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NUCLEAR
Me and My Geiger Counter
IAEA warns against "regionalising" nuclear safety
Chernobyl suspected in rise in UK child deaths
U.S. Military Jet Crashes in France
France OKs security plan
Congress Lobbied for Missile Defense
G8 Finalizes Deal to Decommission Ex - Soviet Arms
World leaders approve $20 billion in aid for Russia
G-8 to Help Russia Dismantle Weapons
Summit Russia Text
Summit-Russia Glance
UN says materials for dirty bomb easy to find
US Senate backs stronger non-proliferation efforts
Russia, China Seek to Ban Space Arms
Canadian firm unveils new design for US nuke plants
NRC issues fine for missing fuel rods at nuclear plant
Yucca Mountain Shipments Called Mobile Chernobyl
Hitting the trifecta
Judges Ban Pledge of Allegiance From Schools, Citing 'Under God'
EPA officials trying to avoid subpoena
MILITARY
Top Lawmakers Urge Bush to Expand Afghan Force Beyond Kabul
Chinese jet fighters fly near U.S. spy plane
Court Approves Random Drug Tests for Many Students
Palestinian Authority Sets a January Vote
Bush Says Palestinians Will Lose Aid if They Keep Arafat
Israeli Troops Continue Assault on Gunmen in Hebron
Bush won't budge on Arafat ouster
U.S Spurns Russia, China Bid to Ban Arms in Space
U.S. won't oppose enlarging U.N. security force
Pentagon poised to send troops into western Pakistan
POLICE / PRISONERS
Region's police join forces
Top agent says U.S. must care for illegals
U.S. Defends Military Custody of Suspect in 'Dirty Bomb' Case
FAA Bans Planes Near Landmarks
South Africa readies 26,000 police for Earth Summit
Feds Fear Possible Al Qaeda Cyber - Attacks
Judge strikes law citing 'terrorist' groups
OTHER
EU says beats US on greener energy policies
TEPCO to buy into Tomen wind power unit
New Coal Burners May Reduce Pollution
Victim Says Salvadoran Police HQ Had Torture Rooms
ACTIVISTS
China gets tough on South Korea activists
Summit Leaves Protesters Stuck at Base Camp
Green group sues to stop sludge
Argentines Protest Police Killings
Activists loudly protest but G8 leaders miss show
Australian Anti-Terrorism Law Could Stifle Protest
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
Me and My Geiger Counter
New York Times
June 27, 2002
By FRED BERNSTEIN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/27/technology/circuits/27GEIG.html
SHOULD I keep my Geiger counter running during dinner? Will its constant clicking keep me up at night?
Those are the kinds of questions I've been asking myself since a black plastic Geiger counter, a camera-size device designed to measure gamma, alpha, beta and X-rays, arrived last week. All I had to do was switch it on and set it on my dining table.
The clicks - about 10 per minute - announced the presence of background radiation (generally considered harmless) in my Greenwich Village apartment. In a nuclear emergency - an attack or a reactor meltdown - the rhythm would become more urgent.
"At 100 clicks a minute, I'd start to worry," said Tim Flanegin of Mineralab in Prescott, Ariz., who sold me the $279 unit.
Geiger counters, it seems, are the new Cipro. "Since 9/11, orders have doubled," said Mr. Flanegin, whose company uses the Web address www.geigercounters.com. Prices start at $170 for a kit and climb past $900 for a particularly sensitive model.
The company's original customers were mineral collectors, Mr. Flanegin said, "but then this whole other market developed." First came Sept. 11, he said, and then another surge this spring, as tensions rose between India and Pakistan, and the Justice Department announced that it had foiled a plot to set off a crude radioactive weapon - a "dirty bomb" - in the United States.
International Medcom, a manufacturer in Sebastopol, Calif., that also sells units to the public at www.geigercounter.com, is having trouble meeting demand, said its president, Dan Sythe. "We're hiring people and trying to increase production," he said.
In my case, the decision to buy a counter followed a decision to buy potassium iodide, a drug that reduces the chances of thyroid cancer after exposure to fallout from a reactor. More than a dozen states plan to distribute the drug to people near nuclear power plants. (I live 40 miles from a nuclear plant, but the drug could also be useful after a dirty-bomb attack.)
Once I got the pills - a three-month supply, available on the Internet for $18 - I began wondering how I would know when it was time to take them.
"The question is, do you trust the government to keep you informed?" asked Lionel Zuckier, director of nuclear medicine at the New Jersey Medical School in Newark. Even assuming a policy of full disclosure, there might be delays - possibly breakdowns in communication - in getting information to the public.
Debbie Baker, who lives near the nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, has kept a Geiger counter on her window sill for 14 years.
In 1979, when an accident at the plant released radiation into the atmosphere, Ms. Baker recalled angrily, "We didn't get information for three days." At the time, she said she had a 9-month-old daughter at home. The window-sill counter "represents peace of mind," said Ms. Baker, who is president of a citizens' monitoring committee.
Not everyone, though, thinks the Geiger counter should take its place alongside the home smoke detector.
David Allard, who oversees radiation-disaster preparedness for Pennsylvania, advises against the purchase of personal Geiger counters. For one thing, "you have to know how to interpret the data," he said.
"If someone who had just ingested radioactive material in connection with a medical procedure walked past your house, the thing would start clicking like crazy," Mr. Allard said. "And there are trucks that carry nuclear material in the normal course of things. You'd be in a constant state of alarm."
For an actual emergency, "there are plans in place, response teams that know what to do," he said. "The best thing is to turn on the TV and follow official instructions."
Told of Mr. Allard's advice, Ms. Baker scoffed. She said her detector is set to sound whenever radiation hits three times the background level in her area, an event that she said typically occurs once a year, after a heavy rainfall brings down naturally radioactive dust.
So if a bona fide alarm went off, what then?
Dirty bombs, nuclear weapons and reactors present different issues, of course. The Council on Foreign Relations, in an encyclopedia of terrorism on the Web (www.terrorismanswers.com), states, "In the case of a dust cloud thrown up by a dirty bomb, experts stress the importance of prompt decontamination - taking off outer layers of clothing and washing any exposed skin."
In the case of "penetrating radiation" like gamma rays or neutrons, the site advises those affected "to minimize the duration of their exposure by getting as far away from the radiation source as possible."
In other words, act quickly.
Still, $279 is a lot to spend for an alarm that probably will never sound. So what about some sort of communal early-warning system: public Geiger counters transmitting data around the clock?
One such network, in central Pennsylvania, was installed in the early 90's by Ms. Baker's nonprofit group, the Three Mile Island Citizens' Monitoring Network. It posts the readings at www.tmi-cmn.org/map.htm, although Ms. Baker said that recent thunderstorms had knocked out part of the system.
A larger network with 178 counters has been operating for more than a decade in France, which relies heavily on nuclear power; it can be monitored at www.opri.fr/html_opri/web_mesure_som.htm. About eight years ago, the designers of the French system, called Téléray, installed a unit atop a federal building at Varick and Houston Streets in Manhattan for the United States Department of Energy. The department has since added its own monitors at the site, and posts results, updated every 15 minutes, at www.eml.doe.gov/homeland.
Mitchell Erickson, director of the department's Environmental Measurements Laboratory, said his agency was trying to secure $5 million to install some 30 monitors around the city. "We don't have that kind of money in our budget," he said.
Dr. Zuckier of the New Jersey Medical School said he had proposed such a system for the city over three years ago. Linked by the Internet, the units could generate a kind of weather map of radiation. But he said he got nowhere, in his view because officials feared that real-time information could cause panic. But that was before Sept. 11. Francis McCarton, deputy commissioner of the city's Office of Emergency Management, said this week: "We have a new commissioner in place. We'd be happy to take a look at the plan."
Dr. Zuckier's own demonstration unit, at Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx, feeds data to a graph at www .awel.com/nyc. A disaster would send the line on the graph shooting up, Dr. Zuckier said.
Certainly, during an emergency, the radiation monitor or its Internet connection could fail. (Indeed, if the attack generated an electromagnetic pulse, most Geiger counters would be rendered useless. Some older models, including government surplus counters, would probably survive a pulse, according to Radmeters4U.com, a company that says it has 100,000 counters from the 60's and 70's at its warehouse in Gonzales, Tex.)
For a newer, PC-compatible model, Dr. Zuckier referred me to Brian Boardman of Aware Electronics of Wilmington, Del., the company that made the unit at Jacobi (www.aw-el.com). Aware's Geiger counters lack dials or displays and feed information to PC's instead. (Other companies make similar models for Macs, including Black Cat Systems, which is online at www.blackcatsystems.com.)
For $149, I ordered Aware's RM-60, which arrived the next day. Connecting it to my PC took less than five minutes. Almost immediately I had a graph of radiation levels in my bedroom - a chilling if fascinating sight. Mr. Boardman advised that as long as the reading remained flat, at around 15 microroentgens per hour, there was nothing to worry about. (The unit can be programmed to sound alarms or even send e-mail warnings when radiation levels increase.)
Mr. Boardman had enclosed an egg-size rock containing uranium ore. When I held it near the small round opening on top of the RM-60, the line on the graph shot up. The same radioactive stone helped me confirm that my hand-held counter from Mineralab was working.
Of the two devices, the RM-60, at half the price of the stand-alone unit, seemed the better buy. Its PC feed allows you to compare radiation levels over time and to check data accumulated while you are sleeping or otherwise engaged.
And yet, if I needed to evacuate in an emergency, I would want to take my Geiger counter with me. Mr. Boardman recommended that I buy one of two accessories - an attachment that generates audio clicks, for $19, or an L.C.D. display for $159 - or that I connect my RM-60 to a palmtop instead of my desktop computer.
I went ahead and ordered the $19 attachment. It has been a week since my first Geiger counter arrived, and I am beginning to find its slow click reassuring.
--------
IAEA warns against "regionalising" nuclear safety
REUTERS FINLAND:
June 27, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16595/story.htm
HELSINKI - The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said this week that the European Commission should steer clear of devising its own standards for nuclear safety, a global rather than a regional concern.
This past spring, the European Union's top energy official said she would propose Europe-wide safety standards for nuclear plants, though up until now energy policy has remained in the hands of the EU member states.
IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said that the European Commission lacked the expertise needed to develop nuclear safety standards and that it would make no sense for Brussels to duplicate the efforts of the Vienna-based IAEA.
"Regionalising safety standards is not the solution because...having one region with safety standards higher than others does not provide the global confidence that we require," ElBaradei told a news conference in the Finnish capital.
"As the proverbial saying goes, an accident anywhere is an accident everywhere, so you are not really protecting yourself in Europe by having the best safety system if safety outside of Europe is not as its best," he said.
ElBaradei said that instead the IAEA advocates a global and uniform safety regime that would ensure that countries have adequate resources to meet standards.
He said the 1986 Chernobyl accident showed it is impossible for nations to isolate themselves behind a wall of high safety standards, and should work to improve global safety norms.
The EU has pressured candidate countries to shut Soviet-designed atomic plants or bring safety up to Western norms as a condition for entry into the 15-member bloc.
----
Chernobyl suspected in rise in UK child deaths
REUTERS UK:
June 27, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16590/story.htm
LONDON - Deaths and deformities caused by the fallout from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, the world worst civil nuclear accident, may have extended beyond the Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, British scientists suspect.
They said the cloud of radioactivity it sent over Europe could have increased infant deaths and birth defects in England and Wales in the three years afterwards.
John Urquhart, a researcher based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in north eastern England, estimated that at least 200 more children than normal died during those three years.
"We've probably been too complacent about the health effects from Chernobyl in western Europe," he told New Scientist magazine yesterday.
Urquhart calculated that in England and Wales the fallout may have caused more than 600 extra cases of Down's Syndrome, spina bifida, cleft palate and other abnormalities in these years.
After studying deaths and birth defects in children born in 15 health regions of England and Wales between 1983 and 1992, he found that most of the increased deaths and deformities occurred in just five regions, spread throughout the two countries.
