in Moscow," Pavlovsky said. "They did not have any opportunity to refute it. They didn't know how to professionally conduct an information war."
Critics argue that the Kremlin was no victim. Putin simply fails to understand that it is not the mission of the media to help the government, said Alexei Venediktov, an influential radio journalist. Venediktov is the chief editor of Ekho Moskvy, arguably Russia's most influential radio station, but says he is resigning because the state has taken over ownership.
"The president is just trying to justify shutting down the independent press," he said.
Strana.ru, named after the Russian word for country, was part of the Kremlin's counterattack. Former Kremlin officials said Pavlovsky was the natural choice to run it.
By the time Putin was elected president in March 2000, Pavlovsky had already established himself as an Internet leader, overseeing a smorgasbord of Web sites that included one of Russia's most successful web portals, lenta.ru.
"The choice was either to create a new division inside the administration or use the ready-made, serious team outside the government," said Igor Zadorin, a former aide in the office of presidential administration. "It was the state's decision to open the site. Pavlovsky was just the one to execute the concept."
By September 2000, six months after Putin's election, strana.ru was ready to go online. Pavlovsky said he recruited the investors, who still provide most of the financing.
Few doubt the financiers' government connections. "It's not government funds," said Anton Nosik, editor in chief of lenta.ru. "But you know how it works in Russia. You can just tell some oil company, put your money here, or there, and you will get this return."
Pavlovsky said he wants to give up the management of strana.ru, and that its ownership may also turn over. He said he is tired of the investors and government ministers or their underlings complaining to him about news items, and wants to return full time to his real love, political consulting, for the Kremlin and other clients.
Some political consultants say Pavlovsky is under pressure not just from cabinet ministers, but from the higher echelons of the Kremlin, where some officials want only the government's viewpoint to be presented.
Editors of other media Web sites say pro-government sites such as strana.ru will never present serious competition. Said Nosik: "There are not too many people on the Internet who love being brainwashed, and who create a demand for propaganda."
Nor could the Russian government do much to control Internet news, Internet experts say. Even if it shut down a Web site -- a fairly easy matter -- the owner could simply reopen it using an international or Western domain such as .com. The Russian government's power to regulate Russian owners of Web sites in such domains is open to debate.
Still, given what happened to the major independent television stations, editors of some Internet media sites say they are on guard.
"Today, we do not really feel interference," said Nosik. "That's because they haven't started yet. Ever since Mr. Putin has been in the picture, there has been an urge to control the mass media. They are just not ready to come for us yet."
Dmitri Orlov, deputy director of the Center for Political Technologies, which conducts political analysis, said he doesn't censor the material he puts on the center's Web site of political news. Still, he said, "All mass media sources should be very careful when they talk about the Kremlin."
TV-6's demise shows the state has the tools to crush any media outlet, he said. "We should all keep that in mind," he said.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS
FBI will open office in China
Around the Nation
March 12, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020312-89497779.htm
As part of an agreement reached during President Bush's visit to Beijing last month, the FBI plans to open a field office in China to coordinate crime-fighting efforts in that country.
Thomas Fuentes, who heads the bureau's organized crime section, told the American Bar Association's standing committee on law and national security that one or two agents will staff the office as early as next month. The FBI has 44 overseas offices with about 150 agents, known as legal attaches.
"We've been very close to having this office open over there," Mr. Fuentes said, and the key areas of concern will be organized crime, human trafficking, fraud and counterterrorism - along with security concerns related to the 2008 Olympics planned for China.
----
Ridge Unveils New Alert System
By Scott Lindlaw
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, March 12, 2002; 1:02 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A14121-2002Mar12?language=printer
WASHINGTON -- Unveiling a color-coded terrorism warning system, domestic security chief Tom Ridge said Tuesday the nation is on yellow alert - facing a "significant risk" of danger but not the highest stage.
The five-level system is a response to public complaints that broad terror alerts issued by the government since the Sept. 11 attacks raised alarm without providing useful guidance.
The lowest-status warning is green, followed by blue, yellow, orange and red as the perceived dangers intensify.
Ridge said he hopes America is some day on the lowest level of alert, "but I certainly think it's years away." He said the United States faces the "permanent possibility" of terrorist attack.
In a series of public events, Ridge outlined the stages of alert and how government agencies should respond:
-Green is a low risk of terrorist attack.
-Blue is a general risk, and agencies are asked to review and update emergency response procedures.
-Yellow is an "elevated condition," meaning there is a significant risk of attack. Increased surveillance of critical locations and implementing some emergency response plans are called for.
-Orange signifies a high risk of attack, meaning the government should coordinate necessary security efforts with armed forces or law enforcement agencies and take additional precautions at public events.
-Red means a "severe risk" of attack and may require the pre-positioning of especially trained teams, closing public and government facilities and monitoring transportation systems.
America is at yellow alert because the al-Qaida terrorist network is trying to re-form after defeats in Afghanistan and has trained thousands of terrorists, some of whom have likely slipped into the United States, Ridge said.
