------- Index of Articles
NUCLEAR
The problem with deterrence
A Company's Gain From Energy Report's Recommendation
MoD DU research plans
Our Only Option Can't Be Nuclear
Seismic Studies
Deal with Russians could save Piketon jobs
Hanford cocoons reactors
Selling War or Making Peace?
ENERGY - Questions of Access
Cheney: No Arab Leaders Opposed U.S. Action in Iraq
MILITARY
General's caution dismays Rumsfeld
U.S. says al-Qaeda still capable of terrorist acts
Police report of Skopje deaths meets skepticism
Officials suspect hijacker exposed to anthrax
Drug Co. Funding Bioterror Research
Bush triples aid pledge to Peru
Russia says Georgia arming militants
Troops Patrol Riot - Hit Areas in India's Gujarat
Palestinian-Iran Alliance Suspected
Iraq Invites U.S. to Discuss Pilot
Cheney: No Arab Leaders Opposed U.S. Action in Iraq
A Secret Iran-Arafat Connection Is Seen Fueling the Mideast Fire
Why we still need land mines
Official says Russian science facing extinction
'Friendly Fire' Deaths Traced to Dead Battery
PR firm 'brands' counterterrorism services
New textbooks rushed from U.S. to Afghanistan
POLICE / PRISONERS
Rally to demand ruler's ouster thwarted
FBI Investigates Agents With Access
Law catches up to ecoterror
U.N. Reviews Plans to Protect Its Offices Around the World
OTHER
Focus on Terror Stirs Concern as Rights Commission Meets
ACTIVISTS
Yugoslavia Marks NATO Anniversary
Syria Stages Street Protest Ahead of Arab Summit
-------- NUCLEAR
The problem with deterrence
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR,
March 24, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20020324-46573690.htm#2
Commentary columnist Paul Greenberg's fixation on nuclear weapons is understandable given the real threat we face ("Safety in thinking of the unthinkable," March 21), but his approach to dealing with the threat suggests that he suffers from the malady "cognitive dissonance," which Tony Blankley mentioned in his March 20 Op-Ed column, "A fear of the nuclear." Mr. Greenberg ignores the reality of a swiftly changing world and clings to his cherished notion of nuclear deterrence.
In reality, deterrence only works if you know who the bomber is. Knowing the source of the weapon isn't enough. A suitcase nuclear device or material for a dirty bomb might originate in Russia, but that doesn't make Russia the guilty party. The anthrax used against Americans likely originated in U.S. bioweapons labs.
Further, the culprit may very well be a person or group who are not deterred by the thought of incineration. They might actually welcome it, knowing that if the United States responds by using nuclear weapons, it will confirm their propaganda that the United States is brutal and uncivilized. Most people oppose the nuclear option because it crosses a threshold of civility and results in the deaths of innocent people.
The nature of other weapons of mass destruction, such as biological weapons, makes deterrence, detection or pre-emption almost impossible. These weapons can be developed, smuggled and released far more cheaply, easily and anonymously than nuclear weapons. They can be just as lethal and damaging to our economy and just as disrupting to our way of life as a nuclear bomb. Just the threat of such weapons is already forcing a complete reorganization of nearly every aspect of our government.
U.S. efforts to improve our nuclear force miss a point to which Israel is still blind. Peace does not come from overwhelming military superiority. It comes from the rule of law - law made and enforced by a democratically elected government, applied equally to all and protective of basic inalienable rights.
Until our values of life, liberty and justice for all are applied equally and globally, we will have no way of preventing what Osama bin Laden predicted during the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan. Observing America's homeland response, he said, "I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in and the West in general into an unbearable hell and a choking life."
Already, expansion of government surveillance systems, the curtailment of domestic freedoms and the call for unconstitutional powers to respond to future attacks are leading us down this road.
Building better weapons and waging more war is not "thinking outside the nuclear box."
Aspiring to justice for all and creating democratic international institutions (such as the International Criminal Court) capable of holding criminals accountable is our only means of maximizing both our individual freedoms and our nation's security.
Our choice is not between freedom and security. It's among freedom, security and independence. We can have any two of these, but not all three. Independence is a myth, but security is a possibility. We must choose between the false idol of national sovereignty and our collective desire for security.
CHUCK WOOLERY
Rockville
-------- business
A Company's Gain From Energy Report's Recommendation
New York Times
March 24, 2002
By DON VAN NATTA Jr.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/24/politics/24ENER.html?pagewanted=all&position=bottom
WASHINGTON, March 23 - In Chapter 5 of Vice President Dick Cheney's national energy report, executives of the once-moribund nuclear power industry were probably thrilled to read that the White House supported "the expansion of nuclear power in the United States as a major component of our national energy policy."
The energy report had embraced a wide array of proposals that the executives advanced in private meetings with Mr. Cheney and documents submitted to members of the task force that formulated a national energy policy.
One such proposal was the development of a new nuclear reactor designed to produce electricity - a gas-cooled reactor built on tennis-ball-size graphite spheres - that the report said "has inherent safety features."
"The industry has an interest in this," the report said, "and other advanced reactor designs."
But only one company, the Exelon Corporation of Chicago, which provided hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican campaigns in recent years, has an interest in promoting the so-called pebble-bed reactor.
Exelon, the nation's largest nuclear energy company, is the only American corporation developing a design for the pebble-bed reactor, which it says will lead to a new generation of cheaper, smaller and more efficient nuclear reactors. The company says the pebble-bed reactor will be safer, too, though environmentalists in the United States and in other countries have sharply disputed this, calling the pebble-bed reactor a failed system vulnerable to terrorist attack.
The May 2001 national energy report is filled with dozens of positive assessments of proposed new technologies, including nuclear designs and wind-generated power. Most of those assessments favor sectors of various industries, and some undoubtedly favor individual corporations.
But it is impossible to know how and why the task force endorsed most of those proposals, and which corporations they help, because Mr. Cheney has steadfastly refused to release the names of industry executives who advised the energy task force as it was researching and compiling its report.
Next week, more than 14,000 pages of documents related to the task force will be released by the Energy Department, which was ordered by a federal judge to make the material public under the Freedom of Information Act. The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmentalist group, had sued for the information.
The General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, has sued Mr. Cheney for a list of industry executives who advised the task force.
The administration's endorsement of Exelon's technology was learned through interviews and documents provided to The New York Times by the corporation itself.
Although Exelon's name is not mentioned in the energy report, its executives lobbied the task force on the benefits of the pebble-bed design.
The task force's endorsement of the reactor was contained in a single paragraph. But a paragraph in a national energy report, like a sentence in a State of the Union Message or a line in a legislative bill, can be a huge boon to a corporation.
Don Kirchoffner, a spokesman for Exelon, said campaign contributions had nothing to do with the pebble-bed reactor's mention in the report. "We didn't influence anybody," Mr. Kirchoffner said.
Using the initials of the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor, he added: "I don't think that it's correct to connect dots between contributions the company made and the fact something on P.B.M.R. appeared in the national energy policy. The P.B.M.R. is just an example of the advanced nuclear technology that everybody says we need."
For Exelon, the paragraph was seen as "a good thing," Mr. Kirchoffner said, but he insisted that the mention of the reactor's design did not necessarily represent a boon for the corporation.
"A good thing for the industry and the country was the fact that the administration came out with a recommendation for new forms of nuclear power, and our pebble-bed modular reactor is a byproduct of that," Mr. Kirchoffner said. "We just happened to have it. They took a look at what we gave them and they said this kind of makes sense."
Exelon owns and operates about 20 percent of the nation's nuclear capacity. Its co-chief executives, John W. Rowe and Corbin A. McNeill Jr., who has since retired, were among a group of about 75 energy executives who met with Mr. Cheney in March 2001. Along with other participants of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's trade group, Mr. McNeill also met that month with Karl Rove, President Bush's chief strategist, and Lawrence B. Lindsey, the president's top economic adviser.
That information was revealed by Exelon officials, not the White House.
Critics of the task force have noted that many companies represented at its meetings gave financial support to the Bush campaign or the Republican Party in the 2000 election. Exelon was no exception.
Exelon, its executives and its political action committee, gave the Republican Party a total of $564,661 in the two years before the 2000 election. Last year, Exelon increased its donations to the Republican Party, giving it a total of $347,514, according to Federal Election Commission reports.
Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, a frequent critic of the administration's energy policies, said: "The more we learn about the Cheney task force, the easier it is to understand why the White House is fighting so hard to keep everything secret. The biggest donors didn't just have the best access - it now appears they were allowed to write specific sections of the administration's energy plan."
Anne Womack, a spokesman for the White House, disputed the notion that campaign contributions were responsible for the endorsement of Exelon's reactor design.
"Advanced reactor technology would increase our energy supply and do it in a way that is safe and clean," Ms. Womack said. "That benefits not only the industry but the American people."
Ms. Womack also said that the task force had consulted "a broad variety of groups, including industry, unions, environmental groups and consumer groups."
"They all had input, and the product of all the input is in the report," Ms. Womack said.'
More than 400 corporations and groups sought meetings with the energy task force last spring. About half that number were granted access, a group that included 158 energy companies and corporate trade associations, 22 labor unions, 13 environmental groups and a consumer organization, task force staff members have said.
Some environmental groups and Congressional Democrats have complained that industry executives - and, in particular, executives from corporations that supported the Republican Party - received far more time and had greater influence than environmental groups.
On Friday, Mr. Waxman released a study that identified 65 provisions in the energy report that he said benefit donors to the Republican Party who had met with task force members or Mr. Cheney last year.
The pebble-bed reactor has attracted sharp criticism from environmentalists as being unsafe and vulnerable to terrorist attack.
"There are many safety problems with this reactor," said Carl Pope, the executive director of the Sierra Club. "It's not safe, and it's certainly not clean. It has already failed once, in Germany.
"And this pebble-bed facility is not going to have a containment shell. It will be a terrorist target just sitting out there waiting for someone. This is just not sensible."
Exelon lobbied the task force on the safety and economic benefits of its design, according to interviews and several documents turned over to the task force.
Exelon provided The New York Times with two documents that the company submitted to the task force that had not been made public by Mr. Cheney: a pamphlet describing the pebble-bed reactor and a one-page description of the reactor's benefits.
The document begins, "Exelon Corporation believes that we have found a technology that possesses the characteristics necessary to successfully compete in a deregulated environment in the P.B.M.R., a design under development in South Africa."
The document argues that the reactor is "safe, economic and clean."
"We provided it to them," Mr. Kirchoffner said of the single-page document. "I can't tell you what they did with it."
The pebble-bed reactor would be cooled by helium, in contrast to the water-cooled reactors now used in the United States. The plant has fewer moving parts and requires a smaller crew, making its operations less prone to problems, the company said.
Exelon has a 12.5 percent interest in the project with Eskom, the state-owned utility in South Africa, the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa, a state-owned investment firm, and B.N.F.L., the former British Nuclear Fuels Limited. The partnership is studying the feasibility of the pebble-bed reactor, company officials said.
In its papers submitted to the task force, Exelon wrote that the technology "is an evolutionary improvement of a proven design previously utilized in Germany." But several environmentalists said that the Germany prototype failed.
"When you build a design on a proven failure, you are likely to get another failure," Mr. Pope said.
Mr. Kirchoffner said company executives were somewhat less enthusiastic about the pebble-bed reactor today than they were a year ago.
"As a result of the decrease in natural gas prices, and the economy and the less than favorable weather, things have changed since then," he said. "We are being very disciplined now in our approach to looking at P.B.M.R., which may be a lot farther off than it was a year ago."
But the pebble-bed design is still scheduled to be reviewed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission soon. This month, the commission announced that the design was submitted for its approval by Eskom, the South Africa utility.
-------- depleted uranium
MoD DU research plans
From: "Dai Williams" eosuk@btinternet.com
Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2002
The UK Ministry of Defence have published proposals for a new DU research programme. It is on their website at: http://www.mod.uk/issues/depleted_uranium/du_research.htm
It is in several parts, about 30 pages.
It is an an interesting summary of DU issues to date as seen by the UK MOD with some new research references.
---
Depleted Uranium
Proposal for a Research Programme on Depleted Uranium:
Military Considerations
http://www.mod.uk/issues/depleted_uranium/du_research/military.htm
2.1. The current in-service round for Challenger 2 consists of a DU, Armour Piercing Fin Stabilised Discarding Sabot (APFSDS) shot. This round, designated CHARM 3 (CHallenger upARMament Version 3), was developed in the early 1990s to replace the CHARM 1 round. DU rounds were developed to ensure that the UK's in-service Main Battle Tank (MBT) fleet, comprising Chieftain and Challenger, and the Replacement Tank (subsequently called Challenger 2) would be able to match the threat for the 1990s and beyond. DU CHARM ammunition is, however, only used on operations, not for training. The only other UK, DU based ammunition is the PHALANX round used in maritime close-in point defence systems. Ships at sea fire limited numbers of this ammunition for training and weapons proving, but this is expected to cease within the next two years when existing stocks become exhausted.
2.2 In the 1970s it was assessed that the existing tungsten Kinetic Energy (KE) penetrator for the 120mm main armament, which is the primary weapon system for the MBT, would not be able to penetrate the frontal armour of the next generation of threat MBTs. Critically, the tungsten round lacked the material properties to ensure that sufficient energy was delivered to the target to guarantee penetration of the frontal 60o arc. Scientific research and Operational Analysis (OA) showed that a battle winning UK capability against emerging armour technologies could be achieved by replacing the tungsten penetrator with one made from DU. In late 1979 a development programme, which exploited a high-pressure gun and DU penetrators, commenced at the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE) resulting in the first DU round, CHARM 1. This combination gives the penetration performance increase, over the tungsten shot it replaced, necessary to defeat the future MBT threat.
2.3 Following performance trials and consideration of the legal and health and safety aspects associated with the use of DU, CHARM 1, and subsequently CHARM 3, ammunition was accepted into service. This acceptance was based on an assessment of the results of UK work and a considerable amount of pre-existing data from the US, which was supplied in confidence. At the acceptance meeting for the CHARM 3 ammunition the Ordnance Board noted that the DU in the ammunition was a low specific activity radioactive material and that measures should be taken to keep all radiation exposures as low as reasonably practical. The principal dose reduction measures identified were the need for:
Handling guidelines for ammunition; and Measures to prevent inhalation of DU oxide dust (toxic and low-level radiation hazard) in areas contaminated by the destruction of armoured vehicles by CHARM.
2.4. The world has changed substantially since DU was first proposed for use in an anti-armour role. Key changes include the fall of the Soviet Union, the move away from priority addressing only all out war to include peace support operations as part of a coalition, as well as the world wide concern over environmental and health issues. However, in one crucial respect it has not changed. Defeating the armoured capability of MBTs produced by the former Soviet Union nations remains a formidable challenge; indeed that capability has been widely exported to many areas of the world where UK forces might have to operate. DU ammunition remains, therefore, the most operationally effective capability. In operations against any relatively modern (or up-armoured) MBT threat, use of non-DU ammunition would significantly threaten operational success and potentially could lead to increased UK casualties.
2.5. Issues that need to be addressed for the future, and in the context of the next generation of anti-armour weapons, include studies on the types of engagement where DU based ordnance represents the only effective means to counter the threat, the consequences of not using DU, other approaches to defeat heavy armour and the risk to our forces from any DU contamination caused by the use of DU based ordnance or armour by allies and enemies.
WHAT WE PROPOSE TO DO
Conduct OA studies to: Determine in what proportion of future scenarios the threat will be sufficient to require the performance level provided by DU Assess the effect of accepting a lower level of performance in those scenarios where the threat is high Establish what other measures are available to mitigate the effect of not deploying DU and determine how they compare in cost and effectiveness terms Determine to what extent the use of DU by allies would represent a risk to UK troops if the UK did not use DU in coalition operations Report outcome of OA studies within MOD
2.6. Studies were conducted in the 1970s and early 1980s on alternative materials and penetrator designs but since that time, work has been directed mainly towards DU penetrator performance improvement although some effort has been directed towards alternative materials. No detailed cost and effectiveness comparison of radical alternatives to DU KE penetrators to defeat threat MBTs (e.g. guided missiles) has been carried out recently. This is an area of research that warrants further study. Advances in materials and design technology also warrant a renewed study into alternatives to current DU ammunition. This latter study would extend the scope of the current research effort on alternative materials and designs for KE penetrators being undertaken within Technology Group 6 (TG6 - Energetic Materials and Terminal Effects) of the MOD Corporate Research Programme (CRP).