"Death rates fell every year except for 1986, with the extra deaths mostly occurring in four of the five same regions. The odds that the overlap occurred by chance are 1 in 200," according to the magazine.
Urquhart presented his findings to a conference on low-level radiation in Dublin.
-------- depleted uranium
U.S. Military Jet Crashes in France
The Associated Press
Thursday, June 27, 2002; 11:31 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A54994-2002Jun27?language=printer
PARIS -- A U.S. Air Force A10 on a training mission crashed Thursday in a forest in eastern France. Regional officials said there were two dead, but U.S. Air Force officials said there was only one person on board and had no information on casualties.
The plane, a single-seat anti-tank "Warthog," crashed just before 3 p.m. in a forest near the towns of Domptail and Saint-Pierremont, said Staff Sgt. Cindy York, a spokeswoman for the Air Force public affairs office in Spangdahlem, Germany.
"It carried one person on board," said an Air Force statement. "The condition of the pilot is unknown at this time."
The statement added: "There were neither live nor depleted uranium munitions on board."
Anne-Maric Duc, press attache for the regional prefecture in Epinal, said there were two dead, a pilot and co-pilot. It was not immediately possible to reconcile that information with the fact that the plane was a single-seater.
The U.S. Embassy had no comment, saying it was an Air Force matter.
Rescuers were on hand, and police immediately notified the U.S. consulate in Strasbourg, France, the officials said.
-------- europe
France OKs security plan
By Al Webb
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
June 27, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020627-1122480.htm
LONDON - Britain and France have agreed on a multimillion-dollar security plan aimed at stemming the flow of illegal immigrants through the Channel Tunnel but failed to agree on a timetable to close a French Red Cross refugee camp that London blames for the problem.
The agreement to stiffen security on the French side of the tunnel rail link under the English Channel came in hours of talks Tuesday in London between British Home Secretary David Blunkett and his French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy.
What remains unresolved, at least for the time being, is the problem posed by the controversial Red Cross camp at Sangatte, France, which houses some 1,300 refugees at any time. The British Home Office estimates that every week, about 1,000 illegal immigrants from the camp attempt to hitch a train ride or even walk through the Channel Tunnel to reach Britain. London is demanding the camp be closed.
Sources close to the talks said the two sides "moved closer" to agreeing to a closure date for the Sangatte camp - but not just yet. "We are not hyping the discussion with the French," Mr. Blunkett said. "This is a marathon, not a sprint."
The home secretary and the French interior minister agreed to meet again July 12, this time in Paris, to work out when and how to close the camp.
After Tuesday's talks, Mr. Blunkett said he and Mr. Sarkozy "are two people who can do business. We now have the opportunity of putting in place measures which will contribute to actually get this matter resolved once and for all."
The two agreed that British technology would be installed at Calais, France, next month aimed at detecting illegal immigrants. Other machines are to be put in place to spot fake passports and other forged documents in France.
They also said a double fence will be built at a cost of $7.4 million at the Frethun rail depot near Calais and that more security guards and French gendarmes will be posted. Joint teams of intelligence officers will be set up on both sides of the tunnel to track illegal immigration.
Mr. Blunkett also rejected demands at home Tuesday that the problem of asylum seekers be eased by immediately shipping back to France all illegal immigrants who reach Britain via French soil.
"What I cannot do is reach a bilateral agreement with the French that every single person who comes from France to claim asylum on our soil will be returned," the home secretary said. "France would not agree to that any more than we would agree if the boot was on the other foot."
But Mr. Blunkett insisted that, with installation of a new government in France, there was "a new spirit of cooperation" between London and Paris.
-------- missile defense
Congress Lobbied for Missile Defense
June 27, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Missile-Defense.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Hostile countries or terrorist groups could use commercial ships to launch short-range missiles against the United States, the No. 2 official in the Pentagon told Congress Thursday.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said that threat was one reason lawmakers should approve all of President Bush's requested $7.6 billion for missile defense research next year.
A defense authorization bill being considered by the Senate would cut $814 million from Bush's missile defense request, but would allow the Pentagon to restore the money by using savings from a lower-than-expected inflation rate.
Still, advisers would recommend Bush veto the defense bill if that provision -- and other ``burdensome statutory restrictions'' in the Senate version -- remain intact, Wolfowitz told a House Armed Services subcommittee.
Wolfowitz said the cuts would ``severely delay'' efforts to build a prototype defense system for long-range missiles and cripple the Pentagon's efforts to develop defenses that target missiles in their boost phase, shortly after they are launched.
The cuts also would force the Defense Department to fire ``hundreds, if not thousands,'' of engineers and other missile defense workers, Wolfowitz said.
The Bush administration is pushing to develop missile defenses, arguing that ``rogue states'' such as Iraq, Iran and North Korea are developing missiles they could use to threaten the United States or give to terrorist groups. Critics say the missile defenses are too costly and the technology too questionable, and say that missile defenses would do nothing to stop other attack methods.
-------- russia
G8 Finalizes Deal to Decommission Ex - Soviet Arms
June 27, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-group-summit-arms.html
CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - The Group of Eight rich nations clinched a $20 billion deal on Thursday to help Russia and other ex Soviet states rid itself of weapons of mass destruction and to prevent the dangerous materials from falling into the wrong hands.
A statement issued by leaders of the seven countries said up to $20 billion would be allocated over the next 10 years, initially to Russia, to guard against weapons and nuclear materials falling into the hands of militant groups.
The program would also deal with destruction of chemical weapons and the dismantling of aging reactors aboard decommissioned nuclear-powered submarines.
``This is significant. It's a substantial upping of resources,'' a U.S. administration official said.
The statement gave no further details about the proportion of funds to be provided by other G8 members -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States.
But under plans backed by Washington in recent weeks, the United States would provide $10 billion, with a further $10 billion to come from other states.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi announced the package as a done deal on Wednesday, but countries then worked deep into the night to work out final details.
The United States has repeatedly expressed concern at proliferation of nuclear materials passing from such sources into the hands of militant groups or ``rogue states'' like Iran, Iraq or North Korea.
U.S. delegations visiting Russia have spoken of the need to provide additional assistance to make safe reactors being removed from decommissions submarines and other sites.
Russia has also said it is encountering difficulty in meeting internationally-agreed deadlines for destroying chemical weapons.
The G8 statement said participating countries were committed to using all means available to prevent weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of terrorists or those harboring them. It called on all countries to adhere to the principles of nonproliferation of nuclear weapons.
Other countries requiring assistance in doing away with weapons or dangerous materials, notably ex-Soviet States, would also be encouraged to take part in the program.
A mechanism would be created to examine each year progress made in implementing the program, the statement said.
--------
World leaders approve $20 billion in aid for Russia
06/27/2002
Associated Press
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002/06/27/russia-aid.htm
KANANASKIS, Alberta (AP) - The United States and its wealthy Group of Eight partners agreed Thursday to spend $20 billion over 10 years to help Russia dismantle its nuclear, biological and chemical weapons stockpiles, The Associated Press has learned.
World leaders had feared the materials could fall into terrorist hands if not properly protected and disposed.
A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin sealed the deal in their one-on-one talks Thursday as an economic summit of the world's industrial powers drew to a close.
Putin told Bush that Russia would abide by a series of conditions under which the United States and leaders from Europe, Japan and Canada would put up the money.
Under the proposal, which was being announced later Thursday at the leaders' isolated summit site in the Canadian Rockies, the United States would spend $1 billion a year for 10 years on the program.
U.S. partners from Europe, Japan and Canada would contribute a similar amount over the same time period, the official said, on condition of anonymity shortly after the Putin-Bush meeting broke up.
The leaders had reached tentative agreement Wednesday on the money issue, but their aides negotiated late into the night and Thursday morning over Russia's obligations.
Russia agreed to provide its new G-8 partners access to disposal sites, such as facilities where nuclear submarines are dismantled, the official said. Moscow also has ensured adequate auditing and oversight authority to its partners.
The agreement, long sought by the United States, is part of a broader campaign to increase cooperation between the United States and Russia on international issues such as nuclear proliferation. Bush and Putin recently agreed to reduce their nuclear stockpiles.
In Thursday's talks, Bush hailed Putin as a "strong ally" and the pair committed their countries to a united fight against terror.
"Unfortunately, terrorism is of a global nature," said Putin. "... Joint efforts are essential if we want to be successful in this fight."
Bush called Putin "an ally - a strong ally in the war against terror and his actions speak louder than his words."
As heads of state from the world's industrial powers closed two days of meetings, they also turned attention Thursday to Africa and a far-reaching program to provide billions of dollars of assistance to the world's poorest continent.
But talk here was also preoccupied with Bush's three-day-old Middle East peace plan and his allies' hesitance to embrace the United States position that an independent Palestine is only possible if Palestinians replace Yasser Arafat as their leader.
Bush, as he opened meetings with Putin in a small windowless room, said: "I'm very pleased with the response to my proposal on the Middle East. The response has been very positive."
Earlier this week, Putin said bluntly that it would be "dangerous and mistaken" to remove Arafat, saying such an action risked a "radicalization of the Palestinian people." On Thursday, Putin's foreign policy adviser, Sergei Prikhodko, reiterated the Russian view: "We must work with the leadership in place, including Arafat."
Putin heads home to Moscow having won Russia full-fledged membership in the elite G-8, made up of the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and now Russia.
Russia was placed in the rotation to serve as host for a summit for the first time in 2006.
Bush had far less success winning support for the new Middle East peace plan he announced on Monday, which demanded the removal of Arafat.
Bush said he "won't be putting money into a society" dominated by corrupt leaders and he said "I suspect other countries won't either." Two senior officials said Bush was referring to the promise of a robust international aid package if democratic reforms are enacted, not the $100 million in humanitarian aid currently going to Palestinians, which they said is not in jeopardy.
Other countries did not endorse Bush's call for the ouster of Arafat, though British Prime Minister Tony Blair came closest to the U.S. position. French President Jacques Chirac, echoing comments of other European leaders, said, "It is for the Palestinian people, and them alone, to choose their representatives."
The G-8 leaders also pondered how to offer assurances to global financial markets, which were sent tumbling Wednesday with WorldCom Inc.'s announcement that it had disguised $3.8 billion of expenses.
Putin said Bush, in the summit's private meetings, paid a lot of attention to corporate accounting scandals, reassuring counterparts that his administration would investigate and prosecute wrongdoers.
"For me and my other colleagues it was very important to listen to the president's opinion because under the circumstances of the globalized community and world, a lot depends on the state of the U.S. economy these days," Putin said.
The remote mountain location 65 miles west of Calgary sharply reduced the number of anti-globalization protesters, a marked and mostly peaceful contrast from last year when thousands of demonstrators violently clashed with police in Italy.
The agenda for the final day was discussion of a new aid compact with impoverished African countries. The world's wealthy nations would provide billions of dollars in new aid and corporate investment to African nations who promise to root out government corruption and pursue free-market reforms.
The leaders were being joined for the discussions by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the presidents of four African countries - South Africa, Algeria, Nigeria and Senegal.
The nations scored an initial victory on Wednesday when the G-8 agreed to increased support by $1 billion for an initiative launched at the Cologne summit in 1999 to provide debt relief for the world's poorest nations.
The African countries were hoping for a commitment that 50% of future aid increases would be devoted to their region, but the United States and Japan were raising objections to setting such a specific target.
--------
G-8 to Help Russia Dismantle Weapons
By Martin Crutsinger
AP Economics Writer
Thursday, June 27, 2002; 12:41 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A55444-2002Jun27?language=printer
KANANASKIS, Alberta -- The United States and its wealthy Group of Eight allies agreed Thursday to spend $20 billion helping Russia dismantle stockpiled dangerous weapons and neared consensus on a separate aid program for Africa.
President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin sealed the 10-year pact on Russia, the newest G-8 member, in their one-on-one talks as an economic summit of the world's industrial powers drew to a close.
