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NUCLEAR
Call for more nuclear power stations
Finland says nuke energy only growth option
Nuclear war threat over Kashmir crisis
Bush to talk to Putin about Iran nuclear concerns
Senators Push Nuclear Materials Safeguards
Rumsfeld says terrorists sure to get nuclear arms
Enviros Pan U.S.-Russian Arms Pact
Criticism Softens on ABM Move
US - Russia Pact May Lead to More Ties
Final Arms Deal Details Worked On
Opponents Spar Over Nuke Waste Site
NRC forms task force in wake of Ohio nuclear incident
Daschle Is Seeking a Special Inquiry on Sept. 11 Attack
Resurfacing Animosity Awaits Bush in Europe
Congress to Meet In N.Y. on Sept. 6
MILITARY
U.S. Planes Foil an Attack on an Airfield in Afghanistan
Pentagon Offers F - 16 Jets to Brazil
IMF-World Bank Anthrax Response Causes Furor
Conferees Agree on Bioterror Bill
House OKs $4.6B to Fight Bioterror
Bioterrorism Bill Commits Billions for Readiness
Britain Keeps Women - in - Combat Ban
Britain Recalls Pakistan Diplomats
Raytheon, optics may partner High-tech weapon system
9 Killed in Colombian Raid
U.N. Faults Colombia for Civilian Deaths
Rebels, Far - Right, Threaten Colombian Vote - OAS
Bush Asks Europeans for Continued Support in War on Terrorism
U.S., Europe Differ on Terror War
Indian Warships Go Toward Pakistan
India Prepares Troops for 'Decisive Fight'
Iranians Angry at Terror Report
State's report chides anti-Arafat efforts
U.S. Urges Pakistan to Control Border
CIA Appoints Homeland Security Head
Fleet Week Begins in New York
Group Named to Watch Defense School
Extremists will get mass destruction weapons - US
Nation Left Jittery By Latest Series Of Terror Warnings
POLICE / PRISONERS
FBI Pigeonholed Agent's Request
Some Pre-Sept. 11 Documents Released
Terror Lapses Put FBI Under Fire
F.B.I. Agents Indicted in Stock Fraud
Lawyers Decry Treatment of Lindh
Patriot Act's supposed justification is gone
A Drumbeat on Terror
Security Tighter in New York After Vague Terrorist Threat
U.S. Charges that Iran, Iraq, Syria Continue to Aid Terrorists
House OKs Security Spending Increase
Alerts tied to memo flap
White House Defends Terror Warnings
Al - Qaida Cell Forced From Canada
ENERGY AND OTHER
Britain in 2.3 million stg boost for wave energy
Energy Task Force Documents Show Industry Influence
US EPA, ethanol industry to meet on pollution probe
Study Finds Anti - Malaria Gene
ACTIVISTS
NRC Announcement of public meetings June 4 and 24
10,000 police deployed in Berlin for Bush visit
Greenpeace blocks Esso's largest refinery in France
Protests as Well as Friends Await Bush on Europe Trip
Bush in Berlin, Demonstrators Take to Streets
Blair to Warn Off GM, Animal Rights Protesters
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- britain
Call for more nuclear power stations
By Andrew Taylor,
Utilities Correspondent
May 22 2002
Financial Times
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1021990913444&p=1012571727159
Britain will be unable to meet its tough climate change targets without building more nuclear power stations, the country's biggest manufacturing union will warn today.
Sir Ken Jackson, joint general secretary of Amicus, said: "If this government is committed to meeting its Kyoto targets it must rebuild Britain's nuclear power industry."
His comments mirror a warning last month from Professor David King, the government's chief scientist, who said new nuclear plants were essential for Britain to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels.
Sir Ken said: "Nuclear power accounts for 23 per cent of UK energy production yet by 2023 there will be only one functioning nuclear power station in Britain [Sizewell B in Suffolk]. The simple truth is that renewable energy will not be able to fill that vacuum."
The union was replying to a government request for responses to a review of energy policy conducted earlier this year by the Cabinet Office's Performance and Innovation Unit. Its report, which recommended a big increase in generation from renewable energy sources such as wind farms, said the nuclear option should be kept open but fell short of recommending a construction programme.
Sir Ken said: "If we don't invest in nuclear power we will be forced to rely on unstable oil and gas imports. That could push up prices for consumers and it will surely mean we are unable to meet our Kyoto obligations. If the government and the industry work together we can come up with a safety framework that will win the public's confidence."
He called for "active government support" for a nuclear replacement programme, investment to develop renewables expertise and support for cleaner coal-burning technologies at UK power stations.
Bryony Worthington, nuclear campaigner for Friends of the Earth, the environmental group, said: "Nuclear power is dangerous and unsafe and has no future. Sir Ken's members would be better served if the union realised their future lay in managing the legacy of toxic nuclear waste and in decommissioning B ritain's nuclear power stations, and those of other countries, as soon as possible."
The government is due to publish an energy white paper this year. Brian Wilson, energy minister and long time supporter of the nuclear industry, said last week: "Nobody has yet be-gun to explain how we meet our emission targets if, at the same time, we are losing the nuclear contribution."
-------- europe
Finland says nuke energy only growth option
Story by Paul de Bendern
REUTERS FINLAND:
May 22, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16059/story.htm
HELSINKI - Finland, defying a Western European trend, needs to build another nuclear reactor to keep the economy growing and meet its Kyoto greenhouse targets, the Trade and Industry Minister said yesterday.
Minister Sinikka Monkare also shrugged off criticism that Finland's return to nuclear energy expansion after two decades would lead to similar moves in Western Europe, which has sought alternative energy sources since the Chernobyl explosion.
The parliament will vote on Friday on whether to build a fifth nuclear reactor. According to an opinion poll yesterday, a slight majority will back the controversial proposal which has split the Finnish public.
Finland's increasing reliance on imported energy, particularly from Russia, and lack of oil or gas of its own meant it had no choice but to expand nuclear energy, Monkare told Reuters in an interview. Some 71 percent is imported.
"Finland is a cold country where distances are very long so we need a lot of energy as does our high-energy dependent industry," she said. "We can't keep relying on Russian imports."
Neighboring Sweden and Norway are less reliant on imports. Sweden plans to close its reactors while Norway has none.
Elsewhere in Europe, Germany plans to phase out its nuclear reactors by 2025 and Belgium's government wants to follow suit.
Monkare said Finland, like other EU countries, was too dependent on imports and to fluctuating energy prices.
"How can our industry stay international, make investment decision when it does not know about the future of our energy supply?" said Monkare, who is in charge of nuclear issues.
CUT GREENHOUSE GASES
The five-party coalition government, which includes the anti-nuclear Green Party, also believes that boosting nuclear energy will cut greenhouse gas emissions and so help Finland meet the Kyoto protocol target.
Greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, generated by burning fossil fuels like oil and coal, are blamed for blanketing the globe and driving up temperatures.
Anti-nuclear lobbyists have hit out against the government's decision, saying it was a health and security risk and warned it may push other countries to follow in its footsteps.
"I can't believe we have such a big influence on Europe," Monkare said. "We have nothing to be ashamed of. We already use renewable energy as well."
Greenpeace said a "yes" vote would be the first such move in Western Europe since 1991 when France agreed to build a new reactor, which was completed two years ago. The 1986 Chernobyl disaster in what is now Ukraine stoked public opposition.
But many EU nations are in a twist because they need more energy. Monkare accused Stockholm of double standards by boosting capacity when it said it would stop nuclear energy.
She also said Finns, know for their pragmatism, were becoming more in favour of nuclear energy because it would help Finland meet the Kyoto targets and keep prices under control.
Monkare said Finland was concerned about Russia's nuclear reactors, which were ageing, as well as plans to build more.
"It's better to build another reactor here than have more reactors on the other side (Russia)," she said.
-------- india / pakistan
Nuclear war threat over Kashmir crisis
Straw mission over 'very real' chance of India-Pakistan conflict
May 22, 2002
By Richard Beeston, Diplomatic Editor,
UK Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-303961,00.html
BRITAIN gave warning of the "very real and very disturbing" possibility of nuclear war between India and Pakistan last night as the Government prepared an emergency mission to Delhi and Islamabad.
Jack Straw is to fly to the capitals next week to try to avert "the most serious conflict in the world in terms of potential casualties and the use of nuclear weapons".
In a chilling assessment of the escalating tensions in the sub-continent, the Foreign Secretary told journalists: "The international community is watching events with mounting concern. This is a crisis the world cannot ignore."
Ministers believe the situation is now so tense that just one provocation could trigger catastrophe, and the murder of a prominent Muslim leader yesterday plunged the region even deeper into trouble. A million soldiers are assembled along the India-Pakistan border, most of them concentrated in the disputed region of Kashmir, where fresh clashes were reported yesterday.
Mr Straw's mission will be closely co-ordinated with separate efforts by the US and EU and was agreed after dire warnings this week from military intelligence.
According to senior Whitehall sources, one plausible doomsday scenario presented to ministers envisaged the two sides fighting a bloody war that would lead to the first use of atomic weapons since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In response to a terrorist attack, Indian troops would retalitate against Pakistan. The Pakistanis, who are considered better troops, would beat off the initial offensive. But the Indians would then use their superiority in conventional forces to overwhelm the Pakistanis. In turn Islamabad would use its weapon of last resort: a nuclear device. India would survive the strike and hit back with its own atomic weapons.
Were this scenario acted out, millions would die. India is believed to have about 60 nuclear warheads compared with Pakistan's 25.
Yesterday the region remained "on a trigger". George Fernandes, the Indian Defence Minister, told troops on a frontline position in Rajasthan that India had to give a "strong reply" to last week's killing of 34 people by Islamic militants near Jammu. Pakistan responded with a blunt warning of its own. Major General Rashid Qureshi, the government spokesman said: "Any incursions into Pakistani territory or Azad (Pakistani-controlled) Kashmir will be responded to and met with full force."
In the Kashmir capital of Srinagar, gunmen killed Abdul Ghani Lone, a Muslim leader who wanted to achieve independence through peaceful means. Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, said he was saddened and angered by the killing. "This was a terrorist act designed to undermine the hopes of the Kashmiri people for free and fair elections without violence."
Mr Straw's first priority will be to ease India's anger, in the aftermath of the latest massacre, and urge the Hindu nationlist Government to exercise maximum restraint.
He will tell Pakistan that it must do more to rein in terror groups responsible for cross-border attacks into India and a wave of violence against Western targets, including the killing of French naval workers in Karachi, the murder of an American journalist and threats against British interests in Lahore.
Unlike the Middle East, however, where Britain supports the return of dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians for the creation of a Palestinian state, Mr Straw will have to tread gingerly around the issue of Kashmir's status. India has consistently refused to discuss the region's sovereignty.
On a more practical level, Mr Straw and British diplomats are expected to try to build security ties between Islamabad and Delhi that would prevent the two accidentally going to war.
During the Cold War, for instance, the White House and the Kremlin were connected by a "hotline" to allow the two superpower leaders to speak directly and avoid misunderstandings. "There are always grave dangers of what started off as a limited military action getting out of control," Mr Straw said.
His visit next week will follow a similar mission by Chris Patten, the EU's External Affairs Commissioner, and then by Richard Armitage, the US Deputy Secretary of State.
The diplomatic offensive is seen as critical before the Indian Government decides how to respond to last week's massacre."It is very important that we keep the foreign pressure on the two sides at this critical point," said a senior British diplomat. "The forces are mobilised. With a click of the finger they could go."
-------- iran
Bush to talk to Putin about Iran nuclear concerns
Story by Steve Holland
REUTERS USA:
May 22, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16061/story.htm
WASHINGTON - U.S. President George W. Bush intends to press Russian President Vladimir Putin this week on U.S. concerns that Russia is contributing to a weapons proliferation problem by helping Iran build a nuclear plant, a top Bush aide said this week.
Bush leaves today on a weeklong trip that will take him to Berlin, Germany and Moscow and St. Petersburg in Russia. He will also travel to Paris and the Normandy beaches in France, and to Rome where he will visit the Vatican.
The centerpiece event is on Friday when Bush and Putin sign a nuclear arms reduction treaty cutting the deployed strategic nuclear warheads from the world's biggest nuclear powers by two-thirds over the next decade to 1,700 to 2,200 from the current level of 5,000 to 6,000.
Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said the treaty will help advance a new relationship between the two former Cold War enemies "based on increasingly common interests and mutual trust."
But she said Bush will also raise U.S. concerns about Russian ties with Iran, one of the three countries along with Iraq and North Korea that Bush considers part of an "axis of evil" bent on developing weapons of mass destruction.
"The president intends to talk a lot about the Russian-Iranian relationship," Rice told reporters. "It's been a problem for several years ... We also want to talk about weapons of mass destruction, their control, controlling the materials so that biological, chemical, nuclear leakage doesn't happen. There's a big agenda there."
Russia has been helping Iran build the Bushehr civilian nuclear power plant. Iran says it is for peaceful purposes but the United States is suspicious, given Tehran's vast oil reserves. Russia denies aiding Iran's nuclear weapons program but U.S. officials are convinced the Russians are doing so.
Bush is also expected to raise U.S. concerns about freedom of the press in Russia.
A SOLID RELATIONSHIP
The Bush-Putin summit, a follow-on to Putin's visit to Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, last November, likely will be a friendly affair. After some initial tensions after Bush took office in January 2001, the two leaders' solidified their relationship by working together in the post-Sept. 11 war on terrorism.
They will sign a joint political statement, a statement on economic relations and a counterterrorism statement.
"We've made a lot of progress with the Russians on the counterterrorism front," Rice said. "We're going to try and make progress on the nonproliferation front."
Putin will host Bush and his wife Laura at dinner at his Moscow residence. The two leaders will then travel to Putin's hometown of St. Petersburg for a tour of the historic Hermitage museum and take questions from students at St. Petersburg University, an event to be broadcast on Russian television.
Bush leaves Washington on Wednesday for Berlin. He will address the German parliament, the Bundestag, on Thursday, and "outline his vision of a Europe whole, free and at peace," said Rice.
With Europe often at odds with the United States on policies such as the Middle East, global warming and trade, some analysts see the two allies drifting apart.
Rice said both share common democratic values and are trying to spread them throughout the world.
"There's a huge positive agenda there," she said. "And if we argue once in a while and if people don't like policies once in a while, I don't think that's the headline. I think the headline is completing this extraordinary project."
She said European and Japanese concerns about hefty tariffs imposed by Bush on steel imports should be handled through the World Trade Organization. Some nations have threatened retaliation against U.S. exports.
After visiting Russia, Bush will meet newly re-elected French President Jacques Chirac in Paris and spend the U.S. Memorial Day holiday, May 27, at the D-Day beaches in Normandy.
He will attend a summit in Rome where NATO and Russia will sign an agreement giving Moscow a say in some alliance decision-making and then will meet Pope John Paul II at the Vatican before returning home May 28.
-------- terrorism
Senators Push Nuclear Materials Safeguards
May 22, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-arms-nuclear-congress.html
WASHINGTON - As the Bush administration raised the specter of terrorists using weapons of mass destruction, a bipartisan group of senators on Wednesday offered a bill to tighten controls on nuclear weapons materials and technologies.
The bill calls for an additional $405 million a year to beef up about a dozen nonproliferation programs, including strengthening security at nuclear facilities, accelerating the disposal of fissile materials in Russia and elsewhere, and developing protections against radioactive ``dirty'' bombs.
Sen. Pete Domenici, a New Mexico Republican, said with the bill ``our programs to counter threats of nuclear and radiological terrorism will be significantly strengthened, and risks to the United States and to our international partners can be greatly reduced.''
It was offered a day after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told senators at a hearing that ``terrorists networks have relationships with terrorist states that have weapons of mass destruction, and ... they inevitably are going to get their hands on them and they would not hesitate one minute to use them.''
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden in a statement said he was not convinced that terrorists' use of weapons of mass destruction was inevitable, but said the United States was doing too little to contain weapons materials in Russia that could fall into their hands.
``There is enough highly enriched uranium and plutonium in Russia to make tens of thousands of nuclear weapons,'' said Biden, a Delaware Democrat and co-sponsor of the bill.
``Because of poor security and as many as 100,000 underemployed weapons scientists in the former Soviet Union,'' he said terrorist groups or rogue nations could get materials or technology to develop weapons of mass destruction.
The bill includes $200 million for plutonium disposal in Russia once it adopts a program to do that, as well as other programs to contain its weapons material.
Lawmakers may try to add it to a $393 billion defense bill the Senate is to take up when it returns from a weeklong Memorial Day recess, their aides said.
--------
Rumsfeld says terrorists sure to get nuclear arms
May 22, 2002
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020522-30425094.htm
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld yesterday raised the potential of nuclear attack in America, saying terrorist-sponsoring countries "inevitably" would acquire weapons of mass destruction and "would not hesitate one minute in using them."
But he expressed optimism about the main front in the ongoing war on global terrorism. He told a Senate panel that the U.S.-led coalition was making progress in permanently moving Afghanistan from a haven for al Qaeda terrorists to a more stable nation with its own police and armed forces.
Mr. Rumsfeld's stark comments on nuclear, biological and chemical terror comes in the same week that other senior Bush administration officials have warned of future attacks, perhaps similar to those of September 11.
The FBI yesterday issued an alert of potential terrorist attacks aimed at New York City landmarks, including the Statute of Liberty and Brooklyn Bridge.
The warning, based on intelligence data obtained during interviews with Taliban and al Qaeda detainees, was forwarded to New York authorities by the FBI's joint terrorism task force. Authorities said the information was unconfirmed.
Security was increased around the city's major monuments and landmarks.
Although Mr. Rumsfeld did not single out Iraq in his testimony yesterday before the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on defense, he painted a scenario that matched Saddam Hussein's regime.
"We have to recognize that terrorist networks have relationships with terrorist states that have weapons of mass destruction," he testified, "and that they inevitably are going to get their hands on them and they would not hesitate one minute in using them. That's the world we live in."
The administration is contemplating options for removing Saddam. The justification would be that he continues to violate his agreement with the United Nations to destroy his weapons-making materials. The administration's belief is that Baghdad eventually will share weapons of mass destruction with terror groups such as al Qaeda who would unleash them on America and the rest of the Western world.
"The problem I see, and it's a very serious one, is that there has been a proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "The terrorist networks have close linkages with terrorist states, the states that are on the worldwide known terrorist list - Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, North Korea."
In Afghanistan, about 7,000 U.S. troops are battling al Qaeda and Taliban remnants, while working to stabilize the country. Some Democrats have begun to criticize this phase of the war, claiming Afghanistan is falling into chaos as various warlords vie for power.
"I'm concerned about the reports that there is deterioration in the stability of the establishment of a new government," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat. "I'm concerned by the skirmishes that are now taking place, which indicate to me a real resiliency on the part of the Taliban and al Qaeda, that they will in fact try to come back if in fact they can come back."
Mr. Rumsfeld responded that Afghanistan has nearly always been a place of instability, crime, warlords and tribal civil war.
Now, he said, "there is a persuasive indicator that things are more stable there than they were, because refugees are returning. It is nowhere near as stable as here, but it is vastly better place than it was."
On expanding a Kabul-based peacekeeping force to other parts of the country, Mr. Rumsfeld said no country wants the job. "The problem is there's no one stepping up and wanting to do it," he said.
Hours after Mr. Rumsfeld testified, his Afghanistan commander, Army Gen. Tommy Franks, told reporters he wants an initial Afghan national army of 2,000 to 3,000 soldiers put in place in six months to do some missions now conducted by coalition forces.
U.S. Army Green Berets are now training Afghan recruits to form individual units of 600 troops.
"I will not be a 'little Johnny Sunshine' on this thing," Gen. Franks said. "I think we need to be realistic. The desire in building and training an Afghan national army will be to have representation from a great many of these ethnic and tribal groupings in locations in Afghanistan."
Overall, the four-star general said, "There are many signs of positive momentum in the western side of Afghanistan, as there are also up in the north, as well as down in the southwest."
• Jerry Seper contributed to this report.
-------- treaties
Enviros Pan U.S.-Russian Arms Pact
May 22, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-22-09.html#anchor1
WASHINGTON, DC, The nuclear arms agreement reached last week by the U.S. and Russia would impose a binding limit on operational U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear forces for just one day - December 31, 2012, warns the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
Before and after that date, the number of nuclear warheads mounted on strategic nuclear missiles and bombers may exceed the treaty's maximum limit of 2,200 warheads in operation. The United States and Russia must comply with the 2,200 warhead limit only on the last day of 2002, after which the treaty expires.
The treaty also contains no limit on the number of warheads that may be kept in storage as a reserve force, meaning that thousands of weapons on both sides could be remounted on missiles and bombers within weeks or months, the NRDC charges.
"The whole framework of restraint is so tenuous, it could unwind rather swiftly," said Matthew McKinzie, an NRDC staff scientist.
President George W. Bush left today for a week long overseas trip to France, Italy and Russia. While in Russia, Bush plans to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin to sign the arms reduction agreement announced last week.
The NRDC says the treaty does nothing to constrain or eliminate stockpiles of nonstrategic nuclear weapons deliverable by shorter range systems, such as cruise missiles, battlefield missiles, artillery and tactical aircraft, McKinzie added, and it imposes no timetable for removing warheads from operational missiles, bombers or submarines.
"President Bush's claim that this agreement will 'liquidate the nuclear legacy of the Cold War' is self serving political hype," said Thomas Cochran, director of the NRDC's nuclear program. "The proposed treaty imposes no additional permanent limits on either side's nuclear forces, and does not require the destruction of a single nuclear warhead, missile, silo, bomber or submarine. This treaty is a sham, and will do nothing to make Americans or Russians more secure."
NRDC senior policy analyst Christopher Paine called the treaty political theater.
"This administration clearly regards nuclear arms control as just another venue for political theater, designed to grease the skids of Russia's integration into the U.S. led free market system," Paine said. "But arms control should be more than fostering the illusion that you're doing something."
Robert Norris, the NRDC's nuclear historian, noted that President Bush has already rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty signed by former President Bill Clinton and supported by the majority of the world's nations - including Russia - and intends to withdraw unilaterally from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in June.
"This treaty is just another example of the Bush administration's desire to maintain the flexibility to use the unusable - nuclear weapons," Norris concluded. "Meanwhile, Bush is single handedly destroying the credibility of U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policies and commitments that preceding administrations worked hard to establish over the last 30 years."
----
Criticism Softens on ABM Move
Some European Allies Now Praise Withdrawal From Treaty
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 22, 2002; Page A28
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A53019-2002May21?language=printer
A year ago, on President Bush's first presidential trip to Europe, allies in Western Europe and congressional Cassandras worried about the administration's plan to abrogate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia.
They argued that Bush's plans for a missile defense system, at the same time NATO was expanding to Russia's border, would throw the world into a nuclear arms race. "We need to preserve these strategic balances, of which the ABM Treaty is a pillar," said French President Jacques Chirac. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder joined Chirac in issuing a joint statement defending the ABM.
As Bush arrives tonight in Berlin for a seven-day overseas trip, European leaders still oppose the White House's policy on issues ranging from Iraq to global warming. But many concede Bush may have been right about Russia and the ABM.
The United States pulled out of the ABM Treaty, and NATO expansion in the Baltic nations is on track. Instead of an arms race and hostility resulting, Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin became fast friends. They agreed on an accord reducing nuclear weapons and are pursuing new ways to cooperate in commerce, intelligence and defense.
"We were worried a year ago that Bush's position would create a terrible confrontation," a senior German diplomat said. "Maybe we underestimated Putin's creativeness and farsightedness."
Bush loyalists say the administration had a clearer view than Western Europeans did of Russia. Bush, like Putin, understood the conflict had shifted from one of East against West to a new struggle of wealthy democracies against dictatorial regimes and stateless terrorists. Bush also perceived that Putin wished to be on the side of the wealthy democracies.
"It has been a pattern for 50 years that people yell Chicken Little any time we ask the Russians to do anything," said Kenneth Adelman, who ran the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in the Reagan administration. "It's all been wrong and predictably wrong."
