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NUCLEAR
Radioactive Recycling
Britain set to ring-fence BNFL's liabilities
UK plans to revive nuclear power industry - report
UK should speed up n-plant planning system - minister
New Metal Alloy Is Super Strong
Japan Defends Nuclear Fuel Decision
Nuclear cargo ship leaves Japan, security tight
Japanese Shipment of Nuclear Fuel Raises Security Fears
MILITARY
Afghan Governor Warns of Uprising
U.S. Gains In Attacking Mobile Arms
U.S. Plan for Iraq Is Said to Include Attack on 3 Sides
Talks Advance on Iraq Arms Inspections
Iraq Still Says 'No' to UN Weapons Inspections
The Warpath: Pressures Build on Iraq
Jenin deaths video implicates army
'Missile' explodes near Israeli plane
Israel and US have "secret" Middle East peace plan: Sharon
Israelis and Palestinians Settle Further Into Their Stalemate
Equal time for Palestinians
Lott sees Baltics as NATO members
As Pakistani's Popularity Slides, 'Busharraf' Is a Figure of Ridicule
U.S. Delivers Copters to Pakistan
Espionage Demands Prod Navy on Sub Construction
Misreporting Israel's war
ENERGY AND OTHER
Spain ushers in new, uncertain energy era
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
Radioactive Recycling
by Susan Q. Stranahan
July/August 2002
Mother Jones Magazine
http://www.motherjones.com/magazine/JA02/radioactive_recycling.html
If the Department of Energy has its way, the nation's nuclear garbage could end up in everyday items like bicycles, frying pans, and baby strollers.
From the air, the East Tennessee Technology Park looks like clusters of enormous Wal-Marts, sprawling across 4,700 acres in the rural countryside west of Knoxville. But for decades the Oak Ridge complex had a more ominous name -- the K-25 site. Its mission: to produce highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.
Today, the facility contains tons of contaminated junk -- machinery, metal, concrete, and tools -- some of which will remain radioactive for generations. Faced with a massive cleanup, the Department of Energy has come up with an ingenious plan to get rid of the slightly radioactive scrap: "recycle" the metal and sell it for reuse. Both the DOE and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) are quietly revising rules that would allow millions of tons of radioactive garbage at the nationŐs weapons facilities and nuclear reactors to be converted into consumer products and building materials. Under the plan, the leftover metal could end up in baby strollers, bikes, frying pans, engine blocks, and I-beams.
"This scrap is an asset," says Val Loiselle, former director of the Association of Radioactive Metal Recyclers. "Until now, we've literally been burying our assets."
Most low-level radioactive materials are currently disposed of in secure, government-licensed landfills. But as former weapons plants are cleaned up and aging reactors are decommissioned, the volume of nuclear junk is expected to soar. The DOE already has 1.6 million tons of slightly radioactive metals at weapons installations across the country, and the NRC expects to have 8.9 million tons of contaminated steel and concrete to dispose of by 2030.
In the past, both the DOE and NRC have recycled such materials on a case-by-case basis. At K-25, for example, approximately 6.6 million pounds of slightly radioactive material left Oak Ridge's gates before sales were halted in 2000. The material was treated no differently than any other scrap, and nobody made any effort to keep track of where it ended up.
But with the nuclear scrap heap mounting, federal agencies and industry officials want a formalized recycling program in place to speed up the disposal. The plan calls for setting an exposure standard below which irradiated metals would be deemed "safe" and suitable for release. Because radiation levels would be low, the reasoning goes, there would be no need for labels identifying that the materials came from nuclear reactors or weapons facilities -- even if they end up in homes, offices, and schools.
If the changes are implemented, they would end a decades-long policy against the intentional release of radioactivity into the general populace. Opponents of the plan say it could jeopardize public health, exposing consumers to materials previously deemed too contaminated to use. "One day it's hazardous, the next day it's safe," says David Ritter, a policy analyst with the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen in Washington, D.C. "They just change the definition."
Some of the most vocal opponents of the plan are those who would be on the receiving end of the "released" materials. "The DOE and the nuclear community cannot use us as a dumping ground for their waste," says Thomas Danjczek, president of the Steel Manufacturers Association, which processes 70 million tons of recycled material a year. "We worry about damaging the public perception of steel being a safe material. If this goes through, it would kill our market."
In the past, such concerns have been enough to block attempts to redefine what constitutes radioactive waste. Since 1980, the NRC has twice proposed rule changes declaring some irradiated material as "below regulatory concern," meaning there would be no limits on its reuse or disposal. Congress eventually intervened to block the rules.
In 2000, hoping to gain support for its newest recycling plan, the NRC contracted with the National Research Council to convene a panel to review its recommended changes. But in March the panel declined to endorse the wholesale release of radioactive materials, observing that the NRC has "failed to convince any environmental and consumer advocacy groups that the clearance of slightly radioactive solid material can be conducted safely."
Radioactive recycling efforts at the DOE have also run into sharp criticism. In 1999, a federal judge in Washington ruled that not enough was known about the dangers of releasing radioactive materials at the K-25 site. "The potential for environmental harm is great, especially given the unprecedented amount of hazardous materials which [officials] seek to recycle," U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler declared.
Despite the widespread opposition from consumer advocates, steel manufacturers, and scientists, federal officials appear determined to proceed with recycling. The reason? Dollars and cents. If decommissioned debris from the nation's 103 nuclear plants must be buried in secure landfills, costs to the utility industry may hit $12 billion. If the rubble can simply be carted to the nearest landfill or scrap metal broker, the price could be as low as $300 million.
History offers some indication of what can happen when radioactive materials find their way into consumer goods. In the early 1980s, contaminated metal from unknown sources was fabricated into jewelry (wearers developed cancer and lost their fingers) and restaurant table legs (most were detected prior to delivery, but some patrons and employees may have been exposed to radioactive cobalt 60). In 1998, occupants in Taiwanese apartment buildings made with radioactive steel beams began reporting health problems, and a Michigan manufacturer was forced to recall hundreds of La-Z-Boy recliners after learning that the rocker springs contained radioactive metal.
Despite the health risks, global trade in radioactive materials is thriving. The European Union has already set standards allowing the release of materials contaminated with what it calls "trivial" amounts of radiation, and industry trade groups like the Nuclear Energy Institute are pressuring the United States to follow suit. "Consistency with standards set by other nations and international agencies is important," the NRC declared in a 1999 report, "because materials can be both imported and exported between the U.S. and other countries, and differing standards could create confusion and economic disparities in commerce." Officials at the Department of Transportation are currently revising rules on radioactive shipments to conform to international guidelines.
But with so much of the current regulatory focus on economics and commerce, consumer advocates worry that a simple fact of physics is being overlooked: Any dose of radiation, no matter how small, increases the risk to public health. And if a host of recycled products ßoods the market, there will be no way to measure the effects of multiple doses.
"When it comes to ionizing radiation, you can't draw some line and say anything above that line is dangerous and anything below is safe," says Ritter, the policy analyst with Public Citizen. "You have to ask: What is avoidable, what is preventable?"
-------- britain
Britain set to ring-fence BNFL's liabilities
Story by Mike Peacock
REUTERS UK:
July 5, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16712/story.htm
LONDON - Britain will announce a new authority to take on the liabilities of British Nuclear Fuels, a move industry experts view as a first step towards selling off the state-run operator.
A government source said Energy Minister Brian Wilson will publish a written parliamentary answer proposing a Liabilities Management Authority to assume the 35 billion pounds ($53.5 billion) liabilities of BNFL.
The body is expected to tackle a backlog of nuclear waste and absorb the cost of decommissioning old plants.
"What we are announcing is the setting up of a strategic body to take on the liabilities," the source said. "It's been in the pipeline for a long time."
Analysts and critics of the scheme said the move could make a second wave of nuclear privatisation more attractive to investors by ring-fencing the liabilities in the public sector.
BNFL's 11 Magnox plants were mainly built in the 1950s and 1960s.Due to their age and high running costs they were kept in state hands along with BNFL's fuel reprocessing arm when the rest of Britain's nuclear industry was sold to private investors in 1996 as British Energy Plc.
Four have been closed, along with the only two that were built outside Britain. Magnox stations use reactor rods of pure uranium metal, while most types of modern nuclear power station use uranium oxide and produce more electricity per plant.
BNFL has had a rocky ride.
Two years ago, the government said its tarnished record meant plans for a partial privatisation could not be pursued until late 2002 at the earliest and may not happen at all.
Nuclear fuel is being returned to BNFL from Japan after a scandal in 1999, when Kansai Electric Power Co discovered the state-owned nuclear fuel reprocessor had falsified data on the fuel it had shipped to the company.
The move follows an agreement between the Japanese and British governments and will cost BNFL 114 million pounds, of which 40 million pounds is compensation to Kansai and the rest the logistical cost of the operation.
BNFL has also faced several legal challenges over its planned nuclear fuel manufacturing plant at Sellafield in north-west England.
Environmental groups Grenpeace and Friends of the Earth and the government of Ireland have all tried and failed to block the plant from opening via the courts.
----
UK plans to revive nuclear power industry - report
REUTERS UK:
July 5, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16711/story.htm
LONDON - Britain is secretly planning measures to revive its ageing nuclear power industry as ministers eye the sector's potential as a source of carbon-free energy, the New Scientist Magazine said this week.
Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) officials have drawn up a list of eight existing nuclear sites across England and Wales where new plants could be built, according to DTI documents leaked to the British magazine.
They have also proposed speeding up planning procedures for new plants and granting tax breaks to firms building them as well as making it easier for plants to get planning permission.
"In the long-term new (nuclear) build has potential attractions as a carbon free source of baseload electricity supporting both environmental and security of supply objectives," a reporter at the magazine quoted the DTI as saying.
Nuclear power stations, unlike fossil fuel plants, do not produce carbon dioxide - the gas widely blamed for causing global warming. However, environmentalists oppose them for safety reasons.
Britain built its last nuclear power station, Sizewell B, in 1995 and has already closed some of its oldest reactors.
Nuclear power accounts for nearly a third of Britain's power but most plants are due to shut by 2025.
Elsewhere in Europe, Sweden and Germany plan to phase out nuclear power but Finland recently decided to build a fifth nuclear plant to meet rising energy demands.
The DTI declined to comment on the report but a spokesman pointed to a recent energy review, commissioned by government, which said the nuclear option should be kept open.
"The review paper is still out for consultation. Lots of views are still being gathered and a White Paper will be out at the end of the year," he said.
The Performance and Innovation Unit (PIU) report proposed that nuclear power should be retained only if the UK fails to meet plans to more than triple its use of renewable energy by 2010 to 10 percent of total electricity.
The DTI suggested that public oppsition could be eased by compensating local communities if new sites are built and by using existing nuclear facilities.
Another factor which could help turn around public opinion was the risk of power blackouts similar to those seen during California's energy crisis two years ago.
The documents listed eight sites in England and Wales where new stations could be built.
The sites are Berkeley and Oldbury in the Severn Estuary, Bradwell in Essex, Wylfa on Anglesey and Trawsfynydd in North Wales - all owned by state-run British Nuclear Fuels.
The other three owned by British Energy are: Hinkley Point on the Severn Estuary, Sizewell in Suffolk and Dungeness in Kent.
