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NUCLEAR
Pills for Nuclear Plant Radiation
Feds Stockpile Anti - Radiation Pills
Federal agencies stockpile pills to counter radioactive iodine
Cuban Missile Crisis Declassified
Czechs restart second reactor at Temelin plant
Rumsfeld Ends South Asia Visit With Plea for Talks on Kashmir
Nonnuclear policy to stay as is: Koizumi
Senate Missile Defense Cuts Draw Veto Threat
Navy to Test - Fire Interceptor Rocket
Pentagon Starts Dash for 2004 Missile Shield
Democrats Complain About Missile Test Secrecy
US climbdown over 'dirty bomb' claim
How Bad Would A Dirty Blast Be? Here's What The Experts Say.
Not your average Mohammad's kind of bomb
Terror concerns spark nuke drug sales
Us Buries ABM Treaty, Bush Praises Missile Defense
Bush Hails End of ABM Treaty
Fines for Nuclear Security Lapses
Nuclear Power Risks
Bruce Power damages tube at Ontario nuke in outage
Vt. Nuclear Reactor Sale Approved
Rumsfeld Backs Off al Qaeda Assertion
Questions irk White House
Dirty bomber poses awkward questions for US
A Closer Look
Bush Meets Saudi Foreign Minister on Middle East
President Truman called `Hiroshima' a military base!
MILITARY
World Military Spending on Rise After Sept. 11
Karzai Gets the Nod as Candidate for Afghan Top Post
Face of Rwanda Genocide Now on U.S.-Backed Wanted Posters
Special Report - The Arms Lobby
Anthrax Theory Emerges
US offers India hi-tech surveillance
U.S. Said to Weigh Provisional State for Palestinians
"I made them a stadium in the middle of the camp"
Pakistan Says It Seized Americans Tied to Al Qaeda
Pakistan Denies Al Qaeda Link to Kashmir
Pakistan Says It Alerted U.S. Over 'Dirty Bomb' Man
Gulf buildup: U.S. has doubled troops in Kuwait this year
US military personnel killed in terror war
Defusing the hype surrounding 'dirty bomb'
Stink Bomb
POLICE / PRISONERS
Lawyer for suspect in 'dirty bomb' plot calls case weak
Names of terror detainees can stay secret, court rules
Holbrooke won't testify in open court
Now showing on satellite TV: secret American spy photos
F.B.I. Talked of Following Bomb Suspect Before Arrest
Echo of F.B.I. Abuses in Queries on New Role
Support for a New Agency but Concern About the Details
Outdated Systems Balk Terrorism Investigations
U.S. Faulted on Chemical Plants' Security
ENERGY AND OTHER
Shell to use ethanol in California by year-end
Bush advisers split over energy policy
W.T.O. Loophole Allows a Surge in Protectionism
ACTIVISTS
Critic of Corruption in Rural China Is Arrested
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
Pills for Nuclear Plant Radiation
New York Times
June 13, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/13/opinion/13THU2.html
Spurred by memories of Sept. 11, more than a dozen states are beginning to acquire potassium iodide pills to protect people living or working near nuclear plants from potential radiation exposure should a terrorist attack or accident occur. Both those who are apprehensive about a terror attack and those who think, as we do, that the likelihood of a successful attack is small should welcome any effort to stockpile potassium iodide as a sensible precaution. The pills carry little risk except to those with iodine sensitivities, thyroid problems or certain rare conditions. They provide substantial protection against thyroid cancer if taken just before or within a few hours after exposure to radiation.
The pills will not prevent harm from all the radioactive constituents of any plume that might emerge from a stricken plant. They protect only against the uptake of radioactive iodine by the thyroid. But that is no trivial matter. Studies after the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine found that thyroid cancer, especially in young children, was overwhelmingly the worst consequence to public health. Children lucky enough to be given potassium iodide largely escaped harm.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has offered the pills free to any of the 34 states with people living within 10 miles of nuclear power plants. Thus far 13 have accepted, including New York, Connecticut and New Jersey. Westchester County began distributing pills to residents living within 10 miles of the Indian Point nuclear reactors last Saturday. The pills are also available over the counter at some drugstores, and on the Internet. Since prompt administration is critical, it makes sense to have supplies available at home, in schools and workplaces or at dispensing sites that can be reached quickly.
Health authorities stress that no one should start popping pills until officials evaluate a plume and issue instructions. Adults over 40 should take the pills only if the predicted exposure is high enough to destroy their thyroid, which may not happen.
Nuclear advocates fret that making the pills available will exaggerate public fears, while nuclear critics worry that the pills will breed complacency about nuclear risks. Federal and state officials stress that the pills are only a supplement to other measures to mitigate any danger, not a substitute for them. It remains vitally important to ensure the security of nuclear plants and to provide sound evacuation plans.
--------
Feds Stockpile Anti - Radiation Pills
June 13, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nuclear-Pill.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal agencies in Washington ordered 350,000 potassium iodide pills this week from a North Carolina company to protect people from cancer caused by radioactive iodine, which can be released in nuclear explosions.
The agencies are stockpiling the pills ``in case of a nuclear event,'' said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the Office of Homeland Security.
``It's been an ongoing effort,'' Johndroe said, adding that it is not a direct result of the arrest of Jose Padilla, a suspected al-Qaida member who may have been planning a ``dirty bomb'' attack on Washington.
The government orders Monday and Tuesday represent 9 percent of NukePills.com's business this year and were 18 percent higher than the company's total 2000 sales, said owner Troy Jones. Private citizens are buying as well.
``In 2000, who ever heard of potassium iodide?'' Jones said Thursday. Until then, his only clients were survivalists and those who lived near reactors.
After Sept. 11, many people were ordering the pills that protect the thyroid gland from radioactive iodine, a cancer-causing agent that can be released in huge plumes in atomic explosions.
The orders have nearly overwhelmed Jones' three-person sales team since Monday, when Attorney General John Ashcroft announced Padilla's arrest.
However, experts believe a ``dirty bomb'' would release other kinds of radiation. Potassium iodide, which sells for about $1 a pill, would be helpful only if a dirty bomb used radioactive iodine instead of other radioactive substances, and then only for people close to the explosion.
People aren't buying this product because they think they're going to protect themselves from a dirty bomb, Jones said. ``They're buying it because they think something worse is going to happen to this country, (such as) an attack on a nuclear plant or a suitcase (nuclear) bomb.''
Johndroe isn't going that far, but he acknowledged the government is making large buys of potassium iodide.
The purchases were made by agencies including the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Department of Energy and the Department of Health and Human Services.
The Food and Drug administration approved over-the-counter sales of potassium iodide in 1982. It recommends that anyone exposed to radioactive iodine take one tablet daily for up to 14 days, and recommends smaller doses for children.
Jones said he was getting about one order per minute online, and most of the new clients were from the Washington area.
The Padilla arrest, Jones said, ``was a wake-up call.''
-------- business
Federal agencies stockpile pills to counter radioactive iodine
By Tom Ramstack
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
June 13, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/business/20020613-20005068.htm
U.S. government agencies in the Washington area ordered 350,000 potassium iodide pills Monday and Tuesday from a company that sells the medicine intended to protect the thyroid gland from radioactive iodine.
The government orders this week represent nearly 9 percent of NukePills.com's sales this year and are 17.5 times more than its total sales in 2000, said Troy Jones, president of the Mooresville, N.C., company.
The sales followed the FBI's announcement on Monday of the arrest of a Chicago man, Abdullah al Muhajir, born Jose Padilla, who is suspected of working with al Qaeda terrorists to detonate a "dirty bomb" in a major U.S. city. A dirty bomb is a conventional explosive surrounded by radioactive material that is released when the bomb explodes.
Mr. Jones would not identify the agencies that purchased the potassium iodide pills, citing protection of customer privacy.
"I think that what happened is that these people are privy to information that neither you or I know," Mr. Jones said. "Anytime an unsolicited government agency calls to make a mass purchase of potassium iodide, that's a signal to me something is amiss."
A spokesman for the Office of Homeland Security acknowledged the government is making large purchases of potassium iodide but said that they are part of an "ongoing effort" not directly tied to the arrest of al Muhajir.
"You bet we are, and we have been for some time," said Gordon Johndroe, Homeland Security spokesman.
Most of the purchases were made by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Health and Human Services, he said.
The NRC has regularly purchased potassium iodide to give to nuclear power plant workers nationwide. Under a contract in February, the NRC purchased 9 million doses from manufacturer and distributor Anbex Inc., based in Florida Government agencies are stockpiling the medicine "in case it's necessary to be shipped because of some kind of a radiological event," Mr. Johndroe said. He mentioned an attack on a nuclear power plant or a dirty bomb as the likely scenarios.
The Food and Drug Administration approved over-the-counter sales of potassium iodide in 1982. It recommends that anyone exposed to radioactive iodine take one tablet daily for 10 to 14 days.
Additional doses are optional and harmless for anyone who is not allergic to them.
"This is an incredibly safe drug," said Anbex President Alan Morris.
The thyroid is a gland in the neck that secretes growth hormones. Radioactive iodine concentrates in the thyroid, where it can cause cell damage leading to cancer. In a nuclear catastrophe, radioactive iodine represents the greatest threat from radioactivity because of its tendency to spread - perhaps hundreds of miles away - in a vaporized form.
"The younger you are, the more susceptible you are to damage," Mr. Morris said.
Doctors administering radiation treatment to cancer patients take it regularly. After the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant meltdown in the Soviet Union, 30 million people who might have been exposed to radiation took potassium iodide.
Most sales are over the Internet, although pharmacies are increasingly stocking it.
Mr. Morris said three or four pharmacies in the Washington area sell potassium iodide.
Federal officials acknowledge risk has given urgency to their decision to stockpile the medicine.
"We know that al Qaeda has been attempting to obtain nuclear or radiological material to use it as part of a bomb," Mr. Johndroe said. "We have no information that they have been successful. We are not going to let our guard down."
Until recently, most of NukePills.com's customers consisted of workers at the nation's 65 nuclear power plants and nearby residents.
The closest nuclear power plant to the Washington area is about 40 miles away at Calvert Cliffs, Md., on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Others in the region are at North Anna and Surry, both in Virginia.
Iodine is only one of several radioactive substances that could be released either in a nuclear explosion or by a conventional explosion that spreads radioactive material. The potassium iodide pills would be ineffective against other radioactive substances, such as plutonium, strontium or tritium.
NukePills.com has sold about 4 million pills nationally and internationally this year. About half of them were sold to U.S. government agencies. In 2000, NukePills.com sold 20,000 pills.
The pills are sold in packages of 14 for $9.95. The company, which sells only over the Internet, is running a sale allowing customers to buy 10 packs and get one free.
Anbex's sales of potassium iodide also are up sharply, Mr. Morris said.
"This week has been the biggest week we have had by far," he said. "There seems to be a recognition that radiation weapons by terrorists are a reality."
The biggest markets for the companies are in the District and New York. In the Washington area, typical customers include "defense contractors, federal employees and branches of the federal government," Mr. Jones said. "They won't tell me what they're going to do with it."
The largest one-day sales for the 3-year-old NukePills.com came Monday through yesterday.
"People have been putting it off, but now there's someone who was actually preparing to detonate a dirty bomb in the United States," Mr. Jones said. "That was the wake-up call."
-------- cuba
Cuban Missile Crisis Declassified
June 13, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Cuban-Missile-Crisis.html
HAVANA (AP) -- Cuba will declassify secret government documents about the Cuban missile crisis during an international conference in October marking the 40th anniversary of the event that put the world on the brink of nuclear war.
Vice President Jose Ramon Fernandez, who organized a similar conference last year on the Bay of Pigs invasion, provided no details about the documents in announcing the conference on Thursday.
Entitled ``The Crisis of October: A Political Vision 40 Years Later,'' the Oct. 11-12 conference in Cuba is expected to include people from the United States and the former Soviet Union.
Most Russians associated with the 1962 crisis have died, but several of the late President Kennedy's advisers are living, Fernandez said. He said conference organizers are studying the possibility of taking participants to sites related to the crisis in the Havana area.