In the new, "asymmetrical" warfare against rogue states, the Russians are allies, Adelman said. "They'll be with us on these issues probably more than France, and they'll be more important. They fear Islamic radicalism, they fear weapons of mass destruction, and they need Western investment and Western ways and means."
Officially, the Bush administration is not gloating. But Bush aides did compile a list of Chicken Little remarks made by politicians and commentators last year. Its title: "Quotes of Criticism on ABM Withdraw and National Missile Defense."
The list, mostly Democrats, includes Clinton national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger saying Bush had put the nation on a "collision course" with Russia and NATO allies.
Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) declared: "I believe it would be a grave mistake for the United States to unilaterally abrogate the ABM treaty in order to deploy a robust national defense system. Unilateral actions will trigger reactions all around the world. Those reactions themselves could make our nation less secure."
House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) vowed to block any missile defense system that violated the ABM Treaty. "Europeans are worried," Gephardt said, saying the administration may "prevent us from seizing a historic opportunity for engagement with Russia."
And former president Jimmy Carter said Bush's missile defense plan, which required abrogating the ABM Treaty, was "technologically ridiculous" and would "re-escalate the nuclear arms race."
One Republican made the compilation. Sen. John W. Warner (Va.) said Bush should leave "some vestiges of the ABM Treaty in place" to assure allies.
Included in the collection of quotes was a press release quoting Washington arms control expert Daryl G. Kimball predicting Bush's missile defense idea and ABM position would "set off a dangerous action/reaction cycle, involving the United States, Russia, and China."
Gephardt spokesman Erik Smith, asked about his boss's old remarks, acknowledged that "the White House has made progress" with Russia. But he said Bush has yet to make progress with Russia on nuclear proliferation, Iraq and dismantling nuclear weapons. "There were several other points . . . that have not been addressed," Smith said.
Kimball was unrepentant about his earlier words. "I stand behind the quote," he said. "The potential for a dangerous action/reaction cycle remains, especially because the Bush administration has failed to lock in verifiable reductions of Russia's nuclear forces."
Bush aides dismiss such concerns.
"What keeps Russia and the United States from going to war today is not the number of nuclear weapons that they have on either side or the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty or some outdated notion of strategic stability," national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said. "It's that they have nothing to go to war about."
--------
US - Russia Pact May Lead to More Ties
May 22, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Russia-Military.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- By putting in writing their plans to cut strategic nuclear weapons, the United States and Russia may be clearing a path for closer cooperation on other security issues, including early warning of missile launches.
One promising project is the Russian-American Observation Satellite, or RAMOS. Now a decade old, the program to launch two heat-sensing satellites for detection of missile launches has been slowed by an uncertain U.S.-Russian political relationship, according to officials involved in monitoring the project.
``Quite frankly, we haven't made as much progress as I would like because a lot of things get in our way -- certainly not the technology issues but other issues,'' Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, director of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency, said in a recent interview.
Satellites and other means of detecting and tracking missiles in flight are crucial to defending against attack. Interceptor rockets cannot work properly if they aren't cued to their target in time.
``I'd like to see that and other things expanded if we could work with the Russians ... on this problem (of missile defense) because they face the same dangers we do,'' he added. ``My hope is that we would be working with them a lot more than we have in the past.''
The Russians have long opposed U.S. plans to erect defenses against long-range missiles, asserting that it would lead to a renewed arms race and potentially undermine the deterrent effect of Russia's offensive nuclear force. They also opposed U.S. withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, which bans national missile defenses, but this week's summit is designed in part to set those differences aside.
The treaty President Bush and President Vladimir Putin are to sign during their meetings in Moscow spells out nuclear arms reductions that Bush intended to order even if there had been no Russian agreement.
That accord, combined with Bush's decision to withdraw in June from the ABM treaty, casts a new light on a multitude of questions relating to the spread of missile technology and its potential use by extremists and terrorists.
U.S. officials said Bush intends to ask Putin to cooperate on joint efforts to defend against missile attack, but they offered few details. One official said Bush planned to offer to share U.S. missile defense technology with Russia, although analysts say it is not clear how far Bush would take that.
William Hartung, a national security specialist at the World Policy Institute in New York, said he doubts that Bush's defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, is enthusiastic about sharing U.S. missile defense technology. Rumsfeld is inclined to view Russia more as a ``subcontractor'' than a full partner, he said.
In an interview last week, Rumsfeld was noncommittal on the issue of sharing technology.
``That's off into the future,'' he said.
James Goodby, a special representative for nuclear security during the Clinton administration, thinks Russia, the United States and the NATO alliance should jointly devise an action plan for missile defense cooperation.
``Now, that will require a certain exchange of information that perhaps some in this country or elsewhere would not like to see exchanged,'' Goodby said. ``That will be the first hurdle. But I think there is a vast potential there that ought to be looked at very seriously.''
For its part, Russia has indicated in the past a willingness to work with the United States and European nations on one of the biggest technological challenges in developing an effective missile defense: destroying a hostile missile in the first three minutes to five minutes of flight, known as the boost phase.
Most U.S. efforts have focused on weapons intended to intercept a missile during the midcourse of flight because the technology to achieve that is more mature.
Late in Clinton's second term, while the president was considering whether to go ahead with deployment of a national missile defense, the Russians pitched the idea of cooperating on boost-phase defenses. But when pressed for details on how it would work they had few specifics to offer.
The Bush administration may focus more on cooperation in the related field of early warning capabilities. One possibility is to offer Russia assistance in building an early warning radar in eastern Siberia. Another is development of a U.S.-Russian early warning center to process warning data.
On the Net:
Missile Defense Agency at http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/
--------
Final Arms Deal Details Worked On
May 22, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-US.html
MOSCOW (AP) -- Negotiators worked out the final details Wednesday of a landmark U.S.-Russian deal slashing each nation's nuclear arsenal by two-thirds, but an agreement on missile defense was still incomplete a day before President Bush arrives for a summit.
Bush hailed the nuclear accord in an interview with Russia's ITAR-Tass news agency and ORT television released Wednesday.
``That's going to be important to show the world that we're no longer enemies, we no longer have stockpiles of these horrible weapons,'' Bush was quoted as saying.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said the agreement is ``fully ready for signing'' by Bush and President Vladimir Putin on Friday.
``It's a big achievement for U.S.-Russia relations,'' said Sergei Rogov, head of the USA-Canada Institute think-tank.
No details of the agreement were announced.
After months of tense negotiations, Bush announced last week that a deal had been reached to reduce each country's arsenal to 1,700 to 2,200 warheads from the current 6,000 allowed. Since then U.S. and Russian officials have been scrambling to work out the details. The nuclear warhead reduction treaty is the centerpiece of this week's summit.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said the deal covers warheads and delivery vehicles, ``and everything connected to reducing strategic offensive weapons,'' according to the Interfax news agency. U.S. officials have said the agreement would only address warheads.
Russia remains concerned about the Pentagon's plan to stockpile some of the decommissioned weapons rather than destroy them.
U.S. officials have said the deal could be the last arms reduction agreement between the two countries, which are increasingly working as partners rather than foes. But Russian officials say the 30-year-old U.S.-Russian arms control efforts should continue.
``I'm convinced that we will continue to work with the American side, including preparation of additional agreements on increasing ... transparency'' of nuclear weapons cuts, Mikhail Lyssenko, head of the Foreign Ministry's security and disarmament department, said Wednesday.
A second accord to be signed by the two presidents on Friday, a declaration on shared political and security priorities, is still being negotiated, said a high-ranking Russian diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity.
That document will include a meaty section on cooperation in the missile defense field, including early missile warning systems and other measures to increase ``predictability and trust,'' the diplomat said.
No joint work on a missile defense system is foreseen at this point, the diplomat said.
Washington and the Kremlin have been at odds over U.S. intentions to build a national missile-shield system, a move that will abrogate the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty that Russia says is the keystone of international strategic stability.
U.S.-Russian relations had been deeply strained before the two presidents' first meeting last June, largely over Washington's missile defense plans and Russia's nuclear cooperation with Iran. The two countries had also engaged in a tit-for-tat expulsion of about 50 diplomats for alleged spying. Ties improved dramatically with Putin's backing for the U.S.-led anti-terrorism campaign.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- nevada
Opponents Spar Over Nuke Waste Site
May 22, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Yucca-Mountain.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Supporters and critics of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site sparred Wednesday over whether thousands of tons of highly radioactive waste can be shipped safely.
Robert Halstead, a consultant for the state of Nevada, said claims by the Energy Department that waste would likely be shipped to the proposed dump 90 miles from Las Vegas largely by rail and be limited to 175 shipments a year were ``unrealistic.'' Those claims ignored the fact that many of the reactor sites do not have rail connections, he said.
He also said no full-scale tests have been done -- or are required -- to ensure shipping casks will protect the highly radioactive material during a terrorist attack or serious accident.
Halstead, testifying before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said the Energy Department's own analysis estimated there would be at least 450 shipments a year if most are shipped by rail, and 2,200 a year if most end up being shipped by highway over a 24-year period.
The Energy Department recently said it is speeding up development, along with the states through which the waste would travel, of a detailed transportation plan.
DOE spokesman Joe Davis said the latest department analysis has as one option a plan that would depend mainly on rail, by shipping three large 140-ton waste containers per train. That would allow cross-country shipments to be limited to 175 a year, he said.
But Halstead said loading three rail cars with waste would cause balancing problems for normal freight trains and require special waste-only trains. He maintained DOE officials in the past have opposed using dedicated trains.
Senators supporting the Yucca Mountain project reiterated Energy Department claims that in 30 years of shipping nuclear waste there has never been a release of radioactive material harmful to the public or the environment.
According to materials distributed by the Nuclear Energy Institute, the trade group for the nuclear power industry, a 1999 study by Sandia National Laboratory concluded the release of radioactivity would be extremely small even if a waste shipment cask were hit by a ``high energy weapon.'' The group also noted a DOE analysis that suggested a sabotage of a rail shipment would result in just nine latent cancers.
Halstead said there were 11 transportation accidents involving used nuclear fuel shipments between 1957 and 1964, including several involving radioactive releases requiring cleanup.
``The record clearly indicates accidents do happen,'' he maintained.
Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho accused the waste site's critics of waging ``a campaign of fear'' and ignoring the potential risks of keeping the 77,000 tons of waste that would be destined for Nevada, at reactor sites around the country.
But Victor Gilinsky, a former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, charged that it is Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham who has been guilty of ``fear mongering'' by suggesting the waste isn't safe where it is.
Abraham frequently has justified moving ahead with Yucca Mountain by arguing that a central location provides better security and by noting that much of the waste now is kept near urban population centers.
Salt Lake City Mayor Ross ``Rocky'' Anderson worried about the impact to his city if the Yucca Mountain repository is built, bringing nuclear waste shipments nearby from all over the country.
``A catastrophic loss of life could accompany a single major accident,'' he said. ``Such a scenario is almost a certainty. Human error is inevitable.''
Stephen Prescott, executive director of the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City, said many Westerners haven't forgotten that the federal government misled them about contamination from years of atomic bomb testing at the Nevada Test Site adjacent to Yucca Mountain.
``We are told again that the risks are low,'' he said.
President Bush in February concluded that the 20 years of scientific study of the Yucca Mountain site is enough to go ahead with an application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for construction and operating permits.
Nevada vetoed Bush's decision as the state is allowed under a 1982 nuclear waste law. It is now up to Congress to decide whether to override the Nevada veto and the House already has done so. The Senate is expected to vote on the matter in late June or early July.
-------- ohio
NRC forms task force in wake of Ohio nuclear incident
REUTERS USA:
May 22, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16060/story.htm
WASHINGTON - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) this week formed an independent task force to glean lessons from the unexpected and severe corrosion at FirstEnergy Corp.'s nuclear power plant in Ohio, with the aim of avoiding future mishaps.
The NRC said in a statement that the task force will assess the agency's own investigation of reactor vessel head corrosion at FirstEnergy's 25-year-old Davis-Besse plant in Oak Harbor, Ohio. The incident has spawned industrywide concern and an investigation by the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee.
The task force will identify potential deficiencies in the NRC's reactor maintenance regulations with an eye toward changing current practices, the NRC said.
Arthur Howell, a regional director of NRC reactor safety in Texas, will head the task force.
The group will complete its review by September and issue a written report, the NRC said.
The NRC launched an investigation earlier this year after a severely corroded cavity was found in the reactor vessel head at FirstEnergy's 25-year-old plant in Oak Harbor, Ohio. The corrosion had nearly eaten through a metal plate about six inches (15-cm) thick.
The plant is shut down pending the NRC's approval of FirstEnergy's repair plan, which was submitted last month.
During a scheduled refueling outage that began Feb. 16, FirstEnergy engineers found boric acid had leaked at the base of five of the 69 control rod nozzles that penetrate the reactor. Boric acid is used in the primary coolant bath surrounding uranium rods in the reactor core.
At one of the nozzles, the acid had eaten all the way through the 6-inch (15-cm) thick vessel head.
The corrosion was so severe that a 3/8-inch (1-cm) thick stainless steel liner inside the reactor was the only barrier left between the reactor core, which operates under enormous pressure, and the metal shroud surrounding the reactor vessel.
-------- us politics
Daschle Is Seeking a Special Inquiry on Sept. 11 Attack
New York Times
May 22, 2002
By ALISON MITCHELL
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/22/politics/22CONG.html
WASHINGTON, May 21 - Headed for a confrontation with the White House and Congressional Republicans, the majority leader of the Democratic-controlled Senate called today for an independent commission to investigate government action before the Sept. 11 attacks. He said such a panel was needed for "a greater degree of public scrutiny, of public involvement, of public understanding."
The majority leader, Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, said he would bring legislation before the Senate soon to create the commission. His announcement followed days of warnings from senior Bush administration officials, including the vice president, that further terrorist attacks against the United States were virtually certain.
It also coincided with Congressional testimony today by Kenneth Williams, the F.B.I. agent who reported in a memorandum to the bureau last July that terrorists might be training at American flight schools.
Mr. Williams told lawmakers in closed session that after talking with several flight students from Arab countries and hearing them express extreme animosity toward the United States, he had recommended interviewing hundreds or even thousands of Middle Eastern students taking pilot training in this country. But, lawmakers said, Mr. Williams also told them he believed that even if his recommendation had been adopted, the effort would not have thwarted the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. [Page A22.]
An array of administration officials fanned out across Capitol Hill, where, in closed-door meetings, they tried to head off an independent commission and respond to Congressional demands for explanations about what was known before Sept. 11. Republican lawmakers stepped up their own opposition to such a commission, on a day that began with measured tones but veered toward sharp partisanship as it wore on.
In a gathering with reporters, Mr. Daschle criticized administration "intransigence" to sharing information with Congress. He said the disclosure today that Attorney General John Ashcroft and the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, learned of the Williams memo soon after Sept. 11 but told President Bush about it only in the last few weeks was "all the more reason why we have to get to the bottom of what it was we knew and when we knew it."
"The time has come for us to do what they did after the invasion of Pearl Harbor, do what they did with the assassination of President Kennedy," the senator said of previous independent inquiries.
He said a commission, which some lawmakers envision looking back years across administrations of both parties, would supplement, not replace, a joint investigation now under way by the Congressional intelligence committees.
But Republican Congressional leaders, rallying behind the White House, rejected the idea of a commission. Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the House majority whip, spoke out against any public airing of the nation's vulnerabilities, saying that "our work should prevent another terrorist attack and not make Osama bin Laden's job easier."
Speaking at a news conference where he was flanked by other House Republicans, Mr. DeLay said a commission "during a time of war is ill conceived and frankly irresponsible." He accused the Democrats of playing politics. "We will not allow our president to be undermined by those who want his job," he said.
Mr. Daschle and the House Democratic leader, Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, are both considered possible presidential contenders in 2004, as is Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, the lead sponsor of legislation that would create a 14-member commission. The bill's co-sponsor, Senator John McCain of Arizona, ran against Mr. Bush in the Republican primaries in 2000.
With the tug of war over a commission occupying Capitol corridors, the four senior members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, two from each party, met with Mr. Ashcroft to try to reach agreement on Justice Department cooperation with their own inquiry.
The lawmakers had said recently that because of the department's concerns about protecting prosecutions, it had not been fully cooperative. But late this afternoon the four lawmakers, appearing together, called today's session valuable and said they had smoothed the way to go forward. "The information we need, we are going to get," said the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Porter J. Goss, Republican of Florida.
The four, mindful of the calls for an outside panel, seemed determined to demonstrate that their own inquiry would be credible, thorough and unstinting. "It's very important for this investigation to have credibility," said Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee. "And to have credibility, you have to have the cooperation of the Justice Department and all the agencies that we will be investigating during this inquiry. Anything short of that would be a travesty."
At the White House, Ari Fleischer, President Bush's press secretary, said of the Congressional inquiry, "The administration is committed to working with Congress to get it done and to do it right."
With Congress set to leave at the end of this week for a weeklong Memorial Day recess, it was not clear how soon Mr. Daschle would try to push through a vote on an independent commission, or whether the legislation would pass.
Coming out against such a panel today, the Senate Republican leader, Trent Lott of Mississippi, noted that the intelligence committees were already working and said, "I don't think a commission would serve that good a purpose now, and it would be weeks, months, before it would ever produce anything."
But Mr. Daschle said that he planned a Senate vote "reasonably quickly" and that if nothing else, the vote would put lawmakers on record.
"At the very least, we ought to have a good debate about whether it's important or not to do this," he said. "Let those who oppose this idea come forth and explain themselves."
With the two parties jousting over security, Senate Republicans demanded that their chamber turn swiftly to a variety of legislation needed to finance the military this fiscal year and next.
For their part, senior Congressional Democrats called for more authority to be bestowed on Tom Ridge, the director of homeland security, and for swifter development of a strategy on domestic security and more money for that security.
"I am fond of saying that Ridge needs a real job," said Representative Jane Harman, a California Democrat who is a member of the House Intelligence Committee. "President Dwight Eisenhower once said that the right organization doesn't always guarantee success but the wrong organization guarantees failure. And I would say no organization guarantees failure."
Mr. Ridge is to produce a comprehensive domestic security plan in the next few months. But Ms. Harman said: "People are starting to panic. It is unreasonable to expect individual citizens to be able to know what to do. The leadership of this country has to provide some structure and reassurance for people."
Congressional leaders also announced today that they would hold a special session in New York City on Sept. 6 as a show of support in the wake of the terrorist attacks. The visit will be not a full Congressional session but instead a symbolic meeting to which each state will send at least one member.
----
Resurfacing Animosity Awaits Bush in Europe
Post-Sept. 11 Unity Gives Way to Clashing Values
By T.R. Reid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, May 22, 2002; Page A29
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A53453-2002May21?language=printer
LONDON -- At first, Sept. 11 seemed to shrink the Atlantic. Just hours after the buildings toppled, Britain's prime minister, Tony Blair, assured Americans that their allies stood "shoulder to shoulder" with them. In a unanimous vote on Sept. 12, the NATO alliance declared that the attack on the United States was an attack on all NATO nations. Even that venerable organ of Euro-left anti-Americanism, France's Le Monde newspaper, declared: "We are all Americans now."
That was then. Today, the United States and Western Europe are drifting apart again -- in policy, in values, in global ambitions. The differences are amplified by a clash of aspirations, as Europeans openly assert their goal of creating a continental "superpower" that can equal or exceed the United States in global influence.
Many European officials, columnists and academics now depict the United States as a selfish, gun-happy "hyperpower" that believes force is the sole solution to terrorism. Chris Patten, the European Union's commissioner for external affairs, recently told the Guardian newspaper that he hopes the United States won't go into "unilateralist overdrive."
When President Bush arrives in Germany today to begin a week-long tour that will also take him to France, Italy and Russia, he will come face to face with sentiments like these. In Berlin, tens of thousands of demonstrators got started yesterday, taking to the streets to condemn any widening of the war on terrorism.
Even in Britain, the most loyal U.S. ally in Europe, there is strong pressure these days to lean away from the United States and closer to the continent. "Tony Blair has to choose," said political analyst Will Hutton, author of a much-discussed new book about Britain's place in the world. "And the fact is, the United Kingdom is European, not American, in attitudes as well as geography."
For their part, Americans sometimes write off Western Europe as a collection of feuding post-colonial nations that haven't awakened to the new era of market economics. A former U.S. ambassador to France, Felix Rohatyn, suggested recently that France risks being held back by "nostalgia for past grandeur."
Another U.S. view is that Europe is too quick to judge the United States as preferring to act alone.
In an interview with German television before he departed, Bush said: "I believe in alliances. I know America can't win the war on terror alone.
"I understand there's some reluctance about some of the positions I take," Bush added. "I speak my mind. There's no doubt where I stand. And I remember when Ronald Reagan came to Germany, he said, 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down' the whole wall. He didn't say tear down a couple of bricks. He said tear the whole thing down. And I guess I tend to speak that way, too."
Despite arguments and occasional insults, financial and industrial links between the United States and Western Europe are stronger than ever. In the past decade, there have been tidal waves of transatlantic investment. Millions of Americans now work for European companies, and vice versa.
A common commitment to free speech and democratic governments creates a political bond and a shared determination to spread these "Western" values to the rest of the world. European troops are fighting alongside Americans in Afghanistan.
And yet, there is a sense on both sides of the Atlantic that the emotional connection forged just after Sept. 11 couldn't last. "The whole concept of the 'West' feels out of date now," said Dominique Moisi, a French political analyst. "September 11 brought us together, but only temporarily. We have to realize that major differences exist across the Atlantic and will not go away. Europe and the U.S. will have to live with them."
Some of the issues that divide the two sides -- how best to deal with global warming, for instance -- could be resolved relatively soon through diplomacy and compromise. An election could change things, too: Many of the specific disagreements came up after Bush entered office. But the process of "continental drift" is also propelled by long-term forces that probably won't go away.
A key development is the increasing unification of Europe. The collective power that comes from membership in a transcontinental community has given many Europeans the sense that the EU should stand equal with, or ahead of, the United States on the world stage. "We are building a new world superpower," Blair said, an idea that is echoed by many other European leaders.
The "United States of Europe" that Winston Churchill dreamed of has not yet arrived, but the idea has made considerable progress. Today's 15-nation European Union has its own parliament, president, court system, bill of rights, flag, anthem and national day. Much of Western Europe is effectively borderless -- travelers can breeze through a dozen countries without showing their passports. And a dozen countries now use the common currency, the euro.
The EU is bigger than the United States in population, and conducts roughly the same amount of external trade. It gives away more foreign aid and contributes more to the United Nations and other international organizations than the United States offers. With the EU set to add about 10 new member countries over the next few years, it could soon pass the United States in gross national product as well.
To Americans, comfortable with their nation's status as the planet's sole superpower, the idea of a larger, richer power popping up in Europe can be unsettling. "America will have to undergo the difficult psychological task of recognizing that Europe is no longer the junior partner whose acquiescence to U.S. views can be taken for granted," said Jessica T. Mathews of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Perhaps the greatest proponent of the view that a new European superpower is about to take America's place is Romano Prodi. The engaging, talkative academic-turned-politician was formerly prime minister of Italy and is now president of the European Commission, the EU's executive branch.
"There is a rhythm of global dominance, and no country remains the first player forever," Prodi said. "Maybe [U.S. dominance] won't last. And who will be the next leading player? Maybe next will be China. But more probably, before China, it will be the united Europe. Europe's time is almost here."
Prodi has argued that the EU is already the global agenda-setter on such issues as global warming, food safety and international trade -- areas where angry disagreements between the United States and the EU have undermined the relationship.
Prodi conceded, though, that Europe "has not been a global power" in foreign affairs. This is partly because Europe cannot match U.S. military clout, and partly because the 15 nations often can't agree on positions. When they can, the EU often seems to be shopping for opportunities to counter U.S. positions.
While the Bush administration treats North Korea as an "evil" outcast nation, the EU has engaged it with a series of trade and policy missions. The EU is working with President Fidel Castro of Cuba. As the White House tilts more and more toward Israel, the EU has emerged as the strongest champion and chief financial supporter of the Palestinian Authority.
The United States and the EU often seem to be competing for the affections of Vladimir Putin's Russia, with Europe loudly taking Putin's side in the argument over Bush's plan for a missile defense system.