---
UK should speed up n-plant planning system - minister
REUTERS UK:
July 5, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16709/story.htm
LONDON - Britain should speed up the planning process for nuclear power stations if companies put forward new projects to revive the ageing nuclear sector, Energy Minister Brian Wilson said yesterday.
Fast-tracking schemes through the lengthy planning process was one of the proposals in a Department of Trade and Industry report, leaked this week, on measures to breathe new life into Britain's nuclear power industry.
While Britain's two nuclear companies, state-owned British Nuclear Fuels and British Energy have not proposed any new plants, Wilson said he wanted to speed up the planning process if any were put forward.
"The function of the planning system is to give a fair answer and not to be used as a vehicle for unnecessary delay," Wilson told BBC radio, when asked about the report's recommendations.
"Therefore anything in my view that facilitates a rapid answer so long as it is a fair one, determined through an open and inclusive process is desirable to one that takes 15 years to get," he added.
Wilson said the DTI document fleshed out a report last year to the government from the Performance and Innovation Unit (PIU) on energy policy for the next 50 years which recommended keeping the carbon-free nuclear option open as a way of cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
"It is probably a scoping document giving substance to what the review of energy policy over the next 50 years very sensible recommended that the nuclear option be kept open," he said.
"The question which this document addresses internally is how do you give substance to that rather vague phrase."
The DTI report also suggested tax breaks for firms building nuclear power stations and listed eight existing sites where new planst could be built.
Nuclear power stations, unlike fossil fuel power stations, do not produce carbon dioxide, the gas widely blamed for causing global warming.
Environmentalists, however, oppose nuclear power for safety reasons.
Nuclear power accounts for nearly a third of Britain's power but most plants are due to shut by 2025.
The PIU report proposed nuclear power should be retained if Britain fails to meet plans to raise output of green energy to 10 percent of electricity needs by 2010 from just under three percent currently.
-------- depleted uranium
[DU alternative?]
New Metal Alloy Is Super Strong
July 5, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-Super-Metal.html
NEW YORK (AP) -- It could be the new superhero of metals.
More than twice as strong as titanium and steel, it doesn't rust and it can be cast like plastic and honed to an edge as sharp as glass.
And like any superhero, it has a weakness: don't heat it too much, or it loses its strength.
The fruit of a 1992 discovery at the California Institute of Technology, the alloy, called Liquidmetal, has already been used in golf clubs. And it may soon show up in cell phone casings, baseball bats and scalpels.
Liquidmetal Technologies, the Lake Forest, Calif. company that is trying to commercialize the alloy, is not shy about calling it revolutionary.
``It combines uniquely a material with exceptional properties and the ability to process the material to exceptional shapes,'' says Dr. Michael Ashby, professor of engineering at Cambridge University in Britain and an advisor to the company.
Liquidmetal's surprising properties come of a structure different from ordinary metals.
When a conventional metal cools, it forms grains, each a small crystal where the atoms are oriented in a grid. The boundaries between these grains are a metal's weak points -- it's where cracks can form and rust starts, for instance.
Scientists discovered in 1959 that if some alloys are cooled very quickly the atoms don't have time to form crystals. Instead, they remain jumbled, as in a liquid or in glass.
However, the only way to cool the molten metal fast enough was to make it in thin strips or as a sprayed coating. The strips couldn't be joined, because they were hard to forge, and heat allowed the atoms to crystallize again.
Because of their unique magnetic properties, the strips still found use in the anti-theft tags used by retail stores and in electrical transformers. The metal was also used to spray-coat oil drill pipes to protect them from wear.
In 1992, Dr. William Johnson and Dr. Atakan Pekers at the Caltech discovered a way around the cooling problem.
They made an alloy of elements that fit very poorly together: titanium, copper, nickel, zirconium and beryllium. These elements' atoms are of different sizes so they don't readily form crystals, even when cooled slowly. Pieces up to an inch thick could now be made.
Liquidmetal Technologies seized on the opportunity, and together with Caltech and Howmet Metal Mold of Whitehall, Mich., developed casting techniques.
In the mold, Liquidmetal reveals another quality: it doesn't shrink when it solidifies. Ordinary metals do, meaning the product is rough out of the mold and needs machining.
``What happens with Liquidmetal, in essence, is that you can form parts sort of the way you form plastics,'' says John Kang, chief executive of Liquidmetal Technologies.
Liquidmetal can be cast with a precision down to 1 micron, or 1/25,000th of an inch, according to Johnson, now an advisor to Liquidmetal Technologies. Given a good die, it is possible to cast a scalpel blade and have it come sharp out of the mold.
Liquidmetal Technologies' first product was golf club heads, because of another exotic property of the metal: it transfers more of the club's energy to the ball than steel or titanium, at least in theory.
But golf equipment is a fiercely competitive field, and Liquidmetal has since decided to stop making its own clubs and is working instead with major golf club manufacturers because, in Kang's words ``we came to the realization that we are not in the consumer products industry.''
At the same time, it is looking to expand the uses for the alloy. Using money from an initial public offering in May, it is building a factory in South Korea to make, primarily, casings for cell phones.
While cell phones are not the first use that comes to mind for a super-strong metal, Kang says Liquidmetal's strength and ease of casting makes it ideal.
``Cell phone makers want to go smaller and thinner ... we create an ability for cell phones to be smaller than any other material,'' he says. The project has attracted interest from cell phone giants Motorola and Samsung.
Liquidmetal Technologies is also working with Rawlings on baseball bats and HEAD on skis, for much the same reason they tried their hand on golf clubs -- Liquidmetal gives good bounce.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is also investigating several different uses of the alloy. One project is looking at using it in armor-piercing shells as a replacement for depleted uranium, which has been a focus of health and environmental concerns.
For all its promise, Liquidmetal is still largely untried, which is why the company is concentrating on industries where there is a readiness to explore the new.
John Perepezko, professor of materials science at the University of Wisconsin, says making sports equipment is a safer place to start, than, for instance, the aircraft industry.
``Nobody is going to fall out of the sky, no ship is going to sink if you make a mistake,'' he says. ``If you break a golf club, you usually brag about being too strong, rather than blame it on a weak club.''
Then there's the issue of heat.
Much like glass, Liquidmetal softens when heated -- the earliest alloy at about 750 degrees Fahrenheit. By comparison, steel becomes malleable at about 2,100 degrees. Some newer amorphous alloys are, however, much more resistant to heat, Johnson says.
Cost also limits Liquidmetal. The raw materials run at $10 to $15 a pound, about as much as titanium, while aluminum costs about 50 cents a pound.
Caltech researchers are trying to create alloys consisting of cheaper metals.
``If we can make a processable amorphous iron alloy with a raw material cost of a dollar a pound, it could be an enormously pervasive material,'' Johnson says. ``It could even make its way into cars.''
Perepezko, who is not affiliated with Liquidmetal Technologies, believes that even at its present cost, the alloy is likely to see widespread use once its reliability has been proven.
``It's not going to replace the aluminum in soda cans, it just doesn't work that way. But in critical applications, it will happen. Perhaps the most important use out there is one we can't imagine yet,'' he says.
On the Web:
http://www.liquidmetal.com
http://www.darpa.mil/dso/thrust/md/sam/index.html
-------- japan
Japan Defends Nuclear Fuel Decision
By Kozo Mizoguchi
Associated Press Writer
Friday, July 5, 2002; 8:19 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27631-2002Jul5?language=printer
TOKYO -- Japan defended its decision Friday to transport nuclear fuel to Britain by sea, denying criticism that the shipment was vulnerable to terrorist attack or could be used for making nuclear weapons.
The shipment of 560 pounds of rejected reactor fuel, a mixture of plutonium and uranium known as MOX, left the Japanese port of Takahama on its two-month journey Thursday.
The radioactive material was being taken back to its maker in Britain on the Pacific Pintail, a cargo ship armed with deck-mounted machine guns. The route the ship and another armed companion vessel will take, and other security details, have not been made public.
"We have done everything necessary to secure the shipment, and we are confident about it," said Tetsuya Kitajima, a spokesman for Kansai Electric Power Co.
That did not stop protesters from demanding the shipment be halted.
A small group of demonstrators rallied at the port where the ship embarked on its trip Thursday. On Friday, two Greenpeace protesters scaled the roof of the Japanese embassy in Canberra, Australia and unfurled a banner criticizing the shipment.
The protesters - about a dozen in all - parked a truck carrying a large cardboard imitation nuclear bomb in front of the building.
Kansai Electric imported the fuel in 1999 for an experimental nuclear power program. But the fuel's maker, British Nuclear Fuels Ltd., later admitted it had falsified quality records and agreed to ship the fuel back to Britain.
The original shipment to Japan was widely criticized by environmental groups and government officials in Australia, New Zealand and some Pacific island nations.
Opponents said not enough was done to ensure the safety of the cargo, and urged Japan to provide military escorts. They also say the shipments are an attractive target for terrorists.
"This type of shipment is totally unacceptable to the world at large and the international community," Irish Environment Minister Martin Cullen said. "The shipment of such materials through the Irish Sea represents an unacceptable risk to the environment of Ireland and the health and economic well-being of its population."
Though not weapons grade, the fuel is dangerous because it could still easily be transformed for use in nuclear weapons, Greenpeace activist Shaun Burnie said Friday.
"It's no more complicated than making designer drugs," he said.
But Japanese officials and an independent nuclear expert strongly denied that.
Yutaka Ikoma, an official with the government's Resources and Energy Agency, which oversees nuclear policy, said it is virtually impossible to use the material for bombs.
"Plutonium for reactor use and weapons use is completely different," he said. "Weapons-grade plutonium must be more than 90 percent pure, this fuel is only about 4 or 5 percent (pure)."
Naomi Shono, a physics professor at Hiroshima Jogakuin University, said it would theoretically be possible to use the plutonium for weapons.
"But the money and technical skill that it would be required make that possibly extremely unrealistic," he said.
Resource-poor Japan aims to use MOX fuel at up to 18 nuclear reactors, out of a total 52 commercial plants, by the year 2010.
A group of 10 power utilities plans to build its own $967 million MOX fuel processing plant in northern Japan by 2009.
----
Nuclear cargo ship leaves Japan, security tight
Story by Olivier Fabre
REUTERS JAPAN:
July 5, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16710/story.htm
TAKAHAMA, Japan - A ship carrying nuclear material bound for Britain slipped out of a Japanese port under tight security yesterday, defying protests from anti-nuclear activists who said the cargo could be at risk of theft or attack.
The ship, carrying a potentially weapons-usable mix of plutonium and uranium oxides (MOX), sailed just days after the U.S. State Department warned of the potential for extremist attacks yesterday - U.S. Independence Day.
An air of tension surrounded the pier near the nuclear power plant at Takahama, some 300 km (190 miles) west of Tokyo, as the Pacific Pintail headed off on its secret course back to Britain.
Officials on the pier waved as the vessel cast off and headed out to sea, accompanied by several small coast guard vessels.
Coast guard inflatables crowded Uchiura Bay, a serene and almost idyllic body of water surrounded by green mountains, and helicopters clattered overhead.