The Cuban missile crisis ``was the most dramatic episode of the Cold War,'' said Fernandez.
He said the conference's aim is to shed light on events leading up to the crisis, which peaked when the United States learned there were Soviet nuclear missiles on Cuba -- an island just 90 miles from the United States.
Following several tense days of negotiations with Washington, Moscow withdrew the weapons without consulting with Havana -- a move that enraged Fidel Castro's government.
-------- europe
Czechs restart second reactor at Temelin plant
REUTERS CZECH REPUBLIC:
August 13, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17267/story.htm
PRAGUE - Czech generator CEZ said yesterday it had restarted the second reactor at its Temelin nuclear power plant, following a month of repairs on a non-nuclear part of the unit.
The second block was halted early in July, just a month after its initial launch, due to technical problems on the electricity generator.
CEZ said in a statement it will perform tests at the turbine before it is connected to the reactor and the output is raised.
The $3 billion Soviet-designed plant, located near the border of strongly anti-nuclear Austria, sparked a row between the neighbours with Austria threatening to block Czech Republic's entry into the European Union.
The two countries agreed earlier this year on joint monitoring of the station.
Temelin's first reactor ran at 85 percent yesterday morning, supplying 830 megawatt output to the nationwide power grid. It produced 3.2 terrawatthours so far this year.
The full launch of the two reactors should allow CEZ to close some of its ageing coal-burning plants in the northern Czech Republic.
State-controlled CEZ is eastern Europe's largest electricity producer with ambitions to further penetrate western Europe to offset losing share on the liberalised doestic market.
-------- india / pakistan
Rumsfeld Ends South Asia Visit With Plea for Talks on Kashmir
New York Times
June 13, 2002
By THOM SHANKER with CELIA W. DUGGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/13/international/13CND-RUMS.html
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, June 13 - Completing a shuttle-diplomacy mission across south Asia, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said today that the leaders of both India and Pakistan were "concerned and determined" to reduce tensions, and he called for a resumption of dialogue between the two nuclear rivals.
"I think that progress is indeed being made," Mr. Rumsfeld said after talks with President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan over ways to halt the violent standoff over the disputed region of Kashmir, which just days ago seemed on the verge of becoming a full-scale war.
Assessing talks on Wednesday with senior officials in India and his meetings here today, Mr. Rumsfeld said that the world was witnessing "leadership that is concerned and determined that steps be taken to de-escalate the tension."
But he noted with concern that the militaries of both nations remain on high alert and that miscalculation could destroy recent tentative steps toward accommodation. And he said that increased diplomacy between the two would be necessary to resolve the issue.
"Countries need to talk to each other," Mr. Rumsfeld said.
The growing tensions between India and Pakistan forced the Bush administration to confront what previously had been an unshakable but lingering concern in its pursuit of a global campaign against terror: What should the administration do when two important allies swap accusations of terrorism?
In its antiterrorism effort, the Bush administration has sought help from dozens of longtime military partners and struck alliances with scores of new ones. In some cases, most notably India and Pakistan but also between Armenia and Azerbaijan, these coalition partners have the dead bodies and wounded pride as proof that acts of terrorism may even today push them toward conflict and weaken the American-led effort to combat terror.
The leadership in New Delhi portrays itself as the injured party, and has astutely captured President Bush's own rationale for the American fight against terror when it describes how vicious strikes by militants crossing from Pakistan give India the right to respond, and even attack pre-emptively, to deter future bloodshed on its soil.
At the same time, Pakistan is an American ally literally on the front line of the offensive to capture or kill Al Qaeda fighters. Pakistani bases and airspace were indispensable for carrying out the war in Afghanistan; its troops still press Al Qaeda along the Afghan border, despite the mobilization at the opposite front with India; its law enforcement authorities continue to round up terror suspects throughout the country.
"Terrorism is as much a threat to your government as everyone else's," Mr. Rumsfeld told his Pakistani hosts during informal conversation before one meeting today.
American officials, while stating that there is no hard intelligence to prove that Al Qaeda-linked fighters are operating in Kashmir, nonetheless point out how promoting tension between Pakistan and India could divert forces and ease the plight of their terrorist comrades seeking to regroup along the Pakistani-Afghan border.
Mr. Rumsfeld expressed certainty today that should Pakistan find Al Qaeda fighters within its borders, it "would go and find them."
President Musharraf has pledged to halt the infiltration of militants across the Line of Control from the Pakistani side of Kashmir. India remains skeptical. American officials warn that so many fighters may already be in the region or might have previously crossed the mountains into Indian territory that a full measure of effort from Pakistani troops may be insufficient to prevent more terrorist violence in India.
What remains unknown is whether New Delhi can acknowledge this fact, and whether politically and, equally, whether emotionally India can absorb another terrorist attack, and also understand that President Musharraf may have been wholly incapable of preventing those terrorists from sneaking into India.
If India cannot pause for consideration of these issues should it be victim to another terrorist blow, then the next attack could undo all of the confidence-building steps and good will shown in recent days, American diplomats warn.
Mr. Rumsfeld's visit was a continuation of the shuttle diplomacy carried out by a number of senior Western officials on the South Asian subcontinent in recent weeks.
The goal has been to find specific ways to ease tensions between the nuclear rivals, but the series of visits has also keep Islamabad and New Delhi in conversations with third parties rather than fighting each other ahead of the monsoon season, which begins later this month and makes conventional combat increasingly difficult.
Mr. Rumsfeld also noted that the continued high-alert maintained by the Indian and Pakistani militaries was placing a potentially intolerable stress on both nations, and he said that, too, may prompt New Delhi and Islamabad to step back from the brink.
Concluding a visit carried out under tight security, Mr. Rumsfeld left Islamabad tonight, bound for Washington to brief President Bush on his trip to the region.
-------- japan
Nonnuclear policy to stay as is: Koizumi
The Japan Times:
June 13, 2002
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20020613a6.htm
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi reiterated Wednesday that his administration will never change the nation's nonnuclear weapons policy.
"We never said we are going to change our nonnuclear policy (of never possessing, producing or allowing any country to bring into Japan nuclear weapons)," Koizumi said during a session of debates with opposition leaders in the Diet.
"There will be no change whatsoever to this policy that we have kept to date," the prime minister said in answer to a question by Yukio Hatoyama, leader of the Democratic Party of Japan.
A remark made by Yasuo Fukuda, chief Cabinet secretary and Koizumi's top aide, during an off-the-record conversation with reporters last month sparked criticism against the government and raised suspicion that Koizumi's administration may be considering an immediate change in the policy.
Fukuda apparently suggested that Japan may claim the right to possess nuclear weapons in the future as the international security environment changes.
Asked to comment on the United States preparing contingency plans for use of nuclear weapons against countries including Iran, Libya and Syria, Koizumi showed his understanding of the policy.
"(I understand) that the U.S. has its own national security policy and keeps all options available," Koizumi said.
This prompted Kazuo Shii, the Japan Communist Party leader, to claim that Tokyo's "attitude of just following in the U.S.'s footsteps was behind Fukuda's thoughtless remark."
-------- missile defense
Senate Missile Defense Cuts Draw Veto Threat
June 13, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-arms-congress.html
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration on Thursday threatened to veto a $393 billion defense authorization bill unless Congress restores some $800 million the Senate Armed Services Committee cut from Bush's missile defense program.
With the Democratic-led Senate set to take up the bill before the July 4th holiday recess, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned he would recommend a veto ``if the missile defense provisions in the Senate Armed Services Committee's version of the bill were to be adopted by the Congress.''
The Republican-led House of Representatives last month passed its version of the bill, which lays the groundwork for a military buildup and provides the $7.8 billion Bush wants for next fiscal year to continue efforts to develop a national system to intercept missiles.
In their bill, Senate Armed Services Committee Democrats cut $814 million from Bush's missile defense request.
Complaining about the administration's insistence on secrecy over much of the missile defense program, they also imposed a number of restrictions and reporting requirements that Rumsfeld said ``would undermine our ability to manage the program effectively.''
``We seek a broad array of research, development and testing activities to yield a system as soon as feasible. The committee's actions would hamper that objective,'' Rumsfeld wrote to the Armed Service Committee.
But Democrats are skeptical a high-tech missile interceptor system will work, and argue it is draining resources from immediate military needs.
The committee's senior Republican, John Warner of Virginia, said two-thirds of the Republicans on the committee ``very reluctantly voted against the authorization bill'' because of the cuts in missile defense funding and restrictive language in the bill.
--------
Navy to Test - Fire Interceptor Rocket
June 13, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Missile-Defense.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Navy ship in the Pacific was the planned launching pad Thursday night for an interceptor rocket aimed at a dummy warhead in the latest test of one troubled element of the missile defense program.
The exercise was meant to test whether a rocket guided by a warship's radar system can knock down a medium- or long-range missile under controlled conditions. Pentagon officials said the test wasn't meant to be realistic but would help gather data to guide further development of ship-based anti-missile systems.
Ship-based systems are among several defense methods being tested under the Bush administration's drive to create a shield against long-range missiles. President Bush's decision to pull out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, which banned development of such missile defenses, went into effect Thursday.
Pentagon officials say the Navy test would have complied with the ABM treaty because it would not measure whether the ship-based system really could shoot down an intercontinental missile.
That's one of the ship-based system's major shortcomings, said Philip Coyle, a former Defense Department testing chief. Coyle said the interceptor isn't fast enough to hit an intercontinental missile and the ship's Aegis radar system isn't powerful enough to distinguish between a missile and a decoy traveling through space.
``Either way, whether it hits or misses, it's not demonstrating or trying to demonstrate a capability to shoot down intercontinental ballistic missiles at long ranges,'' said Coyle, who headed the Pentagon's testing office under President Clinton.
The test plan called for an Aries dummy missile to be fired from a test facility in Kauai, Hawaii, and an interceptor rocket to be fired from the USS Lake Erie in the Pacific. The Lake Erie's radar system was to track the dummy warhead and guide the interceptor to collide with it more than 100 miles above the ocean.
The interceptor hit the dummy missile in a similar test in January, although the collision was not the main goal of that test.
The interceptor system is largely a legacy of a Navy anti-missile system that was canceled in December because it was running as much as 62 percent over budget. That Navy system had been meant to defend U.S. warships from short- and medium-range missiles -- not to defend U.S. territory from long-range missiles.
One goal of Thursday's exercise was to gather information on whether the interceptor, called an SM-3, could be used to defend Navy ships as well as bring down intercontinental missiles, said Chris Taylor, a spokesman for the military's Missile Defense Agency.
In marking the demise of the ABM treaty Thursday, Bush said the United States needs a missile defense to protect against the threat of ``rouge states'' which might fire long-range missiles at America.
Critics say the Bush program is too costly, will take too long to develop and relies too heavily on unproven technology to be effective.
``Everyone recognizes that the United States is a long way from employing an effective and militarily significant missile defense, and they (enemies) have years to react with offensive buildups,'' said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.
The Senate Armed Services Committee has voted to cut $814 million from Bush's request of $7.8 billion for missile defense development in 2003. Bush has threatened to veto any Pentagon budget that includes those cuts.
--------
Pentagon Starts Dash for 2004 Missile Shield
June 13, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-arms-usa-missiles.html
WASHINGTON - The death of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty on Thursday cleared the way for digging interceptor silos in Alaska and for futuristic missile tests barred by the pact.
A groundbreaking ceremony was to take place on Saturday at Fort Greely, Alaska -- where President Bush plans a test facility that he hopes could also serve as an emergency defense by September 2004.
As the U.S. exit from the treaty was taking effect at midnight Eastern time, the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency planned to shoot down a mock warhead launched from Kauai, Hawaii, using the Navy's Standard Missile-3 interceptor aboard the USS Lake Erie, an Aegis guided missile cruiser.
The sea-based bid to smash a ballistic missile-delivered target would have been legal under the ABM treaty, and the timing of the test was ``sheer coincidence,'' said Chris Taylor, a Missile Defense Agency spokesman.
