------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Nuclear Report Blames Electrician
BBC under fire for airing Iraqi cancer claim 'propaganda'
Pakistan's Musharraf Says Nuclear Arms Last Resort
'Sakharov': From the H-Bomb to Human Rights
Putin Says Moscow Alarmed by Changes
U.S. Questions Russia on Treaties
THE ULTIMATE DOOMSDAY MACHINES--TRIDENT SUBS
Nuclear Report Blames Electrician
New Nevada district is political hot spot
Targeting nuclear plants
Opponents Lobby Congress on Waste Plan

MILITARY
G.I.'s Search Afghan Caves, Finding Trove of Material
Allies target elusive enemy
Colombia Paper Reports Rebel Camp in Venezuela
Poppy - Farmers: Eradication is Unfair
Group: Close cocaine, crack sentencing gap
Rebels Waiting to Cross Into Indian - Kashmir - Police
U.S. Postpones Plans to Reveal Findings on Iraq
If Iraq Bends, U.N. Inspectors Are Ready
Saddam's Son Says Iraq Ready to Face U.S. Strike
Bush to Sharon: pull troops out
Powell Says Sharon Has Heard Bush's Message
Israel Presses Ahead in the West Bank, but Fight May Soon End
Potent Explosives Fortify Palestinian Arsenal
Main Pakistan Alliance Rejects Musharraf Referendum
Russian Lab Storing Germs Faces Cutoff of Electricity
U.N. Agency on Population Blames U.S. for Cutbacks
What's next?

POLICE / PRISONERS
Israel court ruling confirms denial of prisoners' rights
Some Maryland felons to get vote
The War on Terrorism Takes Aim at Crime

ACTIVISTS
Opponents Lobby Congress on Waste Plan
Prime Time for Yucca Controversy Gives Wing to Opponents' Message
Zimbabwe Police Seize Protesters Demanding a New Constitution
Protesters in Paris, Rome denounce Israeli acts
Thousands in Indonesia Rally Against Israel Action



-------- NUCLEAR

-------- accidents

Nuclear Report Blames Electrician

The Associated Press
Sunday, April 7, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8078-2002Apr7?language=printer

ATHENS, Ala. -- An electrician's mistake caused an accident at the Browns Ferry nuclear power plant last month that seriously burned four workers, a Tennessee Valley Authority report said.

The TVA's serious accident investigation team found that the electrician brought a safety-grounding cable too close to an energized portion of a 4,160-volt circuit breaker.

An electrical arc jumped between the cable and the energized portion of the breaker, burning the four men, Browns Ferry spokesman Craig Beasley said Friday.

The TVA and state emergency management officials said there was no danger of a release of radioactivity from the north Alabama plant.

The accident occurred on March 26 in the Unit 3 reactor turbine building of the TVA-run plant. The reactor had been shut earlier in the day for refueling.

The men remain at home recovering from their injuries.


-------- depleted uranium

BBC under fire for airing Iraqi cancer claim 'propaganda'

By Chris Hastings and Charlotte Edwardes
07/04/2002
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/04/07/nbbc07.xml&sSheet=/news/2002/04/07/ixhome.html

THE BBC has been accused of peddling propaganda on behalf of Saddam Hussein after it broadcast a report highlighting discredited claims that Allied shells used in the Gulf war caused cancer in Iraqi children.

Leading scientists have condemned the news item by Rageh Omaar, a BBC correspondent, in which he reported claims that there was a direct link between depleted uranium ammunition used in the conflict and an increase in childhood cancer.

Mr Omaar did not say that he was subject to any reporting restrictions, even though he was accompanied by Iraqi officials at all times.

The nature of the report, which was aired on BBC1's 10 O'Clock News last week, has left the BBC open to speculation - strongly denied by the corporation - that it was trying to curry favour with the Iraqi regime in order to get access to the country in the event of war.

Peter Hain, the Foreign Office minister, last night said: "Any British journalist, especially one working for the BBC reporting from Iraq, must surely be aware that they are doing so only because the Iraqi regime wants them to. Objective journalism in Iraq is well-nigh impossible."

Mr Omaar, speaking from a hospital in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, stated that Iraqi doctors reported a 20-fold increase in all cancers since the end of the Gulf war. He quoted Iraqi claims that such cases were non-existent before the outbreak of the conflict in 1991.

The news item carried harrowing footage of children suffering from eye and brain cancers, and focused on the case of a six-year-old girl who is suffering from cancer of the cervix. The report, however, was not based on any new scientific research by the BBC and did not interview any Western scientists.

While Mr Omaar made a passing reference to the fact that the United States and Britain deny any link between depleted uranium and cancers in children, he did not state that this view is based on a body of independent scientific research.

Last year the Royal Society concluded that any link between depleted uranium and cancer was so minimal that it was almost non-existent. The research was based on soldiers who were in direct contact with the material.

Dr Richard Guthrie, an expert in chemical warfare at Sussex University, said that it was far more likely that any childhood cancers were caused by Saddam's use of chemical weapons against his own people.

"Scientists knew in 1986 that there was going to be a rise in childhood cancer cases in southern Iraq," he said. "The reason for that was because during the Iran-Iraq war the Iraqi government used sulphur mustard gas in the southern area and that has a proven link to these types of cancer."

Mr Omaar made no mention of this possibility.

Dr Guthrie also questioned the BBC's motive for reporting on an issue that had been addressed by scientists two years ago. He said: "I find it hard to understand why the BBC should tackle what is essentially an old story."

Prof Brian Spratt, who chaired the Royal Society inquiry into depleted uranium, said:

"Claims that there is an increase in birth defects and childhood cancers in Iraq are impossible to measure as there is no comparable data from before the war. At the moment, therefore, this 'evidence' is anecdotal."

Dr Michael Clark, a spokesman for the National Radiology Protection Board in London, said he thought the report was "not exactly objective". He added: "It is difficult to get proper information from Iraq, in particular in relation to depleted uranium. Therefore the BBC's claims are not helpful to understanding the real issues."

Vin Ray, the deputy head of news-gathering at the BBC, denied that a deal had been done with Iraq to gain access to the country in case of war. He said: "I can categorically refute that. The BBC is the most regularly banned media organisation from Iraq because of what we report. While it is true to say they don't let us in often, we would not compromise our standards."

-------- india / pakistan

Pakistan's Musharraf Says Nuclear Arms Last Resort

April 7, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-pakistan-musharraf.html

BERLIN - Pakistan would use nuclear weapons in its military stand-off with India over Kashmir but only if there was no other option, Pakistan's military ruler Pervez Musharraf told a German news magazine on Sunday.

``Using nuclear weapons would only be a last resort for us. We are negotiating responsibly. And I am optimistic and confident that we can defend ourselves using conventional weapons,'' the president told Der Spiegel in an interview.

Musharraf reiterated his stance that Pakistan would use nuclear weapons if its security or existence was threatened.

``Only if there is a threat of Pakistan being wiped off the map, then the pressure from my countrymen to use this option would be too great,'' said Musharraf, who seized power in Islamabad in a bloodless coup in October 1999.

Pakistan and India, both nuclear powers, are locked in a stand-off over the mountainous region of Kashmir and they have fought two of their three wars over the region since 1947.

A 740-km- (460-mile-) long Line of Control or cease-fire line divides Kashmir between the two. India controls 45 percent of Kashmir, Pakistan just over a third and China the rest.

DIFFICULT DECISION

Musharraf described his decision to support the United States in its war against terrorism after the September 11 suicide attacks on New York and Washington as ``the most difficult political decision of my life.''

``Chiefly because it meant giving the Americans fly-over rights and logistical support for the war in our neighbor Afghanistan. We have been disappointed by Washington so often in the past -- including me personally. But in the end it was a matter of principle,'' he said.

Musharraf, who announced a crackdown on Islamic terrorists in January, said militant groups did not threaten the overall security of Pakistan but repeated his accusation that India was responsible for trying to destabilize his regime.

``Many attacks come from our powerful neighbor India. Admittedly I cannot prove everything. But just recently we arrested three infiltrators near the Indian border,'' he said.

Pakistan has repeatedly called for talks and says its crackdown has included outlawing five groups, while India says it wants an end to what it calls cross-border terrorism,

Pakistan says it only gives moral support to Kashmiri separatists, who have been waging a revolt since 1989 against Indian rule of the territory.

India has always insisted talks should be held on a broad range of topics from nuclear security to cultural ties.

On Friday, Musharraf announced in a broadcast speech that he would hold a referendum in early May to ask Pakistan's people if they wanted him to remain in office.

-------- russia

'Sakharov': From the H-Bomb to Human Rights

New York Times
April 7, 2002
By LOREN GRAHAM
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/07/books/review/07GRAHAMT.html?pagewanted=all

The story of science in the Soviet Union is one of baffling paradoxes that challenge preconceptions and make us uncomfortable. Contrary to the common Western assumption that creativity needs freedom, Russian science seemed to do best when political conditions were worst. Six Nobel Prizes were awarded to Soviet physicists for work done in the 1930's and 40's, a period of tyranny and terror. For one of those physicists, Lev Landau, 1937, when Stalin's horrific purges peaked, was his most productive year in terms of scientific publications. The next year Landau was arrested by the secret police but was released with a warning. Another Nobelist, Pyotr Kapitsa, did his most significant research shortly after he had been detained on Stalin's orders. The designer of the Soviet Union's finest airplanes, Andrei Tupolev, and the rocket scientist who sent the world's first artificial satellites into space, Sergei Korolev, both spent time in prison before they did the work for which they are most remembered.

Seeking heroes and villains whose work and achievements fit more felicitously into our beliefs, Western observers point to the pseudogeneticist and charlatan Trofim Lysenko as a more representative product of Stalinism, and to the great human rights advocate Andrei D. Sakharov as an exemplary scientist-rebel against political controls. Lysenko and his doctrines were indeed fruits of Stalinism, but as Richard Lourie's new, subtle and revealing biography of Sakharov demonstrates, the impulses to Sakharov's scientific creativity and his later rise to political heroism were not simple. Throwing off Stalinism was extremely difficult for Sakharov, and like many of his colleagues he did his best scientific work while still in its thrall.

In 1948, the same year that Lysenko, with Stalin's backing, squelched all resistance to his teachings, Sakharov was commanded to work on the hydrogen bomb project, which was directed by a particularly loathsome man -- personally and politically -- Lavrenti Beria, head of the secret police. Sakharov threw himself into the effort wholeheartedly. He was soon sent to the center of Soviet nuclear research, a secret laboratory named Arzamas 16, where scientists took over a famous monastery near the town of Sarov. Sakharov was told by a colleague that political prisoners forced to build the scientific plant had rebelled two years earlier; Beria's troops surrounded the mutineers and killed every one. Sakharov later described in his memoirs how in 1950-53, as he worked on scientific projects, he frequently saw columns of prisoners marching by under armed guard.

In these years Sakharov was strikingly productive scientifically, perhaps as a subconscious means of avoiding facing the political repression around him; certainly a link between freedom and creativity was completely absent. He designed the Soviet hydrogen bomb in a way that, Western historians now agree, was original and independent of the American one (the Soviet atomic bomb had been built to specifications supplied through espionage). In addition, Sakharov and Igor Tamm worked out a brilliant toroidal approach to controlled thermonuclear reactions that still dominates the field of fusion research everywhere today.

Although surrounded by tyranny, Sakharov and his associates gave their outstanding talents to the service of their country. He even found the environment pleasant in some ways. On his 29th birthday in 1950, he later observed, ''we listened to music and had a wonderful conversation about the meaning of life and the future of mankind.'' This combination of scientific creativity, political oppression and utopian dreaming encapsulates the flaws and the virtues of the Soviet intelligentsia. When Stalin died three years later, Sakharov in sadness remarked: ''I am under the influence of a great man's death. I am thinking of his humanity.''

Yet he broke out of his intellectual prison and his illusions and became one of the bravest defenders of human rights of the last century. He ranks with Nelson Mandela as a person who helped guide his country to democracy, changing himself in the process. One of the strengths of Lourie's biography is his description and analysis of how this transition occurred. Sakharov's first impulse to liberation was not revulsion against the political system (''I still believed that the Soviet state represented a breakthrough into the future'') but his sense of guilt about the deaths caused by radioactive fallout from the nuclear tests he directed. When he advised cutting back on the tests, he encountered the unyielding, repressive Soviet system that he had seen applied only to others. The more he attempted to express his opinions, the more he was threatened. Nikita Khrushchev accused him of ''poking his nose where it doesn't belong.'' When Yuri Andropov became head of the K.G.B. he declared Sakharov ''Public Enemy No. 1'' and placed him under constant surveillance. Stripped of his security clearance and dismissed from weapons research, Sakharov turned to research in fundamental science.

Lourie describes what then happened not as the emergence of the inner Sakharov under pressure, but as an interaction between his truth-seeking and his shifting political consciousness. For the first time he began to ask questions about politics the same way he had always asked them about physical nature: testing hypotheses, looking for reliable evidence. He quickly found that this approach automatically made him a dissident, and he came to sympathize with other dissidents. As a member of the elite, holding all the highest awards the Soviet state could bestow, he found that his opinions automatically attracted attention. Einstein once said the accident of acquiring authority through science gave him responsibility in the social realm, since it gave him power to help rectify evils and relieve suffering. When Sakharov took on this same responsibility, he did it in a truly inspiring way; he had obviously moved far from the position of his circle at Arzamas 16, whose members could have deep conversations about ''the meaning of life'' but at the same time feel no personal responsibility for the injustices around them.

In the late 60's Sakharov began a campaign to make his society more humane. He attended trials of political prisoners and publicized the plight of persecuted religious believers and oppressed nationalities. He called on the government to allow citizens to exercise freedoms guaranteed by the Soviet Constitution but denied in practice. He helped organize a Committee on Human Rights. He protested the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan in 1979.

The action on Afghanistan enraged the Soviet leaders; Sakharov was seized by the secret police and illegally removed to Gorky, a city closed to foreigners, and told he could not leave. He remained with his wife, Yelena Bonner, under forced exile for six years. When he resisted with hunger strikes he was bound and forcibly fed. He was constantly reviled in the Soviet press, and many of his scientific colleagues in the Academy of Sciences, including some from Arzamas 16 (although happily not quite all) signed letters condemning him.

After Mikhail Gorbachev came to power, the first hint that Sakharov's situation would change came when a work crew arrived at his apartment and installed a telephone. The reason became clear the next day when the phone rang and Sakharov found himself talking to Gorbachev, who invited him to return to Moscow. Sakharov promptly accepted and, back in the political fray, soon won a position in Gorbachev's new national assembly. When the assembly met, Gorbachev called on Sakharov as the first speaker. It was a stunning turnaround. Yet his position remained uncertain, as shown by Gorbachev's rebuke of him for criticizing the war in Afghanistan. Undeterred, Sakharov went on to become the leader of the democratic forces in the Soviet Union and was preparing a draft for a new constitution at the time of his death in 1989 from a heart attack.

Lourie -- an American novelist, translator and critic of Russian literature -- gives a fascinating account of Sakharov; he makes many of his most poignant points through understatement. While his treatment of Sakharov's work in science is a bit weak, his analysis of the man's complicated political journey seems authentic and immensely revealing. Sakharov emerges not as a saint but as a powerful and inspiring human being who came to understand belatedly the society in which he lived. As he approached that understanding he transformed himself. And the new understanding brought grave responsibilities and risks, which Sakharov readily assumed at a time when few others dared to do so.

Loren Graham's most recent book is ''What Have We Learned About Science and Technology From the Russian Experience?''

--------

Putin Says Moscow Alarmed by Changes

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
April 7, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A9409-2002Apr7?language=printer
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-US.html

MOSCOW (AP) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed alarm at suggested changes in U.S. nuclear policy, saying in an interview released Sunday that they could lower standards for use of nuclear weapons to ``a dangerous level.''

At the same time he was optimistic that President Bush's visit to Russia at the end of May would bring a ``historical'' agreement on nuclear weapons cuts.

Putin's remarks came about a month after the Pentagon's leaked ``nuclear posture review'' sparked indignant reactions in Russia. The document outlined the possible use of nuclear weapons against countries that possess or are developing weapons of mass destruction. It specifically named Russia as a potential target, along with six other countries.

``Here is why (this issue) cannot but worry us,'' Putin said in an interview with German and Russian media on the eve of his visit to Germany. ``We are hearing some statements about the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons by the United States against non-nuclear states, among others. That's first.

``Second, we are hearing declarations and suggestions to develop low-capacity nuclear warheads and possibly use them in regional conflicts. This lowers the threshold for the possible use of nuclear weapons to a very low plank, to a dangerous level.''

But Putin said it was too early to speak of a new nuclear strategy in Washington.

``These are only the individual statements of people who are not the highest officials of the United States,'' he said in the interview, which was conducted Thursday and posted on the Kremlin Web site on Sunday.