Some 100 protesters gathered in front of the gate to the power plant, holding signs saying "Stop MOX" and "Plutonium equals atom bombs".
"Those who have done wrong must right that wrong," said local protester Miwako Ogiso.
"I think it's normal for townspeople to want that.
"On the other hand, sending it (MOX) back does not solve problems. When it is sent back the people there will have to live under the fear of the dangers of plutonium. It should not have been made in the first place."
TIGHT SECURITY
Earlier, as police accompanied by dogs stood guard, two massive, 100-tonne casks were loaded onto the British-flagged ship under the watchful eyes of some 20 security guards on the deck of the vessel, which is equipped with a machine gun.
The MOX fuel is being returned to state-owned British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) after Japan's Kansai Electric Power Co Inc discovered that data for a 1999 shipment from Britain had been deliberately falsified.
Kansai Electric had intended to use the fuel in commercial reactors.
For security reasons, the Pacific Pintail will be joined by the Pacific Teal for its long sea journey.
The route is being kept under wraps.
Greenpeace deployed two inflatables and flew 12 yellow kites on a single string with "Stop Plutonium" written on them as the Pacific Pintail entered the bay early in the morning.
"Security concerns are a major issue to countries along the tens of thousands of kilometres between Japan and the United Kingdom," Greenpeace said in a statement. "The ships are slow, lightly armed, and vulnerable to armed attack.
"The plutonium contained in this one cargo is sufficient for 50 nuclear weapons if stolen."
Greenpeace, which wants to see the material stored on land rather than shipped across the world, on Tuesday sought a British High Court injunction to stop it leaving.
But BNFL said it would "vigorously contest" the move.
A hearing on the matter was set for 10:30 a.m. British time (0930 GMT) yesterday, Greenpeace said.
SAFETY CONCERNS
Although the planned route has been kept secret, leaders of countries that may find the ships passing nearby have expressed concerns about safety.
The ships will probably be escorted out of Japanese waters by coast guard vessels, but the coast guard declined to comment.
BNFL says all safety needs have been met by the double-hulled ships and that the fuel itself is to be contained in a drop-tested cask with steel walls several inches (centimetres) thick.
In London on Monday, the shipment obtained a key clearance from the British Environment Agency, which ruled that BNFL could classify the MOX as fuel rather than waste and thereby avoid the need to obtain a special licence for it.
Environmental campaigners have argued that the MOX is unlikely to be used as a fuel, given existing stockpiles of similar material already in Britain, but BNFL says the material is fuel and has a commercial value.
----
Japanese Shipment of Nuclear Fuel Raises Security Fears
July 5, 2002
By HOWARD W. FRENCH
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/05/international/05JAPA.html
JAKAHAMA, Japan, July 4 - Chugging past protesters shouting through megaphones, a slow-moving ship set out today from this tiny port town in western Japan carrying more than 550 pounds of nearly weapons-grade plutonium, the first shipment of its kind anywhere in the world since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.
For the Japanese government and the local power company here, the 18,000-mile voyage to return a load of defective fuel to a British supplier, was intended to close a scandal that badly hurt the Japanese nuclear power industry.
But for international environmental groups, Pacific island nations and some members of the United States Congress, the shipment opens a more dangerous chapter, involving the ocean transport under what they call weak security of raw materials that could be used for nuclear arms.
The ship that set out from here today, the Pacific Pintail, which cruises at the leisurely speed of about 13 knots, relies for protection on several deck-mounted 30-millimeter machine guns. The ship will be joined at sea by a similarly equipped companion vessel. Security on board each ship is provided by 13 veterans of the British special services, employed by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority Constabulary.
"These ships are among the safest that travel on the seas, with double hulls, buoyancy tanks, satellite navigation systems and double the crew they need," a spokesman for British Nuclear Fuels Limited, which operates the ship and supplied the faulty fuel to Japan, told Reuters.
Critics of the operation point out, however, that the first shipments of reprocessed fuels from Europe to Japan, in the mid-1980's, were made under official naval escort that was provided by the United States, Britain and France. At a minimum, they say, in the post-Sept. 11 environment, cargos this deadly should have defenses guided by radar, to shield them from attack by small aircraft or fast boats.
"I have written to the State Department and expressed my concerns to the Pentagon," said Robert A. Underwood, Guam's delegate to the House of Representatives. "The State Department sent some people over who are responsible for nuclear safety, and said they have looked into the possibility of the ship leaking.
"Our bigger concern, though, is security, given the state of the world we are in," he said. "This is nuclear weapons grade fuel, and we would like to know, what will happen if there is a threat?"
Environmental activists fear that today's shipment will set a standard for the security of what could be dozens of similar shipments of reprocessed fuels from Britain to Japan, which would create a huge temptation to international terrorist groups. According to Greenpeace, the Japanese government has well over 33 tons of separated plutonium stockpiled in Britain and France, and it is intent on having European companies mix these stocks with uranium for burning in nuclear power plants here.
Japan has repeatedly confirmed its commitment to using reprocessed fuel from Europe for its nuclear industry. The government has made no comment about the current shipment.
The forms a threat might take were already spelled out in a critique of flaws in maritime security involving plutonium shipments, written six years ago by experts from Sandia National Laboratories, in conjunction with the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore laboratories, the United States' three premier weapons laboratories. The report warned against risks from the seizure of the plutonium cargo aboard a lightly armed ship, to a devastating attack using high explosives, which would create the equivalent of a huge dirty bomb at sea.
Wary of such a threat, South Korea today reportedly asked Japan not to allow the ships sailing today to enter the narrow strait just off Pusan that separates the two countries.
Officials in many South Pacific countries, through whose waters the plutonium cargo ships are likely to transit, also fear that the vessels could be sabotaged en route.
Kansai Electric, one of Japan's largest producers of nuclear energy and the operator of the reactor here that is returning the faulty plutonium fuel, would not say what route the ship planned to chart to Britain. Its destination is Barrow-in-Furness, the industrial port in northwestern England, where British Nuclear Fuels Limited, or BNFL, as the company is known, will receive the fuel.
Governments in this region are particularly nervous after recent intelligence reports from the United States and Morocco that groups with links to Al Qaeda had discussed plans to use small, high-speed boats to attack Western naval vessels.
These reports warned of sabotage plans centered near the Strait of Gibraltar. A similar attack using a small boat damaged the American destroyer Cole in the port city of Aden, Yemen, in October 2000.
"We are not informed about such things," said Tatsuya Kawabe, a spokesman for Kansai Electric. "All I can say is that security today is equal to the security when this shipment first arrived."
Today's shipment is the result of a major blunder, followed by an attempted cover-up, at BNFL, a troubled state-owned British nuclear fuels reprocessing company. In 1999, using a similar maritime security detail, BNFL shipped a cargo of fuel of mixed uranium and plutonium oxide, known as Mox, to Japan for use in a Kansai Electric reactor here.
The fuel, which is encased in ceramic pellets, must be milled to meet highly exacting standards. But after delivery here, it was discovered that many of the required quality controls had been fraudulently certified. Japan depends almost entirely on BNFL, as well as one other French contractor, to reprocess its nuclear reactor wastes, from which plutonium is derived.
Japan has virtually no oil or uranium reserves, and little coal. Recovering plutonium from spent reactor rods to mix with Japan's scarce uranium is a practice that is universally endorsed within government and power industry circles.
The scandal over BNFL's falsely certified fuel, however, enraged citizens groups and helped put the Japanese nuclear power industry on the defensive. Activists opposed to nuclear power have used the issue, along with a spate of recent accidents in Japanese plants, to mobilize public opinion against the import of hybrid nuclear fuels from overseas. Referendums in some areas have prohibited use of the mixed fuel.
The recent uproar over the terrorist risk to nuclear shipments has only increased the pressure on Japan's nuclear industry to reconsider its mixed fuel program.
"As of now, we have no plans for a return shipment from BNFL," said Satoshi Azumi, manager for nuclear fuel engineering at Kansai Electric. "BNFL destroyed the trust between us, and until their reputation is restored and the people can trust them, there are no plans to buy more Mox pellets from them."
However, the Kansai spokesman, Mr. Kawabe, said resuming use of the hybrid fuels, which implies resuming transoceanic plutonium shipments, was only a matter of time.
"Plutonium recycling is a basic part of our energy security," Mr. Kawabe said. "It is inevitable."
Several dozen protesters who gathered noisily here to denounce the mixed fuel program, however, vowed to stop the shipments.
"The Mox program was started with no discussion with the people," said Miwako Ogiso, secretary general of the Council of People of Fukui Prefecture against Nuclear Power. "The shipment of fuel around the globe like this is not at all safe."
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Afghan Governor Warns of Uprising
July 5, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Afghanistan.html
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- The governor of the province where a U.S. airstrike reportedly killed scores of people warned Friday that Afghans will rise up against Americans if U.S. troops don't stop killing civilians in the hunt for Taliban and al-Qaida fugitives.
``If Americans don't stop killing civilians, there will be jihad (holy war) against them in my province,'' Jan Mohammed Khan, governor of Uruzgan province, told The Associated Press by telephone.
Khan's province includes the village of Kakarak, where Afghans said 25 members of a family celebrating an impending marriage were killed in a U.S. air attack Monday.
In all, 44 Afghans were killed and 120 injured in raids Monday on Kakarak and four other villages, Afghan officials said. U.S. officials say an anti-aircraft gun had fired on U.S. planes from the compound where the partygoers died.
President Bush telephoned Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Friday to express sympathy for the victims' families, White House spokesman Claire Buchan said.
``Certainly the president expressed to President Karzai that this was a tragic loss,'' Buchan said. Kabul Radio said Bush also emphasized his commitment to a full investigation and assured Karzai that such an incident will not happen again.
The attack has clearly strained relations between the Afghans and the U.S. military, which is still pursuing Taliban and al-Qaida forces nearly eight months after the hardline Islamic militia abandoned Kabul.
U.S. officials have said no weapon was found at the compound where the wedding party was reportedly killed.
U.S. military spokesman Col. Roger King said U.S. investigators found large shell casings and at least one weapon mounted on a vehicle. He refused to identify the weapon or specify the exact location where it was found.
However, Afghans in the area strongly deny the U.S. account. The wedding party was for a family close to Karzai which supported his battle against the Taliban last year.
``We condemn this bombardment,'' Khan said. ``It was an intentional attack on civilians. It is unfair to target a wedding party.'' He said Afghans in his province were ``furious'' with the Americans.
In January, U.S. special forces attacked a school in the Uruzgan village of Khas, where they thought Taliban or al-Qaida leaders were sheltering. Those inside turned out to be government troops on a weapons collection mission, and 21 of them were killed.
Similar mistakes have occurred in Kandahar, Paktia and other southern provinces.
``This has to stop, or people will fight Americans just like they did Russians,'' Khan said. The former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979 to shore up a pro-Moscow government. U.S.-backed Islamic insurgents battled the Red Army until it withdrew in February 1989.
Word of the latest Uruzgan attack has swept through the ethnic Pashtun areas of Afghanistan, raising anger among an ethnic community that already feels marginalized by the U.S.-backed government in Kabul that replaced the Taliban.
Most of the Taliban were Pashtuns, the largest ethnic community. The new government in Kabul is heavily influenced by ethnic Tajiks from the anti-Taliban northern alliance, although Karzai himself is a Pashtun.