WHAT WE PROPOSE TO DO
Identify features of the penetrator-armour interaction pointing to the possibility of new materials and designs Examine penetrator performance requirements and new material and design concepts imposing minimal adaptation of the existing gun system Research the most promising material and design options Examine radical alternatives to KE penetrators to defeat MBT armour Report outcome of studies (where doing so does not compromise UK Force effectiveness) in the open literature
---
Depleted Uranium
Proposal for a Research Programme on Depleted Uranium:
Introduction and Background
http://www.mod.uk/issues/depleted_uranium/du_research/intro.htm
1.1 The MOD has funded extensive research over many years to address the advantages and disadvantages of Depleted Uranium (DU) munitions. Some of the more recent work has been listed in answer to a Parliamentary Question (PQ0679L) and this list is reproduced in Appendix A. The work, which has considered the military effectiveness of the ammunition and the health and environmental consequences associated with its use, has been complemented by extensive studies on the health and environmental consequences of the testing, development and battlefield deployment of DU munitions carried out in the United States of America (US). Based on its own research, that carried out in the US, and recent comprehensive studies on the health and environmental effects of DU carried out by a diverse range of both national and international, governmental and non-governmental bodies (1-4), the MOD is of the opinion that the health risks associated with the battlefield use of DU are minimal.
1.2. DU first surfaced as a Gulf health related issue in about 1993 when it was implicated in an alleged excess of birth defects and health problems amongst the children of Gulf veterans in 2 Mississippi National Guard Units. The claim was sensational: that 67% of the children born to parents who were Gulf veterans of these units had birth defects or adverse health effects. Despite a robust investigation which refuted the specific suggestion of an excess of birth defects or illness in this particular cohort (5), and another study which provided no evidence of a general increase in the incidence of birth defects in Gulf veterans' children (6), allegations of an association between DU and birth defects continued (7,8).
1.3. The DU issue resurfaced again in early 2001 with suggestions (initially from Italy) that, after an extremely short latent period, DU was causing leukaemias in European soldiers who had deployed to the Balkans. The media highlighted the issue and the subsequent testing and health screening activity was of variable scientific rigour in both conduct and justification. Most studies were urine based assessments and all showed that veterans did not have raised levels of uranium (U). As a result of a meeting of the Committee of the Chiefs of Military Medical Services in NATO (COMEDS) in January 2001, mortality reviews were conducted, as were reviews of the index cases. The evidence shared across NATO and partner nations does not point to any excess illness or atypical disease in Balkans peacekeepers, or any evidence of excessive DU exposure.
1.4. From mid-January 2001 the pendulum swung back and the media began to report scientific opinion redressing the balance. Both the Lancet (9) and the British Medical Journal (BMJ) (10) published thoughtful editorials questioning the link between DU and actual rather than potential illness, leading to a response (11) addressing the BMJ editorial and a report by the US Institute of Medicine (IOM) (12).
1.5. The MOD, in recognition of its commitment to address veterans' and public concerns, is considering a further programme of peer reviewed research using independent bodies wherever possible to respond to the concerns that have been raised and provide further scientific evidence. It is intended to involve the Research Councils as much as possible in the full programme.
1.6. This programme of research is based on the assumption that DU will remain in the UK inventory for the foreseeable future as an essential weapon for the defeat of heavy armour. With the advances being made in target hardening, there is a need for performance improvements that will extend the capability of those DU munitions currently available to the UK Armed Forces. Furthermore, the UK cannot ignore that DU ammunition will be available to, and deployed by, allies, coalition partners and potential aggressors in future conflicts where UK forces and personnel are present.
1.7. The research will aim to put the military use of DU into context by enhancing the data base upon which informed judgements are made when weighing the potential loss of life arising from not using DU munitions in battle and any potential longer term impact on human health and the environment resulting from its deployment. Some of the results of the research (e.g. on corrosion of DU munitions) will aid MOD in any future test-range decommissioning.
1.8. Generally, the results of the research will be submitted for publication in appropriate peer reviewed journals. The only exception to this will be the results of Operational Analysis (OA) and system performance research, which, if published in the open literature, could compromise future UK operations.
1.9. The following sections summarise MOD's current state of knowledge on the military use of DU and the impact of its use on the environment and human health. Areas for further scientific study, to address veterans' and public concern, are identified and appropriate research is proposed. The contents of each section are outlined below. Note, throughout the main body of this report, the research that we propose to carry out is described in text boxes.
1.10 The overall objective of the programme is to extend our knowledge on the effects of DU, particularly on humans and the environment, and where possible develop models that can be applied to a number of scenarios. Consequently, this research programme will aid risk assessment where the use of DU is needed to avoid compromising the safety of UK Forces or their effectiveness when operating against hostile forces.
1.11. Environmental and health issues are often addressed using a Source-Pathway-Target methodology in which a hazardous source material is brought into contact with a sensitive "target" (human, animal, plant, etc.) via one or more pathways. This approach is used in sections 3, 4 and 5.
Section 2 addresses military considerations relevant to the use of DU. It sets out the rationale leading to the adoption of this battle winning capability. Recognising that there has been a change in the role of the UK Armed Forces since DU came into service, the paper proposes that OA studies should be undertaken to assess the present and future scenarios in which DU will play a critical role. Studies are also proposed to assess whether recent technology advances are sufficient to develop techniques and systems with potential to replace the current DU based system.
Section 3 provides a brief overview of the characteristics of the raw material used to manufacture DU munitions and outlines the radiological and chemical toxicity properties of the source material. The paper addresses the processes by which DU can enter the environment as a result of military activity and proposes work to enhance understanding of contamination issues at the point of firing, the processes involved when munitions impact both hard and soft targets and the corrosion and dissolution of the residues from impacts and fires involving DU.
Section 4 addresses the mechanisms whereby DU munitions, fragments, dust and combustion products are transported in land, water and air environments. The potential pathways from the DU source to a "target" are outlined and previous modelling studies are discussedr. Areas for further study, to enhance understanding of environmental transport and its consequences, are proposed. Previous work to monitor DU battlefield and firing sites is identified and reference quantities and standards against which environmental contamination levels can be assessed are noted.
Section 5addresses the effects of DU on health and the environment. The paper addresses the health implications of handling, inhaling and ingesting DU and also the effects of wound contamination and retained shrapnel, identifying areas for further study to address the concerns raised by veterans. The paper also addresses the value of biokinetic modelling to aid in the prediction of the health effects of DU exposure.
Section 6considers the operational use of DU, outlining health and safety aspects relevant to handling, transport and storage. It considers potential hazards from pre-deployment and operational use procedures and discusses post-deployment issues relating to clean-up and monitoring activities. The paper also identifies a requirement for continuous knowledge capture, literature reviews and the peer reviewed publishing of information.
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
Our Only Option Can't Be Nuclear
New York Times
March 24, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/24/opinion/L24NUKE.html
To the Editor:
Re "Thinking the Unthinkable, Again" (news analysis, March 18):
For those who worry about rogues with weapons of mass destruction, a former Clinton administration nuclear strategist raises a troubling question: "But what if the C.I.A. director walks into the Oval Office one day and says, `Mr. President, we know where there are nuclear and biological weapons deep down in Tora Bora, but the only way to get at them is with a nuclear weapon'?"
If the United States is trapped in a situation where nuclear weapons are our only option, it will be because our infatuation with nuclear weapons has diverted our attention from pursuing conventional approaches. The means to defeat biological and nuclear threats are within our reach. We do not need nuclear weapons for the task; with the right intelligence, conventional weapons can do the job.
Surely the world's sole superpower, dominant in conventional capabilities, can develop a more sensible weapon to fill this pressing need. MICHAEL LEVI Washington, March 18, 2002 The writer is director, Strategic Security Project, Federation of American Scientists.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- california
Seismic Studies
From: Molly Johnson <mollypj@yahoo.com>
March 24, 2002
Michael V. Shulters United States Geographical Survey Placer Hall 6000 J Street Sacramento, CA 95819-6129
Dear Sir,
My name is Molly Johnson and I am a life-long resident of San Luis Obispo County. It is my understanding that the USGS is planning on doing seismic studies in various areas of California. While I believe this is a good idea, I am very surprised and concerned that the areas surrounding both Diablo Canyon and San Onofre Nuclear Reactors are not included.
Both of these facilities have submitted applications to store their extremely radioactive "spent" fuel on site in dry cask storage areas. In order that the storage of such dangerous material be done in the safest manner possible it is imperative that complete and detailed seismic studies of these two areas be conducted.
The independent seismic information that is available concerning the Hosgri Fault, which sits only three miles off shore from Diablo Canyon, is decades old and certainly not recent enough or adequate enough to supply the kind of information needed to insure that whatever type of storage facility is constructed will be able to withstand the magnitude of earthquake that this fault might produce and still contain the radioactivity within.
Also, in light of recent revelations concerning the type of fault (slip/strike) and that fault's possible magnitude of earthquake (over 7.6) near San Onofre, it is clear that a thorough study of that area is also imperative.
I am very curious as to why these areas have not been included in the proposed USGS studies and would like, at this time, to submit to you that such studies MUST be done before any licenses are issued to allow the storage of high-level radioactive "spent" fuel on the coastline of California.
Please tell me how we, the public, can make sure that these studies are added to the USGS proposed studies as soon as possible.
Thank you,
Molly P Johnson <mollypj@yahoo.com> SLO CO Grandmothers for Peace 6290 Hawk Ridge Place, San Miguel, CA 93451 805/467-2431
Cc: Senator Barbara Boxer, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Congresswoman Lois Capps, CA Department of Conservation/CA Geographical Survey
For it isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it. --Eleanor Roosevelt
-------- ohio
Deal with Russians could save Piketon jobs
Sunday, March 24, 2002
Jonathan Riskind
Columbus Dispatch Washington Bureau Chief
http://www.dispatch.com/print_template.php?story=dispatch/news/news02/mar02/1159981.html
WASHINGTON -- High-stakes negotiations over the future of an arms- control deal with Russia could determine whether hundreds of jobs are saved at a uranium-enrichment plant in southern Ohio.
The Bush administration wants USEC, the privatized federal corporation that runs the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, to suspend plans to eliminate 440 shipping jobs while a proposal is studied to create an alternative operation, according to documents obtained by The Dispatch.
The Energy Department wants USEC to agree to keep the Ohio jobs in place until at least June 2003.
The jobs are part of a deal to extend USEC's status as the U.S. agent in an $8 billion agreement to buy enriched uranium from Russia. The material is culled from Cold War-era nuclear warheads dismantled as part of the arms treaty.
But Energy Department officials have been frustrated by the pace of negotiations and the company's unwillingness to guarantee the Piketon jobs, according to a senior administration official, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity.
"We've been trying to get this done,'' the official said.
USEC hasn't responded to the Energy Department's most recent offer, made about two weeks ago, which ties the shipping jobs to the company's executive-agent status, he said.
Gov. Bob Taft pitched using the Russian arms deal as leverage in February when he met with Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.
The governor is "extremely pleased'' with the Energy Department's negotiating tactics, said Jon Allison, Taft's deputy chief of staff for intergovernmental affairs.
Still, Allison said Taft will remain only cautiously optimistic until the government finalizes the deal with USEC.
Aside from USEC's reluctance to retain the shipping operations at Piketon, there might be another problem, the administration official said.
The Energy Department is investigating the relationship between USEC and a Pittsburgh consulting firm with links to a former Russian nuclear official.
It wants to know whether those business dealings imperil USEC's status in the Russian deal, according to reports in the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times. Company officials denied any improprieties.
USEC officials say they can't comment on the negotiations because they took a pledge of confidentiality. However, the company says it has given the department its reply.
"We have responded to (the Energy Department), and the ball is now in (the department's) court,'' USEC spokeswoman Elizabeth Stuckle said.
The shipping jobs are to be eliminated during a six-month period beginning in June. The operation would be moved to USEC's enrichment plant in Paducah, Ky.
USEC ceased uranium-enrichment production at Piketon last year, but the plant is being kept on standby. USEC officials said then that they expected shipping and transfer work to continue there until 2005 or '06.
The financially strapped company said earlier this year that it would speed up shifting the work from the facility, saying consolidating the operations at its Paducah plant will save $40 million a year.
About 1,700 employees worked at the Piketon plant when enrichment was halted. About 1,350 people work there now on standby and for various cleanup operations. Eliminating the shipping jobs would slash about one-third of the remaining work force.
Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Lucasville, whose district includes the Piketon plant, has been lobbying the administration to require USEC to keep the shipping jobs at Piketon as a condition of retaining its role in the Russian arms deal.
Strickland said it is "prudent'' for the government to have a potential backup to USEC -- not just to carry out the Russian deal, but also to operate on standby and run the shipping operations and perhaps establish an advanced-technology enrichment initiative at the Piketon plant.
A consortium of U.S. utility companies has discussed building a new enrichment plant in conjunction with a European company, but they are said to be looking at sites other than Piketon.
The Bush administration says it remains committed to trying to establish an advanced-technology project, perhaps at Piketon, and building depleted- uranium recycling plants long promised to both Piketon and Paducah.
Perhaps, some administration officials have said, just one recycling plant should be built at whichever site does not land the advanced-technology project.
The administration cites a clause in its latest negotiating proposal to USEC as evidence of a commitment to help the Piketon plant.
"USEC will maintain leased real and personal property . . . in a condition that will permit its consideration as a candidate site for USEC's deployment of advanced uranium enrichment technology,'' according to the document.
-------- washington
Hanford cocoons reactors
Government buys time, protects the environment by locking contaminated reactors inside concrete
By CARIE L. CALL
East Oregonian
3-24-02
http://www.eonow.com/news/stories/2002/mar/24.shtml
RICHLAND - Hanford Nuclear Reservation's 560 square miles of desolate high desert will never be restored to its natural state.
Since the 1940s, the nuclear reactors that were integral in building the world's first nuclear bombs also generated tons of radioactive sludge, acres of spoiled soil and miles of waterways contaminated by toxins such as carbon tetrachloride, strontium and chromium.
The reservation won't ever be cleansed of these and other poisons. The main goal of the federal government's monumental and expensive task of cleaning up the earth and water that surround the nuclear reactors is to prevent further contamination of the imperiled Columbia River ecosystem.
To accomplish this, there are five major cleanup projects taking place at Hanford at an annual cost of about $1.8 billion. The projects include efforts to stabilize and restructure 53 million gallons of nuclear waste sludge held in underground tanks. Some of the tanks are leaching into groundwater and need to be contained. Another project is monitoring the groundwater and a third is tearing down Hanford reactors and digging up the contaminated soil that surrounds them.
This last project is called Reactor Interim Safe Storage, or cocooning, said Todd Nelson, of Bechtel Hanford, the company hired by the federal government to contain eight of the nine nuclear reactors on the Hanford reservation.
Cocooning means that the buildings are encased in thick gray concrete and a metal roof, built to last 75 years, is placed over the top, Nelson said. The contaminated buildings will stand and wait for technology to be developed that will help scientists disassemble the reactors for good.
Of the nine reactors on site, three already are cocooned, four are being worked on, one is being kept open as a museum and one will not be dismantled.
With an American flag flying outside its doors, B Reactor, which manufactured the plutonium for a 1945 test bomb and helped make one of the bombs that was dropped on Japan that same year, is being preserved as a museum.
Scott Baker, Don Eckert and Gary Hinkley work at the museum and are part of the demolition team at Hanford. They said B Reactor is occasionally subject to tours by family members who helped build Hanford and also by the Russians.
Baker said his father worked at Hanford and he is carrying on the tradition. He said the people who visit are nostalgic about their time there and proud of serving their country in a time of war.
Russians who have visited the site fit the stereotype, Baker said. The men are stolid, gruff and dressed in furs. They inspect the museum to make sure nothing is being placed in strategic locations. Once, a museum attendant placed an old fuel rod in a container to make it look more realistic. It turned out to be too realistic for the Russians, who had it immediately disassembled, Baker said. "We didn't want to look like we were in the process of stepping up our nuclear productions," he said.
Interim Safe Storage
As they were being built, each of the nine nuclear reactor sites sprawled out over Hanford Reservation's terrain, creating self-sufficient towns that included cafeterias and sleep areas, smokestacks and water towers. Not only was the reactor taking up space, but so were the offices, warehouses, maintenance sheds and other support buildings.
Thousands of men poured into Richland from around the nation to help build the sites. Engineers, construction workers, security experts and scientists worked at Hanford as part of their patriotic war duty.
Tearing down their work has uncovered interesting and puzzling dilemmas, said Mike A. Mihalic, a project manager in charge of decontaminating and decommissioning the reactors.