Hundreds of local police agencies were being notified Tuesday of the yellow alert as well as what the color-coded system entails. The government has issued four ill-defined warnings since Sept. 11.
The alert system is in force immediately for federal agencies, and Ridge is urging state and local governments to adopt it, too. It will be subject to a 45-day comment period, after which it probably will be revised.
Ridge is not legally empowered to impose the new system on state and local governments or on private entities. In a speech to the National League of Cities, he implored officials from around the nation to adopt it.
"Unless we work together so that we have a seamless strategy through the state and down to the local government, I'm afraid we won't be as strong as we need to be to confront what I consider to be a permanent condition that we as a country need to accept as a fact of life," Ridge said.
As threats are assessed, the warning level can be upgraded for the entire country or for specific regions and economic sectors - such as the nuclear industry, Ridge said. The system is intended to ensure that local governments prepare citizens, emergency response teams and the private sector for various threats, he said.
"We felt it was necessary to come up with a permanent mechanism to deal with the permanent possibility - the permanent potential - of terrorist attack," Ridge told reporters at a briefing in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.
Later, he said the system will provide a common vocabulary for citizens and government officials to react to threats.
"It empowers the government and citizens to take actions to address the threat. For every level of threat there will be a level of preparedness," Ridge told government officials in a speech a few blocks from the White House.
However, Ridge and other U.S. officials conceded the system does not tell private citizens how to respond to threats. Instead, the program was designed to motivate local governments to develop plans that will guide the actions of residents.
"There is no prescription we can write out and give to our communities," Ridge said.
He said the public will be notified of alert level changes in almost all cases, with the only exception being when the information might hinder police from catching a terrorist suspect.
There are various alert systems currently in place - for functions ranging from transportation to the weather - and President Bush ordered a review that will place them under a single federal framework. Attorney General John Ashcroft will assign threat conditions in consultation with Ridge.
Ridge said citizens and government officials will welcome a unified system, even if it leads to red-level warnings. "I think the greatest danger is of the unknown," he said.
On the Net:
Office of Homeland Security: www.homelandsecurity.gov
League of Cities: http://www.nlc.org
----
Cops, vigilantes deter Zimbabwe voters
By Nicole Itano
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
March 12, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020312-31555654.htm
HARARE, Zimbabwe - Police and vigilantes loyal to President Robert Mugabe chased thousands of voters away from polling stations yesterday at the close of a presidential election marred by charges of fraud and intimidation.
The action came as the Zimbabwe High Court rejected an opposition demand that polling be extended for a fourth day.
Police also detained four American diplomats, who were attempting to monitor the election, for five hours.
In addition, they arrested a high-ranking official of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the opposition party trying to unseat Mr. Mugabe.
Yesterday marked the end of a chaotic three days of voting that marked the most serious challenge ever to Mr. Mugabe's 22-year presidency.
Throughout the campaign, government supporters targeted MDC candidate Morgan Tsvangirai and his supporters. The election was to have ended Sunday night, but the High Court extended it for a day after hundreds of thousands of voters had yet to cast ballots.
Many had waited in line for more than 48 hours since polls opened on Friday.
"They chased us away," said one angry voter who refused to give his name because the police who closed the poll still lingered nearby.
"I'm very angry because it is my right to vote. I want to vote."
The number of polling stations in the capital of Harare, an opposition stronghold, had been slashed in what opposition leaders said was a blatant attempt to disenfranchise opposition voters.
Despite the court order keeping polls open yesterday, officials delayed the opening until midday and then closed them promptly at 7 p.m.
At some polls, as many as a thousand voters were still waiting to cast their votes when police shut the stations down.
Overall, 2.7 million of the nation's 5.6 million registered voters, or 48 percent, cast ballots by Sunday night, the government said. The opposition said the overall turnout figures were suspect and intended to guarantee Mr. Mugabe's re-election.
Police used tear gas and batons to drive away voters at at least one polling station. Shots were reportedly fired at another.
But in most places crowds dispersed without incident, in some cases chanting the MDC slogan: "Change, Change, Change," as they left.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Tsvangirai called on supporters to wait peacefully for an announcement of the results, which are expected late today or tomorrow.
"Let us first wait peacefully for your votes to be cast and counted," he said. "As you wait for the results, do not succumb to their provocative traps. I know they are trying very hard to provoke you."
----
Denver Police Keeping Illegal Files
March 12, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Police-Surveillance.html
DENVER (AP) -- The American Civil Liberties Union has accused the Denver Police Department of keeping illegal files on peaceful protest groups including Amnesty International and the Nobel Peace Prize-winning American Friends Service Committee.
The ACLU's Colorado legal director, Mark Silverstein, showed reporters files he said came from the police department.
Silverstein wouldn't say how he obtained the files. He said they were marked as permanent, not simply reports that would be discarded at the end of the day.