Most combat operations still underway in Afghanistan are believed to be taking place in Pashtun areas, placing Pashtun civilians at the greatest risk.
``The Afghans and Americans are now friends but they will change to enemies if this kind of mistake continues,'' said Bismillah Gharanai, 50, a government employee in Kandahar. ``They changed a wedding into a funeral.''
A joint U.S.-Afghan investigation team visited the scene of the latest raid this week and had been scheduled to report Friday to Karzai in Kabul. However, the team was still in Kandahar late Friday, and Afghan and U.S. officials said it was unable to reach Kabul because of sandstorms.
U.S. and Afghan investigators have drawn widely differing conclusions from preliminary examinations. American investigators suggested that the amount of blood found was inconsistent with the number of deaths reported and that the number of injured who reported to hospitals was far below Afghan figures.
In addition, a spokesman for the U.S. team, Maj. Gary Tallman, said investigators were not taken to the graves of the 25 people reportedly killed despite repeated requests. However, a survivor took an Associated Press reporter to the burial plot Thursday.
Afghan investigators are convinced of the casualty figures. Some have suggested U.S. forces may have been given erroneous information by Afghans working for them. Khan, the governor, suggested those Afghans be handed over to Afghan authorities.
``Such spies give a bad name to the Americans,'' Khan said.
-------- iraq
U.S. Gains In Attacking Mobile Arms
Scud Missiles Still a Question In Anti-Iraq Plans
By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 5, 2002; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25835-2002Jul4?language=printer
As the Bush administration considers plans for attacking Iraq, senior defense officials say they have made great strides toward rectifying the single biggest failure of the Persian Gulf War: the inability to find and destroy President Saddam Hussein's mobile Scud missiles.
But experts inside and outside the military question whether new capabilities demonstrated in Afghanistan would be good enough to preempt Iraq's use of chemical or biological warheads, given the damage that could be inflicted on Israel or U.S. forces if even a few Scuds emerged unscathed.
Unlike the Gulf War, when Air Force and Navy pilots flew 1,460 sorties against Iraq's mobile Scud missiles and failed to destroy a single launcher, Navy fighters alone have attacked 2,500 mobile targets in Afghanistan, according to one senior Navy official. A 65 percent "hit rate" against mobile targets, the official said, represents "a significant, significant improvement since Desert Storm."
The ability to hit mobile Scuds will be one of the most important considerations in any plan by the Bush administration to attack Iraq because of its pursuit of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, analysts inside and outside the Pentagon say.
The first Bush administration devoted considerable effort to hunting mobile Scuds in 1991, largely to prevent an Iraqi missile strike on Israel that would draw the Israelis into the war. But analysts say attacking the mobile missiles now would be even more important because any invasion of Iraq would be aimed at removing Hussein from power, a factor that could make the Iraqi president more likely to use chemical or biological weapons.
"If you make Saddam's head the price, he has no reason to be deterred," said Ivo Daalder, a former National Security Council official now at the Brookings Institution. "All he needs is one chemical or biological warhead to get anywhere in Israel and the likelihood is Israel would strike back. In that sense, the Scud game becomes even more important."
U.S. military capabilities now surpass anything Iraq encountered a decade ago, said Eliot A. Cohen, an expert on defense strategy at Johns Hopkins University, citing vastly improved precision munitions and communications technology, new unmanned aerial reconnaissance vehicles, and Special Forces targeting used to great effect in Afghanistan.
"The Iraqis haven't been able to test-fire a Scud missile since the Gulf War," Cohen said. "We've had 10 years to think very hard about this. I think they would be under some real stress, and it would be very difficult to fire those things with any kind of accuracy."
Even as they describe their own successes in the air war over Afghanistan, Navy and Air Force officials caution that four-wheel-drive vehicles and Taliban troop formations in Afghanistan were easier to bomb than Iraqi mobile Scuds.
"We're working hard not to create a false sense of accomplishment," the senior Navy official said, noting that the "miniaturization of technology" enables America's adversaries to place chemical and biological agents on smaller and smaller weapons.
"As we get better, the problem gets harder," the official said.
The U.S. laser-guided bombs and the targeting devices used to fire them have been improved since the Gulf War. The Pentagon has also introduced a new, satellite-guided smart bomb that, unlike laser-guided munitions, works in all kinds of weather.
In addition, two new unmanned aerial reconnaissance planes, the Predator and Global Hawk, give war planners a sustained view of the battlefield they did not have a decade ago.
A third system designed to help track and destroy mobile targets, the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS), was in its infancy at the start of the Gulf War.
New communications capabilities enable commanders to analyze and relay data from those reconnaissance planes, often in minutes -- fast enough, officials say, to bomb a mobile Scud as it pops out of its hiding place.
A senior Air Force official said that one new communications system accelerated for use in Afghanistan enables F-15E fighters to receive precise targeting information directly from JSTARS aircraft, which provide radar imagery of hundreds of miles of terrain and can identify dozens of moving targets simultaneously.
No system exists to directly feed imagery from the Global Hawk drone, which can loiter over the battlefield for 24 hours, to strike aircraft. But during the war in Afghanistan, Global Hawk imagery was transmitted in real time via satellite to a command center in Saudi Arabia, where analysts reviewed it and relayed target coordinates in minutes to fighters over the battlefield.
These innovations are designed to collapse what Air Force strategists call the "kill chain" by reducing the "sensor-to-shooter" time it takes to find a target with a reconnaissance aircraft and attack it with a fighter or bomber. Shortly after the start of the war in Afghanistan, the Air Force established a Kill Chain Enhancement Task Force that is working to reduce sensor-to-shooter time to less than 10 minutes.
The most important innovation to emerge from the war in Afghanistan, Air Force officials say, has been the extensive use of Special Operations forces on the ground as target designators.
During the Gulf War, the Pentagon only belatedly involved Special Forces in the hunt for mobile Scuds after air efforts failed to prevent Iraq from firing missiles on Israel, Saudi Arabia and other targets. But in Afghanistan, Special Forces units were deployed from the outset, with Air Force combat controllers assigned to every Army Green Beret team.
"Scud hunting -- clearly that has the potential in certain theaters to be a very high-priority mission," the senior Air Force official said. "But that's not all. Mobile targets -- whether it's a Scud or an artillery piece or a tank battalion -- are key challenges. This has been an area of extraordinary emphasis since Desert Storm, but even more so, since September 11th."
----
U.S. Plan for Iraq Is Said to Include Attack on 3 Sides
New York Times
July 5, 2002
By ERIC SCHMITT
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/05/international/middleeast/05IRAQ.html
WASHINGTON, July 4 - An American military planning document calls for air, land and sea-based forces to attack Iraq from three directions - the north, south and west - in a campaign to topple President Saddam Hussein, according to a person familiar with the document.
The document envisions tens of thousands of marines and soldiers probably invading from Kuwait. Hundreds of warplanes based in as many as eight countries, possibly including Turkey and Qatar, would unleash a huge air assault against thousands of targets, including airfields, roadways and fiber-optics communications sites.
Special operations forces or covert C.I.A. operatives would strike at depots or laboratories storing or manufacturing Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to launch them.
None of the countries identified in the document as possible staging areas have been formally consulted about playing such a role, officials said, underscoring the preliminary nature of the planning. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld visited American bases in Kuwait and Qatar and the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain on his most recent trip to the Persian Gulf region in June.
The existence of the document that outlined significant aspects of a "concept" for a war against Iraq as it stood about two months ago indicates an advanced state of planning in the military even though President Bush continues to state in public and to his allies that he has no fine-grain war plan on his desk for the invasion of Iraq.
Yet the concept for such a plan is now highly evolved and is apparently working its way through military channels. Once a consensus is reached on the concept, the steps toward assembling a final war plan and, most importantly, the element of timing for ground deployments and commencement of an air war, represent the final sequencing that Mr. Bush will have to decide.
Mr. Bush has received at least two briefings from Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the head of the Central Command, on the broad outlines, or "concept of operations," for a possible attack against Iraq. The most recent briefing was on June 19, according to the White House.
"Right now, we're at the stage of conceptual thinking and brainstorming," a senior defense official said. "We're pretty far along."
The highly classified document, entitled "CentCom Courses of Action," was prepared by planners at the Central Command in Tampa, Fla., according to the person familiar with the document.
Officials say it has already undergone revisions, but is a snapshot of an important, but preliminary stage, in a comprehensive process that translates broad ideas into the detailed, step-by-step blueprint for combat operations that the Pentagon defines as a "war plan."
Still, the document, compiled in a long set of briefing slides, offers a rare glimpse into the inner sanctum of the war planners assigned to think about options for defeating Iraq.
"It is the responsibility of the Department of Defense to develop contingency plans and, from time to time, to update them," Victoria Clarke, the Pentagon spokeswoman, said today. "In fact, we have recently issued new general planning guidance, and that generates activity at the staff level."
Officials said neither Mr. Rumsfeld, nor the Joint Chiefs of Staff or General Franks had been briefed on this specific document as yet.
The source familiar with the document described its contents to The New York Times on the condition of anonymity, expressing frustration that the planning reflected at least in this set of briefing slides was insufficiently creative, and failed to incorporate fully the advances in tactics and technology that the military has made since the Persian Gulf war in 1991.
Administration officials say they are still weighing options other than war to dislodge Mr. Hussein. But most military and administration officials believe that a coup in Iraq would be unlikely to succeed, and that a proxy battle using local forces would not be enough to drive the Iraqi leader from power.
Nothing in the Central Command document or in interviews with senior military officials suggests that an attack on Iraq is imminent.
Indeed, senior administration officials continue to say that any offensive would probably be delayed until early next year, allowing time to create the right military, economic and diplomatic conditions.
Nonetheless, there are several signs that the military is preparing for a major air campaign and land invasion.
Thousands of marines from the First Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton, Calif., the marine unit designated for the gulf, have stepped up their mock assault drills, a Pentagon adviser said. The military is building up bases in several Persian Gulf states, including a major airfield in Qatar called Al Udeid. Thousands of American troops are already stationed in the region.
After running dangerously low on precision-guided bombs during the war in Afghanistan, the Pentagon has said it has stepped up production of critical munitions. The Air Force is stockpiling weapons, ammunition and spare parts, like airplane engines, at depots in the United States and in the Middle East.
"We don't know when or where the next contingency will be," Gen. Lester L. Lyles, head of the Air Force Materiel Command, said in an interview this week. "But we want to fill up the stock bins."
The Central Command document, as described by the source familiar with it, is significant not just for what it contains, but also for what it leaves out.
The document describes in precise detail specific Iraqi bases, surface-to-air missile sites, air defense networks and fiber-optics communications to be attacked. "The target list is so huge it's almost egregious," the source said. "It's obvious that we've been watching these guys for an awfully long time."
Dozens of slides are devoted to organizational details, like the precise tonnage of American munitions stored at various bases around the Persian Gulf, deployment time lines for troops leaving East and West Coast ports for the gulf region, and the complexities of interwoven intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance networks.
At the same time, according to the source, the document is silent on or barely mentions other important aspects of any operation, suggesting that there are several highly classified documents that address different parts of the planning.