The final day's agenda also turned attention to Africa and a far-reaching program to provide billions of dollars of assistance to the world's poorest countries there.
"This continent is too important to allow it to fall into obscurity again," German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder told German television.
World leaders meeting at a remote Canadian Rockies resort had feared that Russia's old nuclear, biological and chemical weapons stockpiles could fall into terrorist hands.
According to a senior U.S. official, Putin told Bush that Russia would abide by a series of conditions under which the United States and leaders from Europe, Japan and Canada would put up the money.
Under the proposal, which was being announced later Thursday, the United States would spend $1 billion a year for 10 years on the program.
U.S. partners from Europe, Japan and Canada would contribute a similar amount over the same time period, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity shortly after the Putin-Bush meeting broke up.
The leaders had reached tentative agreement Wednesday on the money issue, but their aides negotiated late into the night and Thursday morning over Russia's obligations.
Russia agreed to provide its new G-8 partners access to disposal sites, such as facilities where nuclear submarines are dismantled, the official said. Moscow also has ensured adequate auditing and oversight authority to its partners.
The agreement, long sought by the United States, is part of a broader campaign to increase cooperation between the United States and Russia on international issues such as nuclear proliferation. Bush and Putin recently agreed to reduce their nuclear stockpiles.
In Thursday's talks, the pair committed their countries to a united fight against terror.
"Unfortunately, terrorism is of a global nature," said Putin. "... Joint efforts are essential if we want to be successful in this fight."
Bush called Putin "an ally - a strong ally in the war against terror and his actions speak louder than his words."
But talk here was also preoccupied with Bush's three-day-old Middle East peace plan and his allies' hesitance to embrace the United States position that an independent Palestine is only possible if Palestinians replace Yasser Arafat as their leader.
Bush, as he opened meetings with Putin in a small windowless room, said: "I'm very pleased with the response to my proposal on the Middle East. The response has been very positive."
Meanwhile, Putin's foreign policy adviser, Sergei Prikhodko, reiterated the Russian view: "We must work with the leadership in place, including Arafat."
Putin heads home to Moscow having finally won Russia full-fledged membership in the elite G-8, made up of the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and now Russia.
Russia was placed in the rotation to serve as host for a summit for the first time in 2006.
The G-8 leaders also pondered how to offer assurances to global financial markets, which were sent tumbling Wednesday with WorldCom Inc.'s announcement that it had disguised $3.8 billion of expenses.
Putin said Bush, in the summit's private meetings, paid a lot of attention to corporate accounting scandals, reassuring counterparts that his administration would investigate and prosecute wrongdoers.
"For me and my other colleagues it was very important to listen to the president's opinion because under the circumstances of the globalized community and world, a lot depends on the state of the U.S. economy these days," Putin said.
The remote mountain location 65 miles west of Calgary sharply reduced the number of anti-globalization protesters, a marked and mostly peaceful contrast from last year when thousands of demonstrators violently clashed with police in Italy.
The agenda for the final summit session was discussion of a new aid compact with impoverished African countries. The world's wealthy nations would provide billions of dollars in new aid and corporate investment to African nations who promise to root out government corruption and pursue free-market reforms.
The leaders were being joined for the discussions by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the presidents of four African countries - South Africa, Algeria, Nigeria and Senegal.
The nations scored an initial victory on Wednesday when the G-8 agreed to increased support by $1 billion for an initiative launched at the Cologne summit in 1999 to provide debt relief for the world's poorest nations.
The African countries were hoping for a commitment that 50 percent of future aid increases would be devoted to their region, but the United States and Japan were raising objections to setting such a specific target.
On the Net:
Canadian summit site: http://www.g8.gc.ca
---
Summit Russia Text
The Associated Press
Thursday, June 27, 2002; 6:02 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57203-2002Jun27?language=printer
Text of the statement adopted Thursday by wealthy Group of Eight nations at their summit in Kananaskis, Alberta, as they announced a 10-year, up-to-$20 billion effort to secure Russia's stockpile of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons:
The attacks of Sept. 11 demonstrated that terrorists are prepared to use any means to cause terror and inflict appalling casualties on innocent people. We commit ourselves to prevent terrorists, or those that harbor them, from acquiring or developing nuclear, chemical, radiological and biological weapons; missiles; and related materials, equipment and technology. We call on all countries to join us in adopting the set of nonproliferation principles we have announced today.
In a major initiative to implement those principles, we have also decided today to launch a new G8 global partnership against the spread of weapons and materials of mass destruction. Under this initiative, we will support specific cooperation projects, initially in Russia, to address nonproliferation, disarmament, counterterrorism, and nuclear safety issues. Among our priority concerns are the destruction of chemical weapons, the dismantlement of decommissioned nuclear submarines, the disposition of fissile materials and the employment of former weapons scientists. We will commit to raise up to $20 billion to support such projects over the next ten years. A range of financing options, including the option of bilateral debt for program exchanges, will be available to countries that contribute to this global partnership. We have adopted a set of guidelines that will form the basis for the negotiation of specific agreements for new projects, that will apply with immediate effect, to ensure effective and efficient project development, coordination and implementation. We will review over the next year the applicability of the guidelines to existing projects.
Recognizing that this global partnership will enhance international security and safety, we invite other countries that are prepared to adopt its common principles and guidelines to enter into discussions with us on participating in and contributing to this initiative. We will review progress on this global partnership at our next summit in 2003.
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Summit-Russia Glance
The Associated Press
Thursday, June 27, 2002; 6:14 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57269-2002Jun27?language=printer
Wealthy Group of Eight nations, at a summit in Kananaskis, Alberta on Thursday, urged all countries to help prevent terrorists from gaining access to weapons of mass destruction by committing to these principles:
-Promote multilateral treaties aimed at preventing the proliferation or illicit acquisition of nuclear, chemical, radiological and biological weapons, as well as missiles and related materials, equipment and technology.
-Maintain effective measures of accounting for and securing such items as they are produced, stored, used and transported, and provide aid to countries lacking the resources to do so on their own.
-Physically protect facilities which house such items, and help other countries that lack the resources to do the same.
-Develop border controls and law enforcement efforts against the illegal trafficking of such items, and help other countries do the same.
-Impose national export controls over items subject to multilateral export controls, as well over items not on such lists but which may contribute to the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
-Adopt and strengthen efforts to dispose of stocks of fissile materials no longer needed for defense, eliminate all chemical weapons, and minimize holdings of dangerous biological pathogens and toxins, "based on the recognition that the threat of terrorist acquisition is reduced as the overall quantity of such items is reduced."
-------- terrorism
UN says materials for dirty bomb easy to find
Story by Louis Charbonneau
REUTERS AUSTRIA:
June 27, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16594/story.htm
VIENNA - The United Nations' nuclear watchdog this week warned that radioactive materials needed for a "dirty bomb" could be found in almost every country and over 100 states had inadequate controls to prevent their theft.
Since the hijack attacks in the United States on September 11, fears have grown that radical groups could acquire nuclear materials to make dirty bombs, crude devices using conventional explosives to spread radioactive material.
Two weeks ago, U.S. authorities said they had foiled a plot to explode a dirty bomb in the United States.
"What is needed is cradle-to-grave control of powerful radioactive sources to protect them against terrorism or theft," said Mohamed ElBaradei, Director-General of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
ElBaradei was announcing an IAEA-led U.S.-Russian mission to track down nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union, such as portable field generators and agricultural powder.
ElBaradei said many radioactive sources were not protected by the tight security common to nuclear power plants.
"These are sources that are used in everyday life - in medicine, agriculture, industry," ElBaradei said. "Some of these are quite powerful sources that could cause a lot of harm as the result of an accident or an act of violence."
The United States will be spending at least $25 million this year to hunt down nuclear material that has become "orphaned", or no longer regulated, since the Soviet Union's collapse.
On Monday, the IAEA told Reuters a priority would be to recover large quantities of caesium-137, a radioactive powder the Soviets used to keep grain from rotting. A small amount could be deadly if used in a dirty bomb.
In 1987, a canister of caesium abandoned in a junkyard in Brazil contaminated 240 people, four of whom later died.
In 1996, Chechen rebels placed a container with the powder in a Moscow park. Fortunately, it was never dispersed.
Earlier this year, the IAEA helped the former Soviet republic of Georgia recover two canisters of highly radioactive strontium-90. They were part of abandoned military field generators and seriously injured three woodsmen who found them.
While it may be one of the world's biggest risk areas, the countries of the former Soviet Union are not alone in their failure to keep track of nuclear material.
"Even the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission reports that U.S. companies have lost nearly 1,500 radioactive sources within the country since 1996, and more than half were never recovered," the IAEA said.
A European Union study estimated that every year up to 70 radioactive sources were orphaned in the EU. (additional reporting by John Acher in Helsinki).
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US Senate backs stronger non-proliferation efforts
Story by Vicki Allen
REUTERS USA:
June 27, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16603/story.htm
WASHINGTON - Temporarily setting aside a dispute over President George W. Bush's missile defense program, the U.S. Senate yesterday agreed to step up efforts to keep nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists and rogue nations.
On a voice vote, the Senate passed a measure to strengthen programs for safety and security at nuclear facilities and work with countries holding radioactive materials to reduce threats of theft and misuse.
The amendment was accepted as part of a $393 billion defense authorization bill that has stalled in a standoff over Democrats' cuts to Bush's missile defense program that prompted a White House veto threat.
The nuclear nonproliferation measure calls for a $100 million expansion of existing controls and new efforts with Russia to protect and neutralize materials for weapons of mass destruction.
New Mexico Republican Sen. Pete Domenici, one of the measures' sponsors, said it "expands programs to cooperate with more countries in helping to secure their nuclear facilities and radioactive materials. It recognizes that devices that disperse radioactive materials, so-called dirty bombs, can represent a real threat to modern society."
The Senate action came as the General Accounting Office, Congress' investigative agency, reported that U.S. efforts to fight smuggling of nuclear materials domestically and overseas were underfunded and poorly coordinated, leaving the country vulnerable to attack.
The GAO report said the six agencies that control transport of nuclear material - the departments of Defense, Energy and State, the FBI, the Coast Guard and the Customs Service - do not work together effectively and have different systems for using radiation detection equipment at border crossings, making some countries more vulnerable to smuggling.
It also said that while the United States is providing radiation detection equipment to more than 30 countries at a cost of $86 million so far, the Customs Services has not installed similar equipment at U.S. border crossings.
"While we are spending millions of dollars improving Russia's ability to detect illicit nuclear materials trafficking, we haven't made a similar investment in our own border security," said Kansas Republican Sen. Pat Roberts, who released the GAO report.
"Since 1993, we have had 181 confirmed incidents of illicit trafficking of nuclear materials that could be used in weapons," Roberts said.
MISSILE DEFENSE
The Senate was expected to vote later in the day on an effort by Republicans to restore $812 million that Democrats cut from Bush's $7.6 billion request for next year for developing a national missile defense system.
Democrats want to use the money to build more Navy ships and to deal with immediate threats of terrorism, arguing that the high-tech missile defense system may never work and was aimed at the relatively unlikely threat of terrorists or a rogue state launching an intercontinental ballistic missile.
They also said that the $6.8 billion was ample to continue work on a missile defense system next year and that cuts were aimed at duplicative and low-performing programs.
"We have brought to this floor a bill that robustly funds missile defense but asks tough questions about programs that are not adequately justified or are redundant," said Sen. Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat.
But Republicans said the cuts were targeted to gut the missile defense effort they said was key to protecting the country from the threats it faces today.
Democrats cut "just enough - and in some cases more than enough - of certain activities that are involved in the integrated missile defense program to guarantee its failure," said Sen. Thad Cochran, a Mississippi Republican.
-------- treaties
Russia, China Seek to Ban Space Arms
By Clare Nullis
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, June 27, 2002; 12:43 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A55462-2002Jun27?language=printer
GENEVA -- In a challenge to Bush administration plans for a missile defense shield, China and Russia on Thursday submitted a joint proposal to the Conference on Disarmament for a new international treaty to ban weapons in outer space.