``These are a small sampling of documents we have that show Denver police are monitoring peaceful protest activities of individuals and law-abiding groups,'' he said at a news conference Monday.
The ACLU has asked the mayor to stop all monitoring, make all files available to their subjects and have police disclose who has been given the information, Silverstein said. He threatened to sue if the practice isn't stopped.
Andrew Hudson, spokesman for Mayor Wellington Webb, said Webb had asked police for a full report to answer the group's concerns.
``The mayor thinks their concerns are legitimate,'' Hudson said.
Denver Public Safety Department spokeswoman C.L. Harmer said police would comply with the mayor's request.
Stephen B. Nash, who was identified in one of the files as an event organizer for Amnesty International, said police could not say the files were needed for security because of the Sept. 11 attacks.
``My file goes back to 2000, well before Sept. 11,'' Nash said.
The American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group, ``acts in the best tradition of nonviolence,'' said Barry Leaman-Miller, who was identified in one file as a member of the ``American Friends Service Committee (criminal extremist G).''
There was no immediate explanation for the ``criminal extremist'' note.
Harmer said people named in the files were not considered criminals and the files were collected because legal gatherings are sometimes the scene of illegal actions.
``Law-abiding groups sponsoring lawful assemblies can be unwitting magnets for unlawful activity,'' she said.
``If you go to a peaceful demonstration, is your name going to come up when you get a traffic ticket? The answer is no, because the data isn't shared,'' she said. ``I don't think this is a retreat to the era of J. Edgar Hoover.''
Harmer said that although the intelligence-gathering started before the terrorist attacks, the attacks illustrated the need for such files.
Among the events mentioned in the files were a protest of an Italian-led parade honoring Columbus, protests of a killing by a police SWAT team that went to the wrong house, protests against the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, and demonstrations by the Chiapas Coalition against alleged civil rights violations in Mexico's poorest state.
``This is really outrageous to me ... since Sept. 11 immigration equals terrorism,'' said Luis Espinosa, a member of the Chiapas group.
-------- terrorism
Man charged with storing deadly cyanide
The Associated Press
03/12/2002 - Updated 12:20 PM ET
USA TODAY
http://usatoday.com/news/nation/2002/03/12/cyanide.htm
CHICAGO (AP) - A homeless man charged with storing deadly cyanide in part of Chicago's downtown subway system was known as "Dr. Chaos" in Wisconsin, where he had fled charges of vandalizing utility systems, authorities said.
Joseph Konopka, 25, formerly of De Pere, Wis., was charged in federal court Monday with possession of a chemical weapon.
Authorities said Konopka was carrying a vial containing one gram of sodium cyanide when he and a 15-year-old were arrested Saturday in a utility tunnel at the University of Illinois-Chicago, where officers had set up a stakeout because of a series of burglaries.
The juvenile told FBI agents that Konopka had taken over an area in a Chicago Transit Authority underground passageway to store chemicals, authorities said.
Police shut down parts of the city's two subway tunnels, and officers wearing self-contained breathing suits searched the tunnels for three hours Saturday night. Federal agents said they found almost a pound of sodium cyanide and four ounces of potassium cyanide in a storage room under Chicago's downtown Loop district, a block from the federal courthouse.
The FBI said Konopka, a former systems administrator for a computer firm in Green Bay, Wis., claims to be the leader of a Wisconsin group of vandals known as the "Realm of Chaos."
"What we're looking at is someone who styles himself as an anarchist, as a domestic terrorist, who tries to live up to his computer moniker, which is Dr. Chaos," said Tim Funnell, district attorney of Door County, Wis.
U.S. Magistrate Edward Bobrick ordered Konopka held pending a hearing Wednesday.
Officials said the cyanide compounds could be combined with other substances to release toxic cyanide gas, but they played down the threat to the public.
"Our public transportation unit has walked every inch of the rapid transit lines in the subway and have not found anything that was unusual other than what the FBI confiscated the other night," Police Superintendent Terry Hillard said.
"It is a serious situation, but we don't want to blow it out of proportion so that people are afraid to ride the subway," said U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald.
The FBI alleged that Konopka kept a stolen laptop computer that he used to access networks without permission using a wireless modem.
Authorities also said they found burglary tools and a digital camera used to take pictures of the university tunnels. Konopka also had sketches of elevated train stations, a Global Positioning System device and a scanner tuned to Commonwealth Edison frequencies, the Chicago Tribune reported Tuesday, citing police sources it did not name.
It is alleged that Konopka told the FBI that, beginning in the spring of 1997, he was involved in various acts of property damage to utilities, cellular telephone facilities, sewers, power stations and water utility facilities.
He was being sought on more than a dozen warrants in Wisconsin. Last year, he appeared in court charged with damaging an electrical switch that caused brownouts in the small town of Algoma, Wis. He also was charged in Shawano County, Wis., with opening a valve at a natural gas facility and trying to ignite the escaping gas.