No coincidence, however, was the start of earth work for silos to house future interceptors at Fort Greely, about 100 miles southeast of Fairbanks. Breaking ground for a national missile defense base was barred by the treaty.
The so-called Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) Test Bed ''is not intended as a deployment site for an operational system at this time,'' the Defense Department said in a statement Thursday.
Still, such a central Alaska site would be an ``optimum location for an operational system if a decision is made to deploy a GMD interceptor force,'' it said.
White House spokesman Air Fleischer said Thursday Bush was committed to deploying a missile defense ``as soon as possible to protect the American people and our deployed forces from the growing risks of terrorist nations or terrorists possessing weapons of mass destruction.''
FUTURE TESTS
The first of the previously banned flight tests likely would take place in mid-August, said Air Force Lt. Col. Rick Lehner, another Missile Defense Agency spokesman. It would involve tracking a long-range missile and the interceptor with a sea-based Lockheed Martin Corp. AN/SPY 1 radar, something barred under the treaty, he added.
Article 5 of the treaty -- a cornerstone of U.S.-Soviet nuclear deterrence -- barred not only the deployment but the development and testing of sea-based, air-based, space-based or mobile land-based systems.
Bush is aiming to build a multi-layered missile shield to defend the United States, its troops in the field and U.S. allies against missile attacks by states such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq.
Critics say no such system -- including the ground-based midcourse that is furthest along in development -- is likely to be capable of providing a missile defense well beyond the 2004 target for Fort Greely to be up and running as a test bed.
``Missile defense is the most difficult thing the Department of Defense has ever tried to do,'' said Philip Coyle, the Pentagon's chief weapons tester under President Bill Clinton.
``The challenge for the Missile Defense Agency will be to sustain the current pace of testing while adding complexity and realism'' such as decoys, he told a House Government Reform subcommittee on Tuesday. Coyle said ``it is not conceivable'' to meet Bush's goal for having a test bed in place that can double as a stop-gap defense as he winds up his first term in office.
Lisbeth Gronlund of the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Security Studies Program said there would be ``little or no basis by 2004 to be confident in the performance of the Fort Greely interceptors under realistic operating conditions.''
Until 2007, the intercept tests are designated as research and development, in other words to guide design modifications but not to assess the system's effectiveness in battle conditions.
Instead of building silos with no testing utility, Gronlund testified Tuesday, the Missile Defense Agency should focus on countermeasures -- steps an attacker could take to confuse, overwhelm or otherwise thwart the defense.
--------
Democrats Complain About Missile Test Secrecy
The New York Times
June 13, 2002
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/13/politics/13MISS.html
WASHINGTON, June 12 - Leading Senate Democrats today accused the Missile Defense Agency of excessive secrecy in reporting on its tests, timetables and cost estimates.
Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Armed Services Committee, criticized a decision by the Defense Department to restrict information about targets and decoys to be used in antimissile tests.
The director of the agency, Lt. Gen. Ronald T. Kadish of the Air Force, said, "The charge of excessive secrecy is wrong." General Kadish was quoted in an article in The Washington Post today that reported the new limits. He did not respond to a message left at his office today.
Mr. Levin said, "Their instinct seems to be to keep everything close to the vest." He added, "We've seen this not just in the area of defense, but in the area of energy and Enron and just about everything else around here."
The Defense Department expects to start work on Saturday on several missile silos in Alaska, made possible by the administration's decision to scrap the 30-year-old Antiballistic Missile Treaty with Russia. Recently, officials have curtailed reports to Congress on cost estimates and timetables on missile research.
Senator Jack Reed, the Rhode Island Democrat who is chairman of the subcommittee that works on strategic weapons, said the Missile Defense Agency was even restricting access for people from other Pentagon departments.
"There's a disturbing trend to not being forthcoming with the Missile Defense Agency," Mr. Reed said. "It seems to be going beyond the concerns about security." General Kadish has defended his agency, saying Pentagon planners and Congressional overseers will have ample time to study results before crucial decisions are made.
-------- terrorism
US climbdown over 'dirty bomb' claim
By Toby Harnden in Washington
13/06/2002
UK Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/06/13/wdirt13.xml&sSheet=/portal/2002/06/13/ixport.html&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=130400
The White House has reprimanded John Ashcroft, the US attorney general, for exaggerating the extent of an alleged "dirty bomb" plot and acknowledged that the threat was minimal.
Amid clear signs of a climbdown by the Bush administration, officials were briefing that Mr Ashcroft's warnings had been unnecessarily alarming, even though some of them had echoed his ominous words earlier.
The leaking of a rebuke to a cabinet minister is highly unusual in America. The arrest of Jose Padilla, an American who calls himself Abdullah al Muhajir, was announced by Mr Ashcroft in Moscow on Monday.
Padilla was transferred into military custody and is being held indefinitely without charge while he is interrogated by the CIA. Some Democrats have questioned the timing of the announcement, suggesting that the administration was seeking to make political capital out of the arrest, which took place at O'Hare Airport, Chicago, on May 8.
"The information was available earlier. Why was it not announced?" asked Tom Daschle, the Democratic majority leader in the Senate, who added that there "may have been a rush to bring it before the news media" after recent criticism of the CIA and FBI.
In the past week, the administration has succeeded in shifting the Washington news agenda away from the intelligence failures before September 11. Now it is dominated by warnings of fresh attacks and the need to prosecute the war against terrorism with increased vigour.
There is little doubt that this will help President George W Bush to pursue his plan to create a cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security. The latest Washington Post-ABC opinion poll showed that he now has a job approval rating of 77 per cent.
The Padilla arrest was immediately used by the administration to bolster its case for the new government department. "Grave threats are accumulating against us and inaction will only bring them closer," said Vice-President Dick Cheney.
Mr Bush said yesterday: "You know, we're under attack. That's just the way it is . . . and we've got two courses of action. One is to run them down wherever they try to hide and bring them to justice. That's precisely what we're going to do."
Aides from the Justice Department were called to their desks in the early hours of Monday to help prepare Mr Ashcroft for the announcement that the authorities had "disrupted an unfolding terrorist plot to attack the United States by exploding a radioactive 'dirty bomb'."
A day later, Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defence secretary, said on CBS television: "I don't think there was actually a plot beyond some fairly loose talk and obviously to plan future deeds."
By yesterday, the administration's position had softened considerably and Padilla was being described as a "scout" on a reconnaissance mission rather than a would-be bomber, and was considering many types of attacks, and not only the use of a dirty bomb.
Mr Ashcroft was the scapegoat yesterday, but his announcement was part of an aggressive news management strategy that was recently put into action.
Frustrated that the press was almost obsessively investigating intelligence failures before September 11 and afraid that Mr Bush's popularity could be affected, the White House decided to seize the initiative a week ago.
Mr Bush, the press was told, had decided to call for the creation of the Department of Homeland Security as part of the biggest government reorganisation since the start of the Cold War.
----
How Bad Would A Dirty Blast Be? Here's What The Experts Say.
By Don Oldenburg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 13, 2002; Page C01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41297-2002Jun12?language=printer
Another day, another "credible" terrorist threat. The disaster scenario du jour is now the so-called dirty bomb, so called because this is a conventional bomb that plays dirty. Experts say a dirty bomb could range in size from a small "suitcase" device to a truck bomb, and maybe larger. Its explosive may be as ordinary as dynamite, but it's packaged with radioactive material that, detonated, is scattered in fragments and airborne dust -- or "dirt." Hence the name.
You have probably heard public officials and terrorist experts say a dirty bomb's real threat is psychological. And that it is a weapon of terror, fear, panic and disruption rather than one of mass destruction. But what else does the public need to know about dirty bombs? How bad are they, really? Here's the dirt:
What could happen if a dirty bomb went off in downtown Washington?
Experts envision scenarios that could be on the scale of Timothy McVeigh's 1995 truck bombing in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people -- with the added dimension of radiation contamination. But it could be much less if it involved a small device, such as one set off by a backpack bomber.
"But even a big one would do much less damage than Hurricane Andrew did in Florida," says Randy Larsen, director of the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security, a nonprofit research organization in Alexandria.
Almost all deaths and serious injuries would be confined to the immediate vicinity of the explosion. The downtown area would shake from the blast. Anyone nearby would know a bomb had exploded but would have no clue it was a dirty bomb -- you can't smell, taste, feel or see radiation -- until authorities announce they have detected it.
How widespread the damage?
In March, the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies simulated what would happen if terrorists detonated a 4,000-pound dirty bomb in a school bus parked outside the National Air and Space Museum. In the simulation, the museum ended up almost destroyed and nearby buildings damaged. An estimated 10,000 people were in the immediate vicinity; how many would have died isn't known, but the acute threat was confined to a radius of a few city blocks.
Although in the simulation, prevailing winds carried contamination into southern Pennsylvania, the amounts were very small because radiation dissipates quickly.
The highest contamination would occur in the blocks surrounding the blast -- or about 10 percent of the District, says Philip Anderson, senior fellow for homeland security initiatives at CSIS, who specializes in anti-terrorism strategies. People there would get about a 5-rem-per-hour dose of radiation. That's the amount the Environmental Protection Agency says is the maximum safe dose to absorb in one year, a standard that is considered very cautious; even absorbed in hours, the amount is not likely to make you sick.
Another 10 percent of the District -- people a half-mile to a mile from the blast -- would be in contaminated areas, but not seriously contaminated. The dose would be so small, says Anderson, that it would probably take days or weeks to exceed the EPA maximum yearly safe dose. "The key point," he says, "is that nobody is going to become sick or die from radiation."
John Zielinski, professor of military strategy and operations at the National War College in Washington, estimates that, generally, someone a mile from the blast is likely to walk away unscathed. And "you could be within a couple hundred yards of it, and if you are upwind, you might not have a problem at all," he says. "If they set it off in a street and you are one block over and behind a building, there might be no risk."
What casualties?
Beyond those inflicted by the blast itself, the number of deaths and injuries is likely to be minimal -- depending on the radioactive material used, the size of the explosive, wind conditions and the effectiveness of the evacuation response.
Most experts play down any probability of radiation-related deaths. "Threat to life? Not worried about it other than the explosive device itself," says Larsen. "The main thing is, people should not lose much sleep over this.
"Just imagine if Timothy McVeigh had put five pounds of radioactive material and blew that up in Oklahoma. . . . No more people would have probably died than did."
Long-term effects of radiation exposure? Most experts say that except for people in the immediate area of the blast who survive, the odds are against anyone absorbing enough radiation to suffer long-term effects, such as radiation poisoning or cancer.
And the history of radiation exposure is on our side. In a nuclear disaster second only to Chernobyl that occurred in Brazil in 1987, junkyard workers pried open a metal canister from a cancer clinic. Inside was glowing blue radioactive cesium-137 dust. By the next day, dozens of locals had been exposed. "Several ingested it," says Anderson.
Of the 20 seriously exposed victims, "four died. But 100,000 plus people had to be medically evaluated. Most of those -- 47,000 people -- had to take a shower and be monitored down the road."
Although the devastation was unimaginable and an estimated 200,000 people died from the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- from the explosion and radiation poisoning in the first year -- the long-term health-related problems for survivors hasn't been as horrific. Charles B. Meinhold, president emeritus of the National Council on Radiation Protection, a nonprofit international clearinghouse for research on radiation safety, says studies of those survivors since 1950 show that of 86,572 people exposed to levels of radiation thousands of times greater than a dirty bomb could produce, cancer deaths exceeded the expected numbers for that population by 335.
What should I do if I'm in the vicinity of the explosion?
The basic rule is to stay inside or get inside, then listen to the radio or television for further information.
The amount of radioactive dust that could seep inside or enter a building through its air-filtering system isn't likely to be significant. "If you are inside of a building, your chances are like getting several X-rays' worth of exposure," Zielinski says.
If you're outside, determine whether the wind is coming your way. "You don't want to be running down the street," Zelinski says. "Get into a building and reduce the amount of dust that gets on you."