Putin said that Bush's visit to Moscow and St. Petersburg on May 23-26 would bring ``historical'' results in the form of a new agreement on weapons cuts.

Bush has promised to cut the U.S. arsenal to 1,700 to 2,200 strategic nuclear warheads, while President Vladimir Putin has said Russia could go as low as 1,500. Both countries are allowed 6,000 under the existing START I treaty.

Bush favored a verbal agreement over a formal treaty, but Washington later consented to Moscow's demands to put the cuts in writing.

``I see this as a very important document that could become the basis for the future strategic stability of the world,'' Putin said.

Another point of contention in the talks has been Washington's plans to store decommissioned nuclear warheads rather than destroying them. Moscow recently softened its stance on this issue, saying it might also store some warheads.

-------- treaties

U.S. Questions Russia on Treaties

April 7, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Russia.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Concerned by Russian compliance with chemical and biological weapons treaties, the Bush administration has alerted Moscow that the United States will curtail some disarmament projects for at least the time being, a senior U.S. official said Sunday.

The official noted that U.S. law requires the government to certify that Russia is committed to full compliance with existing treaties before new initiatives can be started or additional money provided for existing programs to reduce the treat of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, commented shortly before leaving with Secretary of State Colin Powell for a round of meetings with Russian and other foreign leaders, mostly focused on the Middle East.

Powell plans to dine with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov on Wednesday in Madrid to lay the groundwork for an upcoming U.S.-Russian summit on arms control.

The State Department cable sent to Russia last week laying out the U.S. position on treaty compliance came a month before President Bush is to meet Russian President Vladimir V. Putin in Moscow.

The United States is not accusing Russia of violating biological and chemical weapons treaties and is not ruling out certification of compliance in the future, the official said.

Moreover, the official pointed out, the administration is seeking a congressional waiver for the certification requirement so new and expanded programs can be pursued even in the absence of formal certification

Among the programs potentially affected in the absence of either a compliance certification or a waiver are a number of things intended to help stop the theft of Russian nuclear warheads, an effort started in 1991 that has enjoyed strong support from Congress as well as the Clinton and Bush administrations.

Existence of last week's State Department cable was reported initially by The New York Times in a story posted Sunday night on its Web site.

The Times said the decision to send the cable was prompted by a range of actions by Russia, including its recent refusal to share a bioengineered strain of anthrax developed by Russia's scientists and failure to provide a complete history of decades of secret work on biological and chemical weapons.

The newspaper also said that while Western scientists have been able to visit several former Soviet facilities where such weapons were made, Russia has not given any foreigners access to the four biological laboratories that have been controlled by the military.

Russia maintains that it is not violating the biological or chemical warfare conventions and argues that American military labs are not open either.

-------- u.s. nuc weapons

THE ULTIMATE DOOMSDAY MACHINES--TRIDENT SUBS
A new mission: Older submarines to be transformed

By Christine Clarridge
Seattle Times
April 07, 2002
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/134432809_submarines07m.html

(photo: GREG GILBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES. Crew members stand guard as the USS Michigan cruises recently on Hood Canal. The sub will be converted to carry 154 Tomahawk missiles instead of nuclear arms.)

Big as the Washington Monument, as complicated as the space shuttle and as stealthy as its black silhouette suggests, the nation's Trident submarine is the ultimate doomsday machine.

But in the long thaw of the Cold War, when regional conflict is a more pressing threat than nuclear annihilation, the Navy is beginning to redefine the Trident's mission.

After Sept. 11, a jittery Congress approved a defense-spending bill that included nearly $4 billion to "transform" the nation's four oldest Trident submarines into modern street fighters. Two will sail from the Navy's base at Bangor, Kitsap County.

The Ohio-class submarines will be refitted to launch conventional tactical weapons such as Tomahawk missiles and will be capable of ferrying 66 Special Forces commandos to foreign soil. The retrofit means these submarines will become less a deterrent weapon and more a lethal force.

(photo: GREG GILBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES. Feet-first is the best way to clear the hatches that connect compartments aboard the Michigan.)

New gadgets, too, could be added, including unmanned undersea vehicles, or UUVs, as well as minisubmersibles to lug Navy SEALs and their gear between the Tridents and the shore.

"This is a whole new dimension and a new ballgame for us," said Rear Adm. Charles Griffiths Jr., commander of Submarine Group Nine at Bangor Submarine Base. "These subs will give us capacity, endurance and delivery power that we have never had before."

The transformation is not without critics, including detractors inside the Navy who unsuccessfully argued that the money would be better spent on the development of new weapons and new attack submarines.

For those who long have opposed the nation's military might, the made-over Tridents are no less terrifying.

"We should be getting rid of bombs, not making new ones," said Glen Milner with Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, an anti-nuclear-weapons group. He has been arrested several times during protests at Bangor.

"This thing will be able to launch 154 missiles in six minutes. It's a thing of terror and we don't need it."

Navy brass, however, point out the four Tridents also will be a better equipped spy tool. And like the remaining 14 nuclear-armed Tridents, these will be stealthy and self-sufficient, without need of battle groups or support ships.

"The stand-alone platform that the new Tridents will provide will be the Navy's bread and butter," said Lt. Cmdr. Howard Goldman, the executive officer of the USS Michigan, one of the Tridents scheduled for conversion. "In the future, when conflict arises, the president will not only ask where the closest carrier is, he'll ask about the Tridents."

(photo: GREG GILBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES. Casey Vandeusen, left, Joshua Humphries, center, and Joshua Vankirk chat in the enlisted quarters aboard the USS Michigan. Berth curtains offer some privacy.)

Fast and flexible

Observers say the change underscores the Pentagon's belief that in today's world the military must be faster and more flexible than ever.

The Trident transformation is not unlike the rethinking the Army is undergoing. At nearby Fort Lewis, tanks are giving way to light-armored vehicles that ride on eight tires instead of treads and can hit speeds of 60 mph.

The Trident conversions are scheduled to begin next year at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton and the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Va. Converting the subs will cost more than $800 million each, and will help ensure stable employment at the Bremerton shipyard, one of Kitsap County's biggest employers.

The four aging Tridents were scheduled to be taken out of service next year, part of the Navy's agreement to reduce its nuclear arsenal under the START II arms-control agreement. The conversion means the Navy can get an additional 20 years of service from the hulls.

A major change will be to adapt 22 of the 24 missile tubes so that each tube could carry and launch up to seven Tomahawks within seconds.

The two remaining tubes, according to the proposals, would be used to store gear and arsenal for Navy SEALs.

The converted submarines will patrol the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. They would remain based at Bangor and King's Bay, Ga., but could be deployed from friendly ports in places such as Guam or Scotland. (photo: GREG GILBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES. Matt Miles, a torpedo man, peers down an empty tube.)

Because they carry nuclear missiles, the Tridents stop over only at U.S. ports. But minus the nuclear missiles, they become more versatile and will be able to tie up in foreign ports.

"As it stands, we don't really want to park our nuclear weapons in some of these other countries and frankly, a lot of them don't want us to park there either," said Lt. Kevin Stephens, public-affairs officer at Bangor.

The Trident's clout

Up until recent years, the role of the Tridents has been "deterrence, deterrence, deterrence," said Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Bremerton, who pushed the military-spending bill hard.

"Now, they can actually be used in one of these conflicts. This is a whole new era." Powered by a nuclear reactor, each Trident submarine carries 192 nuclear warheads, a force more than 1,000 times more destructive than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

The Trident was conceived during the Cold War as an ultimate weapon of deterrence and the third, and least vulnerable, leg of a nuclear triad that includes bombers and Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles.

In fact, nearly half of the nation's nuclear weapons are carried by the Trident fleet. Each submarine is assigned two crews of 160 sailors and officers. The crews take turns taking the boat out to sea.

It patrols the seas and no one, save for the boat's commanders, knows the boat's exact location. The fact the fleet has never had to launch a nuclear-missile strike is considered a success by the Navy.

"We might know the area that it's in, but we don't know where it is in that grid," Stephens said. "The reason for that is simple. If the bad guys grab me and put bamboo under my nails, I'm going to sing, so they just don't tell anyone on shore where they're hiding."

(photo: GREG GILBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES. Scott Tomaszewski works in the missile compartment of the USS Michigan. The refitted Tridents will be able to launch 154 Tomahawk missiles in less than six minutes.)

Unlike the fast-attack submarines that make up the other major component of the Navy's underwater force, Trident submarines do not trail or spy on other vessels.

"We look at all ships and subs as a threat and try to stay out of range," said Clark Everett, a sonar technician first class on the Michigan. "We play chicken a lot." In fact, the Trident's motto is sometimes said to be, "We hide with pride," Stephens said.

Capt. Howard Trost, commander of the Trident Training Facility on Bangor, explains deterrence this way: "Imagine that America is a beautiful girlfriend and you're Bill Gates, a skinny guy with glasses. Well, a big guy with muscles could come over and kick sand in your face and take your girlfriend.

"But he probably wouldn't do it if Arnold Schwarzenegger was standing behind you, would he? We're America's Arnold," Trost said.

Trident's detractors

Since 1982, the year when the first Ohio-class nuclear submarine arrived at the 7,000-acre base on the Hood Canal, Bangor has been the site of protest.

Over the years, the interest, the fear and even the number of protests have faded. The first protests drew thousands; today, those who rally outside the gates have dropped to a few dozen. Still, Jackie Hudson, a member of Ground Zero and a resident of Kitsap County, said the United States already has 137 ships and subs capable of launching Tomahawks and doesn't need four more.

"We're a nation gone mad," she said. "With the Trident's stealth and invulnerability and the missile's range of over 1,000 miles, we could have every nation on the globe targeted without anyone realizing it.

"That's not war, that's slaughter." And still others say the amount of money spent on the military, in general, is in shocking disregard to other needs in the country.

"How many people in our own country would that $4 billion feed? How many schools would it help?" asked Niall McSharrie, a computer programmer who opposes increased military spending. Military boosters, though, say the cost benefit of reusing the oldest Tridents - the Michigan, Ohio, Florida and Georgia - far outweighs other options.

A report by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, showed that updating them was cheaper than converting a fast-attack sub to do the same job or building a new class of submarine.

"They cost $1.8 billion, they're bought and paid for and they still have 20 more years in them," said Stephens. "That's too big an investment to cut into razor blades."

Christine Clarridge can be reached at 206-464-8983 or cclarridge@seattletimes.com.

-------- u.s. nuc facilities

-------- alabama

Nuclear Report Blames Electrician

April 7, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nuke-Plant-Accident.html

ATHENS, Ala. (AP) -- An electrician's mistake caused an accident at the Browns Ferry nuclear power plant last month that seriously burned four workers, a Tennessee Valley Authority report said.

The TVA's serious accident investigation team found that the electrician brought a safety-grounding cable too close to an energized portion of a 4,160-volt circuit breaker.

An electrical arc jumped between the cable and the energized portion of the breaker, burning the four men, Browns Ferry spokesman Craig Beasley said Friday.

The TVA and state emergency management officials said there was no danger of a release of radioactivity from the north Alabama plant.

The accident occurred on March 26 in the Unit 3 reactor turbine building of the TVA-run plant. The reactor had been shut earlier in the day for refueling.

The men remain at home recovering from their injuries.

-------- nevada

New Nevada district is political hot spot

April 7, 2002
By Stephan Dinan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020407-40694824.htm

The contest for Nevada's newly created 3rd Congressional District is gaining the sort of attention - and fund raising - usually reserved for critical Senate races in their closing days.

The district spreads out to the south of Las Vegas, and both parties have recruited premier candidates: Democrat Dario Herrera, Clark County Commission chairman, who will be in Washington this week for a fundraiser with Democratic leaders, and Republican Jon Porter, a state senator from the area.

With Democrats needing to net just a half-dozen seats to control the House, every open seat is critical - but this district is at the confluence of several key political elements.

Both candidates start from the same position because the district was drawn after Nevada earned an extra seat in the 2000 census. It is a bellwether for the Southwestern states, which are growing rapidly, and features a Hispanic candidate, Mr. Herrera, at a time when both parties are fighting to garner Hispanic voters.

But the big unknown is the fallout from Yucca Mountain - the site 90 miles from Las Vegas where the Bush administration wants to store the nation's nuclear waste. The state's Republican governor will veto the plan soon, and the issue will play out this summer in Congress, which will have the final say.

Most state residents, especially those in and around Las Vegas, oppose the project, and Democrats are hoping voters will connect the issue to the Republican administration and to Republicans in general in November.

"If you're voting on this issue - and people in Nevada's [3rd District] are voting on that issue - there's no question that Republicans are in a world of hurt," said Jenny Backus, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Still, both congressional candidates, as well as the rest of the state's leadership oppose the project on a bipartisan basis. At this point, the two campaigns are competing over which candidate has done more to help the campaign to block the Yucca Mountain plan.

Republicans say Mr. Porter has been opposed to the project for two decades, and they hope that's what will matter to voters, rather than President Bush's position. So far, their poll numbers offer them encouraging news.

A survey by Public Opinion Strategies for the Nevada Republican Party, released last week, shows Mr. Porter leading Mr. Herrera, 45 percent to 34 percent. The March 5-6 poll of 400 likely voters in the district has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percent. That's a significant change from Public Opinion Strategies' January poll, which showed Mr. Porter with a 39 percent to 37 percent lead.

According to Glen Bolger, the pollster, Mr. Porter took a dip in his favorable ratings after the administration announced it would go forward with the Yucca Mountain project but has since returned to the ratings he enjoyed before the decision.

On the other side, Mr. Herrera has been the subject of frequent stories in the Las Vegas media over potential ethical lapses - everything from charges he improperly obtained a consulting contract to failing to recuse himself from a vote on county billboard regulations that could have benefited his wife.

So far, none of the charges has resulted in an official finding of criminal or ethical wrongdoing.

"Republicans have been trying to distract voters from issues important to Nevada families. We're running a great race, and Dario is out there every day," said Elizabeth Alexander, a spokeswoman for Mr. Herrera's campaign. "Dario's leadership is unmatched on Yucca Mountain, Nevada power, helping the workers laid off after September 11 - Jon Porter has been absent on those."

Both sides say the race will be tight, mainly because the district was drawn that way. Republicans hold about a 1 percent registration advantage. Republicans in this region also turn out to vote in slightly higher numbers than registered Democrats, said Mike Slanker, a consultant to the Porter campaign.

-------- new jersey

Targeting nuclear plants

Sunday, April 07, 2002
NorthJersey.com
http://www.bergen.com/page.php?level_3_id=34&page=3078001

INTO EVERY WAR, maybe a little chaos must fall. OK, it wasn't total chaos that stirred up state anti-terrorism officials last week. But something is definitely confusing here.

This story will not make you feel confident about New Jersey's role in the war on terrorism. It begins with a trip by some members of the state Assembly Homeland Security and State Preparedness Committee to a South Jersey nuclear power plant.

It was last Tuesday, the day after April Fool's Day, but this was no time to joke around. Two committee Democrats, Joan Quigley of Jersey City and Gary Guear of Hamilton, visited the Salem nuclear power plant on the Delaware River. First, they dropped in on a National Guard outfit assigned to the plant.

The soldiers of Troop C of the 117th Cavalry of Woodstown apparently were quite impressive. They told of guarding Salem for almost 180 straight days - a long deployment for these part-time civilian warriors. They demonstrated communications equipment, took legislators on a ride in a Humvee, and even pointed out how they think Salem might be vulnerable to attack.

But things got confusing when the soldiers put on a computerized slide show. Interviews with Quigley, Guear, the National Guard, and others say the problem began with one slide, one question, and one sergeant's answer.

The slide, listing reasons for Troop C's deployment at Salem, mentioned that maps of U.S. nuclear power plants had been found among al-Qaeda terrorist documents in Afghanistan. This prompted a question: Were Salem's maps among those found?

Yes, said a sergeant.

This is serious news - if true. Those in the room point out that the sergeant said there were no plans by al-Qaeda to attack Salem. But the fact that potential suicide bombers might be studying maps of Salem's nuclear reactors - well, this surely had to be scary.

Incredibly, say those interviewed, the sergeant's remark did not cause anyone to stop the meeting and ask for an explanation. Quigley and Guear said it didn't occur to them to pose any questions. They went on to tour the Salem plant where - incredibly - they did not ask security officials whether al-Qaeda might have targeted Salem.

Quigley and Guear are at a loss to explain why they didn't press the issue at Salem and with the National Guard. But they did call a press conference back in Trenton. And there they mentioned the news about al-Qaeda possibly having Salem's maps.

You guessed it: This definitely caught the attention of the news media. Hey, it should. If state officials say terrorists have maps of a nuclear power plant in New Jersey, the public ought to know - if only to hold officials accountable for security or truth.

What happened next was a deluge of denials. In a conference call to Guear, the sergeant reportedly backed off his earlier statement. Salem officials, in turn, announced they had received no warning about al-Queda maps.

