------- Index of Articles
NUCLEAR
Britain can attack Iraq without a UN mandate: Hoon
Taiwanese public says no to nukes
Iraqi vet says depleted uranium killing fish
Libya's Gaddafi Wants Israel Dissolved for Peace
A method to nuclear madness?
South Korean envoy to raise nuclear fears on trip to North
Trade, Security Top New Zealand Agenda for Bush
Feature: Bush seeks nuclear rebuild
Congressman: Nuke Plants Vulnerable
Lawmaker Faults Nuclear Facility Security Policies
Security at U.S. Reactors Criticized by Congressman
EPA Region 10 finds Idaho's Hazardous Waste Program Adequate
FBI raids pro-Republicans
MILITARY
Two top Al Qaeda leaders spotted
Rumsfeld Says U.S. Will Begin Training Afghan Army Soon
Sudan rebel leader vows to attack oil
Anthrax, ricin detected in Afghan labs
UK privatises the running of its naval dockyards
$57,692
FEDERAL CONTRACTS
Military opposes spraying poppies
US 'deadly serious' about stopping Iraq
Israel Plans Big Assault If Truce Talks Fail
Column on land mines is fatally flawed
Poland Tells Europe to Ease Up on US
Tribal Leaders in Pakistan Warn the U.S. to Keep Out
General Musharraf's Travails
Philippines Rejects Muslim Rebel Cease - Fire Call
Kept, Broken Secrets From Washington
Gov't Seeks Safety in Secret Locations
Yemenis wary, rulers ready to aid U.S. war
POLICE / PRISONERS
Terrorism Fears Push Md. Toward Wider Police Power
ENERGY AND OTHER
Bush Turns Over Energy Documents
Environmentalists Lose on Energy Bill
ACTIVISTS
German Held as Koreans Protest at Chinese Embassy
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- britain
Britain can attack Iraq without a UN mandate: Hoon
Monday March 25, 2002
AFP
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/020325/1/2mxuo.html
Britain can use force against Iraq without a United Nations mandate if Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is seen as a threat, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon said.
The government reserves the right to order a nuclear attack against Iraq if chemical or biological weapons are targeted at British troops or the public, Hoon said in a television interview, echoing comments he made last week.
His remarks appeared to be at odds with those of Britain's International Development Secretary Clare Short, who on Friday insisted that any military action against Saddam's regime would require a specific UN mandate.
Short, said to have misgivings about the prospect of Prime Minister Tony Blair's support of US strikes against Baghdad, called for a "more sophisticated discussion" about what the options were.
Hoon's tough stance on Iraq was echoed by Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who said Saddam had "culpably failed" to comply with his country's international obligations.
The British and US governments had not taken any decisions about military action against Iraq and any move would be within international law, Straw insisted.
But he warned if Baghdad continued to refuse to allow UN weapons inspectors back into the country, then the position in international law may change.
Hoon also appeared to dismiss comments made by Short about whether the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had to be resolved before dealing with Iraq.
"I don't think it is possible to make one set of difficult international circumstances dependent on another," he said.
"I certainly don't believe that we can expect to resolve that long-running, enormously sensitive and difficult subject as a condition (for action on Iraq)."
-------- china
Taiwanese public says no to nukes
SURVEY: While 56 percent of Taiwanese oppose the use of nuclear weapons in a US-China conflict over Taiwan, 22 percent support the idea and 21 percent are unsure
By Lin Miao-jung STAFF REPORTER
Taipei Times,
Monday, March 25th, 2002
http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2002/03/25/story/0000129097
A little more than half of all Taiwanese oppose the idea of the US using nuclear weapons in a military confrontation between China and the US over Taiwan, according to a survey released yesterday.
According to the Public Opinion Research Foundation, roughly 56 percent of the survey's 1,083 respondents were against the idea, while 22 percent were supportive and 21 percent were unsure.
The poll follows reports that the US is updating its nuclear doctrine from a Cold War policy of massive retaliation to a more flexible system that would allow a pre-emptive strike against hostile countries that threaten to use weapons of mass destruction.
The proposed policy, called "offensive deterrence," would give the US the option of conducting a pre-emptive strike with conventional bombs or nuclear weapons.
Identified as potential targets in a future conflict were China and North Korea and the non-nuclear states Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria.
"Although we welcome US support of Taiwan, we'd really hate to see the US use such an extreme measure to protect us," Tim Ting, chairman of Gallup in Taiwan, said of the survey's results.
The poll was conducted between March 13 and March 18 via telephone.
The poll question did not mention that the US was adjusting its policy to deter its enemies from using weapons of mass destruction.
Details of the US policy are contained in excerpts from the Pentagon's nuclear posture review, which was sent to the US Congress in January. The last nuclear posture review was completed in 1994.
Ting said yesterday that President Chen Shui-bian should clarify his stance on the issue.
"Although the DPP government has described itself as an anti-nuclear party, it has failed to comment on the issue since the report was made public," Ting said. "I think the president owes the nation an explanation on the government's stance."
The poll covers other subjects in the news, including the issue of whether Taiwanese firms should be allowed to invest in eight-inch wafer plants in China.
Of the poll's respondents, 39.8 percent said they agreed that chip firms should be allowed to invest in China, while 36.5 percent said they disagreed.
Chou Yang-san, a political analyst from National Taiwan University, said the polarization of public opinion wouldn't help the government reach a final consensus.
The Cabinet is due to make a final decision by the end of this month.
In addition, the poll found that roughly 41 percent of the respondents favored a proposal to rename the nation's representative offices abroad to include the name "Taiwan."
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been spearheading efforts to use "Taiwan" rather than "Taipei" for the offices in those places where the ROC -- Taiwan's official name -- is not allowed due to lack of diplomatic recognition.
More than 39 percent of the respondents agreed with the view that Mongolia is a sovereign state and not a part of China. The Cabinet at the end of January signed off an amendment to exclude Mongolia as a part of ROC territory.
Finally, roughly 35 percent of the people questioned favored the TSU's proposal to designate Hokkien as a national language alongside Mandarin.
-------- depleted uranium
Iraqi vet says depleted uranium killing fish
REUTERS IRAQ:
March 25, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15180/story.htm
BAGHDAD - An Iraqi vet said on the weekend thousands of fish that have died at fish farms near Baghdad were poisoned by munitions used by British and U.S. forces.
"Mortality rate among fish has reached 100 percent in some of the fish farms," said Dhahir Habib Dhahir, a veterinary surgeon at state-run Swairah fish farm 50 km (30 miles) south of the capital.
Iraqi television showed large quantities of the diseased fish being burned by workers at one of the fish farms.
"Researchers and specialists have attributed this disease which affected the fish to the use of banned weapons dropped by American forces against Iraq," the vet told Reuters television.
Head of the farm Adel al-Samaraee said the Iraqi Agriculture Ministry was due to study the fish, adding that the deaths were "clearly caused by depleted uranium and poisonous materials dropped by American and British forces".
Depleted uranium is used as a component of armour piercing munitions. When a uranium-tipped weapon hits an object, it produces a vapour that is weakly radioactive.
Iraqi authorities say the allied forces used an estimated 300 tonnes of depleted uranium munitions against Iraq in the U.S.-led 1991 offensive to recapture Kuwait.
The fish farms are within a southern no-fly zone set up by the United States, Britain and France after the 1991 Gulf War to prevent possible attacks by Baghdad forces on Shi'ite Muslims.
A similar no-fly zone was established in the north to protect a Kurdish enclave. Baghdad, which does not recognise the zones, says U.S. and British warplanes patrolling them have frequently hit Iraqi targets.
Iraq also says the number of cancer cases among Iraqis has soared since the Gulf War because of depleted uranium.
Last year, the World Health Organisation began an in-depth study into the health impact of the shells used in Iraq.
In November, however, after lobbying from Washington, the United Nations General Assembly voted down an Iraqi proposal for a U.N.-backed study into the effects of depleted uranium shells in the Gulf War.
A report by Britain's Royal Society scientific organisation published earlier this month said topsoil in areas heavily contaminated with depleted uranium should be removed and water quality should be monitored for any contamination.
-------- israel
[Qaddafi is so original. et]
Libya's Gaddafi Wants Israel Dissolved for Peace
By REUTERS
March 25, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-mideast-libya-israel.html
DUBAI - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said Israel should be replaced by a democracy called ``Isratine'' where unarmed Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace.
``If the Jews want peace they should accept to live in peace and drop arms with their Palestinian brethren,'' Gaddafi said in a televised interview with al-Jazeera satellite television.
Gaddafi, who has rejected a Saudi Middle East peace bid, said it was ``impossible'' to create an independent Palestinian state along with Israel because ``the Israelis would not accept to live within (the range) of Palestinian guns.''
Gaddafi put forward his own Middle East peace plan at an Arab summit last year. It included demands for dismantling weapons of mass destruction in the region and the return of 7 million Palestinian refugees.
``The initiatives that have been imposed on Arabs ... resulted in the blood that is being shed,'' said Gaddafi referring to the 18-month-old Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.
The Saudi initiative, the top issue on the agenda of the upcoming Arab summit, envisages Arab normalization with the Jewish state in return for full Israeli withdrawal from Arab land occupied during the 1967 Middle East war.
Gaddafi said Israel should also dismantle its mass destruction weapons and withdraw from occupied Syrian land if it wanted peace with non-Palestinian Arabs.
-------- japan
A method to nuclear madness?
By RALPH A. COSSA and BRAD GLOSSERMAN
Special to The Japan Times
March 25, 2002
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?eo20020325a2.htm
HONOLULU -- We were shocked and dismayed to learn that the Pentagon has allegedly been instructed to develop contingency plans calling for the use of nuclear weapons to deter or respond to a chemical or biological attack on the United States. We say "allegedly" because we are relying on (at best) secondhand accounts of the Defense Department's Nuclear Posture Review. We haven't had direct access to this classified report -- but, then again, neither have the overwhelming majority of those who have joined the chorus of protest against this congressionally mandated review.
The shock and dismay comes from the revelation -- if true -- that more than 10 years after the United States and its allies issued a firm warning to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that the use of chemical or biological weapons against Desert Storm forces would result in retaliation "by all available means" (read nuclear weapons), the Pentagon is just now getting around to developing contingency plans for such an option against Iraq or others who are known or suspected to possess chemical or biological (or nuclear) weapons. What took them so long?
Keep in mind that contingency plans do not lock you into a particular course of action; they merely entail the development of a range of possible responses to an anticipated crisis. Developing a plan does not mean that nuclear weapons automatically, or even inevitably, will be used. The primary reason for factoring them in is to remind potential adversaries -- as the 1991 announcement effectively reminded Hussein -- that use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) could trigger an equally horrific response. This is called deterrence.
It is also important to distinguish between the hyperbole surrounding the Nuclear Posture Review and what we know. First, the review is not a policy; it is a Department of Defense report, mandated by Congress, that "lays out the direction for American nuclear forces over the next five to 10 years." It is the latest in a series of reviews that began when nuclear weapons were first developed. The Department of Defense has cautioned that the review "does not provide operational guidance on nuclear targeting or planning."
The key element of the new posture is the development of a "new triad" that consists of offensive forces (both nuclear and nonnuclear), defensive systems such as missile defense and a revitalized defense infrastructure that "will provide new capabilities" to meet new threats. Administration officials stress that the new posture is designed for a post-Cold War world, and it reduces U.S. reliance on offensive strike forces (such as bombers and missiles) and allows the U.S. to reduce its nuclear arsenal to 1,700-2,200 warheads.
To defuse the criticism that erupted after the report was leaked to The New York Times, U.S. officials have emphasized that the document does not envisage the use of nuclear weapons. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz explained last weekend that the objective is "to deter other people from using weapons of mass destruction against us."
The controversy that surrounds the NPR is the product of the argument that the U.S. could respond to nonnuclear attacks with nuclear weapons. The review notes that U.S. military forces themselves, including nuclear forces, will now be used to "dissuade adversaries from undertaking military programs or operations that could threaten U.S. interests or those of allies and friends."
The document then reportedly explains some of the scenarios the authors had in mind, including "an Iraqi attack on Israel or its neighbors, a North Korean attack on South Korea or a military confrontation over the status of Taiwan." Similarly, the NPR allegedly notes that "a sudden regime change by which an existing nuclear arsenal comes into the hands of a new hostile leadership, or an opponent's surprise unveiling of WMD capabilities" should be considered an "unexpected contingency." This sounds to us like prudent military planning.
But, prudent or not, the thinking behind this policy does raise a serious question. There are unsubstantiated allegations that the NPR contemplates the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons against states that possess WMD. This flies in the face of assurances by President George W. Bush and others that the review is all about deterrence, not attack. Moreover, it undermines one of the review's central conclusions -- that the new nuclear posture makes use of nuclear weapons less rather than more likely.
Most important, it flies in the face of political reality. Absent an actual chemical or biological (or nuclear) attack against the United States or its allies, first use of nuclear weapons by the U.S. is politically and morally indefensible. It is also unnecessary, and perhaps even counterproductive militarily.
One could argue during the Cold War that retaining the "first use" option made sense, given the Soviet/Warsaw Pact's staggering conventional weapons advantage. Today, there are no peer competitors. The only way an adversary could do significant harm to the U.S. would be to introduce WMD into the equation. For the U.S. itself to break the WMD taboo would be to put itself at a disadvantage.
What is needed to redress the fallout from the NPR is serious consideration by Washington of a "no first use of WMD" policy. Such a declaration would rule out the pre-emptive first use of nuclear weapons (which Americans as well as the international community would condemn), but it would put terrorists and their state sponsors on notice that all bets are off if they employ WMD against the U.S. or its allies. This policy is both prudent and realistic -- the key components of any nuclear posture.