In 1996, when he was 19, Konopka was convicted and sentenced to 10 months in jail and three years probation for trying to break into cars, crashing his car into garages and tearing down mailboxes and lampposts.
His grandmother, Marian Konopka of De Pere, said she was surprised by the charges. "Anything else that boy ever did, he never did anything to harm anybody," she said.
--------
Terror War Glance
March 12, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Terror-War-Glance.html
Some places the United States is expanding the terror war:
YEMEN: A U.S. military advance team is in Yemen to lay plans for U.S. special forces to train local troops to fight terrorism. The United States also will provide equipment and advice. Yemeni officials say they also want boats and help building a new naval training facility to bolster security along the 1,500-mile coastline.
GEORGIA: Administration officials say they are thinking of sending 100 to 200 U.S. soldiers to provide anti-terrorist training in the former Soviet republic. A military advance team was there last month to prepare.
PHILIPPINES: About 600 American troops already are in the Philippines training local forces who are fighting Abu Sayyaf Muslim, a radical group with some ties to the al-Qaida.
MALAYSIA: Adm. Dennis Blair, the head of Pacific Command, has said the United States will look for ways to focus ongoing exercises, such as those each year with Malaysia, on scenarios to fight terrorism.
INDONESIA: Most U.S. military ties are currently barred because of human rights concerns, but Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz recently said those restrictions should be reviewed. Indonesia is eligible for a counterterrorism training program for officers in Southeast Asian armies, recently approved by Congress.
SOMALIA: The U.S. government has increased surveillance flights in recent months, and intelligence officers have also made contact with clan leaders as potential allies. U.S. officials say Somalia is a possible destination for Osama bin Laden or other al-Qaida leaders who might flee Afghanistan.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
INTERVIEW - Cost casts dark shadow on UK solar power
REUTERS
Matthew Jones
12/3/2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14967/newsDate/12-Mar-2002/story.htm
LONDON - Cloudy, grey and wet Britain may not be the ideal place to install solar power, but it is not the climate which is holding back the UK's solar power industry, the head of Britain's photovoltaic association told Reuters.
"Although photovoltaic (PV) cells work best with plenty of sunlight you can operate them in quite poor climates," Rod Hacker said. "Norway has one of the biggest markets, with people installing pv cells in their holiday homes for summer use."
It is a cycle of high costs, poor demand and a lack of aggresive government backing that keeps Britain so far behind its competitors in the sector, Hacker said, although that picture is slowly changing.
British installed PV capacity in 2000 was about two megawatts, a tiny amount given that a medium-sized power station produces about 500 megawatts.
Although British PV use is rising, the volume remains low.
"Last year in Britain the installation of solar cells rose by about 50 percent. But that increase is on a very small starting point," Hacker said.
In constrast to the poor take-up of PV in Britain, largely attributable to its high cost - a typical household PV system would cost about 10,000-12,000 pounds and take years to pay its way - other countries have aggressively encouraged solar power.
"Japan installed 100 megawatts of capacity last year while Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland are all pushing ahead. The U.S. also has a big programme," he said.
UK KNOW-HOW
Despite having little PV installed in the UK, many British firms have led the way in the development of the technology which is over one hundred years old.
"Britain actually has a good reputation in the photovoltaic (PV) world even if we do not have much installed ourselves," Hacker said.
Although companies like BP Solar , Royal Dutch/Shell and glass maker Pilkington are among the world-leaders in the field, there is only one major UK manufacturer, Intersolar.
"British firms are making PV systems, but there are making them abroad," said Hacker.
He said he believed a lack of domestic demand was a significant factor in dissuading companies from investing in local PV manfuacturing.
Hacker said while PV was unlikely in the near term to compete on a commercial footing with other fuel types in Britain, the global market for solar cells was growing at 25 percent per year, creating a one billion pound per annum industry.
After a tentative start, Hacker said there were signs UK government interest in solar was growing as concern about global warming and greenhouse gas emissions increases.
"Until 1993 the (British) government was not interested at all, then some money was put into research," he said.
A number of field trials are underway and government money is being invested in pilot housing schemes in order to see how easy it would be to get the technology integrated into the building industry.
"There are quite a number of programmes underway, some of them with government backing," said Hacker who added the government was opting for a grant-aided system to kick-start the industry.
Hacker said change was still needed to continue to bring the cost of PV down and to make connecting to the national grid easier so that homes generating a surplus of power would be able to export.
-------- environment
White House proposes fish settlement
Around the Nation
March 12, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020312-89497779.htm
The Bush administration is seeking to end temporarily habitat protections for 19 populations of salmon and steelhead in four Western states. The move could open the areas to greater development.
In a proposed settlement entered in federal court yesterday, the National Marine Fisheries Service said it will eliminate and then revise the protections to settle lawsuits filed by the Association of California Water Agencies, National Association of Home Builders and 16 other groups of developers and local governments.
-------- human rights
ADS LINK HUMAN, ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS
March 12, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-12-09.html
WASHINGTON, DC, A new national advertising campaign targeting college students highlights the connection between human rights violations and environmental degradation worldwide.