For instance, on one of the walls inside a reactor that has not yet been demolished is an intricate painting of a nude woman. "It is a beautiful piece of artwork," Mihalic said. "Somebody took a lot of time with it. There are organizations who want to preserve it, but I just don't know how we can."
The artistic wall will come down as the footprint of the reactors and outbuildings is reduced by more than 80 percent. All auxiliary buildings will be destroyed.
Sometimes, workers have found unwanted surprises, Mihalic said. At the F Reactor site, during its decommission in 1965, about 17 feet of clean fill dirt was poured into the basin of the reactor. When the site was cocooned recently, all that fill had to be removed in order to get to three feet of radioactive sludge and debris. Mihalic said he was surprised to find 11 pieces of radioactive fuel elements and fragments - some as big as eight inches long - left in the soil. "It's like the workers back then just tossed them out of the door," Mihalic said.
After the auxiliary buildings are demolished, the reactor is cocooned, which means all parts of the building are demolished except for the five-foot-thick concrete walls that surround the reactor core.
"All doors are sealed and a new roof is designed and installed, ensuring that the facility is shut down and not deteriorating any further," Nelson said. "Radioactive or hazardous materials cannot escape to harm the environment or people or workers walking around the site."
The buildings are sealed so tight as to discourage birds and mice from entering and a metal roof is placed on top. The theory is that in the next 75 years, the reactors will have time to decay. It also will allow the Department of Energy time to find the best available science to dispose of the highly toxic reactors.
After they are sealed, the buildings are routinely inspected for leaks or animal entries, and maintenance is done if needed. Computer scanners are placed inside the sealed building, letting a mainframe computer know if moisture is leaking into the structure, indicating the roof needs repair. The air quality inside the reactors also is monitored.
As each reactor is cocooned, Mihalic learns enough to make the next job easier.
C Reactor was the first to be cocooned. It took 21 months and cost $27 million to complete, Mihalic said. DR Reactor cost less than $16 million and B Reactor cost $15 million.
"They are all a little different, but we are learning to do this better, cheaper and faster," Mihalic said.
Where the waste goes
Tearing down buildings and cleaning up the ground around the reactor sites means tearing up soiled pipes and concrete and digging up poisoned soils that once held contaminated water in retention or holding ponds.
The contaminated waste is sorted into high-level waste for storage or destruction off the Hanford site, and low-level waste that is buried in a lined dump site at Hanford.
So far, Hanford's Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility has received almost 3 million tons of low-level contaminated dirt and waste that has been removed from the areas surrounding the reactors and the Columbia River.
The dump site cells are first lined with a geotextile material that looks like a thick screen. On top of that are layers of clay, rocks and gravel and then another layer of geotextile material is placed over that.
There are four burial cells here, said Paul Berthelot, a transplanted Louisiana native and subcontractor who manages the dump site. Berthelot said about 19 cells will be filled before Hanford is cleaned up.
Each cell is 1,000 feet long, 70 feet deep and 500 feet wide. A cell is filled with 35 feet of contaminated soil. More screen, then two feet of clean soil is placed over the top of a full cell and then covered. The topsoil will then be landscaped.
Berthelot said the effect is that it looks a little like a burrito. Each truck full of waste also is lined and covered, burrito style.
Before the site was selected, the soils were tested for their ability to hold water. The dump site routinely is checked for moisture. "It would take a drop of water 100 years to get to the bottom," Berthelot said.
His fleet of 18 white trucks is carefully monitored by scales connected to computers. The computers track what and how much waste is brought onto the site.
The advantage of using the trucks at the site, Berthelot said, is that people never walk down into the contaminated areas and the contaminated trucks never leave. The trucks are not used for anything except carrying the waste so there is no cross contamination. The tarps that cover the loads are inspected on each run.
Even though the area is windy, no dumping takes place when the winds are high, and the site is sprayed with water to reduce dust moving from the site. "We have air monitors here that monitor the contaminated waste in the air, but there has never been a hit," Berthelot said.
In addition, a soil fixture is used that he likens to Elmer's Glue. It's sprayed over the top of the dirt to make it stay in place. "During a wind storm, the least dusty place to be is here."
Reporter Carie L. Call can be reached at 1-800-522-0255 (ext. 1-304 after hours) or e-mail: ccall@eastoregonian.com.
-------- us politics
Selling War or Making Peace?
By Mary McGrory
Sunday, March 24, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A5676-2002Mar22?language=printer
Vice President Cheney is back from his long, vain trip to the Middle East with the prospect of having to go back almost immediately if Yasser Arafat comes across on peace promises. His mission was to sell a war in Iraq, but he was lectured at every stop about the greater need to make peace in Israel and the West Bank.
Cheney was making his last stop in Turkey when the spin began. In the House, Republicans were pushing the line that the real story was not what seemed to be happening -- that is the almost unanimous rejection of the Iraq attack (Ariel Sharon alone was game). SaddamHussein's neighbors hate and fear him, was the GOP line: Onstage, it was "no"; off, it was "go, go."
At an early-morning White House press conference, Bush praised his vice president for so effectively carrying the U.S. message of resolve to root out terrorism. To paraphrase John Kennedy's inaugural address, Bush will pay any price, bear any burden to keep Saddam from using chemical or biological weapons or setting off the nuclear bomb we're pretty sure he has. What we really want him to do is to admit U.N. weapons inspectors. The trouble is, the more we threaten and rumble and he hangs tough, the more we commit ourselves to an invasion that could take up to a half-million soldiers.
Cheney adviser Richard Perle, who is of the "piece of cake" school about the enterprise, told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that when we land, people in Iraq "will dance in the streets." Others, who believe we should fight one war at a time, have a slightly starker vision, citing the need for the 500,000 troops. The possibility of heavy casualties suggests that any radical action would be postponed until after the November elections. Military action is unlikely before then, even though Bush emphasizes the importance of convincing the world that "we are not posturing" on Iraq.
Cheney got back just as Congress was leaving for its Easter recess, and not a moment too soon. The new era of bad feeling proclaimed by Senate Republican leader Trent Lott in the wake of what Republicans call the "lynching" and "Borking" of Bush judicial candidate Charles Pickering is well advanced. The Senate passed the McCain-Feingold campaign reform bill amid much jubilation on the floor, and the president said sourly that he would sign it even though it was "flawed." The House passed the Bush budget, while Republicans bade it remember Sept. 11 and Democrats foresaw financial ruin.
It figured that the Republicans would make a major fuss over the Pickering defeat -- they sulk even when they win. Who could forget their gnashing of teeth that followed the confirmation of John Ashcroft? Sen. Chris Bond (R-Mo.) seethed over the effrontery of the opposition.
Gen. Tommy Franks gave a rapturous review of the Afghan campaign: "an unqualified success." New countries with enormous domestic problems are floated as candidates for engagement. Colombia and Indonesia are on the list. Osama bin Laden, with whom he was once obsessed, has been officially "marginalized" by George W. Bush.
But criticism is at a minimum, even among those who wished that the president were as aggressive about seeking peace in Israel as he is about waging war in Iraq. There is one constant in Washington life: the steady 80 percent standing of George W. Bush in the polls. He is the strong wartime leader of citizens' dreams, and if he looks as though he is biting off more than he can chew, voters don't want to hear about it.
Democratic hopes of off-year gains are taking blows. Another Republican governor in Democratic Massachusetts looks likelier since the hapless acting incumbent, Jane Swift, tearfully gave way to a man with a torch. Mitt Romney, still glowing from Olympic glory, stepped forward, while feuding Democrats continued to take gold in their favorite sport, cannibalism.
New York's Republican governor, George Pataki, a mediocre chief executive who had the wit to tag along wordlessly with Rudy Giuliani in the ruins of Manhattan, could get a third term. Two Democrats, former Housing and Urban Development secretary Andrew Cuomo and state comptroller H. Carl McCall, are engaged in a bitter, party-splitting primary. In Florida, presidential brother Jeb Bush soars while stubborn Janet Reno drives her signature red truck into oblivion. In Tennessee, Tipper Gore, the Democrats' best hope of beating Lamar Alexander in the race to fill the Senate seat of Fred Thompson, mysteriously stuck her toe in the water, then took it out a day later. Her fling briefly cheered Democrats, who thought her candidacy might head off another national go by her newly shaven spouse.
What this all means is that George W. Bush has a free hand. It seems unlikely the fervor he shows for war in Iraq will be rechanneled into the search for peace in Israel. It's out because it's the kind of thing Bill Clinton did.
-------
ENERGY - Questions of Access
Nuclear company's GOP donations raise eyebrows
Cheney task force endorses reactors
Don Van Natta Jr.,
New York Times
Sunday, March 24, 2002
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2002/03/24/MN112106.DTL&type
Washington -- In Chapter 5 of Vice President Dick Cheney's national energy report, executives of the once-moribund nuclear power industry were probably thrilled to read that the White House supported "the expansion of nuclear power in the United States as a major component of our national energy policy."
The energy report had embraced a wide array of proposals that the executives advanced in private meetings with Cheney and documents submitted to members of the task force that formulated a national energy policy.
One such proposal was the development of a new nuclear reactor designed to produce electricity -- a gas-cooled reactor built on tennis-ball-size graphite spheres -- that the report said "has inherent safety features."
"The industry has an interest in this," the report said, "and other advanced reactor designs."
But only one company, the Exelon Corp. of Chicago, which provided hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican campaigns in recent years, has an interest in promoting the so-called pebble-bed reactor.
Exelon, the nation's largest nuclear energy company, is the only U.S. corporation developing a design for the pebble-bed reactor, which it says will lead to a new generation of cheaper, smaller and more efficient nuclear reactors. The company says the pebble-bed reactor will be safer, too, though environmentalists in the United States and in other countries have sharply disputed this.
"There are many safety problems with this reactor," said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club. "It's not safe, and it's certainly not clean. . . . It will be a terrorist target just sitting out there waiting for someone. This is just not sensible."
The May 2001 national energy report is filled with dozens of positive assessments of proposed new technologies, including nuclear designs and wind- generated power. Most of those assessments favor sectors of various industries,
and some undoubtedly favor individual corporations. But it is impossible to know how and why the task force endorsed most of those proposals, and which corporations they help, because Cheney has steadfastly refused to release the names of industry executives who advised the task force.
GROUP SUED FOR INFORMATION
This week, more than 14,000 pages of documents related to the task force will be released by the Energy Department, which was ordered by a federal judge to make the material public under the Freedom of Information Act. The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmentalist group, had sued for the information.
The General Accounting Office has sued Cheney for a list of industry executives who advised the task force.
The administration's endorsement of Exelon's technology was learned through interviews and documents provided by the corporation itself.
Although Exelon's name is not mentioned in the energy report, its executives lobbied the task force on the benefits of the pebble-bed design.
The task force's endorsement of the reactor was contained in a single paragraph. But a paragraph in a national energy report, like a sentence in a State of the Union message or a line in a legislative bill, can be a huge boon to a corporation. Don Kirchoffner, a spokesman for Exelon, said campaign contributions had nothing to do with the pebble-bed reactor's mention in the report. "We didn't influence anybody," Kirchoffner said.
For Exelon, the paragraph was seen as "a good thing," Kirchoffner said, but he insisted that the mention of the reactor's design did not necessarily represent a boon for the corporation.
"A good thing for the industry and the country was the fact that the administration came out with a recommendation for new forms of nuclear power, and our Pebble-Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) is a byproduct of that," Kirchoffner said.
BIG NUCLEAR PLAYER
Exelon owns and operates about 20 percent of the nation's nuclear capacity. Its co-chief executive officers, John Rowe and Corbin McNeill Jr., who has since retired, were among a group of about 75 energy executives who met with Cheney in March 2001. Along with other participants of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's trade group, McNeill also met that month with Karl Rove, President Bush's chief strategist, and Lawrence Lindsey, the president's top economic adviser.
Critics of the task force have noted that many companies represented at its meetings gave financial support to the Bush campaign or the Republican Party in the 2000 election. Exelon was no exception.
Exelon, its executives and its political action committee, gave the Republican Party a total of $564,661 in the two years before the 2000 election.
Last year, Exelon increased its generosity to the Republican Party, giving it a total of $347,514, according to Federal Election Commission reports.
"I don't think that it's correct to connect dots between contributions the company made and the fact something on PBMR appeared in the national energy policy," Kirchoffner said. "The PBMR is just an example of the advanced nuclear technology that everybody says we need."
But Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, a frequent critic of the administration's energy policies, said: "The more we learn about the Cheney task force, the easier it is to understand why the White House is fighting so hard to keep everything secret. The biggest donors didn't just have the best access -- it now appears they were allowed to write specific sections of the administration's energy plan."
Anne Womack, a spokesman for the White House, disputed the notion that campaign contributions were responsible for the endorsement of Exelon's reactor design.
"Advanced reactor technology would increase our energy supply and do it in a way that is safe and clean," Womack said. "That benefits not only the industry but the American people."
Some environmental groups and congressional Democrats have complained that industry executives -- and, in particular, executives from corporations that supported the Republican Party -- received far more time and input than environmental groups.
On Friday, Waxman released a study that identified 65 provisions in the energy report that he said benefit donors to the Republican Party who had met with task force members or Cheney last year.
----
Cheney: No Arab Leaders Opposed U.S. Action in Iraq
Sun Mar 24
By Lori Santos
Reuters
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020324/ts_nm/iraq_cheney_dc_2
WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) said on Sunday that during his recent visit to the Middle East Arab leaders did not oppose possible American action against Iraq's Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).
"No, not at all," Cheney told the CBS "Face the Nation" program. "What I came away with ... is the sense that they share our concern."
He conceded that some Arab leaders had publicly spoken out against U.S. military action against Baghdad but that in meetings during his 12 days in the region, the fear of Saddam expanding his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, possibly to include a nuclear weapon, was "a frightening proposition" for all.
"Part of my task out there was to go out and begin the dialogue with our friends to make sure they were thinking about it," Cheney said of his 12-country trip that ended on Wednesday.
"It was mixed I think in terms of their public reactions. But each of them can speak for themselves," he added. "I had very good sessions throughout the region. ... I would say that almost without exception there is universal concern on the developments we see in Iraq."
Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, whose country is hosting an Arab summit this coming week, said on Saturday that Arab countries were united in opposing any unjustified U.S. attack on Iraq. Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said Arab states at the summit on Wednesday and on Thursday would oppose any U.S. military action against Iraq.
ACTION IN U.N. SUGGESTED
Cheney said many of the leaders thought it was best to pursue action against Saddam Hussein at the United Nations (news - web sites), but he said the Security Council had already acted. Iraq is still under U.N. sanctions imposed after it invaded Kuwait in 1990. A U.S.-led coalition drove Iraqi forces from Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War but Iraq remains at odds with the West over allowing United Nations weapons inspectors into the country.
Cheney also cited "a lot of interest" on the part of Arab leaders on how the Iraqi threat related to the ongoing violence between Palestinians and the Israelis. He did not elaborate.
President Bush (news - web sites)'s Middle East envoy, retired Gen. Anthony Zinni, was in the region last week as Cheney was there.
Asked if he had come away from his meetings feeling Arab leaders would not oppose a U.S. action against Iraq, Cheney said: "That's correct."
"Frankly I couldn't find anyone out there who has anything good to say about him," the vice president said of Saddam. "... Many of them think they are on the target list, that if he ever gets the opportunity, he'll take them out."
Cheney's Middle East tour was originally an attempt to drum up support for containing Iraq, but in the end the Israeli-Palestinian situation dominated his talks.
At a recent news conference, Bush, who has included Iraq in his so-called "axis of evil" states seeking to develop weapons of mass destruction, said he believed Saddam possesses such arms because he refuses to let U.N. inspectors into his country. But Bush said he planned no imminent military action against the Iraqi leader.
Cheney also said no nation had requested the United States dispatch troops to the region nor had it "been seriously discussed in our government."
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
General's caution dismays Rumsfeld
By David Wastell in Washington
24/03/2002
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/03/24/wafg124.xml&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=277833
DONALD RUMSFELD, the United States defence secretary, is becoming increasingly anxious at the "too cautious" approach being taken by the general leading the anti-terror campaign in Afghanistan.
Mr Rumsfeld and other US defence chiefs have "growing dissatisfaction" with Gen Tommy Franks, the commander-in-chief of Central Command, who is responsible for fighting the war in Afghanistan and would also be in charge of any attack on Iraq, according to Washington officials close to the Pentagon.
The defence secretary was among senior US officials who publicly hailed the success of the recently completed Operation Anaconda against the remaining al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in Afghanistan.