Although Europeans are fighting in Afghanistan, they have consistently argued that it takes more than armed might to defeat terrorism and that the United States should put more into development aid and political negotiations.
There is also a deep-seated difference in values. "The most serious threat to the U.S.-Europe alliance is the fundamental approach to global governance," said John Palmer, director of the European Policy Center, a research organization based in Brussels.
"The European Union, from its own experience of creating a multi-nation unit, is committed to multilateralism," Palmer said. "That means a global base of law, with all nations giving up some sovereignty in the interest of cooperative solutions. But the U.S., in many cases, rejects the cooperative approach. Washington wants to go it alone, particularly under Bush. It's a basic difference of philosophy."
European policymakers can reel off a string of issues on which there is such division. Whether it is the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, the new International Criminal Court, the international ban on land mines or the biodiversity treaty, EU members uniformly support the global, collective solution, and the United States does not.
With the United States increasing military spending, there could be a future, Moisi said, in which "the U.S. does the fighting, the U.N. does the feeding, and the EU does the funding." Some Europeans would accept that formula, Moisi said, particularly if an expanded EU is recognized as an economic power equal to the United States.
"But is this kind of division of labor any basis for a genuine partnership?" Moisi said. "That is the central question for the Atlantic alliance today."
----
Congress to Meet In N.Y. on Sept. 6
Associated Press
Wednesday, May 22, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A53417-2002May21?language=printer
Congressional leaders indicated yesterday that they have settled on Sept. 6 for holding a special session in New York City as a show of support in the wake of the terrorist attacks.
But plans for the visit are being scaled back. Instead of a full-blown session, a more symbolic gathering will be held, with each state sending at least one member from its House and Senate delegation.
"We're looking at something like the session to commemorate the bicentennial in Philadelphia," said John Feehery, a spokesman for House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.).
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
U.S. Planes Foil an Attack on an Airfield in Afghanistan
New York Times
May 22, 2002
By ERIC SCHMITT
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/22/international/asia/22MILI.html
WASHINGTON, May 21 - American warplanes bombed a group of suspected Qaeda and Taliban fighters today as they were setting up mortars within striking distance of an airfield in eastern Afghanistan used by allied troops, military officials said.
Just before nightfall, the officials said, American reconnaissance aircraft detected 15 to 20 fighters digging four mortar pits several hundred yards from the airfield at Khost. The airfield is a pivotal hub for American Special Operations Forces and other coalition soldiers fighting pockets of Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in the rugged mountains near the border with Pakistan.
Air Force A-10 attack planes moved in from Bagram Air Base, near Kabul, dropping bombs and rockets on the fighters, and strafing them with 30-millimeter Gatling guns. A senior military official said the strike killed "a few" of the fighters, while the others fled.
For several weeks, suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban forces have used the cover of darkness to harass American-led troops at Khost, Kandahar and other bases with mortar and rocket attacks that have caused little damage and no casualties. But the assaults serve as a constant reminder that hostile fighters are nearby and are not giving up.
These tactics underscore how the major battles of Tora Bora and the Shah-i-Kot Valley have given way to guerrilla-style warfare. American commanders say that Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters have dispersed into very small groups to avoid detection.
American forces were lucky today to catch the fighters before they could set up their artillery, military officials said. In previous attacks, the hostile forces have rigged ingeniously simple timing devices that launch the mortars or rockets long after they have fled the scene.
With the war in Afghanistan now well into its eighth month, one of Washington's major allies in the fight announced today it would pull out its forces later this summer. In Ottawa, Canada's minister of defense, Arthur Eggleton, said that the 850 troops in the Third Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry would return home in late July or early August and would not be replaced.
Canadian officials said their commitment to fighting terrorism remained firm, but that their relatively small army was stretched thin. Mr. Eggleton left open the possibility that Canadian forces might return to Afghanistan next spring, if needed.
Canada has the third-largest number of ground forces in Afghanistan, behind the United States and Britain, and American officials were quick to play down any suggestion that the allied commitment to the campaign against terror was waning.
"What we try to do in this coalition is to cycle our forces in and out for the purpose of rearming, refitting and, in fact, resting, " Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, said at a news conference in Tampa, Fla., where his Central Command headquarters is located. "I don't think it would send any signal at all if Canada were to take a decision to rotate" its forces out.
Four Canadian soldiers were killed and eight others wounded last month when an American F-16 fighter pilot who thought he was under attack mistakenly bombed the Canadians. Canadian and American officials said the bombing, which is the source of two continuing inquiries, was not a reason that the forces were leaving.
-------- arms sales
Pentagon Offers F - 16 Jets to Brazil
May 22, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Brazil-Missiles.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon has offered to sell F-16 fighter jets to Brazil that would include advanced air-to-air missiles -- the first U.S. sale of the weapon in Latin America.
The Defense Security Cooperation Agency made a presentation to the Brazilian government to sell the advanced F-16 Fighting Falcon with associated weapons and equipment, including the advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles known by the acronym AMRAAM, officials said Wednesday.
The system allows a fighter pilot to launch the weapon from beyond visual range of his target. It also provides a greater capability to attack low-altitude targets.
The Defense Department has a policy of not being first to introduce such new technology into a region to avoid upsetting the military balance in an area and starting an arms race.
But officials believe the move is justified because neighboring Peru has bought a Russian version of the AMRAAM, a defense official said on condition of anonymity.
Brazil is talking with a number of countries, including Russia and France, about buying a dozen new generation fighters to replace its old French Mirage jets.
``This U.S. offer marks a new foundation for building an even stronger relationship between our air forces -- a relationship built on greater trust and respect for the capabilities of the Brazilian Air Force,'' the Pentagon said in a statement.
Earlier this year, Chile said it would buy 10 F-16 fighters from Lockheed Martin, marking the first sale of advanced U.S. warplanes to a South American country in two decades, according to Lockheed.
But the deal did not include the missile system.
The F-16 saw combat in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and Bosnia and is used by 22 countries besides the United States.
-------- biological weapons
IMF-World Bank Anthrax Response Causes Furor
Lack of Notification Angers D.C. Health Officials; U.S. to Issue Protocol for Positive Field Tests
By Avram Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 22, 2002; Page A10
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A53474-2002May21?language=printer
A furor triggered yesterday in the District, because of the reaction of two global financial institutions to anthrax field test results, will lead to a federal medical protocol to prevent unnecessary prescription of antibiotics and needless alarms, officials said.
That decision by officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was made after D.C. health officials complained bitterly that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund failed to notify them before taking actions that, they said, caused unnecessary alarm and could pose a health risk to their employees.
Jerry Hauer, director of HHS's office of public health preparedness, said his staff would develop national guidelines because, he said, field tests such as those used by the World Bank and the IMF were unreliable. Of field tests, he said, "By and large, what they've done is create a lot of unnecessary anxiety."
The World Bank sent workers home Monday afternoon, encouraged them to stay home yesterday and started four employees on antibiotics after a field test showed possible contamination. A second test turned up negative results, and further tests are underway.
The IMF closed its mailroom and prescribed antibiotics yesterday to 100 employees after a positive field test result.
Those actions and the failure to notify city health officials angered Larry Siegel, the senior physician at the D.C. Health Department.
"I'm outraged that we were not notified that these agencies had an event they were concerned about relative to anthrax," Siegel said. "The District requires that any evidence of an infectious reportable disease be reported to the Health Department. They did not do that with an incident they thought was potentially dangerous to the public health." He said he discussed his concerns with Hauer yesterday.
It is unlikely that the preliminary findings would be confirmed by laboratory cultures, city and postal officials said, because U.S. mail delivered to the institutions is irradiated before delivery. Mail to all federal government offices in the area also is irradiated, but some agencies, such as the Federal Reserve, have hired contractors to perform routine anthrax screening as a backup. So far, no confirmed anthrax contamination has been picked up by that screening this year -- only false positives, Siegel said.
On May 9, the Federal Reserve reported a similar result in its mailroom, and a spokesman yesterday said subsequent tests had not turned up positive. He said that further testing was being conducted but that operations had returned to normal.
Siegel, who helped manage the city's response to last year's anthrax outbreaks, said the medical director for the World Bank and IMF acted without considering the impact on the region -- and the reactions of people in other institutions.
"When they do things like this, it has public health implications that go far beyond their little isolated island of concern," he said.
World Bank and IMF spokesmen defended their decisions as being based on the advice of their health services department, a jointly funded medical unit that serves workers at both organizations.
World Bank spokeswoman Caroline Anstey initially said the 1,200 employees of the J Building, at Pennsylvania Avenue and 18th Street NW, were advised not to go to the office yesterday because it was too hot. The cooling system was shut down to keep spores from being recirculated in the building, she said.
But later she said that there was no concern about contamination and that closure was a suggestion, not an order.
"People were advised to work at home, but the building hasn't been closed, and some people have gone in and out," Anstey said. "They were told there was a health warning and that they may want to stay away. We envisage turning the air conditioning on Thursday morning, hopefully, after receiving results of the tests."
She said Siegel's criticisms were misplaced.
"It's only four people," she said. "We can be attacked for doing too little or attacked for doing too much. I think it's better to be attacked for doing too much. It would be irresponsible simply to do nothing."
Across the street at the IMF, spokesman Tom Dawson said Monday's delivery of irradiated mail tested negative. But after reports of the World Bank field test, IMF contractors tested again and got a positive reading. No employees were sent home, and only the loading dock and the mailroom were sealed off, said Francisco Baker, another spokesman.
Siegel said 100 IMF workers were taking doxycycline to head off any infection that could be caused by exposure to any anthrax bacterium. But he said such actions could prompt a private employer to conduct its own tests, in which a false positive could sow fear and trigger demands for antibiotics.
Medical experts warn against unnecessary use of antibiotics because they can cause uncomfortable side effects and because widespread indiscriminate use can allow pathogens to mutate into strains that resist the drugs.
Two weeks ago, the Federal Reserve did not contact the Health Department before announcing its field test result, and a city advisory issued the next day said that caused "a great deal of public consternation" in the region. No anthrax was ever confirmed. In the advisory, the Health Department urged institutions to make no public announcements on the basis of positive field tests.
Four letters containing anthrax spores killed five people in New York, Florida, Connecticut and the District in the fall. Contaminated letters sent to the Senate last year resulted in one office building being shut for months during a painstaking cleanup. The District's central mail processing facility, Brentwood, which was contaminated, is to be disinfected with chlorine dioxide gas soon, postal officials said.
Staff writers Manny Fernandez and Spencer S. Hsu contributed to this report.
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Conferees Agree on Bioterror Bill
Legislation Calls for Vaccine Stockpiles, Increased Research
By Helen Dewar
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 22, 2002; Page A35
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A53483-2002May21?language=printer
House and Senate negotiators agreed yesterday on the final version of legislation meant to ensure a sustained, comprehensive effort to shore up the nation's defenses against a bioterror attack.
The bill, likely to win swift approval from Congress and prompt signature by President Bush, includes provisions calling for the stockpiling of drugs and vaccines and other initiatives to help prevent, detect and treat terrorism-related health threats.
It also would expand the program through which pharmaceutical companies pay large fees to the Food and Drug Administration to review their new drug applications. Drugmakers support the higher fees because they enable the agency to speed up the process of moving new products to the marketplace. Some critics, however, say the higher fees will make the FDA more dependent on an industry it regulates.
The House could take up the legislation as early as today. The Senate may act on it before this Friday's start of Congress's week-long Memorial Day recess or shortly after Congress returns June 3.
While funds to finance first-year operations were approved late last year, lawmakers said the bioterrorism authorization bill was needed for regulatory and other legal mandates and to establish a framework for allocating the money.
The legislation resulted from separate but largely similar bills passed last year by both chambers after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington and subsequent anthrax spore-tainted letters that were received on Capitol Hill and elsewhere in the country.
"Because of this bipartisan legislation, Americans will be able to sleep better at night in the knowledge that our nation is taking the steps necessary to protect them and their families against the deadly threat of bioterrorism," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). Kennedy co-sponsored the Senate version of the legislation with Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.). The House bill was sponsored by Reps. W.J. "Billy" Tauzin (R-La.) and John D. Dingell (D-Mich.).
The Senate and House bills anticipated spending about $3 billion annually on anti-bioterrorism efforts, roughly the sum that has been appropriated for the current fiscal year. But the final version refers simply to "such sums as necessary" to pay for programs prescribed by the legislation, according to a Senate aide.
In addition to providing for stockpiling of vaccines and antibiotics to protect against biological and chemical weapons, including the possibility of a smallpox epidemic, the legislation authorizes substantial new spending to help state and local health officials prepare for bioterrorism attacks. Grants would be made available to help hospitals prepare for treatment of victims. Funding for research on prevention and treatment also would be increased.
The bill calls for tighter regulation of laboratories and people who work with materials that could be used in bioweapons to target individuals or the food supply.
Additional steps would be taken to protect the food supply, including new authority for the FDA to bar unsafe food from entering the country and grants to states to strengthen food inspections and deal with outbreaks of food-borne illnesses. New registration and record-keeping requirements would be imposed, and safety improvements would be ordered at animal research labs.
The bill would require community water systems serving more than 3,300 people to conduct vulnerability assessments and prepare emergency response plans, and calls for a review of current and future precautions. In case of an attack on a nuclear power plant, expanded supplies of potassium iodide would be made available to communities near the plants as a step to handle contamination.
Staff writer Marc Kaufman contributed to this report.
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House OKs $4.6B to Fight Bioterror
May 22, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Bioterrorism-Congress.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House, trying ``to think as evilly as we could,'' overwhelmingly passed a $4.6 billion bill Wednesday aimed at strengthening the nation's bioterrorism preparedness by stockpiling vaccines and boosting inspections of food coming across borders.
The 425-1 vote capped a months-long effort sparked by post-Sept. 11 concerns that included anthrax-tainted letters sent to Capitol Hill.
``We've tried to think as evilly as we could,'' said Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., a drafter of the bill. ``What would the most evil person do to disrupt our health supply system or our clean water system? What would the most evil mind try to do if they learned how to fly a crop-duster? We went through that awful exercise of trying to think like the most evil person on earth.''
The bill, which authorizes the money over two years, gives the nation ``a whole new arsenal,'' Tauzin said.
Senate leaders hope to take up the bill before adjourning Friday for a weeklong recess, but it was uncertain whether they would get to it.
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., the bill's Senate negotiator, said the legislation means ``Americans will be able to sleep better at night in the knowledge that our nation is taking the steps necessary to protect them and their families against the deadly threat of bioterrorism.''
States would get $1.6 billion in grants to prepare for a biological attack, using a formula included in the compromise. The House had wanted grant disbursement to be at the discretion of the health and human services secretary.
The compromise also would have drinking water systems assess their vulnerability to terrorist attack, develop emergency plans and submit the plans to the Environmental Protection Agency. House Republicans had argued that the agency lacks the capacity to handle such sensitive information, but the compromise would establish strict security controls to protect the information.
The bill also includes $300 million for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to upgrade its facilities.
The compromise also would renew a law that allows the Food and Drug Administration to charge fees to pharmaceutical companies to pay for speedier review of new medications. Negotiators also included $45 million to help speed the review of generic drugs and $27 million to help the FDA monitor pharmaceutical advertising aimed at consumers. Both amounts would be spent over five years.
The only vote against the bill was cast by Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, a fiscal conservative.
On the Net:
The bill, H.R. 3448, is at http://thomas.loc.gov
----
Bioterrorism Bill Commits Billions for Readiness
May 22, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-22-09.html#anchor2
WASHINGTON, DC, Congress has passed a $4.6 billion bill aimed at defending the nation against bioterrorist attack.
The Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Response Act of 2002 (HR 3448) is designed to better prepare America for bioterrorist threats or other public health emergencies by improving America's ability to respond to such threats. The sweeping legislation, already approved by a House Senate conference committee, covers everything from public health preparedness and improvements, to enhancing controls on biological agents, to protecting the nation's food, drug and drinking water supplies.
"We've tried to think as evilly as we could," said Representative Billy Tauzin, the Louisiana Republican who introduced the bill in December 2001. "What would the most evil person do to disrupt our health supply system or our clean water system? What would the most evil mind try to do if they learned how to fly a crop duster? We went through that awful exercise of trying to think like the most evil person on earth."
The measure authorizes $1.6 billion in grants to states, local governments, and other public and private health care facilities to improve planning and preparedness for health epidemics, increase laboratory capacity, educate and train health care personnel, and develop new drugs, therapies and vaccines.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will get $300 million to upgrade laboratory facilities. The bill authorizes $640 million to expand the nation's stockpiles of anthrax antibiotics and other supplies, and $509 million to purchase of additional smallpox vaccines.
More than $160 million is authorized to analyze the nation's vulnerabilities and protect against chemical, biological or radiological attacks on drinking water supplies.
To protect food supplies, the bill expands the Food and Drug Administration's authority to seize imports of unsafe food to help pay for state food inspection and enforcement programs, and establishes greater regulation of laboratories and control of materials that could be used as biochemical weapons.
-------- britain
Britain Keeps Women - in - Combat Ban
May 22, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Britain-Women-in-Combat.html
LONDON (AP) -- They can fly military aircraft and fire artillery, but women in Britain's armed forces will not be allowed in close-combat roles, the British government announced Wednesday.
Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said that after a two-year review the government had decided to retain the bar on women serving in tank crews or the infantry.
Hoon said admitting women to these close-combat jobs could disrupt the ``cohesion'' of all-male fighting units.
``Under the conditions of a high-intensity, close-quarter battle, group cohesion becomes of much greater significance to team performance and, in such an environment, failure can have far-reaching and grave consequences,'' Hoon said in a written answer to lawmakers in the House of Commons.
``To admit women therefore, would involve a risk without any offsetting gains in terms of combat effectiveness.''
Prime Minister Tony Blair's government had earlier expressed support for allowing women to take on combat roles, and Hoon had said the burden of proof lay with opponents to prove that women would compromise combat effectiveness.
But senior officers strenuously opposed the change and welcomed Wednesday's decision.
``The roles that we are talking about are those where our personnel would be deployed in face-to-face combat with the enemy and this is not something that can be trialed,'' said the chief of defense staff, Adm. Sir Michael Boyce.
``We need to ensure that our people are afforded the maximum chance of success and the minimum risk of losing life.
``I and my fellow chiefs of staff have therefore concluded that it would be irresponsible to experiment by placing women in those roles,'' he said.
A few countries allow women to play some combat roles, including Germany, Canada, Denmark, Norway and Israel.
In the U.S. military, woman can serve on combat ships but are still not allowed on submarines and are barred from serving in units whose main purpose is ground combat.
Seeking to attract female recruits, Blair's Labor Party government has broadened the range of military careers open to women, from 47 percent of forces' jobs in 1997 to more than 70 percent today.
Women may serve on navy ships -- but not submarines -- join the artillery and fly as pilots. They constitute 7.2 percent of personnel in the army, 8.5 percent in the navy and 10.6 percent in the air force.
As part of the review, military officials conducted physical trials of mixed-gender platoons and studied physiological and psychological differences between men and women.
The study found that few women were able to meet the physical standard required of combat troops -- but some could, and strength was rejected as a reason for excluding women as a whole.
Similarly, the report said, psychological differences had little bearing on women's suitability, although, it noted, ``the capacity for aggression ... was generally lower for women.''
Paul Keetch, defense spokesman for the opposition Liberal Democrats, said the ruling could be open to legal challenge.
``We must recognize that, in order to defend our values and freedoms, our armed forces must reflect them as well. Equality of opportunity is a fundamental part of those values,'' he said.
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Britain Recalls Pakistan Diplomats
May 22, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Britain-Pakistan.html
LONDON (AP) -- Britain recalled many of its diplomats from Pakistan on Wednesday and advised other British nationals to leave the country out of concern for their security.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw would not say whether Britain had received specific threats but pointed to the recent attacks on Americans and French nationals in Pakistan by suspected Islamic extremists.
``We will begin reducing the number of staff and dependents in Pakistan with immediate effect,'' Straw said. He added the Foreign Office was advising against all but essential travel to Pakistan.
A car bomb explosion in Karachi, Pakistan, killed 11 French engineers and three Pakistanis, including the presumed suicide bomber, on May 8. Two months earlier, four worshippers at a Protestant church in Islamabad, including a U.S. Embassy employee and her 17-year-old daughter, were killed in a grenade attack.
After the church attack, the United States ordered its embassy dependents and nonessential staff in Pakistan to leave. Many people in predominantly Muslim Pakistan are opposed to the U.S. campaign in neighboring Afghanistan, although Pakistan's government supports the war on terrorism.
The British ambassador, Hilary Synnott, will remain in the country, but the number of diplomats, staff and family members attached to Britain's embassy in Islamabad will be cut from about 210 to about 80, the Foreign Office said.
There will be similar cuts at the British consulates in Karachi and Lahore, two Pakistani cities where the United States also has scaled back its diplomatic presence.
The Foreign Office said the measure was not ``directly'' linked to the growing tension between India and Pakistan.
-------- business
Raytheon, optics may partner High-tech weapon system - could benefit local firms
By Alan D. Fischer
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Wednesday, 22 May 2002
http://cndyorks.gn.apc.org/yspace/articles/raytheon-optics.htm
A new high-tech weapon system under development at Raytheon Missile Systems could offer the local optics industry explosive economic growth.
Homeland security concerns have made billions of dollars available for new optics-related products, ranging from futuristic weapons to airport luggage screening systems.
The Directed Energy Weapons product line is expected to replace, with a beam of energy, the conventional missiles and projectiles now used in battle, Raytheon officials said at an Arizona Optics Industry Association luncheon Tuesday at the Arizona Inn.
The year-old program employs 150 Raytheon workers, including about 50 in Tucson, said Michael W. Booen, vice president of the Directed Energy Weapons project.
During the start-up period most work is being handled in-house, but as the project matures, about 75 percent of the work will be outsourced to subcontractors, offering local optics firms business opportunities, Booen said.
"We're going to need a lot of optical support. We know there is a lot of talent here in Tucson," he said. "As we go forward, the opportunities will grow."
"Partnering with Raytheon as a vendor or subcontractor is very important to my business," said Francis Claire of Aegis Solutions LLC, a high-tech firm. "This is an area that is going to open right up."
University of Arizona researchers could partner with the Directed Energy Weapon project to benefit both parties, said Mike Proctor, director of corporate relations at the UA.
Raytheon, a leader in developing and manufacturing conventional missiles and projectiles, is looking to the future with the Directed Energy Weapons.
"The other weapons programs use missiles or projectiles to deliver energy to the target," said Paul Diamond, vice president of engineering at the Tucson Raytheon plant. "Most of those systems will be replaced by a beam of energy."
Delivery to military customers is several years away, and non-military applications are expected to follow, Booen said.
The program has two energy components: high-power microwaves and high-energy lasers.
The Active Denial technology uses microwaves that penetrate one-sixty-fourth of an inch below the skin's surface - where pain receptors are located - and cause people to immediately stop whatever they are doing, said Booen.
The device causes no permanent harm, and the pain stops when the person steps out of the range of the microwave beam, he said. No test subject has been able to last more than three seconds after being subject to the device, he said.
The device could be used for harbor and embassy defense, for chasing enemy crowds away from downed aircraft, to protect potential terrorist targets like nuclear power plants and to control crowds, he said.
Military applications will see Active Denial mounted on vehicles like Jeeps or Humvees. Booen would not disclose the effective range of the weapon but said it exceeds the range of small-arms fire.
Future civilian applications could see the devices reduced in size, with police officers being armed with hand-held units.
The device is non-lethal and causes no collateral damage, Booen said.
The second Directed Energy Systems technology, a high-energy laser, hits a target with energy at the speed of light with ultimate precision, he said.
Laser weapons would work for air defense, air-to-air combat, guarding ships and ports, and for space-based defense.
Optics will play a vital role in the new weapons, and optics have grown in importance for conventional missiles. He said 95 percent of U.S. weapons used in Afghanistan featured precision guidance devices, compared with 65 percent in Kosovo and 3 percent in the Desert Storm battles.
Contact Star Business reporter Alan D. Fischer at 573-4175 or at afischer@azstarnet.com .