The next day, Kathryn Flicker, the assistant attorney general in charge of New Jersey's counter-terrorism office, wrote a searing two-page letter to Quigley and Guear "to correct erroneous information" in the "off-hand remark" by the sergeant. Flicker said she checked with the National Guard, the FBI, as well as security officials at Salem and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on whether Salem's maps were in Afghanistan. "I can say categorically," she wrote, "that no such plans were found, and I consider the comment to have been not only incorrect but irresponsible as well."

In an interview, the NRC head of security for Northeast nuclear plants, Wayne Lanning, told me that "no such documents had been found." He added: "If such documents existed, we would know about it."

The story might have ended right there. But Assemblyman Guear claims he was phoned by a "reliable source - one that I don't question." This source, says Guear, told him that Salem's maps definitely were in Afghanistan. Guear, by the way, is a former Trenton city police detective. "I don't go off half-cocked," he insists.

So whose story is correct?

The National Guard has not allowed the sergeant to publicly explain his remark. A guard spokesman, Col. John Dwyer, says the sergeant will be "re-educated in some way."

Another person on the Salem tour contends that Guear is "grandstanding." Guear promises to try to persuade his source to come forward in the near future. "I'm allowing a little time," says Guear.

Meanwhile, Assemblywoman Quigley asks a good question: "Whose source do you believe?"

The question cuts to the heart of why so many feel so uneasy in these days after Sept. 11. Is America ready for this new war? Is New Jersey? Whose source do you trust?

Record Columnist Mike Kelly can be contacted at kellym@northjersey.com.

-------- us nuc waste

Opponents Lobby Congress on Waste Plan

April 7, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Yucca-Mountain.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Opponents of burying America's nuclear waste in Nevada will give the public a crash course in the dangers of hauling radioactive materials across the country, part of a long-shot lobbying campaign to kill the plan in Congress.

Two former White House chiefs of staff -- Democrat John Podesta, who worked for President Clinton, and Republican Kenneth Duberstein, who worked for President Reagan -- are directing the effort.

The lobbying campaign is to include television ads targeting lawmakers in races that could swing on votes from environmentalists.

The campaign was getting under way Monday, when Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn planned to veto President Bush's endorsement of Yucca Mountain as the place to hold up to 77,000 tons of nuclear waste that will remain radioactive for 10,000 years.

Guinn's veto is allowed under rules Congress wrote for finding a national nuclear waste dump. Congress will have the final say, however, and a vote on whether to override is expected before August.

Spent nuclear fuel from power plants and defense facilities in 34 states has accumulated at those sites for decades as lawmakers grappled with the questions of whether and where to establish a national repository.

Yucca Mountain, a volcanic ridge on the edge of the Nevada Test Site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, has been under consideration for at least 25 years. In February, Bush recommended it be chosen.

Former White House chief of staff John Sununu, a Republican, and former Democratic vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro are working on behalf of Yucca Mountain supporters. They include energy companies, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and at least 13 governors whose states have nuclear power plants.

Opponents, led by environmentalists and Nevada's congressional delegation, already have sued. They are focusing their lobbying effort on the Senate, considering it almost certain the Republican-controlled House will side with Bush.

Their hope rests on several factors. The Senate's top two Democrats -- Majority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Nevada's Harry Reid -- are staunch opponents, a half-dozen Democrats have replaced pro-Yucca Mountain Republicans since 2000 and re-election battles in states with strong environmental movements could cause some incumbents to reconsider supporting the project.

The campaign will focus on lingering questions about the safety of the Nevada site and fears that the thousands of truck, train and barge trips it will take to transport the material across the country will lead to accidents and potential radioactive fallout.

Reid is handing out miniature toy trucks to make the point that full-scale models of the containers that will hold the waste in transit have not been tested.

Opponents concede they face long odds.

Most Americans are only vaguely aware of the debate over nuclear waste disposal, polls have shown. The site would open in 2010 at the earliest, making it hard to create a sense of urgency.

Yucca Mountain opponents have so far failed to raise the $10 million they say they need to mount an effective television advertising campaign that makes the point, particularly in states where incumbents seeking re-election are undecided or have not said how they will vote. In earlier votes, Senate majorities have voted for the Yucca Mountain site, although there has never been a clear up-or-down vote such as the one expected this summer.

``We have had bipartisan support in the past and we think it will be there in the future,'' said Steve Kerekes, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the lobbying arm of the nuclear power industry.

While Daschle opposes the project, he has said the special rules for this issue diminish the vast power he usually has to control what reaches the Senate floor. Privately, advisers on both sides say Daschle could prevent the vote, if he wished.

But Daschle has to consider the November midterm elections in which Democrats will try to preserve their fragile Senate majority.

Asking Democrats from states with nuclear reactors to ``stand with us on this might put their seat in jeopardy in the future,'' said Reid spokesman Nathan Naylor.


-------- MILITARY

-------- afghanistan

THE PURSUIT
G.I.'s Search Afghan Caves, Finding Trove of Material

New York Times
April 7, 2002
By DEXTER FILKINS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/07/international/asia/07AFGH.html

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan, April 6 - A team of American soldiers completed a sweep today of a large cave network believed to have been used recently by Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, carrying away photos, dossiers and vials containing an unidentified white powder.

Some 500 troops from the Army's 101st Airborne Division arrived here this afternoon after the five-day mission, which took them into the subterranean complex in Khost Province near the border with Pakistan. The men said they had ventured into more than 15 caves, some of them hundreds of feet deep, complete with bedrooms, warehouses and even iron-barred jail cells. After cleaning out the caves, the men used C-4 explosives and antitank missiles to seal them.

When the soldiers ran out of ordnance, they marked the caves they could not destroy and brought their coordinates back to base. Apache helicopters were to go back later to finish the caves off.

"Some of the stuff looked pretty old, but the locals said Osama bin Laden had been there," said Capt. Lou Bauer, 29, of Windsor, N.Y.

The search of the caves appeared to represent a new phase in the American operation in Afghanistan. After the end of the large American operation last month in the Shah-i-Kot Valley, where hundreds of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters were thought to have been killed, American troops appear to be moving toward smaller operations against targets that are more dispersed.

In a statement today, Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the chief commander in the war here, said that American forces had no large-scale operations against Taliban and Al Qaeda forces planned soon. There are some 6,500 American troops in Afghanistan, as well as the first members of a 1,700-man British commando brigade.

The operation into the caves also appears to represent a shift for the American troops, who left unsearched many of the caves used by Taliban and fighters in the Tora Bora region last December.

The American soldiers said they had destroyed the caves so they could not be used again by Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters who might be trying to re-enter Afghanistan.

The caves, many of them fortified during the American-backed war against the Soviet Union in the 1980's, lie just a few miles from the border with Pakistan, where hundreds of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters are believed to have fled in the past few months. The caves lie in a region called Zhwara, about 30 miles from the Shah-i-Kot Valley, from which many Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters were thought to have escaped.

So far, Pakistan is off-limits to American troops, and American and Afghan officials worry that the fugitive fighters appear to be planning guerrilla attacks from their Pakistani sanctuaries. Although Pakistani officials insist that the 12,000 soldiers they have deployed in the border region are keeping a lookout for Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters, there have been persistent reports that these fighters are regrouping in the largely ungoverned area.

Lounging near the airstrip of this old Soviet base, the American soldiers said it appeared that the caves had been used recently by Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters. In addition to destroying several hundred rounds of mortar shells and bullets, the men said they had carted off five bags filled with documents.

Included in the haul were dozens of what appeared to be personnel files of Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, complete with mug shots and write-ups of each one.

The men in the photographs appeared to be of Middle Eastern origin, the Americans said, and much of the writing in the documents appeared to be in Arabic.

There were several signs that Al Qaeda or Taliban fighters had been in the caves fairly recently, the soldiers said.

One soldier said he found what appeared to be a relatively new box of 155-millimeter howitzer shells. Another said he found a body in a small mausoleum that appeared to have been recently entombed. One soldier found a copy of USA Today dated May 17, 2001.

The most intriguing discovery were dozens of vials filled with white powder.

The soldiers said they were not sure what the substance was; some speculated that it might be anthrax, others that it could be heroin or cocaine.

"I'm not sure what it was, maybe drugs," said Sgt. First Class Chuck Nye, one of the soldiers who took part in the cave searches.

The soldiers said they also searched an abandoned village, called Shodiaka. They said the village appeared to have been recently abandoned, and they found some of the same white powder stored in clay jars there.

--------

Allies target elusive enemy

April 7, 2002
By Julian West
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020407-68526088.htm

KHOST, Afghanistan - In the dead of night, about 30 British commandos, led by an Urdu-speaking officer who identified himself only as James, helicoptered onto a remote mountaintop to establish one of several secret bases on Afghanistan's border with Pakistan.

As James' men fanned out over the rugged, shrub-covered mountains, he climbed down to the dry riverbed.

There, over a cup of green tea, the British officer, whose face was blackened with camouflage paint, conferred with his Afghan allies while somewhere in the caves and gullies around them, small groups of al Qaeda fighters camped out - hiding, but also ready to attack.

During the recent encounter in the rugged mountains of eastern Afghanistan, a stone's throw from the Pakistan border, British and American special forces were setting up a string of forward bases from which they are pressing the hunt for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.

The bases are a key element in what is now being called "the Campaign."

The American and British-lead coalition was joined last month by about 130 British commandos, who flew into Khost to join some 200 U.S. Special Forces troops and soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division.

The Campaign is charged with the newest and most dangerous phase of the hunt for al Qaeda, which is centered in the nearby mountains and ravines.

The hunt is fraught with tensions between feuding Afghan commanders, who have joined the American and British forces in an area where sympathy for al Qaeda runs deep.

It is also faced with an increasingly elusive enemy that has been mounting hit-and-run attacks.

In the month since Operation Anaconda, in which al Qaeda fighters massed in the mountains of Shah-e-Kot and were pounded by American bombs, bin Laden's men have split into well-armed groups of 10 or 12 men and escaped through the gullies and hidden in caves honeycombing the mountains.

Although there are varied accounts of how many remain, one senior commander in Khost said he believed there could be up to 7,000.

In the last two weeks, these men, who are fed and supplied by Afghan al Qaeda hiding in the town of Khost, have attacked the Campaign's bases three times.

Although bin Laden is not believed to be among them, Afghan commanders say that Ayman Zawahiri, his mentor and aide, who was sighted after escaping from Shah-e-Kot, may be.

"We have friends and spies in the villages around Shah-e-Kot who say that he escaped from there," said Kamal Khan, one of the Campaign's Afghan commanders in Khost.

The reports have also been corroborated by Afghans in Khost and Gardez.

Last week, in a rare glimpse into a war that has largely been conducted in secret, a group of reporters was taken to the Campaign's secret forward bases: a series of small forts and encampments, protected by four rings of checkposts, manned by heavily armed Afghans.

As we neared the mountains, traveling along dry riverbeds and through ravines, we spotted the first camps: white army tents pitched on hilltops. Outside, Afghan fighters with yellow gorse flowers in their hats lolled in the sun as reconnaissance aircraft droned overhead.

Close by were the ruined buildings of Al Badr - the terrorist-training camp, set within a ring of hills, where bin Laden once welcomed Pakistani journalists with a fusillade of rocket fire. The camp was hit by American cruise missiles in 1998 in retaliation for al Qaeda's bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Farther along, the ravine was pockmarked with well-built caves and tunnels, roofed with bricks and plaster, that had been used by anti-Soviet mujahideen and, later, al Qaeda.

The Afghan fighters who had insisted on escorting us for our "protection," then led us into a wide, dried-up riverbed, ringed by hills dotted with small forts.

Last month, one of the forts was attacked late at night by fighters armed with rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikovs.

It was the third al Qaeda attack in two weeks, and although it was repulsed by Afghan soldiers from the Campaign, bin Laden's men vanished into the night.

-------- colombia

Colombia Paper Reports Rebel Camp in Venezuela

April 7, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-colombia-rebels-report.html

BOGOTA, Colombia - Colombia's leading newspaper reported Sunday that Colombian Marxist FARC rebels had established a camp across the border in Venezuela, but Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez insisted there was no such base in his country.

The report by El Tiempo, which included interviews with rebels at the camp housing about 50 guerrillas, could further strain relations between the South American nations.

Venezuela has angrily denied an accusation last month by a Colombian army general that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombian rebels, known by their Spanish acronym FARC, were operating out of Venezuela.

In a television broadcast Sunday in Caracas, Chavez did not directly refer to the El Tiempo report, but insisted there were no Colombian rebel bases in his country.

``Venezuela is not a refuge or sanctuary for terrorists or guerrillas,'' the president said, making a general reference to what he called ``lies coming out of Colombia.''

El Tiempo said its reporters found the FARC camp consisting of wooden buildings with tin roofs in an area called El Ranchito, a 30-minute trek through jungle from the Colombian village of El Zulia. The newspaper quoted a local FARC commander, identified as Dario, as saying: ``Our stay here is temporary. Comrade Chavez has nothing to do with this.''

Dario also said the FARC rebels were forced to move into Venezuela after being chased by right-wing paramilitary outlaws, who target guerrillas.

Local residents said Venezuelan air force helicopters frequently fly over the area, El Tiempo reported.

Chavez said Venezuela's armed forces were patrolling ``night and day'' but had found no Colombian guerrilla camps, despite being given map coordinates by the Colombian army.

``We have determined that the Colombians who sent us (these coordinates) are a bit lost ... these points are in Colombian territory,'' the Venezuelan president said.

Colombian officials were not immediately available to comment on the El Tiempo report or Chavez's comments.

Relations between Colombia and Venezuela have come under strain in recent years amid accusations Chavez, a left-leaning former paratrooper, is sympathetic toward Colombian Marxist-inspired rebels.

``Venezuela doesn't support guerrillas, either in Colombia or anywhere else in the world,'' Chavez said Sunday.

``I hope this isn't going to carry on happening, Colombian security or military officers making up lies to try and confuse the world,'' he added.

On March 21, Colombian Army Gen. Martin Orlando Carreno reported the FARC had used a base inside Venezuela to launch attacks upon his troops in the northern Colombian border village of Tibu. Chavez dismissed the allegation, saying it was intended to smear his self-proclaimed ``revolution.''

Wednesday, Colombia called for a joint Colombian-Venezuelan commission to investigate the dispute.

Colombia's 38-year-old war pitting rebel groups against the army and right-wing paramilitary outlaws has intensified in recent years raising fears the fighting could spill across the border into Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and Panama.

-------- drug war

Poppy - Farmers: Eradication is Unfair

April 7, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Afghan-Poppy-Farmers.html

GHAR KILI, Afghanistan -- In a sun-baked field of poppy plants on the verge of flowering, poor farmers said Sunday that a government plan to eradicate the crop that produces opium, the raw material for heroin, would lead to their financial ruin.

Afghanistan was once a source of roughly 70 percent of the world's opium supply, and its new government has vowed to wipe out the poppy crop just two weeks ahead of its harvest, offering farmers about $500 an acre to destroy the narcotic-bearing flowers.

The government said its program is to start Monday, and that authorities will carry out the eradication if farmers do not comply.

But the laborers of Ghar Kili, 15 miles west of Kandahar, said the compensation offer would not cover their expenses, incurred late last year as the U.S. bombing campaign eroded Taliban authority.

``The government should come here and survey, and calculate how much we spent,'' said landowner Haji Abibullah. ``If they pay us good money, and we don't lose out, then we'll personally eradicate it.''

Residents of Ghar Kili said they heard about the program on the radio, but that no government official has visited the village to discuss it.

Under the government plan, Abibullah would receive the equivalent of $250 for each of his 10 jirib, an Afghan land measure equaling about a half-acre.

However, the 60-year-old farmer said it cost him $400 per jirib in expenses including fertilizer, the rental of a tractor, the purchase of a water pump and diesel to run it, and the salaries of 12 laborers. The crop is labor intensive, requiring workers to lance the plants and collect the opium resin that oozes out.

If he were to harvest the opium, he would receive at least $1,700 per jirib -- about $3,400 an acre.

``We accept this new government. But we are very poor and for the last four years, our land and agriculture have been affected by drought,'' Abibullah said. ``So we have no other alternative but to grow poppies. If we cultivate wheat alone, we can't cover our expenses.''

As he spoke, a water pump chugged away nearby and workers with small scythes cleared weeds from around the leaves of the poppy plants. Green bulbs have emerged from some, and one had flowered prematurely.

The government, whose authority is weak in many regions, has yet to disclose the details of the enforcement effort, such as what equipment and personnel would be used to eradicate the crops.

There are well over 100,000 acres of poppy nationwide, according to a preliminary U.N. assessment, indicating the scope of the challenge in a country without an anti-drug police force and with an overall unwillingness to comply with the plan.

``We are very weak. We can't stop the force of the government, but we'll demonstrate in the street if they don't respect us,'' said Fateh Mohammed, a poppy farmer in Ghar Kili.