Washington said more than 500 enemy fighters were believed to have been killed by a combined force of US, Canadian and Afghan troops backed up with air power - despite an absence of enough bodies to prove the figure beyond doubt.
Last week, Gen Franks travelled to Bagram air base in Afghanistan to present medals to five soldiers involved in the battle. The operation was the first large-scale deployment of American ground troops in combat since the campaign began.
It was designed to be a superior strategy to last year's battle over the Tora Bora cave complex, during which Afghan forces allowed large numbers of Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters to slip away.
Behind the scenes, however, senior officials are said to be impatient that Gen Franks has still been unwilling to call on larger numbers of US troops to finish the job, despite clear signs that more "boots on the ground" are needed.
"He has only asked for more in small increments," said one official close to the Pentagon. As a result, during Anaconda they ran out of proper troops quite early on and had to send military policemen to the front lines."
A defence expert linked to the Pentagon said Gen Franks's decision to request combat assistance from 1,700 British troops stemmed at least in part from a fear of the public reaction if more American lives were lost too soon after the casualties of Anaconda, during which eight US soldiers were killed.
"That's not Rumsfeld's thinking and it's not the view of most Americans either," said the adviser. "But Franks has misread the press flurry when those soldiers got killed.
"He thinks that if we have another 20 dead then people will start squawking, whereas, in fact, the reaction lasted only a couple of days and nobody is even discussing it now."
Gen Franks is also said to have appreciated that the British troops may be more accomplished at some aspects of infantry warfare than their US counterparts.
"They know how to walk up mountains," said an official. "They don't expect to be given a ride in a helicopter every time they want to get somewhere."
The 1,700-strong force of Royal Marines will almost double the number of regular combat troops available to tackle regrouping al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters, bringing the total to almost 5,000, including a smaller Canadian force.
Special operations units from at least half a dozen countries are also operating inside Afghanistan.
Mr Rumsfeld is believed to recognise that a substantial British force at this stage of the campaign could bring a future benefit to America. One US official said: "It raises the profile of a coalition partner in this operation, which is important for the campaign in Afghanistan and will be, down the road, for Iraq."
The debate within the US administration over how to proceed on Iraq is intensifying, but defence hawks have now had to concede that there is no realistic prospect of launching a military campaign until the end of this year at the earliest.
Arab reaction to last week's tour of Middle East capitals by Dick Cheney, the vice-president, has strengthened the hand of those in Washington such as Colin Powell, the secretary of state, who have been urging caution over moves to topple the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Arab leaders warned Mr Cheney of the dangers of military action against Iraq before the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians was resolved.
President Bush appeared to have taken Arab sensitivities on board when he declared in Mexico on Friday that Washington had "no imminent plans" to attack Iraq. Officials said, however, that the views gathered by Mr Cheney during his trip had not yet been fully analysed.
"I don't think it will change the administration's thinking," said one official. "We are quite determined on this account."
----
U.S. says al-Qaeda still capable of terrorist acts
The Associated Press
03/24/2002
http://usatoday.com/news/attack/2002/03/24/terrorism-possible.htm
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Despite battlefield losses suffered against U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, the al-Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden remains capable of carrying out terrorist acts, a U.S. military spokesman said Sunday.
Navy Cmdr. Frank Merriman, a U.S. Central Command spokesman, said the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan has scored significant victories against al-Qaeda but that the global terrorist organization is far from being wiped out. Pockets of enemy fighters are believed to be hiding in Afghanistan and Pakistan, waiting for the right moment to strike.
"Central Command would never say al-Qaeda and the Taliban have lost their effectiveness," Merriman said. "They are a worldwide organization. There very well may be other terrorist acts in the planning process, and our goal is to try to disturb and eliminate as many of those as we can."
An indication the terrorist threat still exists was underscored Friday, when the State Department ordered families and nonessential diplomatic workers at the U.S. Embassy and consulates in Pakistan to leave the country.
The departure order came less than a week after two Americans were killed in a grenade attack at a church in Islamabad, the capital, and just as 11 people were charged in a Pakistani court in the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
U.S. military officials have dismissed claims that many al-Qaeda fighters managed to escape during Operation Anaconda, the biggest ground offensive in the five-month war that ended this month.
However, Taliban leaders and others familiar with the Islamic movement say as many as 1,000 Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters who escaped from Afghanistan are hiding in lawless regions of Pakistan and are planning a comeback in Afghanistan. Others are believed still inside Afghanistan.
U.S. military and intelligence officials say al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, near the Afghan border, are expected to step up activity in the spring as weather improves.
Taliban officials have recently told The Associated Press that bands of al-Qaeda and Taliban are on the move, traveling secretly through the mountains linking the southern and central Afghan provinces of Uruzgan, Ghor, Bamiyan, Ghanzi and Zabul.
Merriman said Operation Anaconda dealt a serious blow to the ability of enemy fighters in eastern Afghanistan to plan and carry out operations.
"But they remain a dangerous foe," he said. "That is why we are committed to remaining in the country until we can identify and eradicate as many pockets as we can find."
-------- balkans
Police report of Skopje deaths meets skepticism
By Joshua Kucera
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
March 24, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020324-9715926.htm
SKOPJE, Macedonia - Three weeks after the fact, almost nothing is clear about the case of seven foreigners killed by Macedonian police in a village just outside the capital, Skopje.
On March 2, Macedonian police announced they had killed seven gunmen in a shootout. The police said the gunmen were foreigners, probably Pakistanis, who were affiliated with al Qaeda and were planning attacks on the U.S., British and German embassies in Skopje.
They also said the men had on them uniforms of the National Liberation Army, a group of ethnic Albanians that rebelled last year in a conflict that killed 300 and revived fears of another Balkan war.
The report was greeted with keen skepticism. International officials and journalists were not allowed to see any of the key evidence. Representatives of the embassies said they weren't aware of any threats against them, and after the shootings, the government stepped up security at only the American Embassy - and then only for a few hours.
"We don't have any sort of information about a threat, and they've never been able to provide us with any," one Western diplomat said.
The government's authority was eroded further when it significantly changed the details of the story. At first, police said that the men were in a van and had opened fire on a police checkpoint. Then they changed the story to say that the men were on foot in a vineyard.
The government did allow Western officials to see four of the bodies, and they were reported to appear South Asian. The other three have not been seen.
No police were injured, no cartridges or bullets were found at the site, and only one small bloodstain was found, said one government representative who disputes the official version of events. He added that no van has been produced, that the weapons seized showed no sign of being fired, and that there was too much equipment "seized" to be logically carried by men on foot.
"My guess is that these seven people were illegal immigrants who had nothing to do with Afghanistan or mujahedeen, and were misused by our government," said the official, who conceded that he didn't have access to the government evidence.
He said the government may have thought it was a no-lose proposition. "For domestic reasons, the government can say we are strong in our commitment to defend the country from mujahedeen, and for external use it makes Macedonia look like a fighter in the war against terrorism."
Ever since the U.S.-led war against terrorism began last year, the government has tried to say that the NLA comprised mujahedeen, or Islamist fighters, backed by Islamic terrorists, and spokesmen were fond of calling the NLA "the Taliban of Europe." But no concrete tie has been established.
Ali Ahmeti, the former head of the NLA, said he had never been approached by Islamist fighters but thought that some of his fighters may have been. Still, he dismissed charges that any holy warriors were under his command.
"There were a lot of people with beards because we were on the top of the mountain. But not every guy with a beard is a mujahedeen."
Another speculation is that the incident was related to the arrival of U.N. war crimes investigators who came to look at a nearby site where six Albanian civilians were killed. The New York-based watchdog group Human Rights Watch reported that Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski was on the scene, and it is widely speculated in Skopje that he will be indicted by the war crimes court at The Hague.
"Those who expect to be indicted sometimes try to do funny things about it to try to get on the good side of the international community," said Ed Joseph, a Skopje-based analyst with the think tank International Crisis Group. The Hague "is weighing on [Mr. Boskovski´s] mind," he said.
-------- biological weapons
[The question is, how would this fellow have gotten hold of US military-grade anthrax which had been refined in Ft. Detrick, Maryland? See Washington Post, December 13, 2001, "Army Working on Weapons-Grade Anthrax," http://prop1.org/nucnews/2001nn/0112nn/011213nn.htm#330. et]
Officials suspect hijacker exposed to anthrax
Around the Nation
March 24, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020324-9781305.htm
The government is investigating a report from medical authorities that one of the September 11 hijackers was treated three months before the attacks for a lesion that could have been caused by exposure to anthrax, U.S. officials said yesterday.
The information is contained in a memorandum prepared by experts from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies, who studied a Florida doctor's treatment of hijacker Ahmed Ibrahim A. Al Haznawi, the officials said. The memo concluded that anthrax was the most likely diagnosis for the man, said Tim Parsons, a spokesman for the university's School of Public Health.
Al Haznawi, a possible Saudi national, was one of the hijackers on United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Somerset County in rural Pennsylvania.
--------
Drug Co. Funding Bioterror Research
March 24, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Bioterrorism-Training.html
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- Eli Lilly and Co. will fund a government program to help scientists from other countries fight bioterrorism and the natural spread of infectious diseases.
Twenty-eight visiting scientists will train in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention laboratories with U.S. researchers so they can better respond to outbreaks.
Overseeing the effort will be the National Foundation for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an arm of the federal agency that forges partnerships outside government. The CDC has a similar program for U.S. scientists.
``The CDC has wanted for many years to have the same program internationally,'' said C. Charles Stokes, the CDC foundation's president and chief executive. ``But it just hasn't had the funding to do it, and it isn't the kind of thing Congress would use taxpayer money to fund.''
Lilly, an Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical maker, is providing $2 million for the program over four years. It planned to announce the effort in Atlanta at Sunday's opening of the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases.
Kei Koizumi, an analyst at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C., said $2 million is a ``drop in the bucket'' in the federal government's counter-terorrism program.
But Koizumi called it ``a well-targeted program that could address a real need.''
Dr. Gail Cassell, Lilly's vice president of infectious diseases, said the World Health Organization is beginning a similar program that focuses on training scientists from developing nations.
-------- drug war
Bush triples aid pledge to Peru
By Bill Sammon
THE WASHINGTON TIMES,
March 24, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020324-88088674.htm
LIMA, Peru - President Bush yesterday promised to triple anti-drug aid to Peru but warned that the new funds won't be effective unless Americans stop using the cocaine and heroin that originate in this impoverished Andean nation.
"As demand for drugs goes down, it'll take the pressure off of our friends in Peru," Mr. Bush said at a joint press conference with Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo. "So we've got a double obligation, it seems like to me."
The president said the first part of this obligation is to increase anti-drug aid dramatically to $195 million a year.
"But I want to remind our Peruvian friends that we've got to do a better job at home of convincing Americans to stop using drugs," Mr. Bush said.
Mr. Toledo acknowledged selfish reasons for wanting to eradicate the drug trade.
"I want to be very open, and I apologize to my friend President Bush now," he said in the ornate Presidential Palace. "We are not fighting against drug trafficking in order to satisfy the United States or Europe. Drug trafficking, in partnership with terrorism, is an issue of national security."
"On Wednesday, they killed nine people - nine of our brothers and sisters - and there were 30 people wounded," he said, referring to this week's deadly bombing near the U.S. Embassy. "We are not going to let this stand."
Mr. Bush's visit to Peru and other Latin American nations was derided by Democrats yesterday as a craven grab for Hispanic votes in the United States.
The Democratic Party devoted its weekly radio address to ridiculing Mr. Bush's four-day trip, which concludes today in El Salvador.
"The president's trip this weekend to Latin America is part of an orchestrated strategy to curry favor with Latino voters in the United States," said Antonio Villaraigosa, speaker emeritus of the California State Assembly.
"But our community knows the difference between rhetoric and results," he added. "They know the difference between pandering and producing."
The comments were broadcast in the United States as police in Peru fired tear gas at anti-American demonstrators just hours before Mr. Bush arrived from Mexico.
"Bush, murderer, get out of Peru," the protestors shouted as they scattered amid the acrid smoke. One wore a T-shirt bearing the image of leftist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara.
"Down with Yankee imperialism," others chanted. "We don't want to be a North American colony."
The president's visit came three days after a car bomb exploded outside the U.S. Embassy, killing nine Peruvians. Mr. Bush said he would not let "two-bit terrorists" stop him from becoming the first president to visit Lima, where the bombing was blamed on Shining Path communist guerillas.
"Peruvians have been reminded again this week of the terrible human toll of terror," Mr. Bush said. "On behalf of the people of the United States, I express our deep sympathy for the victims of the recent bombing and our deep sympathy for their loved ones."
"President Toledo and I share a common perspective on terrorism: We must stop it," he added. "Since September the 11th, Peru has taken the lead in rallying our hemisphere to take strong action against this common threat."
Most people crowding the streets of this teeming city seemed please to be hosting the American president, who brought promises of increased foreign aid. In addition to the $45 million in food assistance the American taxpayers will provide this year, Mr. Bush agreed to cancel $5.5 million in debt in exchange for Peruvian efforts to "protect biodiversity and tropical forests," the White House said.
The decision to triple anti-drug funding came after Peru saw a rise in the cultivation of plants that are used to produce cocaine and heroin. The resurgence of these drugs here coincided with an anti-drug crackdown in nearby Columbia.
In addition to pumping $75 million into drug eradication programs, Mr. Bush also brought plans for a $125 million aid package aimed at economic and social development in a nation where more than half the population lives beneath the poverty line.
Mr. Bush, who recently imposed stiff tariffs on imports of steel and lumber to the United States, yesterday extolled the virtues of free trade in South America. He promised Mr. Toledo "to renew and extend the Andean Trade Preferences Act."
"The United States House of Representatives has moved this legislation," Mr. Bush said. "It is stuck in the Senate, and I urge the Senate to act."
Later during a meeting with Mr. Toledo and leaders of Bolivia, Colombia and Ecuador, one of the men used a combination of English and a Spanish to express impatience over the trade act.
"The Senate is 'manana-ing' this to death," said the leader regarding the continuous delays, according to a senior administration official who refused to reveal the speaker's name.
Mr. Bush also announced that he would send Secretary of Commerce Donald L. Evans and other officials on a trade mission to Peru and the Andean region later this year.
Mr. Bush and Mr. Toledo also reached an agreement to dispatch the Peace Corps into Peru for the first time in nearly 30 years.
Mr. Toledo, who was having breakfast with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in his palace when terrorists attacked the United States on September 11, yesterday reiterated his support for America's war against terrorism.
"This is the beginning of a new era in the relationship between Peru and the United States," he said to his American counterpart. "We both have the energy and the stubbornness, particularly with regard to the issue of terrorism and drug trafficking, because your country, just like mine, loves peace."
Mr. Bush reciprocated by praising the Peruvian president's efforts at democratic reform. Mr. Toledo, whose popularity here has fallen along with the economy, seemed to bask in the praise of the American president.
"It's an honor for me to be the first sitting president of the United States to visit Peru," said Mr. Bush, who sprinkled his remarks with snippets of Spanish. "Peru is on the path toward greater freedom and greater prosperity, and America will be the partner in this progress."
-------- georgia
Russia says Georgia arming militants
March 24, 2002
Russia Journal
http://www.russiajournal.com/news/rj_news.shtml?nd=1858
TBILISI - A group of Georgian refugees from the separatist region of Abkhazia violently resisted eviction from their squatters' quarters in a Tbilisi scientific institute and set an institute library ablaze, officials said Thursday.
The melee came as a war of words over Abkhazia heated up Thursday. Russia's Foreign Ministry on Thursday accused the Georgian government of aiding militants and fomenting unrest in Abkhazia, and Abkhazian separatist leader Anri Dzhergeniya alleged that Georgian authorities were trying to paint his region as a haven for terrorists in order to pave the way for possible military action.
"We are not concealing anything. We are prepared to show everything to military experts, international observers or U.N. officials any time," Dzhergeniya told reporters in Moscow.
Russia has long accused Georgia of providing refuge to terrorists in its lawless Pankisi Gorge, on the border with Chechnya. The United States recently endorsed that criticism - and pledged to send military instructors to teach Georgian troops anti-terrorist strategy.
That plan has made the Abkhazians nervous that Georgia might try to retake their territory. The separatists achieved de facto independence in 1993, after a two-year war that forced hundreds of thousands of ethnic Georgians to flee. Russian peacekeepers patrol the borders of the separatist region, where sporadic violence still breaks out and where refugees have been pressing to be allowed to return to their homes after nine years in forced exile.