Sierra Club and Amnesty International USA are sponsoring the campaign, produced by San Francisco based ad firm Collaborate, who worked on MTV's Rock the Vote campaign. The ads, which will appear in nine college newspapers coast to coast, are made to resemble bulletin board items, with banners like "Help Wanted", or "Need Extra Cash?"
Closer inspection reveals that the ads spotlight citizens in nations around the world who have been jailed, beaten, tortured and even murdered for their efforts to defend the environment.
"This ad campaign will connect students and local grassroots activists already working on this campaign with individuals and groups that want to join in holding corporations responsible for their human rights records," said Heidi Craig, an Amnesty International vounteer leader in Seattle and a lead organizer on the campaign. "Whether you hear this message on your radio or read it in your college paper, it is a challenge to take action to defend the people who defend the earth."
The ads urge support for the International Right to Know initiative, which would help provide long term institutional support for environmentalists by giving communities access to information on the environmental practices of foreign corporations doing business in the U.S.
"International Right to Know is a major step towards reversing a vicious cycle of environmental degradation and human rights abuse, by building accountability and transparency in the global economy, while empowering communities with information," said Sam Parry of the Sierra Club. "But it won't be achieved unless U.S. citizens, with students at the forefront, demand that global trade be green, fair, and open."
The International Right To Know initiative is supported by more than 200 human rights, labor, environmental, and faith-based organizations around the country. It would require U.S. companies doing business overseas to make public the same or similar information on their foreign operations that they must now disclose when they operate at home.
In addition to newspaper ads, the campaign also includes an interactive website, flyers, Email updates, and radio public service announcements, which are being distributed across the nation. More information on the campaign is available at: http://www.defendtheearth.org
-------- imf / world bank
World Bank Answers Skeptics on Aid
Report Says Assistance Is More Effective Today Than It Has Ever Been
By Paul Blustein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 12, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A10779-2002Mar11?language=printer
Seeking to rebut claims by the Bush administration and other critics that foreign aid usually goes to waste, the World Bank plans to issue a report next week asserting that aid has worked particularly well during the past decade, partly because the bank and other donors have learned from their mistakes.
"The past 50 years have seen remarkable successes, as well as failures, in development assistance," said an executive summary of the report released yesterday. "Better policies in developing countries, together with improved allocation of aid since the end of the Cold War, imply that aid is more effective today at reducing poverty than ever before."
The World Bank report is the latest salvo in a battle over whether to increase aid to poor countries, and it is clearly aimed at influencing a United Nations conference on financing for development that President Bush is scheduled to attend next week in Monterrey, Mexico. But critics were quick to blast the report's evidence as faulty, underscoring the obstacles that aid advocates face in persuading the United States and other rich countries to donate more.
A major reason for the report is to answer criticism leveled by Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill, who charges that most poor countries have reaped paltry benefits from the tens of billions of dollars they have received in the post-World War II era. O'Neill rejects proposals by World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown to double the $50 billion in aid currently flowing from rich countries to poor.
The report blames the Cold War for many of the disappointments of the past, asserting that all too often "aid allocations were driven by geopolitical aims rather than by poverty-reduction goals." The report also acknowledges that donors failed to appreciate how easily their efforts at development could go awry; for example, they gave money to governments that weren't genuinely committed to economic reform, and they "underestimated the importance of governance" -- that is, the existence of relatively uncorrupted, well-run bureaucracies and courts.
The report cites six "high-performing" developing countries where, according to the bank, "development assistance has played an important -- even crucial, in some cases -- catalytic and supportive role."
In China, "the World Bank was a trusted advisor and helped lay the foundation for the private investment and productivity growth that has buoyed the country's remarkable progress," the report said. In India, when a reformist government came to power in 1991, "the Bank provided support for fiscal and trade reforms to stabilize and open up the economy." In Uganda, the government adopted major policy reforms in the late 1980s and early 1990s that were backed by aid and World Bank loan conditions; "since that period, Uganda has achieved a remarkable recovery" during which income poverty dropped from 56 percent in 1992-93 to 35 percent in 2000.
The report also cited Poland, Vietnam and Mozambique as places where similar results had been achieved.
But critics dismissed those findings as overblown. "They selected those countries because they include the low-income countries with the highest growth rates," said William Easterly, an economist who recently left the World Bank after writing a book documenting the failings of aid in the postwar decades. "Unfortunately, those are not the countries with the highest amounts of aid, at least measured by how important aid is in their economies." In other words, aid played a relatively small role in those economies' growth.