Farmers in Nangarhar province, east of the capital along the Pakistani border, are also demanding adequate compensation for destroying the poppy crop. A delegation headed by Supreme Court chief Mullah Fazel Hadi Shenwari arrived Sunday in the provincial capital, Jalalabad, to try to persuade residents to comply with government policy, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press reported.

The biggest opium-producing region in Afghanistan is the southern province of Helmand. But fields of poppy also line the road just a short drive out of Kandahar, the administrative hub for the region.

The Islamic extremist Taliban successfully banned poppy cultivation in 2000, eliminating an estimated 96 percent of the 2001 crop. But as the Islamic militia fell apart, farmers quickly planted poppy for the spring harvest, believing any new government would be unable to enforce a ban.

Another Ghar Kili poppy farmer, Rozi Agha, described the poppy eradication policy of the new government as ``cruel.''

``At least the Taliban banned it before the planting season,'' Agha said. ``Now we spend all this money, and then the government announces the policy.''

The government has said it will institute labor-intensive projects, especially on roads and irrigation systems, to help employ farm laborers.

But many residents are skeptical the government will be able to ease poverty in places like Ghar Kili, a cluster of earthen-walled compounds in the desert.

Mohammed Naeem, a teacher, said the students in his school sit on the floor and don't have uniforms or enough pens and paper.

``I teach them that poppies are a dangerous thing because they can make a poison,'' Naeem said. ``But we don't have any choice but to grow them.''

--------

Group: Close cocaine, crack sentencing gap

04/07/2002
USA TODAY
By Toni Locy and Joan Biskupic, USA TODAY
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/2002/04/08/usat-crack.htm

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Sentencing Commission will recommend Congress close the gap in punishment for possession of crack vs. powder cocaine.

Federal law now calls for dealers caught with 5 grams of crack to get the same prison term - a mandatory minimum of five years - as those caught with 500 grams of powder.

Critics say the 100-to-1 differential disproportionately affects minorities because crack cocaine is linked more to urban areas. Supporters of the status quo say crack is a more serious drug and should be treated so.

The commission, which develops sentencing guidelines for federal judges, will recommend next month that Congress raise to 25 grams the amount of crack that a dealer would have to have to trigger the five-year mandatory minimum prison sentence.

Advocates for the change wanted the seven-member commission to be more aggressive by sending an amendment to Capitol Hill as opposed to a recommendation. An amendment would have become law if Congress failed to reject it by Nov. 1.

"Some have said the commission could bring either heat or light, or both, to this issue," said commission Chairman Diana Murphy, a federal judge from Minneapolis.

"We have decided we can do best to bring light as opposed to heat at this point."

Some lawmakers have suggested narrowing the punishment gap by increasing penalties for powder cocaine. Murphy said the commission hopes lawmakers resist that idea.

Momentum had been building at the commission and among lawmakers for the commissioners to force a change in the penalties. But last month, the Bush administration insisted on the status quo.

Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson told commissioners that crack traffickers should be treated more harshly than other drug dealers because of their penchant for violence and the toll crack has taken on minority communities.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., a former federal prosecutor, disagrees.

"The punishment for crack is too heavy," he said. "Five grams is the weight of one nickel. In state court, five grams would get probation."

Under a proposal by Sessions and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a dealer would have to be caught with 20 grams of crack to trigger a five-year mandatory prison term.

The bill also would be tougher on powder cocaine dealers, making them eligible for the five-year sentence if caught with 400 grams.

-------- india

Rebels Waiting to Cross Into Indian - Kashmir - Police

April 7, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-kashmir-infiltration.html

SRINAGAR, India - More than 3,000 trained guerrillas are waiting in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir to cross into the strife-torn Indian ruled part of the region, a senior Indian policeman said.

``According to intelligence reports more than 3,000 trained militants are waiting at the Line of Control to cross into the state,'' Inspector General of Police, Kashmir range, K. Rajendera Kumar told Reuters.

The mountainous region is at the heart of a military standoff between nuclear-capable India and Pakistan, who have fought two of their three wars over the region since 1947.

A 740-km (460 miles) long Line of Control or cease-fire line divides Kashmir between the two. India controls 45 percent of Kashmir, Pakistan just over a third and China the rest.

``The militants are just waiting for snow to melt on the mountain passes,'' Kumar said. The snows normally start melting from the middle of May.

India called on Friday for Pakistan to stop training and sending militants to Indian-ruled Kashmir, saying a military standoff with its neighbor will not end until it complies.

About a million troops are massed along the India-Pakistan border.

India says it wants an end to what it calls cross-border terrorism, while Pakistan has repeatedly called for talks and has cracked down on militants, including outlawing five groups.

Pakistan says it only gives moral support to Kashmiri separatists, who have been waging a revolt since 1989 against Indian rule of the territory.

Kumar said there has been no let up in rebel violence in the state despite Pakistan's ban on several militant groups.

Police reports show more than 600 people, mostly militants, have been killed in the first three months of 2002 in near-daily violence.

``Security forces shot dead 270 militants, mostly foreigners

in the first three months of the current year as against 160 during the same period a year earlier,'' Kumar said.

Nearly a dozen militant groups are fighting New Delhi's rule in Jammu and Kashmir where officials say more than 33,000 people have been killed in the past 12 years. Separatists say the figure is closer to 80,000.

-------- iraq

U.S. Postpones Plans to Reveal Findings on Iraq
Mideast Crisis Delays Campaign at U.N. to Expose Alleged Efforts to Obtain Prohibited Weapons

By Colum Lynch
The Washington Post
Sunday, April 7, 2002; Page A22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A7354-2002Apr6?language=printer

UNITED NATIONS -- Faced with a crisis in the Middle East, the Bush administration postponed plans here last week to launch a new campaign to expose Iraq's latest attempts to acquire prohibited chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, according to U.S. and other Western officials.

U.S. diplomats were planning to provide Security Council members with an intelligence briefing alleging Iraq is developing banned missile technology, but rising Arab criticism of U.S. support for Israel's military offensive prompted a delay. Although U.S. officials say they still intend to present their findings, it remains unclear when the briefing will be scheduled.

"We believe that Iraq is taking steps to reconstitute its weapons-of-mass-destruction capability, to develop new and longer missiles and to increase its conventional capability," a senior U.S. official said. "Iraq should allow inspectors to return forthwith without any preconditions, and the inspectors will be able to ascertain whether we're right or not."

Administration officials declined to characterize the new information they intend to present to the council, but they said they have photographs and other information showing that Iraq is seeking to build new missiles capable of delivering chemical and biological payloads farther than 93 miles, the maximum distance allowed by the United Nations.

The briefing would have marked the first time the United States has supplied the 15-member council with classified U.S. intelligence on advances in Iraq's secret weapons programs since U.N. inspectors left the country in December 1998. It was designed to bolster an American and British effort to prove that Iraq has reconstituted its deadliest weapons programs.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair recently delayed plans to publish a similar account of Iraq's weapons developments to avoid fueling anti-Western sentiments in the Arab world and because of concerns that the evidence was not sufficiently convincing. A diplomat familiar with the British findings said that they would be persuasive to someone familiar with the underlying intelligence but that they might not "convince the more doubtful."

"It's nonspecific," the diplomat said.

CIA Director George J. Tenet told a Senate Armed Services Committee last month that he suspects Iraq is seeking to expand a range of banned weapons programs, but he has yet to release hard evidence to support the claim. "Baghdad is expanding its chemical industries in ways that could be diverted quickly into chemical weapon development," Tenet told the committee. "We believe Baghdad continues to pursue ballistic missile capabilities that exceed the restrictions imposed by U.N. resolutions. We believe that Saddam never abandoned his nuclear weapons program."

Hans Blix, the Swedish diplomat who heads the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), which is responsible for conducting inspections in Iraq, said he has reviewed satellite imagery showing new construction on installations destroyed by U.S. warplanes during Operation Desert Fox in 1998.

Blix said he has also received intriguing tips from friendly governments about Iraq's attempts to rebuild its weapons programs. But he said he can prove nothing until he has inspectors on the ground. "We cannot exclude the possibility that they retained something from the past or that they have produced something new," Blix said in an interview. "But if I had clear-cut evidence of Iraq still possessing or producing weapons, I would go to the Security Council with that evidence."

The briefing was calculated to strengthen the U.S. case for the resumption of full-scale, unconditional weapons inspections in Iraq two weeks before U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan is scheduled to meet April 18-19 with an Iraqi delegation to discuss the terms for the possible return of inspectors.

U.S. officials are concerned that Iraq is seeking to prolong the talks to delay the fulfillment of its obligations and to potentially exact concessions from Annan and Blix in the event that inspectors return. "The procedures are clear; UNMOVIC is ready to go, and they should let them go," the senior U.S. official said. "We don't see any purpose in endless discussions in New York. The right thing for the Iraqis to do is to say, 'We will welcome the inspectors. Dr. Blix, when would you like to come?' "

Under the terms of a cease-fire accord ending the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Iraq is obliged to destroy its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons as well as medium- and long-range missiles with a range of more than 93 miles.

It also must grant unfettered access to U.N. weapons inspectors. But the inspectors left in 1998 on the eve of Desert Fox, and Iraq has not permitted them to return.

U.N. inspectors destroyed most of Iraq's proscribed missiles, but they were never able to account for seven Scud-like training missiles. They have also failed to gain credible assurances that Iraq has abandoned its attempts to produce medium-range missiles. The U.N. inspectors have also been unable to account for massive stockpiles of chemical and biological materials Iraq possessed before the Gulf War.

----

ARMS INSPECTIONS
If Iraq Bends, U.N. Inspectors Are Ready

New York Times
April 7, 2002
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/07/international/middleeast/07IRAQ.html

WASHINGTON, April 6 - After poring over confidential reports and satellite photos, Hans Blix and his United Nations team are preparing to conduct inspections to determine whether Iraq had abandoned its efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction.

More than 50 inspectors would be based in Baghdad, according to the plan. No sites would be off limits. Iraqi officials would be required to hand over documents about the history of their secret weapons programs.

Mr. Blix's plan may be the only way, short of war, for Saddam Hussein and President Bush to resolve their differences over charges that Iraq retains and is still pursuing weapons of mass destruction. So far, however, Iraq and the United States are on a collision course, raising the question of whether Mr. Blix's inspectors will ever have a chance to do their job.

Iraq's new Foreign Minister, Naji Sabri, is scheduled to meet with the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, this month. But many diplomats believe that the surge in Israeli-Palestinian violence is likely to make Iraq less willing to cooperate with the United Nations. The theory is that Mr. Hussein's government will conclude that Washington will find it all but impossible to win Arab backing for an offensive against Iraq, thus removing the pressure on Iraq to agree to wide-ranging inspections.

The Bush administration, for its part, has signaled its determination to keep the tensions in the Middle East from distracting it from its goal of confronting Iraq. The administration's strategy seems to be to demand unrestricted inspections, with the expectation that Baghdad will frustrate the request and give Washington a rationale for a military campaign to oust Mr. Hussein.

"I made up my mind that Saddam Hussein needs to go," Mr. Bush said in a television interview this week. "I am confident that we can lead a coalition to pressure Saddam Hussein and to deal with Saddam Hussein."

There are situations in which inspections might yet be an option. For Iraq, accepting them might be the only way to mobilize international support against an American military strike if the Middle East conflict should be defused. For Washington, it might be the only way to contain Iraq's programs to develop nuclear, biological and chemical arms, as well as the missiles to deliver them, if politics preclude Arab support for an American strike.

Given the enmity between Washington and Baghdad, however, a final military reckoning seems the more likely option.

At his United Nations headquarters, Mr. Blix stoically asserted that inspections remained a possibility. "This is our working assumption and we are preparing ourselves for it as best we can," he said.

A former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency and a diplomat from Sweden, Mr. Blix was a compromise choice to serve as chairman of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission. The organization replaced an earlier monitoring body, the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq, which was disbanded after Iraq thwarted the work of inspectors and the Clinton administration responded in 1998 by ordering air strikes.

Washington initially favored Rolf Ekeus, the original head of the earlier monitoring organization. But his appointment was blocked by Russia and France, which have been eager to see economic sanctions lifted against Iraq and were hopeful that Mr. Blix would be less strict than Mr. Ekeus might have been.

Some American specialists say, however, that Mr. Blix seems determined to take a rigorous approach. Mr. Blix asserts that cosmetic inspections are worse than none at all and that his mandate provides for immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access.

Robert J. Einhorn, a top State Department official during the Clinton administration, said, "The Russians and the French underestimated how tough he would be."

The initial goal set by the United Nations Security Council for Mr. Blix's inspectors is not as sweeping as that established for the earlier group of United Nations monitors. The object is to not prove that Iraq is completely free of weapons of mass destruction but to demonstrate that substantial progress is being made. The reward is more modest too: sanctions would be suspended, not lifted.

"It is a less ambitions agenda but at the same time perhaps one that might be more easily attained," Mr. Blix said in an interview. "It does not require that every last piece of program be eradicated but simply that progress has been made."

Under Mr. Blix's plan, 50 to 100 inspectors at a time would be in Iraq. The pool of potential inspectors would be 230, however, so that a new group would be periodically assigned. Already, potential inspectors have undergone training, including coaching in the sensitivity they would be expected to show toward Islamic culture.

Access to the hundreds of suspected weapons sites is just part of what would be required of Iraq.

"They will have to help by coming up with the evidence," Mr. Blix said. "They have the archives, the bills of lading and budget documents."

The first stage of inspections, which would take several months, would involve identifying the main tasks Iraq would need to perform to address suspicions about its weapons programs. Given full cooperation, Mr. Blix said that within a year he would likely be able to report significant headway in clearing up discrepancies.

"If we have the kind of cooperation the Security Council has requested, we can get a high level of assurance," he said. "We would not get certainty. Nor do I think you can do it with occupation."

Some former inspectors, however, said they doubt that Iraq would ever provide enough access to demonstrate that it has ended all its weapons program, which is what the inspectors said really counts.

"I am doubtful that Iraq would ever agree to the extraordinary access that would be required, particularly for monitoring biological weapons areas," said Charles A. Duelfer, the deputy chairman of Unscom, the first United Nation organization formed to monitor Iraq.

Iraq's stance will become clearer after Mr., Sabri, its foreign minister, comes to the United Nations in mid-April. At a United Nations meeting last month, the Iraqi delegation professed interest in a resolution but did not agree to inspections. Mr. Sabri also gave Mr. Annan a list of 19 questions that suggested Iraq might not cooperate unless it received assurances from Washington that it would never attack.

"How will the relationship between Iraq and the council be normalized under the present declared U.S. policy, which aims at invading Iraq and overthrowing its national government by force?" was one of the questions.

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Saddam's Son Says Iraq Ready to Face U.S. Strike

April 7, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-iraq-usa.html

BAGHDAD - Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's youngest son Qusay said Iraqis were ready to retaliate against any U.S. military action against their country.

``Your brave people in Iraq are well prepared to retaliate against failing American threats,'' Qusay said in an open letter to his father to mark the ruling Baath party's 55th anniversary, carried by the Baghdad press on Sunday.

``Swords of your sons in the republican army...are unsheathed against any foreign aggression,'' said Qusay, who controls the Republican Guards, the most powerful division of Iraq's army.

Qusay's letter was published hours after President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair vowed on Saturday to tackle Saddam over the threat he poses with weapons of mass destruction, saying inaction was not an option.

Bush explicitly reiterated his administration's policy was to remove Saddam from power, while Blair, who faces some stiff opposition at home to direct military action against Iraq, said: ``Iraq would be a better place without Saddam Hussein.''

At a joint news conference after talks at Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, Blair said he was sure Saddam was developing weapons of mass destruction and had no doubt he would use them against his enemies without hesitation.

``The issue of weapons of mass destruction cannot be ducked. It is a threat. It is a danger to the world. We must heed that threat and act to prevent it being realized,'' Blair said.

Qusay, 35, was elected last year to the leadership of the Baath party, his first official party post. He was also named one of two deputy commanders of the Baath's military branch.

-------- israel / palestine

Bush to Sharon: pull troops out

April 7, 2002
By Joseph Curl
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020407-332082.htm

CRAWFORD, Texas - President Bush yesterday told Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that his forces must withdraw immediately from cities it has occupied in the West Bank.

A defiant Mr. Sharon said the nine-day military offensive dubbed "Operation Defensive Wall" will end "quickly" but did not pledge to begin withdrawing his troops immediately.

In a 20-minute phone conversation described as "tense" by White House aides, Mr. Bush told the Israeli leader he wanted action, not words.

"He told the prime minister that Israel needs to make progress now, and that Israel needed to defuse the situation so diplomacy can work," said a Bush administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Also, British Prime Minister Tony Blair is set today to give the clearest signal yet that the United States and Britain are prepared to begin a war against Iraq, newspapers in Britain reported, according to Agence France-Presse.