Most of the approximately 300,000 refugees have been living in crowded hotels and other temporary housing in Tbilisi. The housing shortage was further exacerbated after a spurt of fighting in Abkhazia last fall, which sent 600 more people fleeing to the Georgian capital.
About 150 of the newly arrived refugees moved themselves into the Botanical Institute earlier this week. After asking them to leave, the institute's director, Georgy Nakhutsrishvili, said he asked police to evict them.
But the refugees refused the police orders, and when police moved to physically remove them Wednesday, some threw bottles of flammable liquids into several rooms in the institute.
Firefighters put out the fire, but only after it consumed hundreds of rare books.
"I feel sorry for the refugees, but why did the books have to suffer?," Nakhutsrishvili said.
U.S. and Georgian officials on Thursday opened a newly renovated, U.S.-funded laboratory for testing aviation equipment used by Georgia's border guards - the latest U.S. boost to Georgia's underfunded military.
Also Thursday, a prominent opposition politician speculated that the United States wants to use Georgia as a base for attacks on Iran or Iraq.
"I welcome the American help in the task of anti-terrorism, but I have doubts that the real reason for the coming of the American military is to clean up the Pankisi Gorge," said Dzhumber Patiashvili, leader of the Erbota political alliance.
"To me it seems that the real reason for the activity of the American military is to use the terriroty of Georgia for carrying out large-scale military operations against Iraq and also Iran," he said.
Georgia does not border either of those countries, but is within 300 kilometers (180 miles) of their northern reaches.
-------- india
Troops Patrol Riot - Hit Areas in India's Gujarat
March 24, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-religion-india-gujarat.html
AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) - Troops patrolled deserted streets in India's riot-hit areas as authorities increased security on the eve of the Muslim festival of Muharram in the Gujarat state where hundreds have died in religious clashes.
More than 700 people, mostly Muslims, have been killed in the western state of Gujarat in reprisals for an attack by a Muslim mob on a train last month in which 58 Hindus died.
Tensions between Hindus and Muslims, who form 10 percent of Gujarat's 50 million population, have risen sharply in the western state after the worst bloodshed in almost a decade.
Rampaging mobs have regularly burned houses or attacked places of worship in Gujarat and while there had been no mass killings for two weeks, isolated ones were being still reported.
Authorities enforced a curfew in the Vijalpur area of the state's main city of Ahmedabad after one person was stabbed on Sunday, police said.
``Except for Ahmedabad, which is still tense, rest of the state is peaceful,'' one official in the state police control room said.
But authorities are worried about Monday's Muharram festival of Ashura -- the 10th day of the Islamic new year -- in which Muslims traditionally organize marches through busy streets.
``In view of Muharram, areas with a history of communal disturbances, additional police and paramilitary forces will be sent in. Additional protection would be given to places of worship,'' Gujarat's Additional Home (interior) Secretary, Prakash Shah said.
NO PROCESSIONS
He said the minority Muslim community had decided to scale down ceremonies Monday. ``They have voluntarily decided not to have Muharram processions.
But the authorities were not taking chances.
``There is a fear among the minority community that whatever they do, even if it is a small ceremony, they may be attacked.''
The state government has asked district administrators to strictly deal with any incident of violence.
``Forces will be on high alert. In any event of a disturbance, the army will be called in. They are on stand-by, already patrolling the street.
Six areas of Ahmedabad and half of the industrial town of Baroda were under curfew, officials said.
India's Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has faced severe criticism from his opponents as well as coalition allies, who have demanded a crackdown on the traditional Hindu fundamentalist supporters of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
BJP's ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or National Volunteer Corps, said last weekend that minority Muslims must understand that their safety lay in the goodwill of the majority.
This outraged Vajpayee's opponents and allies alike but the RSS Friday stood by its statement.
The hard-line Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) Friday backed down from a controversial plan to carry around the country the ashes of its supporters killed in the train attack.
The BJP rode to national prominence on a wave of Hindu revivalism after a mosque was razed by a Hindu mob in Ayodhya in 1992, triggering nationwide riots in which 3,000 people died. But when it came to power in 1999 it vowed to give up a campaign to build a temple in Ayodhya in return for support from secular allies in the ruling coalition.
-------- iran
Palestinian-Iran Alliance Suspected
By Steve Weizman
Associated Press Writer
Sunday, March 24, 2002; 1:29 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A10599-2002Mar24?language=printer
JERUSALEM -- Israel said Palestinian and Iranian officials met in Moscow last year and forged a new alliance in which the Palestinians were to receive millions of dollars worth of heavy weaponry in exchange for allowing Iran more influence and intelligence information about Israel.
The Palestinians dismissed the charges as misinformation by Israeli intelligence. But Israeli sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said details of the agreement were worked out in a meeting between unspecified Palestinian and Iranian officials last May, during a visit to the Russian capital by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
The sources said Israel believed the meeting took place in the Iranian embassy. They did not say Arafat personally attended. It was not known how much knowledge the Russians had of the meeting.
A senior Israeli security source said an alleged recent effort to smuggle 50 tons of Iranian-supplied weapons, including missiles and explosives, into the Palestinian areas was discussed at that meeting and was only one part of these broader ties.
In January, after the Karine A ship carrying the weapons was intercepted, Israeli officials rushed to Washington, telling the Bush administration that the capture was the most spectacular find so far but only part of a new strengthened financial and arms relationship. The said Arafat personally had approved the relationship, though they offered no public proof.
In an article Sunday, the New York Times said U.S. intelligence now accepted Israel's version that the Karine A was part of a wider alliance.
Ahmed Abdel Rahman, the Palestinian Cabinet secretary, said the report was a total fabrication.
"There was no meeting between Arafat aides and Iranian officials in Moscow or anywhere else," he said. "It is enough to prove that these allegations are a lie to know their sources, which are the Israeli security sources."
Abdel Rahman said he regretted that U.S. officials have accepted the Israeli allegations.
"There are no relations between the Palestinian Authority and Iran," he said. "There are only differences. We accept the peace process and the Iranians do not."
Vice President Dick Cheney, interviewed on CNN , would neither confirm nor deny the Times story.
"There were arms, acquired in Iran, being shipped through Hezbollah to elements of the Palestinian Authority. That was clear," he said. "Whether or not there was a deeper level of involvement there, I don't know. We'll have to see. Obviously, it would be of great concern."
The Palestinian Authority says it arrested several officials suspected of involvement in the arms smuggling effort.
An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Karine A was not an isolated event. He said it was the expression of an alliance.
In return, an Israeli official said, the Iranians wanted influence and a presence on the ground, not necessarily by Iranians but by people who work for them.
Another Israeli security source said the Iranians were especially interested in intelligence information on Israel, especially the location of bases and various operational procedures.
As a part of the partnership, the Palestinians agreed to allow a free hand to the militant Islamic Jihad group to set up a social welfare network, including clinics and schools, in order to win support, the Israeli sources said. The Islamic Jihad has staged numerous suicide bombings against Israeli soldiers and civilians.
Iran also has supported the Lebanese group Hezbollah, which for years fought a guerrilla war against Israeli troops in southern Lebanon and has periodically staged cross-border operations since Israel withdrew its troops in May 2000.
Israel has long viewed Iran as a major strategic threat and has stepped up its accusations against Tehran, finding the United States more receptive since the Sept. 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington.
Early in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, U.S. officials spoke of better cooperation with Iran; but Washington has since accused Iran of undermining Afghanistan's new government and has been angered by the alleged Iranian involvement in the Karine A affair.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres has said that since the Israeli troops pulled out of Lebanon, Iran has been steadily deploying missiles there, all aimed at Israel and manned by Hezbollah fighters.
He said Iran is developing missiles that could reach Europe and North America.
-------- iraq
Iraq Invites U.S. to Discuss Pilot
March 24, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-US.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iraq said on Sunday it was ready to receive a U.S. delegation to discuss the fate of an American pilot shot down over Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War.
``Iraq is ready to receive any American team, accompanied by U.S. media, in order to discuss and document this issue under the supervision of the International Committee of the Red Cross,'' a Foreign Ministry spokesman said in a statement.
In Washington, Vice President Dick Cheney said on CBS' ``Face the Nation'' that he was unaware of the Iraqi offer, and would want to ``see whether or not this is a serious proposition or whether Saddam Hussein is simply trying to change the subject.''
Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher was lost when his Navy F/A-18 Hornet jet was shot down on Jan. 17, 1991, the first night of the war.
Speicher, 33, had been listed as the first casualty of the Gulf War. Last year the Pentagon changed his status from killed in action to missing in action after persistent reports he survived and was being held captive. His tombstone is over an empty grave at Arlington National Cemetery.
In a search of the crash site in December 1995, investigators found the canopy, which ejects with the pilot, spent flares and a survival kit. They also found a tattered flight suit. But no trace of Speicher was found.
When the U.S. Navy changed his status to missing, the State Department asked Iraq, through the International Red Cross and other channels, for information about the flier.
Iraq says Speicher was killed without ejecting from the cockpit, though his remains were never found.
The Iraqi spokesman, who was not identified, said the best way to solve ``such mere technical matters'' was through specialized legal channels. He did not elaborate.
The United States has warned Iraq it may become the next target in the war on terror unless it allows U.N. weapons inspectors back in the country to investigate Western claims the country is building weapons of mass destruction. Iraq insists it has destroyed all such weapons, and has barred inspectors since they left in December 1998.
--------
Cheney: No Arab Leaders Opposed U.S. Action in Iraq
March 24, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-iraq-cheney.html
WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney said on Sunday that during his recent visit to the Middle East Arab leaders did not oppose possible American action against Iraq's Saddam Hussein.
``No, not at all,'' Cheney told the CBS ``Face the Nation'' program. ``What I came away with ... is the sense that they share our concern.''
He conceded that some Arab leaders had publicly spoken out against U.S. military action against Baghdad but that in meetings during his 12 days in the region, the fear of Saddam expanding his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, possibly to include a nuclear weapon, was ``a frightening proposition'' for all.
``Part of my task out there was to go out and begin the dialogue with our friends to make sure they were thinking about it,'' Cheney said of his 12-country trip that ended on Wednesday.
``It was mixed I think in terms of their public reactions. But each of them can speak for themselves,'' he added. ``I had very good sessions throughout the region. ... I would say that almost without exception there is universal concern on the developments we see in Iraq.''
Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, whose country is hosting an Arab summit this coming week, said on Saturday that Arab countries were united in opposing any unjustified U.S. attack on Iraq. Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said Arab states at the summit on Wednesday and on Thursday would oppose any U.S. military action against Iraq.
ACTION IN U.N. SUGGESTED
Cheney said many of the leaders thought it was best to pursue action against Saddam Hussein at the United Nations, but he said the Security Council had already acted. Iraq is still under U.N. sanctions imposed after it invaded Kuwait in 1990. A U.S.-led coalition drove Iraqi forces from Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War but Iraq remains at odds with the West over allowing United Nations weapons inspectors into the country.
Cheney also cited ``a lot of interest'' on the part of Arab leaders on how the Iraqi threat related to the ongoing violence between Palestinians and the Israelis. He did not elaborate.
President Bush's Middle East envoy, retired Gen. Anthony Zinni, was in the region last week as Cheney was there.
Asked if he had come away from his meetings feeling Arab leaders would not oppose a U.S. action against Iraq, Cheney said: ``That's correct.''
``Frankly I couldn't find anyone out there who has anything good to say about him,'' the vice president said of Saddam. ``... Many of them think they are on the target list, that if he ever gets the opportunity, he'll take them out.''
Cheney's Middle East tour was originally an attempt to drum up support for containing Iraq, but in the end the Israeli-Palestinian situation dominated his talks.
At a recent news conference, Bush, who has included Iraq in his so-called ``axis of evil'' states seeking to develop weapons of mass destruction, said he believed Saddam possesses such arms because he refuses to let U.N. inspectors into his country. But Bush said he planned no imminent military action against the Iraqi leader.
Cheney also said no nation had requested the United States dispatch troops to the region nor had it ``been seriously discussed in our government.''
-------- israel / palestine
A Secret Iran-Arafat Connection Is Seen Fueling the Mideast Fire
New York Times
March 24, 2002
By DOUGLAS FRANTZ and JAMES RISEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/24/international/middleeast/24IRAN.html?pagewanted=all&position=top
TEL AVIV - American and Israeli intelligence officials have concluded that Yasir Arafat has forged a new alliance with Iran that involves Iranian shipments of heavy weapons and millions of dollars to Palestinian groups that are waging guerrilla war against Israel.
The partnership, officials said, was arranged in a clandestine meeting in Moscow last May between two top aides to Mr. Arafat and Iranian government officials. The meeting took place while Mr. Arafat was visiting President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, according to senior Israeli security officials who declined to describe the precise nature of their information.
The new alignment is significant for several reasons, American and Israeli officials said. In recent years, Iran's support for terrorism around the world has been on the wane, with the notable exception of its ties to Hezbollah, the militant group that fought for 18 years to expel Israel from southern Lebanon.
Israeli officials say they are alarmed by Mr. Arafat's alliance with Iran because they say it gives the Palestinians a powerful and well-armed patron in the increasingly violent conflict with Israel. American officials echoed that concern and said they were also worried by intelligence reports that say Tehran is harboring Al Qaeda members, including one leader who recently tried to mount an attack against Israel from his sanctuary in Iran.
Questions about Iran's relationship with the Palestinians came into public view early this year when Israel seized a ship carrying 50 tons of Iranian-supplied arms, including antitank weapons that could neutralize one of Israel's main military advantages over the Palestinians and rockets that could reach most cities in Israel.
Both the Palestinians and Iranians deny they are working together, but American and Israeli officials say they now see the shipment as part of a broader relationship. They say that began with several smaller attempts by Iranian-backed groups in Lebanon to supply arms and was cemented in the Moscow meeting. Officials of Israel and the United States say they believe that Mr. Arafat personally approved the dealings with Iran.
American officials said that Israeli intelligence reports about the Moscow meeting were at the heart of secret briefings that Israel provided to the Bush administration after the arms shipment was intercepted.
"There's plenty of evidence to show that it wasn't a rogue operation," a senior State Department official said of the ship that Israel seized in early January.
Palestinian Authority officials dismissed the charges of any Iranian involvement in their struggle against Israel and denied that Mr. Arafat knew of the arms shipment. They said the allegations were an attempt by Israel to discredit the Palestinians and to justify Israel's military operations in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
"This is a factory of lies," Yasir Abed Rabbo, the Palestinian minister of information, said. "Israel is like any colonial power. When they get in trouble, they try to blame outsiders. There has not been a single Iranian here since the 14th century."
Iran also has denied any involvement with the Palestinians or the arms shipments. Ali Shamkhani, the Iranian minister of defense, told the state news agency, "The Islamic Republic of Iran has had no military relations with Arafat, and no steps have been taken by any Iranian organization for the shipment of arms to the mentioned lands."
For several years, American counterterrorism experts believed Iran's terrorist apparatus had fallen dormant. Hezbollah and other groups backed by Iran had not attacked American targets since the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia killed 19 American servicemen in 1996. Iranian leaders had apparently decided that state sponsorship of anti-American terrorism was too risky at a time when the country was trying to build closer economic ties with Europe.
Post-Intifada Enthusiasm
Iran also seemed locked out of Palestinian issues while Mr. Arafat pursued the Oslo peace process with Israel. Relations soured so badly between Tehran and Mr. Arafat after the Oslo accords in 1994 that the Palestinian leader became convinced that religious leaders in Iran had issued an order that he be killed for dealing with the Jewish state, according to American and Israeli officials.
But American intelligence officials said that they believe that the onset of the Palestinian uprising known as the intifada in September 2000 renewed the enthusiasm among Iran's hard-liners for terrorism.
"The main variable is that the intifada has stirred the radical juices in Iran," said a senior American official. "With the outbreak of the intifada, the Iranians decided they wanted things to burn hotter. The Iranians are now supporting a number of Palestinian groups - it's been a bad news story on Iran over the last 18 months."
George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, recently told Congress that Iran's political reformers were losing momentum in the long-running battle for power with the conservative clerics who control the Iranian intelligence and security agencies that support extremist groups. He warned that there had been little reduction in Iran's backing for terrorism and he said that Tehran had failed to seal its eastern border with Afghanistan to block the escape of Al Qaeda members.
Israeli officials said there was new evidence that some Iranian officials have allowed Al Qaeda to use the country not just as a transit point after escaping Afghanistan, but as a staging area.
Abu Musaab Zarqawi, a senior Al Qaeda leader who fled the western Afghan city of Herat after the American military campaign began, has turned up in Tehran under the protection of Iranian security forces, according to senior Israeli and American officials.