For instance, the "Courses of Action" document does not mention other coalition forces, casualty estimates, how Mr. Hussein may himself be a target, or what political regime might follow the Iraqi leader if an American-led attack was successful, the source said.
Nor does the document discuss the sequencing of air and ground campaigns, the precise missions of special operations forces or the possibility of urban warfare in downtown Baghdad, with Iraqi forces possibly deploying chemical weapons.
In fact, the discussion about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction is relatively terse. The document discusses the broad threat such weapons pose to American forces and surrounding countries, the need to deter Baghdad from using them, and, failing that, devising ways to counter them.
It describes the number of Marine and Army divisions, air expeditionary forces, and aircraft carriers. These and other forces add up to as many as 250,000 troops, the source familiar with the document said, but there is little detail about those forces beyond that.
Nor does the document contain a comprehensive analysis of the Iraqi ground forces, including the Republican Guard and various security forces that are believed to be fiercely loyal to Mr. Hussein. This again suggests that such analysis is either incomplete or is contained in another planning document.
By emphasizing a large American force, the document seems to reflect a view that a successful campaign would require sizable conventional forces staging from Kuwait, or at least held in reserve there.
An alternative plan, championed by retired Gen. Wayne A. Downing of the Army, calls for conquering Iraq with a combination of airstrikes and special operations attacks in coordination with indigenous fighters, similar to the campaign in Afghanistan. Relying solely on that approach appears to have been ruled out.
General Downing resigned last week as Mr. Bush's chief adviser on counterterrorism, reportedly frustrated by the administration's tough talk against Iraq but lack of action.
Among the many questions the military and the administration must address before staging an invasion is where to base air and ground forces in the region.
Geography and history, specifically the gulf war, would suggest that countries like Kuwait, Turkey, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain would be likely candidates for staging troops or air combat missions.
Any mention of using bases in Saudi Arabia, from which the United States staged the bulk of the airstrikes in the gulf war, is conspicuously missing from the document, said an official familiar with the briefing slides. The United States would need permission to use Saudi airspace adjacent to Iraq, if not Saudi bases themselves, officials said.
The Saudis have allowed the United States to run the air war against Afghanistan from a sophisticated command center at Prince Sultan Air Base, outside Riyadh, but have prohibited the Air Force from flying any attack missions from Saudi soil.
Senior Air Force officials have expressed mounting frustration with restrictions the Saudis have placed on American operations, and the Central Command is developing an alternate command center at the sprawling Udeid base in Qatar, should that be needed.
The Central Command document does not contain a time line of when American forces could start flowing to the gulf or how long it would take to put all the forces in place. Nor does it answer one of the big questions administration officials are wrestling with: how will Mr. Hussein react if there is a large buildup of conventional forces, such as the United States had in the gulf war.
"The Iraqis aren't just going to sit on their butts while we put in 250,000 people," a military analyst said.
------
Talks Advance on Iraq Arms Inspections
Associated Press
Friday, July 5, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26342-2002Jul4?language=printer
VIENNA, July 4 -- Emerging from four hours of closed talks, U.N. officials and representatives of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein said today they had made progress toward returning U.N. weapons inspectors to Iraq.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said he was "satisfied" with the session. But he sidestepped the question of whether a deal was near that would let inspectors back in Iraq for the first time in 3 1/2 years.
Pressed to make a prediction, Annan merely grinned and said "Inshallah," Arabic for "God willing."
Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri used the same word when asked whether he got what he wanted from the first day of a two-day session at the U.N. offices in Vienna. But he, too, appeared satisfied with the session.
Iraq wants the United Nations to lift sanctions and address U.S. threats to topple Hussein before agreeing to U.N. demands.
Under U.N. Security Council resolutions, sanctions can be lifted only when inspectors certify that Iraq's programs to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons have been destroyed, along with long-range missiles that can deliver such arms.
The Security Council -- particularly the United States -- has accused Iraq of trying to rebuild its banned weapons programs and of supporting terrorism.
The Vienna-based U.N. nuclear agency reiterated that it was ready to return to the inspection task at any time.
Jacques Baute, the agency's team leader for Iraq, said inspectors could move into the country within a few days of a decision.
In another sign of progress, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said that Iraq and the United Nations were close to agreement on returning Kuwait's national archives, which were looted during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
----
Iraq Still Says 'No' to UN Weapons Inspections
July 5, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-iraq-un-talks.html
VIENNA (Reuters) - Iraq failed to reach an accord with the United Nations on Friday to resume weapons inspections after intensive talks involving Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri.
The impasse will favor those in the Bush administration who want the military to topple President Saddam Hussein while many European and Arab leaders want to find a diplomatic compromise.
The two-day meeting was the third high-level session on the arms inspectors this year.
``They didn't say yes,'' Annan told reporters after the talks, which he called constructive, ended on Friday. ``I would have preferred more,'' he said, adding: ``I cannot force a decision.''
Sabri said he expected another round of talks in the coming months on the weapons inspectors, abscent from Iraq for more than three years, but Annan said no date had been set for the discussions, expected to be in Vienna or Geneva.
The Iraqi delegation will now go back to report to their authorities, he said. ``We have agreed to maintain contacts, including continuing discussions on technical matters.''
IRAQ WANTS ANSWERS
Sabri made clear he wanted answers to many of the questions he submitted at the last talks in May, on issues ranging from U.S. threats for a ``regime change'' in Baghdad to a timetable for the lifting of U.N. sanctions, imposed when Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990.
But Annan has said repeatedly he is not in a position to answer any political questions concerning U.S. policy or other issues that fall within the province or the 15 U.N. Security Council members.
However, Sabri was not persuaded and accused the Security Council of violating its own resolutions.
``We need assurances from the United Nations,'' Sabri said. ``We are the victims of illegal practices forced by the United States on the Security Council. We have lost 1.67 million citizens as a result of the sanctions the Security Council imposed in clear violation of international law.''
Richard Grenell, a spokesman for John Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told Reuters in New York: ``We are disappointed yet again but not surprised that they haven't complied with Security Council resolutions.''
The weapons inspectors, whose return is a key requirement to lifting U.N. sanctions, left Iraq in December 1998 on the eve of a U.S.-British bombing raid and have not been allowed to return. Iraq maintains the inspectors were U.S. spies and that it has declared all its dangerous arms programs.
The United States has stepped up war plans for what President Bush calls a ``regime change,'' in part to pressure Iraq into allowing U.N. inspectors to check on weapons of mass destruction.
Washington would lose much support for its campaign against Saddam if the U.N. inspectors were allowed to return, diplomats and analysts say.
The New York Times reported on Friday that the Pentagon had drafted plans to invade Iraq, using air, land and sea-based forces. The newspaper said the plans appeared in an advanced state although an attack did not seem imminent.
The most positive news to come out of the talks were arrangements made between Iraq and the United Nations to return tons of archives of state papers looted from Kuwait when Baghdad's troops occupied the emirate in August 1990.
--------
The Warpath: Pressures Build on Iraq
July 5, 2002
By PATRICK E. TYLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/05/international/05ASSE.html
The pressure on the Pentagon to produce a plan for President Bush to make war on Iraq underscores the failure of either diplomacy or covert operations to dislodge Saddam Hussein or force him to open up to United Nations inspectors hunting for weapons of mass destruction.
The emergence of a detailed concept for a military attack on Iraq also suggests that Mr. Bush's new approach to solving the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians may be part of a shift in focus toward preparations for an Iraq campaign.
Mr. Bush was briefed on the state of war planning on June 19 by the top general in the American central command, Tommy R. Franks. Five days later, the president delivered his long awaited Middle East policy address, calling on Palestinians to jettison their leader, Yasir Arafat, and warning that otherwise they can expect little in the way of support or assistance from the United States.
Effectively, that stalled the American mediation effort in the Middle East, a state of affairs reflecting the broad view of Mr. Bush's more conservative advisers, among them Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict does not present a strategic threat to American interests in the Middle East - but Iraq's interest in developing weapons of mass destruction does.
The evidence that Mr. Hussein still possesses such weapons remains murky - particularly in the view of America's European allies, most of whom have argued strongly against a new war on Iraq.
In the United States and its principal Middle East ally, Israel, however, a number of senior officials - including Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak - believe that a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq could be fashioned into some form of democracy.
In this view, an Iraq under new governance could become a new Western ally, helping to reduce American dependency on bases in Saudi Arabia, to secure Israel's eastern flank and act as a wedge between Iran and Syria, two of the most active sponsors of terrorism.
The obstacles, risks and costs to such a strategy remain largely unaddressed by the Bush administration, and its planning for any eventual war is tightly wrapped in secrecy.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, the administration's leading advocate for the centrality of Iraq in American strategic planning in the Middle East, was host this week to Iraqi opposition leaders, according to opposition officials, and received a bleak report from them on the chaotic state of opposition forces in Iraq.
Nonetheless, the Pentagon is pursuing efforts to unite the Iraqi opposition so that it might play the same kind of adjunct role of intelligence collection, target identification and combat that anti-Taliban partisans played in the Afghan campaign.
According to the opposition officials, the meeting was attended by representatives from the State Department's and C.I.A.'s task forces on Iraq, along with American military officials.
Kurdish leaders in Northern Iraq are riven by internal disputes and have yet to come to any agreement with the C.I.A. to allow American intelligence officers, Special Forces trainers or diplomats to set up camp there and begin preparations for a new campaign against Mr. Hussein.
In April, Kurdish and other Iraqi opposition officials said that Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani, the principal Kurdish leaders, traveled to Frankfurt, and then to a C.I.A. training base in southern Virginia.
There, the opposition officials said, their leaders were told that the United States had decided to overthrow Saddam Hussein and was seeking to send C.I.A. teams to train Kurdish fighters in how to work with United States forces much as Afghan fighters helped United States forces against the Taliban.
A spokesman for the C.I.A. declined comment.
For now, Kurdish leaders appear reluctant to sign on to American war planning unless they get strong guarantees that the Bush administration plans to go all the way to Baghdad.
They also want Kurdish cities protected from the kind of onslaught that Mr. Hussein unleashed during the Clinton administration's failed attempt to dislodge Mr. Hussein, a failure that forced the C.I.A. to evacuate thousands of partisans from Iraq at a cost of more than $100 million, according administration officials.
On the diplomatic front, a number of moderate Arab leaders have advised the White House in recent months that if President Bush hopes to build a consensus for removing Mr. Hussein by force, the best way to achieve that goal is to first achieve an Israeli-Palestinian breakthrough.
These leaders said that any peace agreement must address Palestinian aspirations for statehood, which in turn would undermine Arab radicals who have stoked anti-Americanism in the region and threatened the stability of moderate Arab governments that are America's allies.
At their March summit meeting in Beirut, Arab leaders offered Israel recognition and peace in return for withdrawal from lands it seized in 1967. They also took a strong position on Iraq, calling on Mr. Hussein to open his borders to inspections, but - in a pointed warning to Washington - stated that an attack on Iraq would threaten the national security interests of all Arab states.
Many of the moderate Arab states have expressed a willingness to assist in Mr. Hussein's removal if he does not accept the kind of intrusive inspections needed to reassure the world that he does not possess nuclear, chemical or biological weapons or the means to produce or deliver them, nor will he ever have them.