Ralph Cossa and Brad Glosserman are president and director of research, respectively, of Pacific Forum CSIS, a Honolulu-based think tank affiliated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
-------- korea
South Korean envoy to raise nuclear fears on trip to North
Monday March 25, 2002
Agence France Presse
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/020325/1/2myww.html
South Korea's envoy who will go to the North next month in a bid to end a freeze on ties, said he would raise international fears about the communist state's nuclear and missile programmes.
Lim Dong-Won, a close confidant of South Korea's President Kim Dae-Jung, emphasised Monday the need to stop tensions escalating on the Korean peninsula.
"I will deliver our views on nuclear and missile issues and will relay the president's desire that the issues should be settled in a good way," he told reporters after his trip was announced.
"What is important is to prevent tension from mounting on the Korean peninsula," Lim said.
The mission has thrust Lim back onto center stage in inter-Korean affairs.
Lim, a special presidential advisor on security and foreign affairs, said he would carry a message from President Kim to the North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il.
Lim was an architect of President Kim's "Sunshine Policy" of engaging the communist North and also brokered a historic summit in June 2000 between the leaders of the two Koreas.
Last September he was forced to stand down as unification minister, in charge of inter-Korean affairs, after the national assembly passed a vote of no confidence in him.
He has since taken a lower profile post as a presidential advisor.
The 2000 summit had raised hopes of an end to the decades of hostility between the two Koreas since 1950-53 conflict, which has never been officially ended. But the peace process stalled last year.
Denouncing what it called the hostile US policy under President George W. Bush, Pyongyang froze all official contact with Seoul and Washington.
The US-North Korean ties reached a new post-war low when Bush said in January that North Korea was part of an "axis of evil" with Iran and Iraq.
Last week, he said there could be a repeat of a 1994 standoff over the North's suspected nuclear weapons and missile programmes unless international efforts are taken to ease tensions in the region.
-------- new zealand
Trade, Security Top New Zealand Agenda for Bush
By REUTERS
March 25, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-newzealand-usa.html
WELLINGTON - New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said on Monday post-September 11 security issues and the pursuit of a free-trade agreement would be her priorities when she meets President Bush this week.
New Zealand, which has been strongly supportive of the U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan, has said repeatedly it wants to begin negotiations on a free-trade agreement with the world's largest economy.
``The point I will make about trade, is that there could be no more straightforward trade agreement for the United States than the one which it would be able to reach with New Zealand,'' Clark told reporters.
But the United States -- New Zealand's second largest trading partner with bilateral trade of about NZ$10 billion ($4.4 billion) in the year to June 2001 -- has said it has other trade priorities before reaching an agreement with New Zealand.
Clark was due to leave for Washington later on Monday and will also meet Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Trade Representative Robert Zoellick. She will be in Washington and New York for three days.
The visit will be the first to the U.S. by a New Zealand prime minister since Jim Bolger went to the White House in 1995.
New Zealand has sent a small number of elite Special Air Squadron (SAS) troops to Afghanistan to help fight alongside U.S. forces.
Clark said she and Bush would briefly discuss New Zealand's ban on U.S. nuclear warships, which effectively pushed it out of the Australia, New Zealand and United States ANZUS defense pact in the late 1980s.
``To the best of my knowledge the issue is effectively parked, but we both know that it still means something to each other, and we move on to discuss the many things we have in common,'' Clark said.
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
Feature: Bush seeks nuclear rebuild
By Nicholas M. Horrock Senior White House Correspondent
Published 3/25/2002
UPI
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=25032002-051847-5600r
WASHINGTON -- Despite President George W. Bush's pledge to reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal, his administration is proposing to build the first new nuclear weapons in a decade and critics charge that by 2012 the United States will still have the same number of weapons that it has today.
The Bush administration's plans to rejuvenate the nation's nuclear arms industry and news reports about the United States reportedly targeting several nations for possible attack have reopened old debates of the Cold War in both the United States and Western Europe.
In the past three months, the administration has announced plans to recruit a new generation of nuclear weapons builders, design and construct new weapons, restore some of the laboratories and weapons plants and begin to make tritium, one of the key ingredients of a weapon, in a civilian nuclear plant.
The United States has not needed to build a new nuclear weapon in more than 10 years.
But in February, Gen. John A. Gordon, under-secretary for nuclear security at the Department of Energy, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Bush administration wants "an ability to innovate and produce small builds of special purpose nuclear weapons."
These new weapons would "act to convince an adversary that it could not expect to negate U.S. nuclear weapons capabilities."
Gordon did not propose a weapons conglomerate of the Cold War dimensions with tens of thousands of workers from Hanford, Wash., to Rocky Flats, Colo., to Savannah, Ga., but he did describe a costly and extensive rejuvenation of this deadly arms business that could produce significant numbers of weapons.
Ivo H. Daalder, a senior fellow at the Brooking's Institution and a member of President Clinton's national security council, sees in the Bush weapons program a dangerous shift of policy. He claims that the plans for "special purpose nuclear weapons" appear for the first time to mean weapons are going to be developed for actually fighting wars, not deterrence.
The aggressive plans for a nuclear arsenal were largely obscured until March by Bush's calls for arms reduction in his negotiations with the Russians. Bush has presented his administration as desiring to end the nuclear confrontations of the Cold War.
But on March 9, the Los Angeles Times published portions of a secret Nuclear Posture Review written by the Defense Department for Congress that said the United States reserves the right to target seven nations for nuclear attack including Russia, China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Libya and Syria. The startling proposal to target the five nations without nuclear forces -- Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Libya and Syria -- has drawn attention to Bush's nuclear weapons program.
Bush claims Iraq, Iran and North Korea have what he calls "weapons of mass destruction," including chemical and biological weapons and ballistic missiles to deliver them against enemies and if these dangerous weapons were determined to threaten the United States it might require a nuclear response.
Bush labeled these three nations the "axis of evil" in his State of the Union Address and has warned that they may be capable of supplying weapons to terrorists.
Many in Washington suggest that the Los Angeles Times news leak was part of Bush plan to convince these nations that the United States is willing and able to use nuclear weapons against them. Indeed on March 14, he warned Iraq that "everything was on the table" as the United States examined options to deal with Saddam Hussein.
In addition to making it possible to build new weapons, military and Department of Energy planners are considering developing a "low yield" nuclear device that could dig into the earth and destroy deep caves and bunkers.
The United States already has such a weapon, the so-called "earth penetrator," a nuclear bomb called the B-61 that was modified so it would bury itself and go off.
Experts like Dr. Robert S. Norris, of the Natural Resources Defense Council, claim that the Bush administration is engaging in the same "mind games," as he calls it, that the Reagan administration used against the Soviet Union. Leaking internal military options to warn an adversary that the United States can surmount them.
"Now they are complaining that the yield on the B-61 is too high and it needs a lower yield, Norris said. See, this puts us back in the mind game again. If we have such huge weapons, the adversaries won't believe we'll use it. So what do we need, they ask? We need a low yield earth penetrator and that should put the fear of God in Saddam Hussein.
"So that's what they're trying to do."
Joseph Cirincone and Jon Wolfsthal, writing an analysis for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, warned Bush earlier this month that there is "strong evidence" that nuclear threats do not deter countries, "that such threats only increase the incentives for additional states to build there own nuclear weapons."
Norris agrees. "Adversaries don't like to be threatened. We found that the first time out with Russians and spent 40 years threatening one another, by some miracle making it out alive."
The president said the United States would unilaterally reduce its strategic, long range, nuclear missile stockpile over the next decade from about 7,000 to between 1,700 and 2,200 weapons. Russian President Vladimir Putin's administration agreed to a similar reduction in December and the two sides are trying to work out an agreement on verification and disposal issues. President Bush said on March 14 that he hoped to sign an agreement with Putin during a trip to Russia in May.
But a group of nuclear experts at the NRDC, a liberal Washington think tank, charge that "not since the resurgence in the Cold War in Ronald Reagan's first term has there been such an emphasis on nuclear weapons in U.S. defense strategy."
They issued figures based on government numbers that they claim show that a decade from now, even if Bush's planned cut becomes a reality, the United States in 2011 will still have some 10,000 intact nuclear warheads and the potentiality to quickly build another 5,000.
The events of Sept. 11 and the "war on terrorism" have helped Bush and the Pentagon sell the nuclear weapons program, but in fact he brought the plans into office with him long before Sept. 11. Bush was heavily influenced by Dr. Keith Payne and retired Army Gen. William Odom, former chief of the National Security Agency, among others, who advocated that the U.S. nuclear arsenal needed to be completely overhauled after the Cold War and made into a "credible" 21st Century deterrent.
Gordon outlined an extensive program in his Feb. 14 testimony:
- Recruit a new force of young physicists to replace the "aging" arms makers in the nuclear program.
- Modernize weapons plants at Pantex in Texas, Kansas City and the Savannah River Plant.
- Develop new warheads to counter "emerging threats."
- Maintain production capacity to build the new warheads. In Reagan's buildup 20 years ago, the United States produced a 1,000 weapons a month. Gordon wants a smaller capacity, perhaps in the hundreds.
- Be prepared to conduct underground tests.
The NRDC and other public interest groups question why the U.S. needs to develop new warheads when it has the largest and most diverse nuclear weapons program in the world.
The NRDC claims that even when the United States reaches Bush's target of 1,700 to 2,200 nuclear weapons in 2012, it will still have:
- 7,800 other nuclear warheads including 800 "non-strategic bombs;"
- 1,350 missiles in the "responsive force;"
- 240 missile warheads on the two Trident submarines in overhaul at any one time;
- 320 "non-strategic" sea launched cruise missiles;
- 160 spare "spare" strategic and non-strategic warheads
- 4,900 intact warheads in the "inactive reserve."
The Defense Department has not challenged these figures.
Currently it is not clear whether in reducing the nuclear force to reach Bush's goals of 1,700 to 2,200 there will be destruction of the weapons or simply moving them an "operationally deployed" status to a reserve status.
U.S. negotiators in Geneva last week said the Russians wanted the weapons destroyed, but the U.S. wanted them moved to reserve and suggested a compromise might be reached in the number or how they were to be stored.
In the late Cold War there were major public anti-nuke groups in Western Europe and the United States that would have loudly opposed a nuclear expansion as now envisaged by Bush. But now Norris agrees that, "there is no strong anti-nuke force in politics."
"The American people never like to think very much about it and when it appeared the major threat was over and the Russians weren't coming, all the better to lull yourself into a false sense of security," he said.
"I think we went to sleep for a decade, no one was listening."
Gordon's testimony in February was to obtain money from Congress for the significant cost of reviving a nuclear weapons industry, but Norris doesn't think there will be significant opposition in even the "razor-thin Democratic controlled senate."
Against the backdrop of the war on terror, Norris thinks, "they probably get most of what they want."
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Congressman: Nuke Plants Vulnerable
The Associated Press
Monday, March 25, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A14434-2002Mar25?language=printer
BOSTON -- Security at the nation's civilian nuclear power plants is so poor that terrorists could already be secretly working at reactors, a congressman alleges in a new report on homeland security.
Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., said the nation's 86 most sensitive nuclear power plants fail to screen workers for terrorist ties and don't know how many foreign nationals they employ.
"Terrorists may now be employed at nuclear reactors in the United States just as terrorists enrolled in flight schools in the U.S.," Markey said in his report, "Security Gap: A Hard Look at Soft Spots in Our Civilian Nuclear Reactor Security."
Markey, a proponent of federalizing nuclear power plant safety, said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not sufficiently improved security since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"The NRC is in the dark about what nuclear reactor licensees are doing to ensure the reactors are safe from attack," Markey told the Boston Herald.
NRC spokeswoman Diane Screnci declined to discuss the report's details, saying "we don't normally comment on press releases from members of Congress."
She told The Boston Globe that security employees at nuclear plants are fingerprinted, and that minimum staffing levels are included in security plans filed with the NRC.
Markey said the NRC doesn't check workers for possible terrorist ties.
"As long as they have no criminal record in this country, al-Qaida operatives are not required to pass any security check intended to find and expose terrorist links," he said.
Dave Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said existing NRC-required background checks are "somewhat limited."
"I've worked in over 20 plants in the 17 years I was in the industry. Had I wanted to sabotage the plant, it wouldn't have been that difficult to do so," he said.
On the Net:
Markey: http://www.house.gov/markey/
NRC: http://www.nrc.gov/
Concerned Scientists: http://www.ucsusa.org/index.html
-------
Lawmaker Faults Nuclear Facility Security Policies
Report: Background Checks Of Employees Are Inadequate
By Cheryl W. Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 25, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11995-2002Mar24?language=printer
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission does not know how many foreign nationals are employed at nuclear reactors and does not require adequate background checks of employees that would determine whether a worker was a member of a terrorist organization, according to a report released today.
The report, "Security Gap: A Hard Look at the Soft Spots in Our Civilian Nuclear Reactor Security," by Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, analyzed more than 100 pages of NRC correspondence Markey had requested from the agency. The report found that although the NRC requires criminal background checks of "prospective employees seeking unescorted access to protected and vital areas of a nuclear power plant," the search is limited to crimes committed in the United States.
"It is unacceptable that the NRC [does not have] a policy on screening of foreign nationals," the report said. "Terrorists may now be employed at nuclear reactors in the U.S. just as terrorists enrolled at flight schools in the U.S."
The report found that security exercises at nuclear reactor sites are inadequate and sites that conduct the exercises fail them half of the time. The report also found that the NRC waited six months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington before beefing up security at nuclear reactors and that the agency has "historically failed" to alter security regulations and has "yet to begin a permanent revision of security regulations."
"Black hole after black hole is described and left unaddressed," Markey said. "Post 9-11, a nuclear safety agency that does not know -- and seems little interested in finding out -- the nationality of nuclear reactor workers or the level of resources being spent on security at these sensitive facilities, is not doing its job."
Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the NRC, said yesterday that his agency has worked diligently to make sure the 103 operating nuclear reactors are safe.
"We think we've been very proactive in trying to identify any threats against nuclear power plants," Sheehan said.