According to Easterly, who is now at the Center for Global Development, a Washington think tank, aid to China was worth only 0.4 percent of its gross domestic product during the 1980s and 1990s, and aid to India was only 0.7 percent of its GDP. Poland got 1.5 percent of its GDP in aid, but that was far less than other former Soviet bloc countries whose economies have shrunk over the past decade including Moldova, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Aid to Vietnam was 4 percent of its GDP in recent years, but that is still below average for all low-income countries, Easterly said. As for Mozambique and Uganda, "it's true they did get a lot of aid and had rapid growth," he said, "but of course there are also 54 countries classified as low income by the World Bank that averaged zero per capita growth, and it's not so convenient to mention countries like Zambia, which got tons of aid and had minus 2 percent growth in the '90s."
Still, the report said that the bank and other donors have improved their results by funneling more aid to countries with good policies "that can use it well."
In 1990, countries with "better" policies and institutions (as rated by the bank) received $39 per capita in aid, while those with "worse" policies received $44 per capita. "By the late 1990s, the situation was reversed: better-policy countries received $28 per capita, or almost twice as much as the worse-policy countries ($16 per capita)," the report said.
-------- ACTIVISTS
[See also: ICE Stockholder Action - http://prop1.org/ice/icelv.htm - et]
GE shareholder group calls on company to exit nuclear business
REUTERS USA:
March 12, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14965/newsDate/12-Mar-2002/story.htm
NEW YORK - A shareholder group demanded General Electric Co., the world's largest company by market value, to exit the nuclear power business because of the financial and environmental costs.
"GE's commitment to a declining industry with growing risk is contrary to the interests of GE shareholders and the public," the GE Stockholders' Alliance said in a proposal listed in the company's 2001 annual statement.
The group asked for the company's management to issue a report in four months on the feasibility of withdrawing from the production of new nuclear power reactors and the decommission of GE reactors currently on line. The group recommended, however, for GE to continue servicing reactors still in use.
The report will assist shareholders and management in bringing GE to a "high moral ground of corporate responsibility and leadership", the group said in the proxy statement.
Final voting on the proposal, which was mailed out to shareholders today, will take place at the company's annual meeting on April 24, Fairfield, Connecticut-based GE said. The proposal has been around for several years, a company spokesman said, and last year got 6 percent of the votes.
GE's board of directors recommended shareholders to vote against the proposal. A company spokesman said GE did not have any additional background information on the shareholder group.
----
Exposing Your Superiors For the Bunch of Rapacious, Lying Weasels That They Are
By Susan Orenstein,
April 2002 Issue,
Business 2.0
http://www.business2.com/articles/mag/0,1640,38658|2,00.html
A Practical Guide: Would you be ready to blow the whistle?
Tell us: http://www.business2.com/comp/0,2107,328|102,00.html
Back in 1995, Mark Graf, a security specialist at the Rocky Flats nuclear facility outside Denver, became alarmed about the temporary removal of 450 kilograms of plutonium oxide from a vaultlike room to a "soft room" protected by drywall that you could punch a hole through. "It was insane," says Graf, who was ordered to help install a temporary alarm system in case anyone tried to steal the radioactive material. "I'm talking 1,000 pounds of plutonium," he says. For comparison, it took 10 pounds of plutonium to make the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.
So Graf spoke up to his superiors. And soon there were few moments when he wasn't thinking about Rocky Flats. He wasn't sleeping. He became obsessed with doomsday scenarios. He penned letter after letter. He sought out lawyers. He started taping many of his conversations. He burned through $15,000 of his own savings. His wife threatened to leave him. In short, he had become a typical whistle-blower.
The Enron scandal, replete with one executive after another claiming to have known nothing of the company's devious accounting, has sparked a celebration of whistle-blowers -- particularly Sherron Watkins, the former Enron employee whose nationally televised congressional testimony brilliantly eviscerated that company's top executives. But being a whistle-blower has more to do with stamina than stage presence. Long before folks like Graf and Watkins catch the media's attention, they grapple with complex feelings about work and loyalty and confront a slew of practical decisions about whom to trust, how to protect themselves against retaliation, and when to go public. It can be a grueling, emotionally difficult path, but if you feel compelled to flag an injustice, Graf's story may hold invaluable lessons -- and even a smidgen of hope.
First of all, forget the Norma Rae images of an outspoken crusader. Whistle-blowers tend not to be rebels or reformers; strangely enough, they can be corporate loyalists who genuinely look for the company to remedy ills. Graf fits that profile. He grew up in a suburb of Denver and was "very close to law enforcement," as he says. (His best friend's father was the local sheriff.) "I was a Young Republican, for God's sake," Graf says.
No matter how deeply you may believe in God, country, and your company, do your homework before you lurch forward with complaints. Find out how other gadflies have been treated by your organization in the past. Seek advice from a professional, such as an advocacy group or attorney. The toughest call can be whether to take your gripes to the higher-ups or to go straight to a law enforcement agency -- or even the press. Graf started on the inside, where he quickly encountered resistance. But most experts say that this is the preferred route; it gives you more credibility in the long run and allows the organization a chance to respond.
If the insider path doesn't work, it's time for tougher tactics -- which is where we enter real whistle-blower country. Graf was lucky enough to find an ally in a higher-up who shared his concerns. Together they wrote a letter to then-Congressman David Skaggs of Colorado; although it prompted an investigation by the Department of Energy, the probe largely failed to substantiate Graf's claims. His lawyers called the investigation a "whitewash."