But when Mr. Cheney toured Middle East capitals in March to discuss American plans to topple Mr. Hussein, his efforts made little headway in light of Mr. Sharon's military campaign in the West Bank.
Still, Mr. Bush can count on some support from other allies - like Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain - whose positions have shifted over the last year.
Even Russia, with its longstanding military relationship with Iraq during Soviet times and its heavy investment in Iraq's oil sector, has signed on to the notion that Mr. Hussein has just one final chance to live up to the obligations given at the end of the Persian Gulf war to disarm and submit to long-term monitoring.
-------- israel / palestine
Jenin deaths video implicates army
Friday, 5 July, 2002
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_2102000/2102081.stm Photos: http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/38119000/jpg/_38119221_sequence300.jpg
The boys' father showed the tape to the BBC's Orla Guerin The BBC has obtained video footage which appears to show an incident in the West Bank city of Jenin two weeks ago in which two Palestinian children were killed by Israeli tank fire.
The Israeli army has apologised for causing the deaths of six-year-old Ahmad Abu Aziz and his 13-year-old brother Jamil, but said the tank crew opened fire to deter Palestinians breaking a curfew and approaching them.
However, the footage shows a tank firing the first of two shells, at close range, at a group of civilians who are running away.
The dead boys' father, Youssef Abu Aziz, told the BBC that they had gone outside to buy chocolate, thinking the Israeli curfew imposed on their city had been lifted.
Click here to see images from the video
The film of their last moments begins with the two boys and a number of other civilians running towards the camera along an otherwise deserted street in Jenin.
Filmed from high building some distance away the footage is shaky, but clearly shows the sequence of events.
A white car speeds along the road, horn blaring, the driver - Dr Samer al-Ahmad - apparently warning the people to run for their lives.
Now recovering from his wounds, Dr al-Ahmad told the BBC that, moments earlier, an Israeli officer had said to him that it was allowed for him to be on the streets.
But then he said the tank crew opened fire on him with a machine-gun "without warning... I was hit but I drove on".
Soon afterwards in the film, the Israeli tank appears at the end of the street. It stops for a few seconds before firing in the direction of the retreating Palestinians, the blast engulfing it in a ball of flame and smoke.
Questions to answer
"I thought there was no danger," says Mr Abu Aziz.
"Ahmad asked me for money because he wanted to buy a chocolate bar. I loved him and his brother so much. Ahmad was buried with the chocolate in his hand."
The troops entered Jenin and imposed a curfew as part of a massive security operation Israel said was designed stamp out the militant cells which have launched dozens of suicide attacks in the past two years.
Twenty-three suicide bombers have come from Jenin alone, earning it the reputation in Israel as the "capital of terrorism".
The Israeli army says its still investigating what happened that day.
BBC correspondent Orla Guerin, who viewed at first had the Abu Aziz tape, says the army has many questions to answer, including:
If the soldiers wanted to clear the street why didn't they fire warning shots? Why were tank shells used in a crowded civilian area?
Our correspondent says Israel has a poor record in prosecuting its own soldiers when faced with evidence like that seen in the tape.
When the Israeli army was asked to comment on the footage, it refused.
----
'Missile' explodes near Israeli plane
Friday, 5 July, 2002
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_2096000/2096982.stm
The pilot of an Israeli plane has reported seeing what he believes to have been a missile exploding in mid-air at a distance from his aircraft while flying over Ukraine.
The Ukrainian defence ministry have ruled out any involvement by their forces.
The Israeli Government says the El Al plane was never in danger.
Last year, 78 people died when a Russian airliner flying from Israel was hit over Ukraine by what was believed to have been a stray missile fired during a military exercise.
Flash
Thursday night's incident occurred during a regular El Al flight from Tel Aviv to Moscow.
The pilot saw a "strong flash" at a distance while flying over Dnipropetrovsk in Ukraine, El Al said.
Israeli Transport Minister Ephraim Sneh said he had spoken at length with the pilot, whom he described as an experienced air force veteran.
"There is no doubt that he saw a missile," Mr Sneh told Israeli Army Radio.
"Circumstances suggest it was not launched at the El Al plane," Mr Sneh added.
A Russian pilot, flying a Urals Airlines plane, told Ukrainian air traffic controllers that he had also seen a strong flash, according to AFP news agency.
Israeli and Russian officials are investigating the incident.
Freak phenomenon?
But Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma said the suggestion that the incident involved a Ukrainian missile was "absurd".
"After last year's unfortunate incidents, firing missiles is totally banned in Ukraine," he said.
Ukrainian Defence Minister Volodymyr Shkidchenko said the reported flash was most likely "some sort of an atmospheric phenomenon or something else".
In October last year, a Tu-154 plane operated by Sibir airlines flying from Tel Aviv to Novosibirsk in Siberia exploded in mid-air over Ukraine, before crashing into the Black Sea.
All those on board - most of them Israelis - were killed.
After repeated denials, the Ukrainian defence ministry conceded that one of its ground-to-air missiles had brought the aircraft down.
----
Israel and US have "secret" Middle East peace plan: Sharon
Friday July 5, 2002
AFP
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/020705/afp/020705094427top.html
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon says he has worked out a secret peace plan with the Bush administration to end the Middle East conflict.
"The general feeling that there exists no plan has helped keep this plan secret," the Yediot Aharonot newspaper quoted the hardline Israeli leader as telling an economic conference here Thursday.
"I was therefore able quietly to work for months to reach an understanding with the Americans," Sharon said, without providing any details about the plan or which US officials he had spoken with.
"We're interested in putting back on track the peace process, not to create the illusion of a peace process but to reach a real agreement which will bring peace," Sharon said.
"I decided to take the initiative and change the negative atmosphere in the region and to give a chance for peace," he said.
He added that "Israel warmly welcomes the principles raised in President Bush's speech" on the Middle East, referring to a key Middle East policy address given by George W. Bush late last month.
However, a senior aide to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat dismissed Sharon's "imaginary" peace plan, and said the former general was likely just floating a "trial balloon."
"These imaginary peace plans and trial balloons will lead to nothing," Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP on Friday.
Israeli public radio, meanwhile, reported that a Sharon envoy went on a "secret mission" this week to Washington to discuss how to carry out the ideas in Bush's speech.
In his speech on June 24, Bush called on the Palestinians to change their leaders as a precondition for a Palestinian state in three years.
----
Israelis and Palestinians Settle Further Into Their Stalemate
New York Times
July 5, 2002
By JAMES BENNET
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/05/international/middleeast/05CND-MIDEAST.html
JERUSALEM, July 5 - Israelis and Palestinians settled deeper into their alienating stalemate today, as Israel's outgoing army chief of staff said that only the expulsion or replacement of the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat might prompt an Israeli withdrawal in the coming months from the seven West Bank cities it has placed under 24-hour curfew.
As long as Mr. Arafat and the risk of Palestinian violence remained present, "we will have no choice but to stay in the Palestinian cities," said Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz, the chief of staff, in a valedictory interview published today in the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.
Asked if that meant that the Israeli Defense Force, or I.D.F., would remain in the Palestinian cities for months, General Mofaz replied, "at least." He said the army would "allow food, water, fuel in" to areas except those "where there is terror." Some 700,000 Palestinians live in the areas newly under Israeli military control.
Palestinians, aid groups and some foreign diplomats have angrily protested the Israeli policy, but Israelis are rallying around it, regardless of its high costs and demands on reserve forces. Despite a sagging Israeli economy, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is seeing his approval rating soar. Two weeks have passed without a suicide attack in Israel.
"That's the reason why nobody's objecting to semi-permanent military operations in Palestinian cities," said Mark Heller, a senior researcher at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University. "You can go through all the convoluted analysis you want and then come up with a standard input-output analysis: Put the I.D.F. in and stop the terrorism coming out."
Palestinians say that by deferring peace negotiations and asserting military control over what by treaty is Palestinian-administered territory, Israel will provoke more violence in the long term.
Israeli officials continued to say today that they believed a shooting attack on Thursday on an El Al airline ticket counter in Los Angeles was terrorism. A Egyptian-born gunman killed two people before being shot dead himself.
"We are going to assume that it's a terror attack until proven otherwise," Ephraim Sneh, the Israeli transport minister, told Israel radio. "As far as we're concerned, this is not an isolated incident."
El Al, known for its tight security, praised the speedy response of its armed guards in Los Angeles and said it was putting no new security measures in place.
Separately, an El Al pilot flying over Ukraine on Thursday night reported a missile rising and then exploding near his airplane. No one was hurt, and the Ukrainian government said that it had not fired a missile. The government said it had banned missile exercises since Oct. 4, when a Siberian Airlines airplane was accidentally shot down, killing the 76 people aboard.
Today in Gaza City, thousands of Palestinians, many of them calling for revenge, marched in a funeral procession for two men, one of them a leader of the militant Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades. The two died in a car explosion on Thursday night that Palestinians called an Israeli assassination. The Israeli Army had no comment on the deaths.
An overwhelming majority of 69 percent of Israelis said in a survey published today in the newspaper Ma'ariv that Israel should await "a new Palestinian leadership" before conducting negotiations. That is the approach, first pressed by Mr. Sharon, that President Bush embraced in a speech last week.
The Palestinian leadership has said that it plans to hold elections in January, but that it will be unable to carry them out if the Israeli Army is still preventing movement through the West Bank.
Nabil Aburdeineh, a close aide to Mr. Arafat, said Bush administration officials "are asking us for reform and election, and they are not helping us carry out our reforms."
He said no American officials had been directly in contact with Mr. Arafat since President Bush's speech on June 25.
In the Ma'ariv poll, which had a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points, 58 percent of Israelis said they supported expelling Mr. Arafat, who, under the Oslo Accords, returned to the occupied territories eight years ago this week. Mr. Sharon also favors expelling Mr. Arafat, but such a move is opposed by the chiefs of Israel's intelligence services and ministers of the Labor Party, which is part of a coalition government with Mr. Sharon's Likud Party.
Israel is erecting fences and digging ditches around the Palestinian cities, and it is building a fence along part of the boundary with the West Bank. But Israeli officials have not made clear whether those defensive measures, expected to take months to put in place, will ultimately permit a troop withdrawal.
Mr. Sharon's government is internally conflicted on this matter, apparently undecided itself of the precise end point - geographic or strategic - of the fence-building project. "The terms I use are more stumbling or bumbling or fumbling through, improvising from one day to the next," Mr. Heller of the Jaffee Center said. "Not that I know what I would do if I were in Sharon's chair."
Mr. Arafat also appears to be groping for a path forward. After two days of wrangling, Mr. Arafat on Thursday formally dismissed his West Bank security chief, Jibril Rajoub, as part of what Mr. Aburdeineh described as a continuing effort to reshape his security forces. "Nobody stopped trying to find new faces for the new security branches, and it's not over," he said. "The problem is not just the Israelis are preventing us from going on, the Americans are not helping us."
Mr. Rajoub has close ties to top Israeli and American security officials, and is regarded, at least by Israelis, as a pragmatic potential successor to Mr. Arafat.