The NRC has issued 30 advisories to the companies that operate the power plants, advising them of steps to take to better protect the plants, such as checking vehicles for bombs before they get too close to the plant, Sheehan said. The agency also has kept the companies abreast of alerts from law enforcement officials. And NRC Chairman Richard Meserve recently ordered a "top-to-bottom" review of all aspects of power plant security.
"There are a number of things that have been done and will continue to be done," Sheehan said. "We're not taking any threats against nuclear power plants lightly."
--------
THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY
Security at U.S. Reactors Criticized by Congressman
New York Times
March 25, 2002
By MATTHEW L. WALD
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/25/national/25SECU.html
WASHINGTON, March 24 - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission does not keep track of the number of foreign citizens working at nuclear power plants, or how many guards are employed at the plants or what the owners spend on security, the agency told Representative Edward J. Markey in response to his questions about security after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Mr. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, on Monday will release more than 100 pages of correspondence with the agency since Sept. 11 and said the documents revealed "black hole after black hole" in security. But a spokesman for the nuclear industry said that even without government involvement and data-gathering in every area, reactor operators were taking strong steps to assure security.
Mr. Markey, who has long been critical of the industry and the N.R.C., is sponsoring a bill under which the federal government would take over reactor security somewhat as airport security has been federalized. The bill, which is also sponsored by Democratic senators Harry Reid of Nevada, Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, is opposed by the commission and the nuclear industry.
In response to questions from Mr. Markey to Richard A. Meserve, the chairman of the commission, the N.R.C. said reactor operators were not required to avoid hiring foreigners or to limit their access to nuclear plants. The commission also said it required a certain level of security but did not keep track of how much the licensees spent to provide it, or how many extra guards they had.
According to a summary of the N.R.C. responses prepared by Mr. Markey's staff, "it appears that Al Qaeda operatives such as Mohamed Atta or Marwan al-Shehhi could pass the narrow nature of the criminal screening still in use at U.S. nuclear power plants and gain unescorted access to the controlled area of a plant, just as they obtained student visas to attend flight school."
Mr. Markey also said it was hard to determine whether foreigners had criminal records in other countries.
Ralph E. Beedle, the chief nuclear officer of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's main trade association, said that the names of all reactor employees were checked with the F.B.I. and that he assumed criminal records would be discovered in the process.
"The people we hire, for the most part, are folks who have come over here and gone through school," Mr. Beedle said. He added that when he was the chief of nuclear operations at the New York Power Authority, "I hired a lot of people out of Columbia University, C.C.N.Y., folks from India, China, that were over here for years as students."
Mr. Markey has called for putting antiaircraft weapons at reactor sites, saying that only 4 of the nation's 103 nuclear reactors were designed with a plane crash in mind and that even then designers contemplated planes much smaller than those hijacked on Sept. 11. In addition, despite industry assertions that the containment buildings at reactors were "robust," Mr. Markey said that a plane that hit other areas of a reactor site could cause a meltdown.
The commission said that it had consulted with the Defense Department, the Office of Homeland Security and the Federal Aviation Administration and concluded that "there would be enormous command and control problems and a large potential for unintended consequences and collateral damage if such weaponry were deployed."
Mr. Markey and other critics say that even before Sept. 11 the commission had been slow to recognize the vulnerability to terrorists of the plants it licenses.
The commission, for example, passed over the question when it issued a paper on the licensing of a proposed plant to make plutonium fuel, called MOx, for reactors in South Carolina. A local environmental group had asked that an environmental impact statement include an assessment of the risks of terrorism, but the day after planes slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the commission staff said that the group "does not establish that terrorist acts (involving the proposed MOx facility or related materials) fall within the realm of `reasonably forseeable' events."
The commission told Mr. Markey that since Sept. 11 it has suspended exercises in which mock commandoes test defenses. It said that conducting such tests "in the current elevated threat environment would pose significant safety hazards to the licensees' employees and negatively impact security effectiveness." But Mr. Markey said that without such drills, the commission had no way to tell if the security improvements it had ordered were effective.
Mr. Markey argued for more security at sites where reactors have been retired but the fuel, which is highly radioactive, is still present. He also called for tests on the casks in which some fuel is stored, which were built to be sturdy enough to withstand a varity of accidents but which, like the reactors, were not built with attack in mind.
Mr. Markey said that on Monday he would put the agency correspondence on his Web page, www.house .gov/markey.
-------- idaho
EPA Region 10 finds Idaho's Hazardous Waste Program Adequate
Environmental Defense Institute Troy, Idaho
Keep Yellowstone Nuclear Free Jackson, Wyoming
News Release
March 25, 2002
Contacts:
Chuck Broscious: 208-835-6152
Erik Ringelberg: 307-732-2040
David McCoy: 208-542-1449
Idaho and Jackson, WY - After a formal petition made September 13, 2001, and a follow-up complaint to the EPA Inspector General, L. John Iani, Regional Administrator of EPA Region 10 in Seattle, WA issued an official response (3/20/02) to a Formal Petition to remove the State of Idaho from oversight of hazardous waste; submitted by the Environmental Defense Institute (EDI), Keep Yellowstone Nuclear Free (KYNF) and attorney David McCoy.
After ignoring the original September 2001 formal petition and after extensive delays, the EPA Region 10 finally agreed to an October 23, 2001 follow-up EPA Inspector General complaint to respond to a formal petition about the legality and management of the State of Idaho's radioactive and hazardous waste program. EPA Region 10 found that the State of Idaho's hazardous waste management program, while ranked 46th worst "permitting performance" in the country "...met its obligations..."
"We expected EPA Region 10 to issue this "white-wash" determination because the EPA was required to monitor the State, and if the State was found deficient it would be the EPA's fault for not overseeing the program properly. The EPA has it's own history of allowing non-compliant nuclear waste processing operations, prior to the State of Idaho's taking over that regulatory role in 1992 . So, it is not a surprise that EPA Region 10 is covering its collective butt on this issue," notes Chuck Broscious , Executive Director of the Environmental Defense Institute.
"EPA simply is not willing to deal with the reality that major INEEL radioactive and hazardous waste programs have been operating for decades without meeting current regulatory rules," explained Idaho Falls Attorney Dave McCoy, "Instead, the EPA states that it is OK to proceed without full permits, and without legal penalties, as long as they get the INEEL radioactive and hazardous the waste out." "If this was a corporate polluter, the EPA would have shut them down two decades ago, and fined them tens of millions of dollars," explained Erik Ringelberg, KYNF Executive Director, "Instead, the EPA turns a blind eye to the Department of Energy."
EPA's Inspector General and EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance are conducting a separate and independent review of EPA Region 10 operations based on EDI/KYNF/McCoy Petitions, and it is hoped that this investigation will shed light on these major issues.
-------- us politics
FBI raids pro-Republicans
Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles,
Monday March 25, 2002,
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,673465,00.html
The target of an anti-terrorist raid in the United States last week provided funds for an Islamic group with close ties to the Republican party and the White House.
The Safa trust, a Saudi-backed charity, has provided funds for a political group called the Islamic Institute, which was set up to mobilise support for the Republican party. It shares an office in Washington with the Republican activist Grover Norquist.
The institute, founded in 1999 to win influence in the Republican party, has helped to arrange meetings between senior Bush officials and Islamic leaders, according to the report in Newsweek magazine. Its chairman, Khaled Saffuri, and Mr Norquist cooperated to arrange the meetings.
The trust gave $20,000 (£14,000) to the institute, which also received $20,000 from a board member of the Success Foundation, according to the report. The institute has also received money from abroad, including$200,000 from Qatar and $55,000 from Kuwait. The institute says that none of the money came with strings attached.
Mr Norquist, who is a member of the institute's board, said that it existed "to promote democracy and free markets. Any effort to imply guilt by association is incompetent McCarthyism".
It is understood that a series of raids last week were prompted by the transfer of funds from the Safa trust and other groups to accounts based in the Isle of Man. They have not led to any charges.
Islamic groups have complained that many of the raids being carried out on Islamic organisations are speculative and violate their civil liberties.
In another development, the possibility that one of the September 11 hijackers had been exposed to anthrax has been explored by the FBI.
A Florida doctor who treated Ahmed Ibrahim al-Haznawi for a leg wound last summer concluded that the likeliest cause of the injury was cutaneous anthrax. But the FBI said yesterday that it had found no evidence of a link between the hijackers and anthrax.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Two top Al Qaeda leaders spotted
Local Afghan commander says bin Laden and his No. 2 have been in the Khost area
By Ilene R. Prusher Staff writer
The Christian Science Monitor
03/25/2002
Northern Light
http://library.northernlight.com/FF20020325140000084.html?cb=0&dx=1006&sc=0#doc
KHOST, AFGHANISTAN, Mar 26, 2002 (The Christian Science Monitor via COMTEX) -- Afghan military officials working with US forces in Khost say that the top two leaders of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al Zawahiri, have both been seen in the area over the past eight days.
This is the second sighting of Mr. bin Laden's No. 2 in this area in the past month. Local forces may have their own motives for reporting a bin Laden sighting. But, if true, it would be the first evidence of bin Laden's continued presence in Afghanistan since he was seen at Tora Bora in November.
Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition" that bin Laden is "still in the area of Afghanistan, maybe across the border in Pakistan someplace, but I think he's still out in the general area."
Local intelligence reports also show that Al Qaeda and Taliban fugitives are regrouping in the mountains south and northeast of the city of Khost, helped and supplied in part by Afghan sympathizers who can blend into the city and bring information and supplies to the fugitives.
The Monitor interviewed one of three informers who reported to Kamal Khan Zadran, the military commander and deputy governor of Khost Province, that Mr. Zawahiri was seen four days ago, riding on horseback with a group of about 25 men toward the Pakistani tribal area of South Waziristan. Zadran says that he also received a report that bin Laden was seen in the area of Khost about eight days ago, and that he may be hiding in a mountainous village called Mir Chapar, southeast of Khost city close to the Pakistani border.
Zadran says that another group of villagers told him that they'd seen a group of about 80 men, four on horses, the rest on foot traveling southeast of Khost. It was clear from their dress that they were Arabs, and they insisted that one of them was bin Laden.
The latest sightings could only be corroborated through interviews facilitated with Mr. Zadran's assistance, although competing warlords in the area confirm that the strength of Al Qaeda and forces sympathetic to them in these largely Pashtun provinces of southeastern Afghanistan is steadily growing.
The reports of Zawahiri's presence in the area are bolstered by several interviews conducted independently by the Monitor last week with Afghan villagers east of Shah-e Kot - the mountainous battleground of the US-led Operation Anaconda. Villagers, who were paid to carve out new caves for Al Qaeda, say that they saw Zawahiri, the Egyptian doctor, orchestrating the excavations.
It is difficult to confirm the validity of information and evidence presented by Mr. Zadran. He is the leader of 600 special troops who are called "campaign forces" and were trained by the US to focus on the hunt for Al Qaeda and Taliban fugitives. But he - as well as the approximately 3,000 troops under his brother Badsha Khan, the region's most powerful warlord - are still in a standoff with other warlords - who are competing for favor with the US.
Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Dave Lapan says the bin Laden sighting "doesn't sound far-fetched." But he adds: "It's been our policy not to get into dissecting various reports about where he is or isn't. When we have solid information on his whereabouts, we'll take action to bring him to justice."
Still, Zadran and his deputy commanders say there is a worrying concentration of Al Qaeda forces on two mountains in the region: Pashu Ghar, meaning "Cats Mountain," which lies about 20 kilometers northeast of this city, and Mister Bill Ghar, or Mr. Bill's Mountain, which is about 25 kilometers to the south.
Inside the family's heavily guarded military headquarters, Zadran presents evidence that Al Qaeda has also been operating inside the city. He displays a fake identification letter from a bogus Islamic charity, which makes its carrier, a man from the United Arab Emirates, look like his sole job is to collect money for Muslims in Bosnia. Zadran says the laminated letter, which bears a photo of a man in a Gulf Arab headdress and says its holder is Fahed Mohd [Mohammed] Abdullah, was found in the city, at the same place as a chemical stash, which he says he showed to US forces yesterday.
Zadran says that the letter and the containers of bombmaking chemicals are small indications that Al Qaeda operatives are plugged into this area, operating in the mountains while their Afghan allies slip in and out of the city unnoticed, bringing mostly Arab, Pakistani, and Chechen fugitives supplies and information.
"Unfortunately, all of the most famous Al Qaeda from all over Afghanistan have gathered in my area," says Zadran. "The problem is the Afghan Taliban. Without the Afghan Al Qaeda, the foreign Al Qaeda would not survive. They come to the cities to buy food and bring it out to them."
Zadran says the Al Qaeda fighters are trying to unite against the US forces. "We are in big trouble. There is a possibility of a large attack from all four sides of the city," says Zadran, a commander whose green eyes look tired from working on three or four hours of rest a night. "There is a possibility they will try to set a trap. They are interested in killing Americans, not Afghan forces."
He's worried that an attack could be imminent. "Record this date," he says flatly. "There will be a big operation against the Americans soon. The Al Qaeda is here, and they're not going away. There are some Al Qaeda elements sitting on meetings with the Americans."
It is the second week in a row that the Badsha Khan family-run force has warned that the fugitives from Shah-e Kot, the staging ground from Operation Anaconda, have settled into new positions and are planning an attack on US forces. Late Sunday evening, Zadran received information that between 200 and 300 forces were camped on Cats Mountain, so named because it used to be full of wild cats. The mountain, like others where Al Qaeda has sought refuge, has leftover tunnels from the days of the war against the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Pulling out a topographical map of the area, Zadran points to the remote mountains that he says US forces should be zeroing in on now. Zardan learned of their presence, he says, because some of the Al Qaeda men came down from the mountain to visit the local mosque and an old madrassah, or seminary, called Khalifa Madrassa. By attending prayers, he says, they tried to develop ties with local villagers and present themselves as good Muslims fighting a foreign, infidel enemy.