-------- colombia
9 Killed in Colombian Raid
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
May 22, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Colombia.html?ei=1&en=b262ab2f2cca7632&ex=1023079811&pagewanted=print&position=bottom
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- Colombia's civil war spilled into the country's second-largest city, Medellin, as security forces battled guerrillas hiding in hillside slums. Nine people were killed, including two children.
Residents screamed in fear and ran for cover as security forces crouched in the streets and fired toward the tops of apartment buildings in Tuesday's battle, some of the worst urban street fighting in 38 years of war. At least 37 people were wounded, and 31 suspected rebels were arrested.
The fighting began after an early morning raid involving hundreds of soldiers, police and federal agents against rebels believed to be hiding in one of the poor neighborhoods ringing the city. Two girls caught in the cross fire, ages 4 and 2, and an elderly man were among those killed.
Police denied charges from Medellin human rights groups that police helicopters had strafed the neighborhood.
At least 37 people -- including troops, police, civilians and guerrilla members -- were wounded, said Alejandro Usuga, Medellin's civil defense chief.
Officials said the raids, which began before dawn, were aimed at arresting militia members and confiscating weapons.
The rebel suspects were described as urban militiamen from the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and the smaller National Liberation Army, or ELN.
Gen. Mario Montoya, commander of the army's Fourth Brigade based in Medellin, said a total of eight police officers and soldiers were wounded. He said ``important people in the ELN'' were among the detainees.
Montoya originally said seven of the nine dead were believed to be urban rebels, but local residents carrying a body into a Medellin hospital pulled back a blanket to show the corpse of an elderly man.
Although urban combat rarely erupts in the civil war, the guerrillas and a rival right-wing paramilitary group carry out logistical, intelligence and supply functions in the cities. Both sides have a heavy presence in Medellin, located 155 miles northwest of the capital in Colombia's industrial heartland.
Tuesday's clashes come only five days before presidential elections. The leading contender, former Medellin Mayor Alvaro Uribe, has pledged to bring law and order to the war-torn South American country.
Medellin, a city of 2 million residents, gained notoriety in the 1980s as the home of an ultra-violent cocaine cartel headed by the late Pablo Escobar.
The battle came as U.N. investigators released their report on another brutal battle that destroyed a church, killing 119 villagers, in the northwestern village of Bojaya on May 2.
The investigators said the FARC was responsible for the deaths because it fired a mortar at the church while fighting an outlawed paramilitary group.
But the U.N. officials also accused the government of allowing the paramilitaries to enter the area, triggering the battle, and of not deploying enough government forces to protect the village.
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U.N. Faults Colombia for Civilian Deaths
May 22, 2002
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/22/international/americas/22COLO.html
BOGOTÁ, Colombia, May 21 - The United Nations said today that Colombia failed to protect the people of the river town of Bellavista in a May 2 battle in which 119 civilians were killed when a rebel rocket landed on a church where they had sought refuge.
The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, in a report to President Andrés Pastrana, attributed the killings to the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. But it said that paramilitary fighters battling the rebels were also to blame for having entered the town and that Mr. Pastrana's government failed to protect the people despite repeated warnings about the dangers.
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Rebels, Far - Right, Threaten Colombian Vote - OAS
May 22, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-colombia-elections.html
BOGOTA, Colombia - Marxist rebels and far-right paramilitary outlaws are the biggest threats to Colombia's presidential election on Sunday and will use force to sway votes in the lawless countryside, the Organization of American States said on Wednesday.
OAS chief election monitor in Colombia, Santiago Murray, said the intimidation campaign would not thwart the election, however, adding that the slated deployment of more than 200,000 soldiers and police on Sunday should ensure most people could vote.
``The violence, the armed attacks, threats and intimidation ... These are clearly the most worrying elements facing the electoral process,'' Murray told reporters.
``The defense of democracy presents many challenges, and it requires sacrifices ... sacrifices of some citizens who possibly won't be able to exercise their vote on Sunday.''
Murray said that Latin America's oldest guerrilla army, the 17,000-member Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), was warning Colombians living in territory under its control not to vote for hardline anti-rebel candidate Alvaro Uribe.
The bespectacled front-runner is expected to clinch the election, after soaring in opinion polls on a pro-security platform that has won favor in a nation gripped by guerrilla war.
But Murray said the ultra-right militias -- which target rebels and rebel sympathizers -- were waging an armed campaign in favor of Uribe, a 49-year-old lawyer.
``Basically, they (the FARC) argue people should not vote for Alvaro Uribe ... and the paramilitaries are campaigning for Alvaro Uribe,'' Murray said, summarizing fact-finding trips to many of the Andean nation's most dangerous regions.
ELECTION VIOLENCE
Colombia's presidential elections have already been tainted by political violence.
Uribe has barely been seen in public, scrapping campaign rallies over security concerns after narrowly escaping an assassination attempt last month which police blamed on the FARC. Meanwhile, the rebels have kidnapped fringe presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt, and have given the government one year to trade her for jailed guerrilla commanders.
The FARC has been fighting for 38 years to impose a socialist state, in a drug-fueled conflict that claims about 3,500 lives a year.
In a communiqu on Wednesday, the rebels called on Colombians to boycott the ``electoral farce on May 26, make abstention a tool in the fight against economic, political, social and cultural exclusion.''
Colombia has a notoriously high abstention rate, and up to 49 percent of voters stayed away from the polls in the 1998 presidential election.
-------- europe
Bush Asks Europeans for Continued Support in War on Terrorism
May 22, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Bush-Europe.html
BERLIN (AP) -- President Bush told skeptical allies ``we've got to be tough'' on terrorism Wednesday as thousands of anti-war protesters greeted his arrival in Europe and German leaders questioned U.S. hopes of toppling Saddam Hussein.
Opening a seven-day, four-nation trip, Bush warned that Europe may be terrorists' next target.
``Even though we've had some initial successes, there's still danger for countries which embrace freedom, countries such as ours, or Germany, France, Russia or Italy,'' the president said as he left the White House shortly after dawn.
Seven hours later, Bush stepped off Air Force One onto a red carpet lined by white-jacketed military troops. For his only appointment, Bush ducked into a coffee house at the site of the old Berlin Wall with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, U.S. Ambassador Dan Coats and Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit.
He shook hands in the cafe and received a polite round of applause from the selected group drinking coffee and beer.
Schroeder has tried to position himself as a staunch anti-terrorism ally without embracing tough action against Iraq. In a German TV interview, he said Iraq is a threat, ``and that's why we are together exerting pressure so that Saddam Hussein lets international observers into the country.''
Bush wants a stronger commitment from Germany and other U.S. allies.
``As an alliance, we must continue to fight against global terror,'' he said before leaving Washington. ``We've got to be tough.''
The blunt words, aimed for consumption at home as well as in Europe, dovetailed with the administration's effort in recent days to prepare Americans for the inevitability of another attack.
Those warnings have been in part a response to Democratic suggestions that the administration missed warning signs before the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. officials have said.
Bush is trying to build a case for widening the war beyond Afghanistan to other terrorist hot spots, primarily Iraq. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Bush won't shy from that policy in talks with Schroeder.
``They will talk about those nations that are developing weapons of mass destruction that threaten us all and I'm quite confident they'll have a conversation about Iraq in that category,'' he said.
Protests by some 20,000 anti-war demonstrators were generally peaceful, but violence broke out among groups of hooded youths and pro-Palestinian demonstrators. An American flag was burned, and demonstrators pelted police in riot gear with bottles and stones.
With 10,000 officers, the largest police operation since World War II, officials blocked off several streets around the downtown hotel where Bush was staying. The hotel is just east of the Brandenburg Gate, the symbolic dividing line between the old communist regime and the West.
A huge portrait of the White House hung from the landmark.
Bush intended to spend barely 20 hours in the German capital before flying Thursday to Moscow, where he will sign a landmark agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin to reduce each nation's nuclear arsenals to 1,700 to 2,200 warheads from the current 6,000 each is allowed.
The president also plans to tour Putin's hometown of St. Petersburg before traveling to Paris for talks with French President Jacques Chirac; Normandy, France, to commemorate Memorial Day, and Italy to witness a NATO-Russian agreement ceremony and visit Pope John Paul II.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said Wednesday the brief nuclear-reduction treaty is ready for the presidents' signatures. A separate document will address political and security priorities, including a section pledging cooperation on missile defense -- an issue that once divided the two leaders.
Putin has allowed Bush to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty without strong objection. In return, the document will propose early missile warning systems and other measures to increase ``predictability and trust,'' said a Russian diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity.
A U.S. diplomat said one provision still being negotiated would have the United States pledging to share anti-missile technology with Russia -- science that Moscow might need to help combat terrorism. The document underscores how the U.S.-Russian relationship has been transformed by the terrorist attacks.
American relations with Europe also were altered by the attacks.
Already wary of Bush's anti-missile defense plans, his scrapping of the Kyoto environmental treaty and his reputation as a go-it-alone foreign policy novice, European leaders have a list of post-Sept. 11 complaints.
Those include the treatment of Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, the perceived rejection of NATO's offer of military support, Bush's rejection of the International Criminal Court and new American tariffs on steel.
``Military action against Iraq is not justified as long as it isn't certain that that Saddam supports or shelters al-Qaida terrorists,'' said Peter Struck, the leader in Parliament of Schroeder's Social Democrats.
Struck expressed ``absolute understanding'' for the Bush administration's determination to tackle the roots of terror.
``But it would be entirely wrong if Bush believed he must finish what his father started in Iraq,'' Struck told ARD television, in a reference to the 1991 Gulf War.
U.S. officials privately complain that Europe is soft and unreliable now that early war successes have yielded to tougher tasks.
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U.S., Europe Differ on Terror War
May 22, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Europe-Mideast.html
BRUSSELS. Belgium (AP) -- As President Bush seeks to build support for the war against terror, many Europeans believe the fallout from Sept. 11 has complicated joint U.S.-European efforts to pursue peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Differences between the Americans and the Europeans on the Middle East are nothing new. For decades, the United States has stood squarely behind Israel in a unique relationship. However, European countries, dependent on Arab oil and anxious for Arab trade and investment, generally show more sympathy toward Palestinian aspirations.
From the Europeans' perspective, however, the trauma of Sept. 11 has brought the Americans and Israelis even closer and made them more doubtful that Washington can broker a Palestinian-Israeli deal. To many Americans, Palestinian suicide bombers and Osama bin Laden's hijackers all seem part of the same global menace.
``The Israelis and Americans are united as they've never been before,'' said May Chartouni Dubarry, head of the Middle East section of the French Institute for International Research. ``Every suicide bombing in Israel revives the Sept. 11 trauma in the U.S.''
Chartouni Dubarry said the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ``is using this as a tool'' to ``gain more support in the U.S.''
``There is a sense that they are fighting the same enemy,'' she added.
On the other hand, a survey conducted last month by the nonprofit Pew Research Center found significantly higher support for the Palestinians in Britain, France, Germany and Italy than in the United States. European media tend to focus more on Palestinian suffering than on the anguish caused by the suicide bombings.
Although European governments condemn suicide bombings, they tend to see them in part as a reaction to Israel's continued hold on territories it seized in the 1967 Middle East war.
Writing in the Independent, a British newspaper, Bruce Anderson said the Palestinians have ``legitimate grievances'' but ``none of their sufferings justifies suicide terrorism'' carried out by ``psychotics.''
``Which does not mean that the Israelis are justified in refusing to talk to Palestinians,'' Anderson added. ``Israel must bear its responsibility for the degeneration of Palestinian political culture.''
Swedish Prime Minister Goeran Persson insisted Europe pursues a ``balanced attitude'' because ``we stick to international law based on U.N. resolutions,'' many of which Israelis consider biased.
Still, the European Union is trying to move away from positions which some European officials candidly admit were overly critical of Israel.
``My impression is that the European Union has made significant progress in recent months in its approach to the conflict,'' avoiding ``ritual repetitions'' of anti-Israel positions, said German Foreign Ministry spokesman Andreas Michaelis. ``The decisive reason is that you can only play a role in the solution if you are credible for both sides.''
However, although the EU has extensive trade and diplomatic ties with Israel, Michaelis acknowledged that Israel still harbors deep suspicions of Europe. ``Certainly, it's not always easy for them,'' he said of the Israelis.
``Israelis say the Europeans are pro-Palestinian because they meet Palestinians for talks,'' said Volker Perthes of the German Institute for International Politics and Security. ``But that's simply not true. What you can say is that the Europeans are a bit less anti-Palestinian than some parts of the U.S. political establishment.''
That has enabled the Europeans to play a useful role, complementing but not competing U.S. diplomacy without challenging its primacy. A case in point was the European Union's agreement this month to accept 13 Palestinian militants -- a gesture that enabled the Europeans and Americans to negotiate an end to the Israeli siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.
Nevertheless, many Israelis believe Europe's positions are based less on the need for balance and more on deep-seated anti-Semitism in the continent of the Holocaust.
Many Europeans, however, see that as part of a campaign by Israel's political right to discredit Europe as a mediator. They worry that many in the American political establishment, traumatized by Sept. 11, have concluded that criticizing Sharon's Likud Party is tantamount to anti-Semitism.
``Everything (Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon) Peres says about peace can be supported by every EU politician,'' said Kurt Hengl of the Austrian Foreign Ministry. ``Where European politicians have difficulties is the rightist slant of the Likud and Prime Minister Sharon, while in the United States, Likud's tough stance finds much greater acceptance as a viable policy.''
-------- india
Indian Warships Go Toward Pakistan
May 22, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-India-Warships.html
NEW DELHI, India (AP) -- India has moved five warships closer to Pakistani waters to bolster forces in the area, the navy said Wednesday, amid growing tensions between the Southeast Asian rivals.
Indian officials said they moved the ships from their eastern naval command in the Bay of Bengal to the western command off Bombay, in the Arabian Sea, about 500 nautical miles from the Pakistani port of Karachi.
``The front-line warships have been moved in view of the prevailing situation and in keeping with India's maritime interests,'' said Indian navy spokesman Cmdr. Rahul Gupta.
``The deployment of the ships is to increase the operational preparedness of the western sea force,'' he said.
The five warships included a guided missile destroyer, a frigate and three missile corvettes. India's fleet includes an aircraft carrier, eight destroyers, 10 frigates and 17 to 19 submarines.
The deployment had been completed and the warships placed under the control of the Western Naval Command, Gupta said.
The ships could be deployed anywhere in the Arabian Sea.
The Indian navy carried out a similar transfer of warships during the 11-week conflict with Pakistan in the Himalayan heights at Kargil in 1999 and during the 1971 war with Pakistan.
Fears of war between the nuclear-armed rivals have increased as cross-border shelling killed dozens over the past week. India and Pakistan have massed 1 million troops along their border. The neighbors have fought two wars over divided Kashmir, a Himalayan region both claim in its entirety.
--------
India Prepares Troops for 'Decisive Fight'
May 22, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-southasia.html
NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD - India has told its troops to prepare for decisive action and Pakistan warned against any military ``misadventure'' amid fears that the two nuclear-armed foes are on the verge of war.
Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee told troops massed on the border with Pakistan on Wednesday the time had come for a ``decisive fight'' to end Islamic militant attacks for which New Delhi holds Islamabad responsible.
Pakistan responded strongly and vowed to use ``full force'' if attacked by its traditional rival, warning India against any military ``misadventure.''
The saber-rattling, which comes in the face of global appeals for calm, has been matched by heavy exchanges of fire between the two armies on the border in disputed Kashmir in which four people were killed on Wednesday.
Pakistan, however, in a reiteration of a pledge made by President Pervez Musharraf in January, also said it would not allow its territory to be used for terrorist activity -- a key Indian demand to end the powerful troop buildup.
The statement is seen as a concession to New Delhi, which blames Pakistan-based Muslim separatist groups for the unabated violence in Indian Kashmir where a bloody insurgency has raged since late 1989, claiming more than 33,000 lives.
But there are fears that New Delhi could dismiss the statement as mere words which Musharraf may not back up with deeds -- a constant Indian refrain since the military ruler first promised action against Islamic militant groups in Pakistan.
Indian suspicions were fueled when the comment came tagged with a traditional Pakistani resolve to continue ``moral, political and diplomatic support'' for what Islamabad says is a Kashmiri struggle for freedom from India -- a position New Delhi rejects.
WASHINGTON APPEALS FOR CALM
Washington expressed its deep concern and denied it had waited too long to get involved at a high level in mediating the latest crisis in south Asia.
``The situation is a tense one. There is no question but that the entire administration has been in touch with associates in Pakistan and associates in India,'' Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in Washington.
``The message clearly to everyone is that it is a dangerous situation and that our hope and all of our efforts are aimed at encouraging them to lessen the tension along the border, both in Kashmir and elsewhere,'' Rumsfeld said.
A flurry of global peace shuttles to the region have been launched with a visit by EU External Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten. He will be followed by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw early next week and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage in early June.
Vajpayee's fiery speech came during a visit to disputed Jammu and Kashmir state, his first in nearly two years, to express solidarity with victims of a militant attack last week and boost the morale of India's troops.
``Be prepared for sacrifices. But our aim should be victory. Because it's now time for a decisive fight,'' Vajpayee said in a speech broadcast live across the nation by state television.
The two countries have massed a million men, backed by tanks, missiles and fighter jets, on their border since India blamed Pakistan-based Kashmiri guerrillas for an attack on the Indian parliament in December.
Passions flared last week after an attack on an Indian army camp in Kashmir in which 31 people, mostly wives and children of soldiers, were killed by suspected Pakistan-based militants.
India and Pakistan have gone to war three times since independence from British colonial rule in 1947, twice over Kashmir which is at the heart of their enmity.
New Delhi considers Muslim-majority Kashmir an integral part of its territory. Islamabad wants a plebiscite to determine the wishes of the Kashmiri people.
``PEACE SIGNAL''
Pakistani analysts said Wednesday's pledge by Islamabad was its first public commitment not to permit terrorist activity even from the part of Kashmir it controls and could help defuse tensions between the neighbors.
``This is the biggest concession Musharraf could have made in the cause of peace,'' said Najam Sethi, editor of the respected Pakistani weekly The Friday Times.
``Basically Pakistan has given an assurance to the international community directly and to India indirectly that it will not allow cross-border infiltration of Jihadis (militants) into Kashmir,'' he said.
Another Pakistani analyst, Ayaz Amir, said Islamabad was trying to send a signal of peace to India amid the tension.
``In different circumstances, Pakistan would never have thought of saying anything which could be interpreted as an attempt to appease India,'' Amir told Reuters.
But an Indian analyst said the trigger for a conflict might come in the form of another major attack by Muslim guerrillas who Musharraf might not be able to curb.
-------- iran
Iranians Angry at Terror Report
May 22, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iran-Answering-America.html
SHIRAZ, Iran (AP) -- The giant rift between Iran and the United States over what defines terrorism is running squarely through Kazem Alavi's modest nut shop.
Washington now considers Iran the world's most active sponsor of terrorism for allegedly boosting aid to Palestinian militants. Alavi sees a vastly different world: Israeli-American treachery seeking to destroy Palestinian freedom fighters.
``The (American) accusations are a big lie,'' the 45-year-old merchant said Wednesday. ``It is insulting, especially as we watch the terrorist activities of the Israeli regime that is strongly backed by America. I really think it's a joke.''
Similar protests across Iran greeted the State Department report on global terrorism issued Tuesday.
Sabah Zanganeh, a senior adviser to Iran's foreign minister, called America an oppressor that ``cannot sit in the position of judge.'' Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, criticized any efforts to improve ties with Washington as ``treason and stupidity.''
Anti-U.S. salvos are a staple of Iran's leadership. But the latest report reverberated far afield at a time when many Iranians are still incensed by President Bush saying four months ago that their nation belonged to an ``axis of evil.''
In Shiraz, 540 miles south of Tehran, politics is usually taken with a sense of cosmopolitan moderation. The city is a major tourist stop -- even for Americans -- who come to visit the 2,500-year-old ruins of Persepolis and the lavish tomb of the 14th-century poet Hafez. Before the 1979 Islamic revolution, an English-language university had many U.S. professors and students.
Hard-liners had a difficult time mobilizing marches in Shiraz two years ago when 10 Iranians Jews were tried and convicted of spying for Israel.
But the response to the latest report exposed raw emotions.
``I used to believe the Iranian government was blocking improved relations,'' said Mehdi Esmaili, 29, a Shiraz University student. ``Now it seems to me that the United States is unfair and a bully.''
Hossein, a hotel worker who would only give his first name, said Bush leads an ``axis of arrogance.''
Others claimed Iran was the victim of U.S. ``terrorism'' for the 1988 downing of an Iranian passenger plane by the warship USS Vincennes, killing all 290 people aboard. The Pentagon said the crew mistook the jetliner for a hostile aircraft.
In Tehran, the terrorism report appeared to dash faint hopes by reformers for more contact with Washington, which broke ties after militants seized the U.S. Embassy in 1979.
Both nations found themselves on the same side in Afghanistan: opposing the Taliban. But after the regime fell, Washington accused Iran of trying to undermine Afghanistan's interim government and aiding al-Qaida survivors. Iran denies both claims.
Washington has also raised alarms about Tehran's nuclear program and possible upgrades to the Shahab-4 missile to extend its range to Europe.
The State Department report alleged Iran supplies the Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Palestinian groups with funds, shelter, training and weapons. It also cited Khamenei's December 2000 denunciation of Israel as a ``cancerous tumor'' that must be removed.
Iran openly praises groups such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas, which have claimed responsibility for suicide bombings and other attacks. But there is no clear evidence of the scope of the support.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said U.S. officials ``are not in touch with the realities of international developments.''
``Defense and struggle of the Palestinian people for liberating their occupied lands is a legitimate resistance and a natural right. Describing resistance as terrorism is a reverse definition of terrorism,'' state radio quoted Asefi as saying.
Still, the issue of possible openings with Washington has gained momentum.
For the first time in two decades, the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee met Tuesday to hear ``expert views'' -- from both reformists and conservatives -- on the complexities of Tehran-Washington ties.
Iran and America have denied reports of recent low-level contacts in a third country, possibly Cyprus.
One lawmaker, Behzad Nabavi, was quoted Wednesday as saying he was ready to meet U.S. envoys abroad.
He could face Khamenei's wrath, who holds ultimate power and strongly ruled out any U.S. overtures.
``Even hinting about talks is an insult to the dignity of the Iranian people,'' Khamenei told an audience including top military officers. ``The United States doesn't accept the Iranian and Islamic identities. Why would someone want to talk to them since they are allocating a budget to overthrow our system? Any talks with them would be treason and stupidity.''
-------- israel / palestine
State's report chides anti-Arafat efforts
May 22, 2002
By Nicholas Kralev
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020522-67163.htm
The State Department said yesterday it had found no evidence linking Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat personally to attacks on Israel last year and chided the Jewish state for making the Palestinian Authority "less effective" by destroying its security infrastructure.
In its annual report on global terrorism, the State Department also said that Iran "remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism" last year, while Sudan and Libya came closest to taking the right measures to get out of the "terrorism business."
The report, titled "Patterns of Global Terrorism 2001," said members of Mr. Arafat's Fatah movement had taken part in attacks on Israel through the Tanzim organi- zation and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.
Nevertheless, it would not accuse Mr. Arafat and his senior aides of ordering or approving the attacks.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon brought thick files of documents with him to Washington earlier, which the Israeli government said constituted proof that Mr. Arafat authorized the dispensing of money to extremists.
Mr. Taylor conceded that the documents were authentic. "We don't have any question about the authenticity of the documents." However, he said the Bush administration was still studying them and would draw its own conclusions.
"Members of the Tanzim, which is made up of small and loosely organized cells of militants drawn from the street-level membership of Fatah, conducted attacks against Israeli targets in the West Bank over the course of the year," the State Department document said.
"That's not a secret," said Francis Taylor, the State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism. "But we have not been able to determine or to make final judgment on how far up and who in the [Palestinian Authority] may be or could be and had been directing this activity," he told reporters.
"That is why we have been very straightforward with Chairman Arafat that within the Palestinian areas that he has control over we believe that he can do much more to control the activities of those groups," he said.