It marked the first joint Russia-China initiative on the issue, which has long been a priority for Beijing because of its fears that U.S. development of a missile defense will inevitably involve outer space.
"We support the urgent adoption today of all measures possible in order to prevent the deployment of weapons in outer space, rather than waste subsequently huge efforts and resources to have it "de-weaponized," said Russian Ambassador Leonid Skotnikov.
But the proposal looks certain to deepen the divisions that have dogged the conference - the world's main body for negotiating arms-control treaties - since 1996.
The Russian-Chinese plan followed the U.S. withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in order to permit development of defense systems to guard against terrorist threats.
Russia and China are among many to object to the U.S. withdrawal from the treaty, which they regard as a cornerstone of global efforts to prevent nuclear war.
The conference counts the nuclear test ban treaty and ban on chemical weapons among its achievements. But it has been blocked by differences among the world's major powers over missile defense and other ways to curb nuclear weapons.
The United States denies that it is planning to put weapons in space.
In a speech to the conference, U.S. negotiator Eric M. Javits reiterated Washington's resistance to any type of new regime on outer space.
"The United States sees no need for new outer space arms control agreements and opposes the idea of negotiating a new outer space treaty," he said.
Javits said Washington was prepared to have general discussions on an agreement. But he rejected any suggestion that these discussions would ultimately lead to a legally binding treaty.
China's Hu Xiaodi said the only way forward was a treaty-based prohibition on the deployment of weapons in outer space.
"This is essential for the maintenance of peace and security," Hu said.
The core of the planned treaty should be an agreement not to place in orbit any objects with any kinds of weapons, not to install such weapons on celestial bodies; not to resort to the threat of force against outer space objects; and not to help other countries do likewise.
"All these basic obligations echo the outcry of the international community for the peaceful use of the outer space and nipping the danger of the weaponization of outer space in the bud," he said.
German disarmament ambassador Volker Heinsburg, the current chairman, said that negotiators should urgently address the dangers posed by radiological weapons - such as the dirty bomb.
"The issue of radiological weapons has long been neglected," he said. "Dirty bombs have demonstrated its topicality."
Frustration is mounting in the elegant debatthe atmosphere of the early 1990s, when the conference was the center of global efforts to eliminate weapons of mass destruction thanks to the cooperation that followed the end of the Cold War and the Gulf War.
"We are like a team of swimmers that has never played together, standing at the edge, discussing tactics and the outcome," complained Indian Ambassador Rakesh Sood. "We need to take the plunge and once we do, we will begin to swim because that is all one can do in the pool."
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Canadian firm unveils new design for US nuke plants
Story by Chris Baltimore
REUTERS USA:
June 27, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16596/story.htm
WASHINGTON - A Canadian firm unveiled a smaller, cheaper type of nuclear power plant that it says will help U.S. utilities build new nuclear capacity by the end of the decade, a goal set by the Bush administration.
AECL Technologies Inc., a unit of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., wants to end a two-decade construction hiatus on U.S. nuclear plants with a new design it has proposed for approval by U.S., Canadian and British nuclear regulators.
The design would allow utilities to build nuclear capacity at prices competitive with natural gas, the fuel of choice in recent decades for new electricity plants, AECL said.
Because they are relatively compact and clean, natural gas plants have attracted the lion's share of new plant construction dollars, mostly from the new breed of merchant power companies who independently finance them.
Nuclear plants, which supply about one-fifth of the country's electricity, emit almost none of the smog or soot spewed from by coal-fired power plants. But no new U.S. nuclear plants have been built since the 1979 Three Mile Island accident, in which there was a partial meltdown of a reactor core.
AECL hopes to reverse that trend.
"This is the first viable option for utilities looking to develop nuclear generation capacity today," AECL President Bob Van Adel said in a presentation to reporters.
The firm filed a pre-application for its design with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) last week.
AECL's design calls for a nuclear reactor powered by smaller, individual pressure tubes that contain fissionable uranium, which drives the reactor.
It has a modular design that can be centrally produced in a factory, and a compact "footprint" to replace reactors at existing nuclear plant sites. Operators can replace individual fuel modules in the plant without shutting it down entirely.
EXELON, DOMINION, ENTERGY
In addition to starting construction on plants in China and Romania, AECL wants to sell its design to Exelon Corp. , Dominion Resources Inc. and Entergy Corp. . The three utilities are preparing to apply for early site permits for possible new nuclear reactors.
The firms say they want to keep their options open, but they have no plans to build new nuclear plants at present.
"We're listening, but it's not like we're champing at the bit to do anything there," said Richard Zuercher, a Dominion spokesman. Dominion said AECL made a presentation on its new design earlier this year.
Exelon in April dropped out of an international consortium developing a smaller, cheaper kind of nuclear plant, the pebble bed modular reactor. It will compete with AECL's design.
At a cost of about $1,000 per kilowatt of generation, the 700 megawatt AECL plants would cost about $700 million to build, excluding financing costs. That is about double the cost of a combined-cycle natural gas turbine plant.
Most nuclear plants generate over 1,000 megawatts. One megawatt is enough to power about 1,000 homes.
Once constructed, the new nuclear plants would be able to produce power at $30 per megawatt-hour (mwh), which is competitive to a gas-fired plant's cost of $35-$40 per mwh. Nuclear plants are insulated from price swings in the natural gas market that can push costs up when demand rises.
"We don't see any other designs ready for near-term deployment," Van Adel said. "The new building of new generation will not take place unless the economics are attractive."
US FUNDING FOR APPLICATIONS
Separately, the U.S. Energy Department announced it would help the three utilities pay for their applications to the NRC to obtain an early site permit.
Dominion will seek a permit for its North Anna site in Virginia, Entergy for its Grand Gulf site in Mississippi, and Exelon for its Clinton site in Illinois, the Energy Department said. The permits do not commit a company to building a plant.
The utilities will submit applications by the autumn of 2003 with the aim of winning early site permits by mid-decade.
The Energy Department said it will pay for up to 50 percent of the cost of each early site permit, spending about $17 million in total to help the three companies.
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said the projects are the "first major elements" of the administration's plan to help industry build at least one new nuclear power plant by 2010.
The administration aims to spend $38.5 million in fiscal 2003 on permit applications and nuclear technology research to help the industry.
-------- connecticut
NRC issues fine for missing fuel rods at nuclear plant
REUTERS USA:
June 27, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16593/story.htm
WASHINGTON - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission proposed this week fining the owners of the Millstone nuclear power plant in Connecticut $288,000 for losing two of the reactor's radioactive fuel rods.
The NRC has ordered tighter security at nuclear power plants following the Sept. 11 attacks to not only protect the facilities from sabotage but also to keep terror groups from obtaining radioactive material that could be wrapped around conventional explosives to make a so-called "dirty bomb."
The agency said it found no evidence that the rods were stolen. "The very high radiation level of the material would have made theft difficult, dangerous and highly unlikely," NRC said.
Northeast Utilities , the former operator of the Millstone plant, told the NRC in November 2000 that two fuel rods from the facility's unit 1 reactor were unaccounted for when the company conducted an inventory of rods in the plant's storage pool.
The company said that the fuel rods had most likely been cut into segments and sent to a low-level radioactive waste facility along with other irradiated reactor hardware sometime between March 1985 and December 1992.
The NRC agreed with the company's conclusions, but still levied a fine on the plant's new owners - Dominion Resources' subsidiary Dominion Nuclear Connecticut.
"Notwithstanding the fact that there was no realistic threat, past or present to the public health and safety, the loss of highly radioactive fuel rods is unprecedented and is a very significant violation," NRC said in a letter Dominion.
Dominion has 30 days to respond to the proposed fine.
-------- us nuc waste
Yucca Mountain Shipments Called Mobile Chernobyl
June 27, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2002/2002-06-27-09.asp#anchor1
WASHINGTON, DC, More than 100,000 shipments, each carrying 240 times the radioactive material released at Hiroshima, could rumble through hundreds of U.S. communities if the Senate gives final approval to the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, charges the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG).
A report by U.S. PIRG, "Radioactive Roads and Rails: Hauling Nuclear Waste Through our Neighborhoods," details the Department of Energy's (DOE) proposal to ship more than 77,000 tons of radioactive waste from across the country to Yucca Mountain, Nevada.
The report shows that 44 states could see 105,985 truck shipments or 18,243 rail shipments of highly radioactive waste over the course of 38 years.
Shipments of nuclear waste would travel on interstate and local highways as well as mainline rail routes. Other waste shipments could be carried by barge over waterways like Lake Michigan, the Mississippi River and the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
"Commuters on our highways could find themselves stuck in traffic behind three and a half tons of nuclear waste," said U.S. PIRG staff attorney Pierre Sadik. "Tens of thousands of shipments of highly radioactive waste over four decades is going to put too many people in harm's way."
The DOE intends to ship the waste in transportation casks, but size and weight limitations make it impossible to build a transportation cask that does not leak some radiation, U.S. PIRG charges. The DOE acknowledges that a truck carrying a nuclear waste cask will emit the equivalent of one chest x-ray per hour of radiation to those who are caught in traffic nearby, the group says.
"In the best case scenario, these shipments are rolling x-ray machines," said Sadik. "In the worst case scenario, these shipments are mobile Chernobyls."
One DOE estimate found that there could be as many as 310 accidents in the course of transporting the radioactive waste across the country. There have been at least eight reported nuclear waste transportation accidents in the U.S. involving radioactive contamination of transport vehicles, roads and rails.
"The Bush Administration still doesn't know if the casks used to ship this waste are even safe," said Kevin Curtis, vice president of the National Environmental Trust. "Not one of these casks has been certified in a physical test, but only analyzed by computer simulation. The Bush Administration admits that there will be accidents in shipping this waste, and that those accidents could generate forces 'capable of damaging the cask'."
Local emergency officials say they do not have the training or equipment to respond to a severe nuclear waste accident. The DOE has not adjusted its transportation plans to compensate for the potential of terrorist attacks after the September 11 attacks, U.S. PIRG says.
The Yucca Mountain project involves the movement of nuclear waste from 131 locations, over thousands of miles of roadway and rail lines that cannot be secured from attacks, creating an opportunity for sabotage in communities across America.
"At the end of the road, under this ill conceived plan, the waste will be dumped at Yucca Mountain - a volcano on an aquifer in an earthquake zone," said Sadik. "It's time for the Senate to say no to this dangerous transportation scheme and to stop the Yucca Mountain project."
"Radioactive Roads and Rails" is available at: http://uspirg.org/
-------- us politics
Hitting the trifecta
Bush's favorite joke about 9/11 is not only in bad taste, it's a lie
June 27 - Professional stand-up comedians know that Sept. 11 jokes are radioactive. Not even the bravest have tried to turn the deaths of some 3,000 people into a laughing matter. But President Bush has forged ahead anyway. Bush has now been telling the same, spectacularly tasteless joke to a variety of mostly Republican audiences as part of his stock stump speech for the better part of four months now.
THIS IS its basic telling: "You know, when I was running for president, in Chicago, somebody said, would you ever have deficit spending? I said, only if we were at war, or only if we had a recession, or only if we had a national emergency. Never did I dream we'd get the trifecta."
According to the transcripts, this joke usually elicits laughter from the mostly GOP crowds to whom Bush tells it.
So far, the president has told the joke on the record at least 14 times. It originated, evidently, as an anecdote he told to business leaders Oct. 3 - three weeks after the terrorist attacks - when he explained his three-part reasoning for going into deficit spending.
Bush appears to have added the "trifecta" joke for the first time before a group of visiting Republicans at the White House on Nov. 9. He pulled it out again for a huddle with congressional GOP leaders on Feb. 1. Since then, Bush apparently decided to make it part of his stump speech, beginning with a GOP luncheon on Feb. 27. The tellings have come more regularly, and have been largely at GOP fund-raising functions. The most recent appearance of the joke was June 14, at a reception for Texas Gov. Rick Perry's re-election campaign in Houston.