"I keep telling the US that we need to cut the supply routes of Al Qaeda," says Zadran, urging the US forces to surround the two areas which he says have a high concentration of the fugitives. "But the Northern Alliance is telling them we are trying to target our enemies," which he says is not true. Mistrust here, in this entirely Pashtun part of the country, runs high for the Northern Alliance, which is dominated by ethnic Tajiks.
Reports of how Osama bin Laden and Zawahiri may have passed through the area suggest that even Afghan officials are having a difficult time overcoming cultural traditions and complex tribal ties that seem to be working in Al Qaeda's favor. According to one report, Zawahiri had to pass through checkpoints controlled by Zakim Khan, another warlord who is supposed to be cooperating with US forces. But because a man who at least three of Zadran's informers identified as Zawahiri was traveling with a member of the same tribe to which Zakim Khan belongs, the warlord was obliged to give safe passage to Zawahiri's convoy.
Gula Jan, a local commander, says that he was just outside his home village four days ago when he saw a group of men passing through Saroza, in Paktika province. Mr. Jan says that since he wears a big black turban and heavy long beard, they must have seen him as a local sympathizer.
About half an hour later, another group passed through. "I saw a heavy, older man on a horse who wore dark glasses and had a white turban. He was dressed like an Afghan but he had a beautiful coat, and he was with two other Arabs that had masks on," he says.
"He came down from the horse and he was laughing with me and acting very polite," says Jan. He says that the man in the white turban started speaking to Jan's companion in Arabic.
"He asked my friend, 'Where are the enemies? They started a war to eradicate Islam from the earth, and it's a crusader war of Christians against Islam," he recalls. He says the man asked where the Northern Alliance and American troops were. "'We are afraid we will encounter them. Show us the right way,'" Jan says they asked.
During the course of the visit with the local villagers, Jan says he excused himself to check a "wanted" picture of Zawahiri that was dropped over this area by US airplanes. It confirmed his suspicion that the man was Zawahiri.
"I didn't have a phone," Mr. Jan says. "Otherwise, instead of just going to check the picture, I could have called our military headquarters and told them where I was." It took him over two hours to get the information to Khost.
"While we were having our chat, Zawahiri said, 'May God bless you and keep you from the enemies of Islam. Try not to tell them from where we came and where we were going."
Staff writer Abraham McLauglin contributed to this report from Washington.
----
Rumsfeld Says U.S. Will Begin Training Afghan Army Soon
New York Times
March 25, 2002
By DAVID STOUT
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/25/international/25CND-MILI.html
WASHINGTON, March 25 - The United States will soon begin training an Afghan national army to give Afghanistan "a better chance for peace and security," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said today.
The training will be done by American special forces troops already in the remote, mountainous country, Mr. Rumsfeld said. The secretary declined to estimate the size of the new Afghan force or how much money the United States will spend on training, saying those and other details will not be known until a permanent government supplants the recently installed interim Afghan government.
The Bush administration's intention to help train an Afghan army has been known for some time. Mr. Rumsfeld emphasized today that the United States will not become a world "policeman," sending troops wherever trouble breaks out. But in the continuing war against terrorism, "America will actively prepare other nations for the battles ahead," he said.
American military officials have said it will take many months to train and equip a new force in Afghanistan.
British and German members of the international security force have begun basic training for about 600 Afghans in Kabul. Thousands of other potential recruits have been waiting.
Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the emerging national army's mission would be to preserve security within Afghanistan and guard its borders, which have long been relatively easy for terrorists to slip across. Afghanistan has historically been riven by ethnic and regional rivalries, and the Pentagon has said that maintaining stability in the power vacuum created by the ouster of the ruling Taliban is essential.
Neither Mr. Rumsfeld nor General Myers would predict when American military involvement in Afghanistan, which began a few weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, would come to an end. "We don't want to leave abruptly, in a way that could inject instability," Mr. Rumsfeld said.
General Myers said American troops searched many cave complexes over the weekend, finding computers, manuals, passports, maps, bomb-making plans and other evidence that the erstwhile inhabitants had possibly been preparing further terrorist attacks.
-------- africa
Sudan rebel leader vows to attack oil
By Eli J. Lake
UPI State Department Correspondent
3/25/2002
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=25032002-075445-4633r
WASHINGTON, March 25 (UPI) -- Sudanese Rebel leader John Garang said Monday he would continue attacking oil wells operated by foreign countries and controlled by Khartoum despite his intention to sign an agreement with the north barring all attacks on civilians.
"We have said we will continue to attack the oil installations," Garang told an audience at the Wilson Center for International Scholars Monday. "We want clarifications on whether the agreement covers the oil installations."
For the last two weeks, U.S. negotiators have pressured Garang to sign an agreement to end attacks against civilians in the 19-year civil war in Sudan.
The agreement -- a copy was obtained by United Press International -- would commit the rebels and the government to "refrain from targeting or intentionally attacking civilian objects or facilities, such as schools, hospitals religious premises, health and food distribution centers, or relief operations or objects or facilities indispensable to the relief operations, or objects or facilities indispensable to the survival of the civilian population and of a civilian nature."
The agreement, however, makes no mention of oil installations.
Earlier this month, Sudanese President Omar Bashir signed the agreement but so far Garang has resisted.
"There are clarifications that we have requested that are being resolved," Garang said Monday.
"Our position has always been any kind of agreement should cover the oil facilities," said Mahdi Ibrahim, Sudan's minister of information and communications in a telephone interview Monday from Khartoum. "The negotiators did not want that to happen, they did not want to say openly that oil facilities were protected. This is troubling, we know John Garang is going to interpret this the way he is now."
The agreement would allow two teams of U.S.-led monitors to investigate attacks on civilians in the north and south.
The State Department briefly suspended nearly all contact with Sudan last month after Sudanese helicopter gunships attacked a World Food Program site in Beih on Feb. 20. Sudanese officials told the State Department that the attack was authorized in the field without the knowledge of the president.
Ending attacks on civilians was the last point negotiated by former Sen. John Danforth, the President's special peace envoy to the Sudan, in his diplomatic missions to Sudan.
-------- biological weapons
Anthrax, ricin detected in Afghan labs
By Pamela Hess Pentagon correspondent
3/25/2002
UPI
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=25032002-043301-1163r
WASHINGTON -- At least five of the 60 possible biological weapons laboratories U.S. forces have examined in Afghanistan have yielded tiny amounts of anthrax or ricin, the highly toxic derivative of the castor bean, according to Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"The caveat to that is that there's such minute amounts that the anthrax could be naturally occurring, and the ricin could be there because of the castor bean. It could be that. And so, no, no conclusive proof of active agents," Myers said at a Pentagon news conference Monday.
One of the sites -- an apparent anthrax laboratory -- was discovered over the weekend in Kandahar. It appeared operators were in the process of shutting down the lab when they left, Myers told reporters after the briefing. The lab was not fully equipped to produce biological agents that could be used in germ warfare, Myers said.
"There was a dryer. There was an autoclave," Myers said. "Not all the equipment you would need was there, but there was some of the equipment. Looked like some of it had been tried to have been destroyed."
Trace elements of anthrax were identified in the lab but the amount was so minute they may be from naturally occurring sources, Myers cautioned.
Myers said the information that led U.S. forces to the site in Kandahar clearly connected the lab to a weapons program.
"Not only what we found there, but what led us to that particular site and how all that came together, it came together that that was a site they were using, from a good source, and so we went and we found what we found," he said.
There are civilian or "dual" uses for ricin and anthrax, making it possible that the labs -- if they were producing the toxins -- may have been engaged in legal activities.
However, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the terrorist group al Qaida's known appetite for biological weapons makes that possibility immaterial if not remote.
"We have so much evidence in writing of the desire to develop capabilities, chemical and biological capabilities, that the fact that it's dual use is saying a pistol's dual use; it can shoot at a target or it can shoot at a person," Rumsfeld said.
If caught in time, anthrax can be treated with antibiotics. There is no similar treatment for exposure to ricin.
Ricin is a highly toxic derivative of the common castor bean and is an active ingredient in brake fluid, among other things. Ricin can be drawn out of the bean and if inhaled can kill the victim within 36 to 72 hours of exposure. If ricin is injected into the skin, death is normally attributed to vascular collapse, usually within 72 hours.
Ricin was believed to be the culprit in the 1978 death of Georgi Markov, an exiled Bulgarian broadcaster. He was waiting for a bus in London when he was jabbed with an umbrella; he died three days later. During the autopsy, the coroner discovered a small metallic sphere with two tiny holes inside Markov's wound, which he surmised to have carried the toxin.
-------- britain
UK privatises the running of its naval dockyards
By Dan Lalor
Monday March 25
Reuters
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/020325/l25450573_1.html
LONDON, March 25 - Britain's main naval bases will soon be run by private companies in a move aimed at saving 300 million pounds ($430 million) over the next five years, the Ministry of Defence said on Monday.
Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon said the government would place contracts with three companies to supply engineering support and related services at Devonport, southwest England, Portsmouth on the south coast and the Clyde river in Scotland.
The companies -- Devonport Management Ltd (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: BBY.L) (NYSE:HAL - news) (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: WEIR.L), Fleet Support Ltd (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: BA.L) (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: VSP.L) and Babcock Naval Services Ltd (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: BAB.L) -- will be responsible for all aspects of warship support from refits to managing supplies.
``The Ministry of Defence has also agreed with the dockyard companies that a larger proportion of the surface refit and repair programme will be opened up for competition, with corresponding improvements in value for money,'' Hoon said in a written statement to Parliament.
British facilities management and engineering company Babcock International Group Plc said it had won a five-year contract worth 400 million pounds to manage the Clyde base which comprises two sites -- Faslane and Coulport.
The MoD said it would retain overall responsibility for the whole base and, in particular, would ``continue to directly control security and management of the Trident weapon system''.
Clyde is home to the Vanguard submarines which carry Britain's Trident nuclear missiles.
Under the deal, around 1,750 MoD staff will transfer to Babcock, which will also manage around 500 Royal Navy personnel on secondment. Around 2,800 civilians currently work at Faslane and Coulport sites.
More jobs will be privatised at Devonport and Portsmouth.
Unions fear 1,000 jobs will be lost in the whole process.
Clyde base commander, Commodore John Borley, said in a statement he had ``noted carefully their (Babcock's) commitment to work with the trade unions and staff in implementing change''.
-------- business
$57,692
Monday, March 25, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12323-2002Mar24?language=printer
The weekly amount of the bonus earned last year by Lockheed Martin Corp. Chairman Vance Coffman. That compares with the weekly strike check of $115 that each striking Lockheed Martin worker is to receive from the union, starting today.
----
FEDERAL CONTRACTS
By States News Service
Monday, March 25, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12289-2002Mar24?language=printer
Computer Sciences Corp. of Falls Church won a share of a contract worth up to $2 billion from the Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization for information technology services, hardware, software and other products.
Electronic Data Systems Corp. of Herndon won a share of a contract worth up to $2 billion from the Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization for information technology services, hardware and software.
Lockheed Martin Inc. of Bethesda won a share of a contract worth up to $2 billion from the Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization for information technology services, hardware, software and other products.
Northrop Grumman Information Technology Systems of McLean won a share of a contract worth up to $2 billion from the Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization for information technology services, hardware, software and other products.
Tran Tech Inc. of Alexandria won a share of a contract worth up to $2 billion from the Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization for information technology services, hardware, software and other products.
BTG Inc. of Fairfax won a contract worth up to $189.41 million from the Army for information technology in support of special operations forces.
AnviCom Inc. of Dunn Loring won a contract worth up to $85 million from the Defense Information Systems Agency for local and wide-area network support services.
Orkand Corp. of Falls Church won a five-year, $79 million contract from the Geological Survey for information-technology operating support services.
Resource Consultants Inc. of Vienna won a contract worth up to $48.73 million from the Navy for support services.
SYSCO of Suffolk, Va., won a $45 million contract from the Defense Supply Center for full-line food distribution services for Navy ships.
Bell-Boeing Joint Program Office of Arlington won a $43.99 million contract from the Navy for spare parts.
Integral Systems Inc. of Lanham won a $43.37 million contract from the Space & Missile Systems Center for Phase II development and sustainment portion of the command and control system-consolidated program.
Bell-Boeing Joint Program Office of Arlington won a $35.25 million contract from the Navy for spare parts for the V-22 Osprey aircraft.
CACI Technologies Inc. of Chantilly won a $24.13 million contract from the Office of Naval Research for engineering and technical support services.
Chemonics International Inc. of Washington won a $14.58 million contract from the Agency for International Development for science and technology services.
Forrester Construction Co. of Rockville won a $12.4 million contract from the Navy for renovation services.
SRA International Inc. of Fairfax won a $10.5 million contract from the Defense Department for information-technology and business process reengineering support services.
American Technology Corp. of Baltimore won a $6.63 million contract from the Air Force for design, development and production of gas mask rubber skins.
BAE Systems Technologies Inc. of Rockville won a $5.82 million contract from the Navy for technical and engineering services.
Chesapeake Sciences Corp. of Millersville, Md., won a $5.79 million contract from the Navy for engineering services.
Norfolk Shipbuilding & Drydock Corp. of Norfolk won a $5.74 million contract from the Navy for ship repairs.
Cube Corp. of Sterling won a $5 million contract from the General Services Administration for management, organizational and business improvement services.
TAF Group Ltd. of Virginia Beach won a contract worth up to $5 million from the Navy for retail facilities and lodge projects.
KPMG Consulting of Lorton won a $4.5 million contract from the Defense Supply Center for management support services.
PriceWaterhouse Coopers of Fair Lakes won a $4.5 million contract from the Defense Supply Center for management support services.
Alliant Ammunition & Powder Co. LLC of Radford, Va., won a $4.1 million contract from the Army for ammunition and powder.
Computer & High-Tech Management Inc. of McLean won a $3 million contract from the Air Force Space Command for manufacturing services for space and telecommunications support.