The report also acknowledged that measures the Palestinian Authority (PA) has taken against extremists are far from sufficient, but it said, "Israel's destruction of the PA's security infrastructure contributed to the ineffectiveness of the PA."
Most attacks against Israel are usually carried out by militant groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which operate outside Mr. Arafat's immediate control. The terrorism report, which is required by Congress, was the first since last year's attacks and since President Bush branded Iran, Iraq and North Korea an "axis of evil" in January.
It said that, because of the more than 3,000 people killed on September 11, the deadliest year for terrorist attacks was 2001. The overall number of attacks declined, however, to 346 from 426 in 2000.
"Terrorists respect no limits, geographic or moral," said Secretary of State Colin L. Powell at a briefing. "The front lines are everywhere, and the stakes are high. Terrorism not only kills people, it also threatens democratic institutions, undermines economies and destabilizes regions."
The State Department kept on its list of state sponsors of terrorism the seven countries it previously designated: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Cuba.
"Iran remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism in 2001," it said. "Since the outbreak of the [Palestinian uprising], support has intensified for Palestinian groups that use violence against Israel. During the past year, however, Iran appears to have reduced its involvement in other forms of terrorist activity."
After the U.S.-led anti-terror campaign in Afghanistan started last October, Tehran pledged to close its borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan to prevent Taliban and al Qaeda members from escaping into Iran. However, the report claimed that "Arab Afghans, including al Qaeda members, used Iran as a transit route to enter and leave from Afghanistan."
It gave credit to Iran, North Korea and Syria for making "limited moves" to cooperate in the war on terrorism "in some narrow areas."
"Iran and Syria, however, seek to have it both ways," it said. "On one hand, they clamped down on certain terrorist groups, such as al Qaeda. On the other hand, they maintained their support for other terrorist groups, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, insisting they were national liberation movements."
The report accused Iraq of using "terrorism against dissident Iraqi groups opposed to Saddam Hussein's regime" and said that "North Korea's initial positive moves halted abruptly."
But it did not mention any of the concerns that Cuba is pursuing biological warfare capabilities and sharing them with "other rogue states," voiced earlier this month by John Bolton, undersecretary of state for international security and arms control.
"Sudan and Libya seem closest to understanding what they must do to get out of the terrorism business, and each has taken measures pointing it in the right direction," the report said.
-------- pakistan
U.S. Urges Pakistan to Control Border
May 22, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-India-Pakistan.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- With India and Pakistan on war footing, a worried U.S. State Department appealed for an end to shelling in Kashmir and asked Pakistan to curb the influx of Islamic militants into the contested territory.
Europe-bound with President Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell telephoned British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to coordinate policy.
Powell is sending his deputy, Richard Armitage, to the region shortly to confer with Indian and Pakistani leaders and Straw is due there next week.
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, also traveling with Bush, telephoned her Indian and Pakistani counterparts to urge calm.
A senior State Department official said the United States was holding intensive talks with both sides in an effort to defuse tensions, but declined to reveal the details of the attempt to pull the 750,000 Indian and Pakistani soldiers apart.
The official, who held a briefing on condition of anonymity, said the State Department had not concluded whether Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's pledge to oppose terror had slowed the flow of militants into Kashmir.
But the official credited Musharraf with taking a firm stand against extremists and said 800 of 2,000 militant leaders arrested last fall remained in detention.
State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said the India-Pakistan faceoff was ``a worrisome situation.'' Reeker said armed conflict could only add to the problem.
At the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said he was attempting to reach Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes by telephone to discuss the situation.
``The message clearly to everyone is that it is a dangerous situation, that our hope and all of our efforts are aimed at encouraging them to lessen the tension along the border, both in Kashmir and elsewhere,'' he told reporters.
Rumsfeld also said the heightened tension between India and Pakistan is harmful to the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan because it has prompted Pakistan to pull some of its forces from the Afghan border area, where they work in coordination with the United States to hunt down al-Qaida fighters.
``President Musharraf has indicated that there would be substantially more of his forces in the Afghanistan border area if the tension were not so high with respect to his eastern border,'' Rumsfeld said.
Reeker urged restraint and condemned terrorism, saying it undercuts hopes among Kashmiris for a free and fair election to choose local leaders.
The territory is divided into areas of Indian and Pakistani control. The population is mostly Muslim and presumably would choose to be annexed by Pakistan.
Reeker condemned, meanwhile, the slaying Tuesday of a leading Kashmiri peace advocate during a ceremony marking the murder of another independence leader 12 years ago.
Abdul Ghani Lone, a moderate, soft-spoken Muslim separatist leader, had sought dialogue with India to bring self-determination to Kashmir. Reeker said he was murdered by opponents of a peaceful resolution of the territorial dispute.
-------- spy agencies
CIA Appoints Homeland Security Head
May 22, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-CIA-Homeland-Security.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The CIA has appointed a longtime counterterrorism official and senior analyst to head up its new homeland security division, the agency announced Wednesday.
Winston P. Wiley, the deputy director of intelligence, will move into his new role as Associate Director for Central Intelligence for Homeland Security on May 28.
The new office, which was announced earlier this year, will communicate intelligence on terrorist threats to the Office of Homeland Security.
Jami Miscik, Wiley's associate director, will replace him as the head of the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence, the agency's chief analytical arm.
-------- us
Fleet Week Begins in New York
May 22, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Fleet-Week.html
NEW YORK (AP) -- With fireboats spraying plumes of water in welcome, a small fleet of Navy ships sailed into New York Harbor on Wednesday as Fleet Week began in a city under a fresh warning of terrorism.
As each ship passed the World Trade Center site, the sailors saluted and observed a moment of silence in honor of the more than 2,800 people killed there. Guns were fired from nearby Fort Hamilton as the ships went by.
It is just the second time that the annual celebration has occurred at a time of war. It also came one day after the FBI issued a vague, unconfirmed warning that terrorists have threatened New York and some of its landmarks, including the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge.
Security, already high in the city since terrorists destroyed the trade center on Sept. 11, was tightened even more.
Helicopters hovered around the city and, to prevent public alarm, police announced that some ceremonies would include the firing of guns and military flyovers. Early Wednesday, the discovery of a suspicious package forced the shut down of the Brooklyn Bridge for about an hour before the package was identified, said police spokeswoman Sgt. Mary Williams.
As the ships arrived, people gathered in a waterside park held up signs reading ``Thank you for protecting us.'' Sailors, dressed in bright white uniforms, lined the decks, facing New York City, as their ships curled around lower Manhattan.
More than 6,000 naval personnel are expected in New York through the Memorial Day weekend.
``New York City is one of those cities where people will stop you on the street when you're in a Navy uniform and let you know how much they appreciate what you do,'' Navy spokesman Mike Brown said. ``It's always been like that here, even before Sept. 11.''
About 20 ships are participating in Fleet Week, including a carrier, cruisers, destroyers and frigates. Several ships recently returned from duty in the war in Afghanistan.
The Navy planned special ship tours for firefighters, police officers and other personnel who played major roles in rescue, recovery and cleanup at the trade center.
Lillian Todd of New York stood at the entrance to Pier 88 waiting for her brother Eugene Idlett Jr., who is stationed in Norfolk, Va., to step off the USS Iwo Jima, an amphibious assault carrier.
``I'm supposed to be at work but I had to see my only brother, my baby brother,'' she said, holding a sign with her brother's name. ``He's never been to New York before.''
Newly arrived in town with the Navy fleet was David Canin, a Navy reservist from San Diego.
``Our Fleet Week was canceled because it was supposed to happen the week after Sept. 11 last year,'' he said. ``It's good to be here.''
On the Net:
http://www.fleetweek.navy.mil
http://www.intrepidmuseum.org
--------
Group Named to Watch Defense School
May 22, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-BRF-Army-School-Watchdog.html
FORT BENNING, Ga. (AP) -- A watchdog group has been created to monitor the Army's former School of the Americas, which had been blamed for alleged human rights abuses committed by graduates in Latin America.
The training school for Latin American soldiers, now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, closed in 2000 and reopened under the control of the Department of Defense under pressure from protesters.
Thirteen lawmakers, scholars, diplomats and religious leaders were named to the group Tuesday by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The Board of Visitors will hold its first meeting June 3-4 at Fort Benning to elect officers and set a meeting schedule.
In 1984, the Army's School of the Americas moved to Fort Benning from Panama. School officials say it is designed to meet the challenges of the 21st century, including counterterrorism and drug interdiction. All students have to take a human rights course.
-------- propaganda wars
Extremists will get mass destruction weapons - US
Story by Andrea Shalal-Esa
REUTERS USA:
May 22, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16058/story.htm
WASHINGTON - U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday it was inevitable that terrorist groups would get weapons of mass destruction, further deepening concerns about fresh attacks on the United States.
"We have to recognize that terrorists networks have relationships with terrorist states that have weapons of mass destruction, and that they inevitably are going to get their hands on them and they would not hesitate one minute to use them," Rumsfeld said.
He was speaking a day after FBI Director Robert Mueller said it was "inevitable" that suicide bombers would strike in America despite U.S. efforts to reorganize its national security after the Sept. 11 attacks by hijacked planes.
The rash of dire warnings - Vice President Dick Cheney said on television on Sunday extremists were "almost certain" to strike again - followed media reports the government may have missed significant signs before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Rumsfeld, testifying at the Senate Defense Appropriations subcommittee, named Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, North Korea and "one or two others" as the major threats.
President George W. Bush has named Iraq, Iran and North Koreas as members of an "axis of evil," each of which he said was developing nuclear, biological or chemical weapons and backing international terrorist groups.
Bush's spokesman Ari Fleischer made clear the warnings were in part in response to questions last week about just how much the White House knew in advance of the Sept. 11 attacks.
"I think it was just more as a result of all the controversy that took place last week," Fleischer told reporters.
'GENERALIZED LEVEL OF ALERT'
He said it was "just an effort by people who are on the shows to answer questions, because they're reflecting things about the generalized level of alert and concern we have that's been out there."
Fleischer also said the warnings were aimed at averting public complacency, which he said Bush had often predicted.
Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge stressed there was no specific credible evidence of a threat of suicide bombings in the United States, but Americans would be "somewhat naive" if they felt immune from such attacks.
"While we prepare for another terrorist attack, we need to understand that it is not a question of if, but a question of when," Ridge told a meeting of the World Economic Forum.
He said Mueller, who made his remarks in a closed door meeting this week, "was reminding this country that we should not feel that we are immune from terrorists using that kind of tactic against us as well."
Ridge told the conference the United States remained on an "elevated" level of risk, or yellow ranking, on a color-coded national alert system introduced in March, because intelligence on possible attacks was too vague. The highest alert level is red, followed by orange, yellow, blue and green.
Rumsfeld spoke as the State Department released its annual global report on terrorism which warned of the risk of groups acquiring weapons of mass destruction, saying Sept. 11 showed their determination to inflict mass casualties.
"In the wake of these unprecedented attacks, terrorists increasingly may look to use chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear materials, many of which can cause significant casualties, to rival the events of Sept. 11," it said in a special insert on such weapons.
It said bin Laden's description of acquiring weapons of mass destruction as a "religious duty" and his threat to use them were backed up by the discovery of information on such weapons in al Qaeda facilities in Afghanistan.
BEYOND AL QAEDA
But it said the threat went beyond al Qaeda, citing as examples the militant Islamic group Hamas' use of poisons and pesticides to coat shrapnel and the recent arrest of a group in Italy with a compound that could produce hydrogen cyanide and maps of the underground systems near the U.S. embassy in Rome.
Fleischer acknowledged Bush was probably told only recently of an FBI memo last July warning that extremists could be training at U.S. flight schools, but said Bush was pleased with Mueller's work and that of CIA Director George Tenet.
The New York Times reported yesterday that Attorney General John Ashcroft and Mueller were told of the July memo soon after the Sept. 11 hijacked plane attacks but that neither had told the president.
News of the July memo has sparked mounting concern over whether the Bush administration failed to recognize warning signs ahead of the Sept. 11 attacks. Bush was also told in a briefing by Tenet in August that members of the al Qaeda network could attempt a hijacking.
Mueller's warning of suicide attacks caused consternation in the United States, a country that has never experienced suicide bombings like those now gripping Israeli cities and towns, and some experts said he might have gone too far.
"I would not have used the word 'inevitable,'" New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told reporters yesterday. "Director Mueller expressed an opinion."
---
Nation Left Jittery By Latest Series Of Terror Warnings
By Bill Miller and Christine Haughney
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, May 22, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51195-2002May21?language=printer
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told a Senate committee yesterday that terrorists will "inevitably" obtain weapons of mass destruction, issuing the latest in a series of warnings from the Bush administration about the likelihood of future attacks and leaving security officials and ordinary citizens wondering what to do.
"In just facing the facts, we have to recognize that terrorist networks have relationships with terrorist states that have weapons of mass destruction, and that they inevitably are going to get their hands on them, and they would not hesitate one minute in using them," Rumsfeld said.
"That's the world we live in."
Rumsfeld expressed similar concerns in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. But his testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee came after several pronouncements from the Bush administration that began Sunday, when Vice President Cheney declared that another terrorist strike was "almost certain."
On Monday, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III said that suicide bombings like those taking place in Israel are "inevitable." Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge declared yesterday that additional terrorist attacks are "not a question of if, but a question of when."
Bush, in an interview yesterday with Italian television before his departure for Europe today, said the warnings by Cheney and Mueller were general. He said that if any specific threat were made, the United States would respond.
"The al Qaeda still exists, they still hate America and any other country which loves freedom and they want to hurt us," Bush said. "They're nothing but a bunch of cold-blooded killers."
The FBI also heightened anxiety levels in New York yesterday by advising officials that landmarks there could be terrorist targets. Officials said the advisory was based on the same kind of uncorroborated information that has led to other notices to law enforcement in recent weeks about threats to banks, nuclear power plants, water systems, shopping malls, supermarkets and apartment buildings.
The latest warning came from captured al Qaeda fighters detained at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, officials said.
New York police immediately bolstered security at the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge and other landmarks.
Despite the escalating talk about threats, officials have not raised the nation's level of alert. It is at "yellow," the midpoint of the five-level warning system established in March, and denotes a significant risk of attack.
Ridge said the stream of intelligence has been vague. He and other officials said they needed corroboration or more details about dates, locations and methods of attack before the warning would be escalated.
The new system gives federal officials the authority to put particular regions or industries on a higher state of alert, but there are no plans to do so at this time, according to administration officials. The next stage up is orange, which reflects a high risk of attack. The top level, red, is reserved for severe risk.
The color-coded system was created after complaints from mayors and police chiefs about the generalized alerts announced in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks, warnings that urged the public to be vigilant while continuing normal activities. Local officials said those warnings were too vague to be helpful. Now, some mayors said, the administration seems to be returning to a failed strategy.
"This was definitely moving in the right direction, and then came Sunday and it's like, 'Wait a minute,' " said Scott L. King (D), the mayor of Gary, Ind. "I don't think it's been good and it's not useful. I think it represents backsliding."
King added, "Nobody will ever accuse the vice president or FBI director of being less than intelligent or astute, or, in the vice president's case, politically savvy. Clearly they didn't blurt this out. But what were they doing?"
Across the country yesterday, officials and the public were trying to weigh the significance of the new information. It became public days after the White House began facing questions from critics in Congress about what Bush, intelligence officials and the FBI knew in advance of the Sept. 11 attacks.
"It looks totally political to me," said Cleveland Mayor Jane L. Campbell, another Democrat. "It appears as if the reaction is, 'Now we're going to tell everybody every time we're worried about anything.' I grew up reading 'The Little Boy Who Cried Wolf.' "
In New York and elsewhere, many people said they are growing increasingly jittery. "What can we do besides run?" asked Jose Vazquez, 26, a photographer who comes in New York once or twice a week. "There's not a sense of security. . . . I'm just waiting for something else to happen.'
New York's Rent Stabilization Association received a dozen calls about concerns that a tenant could blow up an apartment building. The calls were prompted by an FBI warning over the weekend that terrorists might stage such attacks. The association is setting up a meeting with the FBI, said President Joseph Strasburg.
Others said the latest round of warnings is valuable.
Stephen Push of Great Falls, whose wife, Lisa J. Raines, died on the American Airlines flight that crashed into the Pentagon, last week criticized federal agencies for not sharing more intelligence with the public before Sept. 11. But now, he said, "I appreciate that the administration is being forthcoming about information about potential threats." He contended that the public isn't being unnecessarily alarmed.
Maj. Gen. Timothy J. Lowenberg, who leads the National Guard and heads homeland security efforts in the state of Washington, also said the warnings are appropriate.
"I think what everyone is experiencing right now is the frustration that there's nothing more concrete that we can take action on," he said. "But there is a certain value in reminding the American public that this is not a transitory phase. This is part of life in the 21st century. We just have to accept it as part of the environment."
Sue Mencer, a former FBI agent who heads Colorado's homeland security efforts, described the bottom line this way: "Everyone needs to be wary."
In his testimony, Rumsfeld said terrorists have close links to Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, North Korea and "one or two others" developing weapons of mass destruction. He said terrorists would seek to obtain nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and ultimately would succeed despite U.S. efforts to prevent them.
"We are going to be living in a period of limited or no warning," he added. He said al Qaeda terrorists are in the United States, "and they are very well-trained."
White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said the administration's statements in recent days reflect "the generalized level of alert and concern we have that's been out there. And, of course, there has been a recent increase in the chatter that we've heard in the system, and that was reflected in what they said."
Polls indicate that the public's nervousness is rising. A CBS News poll released yesterday showed 33 percent of those surveyed said they believe another terrorist attack is "very likely." A week ago, 25 percent held that view.
Fewer than half of those questioned in a Washington Post-ABC News poll said they are confident that the government could stop attacks -- the first time since Sept. 11 that less than a majority expressed confidence in the government's ability to protect them.
"You have to crank it up to get us to pay attention," said Chris Crandall, a psychology professor at the University of Kansas, who cited studies on human behavior. But doing so also raises the risk that the public will eventually tune out and grow cynical or complacent, he said.
"Information that is not informative does not get paid attention to," he said.
Haughney reported from New York. Staff writers Mike Allen and Vernon Loeb contributed to this report.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS
FBI Pigeonholed Agent's Request
Canvassing of Flight Schools For Al Qaeda Was Rejected
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 22, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A53054-2002May21?language=printer
A Phoenix FBI agent's request for a canvass of U.S. flight schools for al Qaeda terrorists was formally rejected within several weeks of his July 10 memo, after mid-level officials at FBI headquarters determined they did not have the manpower to carry out the task, sources familiar with the memo said yesterday.
The request was forwarded to counterterrorism chiefs at FBI headquarters and the New York field office, but one of the terrorism units in Washington decided by early August that the document's suggestions were largely unworkable in the midst of more immediate cases, sources said.
Officials had previously been unclear about when and how the suggestion was abandoned. But officials now acknowledge that the request was quickly marked "closed," and plans to pursue it were postponed indefinitely.
The abrupt halt underscores the low priority that FBI officials assigned to thefive-page memo from Phoenix agent Kenneth Williams, which was not distributed beyond FBI middle management prior to the Sept. 11 terror attacks and was viewed as largely speculative by those who reviewed it.
The Phoenix memo is now at the center of heated debate on Capitol Hill about whether the government misread warning signs about the intentions of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
Williams, 41, a former SWAT team leader, joined FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III yesterday for a classified briefing on the memo before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He is expected to offer similar testimony as early as today to a joint House-Senate intelligence committee investigating the events leading up to Sept. 11, officials said.
The FBI has publicly released only one paragraph of Williams's electronic memo, which outlined his suggestion that "the FBI should accumulate a listing of civil aviation universities/colleges around the country" and "should discuss this matter with other elements of the U.S. intelligence community."
The Phoenix memo was never shared with the CIA or any other agency, officials have said. Nor was it given in August to investigators in Minnesota, where alleged Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui was first detained after he raised suspicions at a flight school there.
"Even to this day, no one seems to know who knew what and where critical information went at FBI headquarters," Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said after meeting with Mueller and Williams yesterday. "They still don't have answers to . . . why things fell apart before September 11."
The memo, which updated about a dozen counterterrorism cases that Williams was working, was approved by Williams's supervisor in Phoenix and transmitted to the Radical Fundamentalist Unit, or RFU, within the bureau's counterterrorism division.
A copy was sent to the FBI's Osama bin Laden unit, because his name was mentioned, and an informational copy went to the New York field office, which has been the center of FBI expertise on terrorism, sources said.
One paragraph in the summary said that eight Arabs who were the subjects of Williams's investigation were students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Ariz., where they were enrolled in courses including pilot training, aircraft mechanics and security.
Williams suggested that the men, who were under investigation for suspected ties to terrorists, might be a threat. He asked for an analysis of people coming into the United States for aviation training and suggested requesting help from the State Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
RFU analysts decided that resources were stretched too thin at the time to pursue such a plan. Officials said that the FBI counterterrorism division was swamped with urgent matters, including a large volume of intelligence reports indicating a possible attack, and the investigation into the terrorist bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen.
When the memo's existence was revealed two weeks ago, one law enforcement official suggested that the FBI had been "seriously considering" a plan to pursue Williams's suggestions at the time of the attacks. But officials now acknowledge that was not the case.
"The decision was made that this would be taken up at a later time when they got through the crisis of the moment," one FBI official said. "There had to be some closure, otherwise it just would remain pending."
The memo was initially categorized as "routine," several sources said, because there was no imminent threat or crime indicated in the document. The other possible category is "urgent," officials said.
Associates said Williams is surprised by the furor his memo created. FBI officials, including Mueller, have noted that none of the subjects named in the memo has been connected by investigators to the Sept. 11 plot, sources said.
Prior to Sept. 11, the FBI did refer the list of names in the memo to the CIA, which concluded that none appeared to have ties to al Qaeda, officials have said. But Williams noted that one of the aviation students was a radical Muslim who had a picture of bin Laden on his wall, while another had made a phone call to a man linked to an al Qaeda associate.
Earlier this month, after finally receiving a copy of the memo, the CIA determined that at least two of the non-flight school students named in the document have ties to al Qaeda based on intelligence gathered since the attacks.
Neither Mueller nor Attorney General John D. Ashcroft learned of the Phoenix memo until after the Sept. 11 attacks. White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said that as of yesterday, President Bush still had not seen it, but was briefed on it "in the last week or two.
"I don't think anybody needed a memo after September 11th to know that there were general suspicions that people were in flight schools," Fleischer said. "Everybody knew it, as a result of September 11th."
Also yesterday, Ashcroft met for nearly an hour with the four lawmakers heading the congressional Sept. 11 inquiry, which has been mired in internal squabbling and hampered by some resistance from agencies. The Justice Department has balked at turning over some records to Congress because they could be used in future terrorism prosecutions.
Ashcroft told the lawmakers that the Justice Department has provided 37 of 79 witnesses requested by the committee so far, and that seven more will testify this week, a department official said. Ashcroft also told the lawmakers that the department has handed over 9,000 pages of documents, and has made 20,000 more available at a classified location within FBI headquarters, the official said.
"The information we need, we are going to get," House intelligence committee Chairman Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) said after meeting with Ashcroft.
Staff writers Mike Allen and Walter Pincus contributed to this report.
----
Some Pre-Sept. 11 Documents Released
Wed May 22
By CHRISTOPHER NEWTON,
Associated Press Writer
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020522/ap_on_go_pr_wh/attacks_warnings_41
WASHINGTON (AP) - Under pressure from Democrats, the Bush administration is giving a glimpse of pre-Sept. 11 intelligence documents that are likely to be the focus of a congressional post-mortem on the terror attacks.
The administration on Tuesday, marking a shift from previous refusals, showed members of the Senate Judiciary Committee (news - web sites) portions of a July 10, 2001, memo to FBI (news - web sites) headquarters from a Phoenix FBI agent who had warned of Arabs attending U.S. flight schools.
Discovery of the memo, which didn't quickly catch the attention of top FBI officials, and last week's revelation that President Bush (news - web sites) was told before Sept. 11 of possible hijackings by Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s terrorists have sparked new scrutiny of the administration's handling of threats.
"Every indication was that the traffic light went from yellow to red and the FBI just kept driving," Sen. Richard Durbin (news, bio, voting record), D-Ill., said Wednesday's on ABC's "Good Morning America." "They seemed to ignore what was a very clear warning."