Outside the West Bank city of Hebron, near Mr. Rajoub's home village of Dura, Palestinians said today that they were baffled by the changes, and some said they were also not much interested. "All these changes are useless," said Abed Jabari, 35, a construction worker. "It will not change our situation on the ground. All we are looking for are honest people who will think of our interest before thinking of their interest."
-------- nato
Lott sees Baltics as NATO members
By Nicholas Kralev
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 5, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020705-73498762.htm
RIGA, Latvia - Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott said yesterday that he expects the three Baltic states, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, to become NATO members in November but conceded that their contribution to the alliance will be more political than military and financial.
After a meeting of a bipartisan Senate delegation with the Baltic presidents in Riga, Mr. Lott, Mississippi Republican, said NATO expansion is "worthwhile." He also said that he looks "forward to inviting the largest possible number" of countries to join at the alliance's Prague summit in the fall.
"There is a special feeling in America about these three countries," Mr. Lott told reporters. "They stand a very excellent chance to be invited, and I expect that will be the result. If I could cast my vote, I'd say yes."
He will be able to cast his vote, along with all his colleagues in Congress, when the Bush administration sends the enlargement bill to Capitol Hill for ratification. The parliaments of all NATO members have to approve every new accession.
Many legislators have been supportive of what the Bush administration calls "robust expansion" - in fact, the debate on the issue has been virtually nonexistent this time compared with the impassioned discussions five years ago, when Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic received invitations.
But no member of Congress had gone as far as Mr. Lott, both to predict the outcome and to publicly endorse specific applicants so far in advance of the heads of state meeting, nearly five months away.
Only a year ago, taking in even one of the former Soviet Baltic republics was viewed by many NATO capitals as too big of an irritant in the alliance's relationship with Moscow. However, with an agreement signed in late June making Russia a de facto member, that concern has vanished.
Moscow, however, maintains its official position of opposition to the alliance's eastward enlargement.
Mr. Lott, with Presidents Vaira Vike-Freiberga of Latvia, Valdas Adamkus of Lithuania and Arnold Ruutel of Estonia standing at his side, said the three countries' membership would have value "in terms of the principles" NATO believes in, because it is "much more than a security alliance."
The three presidents, along with the prime ministers of Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Albania, Macedonia and Croatia, gather today for the last time before the meeting in Prague, where a first set of seven countries is poised to win invitations.
President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair will make separate video addresses to the participants in the Riga summit. While they are expected to give the hopefuls a big boost, the two also will caution that the road to actual membership does not end in Prague.
The delegation led by Mr. Lott also included Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Republican Sens. Craig Thomas of Wyoming, Jim Bunning of Kentucky and Robert F. Bennett of Utah.
-------- pakistan
As Pakistani's Popularity Slides, 'Busharraf' Is a Figure of Ridicule
New York Times
July 5, 2002
By DEXTER FILKINS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/05/international/asia/05STAN.html
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, July 4 - The man chosen to provide the local muscle in America's campaign against terrorism is finding himself with hardly a friend at home.
Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's dictator, who bet his future on a post-Sept. 11 alliance with the West, has lost considerable popular support as he has forced a series of dramatic changes on this Islamic country at the behest of his foreign allies, according to recent interviews with dozens of Pakistanis.
Nine months after joining the Western coalition against terrorism, General Musharraf, 58, is isolated in his own land, increasingly a figure of ridicule and the focus of a growing anti-Western fury that is shared by Islamic militants and the middle class alike.
The decline in the general's fortunes represents an abrupt turnaround since last autumn, when he was hailed at home and in the West as a reform-minded Muslim leader in the mold of Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey and one of the general's heroes.
The general's hold over the army and at least the upper echelons of Pakistan's powerful intelligence services is not in doubt, for now, and there appears to be no immediate threat to his power. But at no time since Sept. 11 has he appeared as isolated or vulnerable.
General Musharraf's dutiful carrying out of Washington's demands is galvanizing a widespread feeling here that he has largely traded away Pakistan's sovereignty to the United States and that Pakistan's new policy toward Kashmir is the latest in a series of humiliations he has endured at America's hand. With F.B.I. agents now joining in raids of suspected hideouts of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, the anti-American sentiment here has reached a peak.
Indeed, General Musharraf has become so closely identified with the Americans that he has even earned a nickname on Pakistan's streets: "Busharraf."
A nationwide referendum on his rule two months ago was regarded so widely as fraudulent that the general was forced to acknowledge the nation's anger publicly.
His decision this spring to block the infiltration of Islamic fighters into the Indian-held part of Kashmir, while averting a war with India, is prompting threats of revenge from the militants.
"If America stops its support, Musharraf wouldn't last for a day," said Usman Majeed, 31, a businessman in Islamabad, echoing the sentiment of many middle-class Pakistanis. "Musharraf is doing all these unconstitutional things because he has America's support. But America is not our friend."
While no public opinion polls are available to judge the general's performance, many anecdotal indicators, like his portrayal in the press and comments from political and business leaders around the country, suggest that public confidence in him has eroded markedly in recent months.
A vivid illustration of the general's changing fortunes can be found in an influential Pakistani monthly, The Herald. After General Musharraf's major speech on Jan. 12, when he proposed to turn the country away from militant Islam, he appeared on the magazine's cover, dressed in a white tunic and gesturing boldly under the headline "Musharraf's New Pakistan."
Two months later he appeared on the cover again, his face bloated and sweating, hiding behind a mask of Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, Pakistan's dictator in the 1980's, who is widely reviled for his brutality and for supporting the forces of militant Islam. The headline: "Games Dictators Play."
"I think he missed his opportunity," said Afrasiab Khattak, a lawyer and human rights advocate in Peshawar. "Once he had the public behind him. But now he has chosen only to perpetuate his own power."
As his popularity ebbs, the general is making efforts to shore up his rule.
Last week he announced that he was considering rewriting the Constitution to give himself the power to dissolve Parliament and dismiss the prime minister in any future elected government. With the general widely expected to hold parliamentary elections in the fall, many analysts here say he is setting the stage for an almost certain confrontation.
After the events of Sept. 11, when President Bush offered General Musharraf the stark choice of helping the West or opposing it, he embarked on a bold course intended to lead this Islamic republic down a more moderate and secular path.
He withdrew support for the Taliban, the militant Islamic group that ruled neighboring Afghanistan and which his country's intelligence agencies had helped to create, and orchestrated a crackdown against militant Islamic groups that had long sent fighters to Afghanistan and Kashmir and were threatening to radicalize Pakistan itself.
At the time, General Musharraf demonstrated a combination of boldness and agility that enabled him to prevail in the face of extraordinary pressures. He faced down his critics and outmaneuvered his enemies, particularly the Islamists within his army.
To do that he relied on the support of the vast majority of Pakistanis who share his vision of moderate Islam and who were willing to set aside their desires for a more democratic government.
But the general's nimbleness seems to have failed him, and the people have taken notice.
General Musharraf's eroding fortunes present American officials with a quandary: if they keep pushing the leader of Pakistan to help prosecute the campaign against the terrorism and to avoid a potentially catastrophic war on the subcontinent, they may also contribute to his downfall.
American officials have long worried about the prospect of Pakistan's nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands, particularly in case of a takeover by Islamic militants. At the very least it seems likely that domestic pressures may force the general to balk at future American demands, particularly insistence that he continue to shut down the flow of insurgents into Kashmir.
General Musharraf may yet regain his footing. He still commands the support of a large number of Pakistanis, particularly those who see him as the only alternative to rule by conservative mullahs or by elected thieves.
Even in a country as vibrant as Pakistan, with a relatively free press and an outspoken populace, the general need not fear a public rebellion yet. As long as the army remains unified behind him, he will probably be able to continue in office.
The concern among some Pakistanis, though, is that he may rule in a vacuum. As his support fades, he will feel less and less confident to make politically difficult choices, like taking on the militants who want to fight in Kashmir.
"There is a growing perception that Musharraf is a weak person, a weak commander, who continuously retreats," said A. H. Nayyar, a physics professor at Qaid-e-Azam University.
For now the more immediate danger is an attack by one of the many militant groups that have made the general their enemy. A senior Pakistani official said last week that suspected members of Al Qaeda imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay had told their American interrogators of a plot to kill General Musharraf for his perceived betrayal.
Security around him has been beefed up recently, the official said, and he is so concerned about traitors in his ranks that he often carries his own handgun.
Some militant groups, blocked for the first time from moving into the Indian side of Kashmir, are vowing to strike back. Some people worry that militants may be conspiring with some elements inside the Pakistan Army to destabilize the general's government.
"No Pakistani leader has ever betrayed Kashmir and survived," said Yahya Mujahid, a leader of Lashkar-e-Taiba, or the Army of the Pure, which has been outlawed by the Pakistani government and deemed a terrorist organization by the United States. "We are angry."
The last Pakistani leader who showed weakness over Kashmir was Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who under pressure from the United States and India withdrew his forces from the Kargil region of India three years ago. Two months later, he was overthrown and arrested.
The man who toppled him, of course, was General Musharraf, the leader of the Pakistan Army.
Some Pakistanis have begun to speculate that Islamic militants inside the military may try to topple General Musharraf, especially if he continues to block the militants in Kashmir. For years the Pakistan Army and Inter-Services Intelligence trained and armed Islamic radicals to fight in places like Afghanistan and Kashmir.
Severing that connection might be more difficult than simply issuing an order.
"The army is a very disciplined force, but the president has taken actions against the broad national sentiments," said Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul, a retired chief of the intelligence agency and a supporter of militant Islamic groups. "Its discipline could be tested."
Outside the army, there is discontent among many moderate Pakistanis who see signs that General Musharraf's stifling of democracy is beginning to push Pakistani society into the hands of the militants.
"America is making things worse by supporting the general," said Mr. Khattak, the Peshawar lawyer. "After Sept. 11, democracy is indispensable here. Only democracy can root out terrorism."
--------
U.S. Delivers Copters to Pakistan
July 5, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Pakistan-US.html
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistan has taken possession of five U.S. helicopters fitted with sophisticated communication and surveillance systems to help in the hunt for al-Qaida and Taliban fugitives along the Afghan border, a senior official said Friday.
Delivery of the new hardware comes amid deadly clashes between Pakistani authorities and al-Qaida suspects in the tribal-controlled border region, where al-Qaida and Taliban fighters are believed to have taken refuge.
``These helicopters are equipped with the latest facilities and will help us in fighting against terrorism,'' Brig. Javed Iqbal Cheema told The Associated Press.
Cheema, the director-general of the Interior Ministry's National Crisis Management Cell, said the helicopters would be used to boost security in the border zone.
He said the United States also would supply three surveillance planes to Pakistan. The planes were currently being fitted out and would be delivered within a few weeks, he said.
Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider said the helicopters arrived in Pakistan on Thursday and were being assembled, state-run news agency Associated Press of Pakistan reported. The helicopters would be deployed in about two weeks after pilots received training, he said.
Pakistan took possession of the helicopters one day after four al-Qaida suspects and three Pakistani officials were killed in a gunbattle near the border town of Khohat. Authorities found explosives in the van the men were traveling in, leading them to suspect they were planning a terrorist attack.
The van was coming from Wana district in the tribal belt, officials said.