In a keynote speech after talks with Mr. Bush at the president's ranch in Texas, Mr. Blair will go further than ever before in public by declaring that failure to take action against Iraq is "not an option."

"Leaving Iraq to develop weapons of mass destruction - in flagrant breach of no less than nine United Nations Security Council resolutions, refusing to allow weapons inspectors back to do their work properly - is not an option," Mr. Blair will warn, according to the London Sunday Telegraph.

Diplomatic efforts to restart peace negotiations will resume this week as Secretary of State Colin L. Powell departs today on a mission to Europe and the Middle East.

Palestinian leaders, however, say Israel is using the time before Mr. Powell's arrival in the region at the end of the week to unleash "massacres" of its people, and called for urgent help from world leaders to stop the onslaught.

In the phone call, Mr. Sharon told Mr. Bush that "Israel will do all it can to bring a quick end to Operation Defensive Wall," the Israeli Prime Minister's office said in a statement. "Sharon said he understands the president's concern to finish the operation quickly."

The Israeli leader also said in his statement that Israel is operating under difficult conditions in the West Bank towns and villages where "there are a great deal of weapons, explosives and armed terrorists."

The Israeli statement was issued just hours after Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair held a joint press conference near the president's Texas ranch. Mr. Bush demanded that Israeli forces "withdraw without delay."

The president also called on "the Arab world" to take a more active role in pressuring Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to order an immediate cease-fire and crack down on terrorist activity.

"We agree that Israel should halt incursions into Palestinian-controlled areas, and begin to withdraw without delay from those cities it has recently occupied," said Mr. Bush. "As Israel steps back, we expect the Arab world to step up and lead - to lead against terror, to get into an immediate cease-fire."

Along with his firm directive to Mr. Arafat, Mr. Bush had a clear message for Mr. Sharon as well.

"I don't expect them to ignore I expect Israel to heed my advice," said Mr. Bush. But Mr. Sharon ignored the president's advice hours later.

Since Mr. Bush's first directive on Thursday for Israeli forces to withdraw, Israel's military has heightened its offensive. Yesterday, Israeli forces rounded up Palestinians and razed houses in the West Bank as Israeli jets and artillery hit targets across south Lebanon in retaliation for the most extensive guerrilla attacks on the Jewish state's armed forces since they withdrew from the area two years ago.

At least 50 Palestinians and five Israeli soldiers were killed yesterday in one of the most bloody days since Palestinian-Israeli violence erupted 18 months ago.

Coming on the heels of Vice President Richard B. Cheney's failed mission to the Middle East, Mr. Powell has no plans "at this moment" to meet with Mr. Arafat during his mission to the region, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Friday. Officials said that could change.

Despite the surge in violence, Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair urged Mr. Sharon to comply with the president's demand that Israeli forces be withdrawn "without delay."

As he has since a weeklong blitz of Palestinian suicide bombers left scores of Israeli civilians dead, Mr. Bush renewed his criticism of Mr. Arafat, who has not called for his followers to end the violence in his native tongue.

"In order to earn my trust, somebody must keep their word. And Chairman Arafat has not kept his word. He said he would fight off terror. He hasn't. He needs to speak clearly, in Arabic, to the people of that region and condemn terrorist activities," said the president.

"At the very minimum, he ought to at least say something," Mr. Bush said. "Chairman Arafat has failed in his leadership and he has let the people down. He had opportunity after opportunity to be a leader and he hasn't led."

Mr. Bush has grown increasingly frustrated with Mr. Arafat and in recent days has begun to call on Arab leaders to compel the Palestinian leader to crack down on Islamic militants and suicide bombers. Mr. Powell has said that during his trip he will warn centrist Arab leaders such as Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah II of Jordan that they will bear responsibility if Palestinian terrorism continues.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair also agreed the world would be a better place without Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, but neither said an effort to oust him from power was imminent.

"The world would be better off with him. I can't imagine people not seeing the threat and not holding Saddam Hussein accountable for what he said he would do," Mr. Bush said, referring to Saddam's pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.

The president said that "all options are on the table" for dealing with Saddam.

Mr. Blair said that Britain supports efforts to oust Saddam.

"Any sensible person looking at the position of Saddam Hussein and asking the question, 'Would the region, the world and, not least, the ordinary Iraqi people, be better off without the regime of Saddam Hussein?' the only answer anyone could give to that question would be yes," he said.

At the press conference, Mr. Bush also refuted an Associated Press story Friday that said he had accused former President Bill Clinton of helping create conditions for violence in the Middle East by pushing for peace in the 2000 summit at Camp David that failed.

"Somebody told me there's a story floating around that somehow I am blaming the Clinton administration for what's going on in the Middle East right now. I appreciate what President Clinton tried to do. He tried to bring peace to the Middle East. I am going to try to bring peace to the Middle East," the president said.

In an interview with a British journalist, Mr. Bush said Thursday, "It wasn't all that long ago where a summit was called and nothing happened, and as a result we had significant intifada in the area." White House aides said the criticism was aimed at Mr. Arafat, not Mr. Clinton.

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Powell Says Sharon Has Heard Bush's Message

New York Times
April 7, 2002
By CARLA BARANAUCKAS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/07/international/middleeast/07CND-POWE.html

As he was about to embark on his trip to the Middle East, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said he was pleased to hear that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was speeding up Israel's military operations in the West Bank while also emphasizing that the United States expected a withdrawal to begin "without delay."

"What the president asked Prime Minister Sharon to do was to begin the process of withdrawal and to do it now," Mr. Powell said in an interview on "Fox News Sunday." "I'm pleased to hear that the prime minister says he is expediting his operations."

President Bush announced on Thursday that he was dispatching Mr. Powell to the Middle East and called for Israel to begin withdrawing from the West Bank immediately. Mr. Bush reiterated his call for an Israeli withdrawal on Saturday in a news conference at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., and in a telephone conversation with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel.

Mr. Powell said that he spoke with Mr. Sharon early today and that he understood President Bush's message.

"I'm quite sure he understands that message and the president is expecting without delay, meaning now, and so you'll see how the prime minister responds in the very near future," Mr. Powell said, adding that no specific deadline had been discussed.

Asked whether the accelerated pace of military operations in the West Bank was inconsistent with Mr. Bush's call for a withdrawal, the secretary of state said: "The president doesn't give orders to a sovereign prime minister of another country. But as one of Israel's best friends and most supportive friends, I think Prime Minister Sharon has taken very much to heart and he understands clearly the message the president gave to him."

Mr. Powell said the United States understood Israel's right to defend itself in the wake of a series of suicide bombings, including the bombing of a hotel in Netanya, Israel, where more than 200 people had gathered for their Passover holiday meal. "Israel acted in its own self-defense, something that the prime minister has every right to do," Mr. Powell said. "The people of Israel expect the prime minister to act in the self-defense of the society. And he acted because of the massacre that took place on Passover eve, yet another horrible incident where some 27 people died."

Yet he cautioned that the force of Israel's response could have long-lasting effects, "radicalizing a new generation."

"Israel, in this current operation, will certainly round up terrorists, will find incriminating information, will find weapons," Mr. Powell said. "But when the operation is over and they withdraw, as they say they are going to do, they will still leave behind those who are committed to violence. In fact, they may leave more behind as a result of the radicalization."

The secretary of state leaves on his trip this evening, stopping first in Morocco, Egypt and Spain, before arriving in Jerusalem on Thursday.

In an interview this morning on the NBC News program "Meet the Press," he said his goal on this trip was to secure a cease-fire between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

"Until there is a cease-fire, until the violence goes down, hopefully to zero but at least to a level where you can see that both sides are acting in a responsible way and trying to cooperate under a cease-fire, you're not going to get to a peace agreement," Mr. Powell said.

He added: "The only solution is a political solution, one that will allow both peoples to live in peace in separate states: one a Jewish state called Israel, the other one a Palestinian state called Palestine. That must be our goal and no matter how difficult the situation looks today, we must not lose sight of that vision."

He said he would try to meet with the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat, who has been isolated in his compound in Ramallah by the Israeli military action.

"If circumstances permit, if the opportunity presents itself, I would try to see Chairman Arafat as well as other Palestinian leaders," Mr. Powell said. "I have to be able to talk to all sides, otherwise you will never move forward into a cease-fire and into a political solution."

In an interview on the CBS News program "Face the Nation," the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, also emphasized President Bush's request that Israel withdraw its forces.

"The message is very clear," Ms. Rice said. "Israel is our friend and this American friend of Israel is saying that it is time to begin the withdrawal without delay because the fundamentals for peace are themselves at risk here. And the president is going to continue to deliver that message. And he expects results."

She said the administration understood that it takes some time to halt military operations once they are under way. "The clear message to the Israelis, is that we understand that a military mobilization of this kind and operation of this size, cannot be undone in moments, but the important point is to begin now, without delay," she said. "Not tomorrow, not when Secretary Powell gets to the region, but now, to reverse the situation, because there's a lot at stake here. And Israel is not able to secure itself alone. It needs the support of its neighbors."

--------

Israel Presses Ahead in the West Bank, but Fight May Soon End

April 7, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html

NABLUS, West Bank -- Israeli troops fought fierce battles with Palestinians in the West Bank on Sunday, encountering stiff resistance in the crowded Jenin refugee camp and in the winding alleyways of Nablus' Old City.

At least 14 Palestinians were killed in Nablus, where dead bodies were sprawled along narrow, rubble-filled streets on the 10th day of Israel's offensive to weed out militants staging deadly terror attacks on its civilians. The renewed fighting came as Secretary of State Colin Powell, due in the region this week to try to resolve the crisis, said that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has ``taken very much to heart'' President Bush's call Saturday for an immediate withdrawal from Palestinian areas.

But Powell noted that the Israeli leader has yet to set a timetable for a pullback and Bush has not demanded one. ``The president doesn't give orders to a sovereign prime minister of another country,'' Powell said on NBC's ``Meet the Press.''

In a 20-minute phone call late Saturday, Sharon told Bush the Israeli army would ``expedite'' the mission.

At the beginning of the weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday, Sharon defended the offensive, calling it ``a war for our homes.''

``We have no interest in dragging it out, but we have to do the job,'' Sharon told Israel TV.

With international pressure mounting and the U.N. Security Council scheduling consultations on the crisis later Sunday, there were hints of friction between the Israeli government and its military command. Officers sought more time for the West Bank military operation, but Cabinet ministers talked of bringing it to an end.

Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said the military should operate as long as possible to ``clean out terrorism'' in the West Bank, but acknowledged that in light of Bush's demand, ``our hourglass is running out.''

However, the army's Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz told the Cabinet he needed eight weeks to complete the job, according to Israel Radio.

``The critical element is time,'' he said later in a briefing to reporters. ``We need time to get to all the centers of terrorism in the West Bank and Gaza.''

Maj. Gen. Dan Harel, chief of military planning, warned that if the army pulls out too soon, ``then another series of devastating terror attacks will hit Israel's cities and streets. And then we'll go (back) in.''

Israeli troops have taken over most Palestinian population centers in the West Bank in their 10-day-old offensive, Israel's biggest in two decades. But the fighters in Jenin and Nablus have prevented the Israelis from taking full control of the cities and conducting house-to-house searches for militants, as has been the case elsewhere in the West Bank.

Powell said both sides would have to do more to end the fighting.

``Until the violence goes down at least to a level where you can see that both sides are acting in a responsible way and trying to cooperate in a cease-fire, you're not going to get to a peace agreement,'' Powell said.

He said he would meet with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat ``if circumstances permit'' -- depending on security, access and the meeting agenda.

Israeli tanks and troops maintained their positions just outside Arafat's office in the town of Ramallah, but for the fourth straight day the fighting was focused on Nablus and Jenin in the northern part of the West Bank.

Palestinians said gunmen held Israeli troops at bay on the edge of the Old City in Nablus, with its winding, dusty alleys and close-packed buildings, ideal locations for snipers. Israel called in attack helicopters to fight the entrenched gunmen.

Israeli tanks were shelling targets in Nablus on Sunday afternoon, witnesses said. At least 14 Palestinians were killed during the day's fighting, Palestinians said.

Nablus Governor Mahmoud Aloul said there were dead bodies in an old mosque and 65 of the wounded were receiving treatment there because ambulances could not get in.

Among those killed Sunday was Ahmed Tabouk, 38, a militia leader linked to Arafat's Fatah movement. His body was in a field as gunbattles kept Palestinians from retrieving it.

It was a similar scene in the Nablus streets, where Palestinians could not remove the dead bodies of fallen fighters because of the intense shooting. The streets are carpeted with fragments of stone and cement that have been blasted from buildings, and the Palestinians have set up burning tire barricades to obscure the vision of Israeli troops.

``We have found explosives laboratories, including one which was very advanced and well equipped, with a production line from the raw materials to the finished product,'' said Israeli Col. Aviv Kochavi, head of the paratroops brigade fighting in the Old City.

``We are moving forward slowly but surely, mostly on foot,'' he said. ``Here and there we managed to get armored vehicles in, where the street was wide enough.''

Israel has barred reporters from Nablus and other areas where the military is operating in the West Bank, though the measure has not been enforced consistently.

There was also fierce fighting in the Jenin refugee camp, 25 miles north of Nablus, where the militant Hamas group said one of its local leaders, Ashraf Abu Al Haijga, was killed in a gunfight with the Israelis.

Israeli soldiers fought their way to the center of the Jenin camp Sunday morning, Israel Radio reported.

Army spokesman Brig. Gen. Ron Kitrey told The Associated Press that ``we are on the verge of ending the fighting in the refugee camp.'' But he added that soldiers would seek to round up militants and would not immediately leave the area. ``The resistance was very tough, perhaps tougher than expected,'' he said.

In the camp, a leader of the militant Hamas, Abdel Salaam, said people are confined to their homes. ``We are talking to each other through windows only when the shelling stops,'' he said in a call on his mobile phone.

Since the Israeli incursion began March 29, more than 95 Palestinians have been killed in West Bank fighting, along with more than 10 Israeli soldiers. Also, 1,413 Palestinians have been detained, including 361 who were on Israel's wanted lists, and more than 1,400 rifles have been confiscated, the military said in a statement.

In Bethlehem, a standoff between Israeli forces and gunmen and clerics holed up in the Church of the Nativity continued for a sixth day. Through the night, Israeli soldiers using loudspeakers demanded that the gunmen surrender, but they remained inside the church marking the traditional birthplace of Jesus.

In Gaza, meanwhile, Israeli soldiers shot and killed two Palestinians who were planting a large bomb near a Jewish settlement, the military said.

Also, guerrillas in Lebanon opened fire on Israeli border posts, wounding six soldiers, including four women, the military said. The Israelis responded with artillery and tank fire. Sharon charged that Iran and Syria were trying to widen the Palestinian-Israeli fighting to another front, and Mofaz said Israel would hit back at Lebanese power centers if ``red lines are crossed.''

--------

Potent Explosives Fortify Palestinian Arsenal

New York Times
April 7, 2002
By DOUGLAS FRANTZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/07/international/middleeast/07ARMS.html

TEL AVIV, April 6 - The Palestinian militants battling the Israeli Army in the West Bank lack the basic weapons available to the world's guerrilla armies: antitank guns, missiles and land mines that can cripple armored vehicles.

But Israeli intelligence officials say they have evidence that the Palestinians have recently augmented their limited arsenal with significantly more powerful, military-grade explosives that appear to have been smuggled into the territories.

Israeli officials said a forensic examination of two massive explosive charges used to cripple Israeli tanks in the Gaza Strip in February and March found traces of RDX, an explosive that is much more potent than the rudimentary bombs previously detonated by the Palestinians.

Officials said they did not know where the Palestinians obtained the military-grade explosives or how much they had.

Security officers said two suicide bombs - one on March 27 in Netanya that killed 26 people, another four days later in Haifa that killed 15 - were also more expertly built than previous devices and appeared to have more powerful explosives. The bombs contained longer and better-packed nails to increase deaths and injuries, a senior officer said.

Israeli security authorities attributed the lethality of the attacks in Netanya and Haifa to the improved explosives and training provided by Hezbollah guerrillas, who have vowed to help the Palestinians with weapons and expertise.

The Islamic militant group Hamas claimed responsibility for the attacks, and one of its leaders boasted this week that his group had obtained military-grade explosives but declined to provide details.

"Those blasts were more powerful and effective than anything we have seen before," said an American official in the region. "The Palestinians have learned some new tricks."

Still, the Palestinians are badly overmatched in weapons. The relative paucity of high-powered weapons discovered in the Israeli incursions underscores the contention by Palestinian militants that suicide bombers are their only means of countering one of the world's best-equipped armies, which uses heavily armored tanks and American-supplied warplanes and helicopter gunships to dominate the conflict.

The Palestinians' inability to obtain antitank missiles or mines has been evident in recent days as column after column of Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers rolled into town squares and encircled the headquarters of Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader.