Graf wanted to do more about the plutonium security problems but now faced the inevitable risk of reprisal that comes with whistle-blowing. In 1996, his company gave him a 12-hour shift and forced him to work 260 overtime hours without pay, according to a lawsuit he later filed against Wackenhut Services, the private security firm that employs him at Rocky Flats. He eventually brought the security breaches to the attention of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board and spoke to the press.
In January 1998, Wackenhut put Graf on administrative leave (he was still being paid) and forced him to see three government shrinks because of a "preoccupation with security safeguards," his court documents say. By this time his family was falling apart too. "I wish I had woken up a little sooner and taken care of my family," Graf says.
So where's the smidgen of hope? Graf's measure of vindication came when a judge reinstated him and awarded him $5,000. And Rocky Flats -- where Graf is still employed -- has taken steps to beef up security, such as installing night-vision devices, which should help until the facility is shut down in 2006. Was it all worth it? Asked if he would do it all over again, Graf responds, "In a heartbeat."
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Falun Gong Activists Irk Beijing by Filing Human Rights Lawsuits in American Courts
Fight Over Banned Chinese Group Moves to U.S.
By John Pomfret
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, March 12, 2002; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A10930-2002Mar11?language=printer
BEIJING, March 11 -- The Chinese government and the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement have taken their two-year-old battle to the United States, using American courts and city halls as part of their struggle at home.
In recent months, Falun Gong activists have sued four senior Chinese officials, including the mayor of Beijing, for allegedly ordering the violation of human rights, torture and death of Falun Gong practitioners in China. The plaintiffs, who served the officials with papers during visits to the United States, relied in part on an obscure U.S. law from 1789, originally used to combat piracy, to seek redress for human rights violations committed in China.
The practice has so irritated the Chinese government that it recently asked the Bush administration to help stop the suits. U.S. officials responded they were powerless to do so, an argument Chinese legal experts reject. The Chinese have placed the issue on the agenda of law enforcement talks that begin Tuesday in Washington.
For their part, Chinese diplomats in the United States have written hundreds of letters to mayors around the country urging them to cancel local Falun Gong commemorations or to rescind proclamations in favor of the spiritual group. Falun Gong practitioners in the United States claim that on several occasions Chinese officials have threatened them or their relatives in China, although independent corroboration was impossible. Baltimore, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Decatur, Ill., and Westland, Mich., among others, have rescinded proclamations issued on behalf of Falun Gong. Earlier this year, Utah reneged on a decision to declare Jan. 8 Falun Gong Day after a meeting with Chinese government representatives.
Chinese officials failed to stop Salt Lake City officials from allowing Falun Gong practitioners to exercise in a public park during the Winter Olympics. Chinese officials have also used their connections in Chinatowns across the United States to attempt to ban Falun Gong adherents from marching in parades or participating in other organized activities.
The movement of the battle over Falun Gong to the United States marks an important escalation in China's struggle with the group, whose leader, Li Hongzhi, has lived in the United States since 1995. China has issued an international warrant for his arrest and has asked Interpol, the international police coordination agency, to help capture him. Interpol has declined to help.
Falun Gong is a Buddhist-like practice that combines exercise and meditation with a cosmology involving aliens and flying humans. Falun practitioners say their goal is self-improvement. China banned the group in July 1999 after 10,000 practitioners surrounded the Communist Party headquarters here. The government subsequently passed legislation imposing strict penalties for membership in an "evil cult."
China's president, Jiang Zemin, particularly detests the organization, according to Chinese sources. In addition, the Communist Party leadership traditionally has worried about any group capable of organizing people outside the party.
Falun Gong activists claim that Chinese security forces have killed hundreds of Falun Gong followers during the campaign to crush the group. At least 10,000 more have been incarcerated in labor camps and jails.
In recent months, Falun Gong activists in China have changed tactics. Foreign Falun Gong adherents, rather than Chinese citizens, have begun demonstrating on behalf of the group, mostly in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. China expelled more than 50 foreigners who protested in the capital during Chinese New Year last month and at the National People's Congress, China's legislature, whose yearly session began last week.
At the same time, Chinese Falun Gong activists have turned to technology to wage their struggle in China, distributing thousands of DVDs around major cities. The discs, advertised as "a great show," contain pro-Falun Gong documentaries. Earlier this month, Falun Gong followers tapped into a cable network in Changchun, Li Hongzhi's home town and a hotbed of Falun Gong activity, and broadcast a pro-Falun Gong video for about 45 minutes.
The first suit against a Chinese official was filed against Zhao Zhifei, head of public security in Hubei province. Zhao was in the Manhattan Plaza Hotel in New York last July 17 when a process server approached and handed him a court summons.
Zhao was taken aback, witnesses said, and asked if he was being arrested and whether he could leave the country.