Last month, Mr. Zarqawi dispatched three Afghan-trained operatives to attack Israel, Israeli officials said. The three, two Palestinians and a Jordanian, were arrested when they crossed from Iran into Turkey on Feb. 15.
Turkish authorities said the men had possessed fake documents, had diagrams for bombs and claimed that they intended to attack targets in Tel Aviv on orders from a leader known as Abu Musaab. Israeli intelligence said his full name was Abu Musaab Zarqawi, and American officials said he was believed to be the highest ranking Al Qaeda leader now in Iran.
The new information about his presence in Tehran raises questions about his actions and the activities of other Al Qaeda terrorists who entered Iran in recent months.
American officials say they are uncertain how much direct support senior Iranian government officials are giving to Al Qaeda members. Al Qaeda is a Sunni Muslim group, but Iran is Shiite. Moreover, Iran strongly supported the Afghan opposition groups that fought the Taliban.
But Mr. Tenet told a Senate committee that old religious divisions among Muslims did not rule out cooperation on terrorism against the United States and its allies.
There is evidence that Osama bin Laden sought to bridge the religious divide when it came to terrorist operations by exploring an alliance with the Iranian-backed guerrilla group Hezbollah as early as the mid-1990's.
Ali A. Mohamed, an Al Qaeda member convicted of conspiracy in the bombings of the American embassies in East Africa in 1998, testified that he had arranged security for a meeting in Sudan between Mr. bin Laden and Imad Mugniyah, the Hezbollah militant who masterminded the 1983 suicide attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 Americans and helped to define terrorism for Americans.
Among many Arabs, Hezbollah's status surged after its long military and terrorist campaign in southern Lebanon helped lead to the Israeli withdrawal from the country in May 2000. Its victory meant that Mr. Mugniyah and Hezbollah's terrorist wing had less work. Soon after the start of the Palestinian uprising, Iran sent Mr. Mugniyah to help the Palestinians, American and Israeli intelligence officials said.
"Mugniyah got orders from Tehran to work with Hamas," a former Clinton administration official said.
In Grip of Hard-Liners
United States intelligence officials say they are increasingly concerned by the mounting evidence of Tehran's renewed interest in terrorism, including covert surveillance by Iranian agents of possible American targets abroad. American officials said Iran appeared to view terrorism as deterrent against possible attack by the United States. "If there was a direct military operation by the United States against Iran," one intelligence official said, "Mugniyah would likely attack us."
Since the surprise election of reformer Mohammad Khatami as president of Iran in 1997 and his wide public support, Washington has been counting on a new moderate political majority to emerge. But the hard-line faction has maintained its grip on Iran's security apparatus, frustrating American efforts to ease tensions with Tehran.
Now, Iranian actions to destabilize the new interim government in Afghanistan, its willingness to assist Al Qaeda members and its fueling of the Palestinian uprising are prompting a reassessment in Washington, officials say.
At the same time, Israeli officials have become increasingly vocal about Iran's new ties to the Palestinians, partly to link their own fight to the American-led war on terrorism. Earlier this year, President Bush identified Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an "axis of evil."
American intelligence officials said Iran's Revolutionary Guards and intelligence service had considerable latitude for supporting Iranian proxies. They also supported Israeli assertions that Iran had become deeply involved in backing Palestinian militants, both through Hezbollah and in the training and financial support from Iranian intelligence agents.
United States officials said, for instance, that the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, one of the groups behind the wave of suicide bombings in Israel, was financed and directed by Iran. American and Israeli officials said that since the beginning of the Palestinian uprising 18 months ago, Tehran had paid millions of dollars in cash bonuses to the group for each attack against Israel.
Hamas, a far larger Palestinian extremist group, is also believed to receive Iranian support, though officials here in Israel and in the United States said its ties to Iran were less direct. Hamas has its own independent means of raising money and recruiting members, so Iran is believed to have less influence over the group.
Operatives of Islamic Jihad and Hamas have been trained in Hezbollah camps in southern Lebanon and some have received specialized training inside Iran, American and Israeli intelligence officials said.
Israeli officials said they had recently arrested three Hamas operatives who were returning from two years of specialized training at a Revolutionary Guards officers' course outside Tehran in Dara Kazwin.
Such training appears to have paid off. Recent attacks by the groups have exhibited hallmarks of the tactics used by Hezbollah against Israel in Lebanon, including the destruction of two Israeli tanks in recent weeks by roadside bombs.
In fact, Israeli and American officials believe that the 18-year struggle by Hezbollah in Lebanon, backed by tens of millions of dollars worth of arms from Iran, provided a model for what Tehran would like to recreate on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. "The strategy is to make the West Bank another Lebanon," said one senior American intelligence official.
Israeli officials say they have seen no evidence of Iranian intelligence operatives working directly in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip. Instead, they said, Iranian and Hezbollah operatives meet with Palestinian militants and their intermediaries in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.
Growing Aid to Palestinians
Jordanian intelligence officials said they had thwarted many attempts by Iran and its proxies to mount attacks against Israel from Jordan. Last weekend, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary general of Hezbollah, criticized Jordan for blocking the group's efforts to smuggle weapons to the Palestinians. Meanwhile, Iranian-backed charitable organizations have stepped up financial support for the Palestinians, according to American officials. Israeli officials added that some Palestinians wounded in the uprising were being treated in hospitals in Iran, where Iranian agents sometimes try to recruit them.
But the most visible evidence of the new strategic partnership between the Palestinian Authority and Iran came in the case of the Karine A, a ship laden with 50 tons of mortars, rockets, missiles and explosives from Iran that was seized by Israeli commandos in early January.
The Karine A was a direct outgrowth of the secret meeting in Moscow last May between Mr. Arafat's representatives and Iranian intelligence officers, senior Israeli security officials said.
The shipping venture followed several failed attempts to smuggle weapons from Lebanon by sea into the Gaza Strip. One had occurred early last May when Israeli authorities intercepted the Santorini, a fishing vessel carrying weapons bound for Palestinian extremists. Israeli officials said there were at least three bungled attempts before that, including one earlier shipment by the Santorini.
In response to those failures, the Israeli security officials said, Mr. Arafat sought a deal with the Iranians for a more serious alliance. In exchange for a more professional approach to arms support, Mr. Arafat agreed to provide Iran with access to Palestinian intelligence on Israeli military positions and defenses, they said.
The arrangement was completed in Moscow, where the Palestinian leader instructed two trusted aides to meet with Iranian government officials, Israeli intelligence officials said.
The Israelis declined to identify the Iranians involved, but the Arafat aides were identified as Fuad Shobaki, the chief financial officer for military operations for the Palestine Liberation Organization and part of Mr. Arafat's inner circle, and Fathi al-Razem, deputy commander of the Palestinian naval police.
Follow-up meetings were also held between the Palestinians and the Iranians, but Israeli officials said the Iranians were careful never to hold any of the meetings in Iran for fear of exposing their involvement.
Israeli officials said the Karine A was a highly sophisticated operation, planned to give the Palestinians a quantum leap in firepower and change the military calculus in the uprising.
Evidence of Arafat's Role
The Israelis have been unable to tie the shipment directly to Mr. Arafat, but Israeli officials said the involvement of senior Palestinian Authority officials and Mr. Arafat's well-known attention to financial details created a strong circumstantial case for his knowledge.
American officials agreed that Mr. Arafat's representatives met with Iranian government officials in Moscow, though the Americans said they were uncertain whether the meeting was to complete the arms shipment or was one of several meetings.
"But there is no question that at some point the Iranians and people very close to Arafat came together and that Arafat was fully aware of it," said a senior State Department official.
The ship's captain was an officer in the Palestinian navy who was living in Libya, and three of the crew members were Palestinians, including one who tool diving lessons in Lebanon provided by Hezbollah, Israeli security officials said.
In addition, the officials said, a Palestinian naval officer, Adel al-Mughrabi, bought the ship and was in radio contact with its crew during the voyage from an island off the coast of Iran where it picked up the weapons to the point in the Red Sea where the ship was seized by Israelis.
The ship's captain, Omar Akawi, who said he was a 25-year member of Mr. Arafat's Fatah organization, told news organizations in interviews arranged by Israeli authorities in January that he knew he was carrying arms to the Palestinian Authority.
The ship contained an arsenal that could have escalated the war between Palestinians and Israelis. Among the munitions were 62 Katyusha rockets capable of reaching almost any city in Israel, hundreds of mortars and grenades, antitank and antipersonnel mines and two tons of explosives.
The explosives included a ton of C-4, which Israeli authorities said is nearly three times more powerful than the homemade explosives used by most Palestinian suicide bombers.
The identifying markings on the munitions had been sanded off, but most of them are manufactured only in Iran, Israeli security officials said.
Mr. Arafat and his aides denied any knowledge of the shipment, though they have said some Palestinian Authority personnel were involved.
Within Palestinian political circles, moderates were angered that Mr. Arafat had apparently struck a deal with the Iranians, risking American wrath, a Palestinian negotiator said. But other officials defended the attempt as essential to combating the overwhelming firepower of the Israelis.
The discovery sparked an intense debate within the Bush administration, American officials said. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and some others argued that relations should be broken off with Mr. Arafat, but Secretary of State Colin L. Powell contended that there was nothing to gain by cutting ties with the Palestinians.
In the end, Secretary Powell and President Bush chastised Mr. Arafat publicly over the shipment, but the United States did not end its relations with the Palestinian leader.
-------- landmines
[To reply to this myopic apologia, mailto:letters@washingtontimes.com.]
Why we still need land mines
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
March 24, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20020324-46573690.htm#2
We have not heard much from the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation (VVAF) lately. I suppose an organization that had its genesis in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) has had trouble promoting its agenda, what with September 11 and the recent wave of American patriotism.
Even charter member Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, has supported President Bush and the war on terrorism. Yes, the same John Kerry who was filmed throwing his military decorations over the White House fence after his tour of duty in Southeast Asia was an outspoken member of the VVAW. The fact that those same military awards are on display in his Senate office now belie his patent hypocrisy. The VVAF's recent campaign against the United States for not signing on to another left-wing feel-good program outlawing land mines is similarly hypocritical.
In his March 19 letter to the editor, "Land mines - the lingering problem," Joseph Donahue of the VVAF sets forth his disdain for Ernest Lefever's March 15 Commentary column, "Land mines myopia." Mr. Donahue, a Special Forces officer, has spent time in various countries defusing old land mines left by warring factions. The world is grateful for his efforts. However, Mr. Donahue has failed to understand that signing a proclamation that outlaws land mines is as effective as requiring criminals to register their firearms. Outlawing land mines will not deter those who seek to take advantage of law-abiding people.
As a combat Vietnam veteran of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, I can testify to the great rewards of the Claymore mine with which so many veterans of the war are familiar. These were command detonated (requiring the soldier to fire the weapon), and we never left them on the field of battle. They were of great support in defense of our positions, whether in our loggered-in sites at night, fire support bases, or major landing zone perimeters. I don't know in how many ambush missions Mr. Donahue was involved, but Claymore mines were the first weapons fired in the ones in which I participated.
We did not use any tank mines during my service in Vietnam. With enemy armies such as Iraq, I suspect anti-tank mines will be needed again - and the common grunts such as myself will welcome them.
The enemies of this country will use any method to kill Americans. This country should respond to such force with all means at our disposal. The rest of America understands. Why doesn't Mr. Donahue?
EMMETT LAUER
Silver Spring.
-------- russia
Official says Russian science facing extinction
Briefly
March 24, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020324-91578562.htm
MOSCOW - Russian science, a world leader during the Soviet era, could soon become virtually extinct due to a lack of funds and a post-Communist "brain drain," a senior Russian minister warned Wednesday.
"The situation is critical, and tomorrow Russian science could disappear" unless urgent measures are taken, Deputy Science Minister Mikhail Kirpichnikov said.
More than 200,000 scientists have left Russia in recent years, and the majority of equipment in the country's laboratories has not been replaced since 1991, according to official figures.
-------- us
'Friendly Fire' Deaths Traced to Dead Battery
Taliban Targeted, but U.S. Forces Killed
By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 24, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8853-2002Mar23?language=printer
The deadliest "friendly fire" incident of the war in Afghanistan was triggered in December by the simple act of a U.S. Special Forces air controller changing the battery on a Global Positioning System device he was using to target a Taliban outpost north of Kandahar, a senior defense official said yesterday.
Three Special Forces soldiers were killed and 20 were injured when a 2,000-pound, satellite-guided bomb landed, not on the Taliban outpost, but on a battalion command post occupied by American forces and a group of Afghan allies, including Hamid Karzai, now the interim prime minister.
The U.S. Central Command, which runs the Afghan war, has never explained how the coordinates got mixed up or who was responsible for relaying the U.S. position to a B-52 bomber, which fired a Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) at the Americans.
But the senior defense official explained yesterday that the Air Force combat controller was using a Precision Lightweight GPS Receiver, known to soldiers as a "plugger," to calculate the Taliban's coordinates for a B-52 attack. The controller did not realize that after he changed the device's battery, the machine was programmed to automatically come back on displaying coordinates for its own location, the official said.
Minutes before the fatal B-52 strike, which also killed five Afghan opposition soldiers and injured 18 others, the controller had used the GPS receiver to calculate the latitude and longitude of the Taliban position in minutes and seconds for an airstrike by a Navy F/A-18, the official said.
Then, with the B-52 approaching the target, the air controller did a second calculation in "degree decimals" required by the bomber crew. The controller had performed the calculation and recorded the position, the official said, when the receiver battery died.
Without realizing the machine was programmed to come back on showing the coordinates of its own location, the controller mistakenly called in the American position to the B-52. The JDAM landed with devastating precision.
The official said he did not know how the Air Force would treat the incident and whether disciplinary action would be taken. But the official, a combat veteran, said he considered the incident "an understandable mistake under the stress of operations."
"I don't think they've made any judgments yet, but the way I would react to something like that -- it is not a flagrant error, a violation of a procedure," the official said. "Stuff like that, truth be known, happens to all of us every day -- it's just that the stakes in battle are so enormously high."
Nonetheless, the official said the incident shows that the Air Force and Army have a serious training problem that needs to be corrected. "We need to know how our equipment works; when the battery is changed, it defaults to his own location," the official said. "We've got to make sure our people understand this."
Navy Cmdr. Ernest Duplessis, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, declined to comment on the friendly fire incident, saying an investigation "has not cleared our review yet."
-------- propaganda wars
PR firm 'brands' counterterrorism services
By Jennifer Harper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
March 24, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020324-41231291.htm
Spokesmen, logos, jingles, slogans, swooning models and a talking dog or two: This was once the typical advertising agency arsenal.
Now, add counterterrorism to the list. Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, one of the largest public relations concerns on the planet, has established "Counter Threat," a new division meant to usher corporate clients into the potential dangers of a post-September 11 world.
"The terrorist attacks have brought home the idea to many companies that they can be seriously affected by things completely beyond their control and out of their own geography," said Kamer Davis, who is coordinating the service from Ogilvy's Washington office.
It is a sobering moment, perhaps, for an industry preoccupied with the selling of underwear and autos. It is also a first: Ogilvy has now "branded" counterterrorism measures, assigning this very serious business a catchy name and streamlined purpose.
"What happens in a worst-case scenario? What happens if a company's whole infrastructure gets knocked out? You can't just dust off an old crisis management program and hope for the best," she said.
Indeed, Ogilvy plans to offer "emergency scenario-based" exercises for employees, crisis counseling and threat assessment of telephones, computer data and Internet resources, based on similar work done for federal, state and local agencies. The market, they believe, is expanding.
"The corporate sector can't afford to ignore this anymore," said Ms. Davis.
Some believe it is a wily marketing move by Ogilvy, which counts Coca-Cola and drug giant Pfizer as clients.
"This is an effort to be taken more seriously, to get really close to clients, right down to their desk drawers," said Richard Linnett, a columnist for Advertising Age. "Ogilvy is reinventing some old stuff, but they're getting beyond advertising. Antiterrorism services are another way to tap into more business, to be needed on a very basic level."
Others are getting on the bandwagon. Though it lacks the gutsy cachet of "Counter Threat," Ketchum, another global top-10 public relations agency, established a new "Issues and Crisis Management Network" in January.
"The big question is whether the agencies are competent enough to handle the demands of the field," Mr. Linnett said.
Interest in terrorism preparedness is yet another indicator that change is afoot in American advertising since September 11.
After the attacks, the collective creative prowess of the nation's biggest agencies went into patriotic gear, resulting in a continuing series of uplifting public service campaigns produced by the Ad Council.