Close to the explosion? Covered with residue? Stay put. "If the response is good, they are going to try to decontaminate folks closer in as opposed to those fleeing," says Zielinski. "Even if it takes an hour for authorities to respond, you are going to get better treatment there than going to a hospital."
Worst reaction? Racing for mass transit or trying to drive home. Not only could you contaminate your car, but you could also spread radiation to your family. And experts are concerned that people trying to flee the city would jam traffic routes and delay emergency teams from getting to the scene.
Experts say what the public needs to remember most about dirty bombs is that if you survive the explosion, the amounts of radiation are most likely so low that a few hours of exposure isn't going to be harmful.
"The public health people would be there within three hours or sooner," says Meinhold. "Let them worry about evacuation, decontamination, etc."
How about washing?
"Most or a large portion of the decontamination effort is going to involve a soapy shower and a change of clothes," says the CSIS's Anderson, who recommends that if you think you are near a potential terrorist target, it may make sense to keep extra clothes, shoes, soap and shampoo on hand.
Says Zielinski: "The first thing [is] to try to get as much off as you can, get the clothes off of you and put them in a trash bag. Then take a shower."
Can you drink the water?
There may be some contamination of water and food in some areas. "You can drink it, but there are definite issues there," warns Anderson, explaining that although a good rain would help clear contamination, the runoff might affect the groundwater supply.
Bottled water might be the safe way to go until authorities have tested drinking water, he says.
Would a gas mask help any?
Gas masks, experts say, may help in protecting against "particulate matter," since radiation attaches to particles in the air. But when you get much beyond the area of the blast, the dust is going to dissipate quickly anyway. "I'm not not sure it would make a difference," says Anderson.
Should we stock up on potassium iodide?
Again, the solution and the problem may not match well in a dirty-bomb attack, experts say. Potassium iodide protects the thyroid gland from absorbing radioactive isotope of iodine -- a component of radioactive fallout that causes radiation sickness.
"I'm not sure we're going to get to the point where we will have many people, if any, suffering from radiation sickness," says Anderson.
How likely is an attack?
Many experts believe that terrorists already have the crude radioactive materials needed and that a dirty bomb attack is one of the more likely terrorist scenarios -- some even say "inevitable." But Anderson cautions that "it's a simple plan that is still reasonably difficult and complicated to coordinate."
But the biggest problem in making a dirty bomb is that even if you find all the parts, assembling them can kill you. True, some terrorists are already suicidal. Still, "first you've got to find it, then you've got to carry it around," says Zielinski. "By the time I get it, move it to a site that is secure and grind it, I've probably already lost several people."
To make and transport a dirty bomb safely would require a lead container or shielding that makes it nearly impossible to move. Handling the material can cause burns on the hands and body, even through a backpack. And making a bomb without a shield means almost certain death from the concentrated radiation levels of a radioactive rod or "clump."
What do we have to fear?
Experts say the answer is fear itself. Dirty bombs can be as devastating as any conventional bomb. People will die in a dirty-bomb attack. But they believe very few people will die or get sick from its radiation. And the radiation is the terrorist wild card for causing panic and psychological trauma.
Experts are concerned that public panic is the biggest risk. "It stems from our society's inherent fear of radiation," says Anderson, explaining that he's not discounting the tremendous social and economic implications of a contaminated area in an urban center.
The blast area, he says, could be off-limits for several months during intense cleanup efforts, and that could disrupt the local economy.
Still, "a lot of this stuff, you just take a big fire hose out and you wash it down," says Larsen. "It's a heavy metal, so it goes to the bottom of the river. It shouldn't be too much problem. So then we have low levels of radiation. That's not as bad as smoking cigarettes. I'd rather be a half-mile from a dirty bomb site than smoke cigarettes."
----
Not your average Mohammad's kind of bomb
Washington Times
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
June 13, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20020613-93683924.htm
With all the current concern about "dirty bombs," there are a few things, based on simple calculations, that should be kept in mind.
First, it's the explosion that kills, not the radioactivity. Although prolonged exposure can make you sick, you may not want to stick around long enough for that to happen.
Second, assembling the radioactive material is almost sure to kill any terrorist. After all, a square mile of contamination needs to be compressed into less than a few cubic feet. That's a several-million-fold concentration. The stuff would get so hot, it would melt most containers.
There are ways to get around such technical difficulties, but they are not easy. Then again, terrorists can spread radioactivity more slowly - without using a bomb to disperse it - and achieve almost the same psychological effects.
S. FRED SINGER President The Science & Environmental Policy Project Arlington, Va.
----
Terror concerns spark nuke drug sales
June 13, 2002
Jim Hu, Staff Writer,
News.com
http://www.nytimes.com/cnet/CNET_2100-1023-935471.html
Some Web retailers are discovering that fear sells.
A smattering of small businesses selling potassium iodide--an FDA-approved drug that mitigates potential effects from radiation exposure--have witnessed sales of the drug skyrocket over the past few days. Individuals and government agencies flocked to the Internet to purchase mass quantities of pills on the news that the U.S. government had thwarted a terrorist plot to detonate a "dirty bomb," an explosive that spreads radioactive material.
"Since Monday, when this dirty-bomb scare came about, (sales) increased almost a thousandfold," said Troy Jones, founder of NukePills.com, based in Mooresville, N.C. "Heaven forbid if there's ever a real radiation disaster in this country, because one can only imagine a huge reaction to this product."
With the spotlight on terrorism and the U.S. Department of Justice's recent detainment of a suspected Al Qaeda operative who allegedly planned to detonate a dirty bomb in a major city, a cottage industry has formed around the morbid idea of protection against a radioactive blast.Soon after the attacks of Sept. 11, questions about the security of the nation's nuclear power plants also caused a brief surge in sales of drugs and equipment to protect against radiation.
Potassium iodide is administered in the form of a pill. The properties of the drug prevent the uptake of radioactive iodine, which can cause many forms of cancer, into the thyroid gland. If a nuclear plant were to melt down or if a nuclear device were detonated, radioactive iodine has a long enough lifespan to spread hundreds of miles in certain weather conditions.
Still, even though the drug helps protect against one form of radiation, it by no means covers the wider spectrum of damage that arises from a nuclear blast. Potassium iodide will not protect people from the immediate dangers of gamma radiation, for instance.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in January 2001 required states to consider issuing potassium iodide as a supplement to standard sheltering and evacuation procedures for people within a 10-mile radius of a nuclear power plant. To date, only 14 states out of the 34 states home to nuclear power plants have responded, California being the most recent one.
Still, NukePills' Jones and other purveyors of the drug have seen online sales mushroom in conjunction with breaking news about potential terrorism attacks. Jones said that its online orders were coming in once every 20 seconds for 20 hours a day since the news of the dirty-bomb plot surfaced Monday.
Many other small businesses specializing in post-radiological attack products have seen their sales surge online as well.
Last spring, Shane Connor, who operates KI4U.com, rented 12 tractor trailers and hauled away 120,000 Geiger counters that had been shelved in a federal depot in Ft. Worth, Texas. Geiger counters measure the amount of radiation in the air.
Conner hired a few former technicians from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to recalibrate and recertify the counters. Since Sept. 11, the bet has been paying off; online sales of the counters, among other products on Conner's Web site, have taken off.
"I'm thrilled we're selling as much we're selling, but I've got kids too," Conner said. "We hope it sits on their shelf gathering much dust over the years."
Even fallout shelters, which seem like relics from the Cold War, are making a comeback. Two TigersRadiological of Wilmington, N.C., which uses "Tools for Nuclear Emergencies" as its tagline, has seen sales of its $3,200 fallout shelters reach five to seven units a week, an exponential rise from pre-Sept. 11 levels.
Steven Aukstakalnis, founder of the company, said recent fears of a dirty-bomb attack caused a spike not only in sales, but also in traffic to the general information pages throughout his site. Aukstakalnis has turned the site into a full-fledged information hub to answer any questions surrounding a nuclear or radiological attack. The home page features the color-coded chart of the homeland Advisory Security System, domestic terror alerts, and an information database about radiation and nuclear attacks.
The site even has a question-and-answer section about what to do during a nuclear attack or meltdown. Some questions include, "What are the Nuclear Blast and Thermal Pulse Effects?" and "So, how much blast or overpressure is too much to survive?" Answers are accompanied with diagrams.
For entrepreneurs such as Aukstakalnis, current events are bittersweet. On the one hand, business has never been better; but on the other hand, the idea of selling products meant to protect against the unthinkable has been an odd paradox.
"It's great on a personal level to have something successful, but on the other side I hope to hell no one has to use the products that they're buying," he said. "It's an odd state of mind to be in."
-------- treaties
Us Buries ABM Treaty, Bush Praises Missile Defense
June 13, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-arms-usa-abm.html
WASHINGTON - The United States formally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty on Thursday and President Bush called for an aggressive push to build missile defenses against ``terrorists'' and ``rogue'' states who could work together to try to destroy U.S. civilization.
The 1972 treaty served as a bedrock of U.S.-Soviet nuclear deterrence by essentially barring either side from building missile defenses, leaving each vulnerable to the other's arsenal and therefore with little incentive to attack because of the likely massive retaliation.
Bush on Dec. 13 announced his decision to pull out of the treaty in six months, having derided it as a Cold War relic and warned of new threats from what he has called rogue states or terrorists that might attack the United States.
In a sign of Bush's determination to push ahead with a missile defense system, the Pentagon is set to break ground this week at Fort Greely, Alaska, on the previously prohibited construction of six underground silos for missile interceptors.
``As the events of Sept. 11 made clear, we no longer live in the Cold War world for which the ABM Treaty was designed,'' Bush said in a written statement marking the formal U.S. withdrawal from the 30-year-old treaty.
``We now face new threats from terrorists who seek to destroy our civilization by any means available to rogue states armed with weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles,'' he added. ``Defending the American people against these threats is my highest priority as commander in chief.''
The term ``rogue states'' dates to the Clinton administration and is used to denote countries viewed by the United States as a threat, generally including Iran, Iraq and North Korea -- the three nations that Bush has called an ``axis of evil.''
The U.S. president's decision to unilaterally withdraw from the treaty was initially opposed by Russia, China and European nations who argued it could undermine nuclear deterrence and spur an arms race, but criticism has since died down.
Bush made clear he would aggressively pursue a defense system against enemy missiles despite questions about how long it would take to develop one, how effective such a system would actually be and how many billions of dollars it would cost.
``With the treaty now behind us, our task is to develop and deploy effective defenses against limited missile attacks,'' he said. ``I am committed to deploying a missile defense system as soon as possible to protect the American people and our deployed forces against the growing missile threats we face.''
The president also called on Congress to fully fund his $7.8 billion budget request for missile defense for the U.S. fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1, 2002.
TREATY SIGNED BY NIXON AND BREZHNEV
In burying the ABM Treaty, Bush noted the dramatic progress that the United States and Russia have made since the Soviet Union's collapse, including an agreement struck last month to slash their deployed strategic warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200 each over 10 years from the current level of 5,000 to 6,000 each.
The ABM treaty was signed in Moscow by President Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev on May 26, 1972, and entered into force the following October. It barred the nations from putting in place systems capable of defending their entire territories from intercontinental ballistic missile attacks.
It also banned development, testing or deployment of mobile land-based, sea-based, air-based or space-based antiballistic missile systems.
Buoyed by four successful missile tests in a row, senior Pentagon officials have said they are on schedule to deploy a rudimentary missile shield in Alaska by the fall of 2004.
A small group of U.S. House of Representatives Democrats made a last-minute stab at preserving the ABM pact, filing a lawsuit on Tuesday alleging Bush failed to consult Congress before ordering a unilateral withdrawal from the treaty.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the lawsuit was ''highly likely heading toward dismissal,'' saying the president had the right to end treaties as long as their termination was in accordance with the treaty's provisions.
--------
Bush Hails End of ABM Treaty
June 13, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Bush-ABM-Treaty.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush hailed the demise of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty on Thursday, and urged Congress to develop defense systems to guard against strikes by terrorists now that the ban is lifted.