If Washington had taken that memo as seriously as the agent did, Durbin added, "I think we would have been on a much greater state of alert across this nation before Sept. 11."
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., on Tuesday joined other Democrats have who called for a special commission to investigate how the government might have missed or failed to act on warnings.
"The time has come for us to do what they did after the invasion of Pearl Harbor, do what they did with the assassination of President Kennedy ... to ensure that we get all the facts," Daschle said.
The Bush administration opposes a special commission and has said it is cooperating with a joint investigation by the House and Senate intelligence committees. Bush officials say an independent inquiry would tie up too many officials involved in fighting terrorism and could lead to release of classified information.
The White House got some backing in the House Tuesday.
"If we have a public commission, all of it will be right there for our enemies to see," said Rep. Heather Wilson (news, bio, voting record), R-N.M. "Stay together, stay focused on the enemy, and stop pointing fingers at each other. This is exactly the wrong time to tear apart .... and start pointing fingers at each other."
Meanwhile, the administration continued to warn of impending terror threats.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said terrorists inevitably will acquire weapons of mass destruction from countries like Iraq, Iran or North Korea (news - web sites). And Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) cautioned that "terrorists are trying every way they can" to get nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.
Authorities tightened security around New York City landmarks after the FBI disclosed uncorroborated information from detainees that sites such as the Statue of Liberty and Brooklyn Bridge might be attacked.
Still, the White House said it was not raising the nationwide terrorism alert status because intelligence on possible attacks was too vague. In an interview with Italy's RAI television, Bush echoed the general warnings given by administration officials in recent days.
"The al-Qaida still exists, they still hate America and any other country which loves freedom and they want to hurt us," Bush said. "They're nothing but a bunch of cold-blooded killers."
Bush, who was beginning a four-nation European tour on Wednesday, also warned that U.S. allies could face terror attacks. In an address to the German parliament on Thursday, he plans to emphasize the need for continued cooperation among nations in the anti-terror fight.
"I know America can't win the war on terror alone," he told the German TV station ARD on Tuesday.
Behind all of the warnings was the continuing criticism over the FBI memo about Arab students at an Arizona flight school.
Agent Kenneth Williams, the memo's author, testified behind closed doors Tuesday to lawmakers looking into what the government knew about terrorist threats before Sept. 11.
He said he hoped his memo would lead to future screening of Middle Easterners who came to study U.S. airport operations, according to government officials familiar with his account.
In the memo, Williams had urged FBI headquarters in Washington to canvass flight schools across the country to identify other possible Arab students. But FBI middle managers decided late last summer to set Williams' plan aside because his memo was based on information they considered speculative and they had more pressing counterterrorism work under way, such as the investigation into the bombing of USS Cole (news - web sites) in Yemen, said a government official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer (news - web sites) said Bush was not upset that news of the memo did not reach him before the attacks.
"Those are the judgments that the professionals make in the law enforcement community and ... the intelligence community," Fleischer said.
Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., related that FBI Director Robert Mueller said he saw the memo shortly after the attacks but still could not explain why it didn't quickly catch the attention of top bureau officials.
Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites) learned of the general topic of the Phoenix memo in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks but was not briefed extensively on the memo until several weeks ago, a Justice Department (news - web sites) official said.
Ashcroft met for nearly an hour Tuesday with the four lawmakers heading the congressional investigation of the events leading up to the attacks and pledged to cooperate with the inquiry, they said.
---
Terror Lapses Put FBI Under Fire
May 22, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-FBI-Under-Fire.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A new entry in the well-thumbed index of FBI missteps is raising questions about the bureau's effectiveness in protecting Americans from international terror.
Critics inside Congress and those on the sidelines say the agency's failure to run a pre-Sept. 11 memo up the chain of command shows weaknesses in the anti-terror campaign broader than the lapses of a few managers.
``There were a lot of people who didn't have their head in the game,'' John Martin, a longtime chief of internal security at the Justice Department and a former FBI counterterrorist specialist, said Wednesday.
FBI veterans and bureau-watchers disagree on the significance of the memo that warned that an inordinate number of Arabs were enrolled in U.S. flight schools. They disagree, too, whether blame for the agency's problems over the past decade rests mainly on the bureau or on political leaders.
People on both sides of those debates say preventing crime -- the essence of counterterrorism -- has not been the FBI's strong suit in recent years.
The concept may even be at odds with a law enforcement culture that works best after a crime already has occurred, said Kris Kolesnik, a former congressional investigator who worked on FBI oversight.
``They focus on an ongoing criminal case, because that's how everyone gets ahead and gets promoted,'' Kolesnik said. Solving crimes gets the ``attaboy'' letters from headquarters and most effectively burnishes the reputation of the storied bureau.
``That's why they didn't put any of their best and brightest in counterterrorism; that was a stepchild with no career path,'' Kolesnik said.
Kolesnik, for one, believes that started to change with Sept. 11. CIA veterans are being tapped for the FBI's reinforced responsibilities in intelligence.
As well, the FBI and CIA are coordinating intelligence findings as they did not do before.
Right now, however, members of Congress are pressing to know what more could have been done to stop the Sept. 11 terror attacks before they happened.
And the FBI, again, is being found wanting, as it was through a succession of cases from the Ruby Ridge shootout in 1992 to the belated discovery of Moscow's spy, Robert Hanssen, in the agency's counterterrorism office.
Primarily at issue now is the Phoenix memo, which FBI agent Kenneth Williams wrote in July 2001 in reference to Arab men learning to fly in Arizona. It did not make it past midlevel FBI officials until too late.
``Every indication was that the traffic light went from yellow to red, and the FBI just kept driving,'' Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said Wednesday. ``They seemed to ignore what was a very clear warning.''
Former FBI profiler Clint Van Zandt said the memo was a smart piece of work but, absent a crime, not enough to go on.
``The Phoenix memo is not the Holy Grail,'' he said. ``Prior to Sept. 11, had the FBI gone out to every flight school and wanted a list of every Arab, ... the political correctness fires would have been lit all over this country.''
More broadly, he blamed Congress for leaning on the FBI to investigate more and more crimes over the years -- ``ducking child welfare (payments), parental kidnappings, pornography on the Internet, whatever the flavor of the week was.
``And in the background, always brewing over the mountain -- you could see smoke, no pictures -- was international terrorism.''
Martin, who retired from the Justice Department in 1997, said the FBI and other agencies have exhibited consistent failures but are not entirely at fault.
``It goes back to the very heart of the political leadership, goes back over the previous administration as well,'' he said.
For example, he said that even after the World Trade Center terrorist bombing in 1993, some top officials wanted the FBI to focus on abortion-clinic violence, street crime and the like.
``We were not preparing for this kind of attack,'' he said.
Kolesnik, now executive director of the National Whistleblowers Center, said it's no surprise the FBI headquarters and its offices around the country would stumble in their relationship.
The attitude toward headquarters in the field, he said, has been: ``You're not down here. You don't see where the ball is. Headquarters is calling balls and strikes from center field.''
Congressional hearings are looking into Sept. 11 evidence and hints, and Democrats are pressing for a separate independent commission, which President Bush is resisting.
So far the White House has not made a rousing defense of the FBI. Some analysts believe the agency may take heat deflected from Bush's top aides, whose handling of clues to the attacks also is under scrutiny.
FBI Director Robert Mueller was brand new to the job at the time and thus far has been exempted from criticism. He has announced an expansion of the counterterror unit among other restructuring steps.
The FBI is in the midst of ``a change in the way we do business,'' he said this week. ``We are trying to be more flexible.''
EDITOR'S NOTE -- Associated Press writer Connie Cass contributed to this report.
----
F.B.I. Agents Indicted in Stock Fraud
May 22, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-FBI-Insiders.html
NEW YORK (AP) -- Two FBI agents helped an Internet stock analyst shake down publicly traded companies by sneaking him confidential information on investigations of the companies, authorities alleged Wednesday.
Lynn Wingate, an FBI agent assigned to the bureau's Albuquerque, N.M, office, Jeffrey Royer, a former Oklahoma City agent who resigned late last year, and analyst Amr ``Tony'' Elgindy were among five defendants charged in a securities fraud indictment unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn.
In exchange for money, the agents used FBI databases to provide their co-conspirators inside FBI information on publicly traded companies, the indictment said. In 2000 and 2001, an associate of Elgindy, Derrick Cleveland, wired Royer $30,000 while he was still an FBI agent, the papers said.
Elgindy spread negative information on the companies on his Web site and to Brooklyn subscribers of his e-mail newsletter, InsideTruth.com, while betting that that the companies' stock would go down.
The defendants ``sometimes reported negative information about the targeted companies to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the FBI in order to initiate or hasten regulatory and law enforcement action, which they knew would cause the stock prices to fall sharply once such action became public,'' court papers said.
In one case, Royer searched the FBI's confidential National Crime Information Center database and discovered the criminal history of a top executive for a company called Nuclear Solutions, the papers said. The same day, Elgindy began sending e-mails calling the executive ``a convicted felon,'' then shorted the company's stock, the papers added.
Elgindy and Cleveland also extorted cheap or free shares of stock in exchange for agreeing to stop their smear campaign, authorities said. After they became the focus of a grand jury investigation, Wingate allegedly fed Royer -- by then an employee of Elgindy -- secret information, including descriptions of subpoenaed documents.
The charges ``reveal a shocking partnership between an experienced stock manipulator and law enforcement agents, undertaken for their illicit personal financial gain,'' said U.S. Attorney Alan Vinegrad.
Elgindy, 34, and another associate, Troy Peters, 39, were in custody in San Diego; and Royer, 39, and Wingate, 34, in Albuquerque; and Cleveland, 37, in Oklahoma City, pending court appearances. Their defense attorneys could not be immediately reached for comment.
If convicted of racketeering conspiracy and other charges, each defendant could receive 20 years in prison.
--------
Lawyers Decry Treatment of Lindh
May 22, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Lindh-Treatment.html
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) -- Seven U.S. military personnel should be questioned about the treatment of American-born Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh, who was kept in such harsh conditions that he had to be given an IV because he was dehydrated, Lindh's lawyers say.
The lawyers, who want to question five people from the Navy, one Army soldier and a Marine, hope to have admissions that Lindh made to his interrogators ruled inadmissible for his trial.
They say that after being held in a camp by the U.S. military, Lindh passed out at least once aboard the USS Peleliu.
Testimony of his guards ``is highly relevant to Mr. Lindh's physical condition and treatment at Camp Rhino in Afghanistan, where he allegedly made statements to an FBI agent -- from which he was still suffering when he arrived on USS Peleliu,'' the lawyers wrote this week.
The government objects to subpoenas for the seven.
According to the defense team, the government has disclosed that the seven potential witnesses would provide the following information about Lindh's treatment while in captivity:
--Lindh had frostbite after being brought aboard the ship from the camp.
--He was in restraints for both his hands and legs when he allegedly signed a form waiving his rights before an interview by his interrogators.
--One of the potential Navy witnesses ordered the destruction of ``souvenir'' photographs of Lindh taken by military personnel. The government says the photos were destroyed because they were unauthorized, not because they would reveal something adverse to the government.
--Lindh was treated differently from other detainees taken into custody. Lindh was taken to Camp Rhino and held in coercive conditions and interrogated by a single FBI agent.
-------
Patriot Act's supposed justification is gone
Peter Erlinder,
May 22, 2002
Minneapolis Star Tribune
http://www.startribune.com/stories/562/2848003.html
The storm of questions and criticism following revelations that the Bush administration had numerous warnings of an impending hijacking before the Sept. 11 tragedy have focused primarily on the Nixon-era mantra, "What did he know, and when did he know it?" But even if a congressional investigation agrees with Bush administration protestations that the warnings weren't specific enough to know what to do, administration policy after Sept. 11 is going to require some explaining, too.
The "lack of specific warnings" defense may justify a lack of action before the airliners hit the World Trade Center, but it can't explain away the lies that were told to Congress and the American people after Sept. 11 to justify the administration's war on civil liberties. The administration has been cynically using its own failure to act on intelligence developed under then-existing laws to justify vastly increasing its own power at the expense of civil freedoms.
Within a month of Sept. 11, Attorney General John Ashcroft packaged an old FBI wish list as the USA Patriot Act and demanded Congress pass it without discussion, because of the threat of yet another "Pearl Harbor-like attack." He told us the administration needed new "tools" to prevent unexpected terrorist attacks -- new wiretap authority; secret searches; the use of secret evidence; secret immigration hearings; taping lawyers' conversations; locking up "undesirables" on his command, and other measures.
No less an expert than Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor told us that concerns about civil liberties and abuse of power had to be shelved because of the "unexpected" new threat. Members of Congress have been accused of being the next thing to traitors for questioning administration policy and have even been forcibly expelled from Ashcroft's secret immigration hearings. Thousands have been locked up and deported, though no terrorists have been found, and our allies object to our holding of prisoners in violation of international law.
By presidential decree, the press has been cut off from normal access to government information. Local law enforcement is being deputized for federal immigration duty and Ashcroft is indicting lawyers who represent alleged terrorists a bit too independently. Even at the state level, in places like Minnesota, local law enforcement has gotten on the bandwagon with state "antiterrorism" bills that ape the Ashcroft proposals.
All of this has been justified in the name of preventing another "surprise attack." The administration, however, had the right "tools" in place before Sept. 11. Those tools would have proved effective, if the administration had known how to use them.
Now we know that we were all deceived. Recent revelations about the Sept. 11 tragedy prove that existing investigative powers were effective. The Bush administration used its own failure to act on the warnings it had received to justify grabbing even more power, at the expense of our civil liberties, by deceiving Congress and the American people.
The USA Patriot Act became law in less than a month, without any hearings. Now that we know it was passed under false pretenses, Congress should repeal it just as quickly. And the Bush administration should rescind the policies that diminish our civil liberties, until we can get an honest assessment of what went wrong in the months before Sept. 11.
-- Peter Erlinder, a professor at William Mitchell Law School, is a past president of the National Lawyers Guild.
-------- terrorism
A Drumbeat on Terror
Bush team issues more warnings
By Thomas Frank,
Newsday
May 22, 2002
http://www.newsday.com/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=ny%2Dusterr222715806may22§ion=%2Fnews%2Fnationworld%2Fnation
WASHINGTON BUREAU; Staff writers William Douglas and Earl Lane contributed to this story, which was supplemented with wire services.
Washington - Top administration officials issued terrorism warnings for a third consecutive day yesterday, as members of Congress stepped up their drive for more information about pre-Sept. 11 alerts from the FBI and suggested the attacks could have been thwarted.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld warned that terrorists "inevitably" will acquire chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, and "would not hesitate one minute in using them." And Secretary of State Colin Powell said "terrorists are trying every way they can" to get such weapons of mass destruction.
President George W. Bush said in an interview with an Italian television station that members of al-Qaida "want to hurt us."
The opinions themselves are not entirely new - officials and experts have been warning for years about terrorists acquiring the means to mount lethal attacks. But they mark the second consecutive day that a top Bush administration official has portrayed mayhem as unavoidable, following FBI Director Robert Mueller's statement Monday that a pedestrian suicide bombing in the United States was "inevitable."
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the recent statements reflect increasing information picked up by intelligence agencies about possible terrorist attacks.
Vincent Cannistraro, a former top CIA counter-terrorism official, said the administration has "made a political decision to put out all threat information, no matter how substantiated it is, whether from good sources or hoaxers." The likely aim, he said, is to deflect criticism in case of another terror attack - "to say, 'Look, if something happens, we told you so.'"
Rumsfeld said it was a simple matter of fact "that terrorist networks have relationships with terrorist states that have weapons of mass destruction." He named Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya and North Korea as possible suppliers.
The State Department's annual report on global terrorism, released yesterday, listed those countries along with Sudan and Cuba as state sponsors of terrorism. Iran remained the world's most active state sponsor, the report said.
This year's report criticized Iraq more harshly than last year, noting it was the only Arab-Muslim country that did not condemn the Sept. 11 attacks and that it provided bases to terrorist groups.
The study reported that the number of terrorist attacks worldwide dropped from 426 in 2000 to 346 last year, but the number of people killed in the attacks increased from 409 to 3,547 last year. About 90 percent of the 2001 death toll was related to Sept. 11.
Meanwhile, the administration signaled a willingness to share information sought by Congress by handing over part of an FBI memo from last July that warned about Middle Eastern men training at U.S. flight schools. Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) said the memo "is so explicit and explosive that [if released] then some of the people who are defending the administration would have second thoughts."
The author of the memo, FBI agent Kenneth Williams, met privately with the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday along with Mueller.
A top FBI official said FBI analysts had talked to the CIA about the memo before Sept. 11. The statement by Dale Watson, head of the FBI's counterterrorism and counterintelligence operations, surprised some senators, who had been told that the CIA did not know about the memo until approximately two weeks ago.
"The question is, if it was significant enough to talk to the CIA about it, why didn't it get more visibility within the FBI itself?" said Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), a longtime critic of the FBI, when told about Watson's comments.
Watson said in a speech yesterday to a group of private security officials that the memo, which recommended looking into Middle Eastern students at U.S. flight schools, "was looked at by some of our best analysts in our building, and it was a long-term project that needed to be done. There were discussions back and forth at their level with individuals from the agency [the CIA], is my understanding."
A CIA official said the FBI routinely asks the CIA for its overseas intelligence about people the FBI is investigating. Watson later clarified his comment, saying that "cooperative efforts were ongoing with our counterparts regarding individuals referenced" in the memo.
Senate intelligence committee chairman Bob Graham (D-Fla.) said authorities might have stopped the Sept. 11 attack if "one set of analysts" had had all the information about Osama bin Laden's plans to train terrorists in aviation. "That would have caused them to ask for additional information which then might have led to uncovering this heinous plot," Graham said.
Staff writers William Douglas and Earl Lane contributed to this story, which was supplemented with wire services.
QUOTES
1) 'The al-Qaida still exists, they still hate America and any other country which loves freedom and they want to hurt us. They're nothing but a bunch of ld-blooded killers.' - President George W. Bush
2) 'Just facing the facts, we have to recognize that terrorist networks have relationships with terrorist states that have weapons of mass destruction and that they inevitably are going to get their hands on them, and they would not hesitate one minute in using them.' - Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
3) 'Terrorists are trying every way they can to get their hands on weapons of mass destruction, whether radiological, chemical, biological or nuclear.' - Secretary of State Colin Powell
----
Security Tighter in New York After Vague Terrorist Threat
New York Times
May 22, 2002
By DAN BARRY and AL BAKER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/22/nyregion/22SECU.html
Federal and local law-enforcement officials yesterday issued a warning of vague and uncorroborated threats against the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty as the city imposed security measures not seen since the first months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The warning came on a day when Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said terrorists would inevitably get their hands on weapons of mass destruction as a result of their relationship with people in countries like Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya and North Korea. [Page A22.]
The police began operating checkpoints at many of the city's major bridges and tunnels on Monday night, causing traffic backups and resurrecting memories of a city under siege after the collapse of the World Trade Center. Well into last night, officers were stopping any car or truck that they deemed suspicious, while police boats patrolled the waters under the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges and around Liberty Island. Police officials said that these checkpoints and patrols would continue indefinitely.
Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly referred to the information as "general threats to New York City" and said the police "are taking all necessary precautions and are communicating with the appropriate law-enforcement agencies on both the state and federal levels."
When asked how people should respond to these warnings, Mr. Kelly said, "People should take this in the sense that government is reacting to information, doing what it thinks is prudent, and they should continue to go forward with their lives."
The announcement about unspecific threats against city landmarks follows two similarly vague warnings from senior government officials. It comes when some in Congress are criticizing the Federal Bureau of Investigation for what they say was a failure to pursue clues in the weeks before last September's attacks.
On Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney issued a general warning about another terrorist attack "tomorrow or next week or next year," and on Monday, the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, suggested that suicide bombings on American soil were inevitable.
Yesterday's warning by law-enforcement officials also came as the city was preparing for Fleet Week 2002, which begins today with the arrival of 21 Navy warships, Coast Guard cutters and other vessels that will ultimately create a parade of ships up the Hudson River. Given the patriotic flavor of the maritime event, military and law-enforcement officials have been working for months on security plans for the vessels and their 6,000 sailors.
Among the many security measures being enforced by the Coast Guard is the establishment of a 200-yard restricted zone around any United States vessel that is moored or anchored. "The Coast Guard is at the most heightened state it has been at since World War II," said Petty Officer Frank Bari, a Coast Guard spokesman.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg did not issue any statement about the threats against landmarks, and his communications office referred questions about the matter to the Police Department. But at a news conference earlier in the day, Mr. Bloomberg was asked how the city could prepare for terrorist threats, either day to day or during big events like Fleet Week. "The world is a dangerous place, unfortunately," the mayor said. "I see no reason why people shouldn't go out and enjoy Fleet Week and get around. The more people that are out, the safer the city will be. There are always threats, unfortunately. Fortunately, most of them are hoaxes."
Gov. George E. Pataki agreed, saying that "all types of threats" intended to frighten and divide the country have been received since Sept. 11. "We have to go about our lives with the same confidence and the same enjoyment and excitement that we had on Sept. 10," he said.
The city's alert level on Monday was already Code Orange, one step down from Code Red, the highest alert. Police officers were being reminded at roll call to stay vigilant, while the F.B.I. prepared to warn building owners and tenants to be on the lookout for suspicious people or activity, an F.B.I. spokesman said.
Then came another vague threat, passed on by the F.B.I. in Washington to the F.B.I.-N.Y.P.D. Joint Terrorism Task Force: a city landmark, possibly the Brooklyn Bridge, possibly the Statue of Liberty, was being singled out for attack.
Law-enforcement officials say that the information came during the debriefing of an Al Qaeda detainee. But there were no specifics about the plan - no estimated time, no probable method of attack. Nor did federal officials assess its credibility.
"The credibility of it, we don't know," a senior law-enforcement official said. "It is unverified and we don't have a level of credibility. But it does come from a detainee."
The vague threat is similar to other threats that have been leveled against the city in recent months, all false alarms. But law-enforcement officials said that the federal government was taking this one seriously, in part because in recent weeks they have detected a flurry of telephone calls placed to the Northeast from what one official called "source countries" in the Middle East. A similar pattern of increased calls to the region developed in the weeks before Sept. 11.
The information was maddeningly vague, leaving some officials in City Hall muttering that it was blown out of proportion. Still, the law-enforcement official said, the Police Department decided that it had no recourse but to increase security.
Still, this week's measures were nowhere near as drastic as those adopted in the first weeks after the collapse of the twin towers. Tunnels and major tourist attractions were shut down, the police stood guard at every subway station, the National Guard patrolled Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station, and a Coast Guard cutter remained anchored in New York Harbor.
During the evening rush yesterday, there were no police checkpoints in evidence on the Manhattan side of the George Washington Bridge, as thousands of pedestrians, bike riders and cars crossed it.
Alyson Nelson, 41, a psychologist in the Bronx walking across the bridge toward her home in New Jersey, said that she had become more aware of her surroundings and more concerned that "another horrific act might occur."
She added, "I think living in New York now, you need to have a certain sense of denial."
Meanwhile, on the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Bridge, police officers were everywhere - on the streets, on scooters, in squad cars and even in a helicopter hovering above a nearby park. In a half-hour period, the police stopped two dozen vehicles. In some cases, the officers quizzed the driver, examined the vehicle and waved it through; in other cases, they pulled the vehicle over and inspected its interior.
Phil Schneider, who lives in a nearby apartment complex and described himself as a World War II veteran, said that he was frustrated by the spate of vague warnings of terrorist attacks being shared by the government, as well as by the constant reminders to be alert.
"They say the alerts, but what does that mean?" he asked. "What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to go down to the courthouse and look at everybody who goes by? When push comes to shove, you know that what the government can do is limited."
----
U.S. Charges that Iran, Iraq, Syria Continue to Aid Terrorists
U.S. Says a Few Nations, Including Libya and Sudan, Have Taken Positive Steps
By Peter Slevin and Alan Sipress
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, May 22, 2002; Page A27
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52880-2002May21?language=printer
International terrorist groups continue to draw support from the governments of Iran, Iraq and Syria despite appeals from President Bush for them to stop backing extremists, the State Department charged yesterday in its annual report on terrorism.