Marketing images, music and messages came under close scrutiny in a newly sensitized commercial landscape. "Things that might have worked on September 10 are no longer valid," observed George Gendron, editor of Inc. magazine. "Everyone in the public relation field and media is struggling with it."
The attacks also inspired Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to appoint advertising expert Charlotte Beers as undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, charged with giving the nation a "brand" with a global image and media message.
It is a tricky business, though. The Pentagon's "Office of Strategic Information" was shut down in a matter of days, after rumors surfaced that the office might peddle disinformation, which the Department of Defense later denied.
Some critics faulted the State Department for trying to sell the United States as if it were soap.
The "branding" idea has merit, countered Allen Rosenshine, chairman of the advertising agency BBDO Worldwide, as long as it captures "the sense of decency, fairness and opportunity that characterizes our country." Mr. Rosenshine called for a carefully crafted and consistent message.
"The usual critics notwithstanding, what makes us good at selling soap can help us sell America," he wrote in the Feb. 18 issue of the Advertising Age.
----
New textbooks rushed from U.S. to Afghanistan
The girls are back in Afghan schools
From combined dispatches
March 24, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020324-47480056.htm
KABUL, Afghanistan - ... Education in Afghanistan has been severely eroded by more than two decades of war and five years of Taliban rule, during which girls over 8 were barred from school and boys were mostly taught about Islam.
Yesterday, children ran, skipped - and dawdled - to school with female teachers back in class and everyday subjects like math replacing the Islamic dogma of the ousted Taliban.
There are even pictures of people - images banned by the Taliban - in new textbooks written by Afghan scholars at U.S. universities and rushed to the country in recent days.
Parents said they woke children early to brush their shoes, a somewhat vain attempt to send them to school looking perfectly smart after Kabul was hit by a hailstorm overnight.
"I'm very happy to be going to school so I can become a doctor or an engineer to serve my people." said 12-year-old Mohammed Rasul Bashir as he picked up his textbooks.
On the back covers were photographs of drug addicts and anti-drug slogans to discourage the use of narcotics in one of the world's leading opium producers....
At mosques on Friday, religious leaders urged parents to send their children to school for the good of the nation.
Along with the drive for a wider education, authorities have also kept their eye on Afghanistan's religious sensibilities.
One shipment of textbooks was returned because the books did not make a reference to God on their first page. Devout Muslims always begin a book or a speech "In the Name of God" in Arabic.
"We have removed any references glorifying war and jihad, anything that reeks of violence and blood," said Nourollah, an Afghan educator.
There are an estimated 4.4 million primary-school-age children in Afghanistan. The U.N. Children's Fund, which started a campaign over the winter to encourage parents to send their children to school, said 1.5 million primary school children would start school Friday and that it hoped another 500,000 would be enrolled by May.
Even before the Taliban took power in 1996, schools in Kabul were rarely open because of the factional fighting that began when the pro-Moscow government collapsed in 1992.
Many schools in the capital were destroyed in the fighting among the factions that flattened whole neighborhoods.
As the new year got under way, the enthusiasm to start couldn't disguise the poor condition of the schools, many riddled with bullet holes and badly scarred by rocket and mortar fire.
Across the country, there are also serious problems with supplies and space. Aid organizations have used helicopters and donkeys in efforts to get supplies to isolated schools, said Mahboob Shareef, the head of UNICEF for northern Afghanistan.
At the Tajrubouwi School in Mazar-e-Sharif, the largest city in the north, there are 3,700 students and not enough classrooms. Girls attend school in three shifts, said the principal, Kemia Nazari.
Mrs. Nazari also said that teachers have not yet been paid, and she pleaded for tents to use as classrooms and for basic supplies like pens, chalk and notebooks, with which only one-tenth of her students were supplied....
The effort to restore Afghanistan's educational system has mostly been funded by foreign countries. Japan contributed 60 percent of the money spent so far, and the United States has contributed 4 million textbooks....
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS
Rally to demand ruler's ouster thwarted
From combined dispatches
March 24, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020324-17080574.htm
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Police in the eastern city of Lahore rounded up dozens of leaders of the country's main opposition parties to block a rally yesterday demanding the ouster of Pakistan's military ruler.
Tensions soared in the city near the border with India, as police erected barbed wire barricades and blocked all main roads leading to Mochi Gate Garden, a massive park where the rally was scheduled. Thousands were expected to attend, but police stopped the rally from forming.
Police defended the arrests of members of the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy (ARD), arguing that a protest would disrupt law and order in the country.
The alliance said police arrested 100 people, including former government ministers and members of the provincial assembly. Police said they had detained dozens of ARD workers. Those detained include the top leaders of the parties of former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.
President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's government has refused to permit large demonstrations since Jan. 12, when Pakistan began cracking down on Islamic extremists in an effort to cooperate with the United States in its war on terrorism.
Gen. Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless coup in October 1999, has been holding high-level meetings to muster support for a referendum reaffirming his rule. The ballot would be held sometime before parliamentary elections set for October.
The Supreme Court two years ago ordered Gen. Musharraf to hold elections to restore a democratic government by October this year. If he bypasses the election, he would have to amend the constitution, which requires that Parliament choose a president.
Gen. Musharraf did not mention the referendum during an address to the nation over state-run Pakistan Television yesterday to mark Pakistan's national day.
Pakistani newspapers reported Friday that Gen. Musharraf told a delegation of political workers he would not allow Mrs. Bhutto and Mr. Sharif to run in the general elections.
Gen. Musharraf has said he will lift the ban on rallies at some time before the elections. Alliance leaders insist the time has come.
"We will defy the ban on rallies," said Misbaur Rehman, a local leader in Lahore. He was arrested later by police.
Meanwhile, in the city of Rawalpindi, just outside the capital, Islamabad, a key Islamic leader also pledged to defeat Pakistan's secular government in the next elections.
Qazi Hussain Ahmed, a longtime supporter of Afghanistan's former Taliban rulers, said he wants to bring Islamic revolution to Pakistan by forming an alliance with other religious parties.
"Musharraf should step down with honor," he said. "Otherwise, the masses will oust him from power with force, as he has handed over the country's airports and other sensitive installations to the United States for operations against Islamic elements."
Pakistan canceled the traditional armed forces parade for Pakistan Day yesterday because of heavy deployments on the western border with India.
The two countries have massed more than a million troops following a December attack on the Indian Parliament, which New Delhi blamed on Pakistani-backed militants, in a standoff that shows no sign of easing.
--------
FBI Investigates Agents With Access
March 24, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-FBI-Security.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI is reducing by hundreds the number of agents with access to the nation's most sensitive secrets and has administered lie detector tests that have identified possible problems with fewer than 10 of its employees, officials said.
The actions are among the first visible signs of a large overhaul of the FBI's internal security system, which began in 1999 but took on new urgency after a senior agent was discovered last year to have spied for more than a decade for Russia.
Senior FBI officials said while no new espionage suspects have been identified, the number of employees being referred to the Office of Professional Responsibility for investigation has been increasing.
``Our goal is to bring the culture along to the point where security is considered part of the daily operations,'' said Ken Senser, a CIA employee who was brought over to the FBI to improve internal security. He oversees the FBI's new security division.
Over the last six months, the FBI has reduced by hundreds the number of employees who have access to what is called Sensitive Compartmented Information, data even more sensitive than top secret intelligence.
At times roughly half the FBI's 28,000 employees held SCI clearance before the number was reduced. Officials said the new, lower figure is classified, but only employees who need to know such information for their immediate jobs now hold the high-level clearance, officials said.
``We focused on the numbers of people who had access to SCI, and actually we were able to reduce that number noticeably,'' Senser said.
Former CIA and FBI Director William Webster is completing a massive review of the FBI's internal security in the aftermath of the Robert Hanssen spy case.
While awaiting Webster's recommendations, the FBI agreed to answer questions this week from The Associated Press about changes and findings already made.
FBI officials said they have conducted more than 700 polygraph tests of FBI agents and workers with access to the most sensitive information and have identified a small number whose tests raised red flags, such as possible deception, that warranted additional scrutiny.
Officials said the number was just over 1 percent of those tested, or just under 10 workers. They refused to be more specific, citing investigations under way and personal privacy.
Officials said some workers whose polygraph results raised initial suspicion of deception may be cleared because factors such as medical conditions can cause anomalies on the tests.
Assistant FBI Director John Collingwood said for too long internal security was not given the priority and emphasis it needed in an agency whose primary focus was to catch criminals while relying on a family oriented system of trust.
``We have failed to do those basic things, as mundane as they may seem, that are vital, and that are becoming increasingly vital, in today's world,'' Collingwood said.
In March 2001, as the bureau reeled from the breadth of Hanssen's espionage, then-Director Louis Freeh announced several changes that included increased use of polygraphs.
The current director, Robert Mueller, has gone even further. He is reorganizing the structure of the FBI for increased emphasis on prevention of terrorism and improvement of internal security.
FBI officials said a key focus will be on a multiyear project to craft new computer systems that will detect suspicious activity as it occurs rather than years later.
The goal eventually is to provide FBI supervisors with regular reports ``that say these are 10 things that happened last night that you ought to look into that are causes of some concern,'' Senser said.
In the interim, every FBI field office has created a security council to review security and sensitive intelligence routinely in day-to-day operations. The sharper focus on security isn't limited to the FBI.
The Justice Department this month enacted tighter restrictions against foreigners working on computer systems at the department.
Officials indicated they may allow foreigners to continue working on some current projects if they determine there is ``an acceptable level of risk,'' according to an internal memo.
``Waivers will be granted only in exceptional and unique circumstances,'' but foreigners would never be allowed to work on classified technology systems at Justice, the memo said.
-------- terrorism
Law catches up to ecoterror
By Valerie Richardson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
March 24, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020324-57424221.htm
DENVER -- Sure, they burn down homes, firebomb universities and terrorize research labs. Even so, for the better part of a decade, the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front were seen not as anti-social thugs but idealistic young kids.
After all, the general public tended to support their broad goals: They were in favor of a clean environment and against cruelty to animals. Religious fundamentalists and militias were dangerous; groups like ELF and ALF were well-meaning, even if they sometimes got carried away and torched a ranger station.
But then came September 11. For ELF and ALF, that was the day they took joint credit for firebombing a McDonald's in Tucson, Ariz. For the rest of the nation, that was the day that terrorism suddenly ceased being cute.
"The general population is becoming a lot less tolerant toward these groups," said Rep. Scott McInnis, Colorado Republican. "The feeling is, if you're going to tolerate this, then why not tolerate the al Qaeda? We need to take away the Robin Hood mystique from these terrorists, which is what they are."
While the nation fights international terrorism overseas, lawmakers like Mr. McInnis have renewed their long-standing campaign to crack down on domestic terrorism, notably ecoterrorism. Prodded by a hearing last month on domestic terrorism, Congress is considering legislation that would, among other things, place ecoterrorists under the racketeering act.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation now ranks both ALF and ELF as the No. 1 domestic terrorism threat, surpassing the Timothy McVeigh-style militia extremists who dominated the terrorism scene during much of the 1990s, according to James Jarboe, FBI domestic terrorism section chief.
"The FBI estimates that the ALF/ELF have committed more than 600 criminal acts in the United States since 1996, resulting in damages in excess of $43 million," said Mr. Jarboe at the Feb. 12 hearing before the House Resources Commitee's subcommittee on forests and forest health.
And the threat is growing. The September 11 tragedy hasn't slowed down these groups; instead, animal and environmental activists have "turned increasingly toward vandalism and terrorist activity in attempts to further their causes," Mr. Jarboe said.
"They're all over the place - they've torched so many things, you can't keep track any more," said Ron Arnold, author of "Ecoterror."
The trend has led to some ominous speculation. "At the rate they're going," said Mike Burita, spokesman for the Center for Consumer Freedom, "someone's going to get killed."
ALF and al Qaeda
Still, most Americans have never heard of these groups. Most reports of ecoterrorism never make it past the local newspaper, and only a handful have received national attention. Chief among these was the October 1998 fire at the Vail, Colo., resort that destroyed four ski lifts and a restaurant at a cost of $12 million.
"Despite the fact that we've been trying to direct attention to the problem, we haven't had much luck," said Nick Nichols, chief executive officer of Nichols Dezenhall, a crisis-management communications firm in Washington, D.C., whose clients include companies hit by ecoterrorism. "After 9/11, people are more interested in learning about our homegrown terrorists."
After years of trying to warn an apathetic public about the dangers of such extremism, critics like Mr. Nichols now find themselves wielding a potent new weapon in the war over public opinion. The FBI makes a clear distinction between domestic and international terrorism, but longtime foes of ecoterrorism are quick to draw parallels between ALF/ELF and the al Qaeda network.
"The rationalization of ecoterrorists is no different from the al Qaeda terrorists," said House Resources Committee Chairman James V. Hansen, Utah Republican.
"Both believe they are the sole proprietor of truth and righteousness. Both believe they have the right to impose their concepts of truth and righteousness on society. Both attack people who they think they have violated nature's or God's law," he said.
"Both hate Americans because we are free to make our own decisions," Mr. Hansen added.
Some environmental activists seem to invite such comparisons with statements that appear to support the Islamic terrorists who executed the September 11 airline hijackings and attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. "I cheered when the plane hit the Pentagon. Those people are in the business of killing people. It was like, hey, [expletive] happens," said an ELF member in an interview in the February issue of Details magazine.
"Anyone in their right mind would realize the United States had it coming," Craig Rosebraugh, a vocal ELF member, said in the same interview.
In his testimony before the domestic terrorism hearing, Mr. Rosebraugh, who testified under subpoena, called the war in Afghanistan "the latest example of U.S.-based terrorism and imperialism" and the legislative and executive branches "the largest group of terrorists and terrorist representatives currently threatening life on this planet."
Still, efforts to draw similarities between ALF/ELF and the September 11 terrorists have drawn a sharp rebuke from sympathizers. Ingrid Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in Norfolk, called the comparisons "scurrilous."
"What's really scurrilous is that they're all trying to hijack the legitimate fears people have about 9/11," Miss Newkirk said. "They are absolutely using 9/11 against people who have nothing to do with terrorism, unless you spell it 'terra.'"
David Barbarash, an ALF member who now serves as the group's North American spokesman, says the link is "way off the mark - it's not appropriate at all."
"I think 9/11 is being used as a political football by those who want to pursue their own agendas against people who are challenging the practices they defend, like the dairy, meat and fur industries," he said.
He points out that in over two decades of taking "direct action" against such industries and research labs, his group has never killed or seriously injured an individual. Indeed, the group describes itself as waging a "nonviolent campaign," with activists "taking all precautions not to harm any animal [human or otherwise]."
"On the one hand, the al Qaeda is killing and maiming thousands of people. On the other hand, the people of the ALF are rescuing and saving lives," Mr. Barbarash said. "There are strict guidelines - we do destroy property, but not lives."
He also objected to the FBI's characterization of ALF and ELF as terrorist groups. "I have to ask, 'Where's the suffering?'" Mr. Barbarash said. "Where are the people being tortured and killed? You can look at the right wing - at the abortion-doctor killings, at the Olympic Park bombing - these are attacks that should be considered terrorism."
The FBI defines domestic terrorism as "the unlawful use, or threatened use, of violence by a group or individual ... committed against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives."
Critics note that the "victimless crime" argument isn't strictly accurate: In the 1998 Vail resort fire set by ELF, for example, a firefighter had to be treated for injuries. Fire and rescue personnel are put at risk after every arson.
That the harm hasn't been more serious owes more to good fortune than good intentions, says Mr. McInnis. "They're lucky so far that they haven't injured anyone, but their luck's going to run out," he said. "It's only a matter of time before someone's hurt or injured."
Mr. Barbarash, who conducted such actions himself until his 1994 arrest, chafes at that line of reasoning. "It's easy to say it's only a matter of time," he said. "But you have to look at the facts, and the facts show that these are people who are extremely concerned about human and animal life."
Hard to find
Within the underground world of ALF/ELF, Mr. Barbarash's views aren't unusual, but something else about him is: Unlike the vast majority of members, he was ultimately caught. Since ALF began conducting its "direct actions" in 1979, hundreds of activists have joined the group, but only a couple dozen members in the United States and Canada have ever been apprehended.
Not even ALF/ELF organizers know the identity of all their members, who operate in semiautonomous cells. They receive training from groups like the Ruckus Society and by reading the how-to manuals available on ALF and ELF Web sites.
Members also tend to be better educated than the average vandal, meaning that they rarely make rookie mistakes such as leaving fingerprints at the scene.