``As the events of Sept. 11 made clear, we no longer live in the Cold War world for which the ABM Treaty was designed,'' Bush said in a statement, choosing not to publicize the treaty's death with a public appearance.
He took the low-key approach out of sensitivity to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who reluctantly went along with Bush's push to scrap the ABM treaty. Bush gave notice six months ago that the United States would withdraw. The decision took effect Thursday.
Critics say Bush's missile defense goals are unreliable and expensive.
Treaty supporters included much of the international community, many U.S. lawmakers and arms control advocates. Until recently, NATO foreign ministers had routinely described the treaty as the ``cornerstone of strategic stability,'' and many Europeans still support it.
``We now face new threats from terrorists who seek to destroy our civilization by any means available to rogue states armed with weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles,'' the president said in a four-paragraph statement.
Pentagon officials will mark the passing of the treaty at a ceremony Saturday in Delta Junction, Alaska, breaking ground on a test site for the administration's $64 billion missile defense system.
The treaty had banned such construction.
Urging Congress to approve his missile defense budget, the president said, ``I am committed to deploying a missile defense system as soon as possible to protect the American people and our deployed forces against the growing missile threats we face.''
Putin and Bush agreed last month to cooperate on missile defense, including expanding military exercises, sharing early-warning data and exploring potential joint research and development of missile defense technologies.
------- u.s. nuc facilities
Fines for Nuclear Security Lapses
June 13, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nuclear-Fines.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Security lapses involving radioactive materials have led to scores of enforcement actions against universities, construction companies, hospitals and even the U.S. Army in recent years, according to Nuclear Regulatory Commission records.
In at least 16 cases violators were fined thousands of dollars.
But NRC officials said that the breaches either did not lead to a loss of radioactive material, or involved amounts so small they could not have been useful to terrorists seeking to craft a ``dirty bomb.''
NRC officials acknowledge they cannot say for certain that no radioactive material has been diverted. Tracking of most of these industrial-use materials is left largely to private industry. With 2 million radioactive sources in commerce, there is no certainty all of it can be accounted for, the officials say.
``The reality is it's a very large volume of material that's out in the community and I can't give you any assurance that (some) material might not have been diverted by now,'' said Richard Meserve, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in an interview Wednesday.
Meserve said he was reasonably certain that no large radiation sources -- such as the foot-long ``pencils'' of cobalt-60 used to irradiate food, or larger amounts of cesium-137 used in medicine -- have been stolen. None has been reported missing, although the NRC gets on average 300 reports of small amounts of radioactive materials -- usually material in gauges or other equipment -- missing each year. About half eventually is recovered.
As for the larger sources, the materials are highly radioactive and must be heavily shielded. ``It is a very difficult (material) for a terrorist to handle without receiving a lethal dose himself,'' said Meserve. Nevertheless, he said, transporters and users of these materials have been told to boost security.
NRC enforcement records show more than 54 cases requiring ``elevated enforcement actions'' over the last five years because of security violations involving industrial nuclear materials. Violators facing fines from $2,500 to $15,000 included government agencies, universities, hospitals, military facilities and construction and engineering companies.
Three days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a New Jersey dentistry school was fined $3,000 for ``failure to ... maintain constant surveillance'' on its nuclear material. Three months later the University of Wisconsin-Madison was fined $3,000 for not securing radioactive material.
The Army was fined $8,000 for not properly securing nuclear materials at its Rock Island Arsenal. In 1997, an employee at the Defense Logistics Agency in Pennsylvania was found to have stolen an item containing radioactive material; in 1999, the Interior Department was cited by the NRC for security lapses. Neither of those cases involved fines.
Construction and engineering firms in a number of states were cited for not keeping track of moisture gauges that contain small amounts of cesium-137. Last November alone, three companies were fined $3,000 each for not properly securing portable moisture gauges.
John Hickey, of the NRC office dealing with industrial nuclear materials, said the enforcement actions -- as well as virtually all the missing material reports -- involved extremely small amounts of material.
For example, according to the NRC, between 1996 and 2001 a total of 11.3 curies of cesium-137 was reported missing. Most -- perhaps all -- of that material reflects thefts of gauges used in construction and medicine, each of which would contain a small fraction of a curie of cesium.
While the NRC must license all users of these materials, it does not keep track of the radioactive material, relying largely on self-regulation. Hickey said users are required to inventory the material every six months and report if anything is missing.
MDS Nordion, a supplier of medical isotopes that ships radioactive material to 80 countries, says it keeps constant check on where its material is located across the globe. Referring to its shipments of cobalt-60, company spokeswoman Paula Burchat said, ``We know where every `pencil' is. We recycle the cobalt and it comes back to us.
``We have very tight security.''
--------
Nuclear Power Risks
New York Times
June 13, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/13/opinion/L13NUKE.html
To the Editor:
Re "A Message in an Arrest" (news analysis, front page, June 11):
You say a "dirty" bomb - a bomb that uses conventional explosives to spew potentially lethal radioactive material - could contaminate "a wide area" and while probably not causing many deaths, would necessitate cleanup costs and other effects like those after the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
Given this scenario, I find it inexplicable that our government allows nuclear reactors to operate.
Millions of dollars and years have been spent to deny the consequences and risks of reactor accidents. Does our government believe that a terrorist act is the only possible cause of reactor accidents?
LORNA SALZMAN
East Quogue, N.Y.,
June 11, 2002
-------- new york
Bruce Power damages tube at Ontario nuke in outage
REUTERS USA:
June 13, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16406/story.htm
NEW YORK - Bruce Power damaged a pressure tube in the 860 megawatt Bruce 6 nuclear unit in Ontario during a maintenance outage, the Canadian nuclear power company said in a statement yesterday.
The company said the incident does not pose any safety threat.
The pressure tube, which normally holds fuel, was empty when the damage occurred at about 9:45 p.m. EDT Tuesday night.
"It's too soon to say whether this incident will delay the unit's restart," said Bruce Power spokesman Steve Cannon.
He would not say when the unit was expected to return to service because of the competitive nature of the wholesale power market. It shut in March.
The company did note in the statement that "the operational impact is not believed to be significant."
Bruce power issued the statement in accordance with its Safety First culture. They classified this incident as a reportable event and notified the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and Emergency Measures Ontario in keeping with regulatory requirements.
The plant condition is stable and crews are working to rectify the situation, which has had no effect on the remaining three units in Bruce B.
Bruce is an eight unit, 6,140 MW station divided into two groups of reactors - Bruce A and Bruce B.
The four 860 MW Bruce B units 5 through 8 entered service between 1985 and 1987.
The four 825 MW Bruce A units 1 through 4 began operating between 1977 and 1979, and were removed from service between 1995 and 1998. Bruce Power plans to restart units 3 and 4 by 2003.
The Bruce station is located on the shores of Lake Huron between Kincardine and Saugeen Shores, about 250 kilometers (165 miles) northwest of Toronto.
The station is owned by Bruce Power, a unit of British Energy plc , the UK's largest electricity generator; Cameco Corp. (15 pct), the largest uranium fuel supplier in the world; and the two main unions that represent employees on the Bruce site, the Power Workers' Union (up to 4%) and The Society of Energy Professionals (up to 1.2%).
-------- south carolina
S.C. Loses Plutonium Shipment Ruling
By JACOB JORDAN
Associated Press Writer
JUNE 13, 2002 17:37 ET
http://wire.ap.org/?FRONTID=NATIONAL&SLUG=PLUTONIUM%2dSTANDOFF http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Plutonium-Standoff.html
AIKEN, S.C. (AP) - A federal judge on Thursday denied Gov. Jim Hodges' request to block shipments of weapons-grade plutonium, which could begin arriving in South Carolina as early as this weekend.
Hodges has threatened to use state troopers to block roads into South Carolina's Savannah River Site nuclear weapons complex, and said he would lie down in the road if necessary to stop the plutonium-carrying trucks.
Hodges' attorney William Want said the governor would appeal immediately.
The U.S. Department of Energy has said it intends to begin shipping the plutonium as early as Saturday from its Rocky Flats weapons installation in Colorado to the Savannah River Site, where the material would be converted into nuclear reactor fuel over the next two decades.
Hodges sued to stop the shipments, fearing the government would fail to find the money to convert the plutonium and end up leaving it in South Carolina. He warned that the plutonium would ``paint a bull's-eye on South Carolina'' and make it a terrorist target.
The state argued Thursday that the Energy Department failed to complete environmental impact statements, a process that can take years, and backed out of signing a binding agreement that the plutonium would be stored in the state only temporarily.
``We don't know the most basic thing about what they're planning to do,'' Watt told U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie.
However, the judge ruled that the state had not provided enough proof of any violations to stop the plutonium from being shipped.
An Energy Department spokesman did not immediately return a call for comment.
The government plans to ship about 6 1/2 tons of plutonium from Colorado to the South Carolina site.
The plutonium had been set to begin arriving May 15, but the shipment was postponed after Hodges sued the Energy Department on May 1.
The Energy Department argued that Hodges' attempts to block the shipments were unconstitutional and were preventing the federal government from cleaning up and closing Rocky Flats.
Energy Department lawyer Robert Daly told the judge there was no harm in shipping the material to Savannah River then deciding later how to dispose of it.
``It doesn't matter if there's a clear exit strategy for 10 years,'' Daly said.
An Energy Department employee from Rocky Flats told the judge that 600 cans of the material were ready for transport. And Allen Gunter, an employee at the Savannah River Site, said that two facilities are under construction to handle the fuel conversion, one to be operational by May 2003, and the second to running six months later.
Hodges, a Democrat up for re-election, has long accused President Bush of trying to remove the plutonium from Colorado to help get Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., re-elected and restore GOP control of the Senate.
Hodges also argued that transporting the plutonium 1,500 miles from Colorado to South Carolina is too risky. Federal officials said the nuclear material would be under constant guard, and its path and time of arrival would be kept secret.
On the Net:
http://www.em.doe.gov/rtc2000/srs.html
-------- vermont
Vt. Nuclear Reactor Sale Approved
June 13, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Vermont-Yankee-Entergy.html or
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46551-2002Jun13?language=printer
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) -- The owners of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant won state regulatory approval Thursday to sell the reactor to Mississippi-based Entergy Nuclear Corp.
The decision, which could be appealed to the Vermont Supreme Court, was the deal's last major regulatory hurdle. It has already been approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
The plant's current owners and Entergy announced their intended deal last Aug. 15, a multifaceted agreement calling for Entergy to pay $180 million in cash for the plant and for Vermont's two major utilities to buy the plant's power for the next 10 years.
But the board placed tough conditions on the sale -- conditions that the Vermont utilities and Entergy said during hearings might cause them to back out of the deal.
The board said any money left in the plant's decommissioning fund after Vermont Yankee eventually is dismantled would be returned to electric consumers. Entergy initially had planned to keep any excess in the fund, which currently stands at about $300 million, and later agreed that it might split it with Vermont Yankee's current owners.
The board also turned aside the utilities' request for a guarantee that it never would revisit the terms of the power buyback agreement with Entergy. The utilities insisted they did not want a repeat of their ill-fated 1991 deal to import power from Hydro-Quebec -- a deal the board later said was too expensive and couldn't be fully charged to ratepayers.
The Entergy deal resulted from an auction launched by Vermont Yankee's owners after an earlier deal with AmerGen Energy Co. of Philadelphia failed to win PSB approval.
-------- us politics
Rumsfeld Backs Off al Qaeda Assertion
June 13, 2002
CBS News
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/05/28/world/printable510280.shtml
NEW DELHI, India, Completing a peace mission to India and Pakistan, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Thursday praised both for trying to ease tensions but cautioned that their forces facing each other across the border are "beginning to feel the stress of high alert."
Rumsfeld said the United States had no evidence that al Qaeda militants were operating in Kashmir, but said he was confident Pakistan would deal with them if any were found.
Rumsfeld had raised the possibility over al Qaeda at a news conference in India on Wednesday, but said in Pakistan on Thursday he had only heard "speculative" reports rather than hard evidence. Pakistan has already dismissed the allegation as Indian propaganda.