The contracts listed were awarded by the federal government to companies and other vendors in Virginia, Maryland and the District. For more information, contact states2001@aol.com, or 202-628-3100, ext. 266.
-------- drug war
Military opposes spraying poppies
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
March 25, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020325-52778.htm
The U.S. military is opposing Bush administration plans to conduct crop eradication in Afghanistan, where poppy cultivation in the coming weeks will net millions of dollars for Taliban and al Qaeda drug runners, U.S. officials say.
The military officials, including representatives of the U.S. Central Command, have argued in interagency meetings that attacking Afghanistan's poppy fields is a nonmilitary function that should be left to others.
Proponents of the effort, in the White House and State Department, want the Pentagon to send special aircraft to drop herbicide on Afghanistan's poppy fields before the opium-producing plants are harvested in the next four to six weeks.
"This is asymmetrical warfare, and it would be a prudent force-protection measure," said a U.S. official close to the debate.
The money obtained from Afghanistan's poppy harvest will fuel the guerrilla war that is expected to escalate against U.S. and allied forces in the coming months.
The money from the poppies also will bolster anti-U.S. elements in the Pakistani ISI intelligence service, the officials said.
"If this opium is harvested and permitted to go to market, it will re-empower the negative elements in Pakistan's security service and lead to instability in Pakistan," the official said. "And it will fund a new round of international terrorism."
A National Security Council spokesman had no comment, noting that the subject is part of an ongoing internal debate.
Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, has rejected the idea of using U.S. military forces for poppy crop eradication, according to a Pentagon official.
"That's not our mission," an official quoted Gen. Franks as saying.
Drug Enforcement Administration chief Asa Hutchinson told Congress on March 12 that the DEA has obtained "multisource information" linking al Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden, to heroin trafficking.
"The very sanctuary previously enjoyed by bin Laden was based on the existence of the Taliban's drug state, whose economy was exceptionally dependent on opium," Mr. Hutchinson said.
Afghanistan produced over 70 percent of the world supply of illicit opium in 2000, and U.S. officials said the current crop is expected to be large.
A DEA intelligence report in September said that Afghanistan produced 74 metric tons of opium from 4,162 acres of poppy fields last year.
The opium produced was significantly less than in 2000, when 3,656 metric tons of opium were produced from 64,510 hectares of land that year.
Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, who was ousted during U.S. military operations in December, issued a decree in July 2000 banning poppy cultivation in Afghanistan. He ordered the militia to eradicate any poppy fields under Taliban control.
The State Department, which is in charge of nonmilitary policies toward Afghanistan, has been unable to purchase the special aircraft required to spray herbicide on the poppies, the officials said.
One option under consideration is to purchase two Air Tractor aerial spraying aircraft and send them to Afghanistan. The plan called for using a special defoliant designed to kill poppy and coca plants without injuring other plants.
But the State Department was slow to take steps to arrange the aircraft purchase, so the aircraft cannot be procured until August - well after the poppy fields have been harvested and the material turned into opium and heroin.
The DEA intelligence report said "numerous" laboratories are located in Afghanistan and Pakistan and there are "significant" numbers of opium dealers in the Jalalabad and Ghani Khel areas.
The laboratories are known to be located in Afghanistan's northwest border areas of Kunduz and Badakhstan provinces.
Military officials are said to have opposed the crop-spraying plan as being too risky in Afghanistan, where al Qaeda and Taliban fighters still pose a threat.
Most of the drug-producing crops are located in Afghanistan's Helmand, Kandahar, Nangarhar and Lowgar provinces.
Administration officials also are upset that the Central Command did not conduct bombing raids against opium warehouses in Afghanistan during the military campaign that began Oct. 7.
The facilities went unscathed after legal advisers at Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla., determined the opium storehouses were not legitimate military targets.
Interim government leader Hamid Karzai has continued the Taliban ban on poppy growing. Mr. Karzai also has sought international support for anti-drug efforts in the country.
Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency reported last week that Afghan farmers have begun cultivating poppy fields. Brig. Gen. Mehdi Abouei, chief of Iran's counter-drug efforts, said on March 18 that poppy cultivation is increasing since the U.S.-led bombing campaign and could result in a crop of up to 2,500 ton of opium this season.
-------- iraq
US 'deadly serious' about stopping Iraq from acquiring nuclear weapons: Cheney
Monday March 25
Agence France Presse
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/020324/1/2mxn4.html
Vice President Dick Cheney reiterated that Washington was "deadly serious" about preventing Baghdad from acquiring nuclear weapons and downplayed the importance of sending UN weapons inspectors back to Iraq.
"The issue's not inspectors. The issue is that he (Iraqi President Saddam Hussein) has chemical weapons and he's used them," Cheney said in an interview with CNN. "The issue is that he's developing and has biological weapons. The issue is that he's pursuing nuclear weapons."
While pressing for a return of UN weapons inspectors to Iraq, Washington fears Baghdad will use the issue to stonewall and dupe the international community.
US officials instead appear to be laying the early groundwork for military action against Saddam's regime, after identifying Iraq as part of an "axis of evil" along with North Korea and Iran.
"I think it would be a great tragedy if Saddam Hussein were to be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, and that's one of the concerns I shared as I traveled through the region last week," Cheney told NBC television.
"He (Saddam) knows we're deadly serious. Our friends and allies in the region know we're deadly serious and that we do need to find a way to address this problem," he noted.
President George W. Bush said Friday that he had "no imminent plans" to attack Iraq but said even the Iraqi leader knew the United States will eventually "deal" with him.
Speaking on the sidelines of a UN anti-poverty summit in Monterrey, Mexico, Bush said he "cannot allow" nations armed with weapons of mass destruction and hostile to the United States -- like Iraq -- to team up with terrorists like the al-Qaeda network blamed for the September 11 attacks on US targets.
"The president's been very clear that we will do everything we need to do to make certain that that doesn't happen," Cheney said on NBC.
On Friday, US officials accused Iraq of trying to distract the United Nations from its refusal to abide by UN Security Council resolutions by submitting a list of questions about the possible return of international weapons inspectors.
The Iraqis have reportedly asked how the UN could guarantee that its new inspectors would not spy for the United States -- the charge Baghdad leveled at the former inspection team before it was withdrawn in December 1998.
Cheney, who returned Wednesday from a week-long trip to the Middle East, said US allies in the region were "equally concerned about the problems we see in Iraq, specifically the development of weapons of mass destruction by Saddam Hussein."
During Cheney's Middle East tour, several Arab countries voiced opposition to a US military offensive against Iraq and instead urged Washington to focus on settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But Cheney made it clear that Washington was committed to tackling both issues.
"We have to be concerned both with the Iraqi problem as well as the Israeli-Palestinian problem," he said in an interview with CBS. "You have got to work on both, and to some extent they are interrelated."
Asked about possible links between Baghdad and Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, Cheney told NBC: "We have not been able to pin down any connection there."
He also hinted that British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has been Washington's closest ally in the antiterror coalition formed after the September 11 attacks on US targets, would play a key role in efforts to highlight Saddam's plan to build weapons of mass destruction.
Cheney also said he was assessing Iraq's offer to receive a US team to look into the fate of a US Navy pilot downed over Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War to see whether it was "a serious proposition."
Iraqi authorities said they were prepared to receive a US delegation to look into the fate of Michael Speicher, whose F/A-18 Hornet aircraft crashed in the desert west of Baghdad on January 17, 1991, the first night of the allied air war against Iraq, apparently after being hit by a missile fired by an Iraqi aircraft.
-------- israel / palestine
Israel Plans Big Assault If Truce Talks Fail
Army and Government Back Aggressive Action
By Lee Hockstader
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, March 25, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11927-2002Mar24?language=printer
JERUSALEM, March 24 -- As the United States tries to mediate a truce in the Middle East, Israeli military planners are preparing for a major assault on Palestinian cities, towns and refugee camps that would be broader and deeper than the offensive undertaken earlier this month, according to Israeli officials.
The officials, speaking on condition they not be identified, emphasized that they intended to give every chance for the cease-fire negotiations under the U.S. envoy, Anthony C. Zinni, to succeed. But they expressed pessimism that the talks would lead to a durable end to violence and terrorist attacks against Israelis.
If the talks fail as Palestinian violence continues, there is widespread and growing support both in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government and in the army for what one official called a "comprehensive military confrontation" with the Palestinians.
"The next days might be crucial, because if we don't succeed [in the cease-fire talks], we may come to the conclusion that there is no hope, and we have to choose the other way," said one highly placed Israeli official.
The Israeli warnings seem designed both to prepare domestic and international public opinion for a new round of bloodshed, and to induce the Palestinians to crack down on militant groups and accede to Israel's terms for a truce. However, previous warnings have been met with Palestinian threats and attacks. Western criticism of Israeli aggression has generated sympathy for the Palestinian cause.
Sharon's dilemma is that as Israeli and Palestinian casualties have soared in recent months, his popularity has plummetted. Overwhelmingly, opinion polls show that Israelis do not believe the 74-year-old leader has a strategy to extricate the country from one of its deepest crises. When Sharon pleaded with Israelis last month to prepare for a drawn-out struggle, his ratings dipped further. When he also announced last month that his policy was to inflict heavy losses on the Palestinians so they would drop demands unacceptable to Israel, some moderates in his coalition rebeled. His foreign minister, Shimon Peres, has warned repeatedly that there is no military solution to the conflict.
Still, during the past 18 months of Israeli-Palestinian clashes, which have been characterized by a steady escalation of violence on both sides, Israeli officials have frequently telegraphed their punches, as they appear to be doing again.
For instance, early last year, top Israeli generals and officials began speaking openly about the possibility of thrusts into Palestinian-held territory -- a scenario that was then considered drastic. When Israeli forces made their first incursion, there was an international outcry, including harsh criticism from Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. Over time, however, the incursions became routine.
Early this year, senior officials started talking about raids on Palestinian refugee camps, which until then had been regarded as dangerous and off-limits. On Jan. 21, for instance, Sharon said Israel would adopt "totally different tactics" if the Palestinians fired homemade rockets into Israeli territory, which they did five days later.
On Feb. 28, the army attacked the Balata refugee camp near the northern West Bank city of Nablus. In subsequent days, several other camps were attacked -- including the largest, Jabalya, in the Gaza Strip -- in the widest Israeli offensive in the Palestinian areas since 1967.
The army has acknowledged that the two-week offensive, in which more than 150 Palestinians were killed, achieved at best only part of the desired result. Although several thousand Palestinians were rounded up, virtually all of the most-wanted militants eluded capture. Some weapons were seized, and suspected rocket-making workshops were destroyed, but the Palestinians still have plenty of arms, and last week fired a rocket from Gaza into Israeli territory.
The Israeli assault also appeared to do little or nothing to dent the Palestinians' will or ability to attack Israelis. In the week since Israel withdrew from the last major chunks of Palestinian territory it had retaken, there have been almost daily suicide bombings, shootings or attempted terrorist attacks.
Now, the talk is of more aggressive military action.
Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz, the army chief of staff, said Israel's offensive was incomplete. Other officials have noted that the Israeli attacks had an effect in stopping the flow of would-be terrorists out of areas occupied by the army. There is a widely held view in the Israeli army and security circles that the only way to stop terrorist and other attacks on Israelis is to occupy the Palestinian areas where the attackers live and operate -- though even that provides no guarantee, officials acknowledge.
"Let me remind you that during the week of our operation in Ramallah, there was no terrorist attack that came out of Ramallah," said a senior official, referring to the Palestinians' unofficial capital in the West Bank. "And in the days since our withdrawal there have been several attacks [from the city], some of which we succeeded in preventing and some of which we did not."
Officials are reluctant to reveal the details of the military plans, other than to say they could involve the army driving deeper into Palestinian cities, towns and refugee camps than it did this month, staying considerably longer and hunting down more suspected militants.
But the officials are mindful that there are limits. No one in a position of power in Israel is seriously considering a complete and indefinite reoccupation of the West Bank and Gaza, carpet-bombing Ramallah or destroying the Palestinian water and electricity systems, a senior official said. Officials also acknowledged that Israeli planners are sensitive to the political constraints on an all-out offensive, including the fear of igniting a regional war and the likelihood of criticism by the United States.
In Washington, a sharp escalation in Israeli attacks would likely be seen as undermining the Bush administration's efforts to muster Arab support or acquiescence for a campaign against Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq. In Israel, an escalation could destabilize Sharon's coalition government, which includes moderates as well as hard-liners.
Moreover, even some proponents for a major new Israeli offensive say they doubt it would end Palestinian attacks, and could even play into the hands of the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat. "Our dilemma is that all the Palestinians have to do to win is to survive," said one Israeli official. "That makes them a very hard enemy, but it doesn't mean you don't fight them anyway."
Nonetheless, the officials made clear that Israel could not long maintain what they regard as its current posture of restraint, which has been in place for about a week. Under the informal rules of Israel's restraint, the army has not stopped operating. But Israel has refrained from launching air attacks in retaliation for Palestinian suicide bombings.
Israeli newspapers have also reported in recent days that Sharon has told the Bush administration to expect an escalation if no cease-fire is achieved. For instance, Shimon Schiffer, arguably Israel's best-connected political reporter, wrote in the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth today that when Vice President Cheney visited Israel last week, Sharon "reached an agreement" with him that if Zinni's mission fails, Washington would support Israeli strikes on the Palestinians. U.S. officials did not deny the report.
It is unclear when the Israelis would launch a fresh attack, but it probably would not occur while Zinni remains in the region.
Tonight, the fourth meeting in a week of Israeli and Palestinian security commanders under the former Marine Corps general ended without any agreement. Another meeting was scheduled for Monday.