Bush appears to give "trifecta" a sort of rueful, ironic meaning. But therein also lies the morbid edge: After all, Bush - who in the weeks preceding the tragedy faced mounting questions about his ability as well as his legitimacy, all of which vanished afterward - is possibly the only American for whom Sept. 11 was indeed a stroke of incredible good fortune.
However, the real problem with the joke is that it is a complete falsehood.
NO LAUGHING MATTER
Bush never told any audience, or any reporter, in Chicago that he could foresee three conditions under which deficit spending might be necessary. In fact, throughout the entire campaign, Bush had been insistent that budget surpluses would continue, and only once does he appear to have told any public audience at any time that deficit spending might become necessary - a Sept. 22, 2000, interview with Paula Zahn, in which he defended his tax cuts even in the face of a "short-term deficit." The only other times that Bush ever seems to have brought up the subject of deficit spending were those when he accused Al Gore of planning to resume the practice.
When pursued by reporters, the White House press office has been unable to come up with any evidence that Bush ever made the original remarks that he claims. Jonathan Chait first pointed this out in the New Republic, and a number of other journalists have gone looking.
This has made for some uncomfortable moments for the administration's defenders. Tim Russert, on Sunday's Meet the Press, tried to confront OMB chief Mitch Daniels about it:
Russert: "Now, we have checked everywhere and we've even called the White House as to when the president said that when he was campaigning in Chicago, and it didn't happen. The closest he came was he was asked, 'Would you give up part of your tax cut in order to ensure a balanced budget?' And he said, 'No.' But no one ever talked about a war, a recession and an emergency, the trifecta. ... [It] was not talked about in the campaign by the president, and the White House keeps saying, 'Oh, yes, he made that caveat.' No one can find it."
Daniels demurred, declaring, "I'm not the White House librarian," but claimed that he had often heard Bush make those three reservations.
THE TIMELINE
Bush's story, moreover, is fundamentally false as a purely chronological matter: Bush was already facing the certainty of deficit spending at the end of the summer of 2001, well before the attacks of Sept. 11. Some $4 trillion worth of budget surplus vanished over the spring and summer that year, and budget experts sounded the alarm about looming deficits then. The Congressional Budget Office warned Bush on Aug. 29 that Social Security funds would be needed to balance the books, forcing him to abandon a campaign promise not to use the retirement fund for other government spending.
Indeed, that is just what Bush proceeded to do in his actual budget, presented in January. According to the CBO, Bush's budget plan would drain every dollar of the $527 billion surplus from the Social Security Trust Fund for the next two fiscal years even while creating a deficit. It would continue to raid the fund for varying amounts each year through 2012. Even with the fund's help, the federal budget is expected to be in deficits through at least 2005.
Most economists peg the source of these nagging deficits on Bush's tax-cut plan, the deepest portions of which loom ahead. The administration sternly denies this. Yet it's clear that while Sept. 11 may have deepened and broadened the budget-deficit problem, the administration was faced with chronic budget deficits no matter what.
And that gets to the heart of the "trifecta" joke, whose entire purpose clearly is to blame the deficit on Sept. 11 and its aftermath. It lets Bush escape any serious questions about either his failure to balance the budget or, particularly, his campaign pledge to use the Social Security Trust Fund to pay down the national debt. The national tragedy gave him unparalleled political cover for his administration's failures - and Bush has displayed no hesitation whatsoever about using it. Indeed, it has become his favorite joke.
POLITICAL OPPORTUNISM
Never mind that it is perhaps the most tasteless and insensitive joke in the annals of the presidency, or that it is ultimately a falsehood. What's really noteworthy about Tale of the Trifecta is that the in-your-face political opportunism it represents is not out of the ordinary for this administration.
Since Sept. 11, Bush and his Republican colleagues have at every turn used the threat of terrorist attacks as cover for the administration's difficulties:
Attorney General John Ashcroft attacked critics of his anti-terrorism measures in December by telling the Senate Judiciary Committee that opponents of the administration "only aid terrorists" and "give ammunition to America's enemies."
When Democratic leaders in the Senate - particularly Majority Leader Tom Daschle - questioned Bush's handling of the war on terrorism, they drew accusations of "aiding and abetting the enemy" and dark suggestions about their patriotism.
When questions emerged in early May about what Bush and his advisers knew about terrorist threats before Sept. 11 and Democrats began pushing for an independent investigation, the administration issued a series of warnings of yet more potentially imminent terrorist attacks. The criticism largely subsided.
Four days after proposing, amid skepticism, a Cabinet-level Homeland Security department, the administration announced the arrest of a man suspected of plotting with al-Qaida agents to set off a radioactive "dirty bomb" in an American city. As it happens, the arrest had occurred a month before.
A POLITICAL JACKPOT
There have been other, less clear incidents suggesting a willingness to use Sept. 11 and its aftermath as not just a political shield, but a weapon. This probably should not be a surprise: after all, one need only recall Karl Rove's instructions to the Republican National Committee last January to make the war on terrorism a political issue.
Perhaps because Republicans have been so open about turning Sept. 11 to their political advantage, they have created an environment in which a joke such as Bush's "trifecta" quip seems nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, Bush keeps telling the joke even after it's been pointed out, on national television, that he's telling a falsehood.
In the face of that kind of chutzpah, no one inside the Beltway seems capable of pointing out that the emperor's joke has no clothes. Given the GOP's propensity for questioning others' patriotism, it probably isn't politically smart for anyone working in Washington to point out that Bush might have seen a national disaster as a political jackpot. Problem is, it's the president himself who insists on making that suggestion.
David Neiwert is a Seattle-based free-lance journalist. His reportage on domestic terrorism for MSNBC.com won a 2000 National Press Club award for distinguished online journalism.
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Judges Ban Pledge of Allegiance From Schools, Citing 'Under God'
New York Times
June 27, 2002
By EVELYN NIEVES
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/27/national/27PLED.html
SAN FRANCISCO, June 26 - A federal appeals court here declared today that the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional because the phrase "one nation under God" violates the separation of church and state.
In a decision that drew protest across the political spectrum, a three-member panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the pledge, as it exists in federal law, could not be recited in schools because it violates the First Amendment's prohibition against a state endorsement of religion.
In addition, the ruling, which will certainly be appealed, turned on the phrase "under God" which Congress added in 1954 to one of the most hallowed patriotic traditions in the nation.
From a constitutional standpoint, those two words, Judge Alfred T. Goodwin wrote in the 2-to-1 decision, were just as objectionable as a statement that "we are a nation `under Jesus,' a nation `under Vishnu,' a nation `under Zeus,' or a nation `under no god,' because none of these professions can be neutral with respect to religion."
If it stands, the decision by the nation's most liberal appellate court would take effect in several months, banning the pledge from being recited in schools in the nine Western states under the court's jurisdiction: Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.
The panel's decision prompted an immediate reaction in Washington, where senators unanimously passed a resolution condemning the ruling and where dozens of House members gathered on the Capitol steps to recite the pledge and sing "God Bless America."
The White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said President Bush called the decision "ridiculous," and many legal experts said they expected it to be reversed on appeal.
The ruling came in a lawsuit filed in Federal District Court in Sacramento by an atheist, Michael A. Newdow, whose daughter attended elementary school in the Elk Grove Unified School District near the state capital.
Although under a 1943 ruling by the United States Supreme Court, children cannot be forced to recite the pledge, Dr. Newdow, an emergency room doctor with a law degree acting as his own lawyer, argued that his daughter's First Amendment rights were harmed because she was forced to "watch and listen as her state-employed teacher in her state-run school leads her classmates in a ritual proclaiming that there is a God, and that ours is `one nation under God.' "
The National Conference of State Legislatures says half the states require the pledge as part of the school day and half a dozen more recommend it. In the burst of patriotism that followed the Sept. 11 terrorism attacks, bills to make the oath mandatory have been introduced in Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Mississippi and Missouri.
The Ninth Circuit panel's majority consisted of Judge Goodwin, a 79-year-old jurist appointed in 1971 by President Richard M. Nixon, and Stephen Reinhardt, a 71-year-old member of the court since 1980, when President Jimmy Carter appointed him. Writing for the majority, Judge Goodwin said the school district is "conveying a message of state endorsement of a religious belief when it requires public school teachers to recite, and lead the recitation of the current form of the pledge."
"Given the age and impressionability of schoolchildren," he added, "particularly within the confined environment of the classroom, the policy is highly likely to convey an impermissible message of endorsement to some and disapproval to others of their beliefs regarding the existence of a monotheistic God."
The "under God" clause of the pledge, the panel argued, was added by Congress solely to advance religion in order to differentiate the United States from nations under atheistic Communist rule.
"Such a purpose," Judge Goodwin wrote, runs counter to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, "which prohibits the government's endorsement or advancement not only of one particular religion at the expense of other religions, but also of religion at the expense of atheism."
The two judges issuing the decision acknowledged that the Supreme Court had occasionally commented in nonbinding decisions that the presence of "one nation under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance is constitutional. But, the judges said, "the court has never been presented with the question directly."
The panel also noted that the Supreme Court had ruled that students could not hold religious invocations at graduations.
In 1984, several liberal members of the Supreme Court, including Thurgood Marshall, Harry A. Blackmun, John Paul Stevens and William J. Brennan Jr., said references like "In God We Trust," which appears on United States currency and coins, were protected from the Establishment Clause because their religious significance had been lost through rote repetition.
The dissenting judge in today's ruling, Ferdinand F. Fernandez, expressed concern that the ruling could be applied to other expressions of patriotism.
"We will soon find ourselves prohibited from using our album of patriotic songs in many public settings," wrote Judge Fernandez, 63, who was appointed in 1980 by President Bush's father. " `God Bless America' and `America the Beautiful' will be gone for sure, and while the first and second stanzas of `The Star-Spangled Banner' will still be permissible, we will be precluded from straying into the third."
Praise for the panel's decision was muted. Joe Conn, a spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said that while he supported the decision, it should not be seen as a finding against the entire pledge.
"They didn't strike down the Pledge of Allegiance," Mr. Conn said. "All they said is Congress made a mistake when they added God to the pledge."
Arthur Hayes, a law professor at Quinnipiac University, called the decision a "well-reasoned opinion that is certain to enrage the Christian right."
But criticism of the decision was swift and, mostly, harsh. The Senate halted debate on a military bill to work on a resolution criticizing the ruling. Politicians of all political stripes reeled off faxes to reporters condemning the decision. Gov. George E. Pataki of New York called the decision "junk justice." Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the Democratic leader, called it "nuts."
Steve Duprey, the retired chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party, who is still active in national Republican politics, said that the decision was "so out of tune with what Americans believe, I don't think it will be a hot political issue in this campaign, because I don't think Republicans or Democrats will agree with it."
The most vehement reactions came from conservative religious groups.
"I think the opinion is absurd," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, which is aligned with the Christian Coalition. "This is the first court to hold the pledge with the phrase `with one nation under God' is unconstitutional. They've created a constitutional crisis for no reason."
The Rev. Jerry Falwell said the ruling was "appalling."
"This is probably the worst ruling of any federal appellate court in history," Mr. Falwell said, adding that he had started a petition drive this afternoon to gather a million signatures by Friday to urge the Supreme Court to reverse the panel's ruling immediately.
Legal experts said today's decision would most likely be reversed by the full appeals court, if not the Supreme Court.
Christopher Landau, an appellate lawyer with Kirkland & Ellis in Washington, and a former clerk for Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, said he was certain that the Supreme Court would reverse the decision.
"In their heart of hearts, I don't think the justices would ever think that this kind of a practice is unconstitutional," Mr. Landau said. "And I think that they'll probably say that this is a tradition and that it is primarily ceremonial."
Mr. Newdow told The Associated Press today that the decision validated his point that it was wrong to force his daughter to listen to the pledge.