"The facts are I do not have evidence and the United States does not have evidence of al Qaeda in Kashmir," he told a news conference after meeting Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf. "We do have a good deal of scraps of intelligence that come in from people who say they believe al Qaeda are in Kashmir, or are in various locations," he said. "It tends to be speculative, it is not actionable, it is not verifiable. The cooperation between the United States and Pakistan is so close, and so intimate and so cooperative, that...if there happened to be any actionable intelligence as to al Qaeda anywhere in the country, there isn't a doubt in my mind Pakistan would go find them and deal with them."
Some of the Pakistani militants in Kashmir do have long-standing ties to al Qaeda, and some trained in Osama bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan. A few non-Pakistani al Qaeda supporters are believed to have sought refuge in Kashmir, U.S. officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Rumsfeld, in a joint appearance with Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar, urged the two countries to begin a dialogue on ways to reduce military forces along the Line of Control that divides Indian and Pakistani sectors of Kashmir.
For his part, Sattar said Pakistan appreciates the role the United States has played in trying to defuse the crisis over Kashmir. But he suggested Washington could do more.
Rumsfeld was asked whether either Pakistan or India is ready to make major reductions in forces in Kashmir. He responded that the high level of alert both the nuclear-armed nations have maintained for months is taking a toll. "My impression is we're at a point where, instead of having the tensions go up, we're beginning to feel the stress of high alert," he said. "And one would hope that those stresses would result over time in a ... somewhat reduced alert status."
Rumsfeld has frequently expressed confidence in Musharraf's commitment to rooting out all remnants of al Qaeda in Pakistan. The defense secretary alluded to this as he mingled with Musharraf aides before meeting the president in his offices.
For months, U.S. and allied forces hunted for remnants of al Qaeda in Afghanistan but found almost none, leading many to conclude most had fled to Pakistan or elsewhere.
Rumsfeld met Wednesday in New Delhi with Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and other senior government officials, including Defense Minister George Fernandes, who told reporters that he and Rumsfeld had reached an "understanding on how to deal with some of the immediate problems" between his country and Pakistan. Fernandes did not elaborate, nor did Rumsfeld give details.
In New Delhi, Rumsfeld said al Qaeda terrorists may be operating in the Kashmir region dividing India and Pakistan.
"I have seen indications that there, in fact, are al Qaeda in the areas we're talking about, near the Line of Control" that separates the Pakistani and Indian sectors of Kashmir, Rumsfeld told a news conference.
For some time, Indian officials have claimed that al Qaeda members have infiltrated Kashmir, in part because that would draw a parallel to the U.S. war against al Qaeda in Afghanistan. An Indian official said this week there is evidence of one dozen to two dozen al Qaeda fighters in the Indian part of Kashmir.
Attacks on India by Muslim militants who want Kashmir to be independent, or part of Pakistan, are a main source of tensions between the two countries.
----
Questions irk White House
By Dave Boyer and Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
June 13, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020613-951837.htm
The White House yesterday angrily denied suggestions that the administration revealed the capture of a "dirty bomb" suspect to deflect criticism of federal law enforcement.
"These very few people who want to make such outlandish political accusations represent the most cynical among the most partisan, and they're not to be taken seriously," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.
But Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said the announcement on Monday by Attorney General John Ashcroft was crucial in reassuring the public that the FBI and CIA are cooperating in the war against terrorism.
"It was very important for America to witness the collaboration between or among the respective agencies that ultimately resulted in the apprehension of this individual," Mr. Ridge told reporters. He added that such a "public revelation gives the country greater confidence."
His comments seemed to support accusations by some lawmakers that the announcement, made one month after the arrest of Abdullah al Muhajir, was designed to deflect criticism of federal law enforcement.
For example, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said Tuesday that he wants to know why Mr. Ashcroft disclosed the May 8 arrest on Monday.
"The information was available earlier - why was it not announced?" he asked.
"There may have been a rush to bring it before the news media" in the wake of last week's criticism of U.S. intelligence agencies, Mr. Daschle said.
Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, Connecticut Democrat, said the administration was waging so much of its war on terrorism in secret that "I'm getting concerned that this [announcement of a suspect] is a little hype here."
Some lawmakers also have raised questions about the strength of the case against al Muhajir, but intelligence sources said the evidence is strong.
A U.S. intelligence official said it would be inaccurate to say al Muhajir, also known as Jose Padilla, is not a major catch for the United States.
"He is a guy who clearly had received training in explosives and wiring and was planning to do harm," the official said.
The plot to build and detonate a radiological bomb - a conventional explosive laced with radioactive material - was "in the initial stages" but involved meetings with senior al Qaeda terrorists who were plotting an attack against U.S. targets, including hotels or gas stations.
"Is he an Abu Zubaydah or a Khalid Shaikh Mohammed? No," the official said. "But he was clearly part of a terrorist operation."
Zubaydah is the al Qaeda operations chief who was captured by the United States in Pakistan in March. Mohammed is a Kuwaiti national who is believed to be a key al Qaeda operative and who was involved in planning the September 11 attacks.
U.S. intelligence officials say they believe al Muhajir, who was carrying $10,000 cash when he was arrested, may have been conducting a reconnaissance mission to identify targets.
He also may have been preparing for an attack when he was arrested May 8.
The Washington Times first reported on May 13 that two al Qaeda terrorists were operating a secret cell within the United States and were planning to construct a radiological bomb.
The two men were identified by U.S. intelligence as an American national and an African national who were to obtain radioactive material for a so-called "dirty bomb" from inside the United States, either by purchasing it illegally or stealing it.
The plot was disclosed by Zubaydah.
Democrats raised more questions yesterday about the timing of the announcement on al Muhajir's arrest and of President Bush's decision last week to create a Cabinet-level post for homeland security after months of resisting the idea.
Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr., Tennessee Democrat, criticized comments by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that al Muhajir may never be tried if he provides information to authorities.
"I would think you'd want to punish the guy if he's guilty of a fraction of what they allege," Mr. Ford said. "It would seem to me he's a candidate for punishment."
Mr. Ford said Mr. Ridge "kind of danced around" lawmakers' questions at a closed House briefing yesterday about how the new department will coordinate state offices and share information between agencies.
"I feel bad for the guy," Mr. Ford said. "It's like he didn't have enough information. He kept repeating himself using different language. Because they don't have answers to these basic questions, that's why more and more people believe this might have been politically motivated."
Mr. Ridge said the proposal is "a work in progress." And he said the administration would have been second-guessed no matter how it handled the announcement of al Muhajir's arrest.
"If you don't bring attention to it, you'll be criticized for close-hold and not telling anybody, and if you do bring attention to it, you're accused of hyperbole," Mr. Ridge said.
Mr. Fleischer said the announcement of al Muhajir's arrest was delayed because "there can be an advantage in not allowing the people who sent him here to have the information that he's been detained, to see if we can't find anything else out about whatever it is they may be planning."
He also said much of the information about al Muhajir's plan was developed in the weeks after his May 8 arrest.
After weeks of second-guessing by congressional Democrats and the media about whether the Bush administration should have released information that the president received in a CIA briefing Aug. 6 - including reports that al Qaeda members planned to hijack U.S. airliners - Mr. Fleischer said the government is erring on the side of caution.
"Very often in the war on terrorism we are not going to have exact down-to-the-detail, precise information," he said. "We're going to have somewhat generalized information about people who have plans, intentions to bring harm to our country. In this case, because of his training and because of the evidence we have that was brought forth by sources and methods which I'm not going to discuss, we have strong reason to fear the worst."
The spokesman said the administration does not regret how the matter has been handled.
"The fact of the matter, again, is a very dangerous man has been taken off of the streets of the United States where he will no longer be in a position to do harm to our citizenry," Mr. Fleischer said.
• Joseph Curl contributed to this report.
----
Dirty bomber poses awkward questions for US
UK Times foreign editor's briefing
by Bronwen Maddox
June 13, 2002
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-325137,00.html
THERE are at least three troubling points about the sudden appearance of the "dirty bomber", the latest "villain" on a stage rather short of prime suspects.
Yes, most obviously, the timing is politically inspired, beyond dispute. The Bush Administration announced on Monday that authorities had arrested Abdullah al-Mujahir, that he was a terrorist threat and that he had been planning to build a "dirty" bomb to spread radioactive contamination. Then it emerged that he had, in fact, been in custody since May 8.
Could the timing be related to the White House's nervous bid to drum up support for its messy and controversial new Department of Homeland Security? Tom Daschle, leader of the Democratic majority in the Senate, revealed why he will never have the drama of delivery to make a plausible presidential candidate, offering only that "I have questions about why it was announced (on Monday), but I am certainly confident that the Administration would not politicise this issue".
The new Department, if it does get off the ground, will be an extraordinarily untidy organism, it is clear. It will include all kinds of government laboratories, such as Lawrence Livermore in California, which do a lot of work that is nothing to do with national security, but leave out the still uncoordinated FBI and CIA. Both parties in Congress are having a field day pointing out why it won't work, and they are right.
Much more important, this may be yet another dud suspect. Born Jose Padilla, to a Brooklyn family of Puerto Ricans, al-Muhajir is an unlikely al-Qaeda recruit. His life was too chaotic, too criminal, with an attention-catching record of violence, and not, until recently, particularly Muslim.
We are told that authorities were tipped off about his supposed links with al-Qaeda by Abu Zubeida, one of the few of Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants to have been caught. That does not mean that the information is good. The yield from the much trumpeted capture of Zubeida in Pakistan this spring has been confusing and generally disappointing, it seems.
Third, there is the civil liberties question. This is beginning to rumble in a very muted way in the United States, having never shown the inflammatory power it has done in Europe. But civil liberties groups are beginning to clock up the number of suspects held in the name of September 11 - including the 300-odd prisoners still held in Guantanamo Bay and yet to be charged.
They are building up one case in particular to drum up support for the issue. A Boston suspect, Nabil Almarabh, a Kuwaiti-born Syrian, was held in solitary confinement for more than eight months without seeing a judge, which the groups reckon is the longest such period for anyone detained after September 11.
He was taken into custody on September 18, but was not brought before a federal magistrate to face charges until May 22. News reports when he was arrested said that officials thought that he was linked to two of the September 11 hijackers, but the eventual charges stem only from his attempt to enter the US illegally in June 2001. The Justice Department maintains that "he had no right to see a judge because he had been previously deported" and forfeited that right when he entered the country again.
So far there has been little public clamour about these cases. But, as the stirrings of criticism of Bush's "homeland" protection begin to build, the protests may, too, particularly if the allegations against al-Muhajir crumble as quickly as those against other suspects have done.
Powell out on a limb
IT WAS a brave try by Colin Powell, but a futile one. President Bush's remarks this week have left the United States's policy on the Middle East in a thorough muddle, leaving the strong impression that the US has abandoned Yassir Arafat.
No matter that the Secretary of State has tried to salvage matters, insisting that a conference on the region is still set for next month. No one is going to believe him, because in this week's battle Powell has lost almost as much ground as the Palestinian leader.
Today Bush meets Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi Foreign Minister. At the weekend he met President Mubarak of Egypt. But the trouble stems from his remarks after his meeting with Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, on Monday, which have taken American policy backwards and sent out mixed messages.
He endorsed more Israeli military attacks on Palestinian targets, saying that Israel had a right to defend itself, and he sounded sceptical about the value of a conference on the peace process this summer, pencilled in for late July, which had been a firm plank of Administration policy.
Most important, he appeared to share Sharon's position that "we don't yet see a partner" in Arafat, in saying that conditions were not right for such a meeting because "no one has confidence" in Arafat. The Palestinian leader had let down his people, Bush added.
His remarks took European governments by surprise, as they had thought that the Administration shared the view that it was necessary to deal with Arafat, for want of a better alternative. European officials are now sceptical that the conference will take place this summer at all.
Powell launched an immediate damage-limitation exercise, to salvage proposals with which he has been closely identified but which have been constantly under attack by other more hawkish members of the Administration.