The two sides disagree over the timetable for a truce, and over Israel's demand that Palestinian militants be arrested. The Palestinians are demanding that any truce be followed by a swift resumption of political negotiations that would include a freeze on all construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel refuses to tie the truce talks to the prospect of political concessions, which Sharon believes would constitute a reward for 18 months of renewed Palestinian violence over continuing Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
As Israel prepares for the next phase of fighting, many in Sharon's hard-line Likud Party have promoted the option of a devastating attack that would topple Arafat's Palestinian Authority and root out what Israelis call the "infrastructure of terror." Among the advocates is Sharon's foremost rival within Likud, former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, a likely challenger for the leadership of the party and the government later this year or next year.
One of Sharon's most important coalition partners, the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, has added its support to a broad assault on the Palestinians. "They need to be the ones who cry uncle, not us," the party leader, Interior Minister Eliahu Yishai, told the newspaper Maariv. "I am a moderate person, and if I say this is the solution, then the situation must really be dire."
-------- landmines
Column on land mines is fatally flawed
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
March 25, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20020325-81789132.htm#2
Commentary contributor Ernest W. Lefever's argument that the United States can continue to ignore calls to join the 1997 treaty that comprehensively prohibits anti-personnel mines is, like the anti-personnel mine, fatally flawed and alarmingly out-of-touch with reality ("Land mine myopia," March 15).
Mr. Lefever describes the mines as weapons that are "politically and morally neutral," ones the United States has used "to save lives." Anti-personnel mines are indiscriminant weapons, and whatever residual military utility they retain is far outweighed by their humanitarian impact and enduring legacy. This legacy also has an impact on American families. U.S. military personnel fell victim to mines in 2001 in Afghanistan, Kosovo and South Korea. Even the "self-destruct" feature Mr. Lefever describes as rendering the mine "harmless" is flawed; the mine still cannot distinguish between soldier and civilian.
For these reasons, nearly three-quarters of the world's nations have banned the weapon by joining the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, which Mr. Lefever describes as "unenforceable."
Since the treaty was opened for signature in December, 1997, there has been a marked reduction in the use of anti-personnel mines - a sharp decrease in production, a virtual halt to trade and the destruction of more than 25 million stockpiled anti-personnel mines.
Resources for mine clearance and victim assistance have increased. Most importantly, the number of new mine victims is falling in many countries around the world.
Those not yet party to the treaty are clearly feeling an obligation to abide by the international norm established by the treaty.
The United States has not exported anti-personnel mines since a moratorium was established in 1992. It has not produced anti-personnel mines since 1997. To our knowledge, the United States has not used antipersonnel mines since the 1991 Gulf War.
The significant mine-clearance and victim-assistance funding provided by the United States would be enhanced and its effectiveness improved by joining with the other major funding nations operating within the legal and programmatic framework of the Mine Ban Treaty.
Mr. Lefever says that the administration views the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty as "little more than an empty gesture," but the Bush administration has yet to make a policy statement on land mines. A unique opportunity awaits the administration as it reviews its land-mine policy. Joining the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty is the most practical and humane step the administration could take. To fail to do so would be shortsighted in the extreme.
MARY WAREHAM Senior Advocate (Arms Division) Human Rights Watch Washington
Human Rights Watch is a founding member of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, 1997 Nobel Peace Laureate. Mary Wareham is the coordinator of its research wing, the Landmine Monitor.
-------- nato
Poland Tells Europe to Ease Up on US
By George Jahn
Associated Press Writer
Monday, March 25, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A15500-2002Mar25?language=printer
BUCHAREST, Romania -- Poland's president urged Europe to mute its criticism of Washington's war on terror, telling a summit of prospective NATO members Monday that American lives were the first ones lost in the fight against "the evil" threatening the world.
Aleksander Kwasniewski's comments reflected a main topic of concern at the opening of the two-day summit - the changing threat facing NATO and its allies more than a decade after the collapse of the Soviet bloc removed the menace of large-scale conventional ground war in Europe.
The meeting brought together leaders from the 10 candidate countries - Romania, Slovakia, Macedonia, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Albania, Croatia, Bulgaria and Slovenia - as well as guests from NATO member states, like Kwasniewski, and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.
The meeting is one of a series being held before a NATO summit in November in Prague, where the U.S.-led alliance will decide which countries to admit.
Armitage, delivering a message from President Bush, said that while the threats facing NATO have changed, its role should not be diminished in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks and solidarity among its members should be strong.
"As all civilized nations seek to address the threats of global terror, the bonds uniting NATO members are more important than ever," he said.
Kwasniewski, alluding to growing European opposition to any major expansion of Washington's war on terror beyond Afghanistan, urged U.S. allies to support the campaign against terrorism while also appealing to the United States to listen to European concerns.
"Let us not forget that it is the American soldiers that were the first to stand up to the evil" exhibited in the Sept. 11 attacks, he said. "They often paid the price of life - they continue to pay."
Romanian Prime Minister Adrian Nastase said the region's countries were ready to join the alliance and were already contributing as full NATO members in the war against terror.
"We have opened our air spaces, airfields and port facilities to Allied forces," Nastase said. "And we're now taking part in the (peacekeeping) mission in Afghanistan."
Bulent Ecevit, the prime minister of NATO-member Turkey, said the alliance was in the process of adapting to post-Cold War realities by focusing on new security threats and collaborating with former foes such as Russia.
"Military threats of a conventional and nuclear nature have diminished," Ecevit said. "But threats such as terrorism, nationalism, organized crime, drug trafficking and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction" are moving across borders.
He added that these new threats will be better tackled by an enlarged alliance and urged NATO to expedite the admission of southeastern European countries. "This dimension of enlargement will contribute to the extension of security and stability to this most sensitive area," Ecevit said.
Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Bulgaria, are regarded as candidates that stand a good chance of receiving invitations to join NATO at the November summit.
Albania, Macedonia and Croatia are considered less likely to be admitted because of lagging economic or political reforms or the legacy of Balkan warfare.
-------- pakistan
Tribal Leaders in Pakistan Warn the U.S. to Keep Out
Mon Mar 25
By RAYMOND BONNER
The New York Times
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=79&u=/nyt/20020325/wl_nyt/tribal_leaders_in_pakistan_warn_the_u_s__to_keep_out
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, March 24 Tribal leaders from the treacherous mountainous areas along the border with Afghanistan have an unambiguous message for American commanders who have suggested that they might enter the region in pursuit of Al Qaeda fighters: Don't.
One tribal leader, wagging his finger for emphasis, said that tribal elders saw America as the enemy and that his people would sacrifice their lives to keep American soldiers off their land.
A more moderate leader, a well-educated man, said more calmly that no foreigner may go into the tribal areas without permission. That warning must be taken seriously; ages ago, Alexander the Great was turned back, and for the last 53 years, until December, no soldiers, not even Pakistanis, were allowed in.
In separate interviews, the tribal leaders, Pashtun Muslims, expressed other views the Bush administration would certainly find discouraging: that the core of American policy is a hatred of Muslims and that Osama bin Laden was not responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.
Such sentiments portend great turbulence for Washington and for Pakistan's leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who has cast his lot with the United States and the war on terrorism.
The war in Aghanistan will drag on for a long time if the tribal areas, which share a porous 450-mile border with Afghanistan, become a safe haven for Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters to rest and regroup. This is exactly what American officials believe the fighters are doing, with some reason, because men from those regions poured into Afghanistan to fight early in the war.
Last week a senior American commander in Afghanistan, Maj. Gen. Franklin L. Hagenbeck, raised the possibility that American forces might cross into Pakistan in "hot pursuit" of fleeing Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters.
American officials have raised the possibility of such an operation with General Musharraf, and when General Hagenbeck's remarks were reported here, there was no denial or reaction by the government, a tacit message of assent.
But the dangers lurk. Politically, General Musharraf, who faces vocal and violent opposition to his alliance with Washington, cannot afford unrest in the tribal areas, Pakistani political observers say.
The Federally Administered Tribal Area consists of seven defined tribal agencies, home to some five million people, in northwest Pakistan. The agencies have their own councils, courts and law, and the rule of the leaders is absolute. On Friday, an elder who dissented from the ruling of the grand council of the Orakzai tribe had his house burned down as punishment.
It was only after intense negotiations and promises of substantial amounts of development money (and other money that is not publicly discussed) that the tribal councils even allowed the Pakistani Army to enter the region, in December. Pakistan now has 12,000 troops patrolling the border, concentrated on a 50-mile stretch of mountains overlooking a region of Afghanistan where American troops have been engaged in some of the fiercest fighting.
"We have completely sealed off the border," said an army spokesman, Maj. Amir Uppal. There is "no possibility" that Al Qaeda soldiers are hiding in the area, he said in an interview.
Few take that claim seriously. While it is easy to patrol the major road crossings (there are only a handful), the mountains hide thousands of trails, worn by men, women, families and donkeys over centuries. A Western diplomat in Islamabad noted that the United States, with all its trained law enforcement officials, ditches, canals, fences and sophisticated sensors, could not seal the relatively level border with Mexico.
The border may be harder to cross now than four months ago, but it is by no means impossible.
Ibrahim Khan, 19, said he crossed on Friday. Standing beside mud huts in a refugee camp where horses pulled wooden carts loaded with firewood, he said that at one point he and two friends were spotted by Pakistani soldiers, who fired on them with machine guns. They found easy cover in the mountains and, when it was safe, they finished their journey.
Another man, in the central market here, said he and his family had been able to cross after paying Pakistani soldiers. Before he could continue, a man selling shoes and T-shirts told him he should not speak about such things. Other refugees fleeing Afghanistan have said that the going rate is $200 a family.
Men have been crossing the border to fight in Afghanistan for years. When the United States began bombing the Taliban, men from the tribal areas again went over to fight.
"Unfortunately, we did not have the means and resources to fight such a large and sophisticated army like the Americans," said Shakirullah Jan Kokikhel, a chief of the 100,000-member Kokikhel tribe.
Tribal people are famously proud, tough and self-confident, and Mr. Shakirullah, 69, with a grizzled beard, is all of those. He is no political neophyte. For 20 years, he fought for adult suffrage in the tribal areas, where until 1997 only the tribal chiefs could vote, and on Saturday he was headed to Islamabad to march in a demonstration against General Musharraf.
"Listen to me," he said, pointing his finger and switching from Pashtu to English. "There was a time, when Russia was in power, we liked Americans." Indeed, when the Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan, men from the tribal areas joined the guerrilla army that was backed by the United States. "Now we hate Americans. Under our tribal rules, we designate an enemy. America is now the enemy."
Under tribal rules, once the elders have spoken, everyone falls in line.
His views, however harsh, are widely held in Pakistan and throughout Muslim Asia and Southeast Asia.
"We don't hate individual Americans, like yourself," he went on. The problem is the policy of the American government. "It is against Muslims," he said several times, categorically.
As proof, Mr. Shakirullah cited East Timor (news - web sites), where the United States backed a referendum on independence "because they are Christians." The United States does not demand the same in Kashmir (news - web sites), he said, because they are Muslims.
Mr. Shakirullah insisted that there were no Taliban or Al Qaeda forces in his area. But what would happen, he was asked, if the American forces, not believing that, entered the area?
"There is already hatred of Americans among our elders," he answered, "among our women and children, but then that hatred will reach its peak, and then we will fight them."
What about the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon (news - web sites)? Was Mr. bin Laden responsible? "Our research has shown that the Jews did it," he said, without any doubt.
In a far milder way, Ajmal Khan agreed with Mr. Shakirullah. A leader of the Maddakhel tribe, Mr. Ajmal, 50, was in Peshawar to meet with the provincial governor, a meeting that shows he is far more amenable to the government.
Like Mr. Shakirullah, Mr. Ajmal, dressed in an immaculate white, loose fitting waistcoat and trousers and a large turban, said there were no Al Qaeda or Taliban fighters in his area. If the Americans had evidence to the contrary, they should share it with him, and he and the elders would round them up.
Asked who was responsible for the World Trade Center attacks, Mr. Ajmal, a university graduate, former military officer and former minister of sport, grew uneasy. "It must be the Jews," he said.
He said he knew that President Bush had convinced General Musharraf that Mr. bin Laden was responsible for the attacks, but "he didn't convince me."
----
General Musharraf's Travails
New York Times
March 25, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/25/opinion/_25MON2.html
New leaders have a tougher balancing act these days than Gen. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan. Since January, he has built an impressive record of going after groups linked to terrorism. But because of the continuing ability of terrorists to strike back with such actions as the recent attack on a Protestant church in Islamabad and the murder of Daniel Pearl, General Musharraf sometimes appears not to be doing enough. President Bush continues to support the general and credit his efforts. For now, that backing seems justified. But the United States must be alert to possible backsliding and keep pressure on the general to return democracy to Pakistan.
General Musharraf's plan to try to legitimize his military rule with a referendum this year is unacceptable and should be discouraged by Washington. He needs to hold free and fair elections.
Since its independence and partition with India in 1947, Pakistan has been ruled mostly by military dictatorships. As a result, its political system has never been allowed to mature. Instead, it has been corrupted by organized criminal groups, extremist Islamic organizations financed from overseas and a powerful but covert military organization known as the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or I.S.I. In the 1980's, the United States did business with all these groups, as the Central Intelligence Agency and Saudi Arabia poured billions of dollars through Pakistan into the anti-Russian rebellion in neighboring Afghanistan. In some respects, the United States is now facing deformities in Pakistan that it helped create.
After the Russians left Afghanistan, the United States had a falling out with Pakistan over its covert nuclear program and its willingness to harbor extremist groups, including some that have crossed the border into India and fomented the Islamic uprising in the northern Indian state of Kashmir. General Musharraf's overthrow of a civilian government in 1999 did not help, but the turnaround of the last six months has been remarkable. Without assistance from Pakistani military intelligence, the United States would not have been able to win the war against the Taliban as quickly as it did. General Musharraf has arrested 2,000 militants, and Pakistani and American law enforcement officials appear to be cooperating in the investigation of the kidnapping and murder of Mr. Pearl.