So confident are ALF/ELF leaders of their secrecy that they actually list their actions on their Web sites, and publish an annual report of their activities, "like they were IBM," said Mr. Nichols.
"[L]aw enforcement has a long way to go to adequately address the problem of ecoterrorism," admitted Mr. Jarboe. "Groups such as the ALF and the ELF present unique challenges."
To make matters worse, the attacks have inspired some copycats. Residents of Phoenix feared they were under siege by ecoterrorists when eight homes in an upscale development were torched from April 2000 to January 2001.
A group calling itself the Coalition to Save the Preserves took credit for the arsons. As it turned out, however, the culprit was a 50-year-old unemployed public-relations executive named Mark Warren Sands, who lived in the neighborhood and began his life of crime when he found a new home blocking his favorite jogging path.
Another problem is that the ecoterror strikes are often handled by local law enforcement, whose resources are limited and whose deputies don't always share vital information with other jurisdictions. To make communications among law enforcement easier, Rep. Darlene Hooley, Oregon Democrat, has proposed a bill that would create a national clearinghouse on ecoterrorism and bulk up federal assistance at the local level.
The FBI has tried to grease the lines of communication with the establishment of Joint Terrorism Task Forces, teams that bring local and federal agents together to brainstorm on domestic-terrorism strikes. Launched in 1999, the agency now has task forces in 44 cities, and plans to have one for each of its 56 field offices by 2003.
Despite the elusive nature of its prey, law enforcement can point to some significant arrests:
-In February 2001, one adult and three teen-agers pleaded guilty to a series of arsons committed at a Long Island, N.Y., housing development. One of the teen-agers, Jared McIntyre, said the arsons were committed in solidarity with the ELF movement.
-In January 2001, Frank Ambrose was arrested and charged with timber-spiking, in which spikes are nailed into trees to stop them from being cut down. He is suspected of spiking 150 trees in the Indiana state forests, a crime for which ELF took credit.
•In November 2000, Justin Samuel was sentenced to two years in prison for releasing minks from a farm in Wisconsin in 1998.
•In June 1997, Douglas Joshua Ellerman pleaded guilty to firebombing a fur breeders' co-op in Sandy, Utah. He was sentenced to seven years in prison. Ellerman said he was a member of ALF.
•In July 1995, Rodney Adam Coronado pleaded guilty to setting fire to an animal-research laboratory at Michigan State University, an attack for which ALF claimed credit. Sentenced to 57 months in prison and ordered to pay restitution of $2 million, he has since been released.
ELF and ALF claimed 137 direct actions last year in North America. What is most compelling about this list is the lack of success by law enforcement in tracking down the perpetrators of these acts. Even the Vail fire, which received international attention, has yet to result in a single arrest.
Making law enforcement's job more difficult is the indirect financial support offered by some of the nation's leading foundations. The Turner Foundation contributed $50,000 to the Ruckus Society, which has trained activists from ALF and ELF, before pulling the plug on funding in 1999.
"Many of us share their values - we all want to breathe clean air - but there are many ways to go about accomplishing that, and burning down buildings isn't one of them," said foundation President Michael Finley.
Mainstream environmental groups like the Wilderness Society and Sierra Club have condemned the ecoterrorists' tactics. On the animal rights front, however, PETA leaders have applauded ALF's actions while insisting that their organization takes no part in them.
PETA, which receives grants from the Pond Foundation and the Helen Brach Foundation, has further raised eyebrows by helping pay the legal fees of ALF members. In the case of Rodney Coronado, a convicted arsonist, PETA paid over $45,000 to his legal defense fund, according to the Center for Consumer Freedom.
Miss Newkirk says her organization has done nothing shady. "All we've done is help some decent people who deserved legal representation," she said.
Expanding agenda
What really worries foes of ecoterrorism is that the agenda appears to be growing. The latest victims are labs that conduct genetic-engineering research. Last May, the University of Washington Center for Urban Horticulture was burned to the ground because its scientists were attempting to improve the hardiness of urban forests and wetlands.
At Michigan State University, a research lab was firebombed after it was found that it was using genetic engineering to grow a sweet potato hardy enough to thrive in the parched soil of famine-stricken Africa. In a communique, ELF took credit for the December 2000 action.
Two months ago, ELF took credit for bombing a construction site at the University of Minnesota at St. Paul for a microbial and plant genomics research center. In its communique, ELF called the lab an attempt "to exploit and control nature to the fullest extent under the guise of progress."
Greg Conko, director of food-safety policy for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, predicted ELF's latest campaign will ultimately erode its claim to the moral high ground.
"It's a lot easier to sympathize with people who've burned down developments in Long Island or Arizona. That doesn't have the same salience," Mr. Conko said. "But when you're talking about crops that could improve the lives of people in desperate poverty, the fact that you're hindering this type of research is morally akin to taking a life outright."
Longtime ecoterror watchers also see a disturbing trend in the level of violence. Both ALF and ELF have their roots in peaceful, nonviolent protest, and later graduated to liberating animals and spiking trees. Arson and vandalism are their latest permutation, but it probably won't be their last, said Mr. Arnold, who is also executive vice president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise in Belleview, Wash.
"ELF and al Qaeda are fanatics in the same technical sense. They don't care what their victims think," said Mr. Arnold. "Al-Qaeda espouses violence, and ELF will get there. It's already there in the United Kingdom."
At the same time, their critics are growing more vocal. Earlier this month, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Nichols Dezenhall hosted an anti-ecoterrorism conference in the District aimed at exposing the problem to business leaders and policy-makers.
Among the panelists was Kelly Stoner, executive director of the Stop Eco-Violence, a 2-month-old Oregon-based group aimed at "turning public apathy into unified outrage."
A communications specialist, she says she decided to become involved after the March 2001 bombing of Joe Romania Chevrolet, a Eugene, Ore.-based car dealership. The attack destroyed 35 sport utility vehicles and caused $1 million in damage.
In its communique, ELF declared that "gas-guzzling SUVs are at the forefront of this vile imperialist caravan toward self-destruction." But what Miss Stoner saw was the destruction of a family owned business that had contributed to the Eugene economy for 40 years.
"They put a real sense of fear in the community," she said. "And there's no telling how far these groups will go."
• Laura Hudson contributed to this report
--------
SECURITY
U.N. Reviews Plans to Protect Its Offices Around the World
New York Times
March 24, 2002
By CHRISTOPHER S. WREN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/24/international/24NATI.html
UNITED NATIONS, March 22 - Reinforced fences. Bulletproof partitions. Electronic monitors and alarms. Sensors to detect gas and chemical attacks. Stockpiles of biohazard gear. Blastproof trash cans.
Having provided a public forum for countries uniting to fight terrorism, the United Nations is now looking at ways to make itself more impregnable to terrorists.
A report by Secretary General Kofi Annan released Friday has proposed such new precautions to protect the United Nations headquarters in New York, regional centers in Geneva and Vienna and other buildings whose prominence makes them tempting targets.
The new proposals emerged from a review ordered last fall by Mr. Annan to identify security weaknesses in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center, less than four miles south of the United Nations. The secretariat was twice evacuated, then closed down on Sept. 11 while the twin towers blazed and collapsed.
"The assessment of conditions of the United Nations premises in New York, Geneva and Vienna," the secretary general's report said, "has indicated a need for substantial strengthening of security protection to ensure adequate coverage during sessions of the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council and their subsidiary organs and when United Nations headquarters are visited by heads of state governments."
Nearly $3.6 million was carved from the last budget to finance immediate needs, like the creation of an emergency command center.
The proposed new security expenses would add $57.8 million to the 2002-2003 budget. The expenses must be approved by the General Assembly, which recently slashed $75 million from the two-year budget, forcing cutbacks in heating, cleaning services, computer support and other services.
"No provision to my knowledge was made in budgetary terms that have yet been submitted, and it was not included in the base that we're looking at," said Joseph E. Connor, the under secretary general for management. He was asked about the new security costs at a briefing about the austerity measures.
The report also recommended creating 56 posts, 36 of them for security officers, at a time when other jobs are being frozen or eliminated.
Among the needs identified in Mr. Annan's report are bulletproof partitions to be installed at the General Assembly and Security Council chambers, laminated ballistic film on first-floor windows, blastproof trash cans in public areas, more X-ray machines and a stockpile of biohazard equipment.
While the law-and-order situation in New York City was well under control by local authorities, the report said, "the overall security risk and/or level of threat is rated as high and can be upgraded to very high" during the annual General Assembly session, which attracts visiting heads of state.
Security at the United Nations headquarters, the report said, was complicated by its proximity to transportation routes and residential neighborhoods in midtown Manhattan, and by the absence of a security buffer zone.
The report proposed "replacing the current perimeter fence, which is highly vulnerable to being climbed by intruders, with a new perimeter fence, supplemented with alarms and closed-circuit television cameras around the entire complex."
It also envisioned dispersing nonessential employees and records to buildings outside the headquarters.
Of the $57.8 million requested to improve security, nearly $36.7 million would be spent at United Nations headquarters in New York, and $16.6 million at the Geneva office complex.
The threat is hardly theoretical. The United Nations figured on a list of New York landmarks targeted in a terrorist plot headed by Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman. The plotters discussed planting a car bomb in the secretariat's underground parking garage. They were caught in 1993, tried and sent to prison.
The United Nations moved to improve the safety of its employees in the field after four staff members working for the United Nations high commissioner for refugees were murdered in West Timor in September 2000.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- human rights
Focus on Terror Stirs Concern as Rights Commission Meets
New York Times
March 24, 2002
By ELIZABETH OLSON
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/24/international/24RIGH.html
GENEVA, March 23 - One year ago, terrorism was barely noted by officials from the 53 countries who gather here annually for the Commission on Human Rights. But as the main United Nations rights body opened its review this year, terrorism was reshaping the debate.
That worries rights campaigners, some of whom say that invoking terrorism allows countries with questionable records to escape condemnation by the commission.
"One cannot pick and choose countries where abuses will be allowed to go ignored simply because they're being committed by allies in the fight against terrorism," said Irene Kahn, secretary general of Amnesty International. "If this happens, the whole notion of human rights as a global standard is damaged."
A debate over terrorism and human rights was broached here at the opening session this week, when Mary Robinson, the United Nations human rights commissioner, noted that "international human rights are at some risk of being undermined" in the aftermath of Sept. 11. Measures to thwart terrorism risk violating such fundamental rights as the right to a fair trial, she said.
European countries have urged solidarity in the fight against terrorism, and emphasized that counterterrorism measures should not undercut basic rights.
"There is no trade-off between effective action and the protection of human rights," Sweden's foreign minister, Anna Lindh, told the commission. "On the contrary, respect for human rights, democracy and social justice contribute to global stability and prevent acts of terrorism."
The United States, which was voted off the commission last year and is attending as an observer, took public issue with the contention that fighting terrorism is tied to correcting problems like poverty and discrimination. Both Mrs. Robinson and the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, Ruud Lubbers, have questioned whether the battle against terrorism can be won without more economic development.
Poverty does not legitimize terrorism, responded the American delegate, Kevin Moley. "We must be careful not to allow the ills of the world to be used to justify terrorism or support for terrorist organizations," he told the panel.
The deep-seated ambivalence of many countries surfaced when an effort to have a special one-day session to examine the question of terrorism and human rights died for lack of support. Rights campaigners believe the session could have addressed whether the rights issue is fading in international importance as countries create "shadow" justice systems with measures that restrict traditional rights.
Along with other groups, Amnesty International has been critical of the American plan to try detainees in military tribunals, and it reported last week that about 1,100 people had been detained in the United States without charges.
It is the larger powers that rights advocates fear will benefit the most from the antiterrorism climate. In an independent report released on Friday, Amnesty International accused China of using terrorism as an excuse to crack down on its Muslim Uighur minority.
China's human rights record has been scrutinized by the commission only once in the last decade, as it has ducked examination of its policies in Tibet and on religious groups through a procedural maneuver. Beijing intensively lobbied commission members to avoid the public embarrassment of debate and censure.
This year, with the censure resolution's usual chief sponsor, the United States, on the sidelines, there appears to be no political will to move against China.
The true test facing the commission, Mrs. Kahn believes, will be whether it takes steps to condemn Russia for its actions in Chechnya. Two earlier resolutions calling for an inquiry into Moscow's actions have essentially been ignored.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Yugoslavia Marks NATO Anniversary
March 24, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Yugoslavia-NATO-Anniversary.html
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Supporters of Slobodan Milosevic marked the third anniversary NATO's air war on Yugoslavia with a gush of anti-Western feeling Sunday, while ethnic Albanians in Kosovo celebrated it as a turning point in their independence struggle.
Carrying Serbian flags and chanting ``NATO are murderers,'' some 7,000 Milosevic supporters rallied in the capital to condemn the 1999 bombing and to protest the former leader's war crimes trial in The Hague, Netherlands.
``Our people must never forget the day when the aggression against our country began, the day when the unjustified killing began to stop our legitimate fight against the terrorists in Kosovo,'' Zoran Andjelkovic, a leader of Milosevic's Socialist Party, told the crowd.
NATO launched the air war to stop Milosevic's crackdown on the independence-minded ethnic Albanian majority in Serbia's southern province of Kosovo. After 78 days, Milosevic was forced to pull his troops out of the province, which is now administered by the United Nations.
In Kosovo on Sunday, recently elected provincial President Ibrahim Rugova said the first day of the bombing had been a ``big and historic day.''
``This is the day when Kosovo's freedom began, a new dawning for Kosovo,'' he said. ``We all remember the clear night, the holy night, when Kosovo's sky was lit by the light of hope and renewal.''
Milosevic was ousted as Yugoslavia's president in October 2000, and the new government extradited him to the U.N. tribunal at The Hague, Netherlands, where he is being tried for war crimes in Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia during Yugoslavia's bloody breakup in the 1990s.
Milosevic's successor, moderate nationalist Vojislav Kostunica, marked the anniversary by attending a church service that honored the estimated 3,000 Serbian soldiers, police officers and civilians killed during the NATO bombing. At least 10,000 ethnic Albanians were killed by Serb forces and some 3,000 remain missing.
Kostunica said both NATO and Milosevic deserved blame for the escalation of the conflict.
``It is impossible to absolve from responsibility the Yugoslav authorities -- who could, and should, have avoided the conflict with the most powerful military alliance in history,'' Kostunica said in a statement. ``But it must not be forgotten who was pulling the trigger from the safe distance of 30,000 feet above the ground.''
Kostunica also noted that more than 200,000 Serbs who lived in Kosovo before the bombing fled after Yugoslav and Serb forces withdrew, fearing revenge attacks from ethnic Albanians. Several dozen Serbs have died in such attacks.
While he said that ``we need cooperation with the world, including NATO,'' Kostunica reiterated that he would not hand over any Serb war crimes suspects to the U.N. tribunal unless Yugoslav lawmakers pass a law allowing for it.
In an interview published Sunday in the newspaper Politika, Kostunica said extraditing suspects without a law to govern the process ``would destabilize the country.'' His party, however, opposes the passage of such a law.
Kostunica opposed the Milosevic extradition, which was engineered by the pro-Western leaders of Serbia, the larger of the two remaining republics that make up Yugoslavia. He is involved in a power struggle with Serbia's Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic.
Associated Press writer Garentina Kraja contributed to this story from Pristina, Yugoslavia.
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Syria Stages Street Protest Ahead of Arab Summit
March 24, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast-summit-syria.html
DAMASCUS - More than 100,000 Syrians jammed the streets of Damascus on Sunday in an officially backed protest in support of the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation and to warn against any U.S. strike on Iraq.
The demonstration was staged as preparations went ahead for a March 27-28 Arab summit in Beirut where leaders will focus on a Saudi Arabian Middle East peace proposal and oppose any U.S. military action against Baghdad.
Government employees and students filled Damascus's largest square, some waving Syrian and Palestinian flags and others bearing banners reading ``Prosecute the war criminal Sharon,'' a reference to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
``As the conspiracy to wipe out the Palestinian cause becomes clearer and preparations are underway to strike Iraq, the Arab masses must...protect the Intifada and support Iraq to keep the United States and Britain from targeting it or any other Arab country,'' said a statement issued by protest organizers.
Syria has backed a Saudi proposal to trade Arab diplomatic relations with Israel for Israeli withdrawal from land occupied in the 1967 Middle East war, but warns it must not compromise Palestinian demands on the right of refugees to return.
Damascus has also repeatedly voiced opposition to any U.S. military strike on Iraq, a position Arab League head Amr Moussa has said the summit will repeat.
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