He also said that he and his family had been threatened because of the lawsuit and that the threats were "personal and scary."
"I could be dead tomorrow," Mr. Newdow said.
---------
EPA officials trying to avoid subpoena being considered by Senate committee
Thursday, June 27, 2002
By John Heilprin,
Associated Press
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/06/06272002/ap_47671.asp
WASHINGTON - Environmental Protection Agency officials met with Senate aides Wednesday as they tried to avoid a subpoena for agency documents on a Bush administration proposal to relax pollution controls on some coal-burning power plants.
The chairman of the Senate Environment Committee said he would decide Thursday whether to ask his committee to issue the subpoena to EPA Administrator Christie Whitman.
Sen. James M. Jeffords, I-Vt., said he had the votes to compel Whitman to appear before the committee on July 11 if she does not provide the documents and e-mails sought. "I still hope we don't have to issue subpoenas," he said in an interview. "The information is extremely important to understand why the administration has withheld information which could help us out. We're talking about the lives of people and the impact of pollution that comes from power plants and can result in death."
The skirmish is the latest in an effort by Congress to learn what information the administration has relied on in forming its energy and environmental policies. Earlier this year, the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, sued Vice President Dick Cheney to obtain emails and other documents involved in Bush's energy policy proposals.
EPA Associate Administrator Edward D. Krenik wrote Jeffords in May to say he was providing about 700 pages of documents and spreadsheets on the New Source Review program, including some blacked-out material about pending enforcement cases against utilities. But he said the agency was withholding some documents on power plant emissions estimates and analyses of potential reductions, including proposals made during confidential legal negotiations.
EPA officials also have said they will wait to give more information to the committee until after the White House Office of Management and Budget finishes reviewing the proposed rule changes, which could take up to three months.
In May, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., issued the first congressional subpoenas to the administration for what he called stonewalling on demands for Enron Corp. records.
The subpoena to Whitman, which has been prepared, seeks all documents in its Washington, D.C., and North Carolina offices analyzing or discussing the effects the EPA's decision would have on future emissions under the Clean Air Act. That includes the administration's deliberations, the role the utility industry played in shaping the new rules, and the projected impact on air quality and enforcement efforts.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Top Lawmakers Urge Bush to Expand Afghan Force Beyond Kabul
New York Times
June 27, 2002
By JAMES DAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/27/international/asia/27SECU.html
WASHINGTON, June 26 - Senior senators from both parties urged the Bush administration today to support expansion of an international security force in Afghanistan to cities other than Kabul, citing the growing power of regional warlords and a rise in rural lawlessness.
The Bush administration and its European allies have consistently resisted expansion of the force, which currently patrols only Kabul, because of the cost, a lack of manpower and concerns about Afghan hostility toward foreign soldiers.
But both the Democratic chairman and the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee asserted in a hearing today that the reconstruction of Afghanistan would be nearly impossible without a nationwide security force, and they called on the Bush administration to rethink its position.
"After the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, America turned its back as the country disintegrated," the committee chairman, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, said in a prepared statement. "President Bush has promised not to repeat this mistake."
His views were echoed by the committee's senior Republican, Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, who said expansion of the security force is "vitally important" to help the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, defeat "the threat posed by extremists, warlords and terrorists."
"Afghanistan is not out of the woods yet," Senator Lugar said.
In testimony before the committee, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz said that the Bush administration was not categorically opposed to expanding the unit, known as the International Security Assistance Force. But he said Turkey, which is leading the unit, and most of the other 17 nations that contribute troops oppose expansion because they do not want to send more soldiers to Afghanistan.
"They feel Kabul itself is enough of a challenge," Mr. Wolfowitz said following the hearing. "There aren't lots of people coming forward to volunteer for this mission."
Some diplomats and aid officials in Kabul have argued that Turkey would support expansion of the 4,500-member security force if the United States helped pay the bill and provided some of the additional soldiers. The United States, which has 7,000 soldiers in Afghanistan helping to hunt for Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, does not contribute troops to the security force.
Asked repeatedly by Senator Biden and Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, whether the United States would be willing to provide troops to expand the unit, Mr. Wolfowitz replied that the Pentagon would prefer to focus on rooting out Al Qaeda and Taliban forces.
In addition, President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld have been opposed to using American soldiers on peacekeeping missions, arguing that it detracts from their war-fighting skills.
In Afghanistan, President Karzai and many humanitarian aid groups have endorsed expansion of the security force to regional centers like Mazar-i-Sharif, Herat and Kandahar.
In particular, those advocates have cited recent reports from Mazar-i-Sharif of factional fighting among rival warlords and attacks on humanitarian aid workers that have caused at least one aid organization to shut down its operations in the region.
Some analysts estimate that 20,000 more troops would be needed to expand the security force nationwide. But others have argued that the job could be accomplished with fewer than 5,000 additional troops.
-------- china
Chinese jet fighters fly near U.S. spy plane
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
June 27, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020627-14770304.htm
Two Chinese jet fighters came within 150 feet of a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft near China in the first close encounter since a collision last year between an EP-3 and a Chinese jet, The Washington Times has learned.
The encounter took place in international airspace near the Chinese coast north of Taiwan on Monday, said officials familiar with intelligence reports of the incident.
Two F-7 interceptors flew parallel to a U.S. Navy P-3 surveillance aircraft and for a period of minutes flew very close to the propeller-driven plane, the officials said.
"The Chinese are getting closer to our planes," said a U.S. intelligence official, who noted that the latest aerial intercept was a troubling sign.
Another official, however, said the intercept, while closer than in the past, was "professional and non-threatening."
The timing of the latest encounter between Chinese and U.S. aircraft came as a senior Pentagon official held talks with Chinese military and defense officials in Beijing.
A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment directly on the latest incident but sought to play down other recent encounters.
"The Chinese intercepts are being handled with a greater degree of professionalism and airmanship than they were prior to the EP-3 incident," said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Davis.
"Though they continue to respond to our flights, there's been an improvement," he said.
On April 1, 2001, a Chinese F-8 interceptor flew so close to a U.S. EP-3 that it collided with the aircraft and crashed into the South China Sea, killing the Chinese pilot.
The Pentagon blamed the Chinese pilot for acting recklessly.
The U.S. aircraft nearly crashed but managed to make an emergency landing at a Chinese military base on Hainan island in the South China Sea.
The 24 U.S. military crew members on board were imprisoned by Chinese forces for 11 days and interrogated. China then forced the U.S. government to dismantle the aircraft and transport it to the United States aboard a transport plane.
China's handling of the affair prompted Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to sharply curtail military exchanges between the United States and China.
Cmdr. Davis, the Pentagon spokesman, said Chinese jet fighter intercepts continue occurring "at about the same rate as before" the April 2001 incident.
However, other officials said earlier intercepts by Chinese fighters took place at much greater and safer distances than the incident Monday.
In one 2001 encounter, an F-8 jet flew within 500 feet of a P-3 patrol aircraft on Jan. 7. A second intercept occurred Nov. 7, when a Chinese jet flew within 1,000 feet of a U.S. RC-135 reconnaissance jet flying along the Chinese coast. Several weeks before that encounter, an EP-3 was intercepted by a Chinese fighter, which kept some 1,000 feet away.
Prior to the intercepts late last year, Chinese jets had kept at distances of up to several miles from patrolling U.S. military aircraft. All of the encounters have occurred in international airspace 50 to 100 miles from Chinese territory.
U.S. intelligence officials said the latest intercept of 150 feet is a sign the Chinese military appears to be stepping up harassment of U.S. surveillance aircraft. The P-3 was conducting intelligence gathering of large-scale Chinese war games now under way opposite Taiwan. Some 100,000 Chinese troops are involved in the annual exercises.
Yesterday, Peter Rodman, assistant defense secretary for international security affairs, concluded three days of talks with Chinese officials on restarting the military exchange program that was halted after the EP-3 incident, Cmdr. Davis said.
During the meetings, Mr. Rodman met with Chinese Lt. Gen. Xiong Guangkai, deputy chief of staff for intelligence, Vice Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing and Chinese Defense Minister Chi Haotian.
"The purpose of the visit was to explore the resumption of U.S.-China military-to-military exchanges in accordance with recent conversations between President Bush and Chinese President Jiang Zemin, as well as between Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Chinese President Hu Jintao," Cmdr. Davis said.
He said no agreements were reached on military exchanges and that Mr. Rodman would brief the defense secretary after he returns Friday. Discussions are to continue, he said.
Mr. Rodman "dealt candidly with problems that had arisen in the past," he said, but the talks were "constructive in spirit."
The Pentagon is demanding the Chinese contribute more in the way of the exchanges than in the past.
Critics of the exchanges say China has used its access to U.S. military facilities to gain valuable insights into U.S. war-fighting capabilities. China's military has refused to allow U.S. military personnel near any of its growing arsenal of advanced weapons, primarily missiles.
The EP-3 incident in 2001 aroused widespread anti-U.S. sentiment in China that was promoted by the Chinese government, defense officials have said.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon's top China policy-maker, Peter Brookes, resigned last week for unspecified reasons, a Pentagon spokesman said.
Mr. Brookes served as deputy assistant defense secretary for East Asia for less than a year and had been criticized by some conservatives as ineffective.
Cmdr. Davis gave no reason for the departure but said it was an "amicable parting."
The Washington Times reported in August that Mr. Brookes was leaving because he lacked the support of his superiors.
-------- drug war
Court Approves Random Drug Tests for Many Students
New York Times
June 27, 2002
By DAVID STOUT
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/27/national/27CND-DRUG.html
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Mexico-US-Drugs.html
Full Text: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=01-332&friend=nytimes
WASHINGTON, June 27 - The Supreme Court approved random drug-testing for many high school students today, ruling that the interest of educators in keeping drugs out of school outweighs privacy considerations.
The 5-to-4 ruling authorizes a substantial expansion in testing of public school students. The High Court previously upheld random testing for student-athletes.
Today, the Court said drug tests were permissible as a condition for participating in any extracurricular activity that involves interscholastic competition, including the chorus, the band and the Future Homemakers of America.
"We find that testing students who participate in extracurricular activities is a reasonably effective means of addressing the school district's legitimate concerns in preventing, deterring and detecting drug use," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority.
"Students who participate in competitive extracurricular activities voluntarily subject themselves to many of the same intrusions on their privacy as do athletes," Justice Thomas added.
He was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Stephen G. Breyer.
In dissenting, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the testing program under scrutiny, that of a school district in Pottawatomie County, Okla., "is not reasonable, it is capricious, even perverse."
By aiming their testing at students who want to participate in extracurricular activities, Justice Ginsburg said, school officials are going after those young people least likely to be in danger from illicit drugs. The other dissenters were Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, John Paul Stevens and David H. Souter.
The opinions in the case, Board of Education of Independent School District No. 92 of Pottawatomie County v. Earls, 01-332, can be read on the Supreme Court web site: www.supremecourtus.gov.
The decision overturned a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, in Denver, which found in 2001 that the testing program adopted in 1998 was unreasonable because Pottawatomie officials had not shown there was a specific problem for which drug testing was a solution.
Today's ruling went against Lindsay Earls, an honor student who graduated from the district's Tecumseh High School a year ago and whose sister is still a student there.
Lindsay Earls tested negative, but she and another student sued on grounds the test was accusatory and humiliating. The testing program was suspended after the suits were filed; while it was active, three students out of 505 tested positive. All were athletes.
When the case was argued before the Supreme Court on March 19, the Bush administration argued that a schoolwide drug-testing program, not just one for extracurricular participants, would be constitutional. The High Court has not taken up that issue.
The majority rejected the suggestion that the random drug-testing might amount to an "unreasonable" search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment. That consideration is more appropriate for criminal cases, the majority said.
Both Justice Thomas and Justice Breyer, in a concurring opinion, emphasized that they were not passing judgment on whether the Oklahoma district's testing policy was wise. They simply said it was constitutional.