Nevertheless, General Musharraf must accelerate his efforts to purge the I.S.I. of links with militant groups operating in Afghanistan, Kashmir and within Pakistan. Acting against these groups is likely to generate opposition to General Musharraf within the army and, some say, could endanger his life. He has no choice but to change the direction of his troubled nation and its military establishment. Dissident elements of the I.S.I. have to be rooted out, and the agency has to end its support of Islamic insurgents in Kashmir and cease intimidating Pakistani civilian politicians.
President Bush has bolstered General Musharraf's regime by relieving Pakistan of some debts and opening American markets for Pakistani textile exports. An urgent order of business is to equip Pakistan's law enforcement agencies with computers and other tools to keep track of extremists. General Musharraf should also be encouraged to fulfill his promise to hold parliamentary elections this October. Standing with Pakistan now is the best way for the United States to root out terrorist groups and bring stability to the nation and the region.
-------- philippines
Philippines Rejects Muslim Rebel Cease - Fire Call
By REUTERS
March 25, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-philippines-hostages.html
ZAMBOANGA, Philippines (Reuters) - The Philippines rejected a cease-fire call from Muslim guerrillas linked to the al Qaeda network on Monday and said the rebels had only two choices -- surrender or die.
The cease-fire call from the Abu Sayyaf rebel group, who are holding three hostages including an American missionary couple, was their first since they seized the hostages in May last year.
U.S. special forces recently began helping the Philippine military tackling the rebels in the most significant expansion of the U.S. war on terror outside Afghanistan.
Philippine armed forces chief General Roy Cimatu told reporters the Abu Sayyaf had sent messages seeking a cease-fire but the hunt for the gunmen and their captives would go on.
``What they can do is surrender, all of them, and they should surrender all three hostages without conditions,'' he said.
Five guerrillas were killed and six soldiers were wounded in fighting last week on Basilan island, near Zamboanga, where the Abu Sayyaf has been holding Filipina nurse Deborah Yap and U.S. missionary couple Martin and Gracia Burnham hostage.
Cimatu said Abu Sayyaf relatives had sent word through third parties that the group wanted a cease-fire so that one of their commanders wounded in last week's fighting could be treated.
Cimatu said the military had got feelers from relatives of the Abu Sayyaf guerrillas that the group was willing to release the nurse, Yap, if the military would halt its attacks.
The United States has linked the Abu Sayyaf to Islamic dissident Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network, prime suspects in the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
U.S. special forces are training Filipino troops on counter terrorism on Basilan -- a largely Muslim island where the Abu Sayyaf enjoys support -- to help them defeat the group.
In Manila, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo appealed to the Muslim population in the area to help pinpoint guerrilla hideouts.
``Help our police and soldiers to defeat this soul-less and terrorist Abu Sayyaf,'' Arroyo said on local radio. ``Report to the soldiers the hideouts of the Abu Sayyaf. And do not give them any kind of support, specially food and sanctuary.''
``We have to exterminate all of them if they will not surrender soon,'' Arroyo said.
The more frequent clashes between the armed forces and the rebels in recent weeks has led to speculation the group might soon release their captives.
RMN radio broadcast a taped message from a son of the Burnhams, John Paul, at the weekend appealing to the guerrillas to release his parents.
``I miss my mom and I miss my dad. So if you could please let them free. Please let them go,'' John Paul said.
``Dad and mom, if you are listening now, I want you to know that I love and miss you and pray for you every day.''
-------- spies
Kept, Broken Secrets From Washington
The Associated Press
Monday, March 25, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A15525-2002Mar25?language=printer
DEEP THROAT:
Still a mystery after 30 years. The identity of The Washington Post's Watergate informant remains "the best kept secret in the history of the nation's capital," John Dean, the White House counsel whose Senate testimony helped unseat President Nixon, has said. Ben Bradlee, former Post executive editor, said he learned the man's name only after Nixon resigned; before that, he said, reporter Bob Woodward told him only about Deep Throat's job in the executive branch, his experience and his access. The world might learn who Deep Throat is after he dies.
NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY:
The NSA, once nicknamed No Such Agency, stayed a closely held secret for about a decade, says James Bamford, who wrote two books about the eavesdroppers. In 1960, two agents defected to Moscow and talked about it at a Red Square news conference. "That sort of blew it," Bamford said. Even then, the government was not up front about the snoops who uncovered Soviet secrets during the Cuban missile crisis and used Berber linguists to link Libyan agents to the 1986 bombing of a German discotheque that killed a U.S. soldier.
GREENBRIER:
In 1958, President Eisenhower authorized construction of an elaborate hideaway for 1,100 officials, including members of Congress, under the Greenbrier Resort in White Sulfur Springs, W.Va., a four-hour drive from Washington. Resort officials denied knowing what was beneath them. Details came out in the press in 1992 and with the Cold War over, the government turned control of the facility over to the resort, which now takes customers on tours and rents it out for parties. In 2000, voters defeated a proposal to make the bunker the home of the state's first casino.
MOUNT PONY:
This bunker near Culpeper, Va., once held several billion dollars stacked close to the ceiling, meant to revive the economy after a nuclear attack. It had an indoor shooting range, lead-lined shutters and a cold-storage area to hold any bodies that could not be buried outdoors because of radiation. Mount Pony's peacetime purpose was serving as the central node, or "switch," for the nation's electronic funds transfers. The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond sold it in 1998 for use as a Library of Congress film repository. Thus was born a new secret: What contingency plans the Fed has now.
----
Gov't Seeks Safety in Secret Locations
By Calvin Woodward
Associated Press Writer
Monday, March 25, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A15517-2002Mar25?language=printer
A SECURE UNDISCLOSED LOCATION -- There are secrets here in the countryside outside Washington, but they are not well kept. In this verdant land, streams run clear, fish leap and secrets leak.
At undisclosed locations far enough from the capital to survive a nuclear blast, a hidden federal government is at work, scores of officials swallowed up by the hills.
They toil in rocky warrens, micro-Washingtons stuffed into tunnels, with communication links, emergency food rations and stale air.
The government won't say where they are.
The problem is, lots of other people are sure they know.
The government kept a tight lid on the locations of its bombproof emergency centers outside the capital until the Cold War ended and everyone relaxed. Now facing terrorist threats, Washington is trying to take these secrets back.
But these installations have neighbors over the barbed-wire fence. Satellite pictures are available. And how hush-hush can anything be when motormouths talk about it online?
"It's simply a matter of connecting the dots," said Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists.
An unofficial tour around one such site was provided by a civil servant who works in an unrelated part of the government. He lives hereabouts and is well-connected to hamlets in the vicinity.
He will be known as Deep Trout.
"It's an underground bunker," he says, pointing to a hilltop on a horizon etched by radio towers. "Everyone knows that. It's like trying to put the genie back in the bottle."
On Thanksgiving, he took his kids up a nearby hill that also has communications equipment. Previous outings caused no trouble. This time, military police confronted them in a hurry.
He asked one guard what was going on. "The guy said, 'If I tell you I'll have to kill you.'
"He was smiling," Deep Trout added.
People grew up here knowing they had a mysterious federal installation in their midst - the one up the slope where tunnels go straight into rock and seem never to come out.
"Half the country knows about it," says Bobbi, a homeowner whose yard borders the federal property down a winding lane.
If not half the country, then surely half the countryside.
"You hear more things than normal people up here," says Julie, pausing in the stockroom of her family's grocery store.
But she's not too nosy when people come in from the mountain. "I don't think that's fair that I ask them and put them in a predicament which they shouldn't be in. Their job's secret."
People joke they expect to run into Vice President Dick Cheney, often said to be hunkered down in secure undisclosed locations after Sept. 11.
Residents who were interviewed gave their full names and other particulars. Those details, like Deep Trout's identity, are not being reported, to avoid giving away the location.
The White House says up to 150 officials from every Cabinet agency work in two sites, staying on the compounds 24 hours a day until they rotate out and others replace them, under a plan tailored to the terrorist threat.
Their basic needs are met. In Deep Trout's territory, there is no call and perhaps no opportunity to venture to the local restaurant for the rustic specialty, hog maw.
A citizen who has frequently delivered supplies inside said the facilities are Spartan, with heavy desks the color of battleships and the air not country fresh. "Typical '50s decor," the supplier said.
New furniture is being rushed in. The tunnel leading to the multistory underground offices has a massive door, then another, and the two are never opened at the same time, the supplier said.
The second site that national security experts believe is also home to the hidden government is several hours away.
It's a hive of activity at the crest of a hill. A helicopter roars from the pad, traffic flows past the gate. An officer questions two people taking pictures by the road, checks their identification and encourages them to move on.
Among the secure federal facilities arcing around Washington, two have been documented as primary backups for the Pentagon and a cross-section of federal agencies. They can house large numbers of officials indefinitely; declassified plans for one of them, from 1951, called for office space for 5,400 people.
"By refusing to identify the locations, the government may actually be creating a mystique around the facilities and encouraging speculation, curiosity," Aftergood said.
There was once plenty of mystique surrounding an elaborate bunker secretly built for members of Congress under the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia.
After the Cold War, when the risk of a nuclear attack eased, it came to be seen as a relic and its functions were detailed in the press. Now the public can tour it.
In Deep Trout country, Jill steps out of the fragrance of her quilt, birdhouse and curio store to look out on the secret mountain. "It was a little scary being here when things went down in September," she said.
On Sept. 11, the skies thickened with fighter jets and helicopters, and that has happened many times since. Roads were blocked and parents could not immediately reach their kids at school.
The crisis in America's stricken cities had come to the quiet hills.
After that, everyone was jumpy.
When teen-age hikers and a teacher on a school field trip drifted off their trail in October and too close to the federal site, camouflaged men with guns stopped them.
Another teacher, watching from a distance, called police to say somebody was holding his students at gunpoint. Everything was sorted out.
Then there was the "white van" incident.
"That was the day they spotted the Arabs," said Bobbi. "We were out of here in five minutes."
Men in a van had raised suspicions, and authorities told residents to watch for danger. It was apparently a misunderstanding of some sort and no more was said about it.
"We never find out," Jill said. "We never know the results."
-------- yemen
Yemenis wary, rulers ready to aid U.S. war
By Larry Kaplow
COX NEWS SERVICE
March 25, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020325-146154.htm
SAN'A, Yemen - As late as the 1960s, the massive ironclad doors of this walled city's Yemen Gate were shut tight every night, testament to a tribal country's well-founded suspicion of outsiders.
The British, Egyptians, Saudis and Russians have all been here, pursuing their intrigues over the last 40 years, fueling wars and rebellions in this Arab country strategically situated at the mouth of the Red Sea.
No wonder that, when a crowd formed around a foreigner recently at the gate, a man shouted a question about the expected arrival of American troops: "Are they coming to protect Yemen, or for Yemen to protect them?"
U.S. officials claim it is a little of both. They say fewer than 100 troops will come to train Yemeni security forces in mechanisms to track al Qaeda operatives who may be using the country for refuge or to plan attacks. It will help America's war on terror and provide stability for a country that has seen little of it, they say.
But success will depend on winning cooperation among a complex array of tribes and shifting political allegiances.
In this country of about 18 million people, many still identify first with their tribal heritage rather than their volatile government.
The current regime vows to fight side-by-side with the United States against al Qaeda. But the government also enlisted and rewarded Arabs trained in Afghanistan to win a civil war in 1994. It sided with Iraq in the 1991 Gulf war.
In November, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh met at the White House with President Bush, who was pleased with Yemen's willingness to cooperate in the war on terrorism. U.S. officials also were encouraged by Yemen's stepped-up help in investigating the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden that killed 17 soldiers - an attack believed to have been carried out by bin Laden's network.
Al Qaeda militants are thought to have used a small boat packed with explosives to cripple one of the Navy's most advanced vessels.
Yemen is one of several dozen countries where al Qaeda operates, according to U.S. officials. There are no training camps or command centers here, they say, but there are individuals around with links to al Qaeda.
Finding them will take grass-roots support, and that could be hard to come by. Although a recent headline in the government-controlled press read: "Americans on way to help," most in this poor country with limited political freedoms distrust U.S. motives.
In markets where men buy bags of their afternoon fix of qat, a leafy stimulant tucked between cheek and gum, Osama bin Laden is arguably more popular than America.
"He is the top Muslim," said laborer Mohammed Mohsin, 24. "He is the only one who can fight America and Israel."
Many denounce bin Laden but still say the United States is sending troops just to win control over Yemen's strategic Arabian Sea shipping lanes or to boost its presence in the oil-rich region.
One of the biggest challenges will be the American plan to form a Yemeni coast guard to keep watch over the country's 1,100-mile coastline. The long and unprotected coast is just one of the factors making Yemen vulnerable to al Qaeda.
Like Afghanistan, Yemen is a land of harsh terrain that has always defied central rule.
Government officials acknowledge that two of the country's 18 provinces are out of their control, others say there are more such provinces. Also like Afghanistan, it is a country beset with illiteracy and poverty, with a per capita income of about $368 a year, according to the United Nations. Yemenis frequently say what they need most from America are new schools and hospitals.
Turbaned fighters, armed plentifully with Kalashnikov rifles, still guard the perimeter of their tribal territories; government police stations are nonexistent in many areas. In these parts, tribal elders settle disputes, requiring the quarrelling parties to put up Kalashnikovs and oxen as shows of good will.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS
-------- terrorism
Terrorism Fears Push Md. Toward Wider Police Power
By Matthew Mosk
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 25, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12099-2002Mar24?language=printer
Maryland's House of Delegates is preparing to pass anti-terrorism legislation today that would dramatically expand the ability of police to tap phones and eavesdrop on the e-mail and Internet activity of suspected criminals -- part of a deluge of terror-busting measures under consideration in nearly every state capital.
The Maryland bill, like those in dozens of other states, has inspired a heated clash between civil libertarians and those who believe that some rights must be compromised to prevent another attack on U.S. soil.
Each time that conflict surfaced last week, as Maryland delegates met in committee to craft the legislation, concerns about security ultimately outweighed fears about the potential for police abuse.