The case was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York under the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789 -- which was intended for use in prosecuting pirates for crimes committed outside the United States -- and the Torture Victims Protection Act. Human rights activists started using the tort claims act in rights cases in the 1980s.
The plaintiff, Peng Liang, claimed that his mother and brother were killed for their beliefs. Peng, who was in China at the time, was arrested in August with four other Falun Gong practitioners, said Terri Marsh, a Falun Gong practitioner from Washington who represented him.
"We were trying to get him out of China, but we didn't succeed in time," Marsh said. "They arrested him, and he has disappeared."
Because Zhao did not contest the charges, the plaintiffs won by default. No damages were awarded.
A Falun Gong activist next sued Zhou Yongkang, the top Communist Party official from Sichuan province, who was served as he stepped from a limousine in Chicago on Aug. 27. The plaintiff in this case was He Haiying, whose sister, an elementary school teacher in China, was allegedly tortured while in the custody of authorities in Sichuan.
She disappeared last June and has not been seen since; her family believes she was executed. This case has yet to go to court.
Subsequent cases, both filed on Feb. 7, involved Beijing's mayor, Liu Qi, who was served at San Francisco International Airport on his way to Salt Lake City as the head of China's delegation to the Winter Olympics, and Xia Deren, deputy governor of Liaoning province.
The identity of the plaintiffs, some of whom are in China, was not disclosed.
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Denver Police Keeping Illegal Files on Peaceful Protest Groups
Tue Mar 12
By ROBERT WELLER,
Associated Press Writer
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020312/ap_on_re_us/police_surveillance_1&printer=1
DENVER (AP) - The American Civil Liberties Union has accused the Denver Police Department of keeping illegal files on peaceful protest groups including Amnesty International and the Nobel Peace Prize-winning American Friends Service Committee.
The ACLU's Colorado legal director, Mark Silverstein, showed reporters files he said came from the police department.
Silverstein wouldn't say how he obtained the files. He said they were marked as permanent, not simply reports that would be discarded at the end of the day.
"These are a small sampling of documents we have that show Denver police are monitoring peaceful protest activities of individuals and law-abiding groups," he said at a news conference Monday.
The ACLU has asked the mayor to stop all monitoring, make all files available to their subjects and have police disclose who has been given the information, Silverstein said. He threatened to sue if the practice (news - Y! TV) isn't stopped.
Andrew Hudson, spokesman for Mayor Wellington Webb, said Webb had asked police for a full report to answer the group's concerns.
"The mayor thinks their concerns are legitimate," Hudson said.
Denver Public Safety Department spokeswoman C.L. Harmer said police would comply with the mayor's request. Stephen B. Nash, who was identified in one of the files as an event organizer for Amnesty International, said police could not say the files were needed for security because of the Sept. 11 attacks.
"My file goes back to 2000, well before Sept. 11," Nash said.
The American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group, "acts in the best tradition of nonviolence," said Barry Leaman-Miller, who was identified in one file as a member of the "American Friends Service Committee (criminal extremist G)."
There was no immediate explanation for the "criminal extremist" note.
Harmer said people named in the files were not considered criminals and the files were collected because legal gatherings are sometimes the scene of illegal actions.
"Law-abiding groups sponsoring lawful assemblies can be unwitting magnets for unlawful activity," she said.
"If you go to a peaceful demonstration, is your name going to come up when you get a traffic ticket? The answer is no, because the data isn't shared," she said. "I don't think this is a retreat to the era of J. Edgar Hoover."
Harmer said that although the intelligence-gathering started before the terrorist attacks, the attacks illustrated the need for such files.
Among the events mentioned in the files were a protest of an Italian-led parade honoring Columbus, protests of a killing by a police SWAT team that went to the wrong house, protests against the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, and demonstrations by the Chiapas Coalition against alleged civil rights violations in Mexico's poorest state.
"This is really outrageous to me ... since Sept. 11 immigration equals terrorism," said Luis Espinosa, a member of the Chiapas group.
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Resources on the Nuclear Posture Review
From: "Andrew Lichterman" <alichterman@worldnet.att.net>
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2002
We have added to our web site a page of resources on the Nuclear Posture Review, including available unclassified government documents and Congressional testimony, newspaper article links, and relevant WSLF publications. The page can be found at the address below.
http://www.wslfweb.org/nukes/npr.htm
Andrew Lichterman Program Director Western States Legal Foundation 1504 Franklin St. Suite 202 Oakland, CA 94612 USA
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Building a Culture and Vision for Peace in Europe in Cluj Napoca, Romania, April 21 - 27, 2002
http://www.transcend.org/
Join us for a week of exciting training programmes, workshops, and celebrations for a culture of peace, with social movements, youth organisations, and citizens' initiatives from across Europe! To find out how to take part, click here - http://www.transcend.org/peace_fest_intro.htm
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------- OneList (submissions from subscribers)
------- Depleted Uranium Keeps On Killing!