Justice Ginsburg said the majority ruling was both unconstitutional and unwise, that it set a poor example. Borrowing a quote from a Supreme Court ruling of 1943, she saw a need for "scrupulous protection of Constitutional freedoms of the individual, if we are not to strangle the free mind at its source and teach youth to discount important principles of our government as mere platitudes."
-------- israel / palestine
Palestinian Authority Sets a January Vote
New York Times
June 27, 2002
By JAMES BENNET
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/27/international/middleeast/27PALE.html
JERUSALEM, June 26 - Yasir Arafat's Palestinian Authority officially announced plans today to hold elections for president and legislative offices in January as part of a broad proposal for civic and security reform that stopped short of President Bush's demand for Mr. Arafat's replacement.
One Palestinian minister said that Mr. Arafat planned to run again, while others said it was too early to predict who the presidential candidates might be. Mr. Arafat's Palestinian critics said they were confident that their long-serving leader would not be stepping aside voluntarily.
Hussam Khader, a Palestinian legislator and one of the most passionate critics of Mr. Arafat within his Fatah movement, said that Mr. Bush's comments had guaranteed that Mr. Arafat would stay in power for years to come.
Paraphrasing Mr. Bush, he went on: "When he said `I don't want Yasir Arafat, and I want a new leadership,' then he emotionally pushed the Palestinian people to re-elect Yasir Arafat. This is the worst thing he mentioned in his speech. This will give new life to Yasir Arafat and his corrupt people."
In a sign of how difficult Mr. Bush's vision of a mature Palestinian democracy may be to achieve, Mr. Khader said that he did not plan to run for re-election himself, having given up on the possibility that the Legislature could be a meaningful, independent voice. He added that after Mr. Bush's speech even he was now reluctant to call for Mr. Arafat's replacement.
Mr. Arafat "will run, sure he will run," Mr. Khader said. "No one will beat him. Yasir Arafat, he's still the symbol."
Palestinian officials warned that they would not be able to conduct elections until Israeli forces withdraw from the West Bank towns they have occupied and take up the positions they held in September 2000, before the latest conflict began. In his speech, Mr. Bush suggested that Israel withdraw, but only after violence subsides.
In a further complication, Palestinian officials said that they expected Palestinians living in Jerusalem to vote in the elections, as they did in 1996. But Prime Minister Ariel Sharon calls Jerusalem Israel's eternal, undivided capital, and might resist such an expression of alternative sovereignty.
In his speech Monday, Mr. Bush called for free elections and, without mentioning Mr. Arafat by name, demanded new Palestinian leadership "not compromised by terror."
American officials said that before calling for Mr. Arafat's removal Mr. Bush received intelligence showing that the Palestinian leader had helped finance a group, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, that is behind suicide bombings that have killed Israelis as recently as last week. Israeli officials said that they had recently shown such intelligence to the White House.
Aides to Mr. Arafat dismissed the accusation as Israeli propaganda.
Mr. Arafat was overwhelmingly elected in 1996, in the only previous presidential election in the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority was created by the Oslo accords to provide limited self-government to Palestinians in parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the lands Israel occupied in 1967.
Meeting with reporters today in Jericho, Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said, "President Arafat officially declared today that the election of the president of the Palestinian Authority and the election of the Palestinian Legislative Council will be held in January 2003."
Jericho is the only one of eight major Palestinian cities and towns in the West Bank that has not been re-taken by Israeli ground forces and placed under curfew. Israel announced a new policy of seizing territory under the control of the Palestinian Authority according to Oslo after two suicide bombings last week killed 26 Israelis. Israel says it will hold the territory until the attacks cease.
Nabil Shaath, the Palestinian planning minister, said that Mr. Arafat had told him he planned to run for president. But Yasir Abed Rabbo, the minister of information and culture, said that it was premature to talk about who might run.
Citing the growing popularity of the militant Islamic group Hamas, Mr. Shaath said that Hamas "might even take over a majority of the Parliament."
But Hamas leaders, strict opponents of Oslo, have said they would not participate in elections that are tied to the accords, which were negotiated almost 10 years ago and are now all but without force.
The "100 Days Plan" of reform released today, which confirmed details reported previously, was drawn up by a committee of ministers appointed by Mr. Arafat. It was forwarded to Washington and Arab capitals on Monday, in anticipation that Mr. Bush would call for thorough changes in Palestinian governance.
The plan calls for sharp separation of powers, new consolidation and discipline of the multiple security agencies and school curricula renouncing fanaticism and emphasizing democratic values.
In particular, all tax revenue and other income to the Palestinian Authority would be deposited in one treasury account; official commercial and investment operations are to be run by a single "Palestinian Investment Fund" with strict, independent auditing.
The plan also requests new regulations spelling out the duties of Palestinian governors, who are appointed by Mr. Arafat and sometimes clash with local officials. The governors will now report to the minister of interior - who, under the proposed reforms, would be a powerful official overseeing internal security in the West Bank and Gaza, a senior Palestinian official said.
In a sign of the basic level at which Palestinians are seeking to rationalize their governance, the plan commits the Palestinian Authority to "put into force all laws that have been passed."
Palestinian officials have repeatedly said that Israeli blockades and military attacks have crippled their institutions; for example, many legislators, like Mr. Khader, are unable to travel from their home cities to Ramallah to meet.
But Mr. Arafat has also ignored the Legislature when it suited him. Only last month did he sign a so-called Basic Law, a sort of constitution guaranteeing basic rights to Palestinians, that the Legislature passed five years ago. It is still not known for certain what version of the law he signed, but today's plan declares that "the Basic Law will be published in the Official Gazette no later than" July 15.
--------
Bush Says Palestinians Will Lose Aid if They Keep Arafat
New York Times
June 27, 2002
By DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/27/international/middleeast/27PREX.html
CALGARY, Alberta, June 26 - President Bush told his key allies today that the United States would cut off aid to the Palestinians if they failed to embrace the kind of changes he demanded on Monday.
Stepping up his pressure for the removal of Yasir Arafat, he warned that "we won't be putting money into a society" dominated by corrupt leadership that helps to finance terrorists.
Mr. Bush's warning came as he met with Britain's prime minister, Tony Blair, who became the first major ally to come close to embracing Mr. Bush's new approach to the Middle East. But on the sidelines of today's summit meeting of the Group of 8 major industrial nations, held in a mountain resort 60 miles from here, officials of other nations, including Russia, warned that the threats could backfire and result in a resounding electoral mandate for Mr. Arafat.
The Palestinian Authority today formally announced a 100-day timetable for reform that had been sent to Mr. Bush and Arab leaders before Mr. Bush's speech on Monday. Elections for president will be held in January, the Palestinians confirmed, although there were conflicting reports from senior officials about whether Mr. Arafat would run.
Without mentioning Mr. Arafat by name, Mr. Bush told reporters today, "I've got confidence in the Palestinians, when they understand fully what we're saying, that they'll make the right decisions." But then he warned, "I can assure you, we won't be putting money into a society which is not transparent - and corrupt - and I suspect other countries won't either."
Within hours, a senior administration official briefing reporters by telephone from the meeting site, in Kananaskis, took the warning a step further, saying that while the Palestinian people were free to re-elect Mr. Arafat, they should know that it would cost them significant aid.
"We respect democratic processes," the official said, "but there are consequences."
The United States does not give money directly to the Palestinians, but channels it through nongovernmental organizations, the United Nations and the World Bank.
Mr. Bush's warning and the comments of his aide went significantly beyond those Tuesday by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who said that if Mr. Arafat were re-elected, the United States would find a way to deal with the situation.
Clearly, some of Mr. Bush's summit partners were uncomfortable. The European allies, who have often expressed more sympathy for the Palestinians and their cause, may be reluctant to countenance a cutoff of funds, particularly humanitarian aid.
By the end of the day, the eight leaders, who were supposed to discuss ways to combat terrorism, issued a vague document promising more cooperation on policing international transportation, from passenger aircraft to the millions of containers that are shipped around the world. Many experts fear the container trade could provide an easy way to send a bomb or a biological weapon into a harbor.
The document by the eight - representing the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Japan and Russia - calls for the collection and sharing of advance information about passengers, reinforcing cockpit doors and improving worldwide notification about lost or stolen passports.
But the accord on containers illustrated the obstacles. Some of the changes, including sharing electronic customs information about the contents of containers, will not be implemented until 2005.
"There is enormous room here for mischief," one senior American official said in the days before the summit meeting began. "This is one of the biggest threats, and the hardest to police. How do you find a bio-weapon in a collection of household goods?"
American officials reported tonight that they had not yet struck an agreement over a plan to spend $20 billion over the next 10 years to clean up biological and nuclear weapons sites in Russia. Under an American proposal, European countries and Japan would collectively pay half of that amount, but officials from those countries said they have not been given sufficient access to Russian sites to make sure their money would be well spent.
Throughout the day's discussions, American officials found themselves explaining to their allies Mr. Bush's decision to call for Mr. Arafat's removal.
The senior administration official who briefed reporters today confirmed that the president had received an intelligence report that Mr. Arafat had approved a $20,000 payment to members of Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, a Palestinian terror organization.
The official said "the president was well on his way" to calling for a change of leadership in the Palestinian Authority, adding that the intelligence report was not "dispositive." But another official said, "It was a factor in the president's thinking."
The report, a senior official in Washington said today, was delivered by Israeli officials to the National Security Council, and the Central Intelligence Agency did not have much time to examine the information. The official said the C.I.A. did not challenge the Israeli information, but its analysts were in the position of having to rely on Israeli intelligence sources in a conflict in which Israel is not a neutral player.
The information about Mr. Arafat's financial ties to people or organizations that have supported the suicide bombings and other terrorist acts against Israel was part of a steady stream of reports that Israel has been providing to the White House, officials said.
"The president has been very clear that he thinks that there are problems with terrorism there," the administration official said. "We've been very clear that it's a leadership that has done virtually nothing to break up the terrorist brigades that roam around its territory, with which it has clear links. We've been very clear that Chairman Arafat has failed not just the world and Israelis, but he's failed his own people."
Hassan Abdulrahman, Mr. Arafat's representative in Washington, said the Palestinian Authority had not responded to the allegations in the intelligence report "because we have not seen it."
--------
Israeli Troops Continue Assault on Gunmen in Hebron
New York Times
June 27, 2002
By JOHN KIFNER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/27/international/27CND-MIDE.html
JERUSALEM, June 27 - Israeli troops pounded the Palestinian Authority headquarters in Hebron for a third day today, firing heavy machine guns and rockets from helicopters, trying to dislodge 15 gunmen they said were stubbornly hold up inside.
As the Israeli offensive went into its fifth day, seven of the eight West Bank cities were shut down under renewed occupation, leaving about 700,000 Palestinians locked in their homes under round the clock curfew and and more than a million others in surrounding villages cut off from food, medicine and any commerce.
In the Balata refugee camp near Nablus, two Palestinians were shot dead in clashes with the army during the day, both sides reported, and about 10 others were wounded. In Qalqiliya, there was gunfire from soldiers after Palestinians came out for a break in the curfew and Palestinians reported a child was shot dead. The army said it was investigating.
In Nablus itself, Israeli troops stormed a jail being used as a security headquarters and took about 20 Palestinians into custody, most of them members of the Palestinian Navy Police, inexplicably headquartered in the landlocked city.
At the southern edge of the Gaza Strip, armored bulldozers backed by troops entered the Rafah refugee camp and destroyed about 10 houses, Palestinians said.
The fighting has been much lighter than in April, when Israeli troops in a massive incursion intended, they said, to "root out the terrorist infrastructure," encountered fierce resistance in Nablus and the Jenin refugee camp. Hundreds of Palestinian militants are still in custody from that operation and others appear to be melting away rather than directly confronting the overwhelming Israeli military superiority.