He said that Bush would set out his views on how to move forward on the Middle East "in the very near future"; according to officials, this probably means next week. "He will make known to the American people and to the world and especially the people in the region his vision of how to move forward," Powell said.
"I think we still see utility in planning for such a conference in the course of the summer," he insisted bravely. "I think we are pulling the pieces together now that might make such a conference useful, and we haven't backed away from the idea yet."
Powell's problem is that his colleagues in the Administration appear determined to do to him what Bush has done to Arafat this week: declare him a person with whom it is not worth negotiating. It is therefore hard to take his reassurances as a reliable guide to what the Administration might now do; for that, we must wait for Bush's "vision" next week.
--------
A Closer Look
New York Times
June 13, 2002
By BOB HERBERT
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/13/opinion/13HERB.html
Eventually, almost certainly, a distinguished bipartisan commission will be convened to examine the conditions that led to the catastrophe of Sept. 11.
The Bush administration doesn't want this. And Republicans in Congress are fighting to prevent it. But it will happen.
The American public remains largely in the dark about the terrorist threat that is still out there, and the nation's preparedness to deal with it. The periodic terror-related announcements by top Bush administration officials often seem calculated not to educate or to illuminate, but rather to frighten the public and intimidate the political opposition.
That is not acceptable in a free society. Despite the preferences of the administration, which likes to operate behind closed doors with the windows shut and the shades drawn, the public has a right to more information, not less. A thoroughly independent, non-Congressional inquiry is essential.
And that sentiment was poignantly expressed this week by a group of women whose husbands were lost in the World Trade Center attack. They traveled to Washington for a round of meetings and demonstrations in an effort to build support for an independent investigation. "It's not about politics," said one of the women, Kristen Breitweiser of Middletown, N.J. "It's about doing the right thing. It's about the safety of the nation."
The calls for such an inquiry are coming with more frequency.
"History will demand an independent inquiry," former Senator Gary Hart told me in an interview last week. "We might as well get on with it and do it properly."
Mr. Hart was co-chairman, along with former Senator Warren Rudman, of a special commission on national security that warned as recently as the spring of 2001 that the United States was becoming increasingly vulnerable to attack by terrorists and other hostile groups. The commission concluded that sometime in the first quarter of the 21st century "Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers."
Mr. Hart said that in the wake of the Sept. 11 tragedy, "The amazing thing to me is how little demand there has been by the public for information. The assumption seems to be that everything's being taken care of."
Part of the problem has been the success the administration has had in managing the news and keeping fears of terror at a heightened pitch. Every time serious criticism of the nation's preparedness begins to emerge, the administration tries to trump it with some terror warning or some big new antiterror initiative.
Gone are the days when a Franklin Roosevelt would try to defuse an economic panic by cautioning a nation against the fear of fear itself. Or when a Winston Churchill would rally a war-stricken nation by proclaiming, "We shall not flag or fail."
Instead we have Dick Cheney on "Meet the Press" saying another attack on the U.S. by Al Qaeda is "almost certain." And we have the director of the F.B.I., Robert Mueller, telling a gathering of district attorneys that suicide bombings like those in Israel are "inevitable" on American soil.
It's a peculiar leadership strategy that depends for its success on routinely scaring the heck out of the population.
The government-induced anxiety was ratcheted way up by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's insistence that terrorists "inevitably will get their hands" on weapons of mass destruction, which include chemical, biological and nuclear arms.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Now what can we do about that?
An independent inquiry would give us a better understanding of the various threats (including some reasonable sense of their likelihood), and would let the nation know how prepared (or ill prepared) we are to meet them. A proper inquiry would not be sensational or political. It would be a learning process. The commission would thoroughly examine what happened and what went wrong in the weeks, months and years leading up to Sept. 11, and it would assess our current readiness to deal with the continuing threat.
It would build confidence, ease fears and provide a blueprint for the prevention of future attacks. It would also, as Mr. Hart pointed out, establish "as clear and factual a contemporary record as we can possibly get."
This has to happen. So why not sooner rather than later?
--------
Bush Meets Saudi Foreign Minister on Middle East
June 13, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-mideast-usa.html
WASHINGTON - President Bush met Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al Faisal on Thursday at the White House as he concluded a series of consultations with Middle East leaders in advance of U.S. proposals for the next stage in the peace process.
Bush is preparing to unveil, probably next week, a new policy reflecting his recent decision to step up U.S. involvement in Middle East peace efforts after months on the sidelines.
Secretary of State Colin Powell this week raised the possibility that an interim Palestinian state might be necessary in order to set up a state called Palestine.
However, the White House quickly made clear on Wednesday it was not a U.S. proposal, with Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer explaining it was one of many ideas the president has heard in his consultations with Arab and Israeli leaders.
Asked about his comments, Powell told reporters on a flight to Canada he was simply trying to lay out ``the range of ideas that are out there, the issues that the president is examining.''
The Bush administration for weeks has been deliberating a shift in policy that would offer a timetable for negotiating a peace settlement and creating a Palestinian state.
Bush has called for the creation of a Palestinian state, but the U.S. is pressing Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority to implement reforms first.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said the creation of a Palestinian state would be acceptable only at the end of a long and incremental peace process after the complete cessation of Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
Bush held his sixth round of White House talks with Sharon earlier this week, following a weekend meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at the Camp David presidential retreat in the mountains of Maryland.
Bush signaled in a speech on April 4 plans for deeper U.S. involvement in trying to bring about a Middle East peace settlement.
U.S. officials had hoped to convene a peace conference as early as this month. However, Bush told reporters on Monday the time was not ripe for a conference to chart a course for peace because ``no one has confidence'' in Arafat's Palestinian government.
--------
President Truman called `Hiroshima' a military base!
By Gursharan Dhanjal,
June 13, 2002,
Hindustan Times
http://167.216.192.98/faceoff/lead110602.shtml
New Delhi: Donald Rumsfeld, 68, a hardcore Republican, considers himself a friend of the leaders of both India and Pakistan. India has reciprocated by ordering an end of its Western Fleet patrols off Pakistani waters in the Arabian Sea and head back for the port.
But Rumsfeld is not sure, "I cannot say I see a trend that it is getting better or worse." This, when Pakistan has been continuing shelling along the LoC in the Kashmir region. His arrival happens amidst reports of US authorities capturing a suspected al-Qaeda operative, who arrived in the US from Pakistan last month, carrying out reconnaissance for an attack with a radioactive "dirty bomb." Rumsfeld certainly has a tough task in his hands.
Rumsfeld, an outspoken Republican hawk, the mentor of an earlier attempted Republican Revolution - a leading group known as "Rumsfeld's Raiders" trying to push a reform bill through Congress - is the youngest secretary of defense in history, serving under President Ford from 1975-77. As recently as 1999, he led a congressional commission that heavily promoted the idea of a national missile defense system, citing threats from Iraq and North Korea. George W Bush and Dick Cheney both support such a system.
And before he was nominated as defense secretary, Rumsfeld was said to be at the top of Bush's list to become CIA director.
The dynamic, hard-charging "Rummy" was legislatively conservative, supporting a strong defense against the Soviet Union and opposing legislation to curb urban poverty - but supporting civil rights bills. His aggressive, ambitious demeanor won him a friend in Richard Nixon, but enemies in Congress. Various jobs in the Nixon administration led to his being appointed Ford's White House chief of staff. By all accounts, he ran a tight ship, distributing a manual called "Rumsfeld's Rules" to White House Staff. Rule #1: "Don't play President - you're not."
Later, serving as secretary of defense under Ford, Rumsfeld was a hawk: he built up the military and opposed the SALT II strategic arms reduction treaty. But he improved the Pentagon's relations with Congress.
But Rumsfeld has never been far from the presidency. He publicly sought the vice-presidential nomination in 1980 and briefly ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988 against the elder George Bush, before dropping out and backing former Kansas Senator Bob Dole for the job. Rumsfeld was called back into service in 1999 to head the nine-member Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States, a byproduct of wrangling between congressional Republicans and the Clinton administration over a missile defense system. His report supported the Republicans' contention that a missile defense was needed, and he blasted CIA director George Tenet for increasing secrecy within the agency to such an extent that it was damaging the quality of intelligence provided to Congress.
In his memoirs, Henry Kissinger described Rumsfeld as a "skilled full-time politician-bureaucrat in whom ambition, ability and substance fuse seamlessly." Pengaton today, under Rumsfeld is at the center of the new "war" on terrorism, co-ordianting perhaps the most difficult and complicated campaign in its history. However, the truth remains, that Rumsfeld has a larger agenda in the region than just diffusing the Indo-Pak face-off. Osama bin-Laden is still at large and reportedly hiding in Pakistan. There have been threats of September 11 'Part II' sometime in near future. And American armies are yet to find a permanent foothold in the region including Pakistan. The only apparent route to achieving the larger objective is to broker peace between New Delhi and Islamabad. Only after this happens will theatre shift towards a renewed war on terrorism. Even President Bush, hours ahead of Rumsfeld's arrival in India, said, "We have made progress in a very tense situation. The situation is getting better, but so long as there are troops massed...there is always a threat that something that can happen." If we read in between the lines, that Bush Administration takes the credit for New Delhi's decision to pull back the warships; as long as there is tension on Indo-Pak border Washington can not talk of launching an offensive to catch Osama and that there is a threat to the US for which may be Washington does not have much time. Historically, Republicans have favored Islamabad while Democrats favored New Delhi. But this time round it appears unlikely so. Rumsfeld must move while it is not too late?
President Truman wrote in his diary on 25th July, 1945 that he had ordered the bomb dropped on a "purely military" target, so that "military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not woman and children."
On August 9, the day Nagasaki was bombed, he called Hiroshima a "military base". It seems unlikely that he was not aware that Hiroshima was a city. In a radio speech, on that day, he said, "the world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, in so far as possible, the killing of civilians..."
President Truman's decision came in contravention of the existing war conventions to which US has been a signatory and a supporter for long. For instance, "Rules of Aerial Warfare" were supported by the US (but never adopted by the US) at The Hague in February 1923. It prohibited targeting civilian population through military attack by air for all purposes. Further, the US signed "Protection of Civilian Population against Bombing from the Air in case of War" resolution under the League of Nations on 30th September, 1938. In an appeal to the Governments of France, Germany, Italy and His Britannic Majesty, on "Aerial Bombardment of Civilian Populations," President Franklin Roosevelt, on September 1, 1939, called such an act of ruthless bombing of civilians in unfortified centers as act of "inhuman barbarism".
More than anything else, it seems the US had little choice than to bomb the Japanese cities. Pearl Harbor bombing was only a catalyst. The atomic bombing of Japan occurred three months after the surrender of Germany, whose potential for creating a Nazi A-bomb had led Einstein to push for the development of an American A-bomb for the Allies. In an article in the New York Times on August 19,1946, Einstein wrote he was "not sure that President Roosevelt would have forbidden the atomic bombing of Hiroshima had he been alive and that it was probably carried out to end the Pacific war before Russia could participate."
But Truman's monumental decision to drop these bombs was born out three major factors: military, domestic and diplomatic.
The military pressures stemmed from discussion and meetings Truman had with Secretary of War, Stimson, General Marshall, and Admiral William Leahy, among others. On 18th June, 1945, General Marshall and Stimson convinced Truman to set the invasion of Japanese island of Kyushu, code named Downfall - for 1st November, 1945. Truman understood the need to minimise what he felt would inevitably be a long, bloody struggle. The military pressure lay heavily on his mind. This came out clearly when he ordered the bombing of "military targets" in Japan. Add to this was second invasion planned for March 1946, consisting of a landing and bombardment of mainland Honshu.
In fact, New York Times quoted Truman on 7th August as saying "Hiroshima was a major military target," and, "we have spent two billion dollars on the greatest scientific gamble in history - and won."
Second major source of pressure on Truman to drop the bomb was diplomatic tensions with Russia. Truman broke away from his predecessor's program of cooperation and good relations with Russia and adopted a "hardline" approach. In fact, Truman wanted to postpone Postdam till the time bomb is tested. This would have given him an upper hand over the Russians, or as Secretary of State Byrnes told Truman, the bomb could, "put us in a position to dictate our own terms at the end of the war."