"I realize that this bill basically says you can tap someone's phone for jaywalking, and normally I would say, 'No way,' " said Del. Dana Lee Dembrow (D-Montgomery). "But after what happened on September 11th, I say screw 'em."
The results have been similar across the country, including in Virginia, as state lawmakers inch their way into the war against international terrorism. Although some of the 1,200 anti-terrorism measures being contemplated by state legislatures this year have involved such benign security methods as requiring fencing around reservoirs, others will substantially broaden the scope of police rights to probe into private lives.
"State legislatures are in the process of recalibrating the appropriate balance between liberty and security in the post-September 11th world," said Michael Mello, a Vermont Law School professor who recently testified on an anti-terrorism bill in Montpelier.
Most of what is occurring, Mello said, involves a localized repackaging of federal anti-terrorism laws, passed by Congress in October as the USA-Patriot Act. A range of new eavesdropping allowances, in particular, draw from the federal statute, which applies only to federal law enforcement agencies.
Like the Patriot Act, proposals in Maryland and a new law in Virginia permit law enforcement officials to get court orders to retrieve records of e-mails and other electronic communications, not just telephone records.
Maryland's proposal would also expand the ability of police to tap phones by allowing investigators to plant a listening device indefinitely, not just 30 days. It would, for the first time, permit use of a "roving wire tap" to record a suspect's conversations on multiple phones with a single warrant. And it would allow a judge to seal search warrants for up to a year.
The bill, which would move to the Senate if approved, would also tighten airport security and widen the purview of state transit police to cover more area around harbors and airports. It would, for the first time, define terrorism as a specific crime and attach to it severe penalties.
"Our goal was to conform our law to what the feds are already doing," said Del. Ann Marie Doory (D-Baltimore), who sponsored the Maryland Security Protection Act of 2002.
In January, Gov. Parris N. Glendening (D) formed a task force to pull a wide range of initiatives into one bill. Several of the task force proposals have since been stripped away by uneasy lawmakers, including restrictions that would have prevented foreign nationals from holding driver's licenses if their visas had expired.
Backers of the remaining proposals said they hoped that local and state police agencies would use the new, expanded powers to assist federal agencies in monitoring suspected terrorists who move into suburban neighborhoods and try to blend in to the local scene -- just as a band of Sept. 11 hijackers did in Laurel before their attack.
Given the potential for mass casualties, said Del. Robert A. Zirkin (D-Baltimore County), the occasional intrusion into lives "seems worth the risk."
"I know it's hard to swallow," Zirkin said. "But I think we need to take a couple steps in that direction right now."
But just as the USA-Patriot Act evoked an outcry from a surprising coalition of liberals and conservatives, these state proposals have found a wide band of critics.
In the Maryland House, concerns about the intrusiveness of the bill have brought together Del. Sharon Grosfeld (D-Montgomery), arguably among the most liberal members, and Del. Carmen Amedori (R-Carroll), among the most conservative.
Said Grosfeld: "These changes infringe on basic and fundamental civil rights."
Added Amedori: "Security is important, but are we going to be any more secure if we impede on personal freedom?"
During committee hearings, the opponents argued that election-year politics -- and the intense political pressure to pass something that appears to be tough on terrorism -- is at the root of Maryland's anti-terrorism effort. They predicted that most of the proposals, if they become law, would be used in criminal cases that have nothing to do with international terrorism.
David Rocah, a staff attorney for the Baltimore office of the American Civil Liberties Union, called it "dishonest packaging."
Rocah said that police will wind up listening in on conversations and reading e-mail involving innocent people. He pointed to statistics compiled by local prosecutors in Maryland showing that 91 percent of the conversations that were recorded by police during investigations in 2000 turned out to involve parties with no connection to the crimes being investigated.
"That's where there's a huge invasion of privacy," Rocah said, "and where innocent people are victimized."
Critics have also raised objections to the provision that makes terrorism a new crime. Much as hate-crime laws attached stiffer penalties to existing infractions, the terrorism charge could be hooked to any of a long list of existing crimes, as long as the suspect committed them with the intention of instilling widespread fear or coercing action from the government.
The problem with that, Grosfeld said, is that "you're talking about very harsh penalties that could be added based on someone's political beliefs, not because of their actions. That strikes me as very dangerous."
That does not frighten Del. Thomas E. Hutchins (R-Charles), a Vietnam War veteran who said the current climate in the country demands different rules.
"You've got to understand the importance of being able to gather intelligence to block something horrible from happening," Hutchins told his colleagues. "You've got to understand how a war is fought. I can tell you, it's pretty damn dirty."
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- energy
Bush Turns Over Energy Documents
March 25, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Cheney-Energy.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration turned over thousands of documents Monday related to Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force, including some showing industry's attempt to influence the direction of the administration's energy plan.
But most of the papers, released in response to court orders, were blanked out and provided little substantive information. This prompted critics to accuse the administration of continuing to hold back vital information surrounding development of President Bush's energy plan a year ago.
Among the papers, however, were documents from the Environmental Protection Agency revealing an oil industry push to ease state regulation of so-called ``boutique'' gasoline blends and auto industry pressure to ease federal fuel economy rules.
A document from the Energy Department showed that Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham held eight meetings with energy and business leaders on the energy plan, but none with environmental leaders or advocates for energy efficiency or renewable energy sources. His meetings from February through March included leaders of the National Association of Manufacturers, nuclear power industry, electric utilities, oil and gas industry, and coal companies.
The Cheney task force issued its report in May.
Nevertheless, Abraham in a statement said the documents -- more than 11,000 page from his department, ``will further confirm'' that the administration sought out a wide range of views, including that of environmentalists.
Two federal judges ordered the release of the documents, including numerous copies of e-mails, as part of lawsuits brought by private groups trying to determine who influenced the crafting of the administration's energy plan.
The administration also faces a lawsuit by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, which wants to learn the names of people who met with Cheney or his top aides leading up to the energy report's release. That lawsuit was not involved in Monday's releases.
The disclosed papers stem from Freedom of Information lawsuits filed by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.
Among the papers released by the Energy Department were a list of 19 energy priorities from the NRDC, claiming nine of them ended up in Cheney's energy report, including one calling for raising auto fuel economy requirements and another strengthening efficiency standards for appliances.
However, the task force only called on a review of the Corporate Average Fuel Economy requirements and not an increase. As for appliance standards, it called for a much less stringent standard for air conditions than the NRDC and other environmentalists had argued for.
In addition to DOE, the papers came from EPA, the Agriculture Department and the White House Office of Management and Budget. The DOE withheld 15,000 pages, citing exemptions for information related to internal agency practices, deliberations and personnel.
Of the nearly 5,000 documents obtained by Judicial Watch, most of the internal communications were heavily redacted, often with only the names of the sender and recipient, and a subject heading, left readable, said Larry Klayman, the group's chairman.
``What we've seen so far, the Bush administration is withholding an inordinate amount of documents, suggesting they are obstructing these proceedings,'' said Klayman.
A few of the papers, however, provided some insight into the activities of interest groups seeking to influence the administration's internal energy debate prior to release of the Cheney task force report.
Among the papers turned over by the EPA was a three-page memo from the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, dated March 22, 2001, declaring that the federal auto fuel economy rule, known as CAFE, ``is an ineffective energy policy.''
The alliance instead supported consumer tax credits for advanced technology vehicles, and urged development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. The task force report supported such tax benefits, refrained from urging higher fuel economy requirements and urged development of hydrogen-powered vehicles.
At least three major oil companies, according to papers released by EPA, urged the administration to take steps to eliminate the ``boutique'' gasoline required in many parts of the country.
One of the companies, Citco, urged the administration ``to exercise federal authority to prevent states'' from establishing separate fuel standards. The Cheney task force urged EPA to deal with the boutique fuels issue.
A group of Northeast utilities in another document urge the administration to embrace trading of environmental credits as a way to deal with power plant pollution. The Cheney report embraced such ``market approaches'' in dealing with smokestack emissions.
Associated Press writer Pete Yost contributed to this report.
-------- environment
Environmentalists Lose on Energy Bill
By H. Josef Hebert
Associated Press Writer
Monday, March 25, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A13023-2002Mar25?language=printer
WASHINGTON -- The Senate was where environmentalists hoped to make their stand on energy policy. But after two weeks of votes and horse-trading, an emerging Democratic energy bill appears to be anything but green.
Environmentalists lost in their bid to boost automobile fuel economy and on a string of lesser issues - from provisions helping the nuclear industry to one that would allow small trees in national forests to be processed as biomass for electricity generation.
However, the big fight over oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska is yet to come, and environmentalists are likely to prevail on it. The Senate will take that up when lawmakers return after a two-week Easter recess and try to wrap up the bill.
Whatever the Senate finally approves will have to be merged with an energy bill from the Republican-run House that is far friendlier to industry and anathema to environmentalists. It focuses heavily on increasing development of fossil fuels and would open to oil companies the Arctic refuge - a place environmentalists have vowed to protect. "The environmentalists are very unhappy to the point of despairing," said David Nemtzow, president of the Alliance to Save Energy, an advocacy group for the promotion of energy efficiency and conservation. "They see House and Senate bills with nothing on fuel economy ... nothing to save oil to speak of."
Anna Aurilio, legislative director of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, said the Senate legislation "started as a promising bill. But it's getting hijacked ... by the polluters."
On issues large and small, some of the most powerful business interest groups roaming the halls of Congress - automakers, the oil industry, electric utilities and farm groups - have scored significant victories, often turning back initiatives pushed by environmentalists.
Farmers won a government mandate for tripling ethanol production. Large utilities headed off attempts at new federal regulation of power grids and won a scaled-back renewable-fuels requirement. The nuclear industry is getting government help to develop its next generation of power plants and continued limits on accident liability.
And the oil industry no longer has to contend with a federal requirement for oxygen in gasoline, or whether an oil-exploration method known as "hydraulic fracturing" might run afoul of clean-water laws.
All of those victories pale next to the coup by the auto industry, which now has the certainty it will not face tougher federal auto fuel economy requirements anytime soon.
Ignoring pleas from environmentalists, the Senate rejected a proposal to boost the federal fleet requirement to 35 miles per gallon, an increase of 50 percent, and barred any increase in fuel economy requirements for pickup trucks, one-fifth of the vehicles sold.
They "handed our nation's energy security over to the auto industry," fumed Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club. Automakers and auto unions lobbied vigorously against the fuel economy increases and supported a measure that instead would require the Transportation Department to address the issue down the road.
When the House passed its energy bill, environmental leaders denounced it as a sop to industry with too much emphasis on traditional energy sources - oil, natural gas, coal and nuclear - and far too little on promoting efficiency or renewables like solar and wind power.
"We thought the Senate was a tremendous opportunity to focus more on demand, look more closely at conservation and efficiency ... instead of (industry) subsidies," said Sierra Club lobbyist Melinda Pierce. "In all counts we have failed to make gains; in fact, we have gone backwards."
Among the other setbacks cited by environmentalists is what they view as the erosion of a once-ambitious attempt to make utilities generate more electricity from renewable fuels such as solar, wind and biomass from wood and agricultural scraps.
A proposal by Sen. James Jeffords, a Vermont independent, to require that 20 percent of the nation's electricity come from these energy sources was rejected outright. To broaden support, Democrats pushed for a 10 percent renewable-fuels requirement but exempted municipal and federally owned utilities and electric cooperatives.
The result, environmentalists maintain, is that only about 5 percent of the nation's electricity is likely to come from these renewable sources by 2020.
Environmentalists also were surprised by the Senate's vote to add a provision to treat some salvage timber in federal forests, including trees as large as 12 inches in diameter, as a biomass energy source.
Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said it would help thin the forests of diseased and scrap wood and keep some Western biomass plants in business. U.S. PIRG's Aurilio countered that it amounts to "cutting down our national forests in the name of renewable energy."
The bill is S.517.
-------- ACTIVISTS
German Held as Koreans Protest at Chinese Embassy
By REUTERS
March 25, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-korea-north-china.html
SEOUL - A German doctor was detained in Seoul on Monday for spearheading a protest at China's embassy demanding Beijing halt its crackdown on refugees from North Korea, a witness said.
Norbert Vollertsen, who recently helped 25 North Koreans escape to South Korea, was detained and released after he tried to lead a group of about 100 defectors and their South Korean supporters in a march on China's mission, the witness said. A Reuters photographer said police had prevented the crowd from approaching the Chinese embassy in Seoul's central Myongdong district, but Vollertsen had tried to outflank police and was detained briefly.
After 25 North Koreans arrived in Seoul last week following a dramatic sprint into the Spanish embassy in Beijing, China said it would not tolerate more mass escapes of people from the famine-stricken North.
Vollertsen and Seoul-based human rights groups then reported Chinese and North Korean agents had launched a joint crackdown on hundreds of escapees inside China.
``Many truckloads of North Korean refugees are being repatriated by force against their will to North Korea where torture and persecution are awaiting them,'' the Commission to Help North Korean refugees said in a statement on Monday.
The protesters, including South Korean church groups which assist North Koreans in China, demanded Beijing halt the repatriation of North Koreans, recognize the escapees as refugees and allow the United Nations to process asylum applications.
Aid groups say from 100,000 to as many as 300,000 North Koreans have fled into China in recent years, escaping political repression and famine that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.
China, a major ally of the communist government in Pyongyang, considers the North Korean escapees to be illegal immigrants. It normally returns them to North Korea, offering cash rewards for people who report escapees and fining those who harbor them.
It said its decision to allow the 25 from the Spanish embassy to fly to temporary refuge in the Philippines en route to Seoul would not be a precedent for future cases.
South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) said last week 162 North Koreans had reached South Korea so far this year. Last year, a record 583 Northerners defected to the South.
South Korea refers to North Korean escapees as defectors, reflecting the formal state of war which still exists between Seoul and Pyongyang. An armistice was signed after the 1950-53 Korean War rather than a peace treaty.
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