An Israeli security cordon around the Palestinian-controlled areas has limited the opportunities for smuggling heavy arms, leaving Palestinian militants to rely on local workshops and laboratories to produce explosives and short-range rockets that have proven largely ineffective against the Israeli military. The explosives are typically less powerful than military versions, and the so-called Qassam rockets made by local machine shops are notoriously inaccurate and have limited range.

The information about the weaponry is based on interviews with Israeli officials and is consistent with what witnesses have reported seeing and what the Palestinians themselves have been saying.

Israeli officials said troops searching house by house in the West Bank had found a dozen or so rudimentary workshops for building bombs, relatively few heavy machine guns and some rocket-propelled grenades, a common weapon for attacking tanks and armored vehicles.

Israeli officials said the Palestinians had smuggled small quantities of high-powered weapons into the country. They said a search of Mr. Arafat's compound uncovered a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and 43 bombs, three Russian-made sniper rifles with telescopic sites and assorted other weapons.

Officials said the raids also uncovered evidence that a top Palestinian Authority official apparently controlled access to the rocket-propelled grenades, according to a document discovered in the compound and provided by Israeli authorities to The New York Times.

The document was a receipt on the letterhead of Fuad Shobaki, the chief financial officer for military operations of the Palestine Liberation Organization and a member of Mr. Arafat's inner circle. Dated Nov. 18, 2001, it was signed by a Palestinian militia officer to acknowledge that Mr. Shobaki had provided him with 20 RPG-7's, a version of the antitank grenade.

Another document that the Israelis said was found in Mr. Shobaki's office outlined an ambitious plan to build a $100,000 workshop to make artillery rockets and mortars for Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, a militant wing of Mr. Arafat's Fatah faction.

Israeli intelligence analysts are trying to use serial numbers and seized documents to trace the origins of the grenade launcher and other weapons from Mr. Arafat's compound, officials said.

Israeli officials suspect that some small arms and explosives have been smuggled into Israel through a network of tunnels in Rafah, the divided city in the southern Gaza Strip that straddles the border with Egypt, the Israeli authorities said.

Israeli intelligence officials said Bedouins in the Sinai desert sent weapons, drugs and other contraband through the tunnels. The Israelis said the Egyptian authorities had tried to limit the smuggling, but they acknowledged that the task was difficult. "It's a wide-open desert," an Israeli security official said.

The Israelis have tried to close the tunnels by knocking down houses to create a no man's land in sections of Rafah so that use of the tunnels cannot be hidden in houses. United Nations and Western aid officials have condemned razing houses.

Smuggling occurs over the borders with Lebanon and Jordan, but the authorities in Israel and Jordan said the amounts were believed to be small because of heavy patrols.

Closer to home, Palestinians have obtained weapons from Israeli criminals. A former Israeli security officer was accused last year of selling Palestinians dozens of assault rifles stolen from an arsenal on a kibbutz. But officials said the sales did not include high-grade explosives or heavy weapons.

Sea routes, often a means of obtaining larger weapons, have been blocked fairly effectively. On Jan. 3, the Israelis say, they prevented the Palestinian forces from obtaining 50 tons of weapons when commandos boarded a freighter, the Karine A. Israeli and American intelligence officers said Mr. Shobaki was one of the Palestinian officials who arranged the arms shipment with Iran.

The cargo contained weapons that the Palestinians have been unable to obtain - antitank mines and missiles, two tons of TNT and C-4 explosives, hundreds of rocket-propelled grenades and launchers, and Katyusha rockets that can reach most Israeli cities from the West Bank and Gaza.

Israeli officials say the Palestinian militants have also turned for help to Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based guerrilla group financed and trained by Iran and Syria. The group's leader recently called on all Arab countries to help arm the Palestinians.

American and Israeli intelligence officers said members of two Palestinian militant groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, had been trained at Hezbollah camps in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon. That training, they said, showed up in two particularly lethal suicide attacks late last month.

In the seaside resort of Netanya, a bomb nearly destroyed the dining room of the Park Hotel. Four days later, a similar blast blew the roof off a restaurant in Haifa.

Similarly, two huge blasts in Gaza were the first successful attacks on Israeli tanks by Palestinians.

"We know they have RDX in Gaza," a senior officer said. "We don't know how it got there."

-------- pakistan

Main Pakistan Alliance Rejects Musharraf Referendum

April 7, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-pakistan-alliance.html

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan's main political alliance announced a formal boycott Sunday of a referendum military ruler General Pervez Musharraf plans to hold next month on whether he should stay in office.

The 15-party Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) said it would hold rallies to counter Musharraf's campaign for the referendum and had asked ex-prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif to end their exile and return home to strengthen the opposition challenge.

``We have decided to boycott it,'' ARD chief Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan told a news conference after a meeting of the grouping, which includes the country's two main political parties -- Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party and Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League.

``We have outrightly rejected this referendum and we consider it extra-constitutional, (and) illegal,'' Khan said.

Musharraf, who seized power in an army coup in October 1999 toppling Sharif, announced Friday he would hold the referendum in the first week of May to get a popular decision whether he should stay in office beyond national elections due in October.

He also said Bhutto and Sharif would be barred from October's elections, saying they had no role in Pakistani politics and only wanted to come home to loot the country.

An alliance of Islamic parties has also rejected the referendum, although some smaller parties have said they support Musharraf's plan.

Khan said an alliance of regional parties -- Pakistan Oppressed Nationalities Movement -- and human rights groups had also assured ARD of their support in opposing the referendum.

``The whole nation is united, it does not accept the referendum,'' he said.

REFERENDUM CONDEMNED AS UNCONSTITUTIONAL

Critics oppose Musharraf's move partly on the grounds that the constitution stipulates the president must be elected by members of the two-chamber parliament and four provincial assemblies. They also say Musharraf should not stand for president while remaining army chief of staff.

Musharraf said Friday he would amend the constitution by decree, but would not interfere with a Supreme Court ruling that upheld his 1999 coup and gave him three years to hand over to an elected government.

Khan disputed Musharraf's pledges to establish ``real democracy,'' and said the general had actually concentrated all power in himself by holding the offices of army chief, chief executive, president and chairman of National Security Council.

``Is this is the restoration of democracy?'' he asked.

Khan said the ARD had requested Bhutto and Sharif to end their foreign exile, but had left it to their parties to decide when they should return home.

Bhutto has lived abroad since early 1999 for fear of being arrested after a court convicted her of corruption. But the Supreme Court canceled that judgement last year and ordered a retrial, which has yet to start.

She has promised to come home to contest October's elections.

Sharif was convicted on two charges after the coup, but Musharraf pardoned him in December 2000 and sent him into a 10-year exile in Saudi Arabia.

-------- russia / chechnya

Russian Lab Storing Germs Faces Cutoff of Electricity

New York Times
April 7, 2002
By PATRICK E. TYLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/07/international/europe/07RUSS.html

MOSCOW - A large repository of anthrax, plague and other deadly bacteria stored in a high-security laboratory complex 100 miles south of here is facing a threat never imagined in the Soviet era - the meter man.

An official from the Moscow region's Mosenergo electric utility arrived recently and threatened to turn off the electricity for lack of payment at the 90-building campus, which served as the secret biological weapons program of the Soviet era.

A headline in the newspaper Izvestia warned, "Deadly Viruses From a Moscow Regional Depository Threaten Moscow."

Actually, there are no viruses at the State Scientific Center of Applied Microbiology in Obolensk, just every kind of deadly bacteria that was studied for use in the secret biological weapons program of the Soviet Union. (A large virus repository is in Siberia.)

Russian and Western officials say that while it is unlikely that any public health threat would result from a power cutoff, there is enough uncertainty that none were willing to say that categorically.

"We have quite reliable systems of protection in case of emergency," Gen. Nikolai N. Urakov said by telephone. He is the longtime director of the center, which has been working with Western scientists to convert the complex into a biomedical manufacturing site.

"But we are scared by this threat of a sudden shutdown of electricity," he added, "because it is a kind of psychological pressure on us." In the event of a shutdown, he said, scientists must destroy all bacteriological experiments under way.

About 3,000 strains of bacteria are stored at the center, many of them in cryogenic casks cooled with liquid nitrogen and isolated from the environment by layered enclosures and oversize air-handling systems, and all dependent on electricity.

The greatest danger from a shutdown of electric power would be the defrosting of live germs now preserved in a frozen state.

"The main threat is to the organisms themselves rather than that they might escape," said Raymond Zilinskas, a biological warfare expert at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. "Under the worst case, these things would be defrosted from minus 70 degrees, and it would be a real mess to clean it up afterward because you wouldn't know for sure whether everything was dead."

General Urakov would like the United States and Western countries that have contributed about $6 million to the transformation of the bioweapons complex to throw in another $500,000 a year to pay the center's electric bills and arrears. An American scientist who works closely with the center said the Russian government was responsible for keeping the lights on.

The confrontation at Obolensk is another example of how the basic capitalist imperative for enterprises to be self-sustaining can clash, often alarmingly, with the old remnants of Soviet weapons science.

Two years ago, because of an overdue power bill, the Russian national power company cut electricity to a strategic base where nuclear missiles stood on high alert, though the silos themselves did not lose power. Armed troops marched to the substations and turned the power back on.

Last January and February, the national utility, United Energy Systems, cut power to a number of military installations around the country, including the Russian Space Forces monitoring center on the Kamchatka Peninsula.

In most cases, power has been quickly restored. Often investigations show that the tug of war with the utility forces the military to spend budgeted funds for electrical power instead of diverting money to to other uses, which at times have included building country residences for generals.

Western aid for conversion of General Urakov's bioweapons laboratory spiked in 1997, when it was learned that Iran had made overtures to the institute to purchase its expertise.

Russian scientists and military leaders who now depend on Western financing to destroy nuclear, chemical and biological weapons have been known to orchestrate a sense of crisis to increase financing.

But Randall Lee Beatty, an American scientist working on the conversion of the Obolensk facility, said, "This is a crisis."

Mr. Beatty is a director of the International Science and Technology Center, which finances about half of General Urakov's budget to support about 350 Russian biowarfare scientists and technicians. "We know they have not paid their electricity bill for 14 months," he said. "But this is one of the important archives for dangerous pathogens in the world, and it would be a shame if it were destroyed for not paying the light bill."

-------- un

U.N. Agency on Population Blames U.S. for Cutbacks

New York Times
April 7, 2002
By BARBARA CROSSETTE
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/07/international/07NATI.html

UNITED NATIONS - The Bush administration's decision to withhold $34 million appropriated by Congress for the United Nations Population Fund because of accusations that it condones forced abortions in China is causing the agency to cut its staff and shelve new programs, fund officials said this week.

A spokesman for the fund, Stirling Scruggs, said that according to its estimates of how the loss of $34 million would affect the recipients of family planning aid, "this could mean 2 million unwanted pregnancies, 800,000 induced abortions, 4,700 maternal deaths and 77,000 infant and child deaths."

Agency officials, including the fund's executive director, Thoraya Obaid, say the loss of a major part of its budget comes at a time when demands for contraceptives are rising in the developing world, where women are increasingly taking charge of their reproductive lives.

In a speech on Monday to the United Nations Commission on Population and Development, Ms. Obaid said that 120 million women who wanted to space births or stop having children were unable to get contraceptives. Demand is expected to rise by 40 percent over the next 15 years.

"Today, we are faced with a paradox," she said. "The need for reproductive health services is great and growing. At the same time, the funding for such services is declining."

Japan and Denmark, two other large contributors to the fund, have reduced contributions this year, citing budgetary constraints, but on a much smaller scale than the United States, which had been the fund's largest donor.

The American contribution, the equivalent of 13 percent of the agency's $260 million budget for 2002, was frozen after Representative Christopher H. Smith, a Republican of New Jersey and one of the most outspoken abortion opponents in Congress, wrote to President Bush in December charging that the population fund acquiesced in Chinese birth control policies that include forced abortions and involuntary sterilization.

The accusation that United Nations money was supporting these Chinese policies was made by the Population Research Institute, an organization that was founded by Human Life International, an anti-abortion group with branches in dozens of countries.

The research institute said a team of its investigators had evidence that American money was being used "illegally" by the population fund for forced abortions, forced contraception and forced sterilization.

The population fund has long responded to these criticisms by arguing that its work in China is limited to counties where the one-child family policy is no longer enforced. It also says that it does not use American money for Chinese programs.

Ms. Obaid went to Washington in January to ask the Bush administration to reconsider its freeze on the $34 million. After that, fund officials say, the administration said it would send a fact-finding delegation to China to settle once and for all the recurrent questions about United Nations family planning work there. That delegation has not yet been formed, officials here have been told.

Amy Coen, the president of Population Action International, a private organization in Washington that focuses on voluntary population planning and related health issues, criticized the freeze as motivated by domestic politics.

"When the most powerful president in the world will not release money already allocated to prevent unwanted pregnancy, to stop the spread of H.I.V./AIDS, for the poorest citizens in the world," she said, "where is the morality in that? This is pure politics."

The population fund has programs that supply condoms to men in groups at high risk for H.I.V./AIDS, and these expenditures may also be cut, fund officials say. Supplies are already scarce.

"Last year in sub-Saharan Africa, there were just three condoms for every man," Ms. Obaid said in her speech on Monday.

Patrick Friel, the fund's expert on contraceptive services, said in an interview on Thursday that demands for condoms for use outside marriage amounted to $297 million this year. If condoms dispensed within family planning programs for married couples are added to that, there would be a need worth $954 million.

Female condoms are also being distributed as widely as possible to women who can use them as both a contraceptive and a second line of defense against sexually transmitted diseases, Mr. Friel said.

-------- us

What's next?

April 7, 2002
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020407-25436291.htm

President Bush has positioned troops in and around eight nations on three continents to directly take on international terrorists in a global war that will last at least until 2005, the end of his first term.

American commandos and conventional forces are in Europe, Central Asia, the Persian Gulf, east Africa and Asia on simultaneous anti-terror deployments. Some are hunting and killing terrorists, as in Afghanistan's emerging guerrilla war. Others are telling local armies how to do the same.

Broadening from the initial Afghanistan clash, the war is placing additional strains on an armed forces already taxed by a decade of peacekeeping and major air offenses. The war's cost, and open-ended nature, is drawing cautious criticism from Democrats as the price tag exceeds $1 billion a month.

But the public stands firmly behind Mr. Bush, who has racked up record-setting job-approval ratings. A majority concurs with the war's central theme: If Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network is not destroyed, its violent, suicidal operatives will strike U.S. shores again, perhaps with weapons of mass destruction.

"My view is that we need to continue the all-out focus on destroying the international terrorist network in all its manifestations, and we need also to be very wary about getting bogged down in nation-building in any one country," said James Webb, a former Navy secretary and decorated Marine in Vietnam.

Mr. Webb cautioned that it is difficult to make judgments on future missions without access to internal intelligence reports. But the best-selling author expressed a firm opinion on Afghanistan: The United States should not get bogged down in the country's internal affairs.

"We have succeeded in changing the government in Afghanistan, but we will not change its culture, including its tribal-military culture," he said. "It is important to internationalize the 'mopping up' military activities there, and it seems to me that this is what is happening. Then we need to preserve our military capabilities by getting out and moving on."

Taking on Saddam

The biggest struggle may lie ahead, however. The September 11 attacks on America crystallized the continuing threat of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who, government intelligence reports say, is determined to possess nuclear weapons. Some in the Pentagon argue privately that Mr. Bush's declared war on terrorism cannot claim victory until Saddam is toppled from power, and the action must come before the president's first term ends to ensure the job gets done.

But plans for taking on Saddam grew complicated in recent weeks as Israel declared war against Palestinian militants and sent troops into key West Bank towns.

"I think Iraq is going to be down the road a little anyway," said James Phillips, a Middle East analyst at the Heritage Foundation. "Assuming that [the Israeli-Palestinian conflict] is still going on, then it certainly won't help. It will make it harder for the United States to extract cooperation from the Arab world. But fortunately, if the war is short and sharp, extensive cooperation will not be needed. If the United States can attract cooperation from Kuwait and Turkey [that border Iraq], that probably would be enough."

Throughout the war on terrorism, Mr. Bush and his aides have continued to state that Saddam poses a threat to U.S. national security, and that he must be stopped.

"All options are on the table," Mr. Bush declared recently. "But one thing I will not allow is a nation such as Iraq to threaten our very future by developing weapons of mass destruction."

"We just cannot continue living with this threat over our heads for years and years," added Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz on CNN.

The U.S. military's far-flung missions can be divided into three categories: direct combat such as the cave-to-cave warfare in Afghanistan; training and advising surrogates, such as helping the Philippine military destroy the Abu Sayyaf terrorist army; and watch and wait, such as what ships and surveillance aircraft are doing around the east African country of Somalia, a possible haven for fleeing al Qaeda fighters.

Diplomatically, Washington is holding up the fate of Afghanistan's now-ousted Taliban regime as a "stick" to spur other leaders to rid their nations of terrorists who possess "global reach."