Hard-liners who hold power in Iran intensified their support for terrorist organizations that targeted Israel while also aiding terrorists in Turkey, Central Asia and the Persian Gulf, according to the report. Syria and Iraq reportedly provided haven and logistical support to several organizations.
Yet the Bush administration, which made no changes to the roster of seven countries it considers state sponsors of terror, did credit several governments for "reconsidering their present course" after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Even North Korea and Iran, two members of what Bush referred to as an "axis of evil," are noted as taking small steps "in some narrow areas" to cooperate. But North Korea's initial approach "halted abruptly," the State Department said, while Iran and Syria "seek to have it both ways." Iraq and Cuba alone made no progress, the administration said.
"Libya and Sudan seem closest to understanding what they must do to get out of the terrorism business, and each has taken measures pointing it in the right direction," the 197-page report states.
Governments in Tripoli and Khartoum took positive steps by condemning the Sept. 11 assaults and providing valuable intelligence, but neither has done enough to be taken off the terrorism list, the State Department said. Countries on the list are prohibited from receiving U.S. economic aid and are subject to controls on items that could be used for military or terrorist purposes. No nation has ever graduated from the list.
"In order to be removed from the list, a nation has not only to renounce terrorism, but to demonstrate conclusively that no longer will it use terrorism as a tool -- and none of the state sponsors has sufficiently indicated that," said Francis X. Taylor, the State Department's top terrorism official.
None of the seven countries was identified by the State Department as backing al Qaeda, the terror network blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks and targeted around the globe ever since. Officials said yesterday that 1,600 suspected al Qaeda operatives have been arrested in 95 countries.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld yesterday named five countries on the list -- Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya and Syria -- as developing weapons of mass destruction. He said terrorists inevitably will acquire such weapons, perhaps from countries that have links to extremist organizations, "and they will not hesitate to use them."
This year's report is the 22nd annual edition. Unlike previous assessments, the document not only describes terrorist attacks and organizations, but also rates countries' performance in the international battle against terrorism.
Uzbekistan, for example, is credited with playing "an important role" after Sept. 11. Germany's contributions occupy nearly three columns of type. Spain provided "unqualified support." The Philippines "emerged as one of our staunchest Asian allies in the war on terrorism."
Yet on efforts to inhibit terrorist financing, "improvements are still needed," Deputy Treasury Secretary Kenneth W. Dam said yesterday in a speech. "Total assets blocked have been disappointing to date, particularly in Southeast Asian economies where we know terrorist cells operate," he said.
This was the second year in a row that the evaluation noted positive actions by Sudan, which stepped up its counterterrorism cooperation with the United States and investigated and arrested suspected militants, the State Department found. Al Qaeda cells did find haven in Sudan, a divided country in which the central government has limited control, the report said.
"Even if Libya technically has abandoned terrorism, with Moammar Gaddafi still in power, the impression people have is that Libya could go back to terrorism on short notice. In Sudan, however, some political restructuring would lead me to think that Sudan is getting out of the business," said Kenneth Katzman, a specialist in Middle Eastern terrorism at the Congressional Research Service.
The State Department noted that Libya strongly condemned the Sept. 11 attacks and repeatedly denounced terrorism afterward. The Tripoli government has reduced its support for international terrorism and "sought to recast itself as a peacemaker," the report said. Gaddafi's government is negotiating a statement of responsibility and a monetary settlement with relatives of the victims of Pan Am Flight 103, bombed over Scotland in 1988.
The report said Cuban President Fidel Castro has "vacillated" over the counterterrorism effort. It accuses his government of harboring fugitives, including Basque militants, but does not repeat the State Department allegation that Castro is shipping technology useful for manufacturing biological weapons to "rogue states."
The report names 33 groups designated by the State Department as foreign terrorist organizations, including seven not on the list a year ago.
Among the newcomers are the Palestinian group al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Asbat al-Ansar of Lebanon, Jaish-e-Mohammed of Pakistan, the Real IRA active in Northern Ireland, the Revolutionary Nuclei of Greece, the Salafist Group for Call and Combat of Algeria and the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia.
Al-Aqsa and the armed Palestinian militia Tanzim are offshoots of Yasser Arafat's Fatah party, but the U.S. administration has not implicated Arafat personally in their violent activities.
----
House OKs Security Spending Increase
May 22, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Congress.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Trying to anticipate ``the most evil mind,'' the House voted Wednesday to spend billions of dollars to prepare hospitals and build vaccine stockpiles for a bioterrorism attack and to increase security at borders, laboratories and waterworks.
The bioterrorism bill passed the House on a 425-1 vote, propelled by concerns from last fall's anthrax attacks and new worries this week that anthrax may have been found at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
``We've tried to think as evilly as we could,'' said Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., a drafter of the bill. ``What would the most evil person do to disrupt our health supply system or our clean water system? What would the most evil mind try to do if they learned how to fly a crop-duster? We went through that awful exercise of trying to think like the most evil person on earth.''
Reminiscent of the days after the September attacks, passage of the bill authorizing $4.6 billion over the next two years elicited unusual unity among lawmakers. ``Today, we send a message to those who would use deadly disease as a message of terror that America is ready,'' said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., the lead Senate negotiator on the bill.
Added Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, ``There is no higher priority than protecting the American people from enemies. Our enemies just don't understand that before we are Republicans and Democrats we are all patriots.''
Later in the day, the House passed a separate bill, 327-101, authorizing $5 billion to help the U.S. Customs Service buy special equipment to fight terrorism at the borders. Since Sept. 11, the agency has shifted its primary mission from catching drug smugglers to thwarting terrorists, especially stopping deadly biological, chemical or nuclear weapons from being smuggled into the country.
The House also was trying to finish a $29 billion anti-terrorism spending bill before it recesses for the Memorial Day holiday. Nearly $16 billion of that money is for the military but the bill also would pour billions of dollars into domestic security programs, including $5.5 billion to help New York rebuild from the attacks and $4 billion for increasing security at airports and on airliners.
Senate leaders hope to take up the bioterrorism bill before adjourning Friday for a weeklong recess, but it was uncertain whether they would get to it.
States would get $1.6 billion in grants to prepare for a biological attack, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would get $300 million to upgrade aging facilities.
An additional $1.15 billion would go to stockpile vaccines, including enough smallpox vaccine for every American.
The legislation would enable the Food and Drug Administration to hire hundreds of new inspectors to protect the nation from contaminated food. Drinking water systems would also get money to assess their vulnerability to terrorist attack and develop emergency plans.
The bill seeks to strengthen security at laboratories by creating a national database of dangerous pathogens.
Five people died in the anthrax attacks last fall, and at least 13 others contracted and recovered from either the skin or respiratory form of the disease.
An unrelated attachment to the bioterrorism bill would renew a law that allows the Food and Drug Administration to charge fees to pharmaceutical companies to pay for speedier review of new medications. The bill also would devote $45 million over the next five years to speed the review of generic drugs and $27 million to help the FDA monitor pharmaceutical advertising aimed at consumers.
H.R. 3448
Text of the bill can be found at: http://thomas.loc.gov
------
Alerts tied to memo flap
May 22, 2002
By Joseph Curl
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020522-217139.htm
The Bush administration issued a spate of terror alerts in recent days to mute criticism that its national security team sat on intelligence warnings in the weeks before the September 11 attacks.
The warnings, including yesterday's uncorroborated FBI report that terrorists might target the Statue of Liberty, quieted some of the lawmakers who said President Bush failed to act on clues of the September 11 attacks, although Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle yesterday reiterated his demand for an independent investigation.
The latest alerts were issued "as a result of all the controversy that took place last week," said Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer, referring to reports that the president received a CIA briefing in August about terror threats, including plans by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network to hijack U.S. commercial airliners.
Administration officials are making an effort to "answer questions, because they're reflecting things about the generalized level of alert and concern we have that's been out there," Mr. Fleischer said.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld yesterday raised the potential of nuclear attack in the United States, saying terrorist-sponsoring countries "inevitably" would acquire weapons of mass destruction and "would not hesitate one minute in using them."
Yet some of the warnings simply stated the obvious, as Mr. Bush did yesterday in the Oval Office.
"The al Qaeda still exists, they still hate America and any other country which loves freedom, and they want to hurt us. They're nothing but a bunch of cold-blooded killers," he said.
Mr. Fleischer, however, said disarming critics is not the only motivation for the warnings. He said U.S. intelligence agencies have alerted the administration to an increase in communication among terror groups.
"There has been a recent increase in the chatter that we've heard in the system, and that was reflected in what they said," he said. "So I think they're doing their level best to answer questions that people have."
Both Republicans and Democrats raised harsh rhetoric after media reports that Mr. Bush had been told of terrorist activity a month before hijackers, using planes as missiles, killed more than 3,000 people on U.S. soil.
Some on Capitol Hill later indicated that Mr. Bush was correct in not alarming Americans by issuing a vague warning after his Aug. 6 daily intelligence briefing.
"If there is a specific threat if they have specific information of something coming in a particular sector, they've got to convey it, they've got to announce that," said Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, Connecticut Democrat.
"But, when it comes to more general warnings," he said, "I think they have to be cautious about it. I don't think anybody has any bad intentions here, but it does have an effect - it scares people, including a lot of children, frankly."
After demanding a congressional investigation into what Mr. Bush knew before September 11 and declaring the administration negligent, House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt this week said: "I never, ever thought that anybody, including the president, did anything up to September 11 other than their best."
Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill yesterday dampened accusations that Mr. Bush knew of the planned attacks and failed to act. Most said a proposed congressional probe into the matter would be concerned primarily with bureaucratic mistakes that missed red flags.
"I don't think the president knew," said Sen. Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
Some on Capitol Hill planned to focus on what intelligence agencies knew and why they did not share that information.
"We intend to carry out that responsibility by conducting a thorough oversight of this horrific incident, which raised serious questions about the state of intelligence for the United States government," said Sen. Bob Graham, Florida Democrat and chairman of the Senate intelligence panel.
One aide for a Democratic senator who initially criticized Mr. Bush said his boss got ahead of the story.
"We thought the story had legs. It didn't. Now we are focusing on what the intelligence agencies knew, not what the president knew," the aide said.
Democrats began to focus on a July 10 memo from a Phoenix FBI agent who was concerned about a large number of Arabs seeking training at an Arizona flight school. Administration officials said that memo never reached the president.
Since September 11, the White House has sought to inform Americans about credible threats while avoiding alerts based on general threats.
The "analysis report" on which Mr. Bush was briefed Aug. 6 contained no specific information and was focused more on past practices of terrorist groups such as the al Qaeda network.
But administration officials in recent days have issued a series of general warnings. On Sunday, Vice President Richard B. Cheney said future terrorist attacks on the United States were almost a certainty.
On Monday, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III said suicide bombers, like those who had attacked public places in Israel, eventually would target the United States.
Mr. Rumsfeld said yesterday that Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya and North Korea were developing weapons of mass destruction and would supply them to terrorist groups.
But many of the critics who said Mr. Bush should have informed Americans of his Aug. 6 briefing took issue with the new warnings.
"I know they were answering questions, so they've got to be responsive, but I think it may create more fear than is helpful," Mr. Lieberman said.
Meanwhile, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said the new reports have not prompted administration officials to raise the nationwide alert status because the intelligence is too vague.
Mr. Ridge said warnings Saturday that terrorists might target unnamed apartment buildings were not enough to change the nation's security alert from "yellow," the third-highest of five stages.
• Amy Fagan contributed to this report.
------
White House Defends Terror Warnings
May 22, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Terror-Warnings.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Vice President Dick Cheney denied Wednesday that a flurry of public terror warnings was prompted by criticism over how the Bush administration handled pre-Sept. 11 warnings of an attack.
Cheney said ``irresponsible'' comments by Democrats did not influence the administration's warnings to the public this week.
``The fact is there is reason to believe that the threat level has increased somewhat,'' Cheney said on CNN's ``Larry King Live.'' ``We see more noise in the system, more reporting that leads us to be cautious here. We haven't changed our practices at all in terms of when we decide to go public and caution people.''
Authorities continued to tighten security Wednesday around New York City landmarks after the FBI disclosed uncorroborated information from detainees that sites such as the Statue of Liberty and Brooklyn Bridge might be attacked.
Cheney said the White House was not raising the nationwide terrorism alert status -- currently at yellow -- because intelligence on possible attacks was too vague.
Cheney also said a special, independent commission into how the government dealt with terror warnings before Sept. 11 would result in intelligence leaks. Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., have proposed that a special commission investigate the matter and have suggested that more should have been done with the advance intelligence.
Congress is already conducting an investigation.
``Our concern is that if we lay another investigation on top of that we'll just multiply potential sources of leaks and disclosures of information we can't disclose,'' Cheney said. ``The key to our ability to defend ourselves and to take out the terrorists lies in intelligence.''
The political battle over what information the government had before Sept. 11 about possible terror attacks intensified Wednesday.
For the second day, FBI Director Robert Mueller and agent Kenneth Williams testified behind closed doors to lawmakers investigating what the government knew.
Williams wrote a pre-Sept. 11 warning about Arab students at an Arizona flight school that he hoped would lead to screenings of Middle Easterners who came to study U.S. airport operations, according to government officials familiar with his account.
Williams' memo last summer linked the Arab students to a militant Muslim group in London whose leader openly supported Osama bin Laden, said government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.
On Tuesday, both Mueller and Williams gave testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. They appeared before the House and Senate Intelligence Committees on Wednesday.
Also on Capitol Hill, Republicans began to fight against Democratic calls for a special commission.
John Scofield, a GOP spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee, sent an e-mail to members noting that the $29 billion anti-terrorism bill includes $1.6 million to support the Congressional investigation into how pre-Sept. 11 warnings were handled.
``In other words there is no need for a commission,'' Scofield wrote. ``Congress has the resources to do a thorough investigation.
As the debate over the commission continued, the Bush administration sought to qualify the threats that the United States faces from terrorists after a week of warnings from President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Rumsfeld said his comment Tuesday that terrorists would inevitably gain weapons of mass destruction was not based on new information.
``The words were the same, the language was the same, the import was the same as I have been saying for months,'' Rumsfeld said Wednesday.
Rumsfeld also said every bit of intelligence received cannot be treated as a legitimate threat. He said members of the al-Qaida network have provided false information about terrorist threats in order to see how U.S. authorities will react, thereby gaining knowledge of use to the terrorists.
``There's no question but that it happens,'' he said. ``I mean, these people are well trained. They know precisely what they're doing, and they're taught all kinds of techniques in a whole host of different areas.''
-------
Al - Qaida Cell Forced From Canada
May 22, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Canada-Terrorist-Cell.html
TORONTO (AP) -- A group of al-Qaida terrorists was forced out of Ontario recently, the province's minister of public safety and security said Wednesday.
Bob Runciman told reporters the terrorists had left Canada, but refused to provide further details.
The group was a ``sleeper cell'' of the al-Qaida network headed by Osama bin Laden, Runciman said.
It ``has been effectively closed down'' by the actions of the Ontario Provincial Police and other law enforcement officials, he said.
The Ontario Provincial Police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police offered no information, refusing to confirm or deny Runciman's account.
During debate in the Ontario legislature, Runciman said the terrorists were under observation but never arrested.
``Until they break the law or plan to break the law they can walk the streets as you and I can,'' he said. ``They were discouraged from continuing operations in this province.''
Runciman said the group's existence was discovered by police and intelligence work.
``It was simply a case of watching every move, following these individuals and keeping close tabs on their activities,'' Runciman said.
Canada is considered a possible home for foreign terrorists who take advantage of liberal immigration laws and a lax refugee system.
No link has been established between Canada and the hijackers who crashed commercial planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, but convicted terrorist Ahmed Ressam was arrested in Port Angeles, Wash., in December 1999 while trying to enter the United States from Canada with explosives in his car.
Ressam, who once trained in an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan, was convicted last year in Los Angeles of plotting to bomb Los Angeles International Airport during millennium celebrations and faces sentencing later this year.
He has provided information that helped convict two accomplices and led to the arrests of other alleged terrorists in Europe.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
Britain in 2.3 million stg boost for wave energy
REUTERS UK:
May 22, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16074/story.htm
LONDON - Britain this week pledged up to 2.3 million pounds ($3.36 million) to help develop plants to generate electricity by harnessing the power of waves off the coast of Scotland.
The government money will go to Inverness-based firm Wavegen to help fund three wave energy plants in shallow water off the Western Isles, said the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in a statement. The funding depends on finalisation of a technical assessment of the technology by the DTI.
"Wavegen have submitted a very exciting proposal for DTI funding and I am convinced it can make a major contribution to the development of this new industry," said Energy Minister Brian Wilson in the statement.
The cash will come from the 100 million pounds earmarked by the government last year for the development of renewable energy.
Ministers have set a target of producing 10 percent of electricity supplies from renewable energy sources such as wind, wave and solar plants, by 2010 as part of its bid to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
Last year the government granted 1.67 million pounds to Wavegen. The company also secured five million pounds last year towards the commercialisation of its technology in a financing round led by Merrill Lynch New Energy Technology plc.
Wavegen's plants are based on its oscillating water column technology which has already been demonstrated in onshore projects.
The technology works by capturing water in a partially submerged shell and using it to compress air and power a pneumatic turbine.
-------- energy
Energy Task Force Documents Show Industry Influence
By Cat Lazaroff
May 22, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-22-07.html
WASHINGTON, DC, Vice President Richard Cheney's energy task force met with industry representatives 25 times for every one contact with conservation and public interest groups, shows a review by the group whose lawsuit prompted the release of thousands of Energy Department documents. The review was released the same day that the energy agency delivered another 1,500 pages of previously withheld task force information.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has now been provided more than 13,000 pages of documents by the Energy Department (DOE) after winning a lawsuit filed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The DOE was the lead agency working with the Cheney task force, called the National Energy Policy Development Group, which was commissioned by President George W. Bush in January 2001 to develop a national energy policy.
In February, a federal court ordered the release of all documents related to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's involvement with the White House energy task force. (Photo courtesy DOE)
During the course of its operation, the energy task force received input from hundreds of corporations, organizations and individuals. After searching the DOE documents for evidence of task force contacts with outside groups, the NRDC says that energy industry lobbyists enjoyed extraordinary access to the panel.
The data shows that industry representatives had 714 direct contacts between January 2001 and September 2001, while non-industry representatives had only 29. The NRDC could not definitively categorize another 105 direct contacts.
"A year ago the Cheney task force issued recommendations that read like a wish list for energy companies," said NRDC senior attorney Sharon Buccino. "When it came to developing the administration's environmentally and fiscally reckless energy policy, it was all industry all the time."
The representatives tallying the most direct contacts with the energy task force were from some of the nation's largest and most influential energy companies and trade associations - industries that stood to benefit from the president's policies to boost domestic energy production. Some of them also are major donors to President Bush and Republican congressional candidates.
For example, the Nuclear Energy Institute had contact with the task force 19 times. This group contributed $437,404 to Republican candidates and the Republican Party from 1999 to 2002. Energy giant Southern Company, a group that contributed $1,626,507 to Republican candidates and the GOP from 1999 to 2002, had contact with the task force seven times.
Vice President Richard Cheney headed the National Energy Policy Development Group. (Photo courtesy The White House)
For the purpose of NRDC's analysis, meetings, phone calls, letters, memos or Email communication with the task force was classified as direct contacts. The conservation group excluded indirect contacts, such as reports, press releases, hearing statements and information obtained from websites - the avenues by which the task force has admitted to gathering most of its input from environmental organizations.
Based on these criteria, Exelon Corporation, a utility and energy company, had contact with the task force six times, and has contributed $910,886 to Republican candidates and the GOP from 1999 to 2002. The Edison Electric Institute, which contributed $598,169 to Republican candidates and the GOP from 1999 to 2002, had contact with the task force 14 times.
The National Mining Association had contact with the task force nine times, and has contributed $575,496 to Republican candidates and the GOP from 1999 to 2002. The American Gas Association had contact with the task force eight times, and has contributed $480,478 to Republican candidates and the GOP over that period.
Perhaps most damning, the now defunct Enron Corporation had contact with the task force four times, in addition to the six times that Vice President Cheney has reported meeting with company officials. Enron contributed $2,480,056 to Republican candidates and the GOP from 1999 to 2002.
The NRDC points out that these contacts represent only were ones in which Energy Department staff participated. Other direct contacts with the energy task force, for example through the vice president's office, are not included in these tallies because the Bush administration has refused to release that information.
The NRDC review defined industry contacts to include companies, trade associations, and law and consulting firms representing energy interests. NRDC did not distinguish the type of industry, so its numbers for the energy industry includes a handful of alternative energy groups.
The Bush Cabinet discusses the National Energy Policy. From left: EPA Administrator Christie Whitman, Education Secretary Rod Paige, Interior Secretary Gale Norton, Secretary of State Colin Powell, President George W. Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta (Photo courtesy The White House)
Likewise, the non-industry category includes think tanks that the NRDC claims are heavily financed by energy interests. The unknown category represents entities that NRDC was unable to identify or categorize.
Today, after quickly reviewing about 1,500 additional documents that the DOE delivered to the NRDC on Tuesday, the conservation group said it has uncovered evidence showing the Bush administration adopted several energy policies requested by Chevron Corporation. The company provided several recommendations, ranging from easing federal permitting rules for energy projects to relaxing standards fuel supply requirements, versions of which were ultimately included in the president's national energy plan.
For example, Chevron CEO David O'Reilly recommended that the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG) "charge the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator to identify and address federal barriers to permitting energy projects."
The task force then recommended that "the President issue an Executive Order to rationalize permitting for energy production in an environmentally sound manner by directing federal agencies to expedite permits and other federal actions necessary for energy related project approvals on a national basis."
"The administration has unlawfully delayed the release of some of the most embarrassing evidence of industry involvement in the Bush energy plan," said Buccino, noting that Tuesday's delivery came 41 days after a court ordered deadline for the DOE to release the information.
Other documents released Tuesday reveal involvement by the National Mining Association, the National Petroleum & Refiners Association, General Motors and other major industries in the development of the Bush energy plan, the NRDC says.
On March 1, 2001, energy lobbyist Haley Barbour, former head of the Republican Party, sent Cheney a memo arguing against federal regulation of emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
"A moment of truth is arriving in the form of a decision whether this administration's policy will be to regulate and/or tax CO2 as a pollutant," Barbour wrote. "The question is whether environmental policy still prevails over energy policy with Bush-Cheney, as it did with Clinton-Gore."
President George W. Bush has opted against federal regulation of carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. (Photo by Eric Draper courtesy The White House)
On March 13, 2001, President Bush announced that he would not seek to cap CO2 emissions from power plants.
On March 16, 2001, former Senator Jack Kemp sent Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham a letter on behalf of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a think tank that has been linked with energy industry groups. Kemp's letter lauded the administration for the way it handled the CO2 issue and credited the Competitive Enterprise Institute for "giving the president intellectual support and political cover to 'do the right thing.'"
In return, Kemp asked Abraham to attend the group's annual fundraising dinner two months later. Abraham spoke at the dinner, promoted the administration's energy plan and thanked CEI for its "good work."
Also on March 16, Jane Hughes Turnbull, a member of the National Coal Council, wrote to Abraham to announce her resignation from the Council, calling the president's decision not to regulate CO2 emissions "profoundly shortsighted [and] an obvious and expedient response to industry interests."
"Pressure from the National Coal Council contributed to this decision," Turnbull wrote, noting that the council's "leadership was intent on bolstering the economic well being of the industry, if need be at the expense of the environment."
"The coal industry and an industry front group appear to be dictating our nation's energy future," said NRDC's Buccino. "The administration's policy may signal a glowing future for big energy companies but it's a bleak one for the environment and public health."
Coal fired power plants, which provide more than half of America's electricity supply, also produce much of the nation's air pollution. (Photo courtesy National Renewable Energy Laboratory)
The NRDC will return to court on Thursday to seek additional task force documents from the DOE and the Department of Interior. That same day, the Sierra Club will be in court for the first hearing in the group's lawsuit seeking records from Vice President Cheney's office and other task force entities under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA).