On June 25, a group of al-Qaida suspects opened fire on Pakistani troops in Wana, starting a gunbattle that killed 10 Pakistani soldiers. Two al-Qaida suspects also died, one was captured and dozens more escaped. Thousands of troops, assisted by U.S. intelligence, are conducting house-to-house searches and manning road checkpoints looking for the fugitives.
U.S. military officials say most al-Qaida men and senior Taliban officials have fled Afghanistan and are hiding in Pakistan's tribal belt, which is controlled by local tribal leaders rather than the central Islamabad government.
President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has said that Pakistan has detained 300 al-Qaida members in the region and estimated that 1,000 more may be there.
Musharraf said last week that al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was probably dead and that if bin Laden was alive he was probably not in Pakistan.
Musharraf's remarks came a few days after Pakistan officials published a newspaper advertisement denouncing bin Laden and his top aides as ``dangerous religious terrorists'' and asking for public help in hunting them down.
-------- us
Espionage Demands Prod Navy on Sub Construction
By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 5, 2002; Page A19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26336-2002Jul4.html
The global war on terrorism has increased the demand for intelligence-gathering missions by Navy attack submarines by 30 percent, further stressing a fleet that had more spy missions than it could handle even before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, senior Navy officials said this week.
While aircraft carriers and fighter jets have been the most visible Navy participants in the war, attack submarines have been secretly patrolling the waters of countries such as Iran, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia gathering acoustic intelligence underwater and intercepting communications with small surface antennas.
Navy submarine commanders are hoping the increased demand for intelligence will help double the number of Virginia-class submarines being built to two a year.
"They can stay out there loitering for weeks or months on end," said Vice Adm. Dennis McGinn, deputy chief of naval operations for warfare requirements and resources. "And they are unobserved."
But some naval and intelligence analysts say they are skeptical of recent attempts within the Navy submarine community to promote the intelligence demands as justification for more funding as the fiscal 2004 budget is being prepared. They contend that submarines have only limited capabilities when it comes to intercepting telephone conversations and other electronic communications of terrorists on land.
"Submarines are excellent for acoustic intelligence, but whose shipping are we tracking [in the war on terrorism]?" said Norman Polmar, a naval analyst and author.
One U.S. intelligence official said, "The activity level for subs is high, not solely because of September 11th, but for a number of other things that we also need to keep an eye on."
By any measure, a Virginia-class submarine, at $2.3 billion, is an expensive way to gather intelligence, particularly when the Navy is trying to balance more submarines against the need for more surface ships and fighter planes.
Beyond the Navy's own internal debate, submarine advocates must convince Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that the submarines' ability to gather intelligence and insert Navy SEALs using small new onboard subs makes them truly "transformational" systems for a future fighting force.
These advocates took heart last year at Rumsfeld's decision to turn four ballistic-missile Trident submarines into stealthy Special Operations systems capable of carrying 66 SEALs, small insertion subs and 140 conventional Tomahawk cruise missiles.
Whether the Navy can afford to start building two Virginia-class submarines a year by fiscal 2007, as planned, it pays a premium for every sub it buys a year now by refusing to enter into multiship contracts that would enable it to benefit from economies of scale.
The Navy could save $90 million a submarine if it contracted for construction of five boats, and $115 million a submarine if it signed a contract for seven.
"That's kind of dumb," said Loren B. Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute, who has ties to the Pentagon and leading defense contractors. "There is no other submarine. The question is whether they're going to pay an arm and a leg for it, or just an arm."
During the Cold War, submarines had only limited communications capabilities underwater, submerging for intelligence-gathering missions and providing their "take" only after they surfaced months later.
Now, attack submarines are being outfitted with a new communications link called the Submarine High Data Rate system, which uses a periscope-mounted antenna for data transmission and reception at 256 kilobytes per second.
One senior Navy official said some attack submarines have new intelligence-gathering systems that employ fiber-optic cable to intercept communications through surface sensors, then process the signals digitally and transmit them to analysis centers in real time.
McGinn predicted that the "business and war-fighting case would be so compelling" that the Navy will increase the building of Virginia-class submarines at some point between fiscal years 2004 and 2009. McGinn said he thought the Navy would begin building the submarines using a multiyear contract that would produce millions of dollars in savings.
-------- propaganda wars
[To reply - mailto:letters@washingtontimes.com]
Misreporting Israel's war
Joel Himelfarb
July 5, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20020705-793139.htm
In the last few weeks, CNN has suffered a series of embarrassing incidents calling into question its news judgment and ability to meet the most basic standards of fairness in reporting on Israel. CNN boss Ted Turner made the following statement about the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. "I would make the case that both sides are engaged in terrorism," he told the Guardian newspaper. Although Mr. Turner subsequently apologized for suggesting that Israel was behaving this way, the damage had been done.
Then, a few days later, Eason Jordan, CNN's president of newsgathering, admitted that the network had made a "mistake" by giving more prominence to the suffering of the family of a Palestinian suicide bomber than it had to a relative of one of his victims, who included a one-year-old boy. Mr. Jordan said CNN had put into place a new system in which it would refuse to air any statements or videotape distributed by suicide bombers unless there was an "extraordinarily compelling" reason to do so. He said that the network hadn't done "enough" to show what the victims of terror are forced to endure.
If CNN actually follows through on Mr. Jordan's promise, it could be a major step in the right direction. During Operation Defensive Shield - the five-week-long military campaign Israel launched March 29 in response to a devastating series of suicide bombings by Palestinian terrorists operating out of areas controlled by Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority - CNN and other major news organs in the United States consistently portrayed Israel's actions in the most malevolent light possible while ignoring serious misconduct from the Palestinian side.
During one CNN broadcast, for example, anchor Carol Lin demanded to know why the United States should press Mr. Arafat to rein in terrorist violence without simultaneously demanding that Israel agree to the creation of a Palestinian state. "What sense does that make?" Mrs. Lin indignantly demanded. Apparently, she didn't know that opposing terrorism was something Mr. Arafat had repeatedly promised to do since signing the Oslo peace agreement with Israel in 1993, only to renege again and again. Mrs. Lin also seemed ignorant of the fact that Israel had offered Mr. Arafat such a state 20 months earlier at Camp David, but he rejected the offer and launched a wave of terror. Mrs. Lin's on-air broadcast partner, Tony Karon of Time, warned darkly that any effort to halt Palestinian violence would fail "unless it's linked to a political process" (i.e., concessions to Mr. Arafat which, in effect, would have rewarded his terrorist campaign).
CNN had plenty of company when it came to getting the story wrong. On NBC's "Today" Show, Katie Couric, ignoring the fact that Israel would never have launched a military offensive in the West Bank if it hadn't been attacked by suicide bombers, unsuccessfully attempted to goad British Prime Minister Tony Blair into placing the lion's share of the blame for the violence on Israel. On MSNBC, Martin Fletcher allowed suicide bombers and their defenders to argue without challenge that suicide bombings were a purely defensive response to unprovoked Israeli attacks.
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), a media watchdog group, noted that one day after a member of the terrorist group Hamas killed 29 people at a seder in a Netanya hotel, ABC's "Nightline" ran a report on suicide bombings, during which it failed to interview any Israeli survivors of the bloodbath. Dan Harris of "Nightline" did, however, find time to talk to a few of the tiny percentage of Israeli Jews who were opposed to military action against Palestinian terrorists. Host Chris Bury spent close to six minutes lobbing softball questions to Saudi Arabian spokesman Adel al-Jubeir, who suggested that Israeli soldiers who targeted terrorists were morally equivalent to suicide bombers. On the Fox News Channel, correspondent Geraldo Rivera suggested that Israel was "not fighting terrorism" but "inflicting terrorism" by attacking terrorists operating out of densely populated civilian areas.
When it came to the print media, The Washington Post seemed to specialize in portraying Israeli actions in Ramallah in the darkest possible light, and Mr. Arafat's behavior in the most bizarrely positive way. One article was headlined "Israeli Tanks Enter Ramallah After Arafat Calls for Cease-fire." For emphasis, The Post's story was accompanied by a Reuters photo of an Israeli soldier with his gun aimed at women and children.
In their reporting on the siege at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and its aftermath, the Times and The Post gave virtually no attention to the fact (which was reported on the front page of The Washington Times) that clergymen and other personnel were in effect held against their will by a local Palestinian gang known as the Abayat family, who terrorized local Christians, desecrated the church and hoarded food intended for the clergymen hostages there. All too often, the only news fit to print seemed to be that which portrayed Israel in the darkest possible light.
Joel Himelfarb is assistant editor of the editorial page for The Washington Times.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- energy
Spain ushers in new, uncertain energy era
Story by Daniel Trotta
REUTERS SPAIN:
July 5, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/16726/story.htm
SAN ROQUE, Spain - Two Spanish energy firms have ushered in a new era of power generation promising to help save the environment and improve the bottom line at the same time.
But financial analysts are unsure if the new technology, fuelled by natural gas, will be more profitable than coal-and oil-burning plants, depending on how the government reforms its electricity tariff structure.
Spain's largest power utility Endesa and Gas Natural , a gas distributor that is getting into the electricity business, inaugurated side-by-side combined cycle power plants in San Roque, on the southern coast.
The two plants, built together to save costs but to be operated separately, each have 400 megawatts of capacity and the two were built at a total cost of 340 million euros.
"We are creating value at a time when value creation is being confused with financial engineering," said Endesa Chairman Manuel Pizarro, referring to the accounting scandals of the United States.
For Endesa the modern plants represent a renovation of its ageing generators, while it is the first power plant for Gas Natural, which is diversifying its traditional business to compete with Endesa in electricity generation and distribution.
Utility sectors analysts, however, are not sure how much value the combine cycle plants will create for shareholders, saying that under the government's current tariff structure their profitability depends on cheap prices for gas and high prices in the daily pool auctions of electricity to large industrial users.
Spanish Economy Minister Rodrigo Rato, who was present for the inauguration, addressed those concerns, but only briefly, saying he expected to have the draft of a new tariff structure completed by the end of this month.
"The intention of the government is to establish a decree on tariffs that will allow on the one hand for companies to make forecasts about their revenues beyond one year and on the other hand guarantee for the consumers maximum competition and the access to electricity at the lowest cost possible," Rato said.
He also challenged assertions that combine cycle plants might not be profitable, as evidenced by the investment he helped inaugurate.
Pressed on whether they might be profitable enough to satisfy shareholders, Rato said, "I'm not financial analyst. I'm a minister."
ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY
The San Roque project boasts Spain's first two fully operational combined cycle plants, so-called because they feature two turbines, one that is fuelled by natural gas and a second that runs off the vapour generated by the first.
The technology is more efficient - achieving a nearly 60 percent energy yield versus 36 percent from traditional thermal plants - and reduces emissions.
Carbon dioxide, for example, is cut 50 to 60 percent, and virtually no particles are billowed into the air.
Officials said that would help Spain meet its requirements on the Kyoto treaty to reduce emissions.
The same two companies are building similar twin plants in Spain's Catalunya a region in the northeast, while number two power utility Iberdrola has one under construction that is due to come on line this year.
By 2005, combined cycle plants are expected to produce some 13,400 megawatts, compared with Spain's total installed capacity of about 47,000 megawatts today.
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