Mr. Bush, speaking on the six-month anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that killed about 3,000 persons, said the United States had entered "the second stage of the war on terror." He described phase two as "a sustained campaign to deny sanctuary to terrorists who would threaten our citizens from anywhere in the world."

Addressing the question of what's next in the war on terrorism, Mr. Bush asserted: "I have set a clear policy in the second stage of the war on terror. America encourages and expects governments everywhere to help remove the terrorist parasites that threaten their own countries and the peace of the world."

The president remained vague on any new war theater. In fact, besides Iraq, there appear to be few additional options for U.S. military strikes. These new theaters may involve law-enforcement work and intelligence collection - not combat.

Capturing al Qaeda members

Somalia, which once hosted active terrorist training camps, seems dormant today, according to Somali and U.S. officials. Army Green Berets have trained for possible missions in that country but so far lack any hard targets, officials said.

Yusuf Hassan Ibrahim, Somalia's foreign minister in a transition government that is trying to unify the country's various warring factions, said U.S. diplomats have toured the country and found no active camps.

"We cooperated with the international community to find out whether there are camps for al Qaeda or not," Mr. Ibrahim said in an interview. "It is a positive assessment. There are no camps in Somalia."

The United States will not put military advisers in Indonesia, home to 200 million Muslims, to eradicate al Qaeda cells in that country. Senior officials compare Indonesia to Western countries who unwittingly play host to these cells and want to eliminate them through law-enforcement actions. Officials say there is no evidence that terrorists fleeing Afghanistan ended up in Indonesia.

Much of phase two will involve a mix of intelligence collection and sharing, coupled with law enforcement. The hope is to capture al Qaeda members in small groups, such as the recent operations in Singapore that led to the arrest of suspects. The operations were based on information derived from searches in Afghanistan.

"Fighting terrorists is not unlike bird hunting," said John Hillen, who fought as an Army captain in the 1991 Persian Gulf war and advised the 2000 Bush campaign. "You use your dogs - intelligence agencies, customs, treasury, special ops - to find and flush the birds and then you pounce and shoot with the military. I think at this stage we've got all the dogs out and are hunting a lot of different fields, including the United States, in order to scare up some birds."

Today, there are enough active anti-terror theaters to keep the U.S. military busy for the rest of Mr. Bush's term:

•Afghanistan. Once al Qaeda's "home sweet home," this impoverished Central Asian country will require a significant U.S. security presence for a decade. There are 6,000 U.S. troops in the region, as well as more than 2,000 British soldiers and hundreds more from key allies, such as Australia and Germany. Gen. Tommy Franks, the U.S. Central Command head who is overseeing the war in Afghanistan, wants to keep two carrier battle groups in the region, plus scores of Air Force strike aircraft nearby.

With the Taliban regime ousted from Kabul and bin Laden himself on the run, the U.S. military's day-to-day task is to watch for clusters of al Qaeda fighters and kill them. There could be more than 1,000 al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in eastern Afghanistan and its neighbor, Pakistan. Their game plan: orchestrate a guerrilla war, wear down the American "invaders" and retake power one day.

"This effort's going to last for some considerable period of time," Vice President Richard B. Cheney told CNN. "There's a temptation, I think, because there's not an active bombing campaign under way on any particular day, for people who want to run out and say, 'well, it's over with.' It's not. This is a long-term commitment. We have to make certain we get a good government stood up in Afghanistan, that it can never again become a sanctuary for a terrorist organization like al Qaeda."

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is resisting a deep military involvement in Afghanistan. He opposes the deployment of a large international peacekeeping force there. Officials say he is wary of creating big targets for al Qaeda and hard-core Taliban fighters to attack in a protracted guerrilla war. He also wants the bulk of peace enforcement left to other countries, while American troops lead the rooting-out war.

Gen. Franks said he has no plans to put in the thousands of troops it would take to better seal the Pakistan border to prevent al Qaeda members from escaping.

"I will tell you that in the nine or 10 years of Soviet experience in Afghanistan, they put 620,000 soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "And I think the results of that particular approach to the Afghan problem are recorded well in history."

•Yemen. Washington plans to send scores of military personnel to this Arabian Peninsula country to train security forces. President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has sought closer ties with the West, has assured the U.S. administration that he wants an end to the presence of radical Islamic groups in his country. He already has dispatched troops to kill suspected al Qaeda members.

Bin Laden has a loyal base of recruits in ungoverned regions of the country along the border with Saudi Arabia. It was in this area that al Qaeda members planned the 2000 bombing of the destroyer USS Cole.

"We will help Yemeni forces with both training and equipment to prevent that land from becoming a haven for terrorists," Mr. Bush said. "We are working to prevent the possibility of another Afghanistan."

•Sudan. The radical government in that country once provided bin Laden a haven after he was expelled from the land of his birthplace by Saudi Arabia's royal family. But Sudan is promising to cooperate with the U.S. war on terrorism and may have arrested some key al Qaeda operatives who fled Afghanistan.

Sudan served as an al Qaeda base in the early 1990s. Mohammed Atef, bin Laden's director of operations, traveled from that country to Somalia in 1993 to show locals how to wage guerilla war against American troops trying to reverse rampant famine. Atef was killed in a U.S. Navy air strike south of Kabul in November.

Bin Laden wore out his welcome in 1996 and repositioned his al Qaeda network back in Afghanistan, where he had fought with the mujahideen against the occupying Soviet army in the 1980s.

A U.S. defense official said, "Terrorists continue to use Sudan as a safe haven. Terrorists there include individuals from al Qaeda, Egyptian and Palestinian terrorist organizations."

•Somalia. This Horn of Africa nation, across the Sea of Yemen, once seemed like the next target for U.S. air strikes and commando raids. But months of surveillance flights have yet to detect any al Qaeda operations there.

Mr. Ibrahim, the transition government's foreign minister, said he dispatched aides to inspect the country and collect information from local nomadic tribesmen. No trace of al Qaeda camps turned up, he said. "Even the term 'al Qaeda' is the first time the politicians have heard about it," he adds. "There's no justification for United States forces to attack. There is no threat of camps existing in the country."

Asked if bin Laden would be welcomed in Somalia, Mr. Ibrahim said, "Absolutely not."

But the transitional government holds sway only in Mogadishu and some southern cities, and may not be able to keep al Qaeda members out.

Said a U.S. defense official: "The transitional national government controls little territory, has only small, relatively poorly trained and equipped military and police forces, has little influence in the countryside and almost no real capability to fight terrorism."

U.S. officials are concerned about the Somali Islamic Union, or al-Ittihaad al-Islamiya (AIAI). This group contains Islamic extremists who want to impose a Muslim government on the country.

The defense official says Somalia's lack of a central government or adequate security forces makes it "a potential haven for some al Qaeda terrorist members."

•Georgia. The war took an unexpected turn here last month, when Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze asked for help in training his forces to combat terrorists who operated on the Pankisi Gorge, near the Russian border. The United States plans to send 150 troops to train Georgians in retaking control of this lawless region.

•The Philippines. This east Asian nation is playing host to the second largest deployment of U.S. forces in the war on terrorism. Nearly 600 U.S. soldiers are currently there, helping the country's armed forces directly fight the Abu Sayyaf, a vicious al Qaeda-linked terrorist group that kidnaps and beheads civilians and is dedicated to the overthrow of Manila's democratic government.

U.S. troops are under orders not to directly engage the enemy on its base, the Basilan Island. They must remain relatively high up the chain of command, at the battalion headquarters level, in training the locals. They maintain radio contact with Philippine troops. U.S. surveillance aircraft have helped the local army pinpoint and attack guerrillas.

•Colombia. The Bush administration excludes the South American country from the war on global terrorism. But in practice, Bogata will become an ally in the war if Congress approves the White House's new request to let U.S.-trained and -financed Colombian military brigades attack rebel groups. U.S. law and policy now restrict use of American military aid to counter-narcotics operations.

The main enemy is the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The left-wing army of 17,000 is a U.S.-designated terror group that controls much of Colombia's cocaine production.

There are now 250 U.S. military personnel in Colombia. A shift in policy would likely require an additional 100 U.S. troops.

•Iraq. Mr. Bush has labeled Saddam's regime as forming part of an "axis of evil." But whether the president believes Saddam harbors terrorists with "global reach," and thus will be attacked by U.S. forces in the immediate future, remains an open question.

As the war on terrorism expands, some senior U.S. military officers are raising warning flares that the 1.37 million armed forces are being stretched too thin.

Adm. Dennis Blair, who retires this spring as head of Hawaii-based U.S. Pacific Command, said the Afghanistan campaign has left him short of forces needed to carry out contingencies in the Pacific. The Pacific has been without a Navy carrier battle group "for quite some time," Adm. Blair told Congress. He said he compensated by moving tactical aircraft from Alaska to South Korea.

Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston, who commands NATO and all U.S. troops in Europe, echoed Adm. Blair's warning. Gen. Ralston said his theater is short on surveillance aircraft and has lacked a Marine amphibious ready group and carrier since the war in Afghanistan began Oct. 7. "We do not have forces to do the missions you have outlined," Gen. Ralston testified in response to a question from Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.

Army Gen. William Kernan, who heads Norfolk-based U.S. Joint Forces Command, told Congress of an "overstretched military." Stocks of precision-guided munitions have dropped to "unacceptably low levels."

He testified the Army needs 40,000 more troops, the Air Force 6,000, the Navy 3,000 and the Marine Corps 2,400.

Navy Adm. Robert Natter, who commands the Atlantic Fleet, revealed to reporters a not-too-well-kept secret: Navy air wings bombing Afghanistan nearly ran out of kits that turn a "dumb" bomb into a satellite or laser-guided munition. "We damn near ran out in Afghanistan," he said.

The Pentagon is rushing production of more kits, particularly the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) that finds its targets via the global position system.

The dwindling stocks have spurred some military analysts to fear the United States will not be ready to fight a war in Iraq.

Alarmed, the Pentagon is asking Congress for an immediate authorization of $377 million in the current budget to increase the JDAM production rate to 1,500 a month by June, and 2,800 per month by August 2003, an 87 percent boost.

"During Operation Enduring Freedom, the department expended JDAMs at a faster rate than current production was capable of replacing," the White House told Congress.


-------- POLICE / PRISONERS

Israel court ruling confirms denial of prisoners' rights

By Harvey Morris in Jerusalem
April 7 2002
http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT3Q4W46RZC&live=true&tagid=IXLT95DZ1BC

The Israeli Supreme Court refused to overturn an army order denying Palestinian prisoners legal rights, despite hearing allegations of torture at a detention camp near Ramallah.

The tribunal threw out a petition from four Israeli human rights groups on Sunday, which quoted an Israeli source at the Ofer detention centre as saying detainees were being subjected to torture during interrogation, including repeated instances of them having their toes broken.

In an order last Friday, the army said detainees would not have access to lawyers during their permitted period of arrest, which was at the same time extended from eight to 18 days.

Quoting testimony from the unidentified witness, Sharon Avraham-Weis, lawyer for the petitioners, said: "Soldiers dragged one man by the legs back and forth in the mud before standing him against a wall, pulling him by the hair and banging his head against the wall. The witness heard noises from nearby rooms that sounded like heads being banged against a wall."

Blindfolded and bound, prisoners were told they would be shown no mercy if they failed to name suspects, according to the testimony. One detainee, who questioned why he, a doctor, had been arrested, was allegedly told: "We don't know who is a terrorist. That's why we're arresting everybody."

The army said that by the weekend 1,600 people had been rounded up throughout the West Bank. It said 800 had since been released, although human rights groups have so far been unable to contact them.

Malchiel Blas, government lawyer, defending the army's ban on legal representation, said: "The army is subject to unprecedented conditions that make it impossible for us to work according to the norms."

Rejecting the human rights groups' request for a restraining order against the army, Shlomo Levine, chairman of the Supreme Court tribunal, said the panel accepted the state's argument that the present circumstances justified extraordinary measures.

Lior Yavne of B'Tselem, one of the groups that lodged the petition, said it would return to court when it had first-hand evidence of maltreatment.

The court hearing came amid increasingly urgent reports of human rights abuses and destruction in the West Bank towns reoccupied by Israel.

In a report sent to Tony Blair, UK prime minister, Oxfam said: "We are extremely concerned that the full extent of the humanitarian situation is being overlooked, and that the international community is failing in its duty to promote the provisions of the Geneva Conventions which assure the protection of civilians in the conflict."

The UK-based charity said an estimated 400,000 people in the West Bank were without running water as a result of the destruction of equipment and pipes by Israeli tanks and bulldozers.

Mark Neumann of Amnesty International, spoke in Jerusalem of the deliberate targeting of civilians and said: "Unlawful killings must be investigated and those who have carried them out or ordered them must be brought to justice."

----

Some Maryland felons to get vote

By Margie Hyslop
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
April 7, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/metro/20020407-197716.htm

ANNAPOLIS - Twice-convicted felons would be allowed to vote in Maryland under a bill that the General Assembly voted final approval yesterday.

Felons convicted of a second violent crime would be permanently barred from voting, but felons convicted of a second nonviolent felony would be allowed to vote three years after completing their sentences and paying any fines and restitution.

The House of Delegates last month approved a bill that would have restored voting rights to two-time felons as soon as they finished their sentence, regardless of the crime.

Yesterday the House took a final vote, agreeing with the Senate to bar two-time violent offenders.

Gov. Parris N. Glendening has said he would sign the measure.

The move would reduce to 12 the number of states that restrict all felons from voting after they have served their sentences. Virginia is one of those 12. The District restores voting rights after a felon's sentence ends.

Since 1974, Maryland has allowed anyone convicted of one "infamous" crime to vote after paying his penalty but has barred two-time convicts.

A crime is classified as "infamous" if it involves deceit, but the category encompasses a broad range of offenses from passing bad checks to rape and murder. Roughly 500 offenses qualify as infamous crimes, according to the state's attorney general.

The Legislative Black Caucus pushed for the bill, arguing that current law unfairly disenfranchises many ex-convicts who have paid their debt and even changed their lives.

Caucus members said the bill was a voting rights issue because black defendants have been convicted at higher rates than white defendants in the criminal justice system.

As introduced, both the House and Senate bills would have restored the vote to persons convicted of any crime, regardless of previous offenses, as soon as they finished their sentences.

Sen. Delores G. Kelley, a Baltimore Democrat who sponsored the Senate bill, said some clergy are upset that the bill was weakened at all. Those clergy members said the original proposal followed Judeo-Christian principles of redemption.

The push to restore felons' voting rights has become a national issue over the last three years.

A panel led by former Presidents Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter recommended that former felons be allowed to vote.

In some states, advocates have even protested requiring convicts to finish paying fines before voting. They argued that requiring fine payment first amounted to an unconstitutional poll tax of sorts. And besides, they said it was unfair because felons often cannot find full employment after they are released.

Virginia recently modified its prohibition on allowing felons to vote. they are now allowedto seek recovery of that right in court rather than through a pardon from the governor.

In the past year, felon voting bans were overturned in Delaware, Connecticut and New Mexico.

Conservative Maryland lawmakers argued that people convicted of some heinous crimes such as murder and rape had broken their contract with society, and that even if God forgave them, they should not regain certain societal rights.

Some black Maryland legislators argued that voting is a commitment to participating in society and can help encourage ex-convicts to fulfill their personal and social responsibilities.

Restriction of voting rights is estimated to disenfranchise about 13 percent of black men nationwide - a proportion about twice that of the general population, according to the D.C.-based Sentencing Project.

-------- terrorism

The War on Terrorism Takes Aim at Crime

New York Times
April 7, 2002
By JAMES DAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/07/weekinreview/07DAO.html

WASHINGTON -- In South America, the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, controls lucrative coca fields that finance a terror campaign against the government. In the Philippines, the Abu Sayyaf group kidnaps people to sustain its separatist dreams. In Sri Lanka, the violent Tamil Tigers have a fleet of stealthy vessels for smuggling contraband across the Indian Ocean. In Uzbekistan, heavily armed Islamic militants run a protection racket for opium traffickers. And before the fall of the Taliban, Al Qaeda was thought to profit from Afghanistan's thriving poppy trade.

Across the globe, the lines between international crime syndicates and terrorist organizations have become impossibly blurred. And recognition of that reality has spurred Washington to begin revamping its strategy for the war on terror.

Informants for the Drug Enforcement Administration are being enlisted to dig up intelligence on terrorist cells. F.B.I. agents are working with C.I.A. operatives to track down criminal as well as terrorist cells. A federally financed anti-drug campaign links drug use to supporting terrorism. And the military, long accustomed to preparing for battles against large conventional armies, is rushing to retrain its allies - and itself - to fight small conflicts against borderless groups that engage in crime even as they commit acts of terror.

"Everything we could do to put those people out of business would be good for our purposes," said Adm. Dennis Blair, the commander in chief of the United States Pacific Command.

Links to criminal activity have existed for as long as terrorists have been around. But analysts say those links have grown since the end of the cold war, when many insurgent groups lost their state sponsors and turned to criminal enterprises to finance their activities.