The third major source of pressure on Truman and his advisors to drop the atomic bomb came from domestic tensions and issues of re-election, combined with a collective American feeling of hatred toward the Japanese race. Truman had once called Japanese as "savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic..." Truman knew that if he backed down and did not remain firm on his stance with Japan the American public might be outraged. Furthermore, if the bomb was not dropped, Truman feared that it would prove extremely difficult in post-war America to justify the two billion dollars spent on the Manhattan Project.
In hindsight, it appears as if there existed five major alternatives to the dropping of the atomic bombs: a non-combat demonstration, a modification of the demand for unconditional surrender, a pursuit of "Japanese peace feelers," awaiting Soviet entry into the war and lastly continuing conventional warfare - aerial bombing of the cities and naval blockade. But given the fact that Truman was a new incumbent with an `A-bomb' bent of mind, seeking support of the armed forces, with a larger agenda to nail Germany and overtake Russia and to gain sympathy of American people at large, bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was inevitable.
-------- MILITARY
World Military Spending on Rise After Sept. 11
June 13, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-arms-spending.html
STOCKHOLM - World military spending grew two percent last year, according to official figures, but the increase is much bigger when outlays prompted by the September 11 attacks are included, a security policy think-tank said on Thursday.
``World military expenditure in 2001 is estimated at $839 billion,'' the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in the 33rd edition of its yearbook.
The 15 biggest spenders, led by the United States, accounted for more than three quarters of total world military expenditure, it said.
SIPRI researcher Elisabeth Skons said the $839 billion represented two percent growth in real terms compared with 2000.
``But it is an underestimate based on adopted budgets. I'm sure the increase will be much larger due to September 11, which has led to additional expenditure in the United States but also in other countries,'' Skons told a news conference.
Excluding such supplementary budgets, global military expenditure last year accounted for 2.6 percent of world gross domestic product (GDP), said SIPRI, whose data are widely recognized for their reliability.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said in a recent report on the effects of September 11 that increased military spending reduced economic growth in the longer term.
``Rough calibrations suggest that an increase in public military-security spending by one percent of GDP and private security spending by 0.5 percent of GDP would reduce output by about 0.7 percent after five years,'' the OECD said.
SIPRI Director Daniel Rotfeld said combating terrorism had become a high priority for Western governments after September 11.
``However, the transatlantic community is confronted with a disagreement over the main aim: whether to focus on disrupting and defeating the al-Qaeda network or eliminating the roots of terrorism with a broader range of policies,'' he said in the yearbook. Al Qaeda is blamed for the September 11 attacks.
NUCLEAR THREAT
SIPRI said: ``The magnitude of the changes that are needed to protect nuclear material against terrorist attacks has not been widely appreciated.
``There is evidence that terrorists and thieves have already threatened or attacked nuclear facilities and tried to purchase or steal nuclear and other radioactive material.''
Rotfeld said one effect of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington was that the pace of NATO enlargement had accelerated.
Another was that the countries of Central Asia had gained in importance in the field of security policy while Europe, as a relatively more stable region, had become marginalized.
The SIPRI yearbook said Russia overtook the United States in 2001 as the world's largest supplier of weapons to other countries. Russian arms transfers increased 24 percent last year.
China was the largest recipient of arms, its imports increasing 44 percent from 2000, while imports by India increased 50 percent, SIPRI said.
``It is impossible for arms suppliers to control whether arms deliveries will stabilize or destabilize a particular bilateral relationship, as illustrated by the case of India and Pakistan,'' the institute said.
SIPRI researcher Shannon Kile told the conference the Kashmir conflict looked like ``one of the most perilous situations'' the international community had faced in a long time.
SIPRI said there were 24 major armed conflicts in 22 locations in 2001, down from 25 conflicts in 23 locations the year before. Roughly half were contests for control of government and the other half for territory.
-------- afghanistan
Karzai Gets the Nod as Candidate for Afghan Top Post
New York Times
June 13, 2002
By JAMES DAO with TERENCE NEILAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/13/international/asia/13CND-AFGH.html
KABUL, Afghanistan, June 13 - After a day devoted largely to complaints and criticism, the grand council did what had been expected of it today by formally nominating the interim leader Hamid Karzai as a candidate for Afghan head of state.
"I'm very happy," Mr. Karzai told the delegates in a speech accepting his nomination. "After 25 years, all the Afghans are gathering under one tent. The refugees are coming back. It is a proud moment for me."
Although challenged by three other delegates, Mr. Karzai is widely expected to win.
Also nominated for the position were Masooda Jalal, a female employee of the World Food Program; Glam Fareq Majidi and Mir Mohammed Mahfoz Nadai. No details were immediately available about Mr. Nadai and Mr. Majidi, whose candidacy was declared invalid because he garnered only 101 signatures of support.
Ms. Jalal said, "I thank God that after so many difficulties, the sun is rising over our country."
The final vote was expected to take four to five hours, with results by the end of the day.
Mr. Karzai, praised for his reconciliation efforts during his six months in power after the Taliban was ousted by forces led by the United States, looked to the future.
"We need security, we need peace, we need stability, we need an administration in control of all of Afghanistan," Mr. Karzai said, speaking alternately in Pashto and Dari, the country's two main languages.
Mr. Karzai appealed for reconciliation, including with at least some of the former ruling Taliban.
"I know many Taliban," he said. "And they were taken over, hijacked by the foreign people. Those people were against Afghanistan. Those who were responsible for the massacres, those who were responsible for the burning" were foreigners.
"We want an improved economy," he said. "We want the people to trust each other. We want investment in Afghanistan. We want to start a reconstruction program to rebuild the roads, the irrigation channels." He added: "We don't want to miss this chance. This is our best chance for reconstruction."
After the head of state is selected the council is to consider the details of how the transitional government will be set up.
The vote was pushed back by at least a day after delegates spent most of Wednesday arguing over a variety of topics.
They complained about the food. They ridiculed the man running the meeting. They even criticized the warlords in the front row.
Inside an air-conditioned white tent that billowed gently in the wind, Afghan democracy took a baby step forward.
In the first day of open debate in the loya jirga to select a transitional government, the 1,551 delegates proved Afghans could be as adept in debate as on the battlefield; they raucously argued over issues ranging from poverty to the national anthem to ceremonial titles for the king.
After two decades of Soviet occupation, civil war and Taliban oppression, Afghan leaders were freely expressing their political ambitions without the aid of guns. To many, it seemed a revelation.
The loya jirga "is an exercise in voice," said Ashraf Ghani Ahmedzai, senior adviser to Mr. Karzai. "The people of Afghanistan are acquiring voice for the first time in 23 years."
With that free expression, they did not get much work done. By the end of a very long day, the delegates had covered less than half their agenda, succeeding only in casting ballots for the five-member panel that will run the rest of the proceedings this week.
Many delegates also expressed concerns that political bosses, backed by foreigners, were engineering backroom deals to select a new government without their input. In particular, supporters of the former king, Mohammad Zahir Shah, accused American officials of pressuring him to refuse being a candidate.
But for scores of others, the proceedings seemed a cathartic opportunity to bicker, cajole, lecture - and even to discuss things calmly. Although the sessions were not open to the public, they were broadcast around most of the country on radio and to some parts on television.
Asadullah Nawabi, a former director of education in Oruzgan Province, expressed the spirit of the day when he complained that "six days is not enough time" for people to discuss the nation's problems. The loya jirga, which opened on Tuesday and is scheduled to end on Sunday, is supposed to appoint a government that will oversee drafting a new constitution and will run the country until elections in 18 months.
"The delegates here are representing the people," Mr. Nawabi said. "People who do not have clothing, who do not have sandals, who do not have food. You say we do not have time. Why did we come?"
Another man rose to complain that people were getting sick from the food. Yet another scoffed at a proposal to bestow upon the former king the title of father of the nation.
Several speakers complained about the presence of military commanders in the tent, saying the rules of the loya jirga forbade war criminals from taking part. Many of the warlords have been accused of killing civilians during the civil war that raged through the 1990's.
"You said no one would be a delegate who was a murderer or criminal," said Safar Muhammad, a delegate from Kandahar. "There are a lot of military people in this meeting. Is this a loya jirga or a military shura?" A shura is a traditional council.
Those military men included Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum from Mazar-i-Sharif, now the deputy defense minister; Ismail Khan from Herat, Gen. Daoud Khan from Kunduz; and Abdul Rab Rassoul Sayyaf from Kabul.
-------- africa
Face of Rwanda Genocide Now on U.S.-Backed Wanted Posters
New York Times
June 13, 2002
By MARC LACEY
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/13/international/africa/13RWAN.html
NAIROBI, June 12 - Félicien Kabuga, who is accused of sponsoring the 1994 genocide in Rwanda by supplying machetes and hoes for weapons, has long used his huge bank account and official connections to keep one step ahead of the law, authorities say.
The United States government began circulating wanted posters today here in the Kenyan capital, one of his known hideouts, in an attempt to use its own resources and official connections to catch him.
"Accusation: Financed the massacre of Rwanda's men, women and children," read a poster published in local newspapers, bearing Mr. Kabuga's photograph and listing numerous aliases.
For the past year, the United States has offered a reward of up to $5 million for the capture of Mr. Kabuga, an ethnic Hutu multimillionaire businessman in his late 60's. Now, however, American officials are seeking to step up the pressure.
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which is based in Tanzania, indicted Mr. Kabuga in 1998 for abuses ranging from importing farm tools knowing they would be used for murder to running the radio station used to fan Hutu hatred of Rwanda's Tutsi population. Officials say his wealth is now being used to support the Congo-based interahamwe militiamen, a Hutu group fighting Rwanda's government.
Since the frenzy in Rwanda in 1994, in which an estimated half-million civilians were shot, hacked or beaten to death, the tribunal's progress in bringing suspects to justice has been fitful, partly because of the sheer number of people implicated and partly from a lack of cooperation.
Seeking to increase that cooperation, the United States Congress passed legislation in October 2000 authorizing the use of reward money. The program did not become official until January 2001, and the effects of the allocation have only recently begun to be felt in places like Nairobi.
"It is now time for Mr. Kabuga to come out of hiding and face the charges against him," said Pierre-Richard Prosper, the American ambassador for war crimes issues. "It is time for those who have information to come forward and time for those who are harboring Félicien Kabuga to cease their protection."
Mr. Prosper's words were aimed not only at everyday Kenyans but also at government officials. In the months before his indictment in 1998, Mr. Kabuga was once traced to a house owned by Hosea Kiplagat, a nephew of President Daniel arap Moi of Kenya, according to a report published in 2001 by the International Crisis Group, a research organization. The study also detailed how investigators for the International Criminal Tribunal uncovered evidence that a Kenyan police officer might have tipped off Mr. Kabuga in 1997 that an arrest was imminent.
"The finger of protection still points strongly toward the highest Kenyan authorities," the report said. Amos Wako, Kenya's attorney general, disputed allegations that Kenya has not been diligent in its search.
Carla del Ponte, the chief prosecutor for the tribunal, has sought to bring Mr. Kabuga in by cutting off his money supply. Authorities have frozen millions of dollars in accounts held by Mr. Kabuga in France, Belgium and Switzerland.
Mr. Kabuga is not the only suspect at large. At least eight suspects under indictment are thought to be hiding in Congo, and Mr. Prosper is to meet with that country's president, Joseph Kabila, on Thursday to press for his cooperation.
-------- arms sales
Special Report - The Arms Lobby
by WILLIAM D. HARTUNG,
The Nation,
June 13, 2002
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=special&s=hartung20020613
There has been little criticism of the Bush-Putin nuclear accord from within the military-industrial complex, and for good reason. The arms lobby helped to develop the Bush nuclear policy, and it stands to profit from its implementation.
The centerpiece of the Bush nuclear doctrine is a "New Triad" of long-range strike systems, missile defenses and a revitalized nuclear weapons complex that will involve at least $33 billion in new spending over the next five years. Far from impingi