The Sierra Club suit has been consolidated with a similar suit filed by Judicial Watch. Tomorrow the court will consider the U.S. government's motions to dismiss both lawsuits.
"When the Bush Administration wrote its energy policy, big oil and energy companies were given the red carpet treatment, but the public was shut out of the process," said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club. "Americans deserve to know what happened behind those closed doors, and the law requires it."
More information, including a list of the DOE's outside contacts related to the task force, is available at: http://www.nrdc.org. To review political campaign contributions from the energy sector, visit the Center for Responsive Politics' website at: http://www.opensecrets.org/new/energy_task_force/index.asp
----
US EPA, ethanol industry to meet on pollution probe
REUTERS USA:
May 22, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16072/story.htm
WASHINGTON - The U.S. ethanol industry, suspected by the government of violating the Clean Air Act, will sit down with the Environmental Protection Agency early next month to hammer out a compromise that would avoid numerous federal investigations.
Industry officials have indicated they would seek a quick resolution with the EPA, to avoid any disruptions their efforts to triple production of the corn-based gasoline additive over the next decade.
A recent EPA investigation found several ethanol production facilities were emitting air pollutants such as carbon monoxide at a much greater rate than previously stated by the companies. EPA claims the problem is industry-wide.
EPA said it will meet with at least 21 Midwestern ethanol companies at its agency's Chicago office on June 3. The two sides were expected to meet earlier this month, but the talks were rescheduled due to a scheduling conflict.
Companies invited to attend include agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland and farm cooperative Land O'Lakes.
EPA said the primary source of pollution at ethanol plants was the drying process that turns the "mash," or corn residue, into livestock feed.
The industry has said it did not know of the problem until EPA began performing new environmental tests last autumn.
EPA said if an agreement could not be reached at the meeting, the agency would remedy the violations company-by-company.
Environmental groups have expressed concerns the EPA might use the private meeting to cut a favorable deal with the ethanol industry.
An energy bill passed last month by the U.S. Senate would triple ethanol use by 2012. That provision is expected to emerge in a final energy bill that will be negotiated by lawmakers in both the House and Senate over the next few weeks.
-------- genetics
Study Finds Anti - Malaria Gene
May 22, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Malaria-Mosquito.html
Mosquitoes carrying a man-made gene were largely unable to transmit malaria to mice in a new experiment, say scientists who suggest spreading such genes among wild mosquitoes could help control the deadly disease.
The gene blocks development of the tiny malaria parasite that grows inside the mosquito so it isn't passed along when the mosquito bites.
The work is reported in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature by a scientific team led by Marcelo Jacobs-Lorena, a Case Western Reserve University geneticist.
``It's a very interesting idea and a very fundamental scientific discovery,'' said Dyann Wirth, a Harvard microbiologist and director of the Harvard Malaria Initiative to battle the disease worldwide.
``From a public health point of view this may be a way to attack this disease without using chemicals like DDT or other insecticides,'' Wirth said.
Mosquitoes that receive the man-made gene would have to be released in the wild to get the gene into the insect population, which could raise political and social concerns, scientists said.
``We won't even eat transgenic corn let alone release transgenic mosquitoes,'' said Dr. Joseph Vinetz of the University of Texas Medical Branch and chief spokesman for the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
He was referring to the nationwide recall of taco shells in the fall of 2000 after they were contaminated with genetically modified corn intended for livestock feed.
But modifying mosquitoes genetically could be a cheap, economic means of malaria control in the poor African and Asian countries where the disease takes the worst toll, Vinetz said.
In the research reported in Nature, two of three groups of modified mosquitoes were unable to transmit the disease to mice, and a third group of mosquitoes was only about 50 percent effective.
On the Net:
Nature magazine: http://www.nature.com
Harvard School of Public Health malaria initiative: http://www.hshp.harvard.edu/malaria
-------- ACTIVISTS
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Announcement of public meetings June 4 and 24
Packaging and Transportation of Radioactive Material;
Announcement of Public Meetings
From: Citizen Alert-Vegas <Kalynda@citizenalert.org>
10 CFR Part 71
[Federal Register: May 23, 2002 (Volume 67, Number 100)] [Proposed Rules] [Page 36118-36119] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr23my02-19]
AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission
ACTION: Announcements of public meetings.
SUMMARY: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is conducting two public meetings on June 4 and June 24, 2002, to obtain stakeholder comments on its proposed rule that would revise the NRC's regulations on the packaging and transportation of radioactive material to make them compatible with the latest revision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) standards and to codify other NRC-initiated changes. The Department of Transportation (DOT) also published its proposed rule to harmonize its regulations with the same IAEA standards, and will be participating in the meetings. The public is invited to the meetings to discuss the two rules.
DATES: The first meeting will be held on June 4, 2002. The second meeting will be held on June 24, 2002.
ADDRESSES: The June 4, 2002, meeting will be held at the Hyatt Regency, 151 East Wacker Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60601. The June 24, 2002 will be held at U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Two White Flint North, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852, Room: TWFN Auditorium. Written comments on the proposed rule may be submitted at the meetings, or sent by mail to: Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001. Attention: Rulemaking and Adjudications Staff. Comments can also be delivered to NRC, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland, between 7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. on Federal workdays.
You may also provide electronic comments via the NRC's interactive rulemaking website at http://ruleforum.llnl.gov. This site provides the capability to upload comments as files (any format), if your web browser supports that function. For information about the interactive rulemaking website, contact Ms. Carol Gallagher at (301) 415-5905 (e- mail: CAG@nrc.gov).
You may access documents related to this proposed rule via the NRC's rulemaking website at http://ruleforum.llnl.gov. Documents related to this rule may be also examined at the NRC Public Document Room (PDR) located at One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Room O-1F23, Rockville, MD. Documents created or received at the NRC after November 1, 1999, are also available electronically at the NRC's Public Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at http://www.nrc.gov/reading- rm/adams.html. From this site, the public can gain entry into the NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS), which provides text and image files of NRC's public documents. For more information, contact the NRC PDR Reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, 301-415-4737, or email to pdr@nrc.gov.
Latest information about the meetings will also be posted at NRC's web site at http://www.nrc.gov; click on ``Public Meeting Schedule.''
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For questions related to the proposed rule, contact: Naiem S. Tanious, Office of Nuclear Materials Safety and Safeguards, Division of Industrial and Medical Nuclear Safety, Rulemaking and Guidance Branch, Mail Stop T9-C24, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001; telephone: (301) 415- 6103; E-mail: NST@nrc.gov. Questions about the public meeting process should be directed to Francis Cameron; Office of the General Counsel, USNRC, Washington DC 20555-0001; E-mail: FXC@nrc.gov; telephone:(301) 415-1642.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On April 30, 2002 (67 FR 21390), the NRC published a proposed rule for revising 10 CFR Part 71 ``Packaging and Transportation of Radioactive Material'' for compatibility with IAEA transportation standards [TS-R-1], and for making other NRC-initiated changes.
In addition to the compatibility of Part 71 with the IAEA regulations (TS-R-1), this rulemaking would also address, in part, the unintended economic impact of NRC's emergency final rule entitled ``Fissile Material Shipments and Exemptions'' (February 10, 1997; 62 FR 5907) and a petition for rulemaking submitted by International Energy Consultants, Inc. (PRM-71-12: February 19, 1998; 63 FR 8362).
The Commission is soliciting cost-benefit and exposure data from the public and industry to help quantify the impact of the Part 71 proposed amendments. The NRC believes that this data will assist the Commission in: (1) Making a truly informed decision regarding the proposed IAEA compatibility changes, and (2) avoiding the promulgation of amendments that may result in unforeseen and unintended negative impacts. Specifically, the Commission is soliciting: (1) Quantitative information and data on the cost and benefits which might occur if these proposed changes were adopted; (2) operational data on radiation exposures (increased or decreased) that might occur from implementing the proposed changes; (3) whether the changes are adequate to protect the public health and safety; (4) whether other changes should be considered, including providing cost-benefit and exposure data for these suggested changes; and (5) how should specific risk considerations (i.e., data on what can happen, how likely is it, what are the consequences) be factored into the proposed amendments. For more information on this request for data, please review Section III of the Supplementary Information Section of the April 30, 2002, proposed rule (67 FR 21390).
The NRC is holding public meetings to solicit public comment on this proposed rule in Chicago, Illinois on June 4, 2002, and at the NRC's Offices in Rockville, Maryland on June 24, 2002.
The agenda for the June 4, 2002, meeting is Afternoon Session: 1 p.m.-4 p.m, Open House: 12 noon-1 p.m. Evening Session: 7 p.m.-10 p.m., Open House: 6 p.m.-7 p.m.
The agenda for the June 24, 2002 meeting is 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Open House: 8 a.m.-9 a.m.
The intent of the open house session is to present the opportunity for informal interactions between attendees, both NRC and DOT staff and members of the public.
The first meeting will be conducted as townhall discussions between attending
[[Page 36119]]
stakeholders representing a broad spectrum of interests that may be affected by this proposed rule and the NRC and DOT staff. The second meeting will be conducted as roundtable discussions among invited participants representing a broad spectrum of interests that may be affected by this proposed rule. The interests in both meetings include the regulated transportation community, non-regulated entities (that may be affected by this proposed rule, e.g. petroleum and mineral industries), citizen and environmental groups, Agreement States, the Department of Energy (DOE), DOT, and other Federal and State Agencies. Although the focus in the second meeting is on the discussions among the invited participants, the meeting is open to the public, and the public is welcome to make comments at the meeting. Individuals interested in participating in roundtable discussions should contact Mr. Cameron (as indicated in the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section). A list of participants will be available at the meetings.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 16th day of May, 2002.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Patricia K. Holahan, Chief, Rulemaking and Guidance Branch, Division of Industrial and Medical Nuclear Safety, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards.
[FR Doc. 02-12991 Filed 5-22-02; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
----
[National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" today said there were more police in Berlin yesterday than at any time since World War Two. et]
10,000 police deployed in Berlin for Bush visit
By Jasmin Fischer
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
May 22, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020522-70639808.htm
BERLIN - German officials, stunned by their inability to control radical leftists and anarchists during a May Day riot on the streets of Berlin, are mounting one of the biggest police operations in the city's history to protect President Bush.
Nearly 10,000 police officers will come from around the country to keep order in the German capital during Mr. Bush's 19-hour visit, which begins this evening,police spokesman Uwe Kozelnik said.
"The safety of our guest is our top priority," he said.
In a preview of what Mr. Bush can expect, 20,000 protesters chanted "Yankee go home" during a march through Berlin yesterday.
German authorities have mobilized 10,000 police - a postwar record for a state guest - to contain potential violence from demonstrators protesting on issues ranging from a possible U.S. attack on Iraq to Washington's policies on trade, the environment and the Middle East.
The demonstration yesterday was peaceful, but police want to avoid a repeat of May Day, when they temporarily lost control and protesters went on a rampage, looting stores, setting cars on fire and attacking police.
For Mr. Bush's visit, the police department has let protesters know that rioting will be met with "relentlessness and all necessary force."
Some protesters carried placards yesterday that read "Pretzels instead of bombs" and "War is terror - stop the global Bush fire."
Meanwhile, several hundred pro-U.S. demonstrators paraded at the former U.S.-run border crossing between East and West Berlin, dubbed Checkpoint Charlie.
"The questions of war and peace are paramount in the protests against the politics of the United States," Philipp Hersel, a member of the anti-globalization ATTAC group, said in an interview.
"We also want to raise criticisms about how the USA ignores international global-warming regulations, as well as how it evades international penal codes."
The Party of Democratic Socialism, made up of former communists who share power with the Social Democrats in Berlin, supports the demonstrations.
"We are against war as a political tool," argued Berlin party spokesman Axel Hildebrandt, who also pleaded for peaceful protests.
Police plan to keep the demonstrators out of sight and earshot of the visiting presidential delegation.
Construction projects will cease during the visit, and air traffic over Berlin will be suspended during Mr. Bush's arrival and departure.
Berlin's landmark Brandenburg Gate will be turned into a high-security zone.
Mr. Bush will hold meetings with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and President Johannes Rau, who will welcome him with military honors. He will also deliver a speech to the German parliament.
Despite the expected protests and fear of violence, polls indicate that the majority of Germans are looking forward to the president's visit. Berliners are highly conscious of their close connection to the United States, going back to President Kennedy's Cold War speech in which he said, "ich bin ein Berliner."
President Reagan's speech in Berlin urging then-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall," foreshadowed the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
----
Greenpeace blocks Esso's largest refinery in France
Wednesday, May 22, 2002
By Marc Parrad,
Reuters
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/05/05222002/reu_47281.asp
NOTRE-DAME-DE-GRAVENCHON, France - Greenpeace activists blocked land and river access to Exxon Mobil Corp's largest refinery in France on Tuesday, dubbing the world's biggest oil company "Climate Enemy No. 1."
Around 60 environmentalists, some dressed as Esso's tiger mascot, used trucks and dinghies to halt traffic to and from Esso's Port Jerome refinery and petrochemical plant near Le Havre in northern France, Greenpeace said.
"We plan to stay as long as we possibly can," Greenpeace campaign leader Laetitia de Marez said.
Esso France, an Exxon Mobil Corp. subsidiary, said the protest had moderately dented production, although there was no major disruption as most refined fuel left via a pipeline. "In my opinion this is intolerable," refinery director Jean-Yves Le Meur told reporters, adding he had requested a court injunction to have the protesters removed.
Greenpeace has been leading a high-profile global campaign against Esso, which is opposed to the Kyoto accord on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and this latest blockade comes just days before U.S. President George W. Bush is due in France.
Greenpeace said Esso had helped derail talks on climate change by financing Bush's election campaign and then lobbying Washington against curbing emissions. Bush's administration withdrew from the international Kyoto climate accord to cut greenhouse emissions, widely blamed for global warming and climate change.
"We take the protection of the environment very seriously and regret the systematic defamation of our position," Le Meur said when asked about Greenpeace's charges.
Esso France refines 11.5 million tons of crude oil a year at its Port Jerome site and produces 2 million tons of chemical products. It employs 2,800 people, of which 1,800 could not get to work on Tuesday.
--------
Protests as Well as Friends Await Bush on Europe Trip
New York Times
May 22, 2002
By STEVEN ERLANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/22/international/europe/22EURO.html
BERLIN, May 21 - When George W. Bush lands in Berlin on his first visit to Germany as president, he might wonder at his reception in a country that is one of America's closest allies. Mr. Bush will be here barely 20 hours, the first stop on a European tour that takes him to Russia, France and Italy, but German demonstrators plan three days of protests.
Many older Germans and those born just after World War II remain grateful to the United States for helping the country rebuild after the Nazi era. Political leaders are turning somersaults to show their friendship and solidarity with the United States, Mr. Bush and the campaign against terrorism, at least so far.
Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has said that "the president is a good friend of Germany and therefore very welcome," and President Johannes Rau, warning demonstrators to behave in the face of an enormous police presence, said he hoped that Mr. Bush "will feel how close is the solidarity between our two countries."
While an anti-Bush banner hangs from a Berlin church reading "Peace for the world, pretzels for Bush," the famous Brandenburg Gate, under renovation, has a new pro-American covering, showing the White House standing behind it.
Across Western Europe, the sharp criticism of the Bush administration's perceived unilateralism that predated Sept. 11 - and was then replaced by solidarity and shared mourning - has returned, resurgent.
After Sept. 11 more than 100,000 Germans demonstrated in support of the United States at the Brandenburg Gate. Now, the estimated 50,000 who will demonstrate against Mr. Bush will be kept from that symbol of Berlin by intense security around him and the largest police operation here since World War II - some 10,000 men on duty.
Today, 20,000 people were active in three demonstrations, the smallest of which, with several hundred, being a pro-American rally. Those who organized and took part in the two others, run by the former Communist Party and the Greens, said they opposed Bush policies, not America or Americans.
Claudia Roth, a leader of the Greens, called the protests "an expression of friendship, of critical solidarity with the Americans." An invasion of Iraq, she said, "would spell the end of the international coalition and polarize the world."
François Heisbourg, a French analyst at the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris, said: "There is a deep worry about Americans running off the multilateral reservation. And the prospect of an invasion of Iraq at the end of the year makes people uneasy. They haven't taken it on board yet. They find it so outlandish they don't see the evidence in front of their faces."
To the pre-Sept. 11 bill of indictment, which included the scrapping of the Kyoto environmental treaty and the pursuit of national missile defense, Europeans have added the supposed spurning of NATO offers of military support, the new American tariffs against European steel, the American treatment of Taliban and Al Qaeda prisoners at Guantánamo and the American contempt for the new International Criminal Court.
"So what happened since last fall?" the Berliner Zeitung wondered. "Almost nothing. Or more precisely, as opposed to the common assumption that `everything is different now after Sept. 11,' almost everything has stayed the same, albeit in sharper relief."
After Sept. 11, the newspaper said, the Bush administration "used the opportunity to strengthen its selfish superpower position."
"Never has a president of the United States been so foreign to us, and never have German citizens been so skeptical about the policies of their most powerful of allies," the newspaper concluded.
Even senior German officials want to be reassured that Mr. Bush does not intend to make war on Iraq in the name of antiterrorism. A senior German official, briefing foreign reporters today, spoke of solidarity with Washington, then added, "We are interested in hearing from President Bush himself what his intentions are concerning Iraq."
The conservative challenger to Mr. Schröder in the September elections, Edmund Stoiber, has said that neither he nor Germans see Iraq as a present danger.
Condoleezza Rice, the American national security adviser, told German television on Monday that German leaders should isolate Iraq and educate their public.
"We also expect German support for the story that we are telling about this terrible man who has tried to acquire terrible weapons his entire life," Ms. Rice said of President Saddam Hussein.
Another senior American official expressed impatience at "European whining," saying: "This president expects support from his allies on issues of importance like Iraq. If there is useful advice that helps him achieve his goals to defeat terrorism and eliminate weapons of mass destruction getting to terrorists, he wants to listen."
After Russia, Mr. Bush will go to France, a country in transition, awaiting legislative elections on June 9. He will visit the re-elected president, Jacques Chirac, then go to Normandy's D-Day beaches to deliver a Memorial Day speech.
Patrick Jarreau, writing in Le Monde, said the image Washington and its European allies had of each other had deteriorated since last fall. While Americans approve of Mr. Bush, Europeans perceive Americans as "arrogant, bellicose and deaf to all criticism," he wrote, and believe that Washington is being too generous to the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, at the expense of Palestinian lives.
In Washington, he said, "the accusation of anti-Semitism is being used to disqualify European disagreement - especially French - with the policies of Mr. Bush."
America has entered a new period, with a return to "American messianism," Mr. Jarreau suggested. After Sept. 11, he said, the Mr. Bush who arrives in Europe has changed: "His unilateralism is no longer defensive. He has become a missionary."
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Bush in Berlin, Demonstrators Take to Streets
May 22, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-bush-europe.html
BERLIN - President Bush arrived in Berlin on Wednesday seeking European support for Washington's controversial war on terror and to sign a nuclear arms deal with Russia.
Twenty thousand angry people took to the streets to protest against U.S. policies on trade, the Arab-Israeli conflict, Iraq and the global environment.
German police have turned the heart of Berlin into a temporary fortress to protect the Bush team, sealing sewers and opening up lamp posts to check for any bombs.
Many in Europe have spoken out against American unilateralism -- such as pulling out of the Kyoto global warming treaty a year ago and, just this month, abandoning a treaty setting up an international criminal court over fears it may be used against U.S. military service personnel.
A guard of honor greeted Bush at Tegel airport before his motorcade sped off to apple strudel, vanilla ice cream and coffee near the Brandenburg Gate with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters on the Air Force One presidential jet that Bush's message to the German Bundestag -- parliament -- on Thursday would be one of ''strength in the face of terrorism.''
``Even though we've had some initial successes, there's still danger for countries which embrace freedom, countries such as ours, or Germany, France, Russia, or Italy,'' Bush said before leaving Washington. ``As an alliance, we must continue to fight against global terror. We've got to be tough.''
He welcomed the dissent in Berlin. ``The president believes it's part of the healthy democracy,'' Fleischer said. ``This is how freedom-loving people express themselves.''
But Bush has not budged from his view that the United States will some day have to confront what he calls the ``axis of evil'' -- identified as Iran, Iraq and North Korea -- seeking weapons of mass destruction.
Secretary of State Colin Powell told journalists at Tegel airport that Bush and Schroeder would discuss Iraq, Afghanistan, trade and the arms treaty with Russia.
COOPERATIVE EFFORTS
Powell said Bush and Schroeder would definitely discuss the issue of how to deal with Baghdad and its alleged desire to develop weapons of mass destruction.
``It is important for us to maintain close consultations with Germans as to what we might be required to do both in a multilateral setting within the U.N. and other ways to deal with this regime,'' he said.
Schroeder said he hoped the visit would focus on what European leaders had in common with the U.S. administration.
``I am looking forward to being able to establish areas of agreement for example in the necessary fight against terrorism, for example in the historically unbelievable important relations between America, Europe and Russia,'' he told ZDF television.
``We have so much in common which would have been thought impossible 15 years ago,'' he said. Schroeder declined to speculate on how his government would respond to any U.S. military action against Iraq, but said: ``It is very important that in the fight against international terrorism, the anti-terror coalition is held together.''
He added that Germany agreed that political pressure should be brought to bear on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to allow the readmission of international weapons inspectors.
After meeting Schroeder, Bush will also make the case for aggressively fighting ``terrorism'' in meetings during his trip with Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Jacques Chirac and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
``I will remind our friends that this war is far from over,'' Bush told European journalists.
In Moscow on Friday, Bush will sign a treaty slashing U.S. and Russian long-range nuclear arsenals by two thirds.
EUROPEAN QUESTIONS
European allies are also concerned about hefty U.S. tariffs imposed on steel imports and a pro-Israeli Middle East policy, and they are questioning the U.S. long-term commitment to NATO, the 19-nation Western security alliance.
The central act comes in Moscow, when Bush and Putin sign an arms control treaty cutting the deployed strategic nuclear warheads from the world's biggest nuclear powers by two-thirds over the next decade to between 1,700 and 2,200 from the current level of 5,000 to 6,000.
One contentious issue that Bush plans to raise is the long-standing U.S. belief that Russia is contributing to weapons proliferation by helping Iran build a nuclear plant.
Bush then flies to Paris and to spend the U.S. Memorial Day holiday, May 27, at the D-Day beaches in Normandy, where he will pay respects to soldiers who died in World War Two.
In Rome, Bush will attend a NATO-Russia summit at which Russia will be given a role in some alliance decision-making. He will also have an audience with Pope John Paul II before flying home on Tuesday.
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Blair to Warn Off GM, Animal Rights Protesters
May 22, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-science-britain-blair.html
LONDON - British Prime Minister Tony Blair will use a speech about science on Thursday to warn protest groups they will not sway government policy over controversial issues like genetically modified food and cloning.
Blair will tell an audience of academics and scientists that important research will go abroad if activists opposed to animal testing, GM crops or cloning of human cells were allowed to get their way.
``The prime minister believes we need to have a debate based on argument rather than the actions of a few individuals,'' his official spokesman said.
The premier has been a long-time supporter of hi-tech research, believing Britain is well placed at the cutting edge of scientific innovation.
He faced ferocious opposition from green and consumer groups during his first term for backing GM research wholeheartedly and ignoring calls for a moratorium until scientists had proved it would do no harm to the environment or human health.
The government has also threatened tough laws against animal rights extremists who target research laboratories.
Foreign companies have warned that extremists could deter them from investing in Britain. Huntingdon Life Sciences Group, the oldest animal testing center in Britain, came close to collapse last year when violent protests caused financial backers to withdraw their support.
``We need to make it quite clear that those people who want to protest should do so legitimately, lawfully. What they should not do is disrupt legitimate business and also prevent research,'' Blair told parliament on Wednesday.
``People may be totally opposed to GM crops but at least we should know the facts based on the research.''
On Thursday, Blair will pledge to increase investment in research and development over time and encourage school children and students to pursue traditionally unpopular subjects like mathematics, physics and engineering.
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