--------
Bush won't budge on Arafat ouster
June 27, 2002
By Joseph Curl
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020627-689103.htm
CALGARY, Alberta - President Bush said the United States will not accept Yasser Arafat as Palestinian leader even if he wins the January elections, for which he announced his candidacy yesterday.
"I meant what I said, that there needs to be change. If people are interested in peace, something else has got to happen," Mr. Bush said yesterday after a meeting at the summit of the Group of Eight in Canada. "The status quo is simply unacceptable, and it should be unacceptable to them."
After his call Monday for Palestinians to oust Mr. Arafat - a leader he indirectly said is "compromised by terror" - Mr. Bush said "the free world" will decide whether Palestinians are implementing reforms the United States deems necessary before talk can begin about establishing an independent Palestinian state.
But the United States will make its own determination as well, and Mr. Bush threatened that his administration would cut off millions in U.S. aid if Palestinians do not adopt the sweeping political and security reforms he has demanded.
"Listen, I can assure you we won't be putting money into a society which is not transparent and [is] corrupt. And I suspect other countries won't either," Mr. Bush said after a meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The United States gives about $100 million to nongovernmental organizations that oversee infrastructure needs for Palestinians, the White House said. No federal money goes directly to the Palestinian Authority, it said.
If Palestinians elect Mr. Arafat, that will signal that they are not committed to peace, said a senior administration official.
"We're not going to try to interfere in the election process but there are consequences," the official said. "Something needs to change in the Middle East, or we're not going to get anywhere."
The official rejected the notion that the re-election of Mr. Arafat would violate Mr. Bush's preconditions for a provisional Palestinian state.
"We are not going to focus on Arafat here. We're just not going to do it. He wasn't mentioned in the speech; that's for a reason. We're not going to focus on it. There is a leadership there. It is larger than Arafat, as well," the official said.
Later in the day, Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said the president believes history already has left Mr. Arafat behind.
"The president has given up hope that Yasser Arafat can be the one to implement reform. If it was Yasser Arafat, it would have been done a long time ago," the spokesman said.
Several leaders of the eight nations gathered here have been cool to Mr. Bush's call for the ouster of Mr. Arafat. Most, including Mr. Blair, have straddled the fence.
"It's for the Palestinians to elect the people that they choose to elect," the prime minister said. "But if we're going to make progress, we need people that we can negotiate with, who are serious about negotiating around the issues of security and political reform necessary for the peace process to work."
Mr. Blair said Palestinian leadership has not convinced Israel that it is committed to peace. "For Israel to be confident, it's got to have a negotiating partner that is serious about tackling terrorism."
Canadian Foreign Minister Bill Graham also rejected Mr. Bush's call to oust Mr. Arafat, but his prime minister was noncommittal.
"We believe that the Palestinian people should choose their own representative," Mr. Graham said.
But Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien said, "I don't have a specific point of view on that. It might be a good thing, I don't want to comment on that. I just say that we need a quick election there and to produce the best leadership."
Mr. Bush, however, held firm to his stance that the Palestinians must pick leaders without ties to terrorism.
"If there's leadership compromised by terror, we won't be along the path to peace. I've got confidence in the Palestinians when they understand fully what we're saying, that they'll make right decisions as to how we get down the road for peace," he said.
"They've been pawns in the game of peace. They have no hope. Their economy is in shambles. They live in squalor. Their leadership has let them down."
Meanwhile, Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat, at a press conference in the West Bank town of Jericho, appealed directly to the G-8 leaders to pressure Mr. Bush to back down from his demand to oust Mr. Arafat.
Mr. Erakat called on the leaders to "to try to convince President Bush that what Palestinians and Israelis need is action, not vision. Vision constitutes no policy."
He described a new reform plan and announced that presidential and legislative elections will be held sometime between Jan. 10 and Jan. 20.
He also urged the world to intervene and help the Palestinians mount their first elections since 1996 in the face of Israel's reoccupation of seven of the eight main Palestinian cities in the West Bank.
"We call upon the international community to help us in preparing for the elections. Elections cannot be carried out with tanks on every street, every corner of Palestinian towns and villages."
At the G-8 summit, about 60 miles west of Calgary in Kananaskis, thousands of Canadian police and soldiers surrounded the remote resort village, armed with laser-guided anti-aircraft missiles, tanks, helicopters and automatic weapons to guard against terrorist threats.
Intent on demonstrating a united G-8 front against terrorism, the participants - the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia - were following a joint "action plan" on ways to make air travel and cargo shipments more secure.
In Calgary, protesters staged a peaceful morning march through downtown Calgary, snarling traffic while police on bicycles moved with them to the beat of their chant, "Who owns the streets? We own the streets."
A shouting group of demonstrators faced off with police in a brief shoving match outside a McDonald's restaurant.
The leaders met throughout the day - en masse and in smaller groups - and by the end of the day announced that the newest member, Russia, would host their summit in 2006.
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U.S Spurns Russia, China Bid to Ban Arms in Space
June 27, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-arms-space.html
GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States Thursday spurned a new bid by Russia and China to launch negotiations to ban arms in space, saying it saw no need for a new weapons pact.
``The United States sees no need for new outer space arms control agreements and opposes the idea of negotiating a new outer space treaty,'' U.S. Ambassador Eric Javits told the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament.
The conference, the world's principal multilateral arms negotiating body, has been blocked for three years by wrangling over whether a new treaty covering weapons in space is needed.
The deadlock has in turn meant that no progress has been made on lowering the risk of nuclear proliferation by outlawing the production of fissile material that could be used to make weapons, the other key issue before the conference.
International pressure for a ban on the making of fissile materials -- such as uranium-235 or plutonium-239, typically used to make nuclear explosives -- has increased since the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States which triggered fears extremist political groups could be seeking nuclear weaponry.
While all states back the launch of negotiations, China has refused to let talks begin unless the question of weapons in space is tackled at the same time.
Nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction are banned from space by a 1967 international treaty. But U.S. plans to build an anti-missile shield have stirred concerns that it could opt to deploy non-nuclear arms in space.
Presenting the new draft, China's ambassador Hu Xiaodi said that a new treaty was needed to arrest ``the worrying slide toward the weaponization of, and an arms race in, space.''
The joint draft treaty would commit signatory states ``not to place in orbit around the Earth any objects carrying any kinds of weapons, not to install such weapons on celestial bodies, or not to station such weapons in outer space in any other manner.''
European diplomats said that the Chinese-Russian proposal contained nothing particularly new and that U.S. rejection had been predictable.
The United States has long said it is ready to discuss weapons in space but that it is not prepared to commit itself to any formal negotiations on a ban.
Javits said that Washington would be willing to take part in ``broad-ranging'' discussions on space at the same time as the conference conducted negotiations on a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty.
With only one seven-week session of the conference due to be held before the end of the year, mostly dedicated to drawing up the annual report, delegates said it was extremely unlikely that progress on either the space or the fissile issue would be made in 2002.
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U.S. won't oppose enlarging U.N. security force
By David R. Sands
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
June 27, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020627-16316580.htm
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said yesterday the Pentagon would not oppose expanding the scope of the international security force in Afghanistan, but turned aside calls by Democratic lawmakers for an open-ended U.S. commitment to help police the country.
The U.N.-authorized International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), a 19-nation, 5,000-strong security force now commanded by Turkey, has established order in the immediate environs of the Afghan capital of Kabul, but has no presence in huge swaths of the country where local warlords hold sway.
The United States, while heading Operation Enduring Freedom targeting Afghan-based terrorists, provides logistics and intelligence support to ISAF. But the Pentagon has consistently rejected calls by leaders of the interim Afghan government and international aid groups to participate in a larger peacekeeping mission.
Repeatedly citing Afghanistan's size, its difficult terrain and the unfinished campaign against the terrorist al Qaeda network, Mr. Wolfowitz told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing yesterday, "No one is saying that we're opposed to expanding ISAF or opposed to having it play other roles."
"Our biggest problem so far has been sustaining [the security force] in its present role," Mr. Wolfowitz added, noting that Turkey expressed "extreme reluctance" to lead any mission beyond Kabul when it agreed to take over command of ISAF from Britain earlier this month.
Several ISAF nations have said their military budgets would be severely stretched to support a broad-based mission in Afghanistan.
Mr. Wolfowitz's comments echoed those of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who has said he would not oppose an expansion, but has put strict limits on U.S. participation.
But Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., Delaware Democrat, said confining the security force to Kabul amounted to a "warlord strategy" - allowing Afghanistan's regional military barons to impose their own brand of stability on the country, risking the military gains of the U.S.-led campaign.
"Will we stay the course and build security in Afghanistan, or will we permit this country to relapse into chaos?" Mr. Biden asked.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, California Democrat, said newly installed Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Afghan women's groups have also pushed for a broader mandate for ISAF as the fledgling government struggles to recruit and train its own army and police force.
"That's the burden of being the leader of the free world," said Mrs. Boxer. "And in this particular case, we cannot afford failure."
But Mr. Wolfowitz said the U.S. military strategy in Afghanistan has been to leave as "small a footprint as possible" in the campaign against the terrorists.
"We want history ultimately to judge us as having been dedicated to liberation, not occupation," Mr. Wolfowitz said.
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Pentagon poised to send troops into western Pakistan
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
June 27, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020627-14696653.htm
U.S. rapid-reaction forces are on standby to aid Pakistanis in raids on al Qaeda hide-outs, but the Americans were not activated early yesterday in a bloody firefight near the Afghan border.
Gen. Richard B. Myers, Joint Chiefs chairman, yesterday disclosed the military arrangement that could put U.S. soldiers in direct combat outside Afghanistan in the rugged tribal areas of western Pakistan.
It is in these mountainous - and generally lawless - regions that hundreds of al Qaeda fighters fled from Afghanistan, making it one of the most active battlegrounds in the global war on terrorism. If he is alive, al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is believed in be somewhere in the provinces, aided by sympathetic Pakistani tribesmen.
"We did put some forces on alert to respond to the firefight in Pakistan had the Pakistanis asked for help," Gen. Myers said. "It could have been both types of forces, air and ground. And what they could have done would have been up to what the Pakistanis requested help in."
In the raids on houses in the village of Wana, 10 Pakistani soldiers and two Chechen al Qaeda members were killed, Pakistani officials said. Other al Qaeda forces were being pursued. The cluster of terrorists was discovered by U.S. intelligence, which passed the information on to military leaders in Islamabad.
"The Pakistanis have been cooperating with us, and we've been sharing intelligence, and they've been undertaking raids," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon.
U.S. special-operations teams have crossed the border into Pakistan on occasion to search for al Qaeda forces. The Pentagon will not say if any have directly participated in raids alongside the Pakistanis. It has reported no U.S. combat casualties in Pakistan.
A Pakistani military statement said, "In an effort to apprehend the al Qaeda elements using minimum force due to concern for safety of the civilian population, 10 security persons" were killed. "A number of al Qaeda foreign terrorists were also killed."
The Associated Press reported from Islamabad that Pakistan deployed 500 soldiers to the area to search for those responsible for recent attacks on Western targets.
Lt. Gen. Dan K. McNeill, who commands all 7,000 American troops in Afghanistan, has said there may be as many as 1,000 al Qaeda fighters operating in small groups in eastern Afghanistan and across the border in Pakistan.
In "Operation Mountain Lion," coalition forces have scoured eastern Afghanistan looking for the few al Qaeda fighters who might remain. They have found no enemy recently, but have discovered huge caches of munitions and small arms, including Chinese-made SA-7 anti-aircraft missiles.
In the Philippines, another front in the war on terrorism, U.S. military advisers are due to end a deployment on July 31. But a new, smaller military mission will begin immediately and will likely involve American Special Forces soldiers going on patrols alongside Filipinos. Now, the Americans are restricted to headquarters, as they advise the locals on how to track and kill members of Abu Sayyaf, an al Qaeda-linked Muslim extremist group.
"There will be a full stop," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "And then a new period will begin when in fact they might very well begin training with lower-level units, and very likely entering the new phase."
The Pentagon considers as successful the P