Hence the more expansive approach, which on one level seems a triumph of common sense. If terrorists who threaten America buy their weapons, move their people and hide their money by hiring criminal syndicates, why not go after those subcontractors? And if insurgent groups are financing terror by assisting drug traffickers, why not go after both? It would be killing two birds with one stone, administration officials say.

"The illegal drug production that undermines America's culture also funds terror and erodes democracies across the globe," Asa Hutchinson, the drug enforcement administrator, said in a speech last week. "They all represent a clear and present danger to our national security."

But expanding the global war on terrorism to include a global war on crime has also raised sharp questions about whether the United States has the political support, know-how and resources to attack such a large and complicated set of new enemies. Many criminal syndicates have slyly evaded the law for decades, usually with the help of corrupt local officials. Can Americans suddenly expect to undermine those groups while also waging war in Afghanistan, trying to contain Saddam Hussein, keeping Israelis and Palestinians from each others' throats and sending troops to places like the Philippines, Yemen and Georgia?

On Capitol Hill, many lawmakers are not so sure. Some are already drawing analogies between Colombia - where the administration wants to expand its military assistance for fighting drug traffickers to include fighting the FARC - and Vietnam. "This could be a real quagmire," said Representative Ike Skelton, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. "And our commanders are already saying they don't have enough resources to meet their missions."

Kurt Campbell, a former Clinton administration official who is a director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonpartisan policy group in Washington, said Mr. Bush runs the risk of diluting his antiterror campaign by continuously expanding its targets. First there was Al Qaeda, then the axis of evil - Iraq, Iran and North Korea - and now there are drug traffickers and other criminal syndicates.

"If you expand the definition of what you're trying to do, you blur your mission and you start to lose support," Mr. Campbell said. "You start to have questions about what exactly are we concerned with. Is it Islamic fundamentalism? Is it states that are trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction? Is it states that support drug running and then maybe do things that aid terrorists? Each is important, but can all be the focus of your attention?"

STILL, analysts who have studied international criminal syndicates say the Bush administration is right to recognize the connections between criminal groups and terrorists, which they lump together under the rubric of "transnational threats."

The FARC, which lost funding from Cuba after the fall of the Soviet Union, is a good example of how the end of the cold war opened the way to more criminal activity. Having initially made money by "taxing" local drug dealers, the FARC began running drugs itself in the 1990's. Today, American officials say the group has become so corrupted by drug profits that its political goals have become secondary. Similar cycles of violence exist in the Balkans, Central Asia and Africa, where criminal enterprises - from stealing oil to smuggling diamonds - have sustained guerrilla warriors long after their political goals have faded.

But even as they applaud the Bush administration's new steps, analysts say the administration has yet to grapple with the long-term problems posed by stateless groups - problems that could prove even more intractable than those presented by Iraq or North Korea.

Louise I. Shelley, director of the Transnational Crime and Corruption Center at American University in Washington, said criminal groups provide vital services and generate economic opportunity in many regions where government is weak. Attacking the criminal organizations without replacing their socially useful services could antagonize communities whose help America needs in fighting terrorists, she said.

"In some places, criminal groups provide food, provide gas, run the trade and mediate the conflicts," Dr. Shelley said. "They are de facto governments. But if you demonize them, you are not going to have the local community behind you."

Military analysts also said that traditional military approaches to fighting war must change if the United States is going to be effective in attacking borderless enemies. The concept of deterrence, for example, could quickly become obsolete if the enemy has no country, no capital, no standing army, no obvious "centers of gravity" worth destroying. But so far, the analysts say, the Pentagon hasn't quite figured out how to deter groups that seem to have nothing to lose. It is a problem common to terror groups and criminal bands, whether they engage in both crime and terror or not.

"Trying to fight these groups can be like trying to pin down a piece of mercury," said Thomas M. Sanderson, deputy director for the Transnational Threats Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Yet we're still trying to box something that can't be boxed."


-------- ACTIVISTS

Opponents Lobby Congress on Waste Plan

By Mark Sherman
Associated Press Writer
Sunday, April 7, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A9349-2002Apr7?language=printer

WASHINGTON -- Opponents of burying America's nuclear waste in Nevada will give the public a crash course in the dangers of hauling radioactive materials across the country, part of a long-shot lobbying campaign to kill the plan in Congress.

Two former White House chiefs of staff - Democrat John Podesta, who worked for President Clinton, and Republican Kenneth Duberstein, who worked for President Reagan - are directing the effort.

The lobbying campaign is to include television ads targeting lawmakers in races that could swing on votes from environmentalists.

The campaign was getting under way Monday, when Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn planned to veto President Bush's endorsement of Yucca Mountain as the place to hold up to 77,000 tons of nuclear waste that will remain radioactive for 10,000 years.

Guinn's veto is allowed under rules Congress wrote for finding a national nuclear waste dump. Congress will have the final say, however, and a vote on whether to override is expected before August.

Spent nuclear fuel from power plants and defense facilities in 34 states has accumulated at those sites for decades as lawmakers grappled with the questions of whether and where to establish a national repository.

Yucca Mountain, a volcanic ridge on the edge of the Nevada Test Site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, has been under consideration for at least 25 years. In February, Bush recommended it be chosen.

Former White House chief of staff John Sununu, a Republican, and former Democratic vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro are working on behalf of Yucca Mountain supporters. They include energy companies, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and at least 13 governors whose states have nuclear power plants.

Opponents, led by environmentalists and Nevada's congressional delegation, already have sued. They are focusing their lobbying effort on the Senate, considering it almost certain the Republican-controlled House will side with Bush.

Their hope rests on several factors. The Senate's top two Democrats - Majority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Nevada's Harry Reid - are staunch opponents, a half-dozen Democrats have replaced pro-Yucca Mountain Republicans since 2000 and re-election battles in states with strong environmental movements could cause some incumbents to reconsider supporting the project.

The campaign will focus on lingering questions about the safety of the Nevada site and fears that the thousands of truck, train and barge trips it will take to transport the material across the country will lead to accidents and potential radioactive fallout.

Reid is handing out miniature toy trucks to make the point that full-scale models of the containers that will hold the waste in transit have not been tested.

Opponents concede they face long odds.

Most Americans are only vaguely aware of the debate over nuclear waste disposal, polls have shown. The site would open in 2010 at the earliest, making it hard to create a sense of urgency.

Yucca Mountain opponents have so far failed to raise the $10 million they say they need to mount an effective television advertising campaign that makes the point, particularly in states where incumbents seeking re-election are undecided or have not said how they will vote.

In earlier votes, Senate majorities have voted for the Yucca Mountain site, although there has never been a clear up-or-down vote such as the one expected this summer.

"We have had bipartisan support in the past and we think it will be there in the future," said Steve Kerekes, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the lobbying arm of the nuclear power industry.

While Daschle opposes the project, he has said the special rules for this issue diminish the vast power he usually has to control what reaches the Senate floor. Privately, advisers on both sides say Daschle could prevent the vote, if he wished.

But Daschle has to consider the November midterm elections in which Democrats will try to preserve their fragile Senate majority.

Asking Democrats from states with nuclear reactors to "stand with us on this might put their seat in jeopardy in the future," said Reid spokesman Nathan Naylor.

----

Prime Time for Yucca Controversy Gives Wing to Opponents' Message

By Brian Faler
Sunday, April 7, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A7346-2002Apr6?language=printer

Opponents of a government plan to store most of the nation's nuclear waste beneath a mountain in Nevada got a little help this week from a rather unlikely source: the television show "The West Wing."

The popular White House drama aired an episode Wednesday in which a truck carrying nuclear waste crashes inside a tunnel in rural Idaho. The waste spills, authorities are unable to clean up the mess, and the president complains that, for all of his administration's precautions, it still isn't safe to move the waste.

That scenario largely mirrors the line taken by opponents of the real-life plan to store nuclear waste beneath Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles from Las Vegas. Having failed to persuade the Bush administration to reconsider its decision to use the site -- opponents say the president is ignoring too many unanswered questions about its safety -- they are now emphasizing the dangers of moving the waste, which is scattered among more than 100 above-ground facilities in 39 states. The issue will likely be settled in Congress, and, in anticipation of its upcoming debate, Nevada lawmakers are planning a multimillion-dollar media and lobbying campaign. For now, though, they say the "West Wing" episode is helping to spread their message.

"It certainly brought out some of the concerns [that] I think are legitimate," said Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.).

Others were less impressed. Spokesmen from the Energy Department and the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's leading lobbying group, played down the significance of the show, saying it would have little effect on public opinion or the debate in Congress.

Some industry officials, though, aren't taking their chances. Jack Edlow, president of Edlow International Co., a firm that ships nuclear materials, announced that he and other industry officials will launch a campaign to help protect their public image.

"There were just so many inaccuracies that you can't really say that it was even anything other than total fiction," Edlow said of the show. "Yet it was presented in a way that the public would tend to think that there was some truth to it, because they don't know these things."

Issues of Cold Hard Cash

Democrats are proudly claiming they have set new party records for direct-mail fundraising -- a crucial source of money when new regulations take effect in November. But Republicans immediately countered that the Democrats will be short of cash as the election nears while the GOP has $38 million in the bank with no debt.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Terence McAuliffe said the DNC raised $26 million during the first quarter of this year, $8 million of which was from direct mail. The DNC has $23 million in the bank but debts of $9 million, and at least $12 million must be used for a new building, not for direct campaign support.

Kevin Sheridan, spokesman for the Republican National Committee, contended that subtracting the building obligations and debt from the $23 million leaves the Democrats with only $2 million or less. In contrast, he said, the RNC raised $31.7 million this past quarter, increasing its cash on hand to $38 million -- with no debt or building fund obligations.

After Nov. 6, when the new campaign finance law goes into effect, the parties will be allowed to spend only "hard money," federally regulated contributions from individuals and political action committees. Large "soft money" donations from corporations, unions and very wealthy people will be prohibited.

During the first quarter, the DNC reported raising a total of $9 million in hard money, or about one of every three dollars raised. In contrast, the RNC hard-money total was $26 million, or just over $4 of every $5 raised.

Maria Cardona, DNC communications director, disputed Sheridan's analysis suggesting the DNC is barely in the black. "Republicans should have raised a lot more money now that they have the White House, and we did a hell of a job without a White House, almost keeping up with the amount we raised when we did have the White House," she said. "We are narrowing the gap."

Staff writer Thomas B. Edsall contributed to this report.

----

Zimbabwe Police Seize Protesters Demanding a New Constitution

April 7, 2002
By REUTERS

HARARE, Zimbabwe - The Zimbabwean police chased protesters demanding a new constitution through the streets of Harare today and arrested 20 of them, organizers of the banned march said.

An official for the National Constitutional Assembly said that the group's chairman, Lovemore Madhuku, was among the 20 and that 19 other people were arrested in protests elsewhere.

The assembly, a coalition of student and church groups, political parties and human rights organizations, wants a new constitution to replace laws that critics say entrench President Robert Mugabe's rule.

Today's protests were Zimbabwe's first major demonstrations since Mr. Mugabe was re-elected last month in a vote that Western countries and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change condemned as fraudulent.

Eyewitnesses said that some protesters were beaten as riot police officers swarmed on a group trying to join the demonstration. The police were not immediately available for comment. Zimbabwe introduced tough new security laws this year banning public protests and gatherings without police approval. Penalties range from fines to a year in prison.

Similar protests in Mutare, Bulawayo and elsewhere in the country led to the arrests of 19 people, including a senior assembly official.

Assembly leaders say deeply rooted flaws in the current Constitution make it impossible to hold free and fair elections in Zimbabwe. The election, held from March 9 through 11, was neither free nor fair, they said. After Mr. Mugabe's victory, they vowed to continue protests until the Constitution was changed.

The protests came two days after about 350 women who are members of the assembly were arrested for holding an unauthorized meeting.

The women began arriving at Harare magistrate's court today after the High Court ruled they must be brought before the courts by 2 p.m. or be released.

--------

Protesters in Paris, Rome denounce Israeli acts

April 7, 2002
By Kim Housego
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020407-99639304.htm

PARIS - Tens of thousands protested in Paris and Rome yesterday, expressing solidarity with Palestinians and demanding that Israel stop its offensive in the West Bank.

More than 20,000 people in the French capital marched to the Place de la Bastille, where hundreds of police stood by. Some protesters carried shredded U.S. flags and shouted slogans against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

"Sharon assassin" and "Arabs, Jews together against Sharon," they chanted in the protest organized by dozens of pro-Palestinian, anti-racism and communist groups.

Supporters of Israel were to march in Paris and other cities today, with a dual goal of backing Israel and denouncing a series of anti-Semitic attacks in France in recent weeks.

International pressure has been growing on Israel to end its operation in the West Bank that was begun March 29 after a series of Palestinian suicide attacks. Israeli troops have swept into six Palestinian towns, battling gunmen and arresting hundreds, as well as confining Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to his offices.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said in a statement yesterday that he was concerned about the "humanitarian situation throughout the Palestinian territories."

In Rome, about 20,000 protesters marched through downtown, ending up at a rally in Piazza del Popolo, where the crowd swelled to about 50,000.

A few marchers at the front of the procession yesterday wore black face masks and bandanas similar to those worn by Palestinian militants. Some carried banners calling for "Intifada until victory," while others chanted for a "Liberated Palestine."

Italy's three main unions and two major leftist parties, however, decided at the last minute not to participate in the march, amid criticism of the protest by Jewish groups.

Andrea Parrella, who walked with his Labrador draped in a Palestinian flag, expressed some concern about the march turning into a venue for anti-Jewish sentiments.

"I think it's important for me to show my support - these [Palestinians] have neither land nor water," he said, but added that "there is a risk that this demonstration could be turned into something anti-Semitic."

Other pro-Palestinian marches took place in smaller French and Italian cities. In Sydney, Australia, some 5,000 people marched to the Israeli and U.S. consulates, shouting "Free Palestine" and waving flags and placards.

"We are here to condemn the Israeli occupation of the territories, but also to condemn the recent racist attacks in France, against both Jews and Arabs," said Jean-Claude Vessillier, a spokesman for MRAP, one of France's leading anti-racism groups.

As violence in the Middle East escalated in recent weeks, arson and vandalism attacks increased on Jewish sites in France, including cemeteries and synagogues.

--------

Thousands in Indonesia Rally Against Israel Action

April 7, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-mideast-indonesia-protest.html

JAKARTA - Several thousand Indonesians rallied Sunday to protest against Israel's military operations in Palestinian areas, the latest demonstration in the world's most populous Muslim nation.

Separately, Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda said he had told a visiting senior U.S. official that Indonesia wanted the United States to press Israel to withdraw from Palestinian territories.

The protesters -- mainly wearing traditional white Muslim dress -- defied scorching heat to gather at the national monument square near the presidential palace in central Jakarta.

Estimates of their numbers ranged from 3,000 to 5,000.

The protesters, mostly from the Muslim-oriented Justice Party, burned an effigy of Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

``Kick out Israel, the invader,'' read one of many anti-Israel slogans at the rally.

Another banner said: ``Bush and Sharon go to hell.''

Bush called Saturday for Israel to withdraw its forces from Palestinian areas ``without delay.'' Sharon promised to end the 10-day campaign, which has included a siege of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's office, ``as expeditiously as possible.''

Foreign Minister Wirajuda told reporters that in a meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, a member of President Bush's cabinet, he had repeated Indonesia's condemnation of Israel's actions.

``The United States must use its influence to press Israel to withdraw its military forces from Palestine...dissatisfaction among some groups of people in Indonesia even among the government has (been) emboldened,'' Wirajuda said.

``Indonesia will never accept the fact that Israel is cornering Arafat, because he is a leader of a nation.''

TALKS WITH MEGAWATI

Zoellick spoke to reporters separately after talking to Wirajuda and made no comment on the Middle East, but said he had discussed Indonesia's role in the U.S.-led war on terror.

``I...emphasized how important the efforts of the Indonesian government are in terms of dealing with thesequestions at home and in the region.''

Later in the day Zoellick met with President Megawati Sukarnoputri and in a brief statement after the session said he had expressed gratitude for Indonesia's support since the September 11 attacks on the United States.

``I...thanked her personally for (the) policy that she has had and her government has had against terrorism...and I also asked on her behalf to thank the people of Indonesia because after the attacks...there were many expressions of warmth and support.''

Zoellick again made no reference to the Middle East.

Megawati had greeted him warmly with a broad smile but, as is often her practice, had no comments for the media either before or after the meeting.

Sunday's protest was the latest in a series of anti-Israel demonstrations in Indonesia in the past week since Israel's incursions.

Friday Indonesian police turned water cannons on hundreds of Muslim protesters who tried to approach the U.S. embassy.

The protest coincided with several similar rallies in other major Indonesian cities.

Around 85 percent of Indonesia's 210 million population is Muslim. Most follow a moderate interpretation of Islam.


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