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NUCLEAR
Israel Builds Anti-Missile Unit to Avert Iraqi Attack
Russia may deploy new forces in Caspian
WASHINGTON IN BRIEF - NRC warning
Senator Questions Nuclear Plant Cleanup
Nev. Dem House Hopeful Decries GOP
BUSH STANCE ON IRAQ CRUMBLING
U.S. Ties Military Aid to Peacekeepers' Immunity
MILITARY
Afghan Blast Seen Most Likely an Accident
Big Blast Kills 21 Afghans; Link to Terror Is Suspected
The United States is Still #1 in Arms Sales
Pakistan Readies Karachi Arms Show
DEA to Bolster Presence Along Mexican Border, in Central Asia
German Soldiers Criticize Schroeder
Iraqi Opposition Groups Meet Bush Aides
U.S. pledges protection for Kurds in Iraq
C.I.A. Chief to Meet with Palestinians
Pakistan Killings Raise Fear of Rise in New Militancy
3 Christians die in Pakistan attack
Military Suspect Arrested, Laptops Recovered
POLICE / PRISONERS
Under Fire, Justice Shrinks TIPS Program
Anthrax Inquiry Draws Protest From Scientist's Lawyers
Homeland insecurity
OTHER
U.S. Seeks to Limit Conservation Law
ACTIVISTS
Vietnam's Highest - Ranking Dissident Dead at 78
Israel Blocks U.S. Peace Activists
Japanese Drop Out of New ID System
NAGASAKI DAY COMMEMORATION SEES SEVEN ARRESTS AT NAVY E.L.F. SITE
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- missile defense
Israel Builds Anti-Missile Unit to Avert Iraqi Attack
Reuters
Saturday, August 10, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1146-2002Aug9?language=printer
JERUSALEM, Aug. 9 -- Israel is building a second state-of-the-art anti-missile battery in the center of the country to fend off Iraqi attacks in the event of a U.S. assault on Baghdad, Israeli military sources said today.
The Arrow-2 system, developed by Israel in conjunction with the United States, has been deployed for three years in the southern Negev desert, the sources said.
The Israeli army said a new battery about six miles from the central town of Hadera was "for training purposes," but the sources said it already had operational capability.
A possible U.S. attack on Iraq and defiant public statements by Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, have heightened Israeli concerns over a repeat of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when Iraq fired Scud missiles at the Jewish state.
"We must be prepared at all times to deal with the threat that we face from the east, the Iraqi threat," Israeli cabinet minister Matan Vilnai, an ex-deputy chief of staff, told Army Radio.
U.S.-made Patriot missiles intercepted some of the Scuds in 1991, but at least 30 got through and one person was killed.
-------- russia
Russia may deploy new forces in Caspian
By Bojan Soc
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
August 10, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20020810-112737-3348r.htm
MOSCOW, Aug. 10 (UPI) -- Russia and some of its Caspian neighbors may create a new military contingent that will be stationed in the region to keep in check security threats, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov told reporters Saturday.
The minister added that Kazakh troops would most likely join their Russian counterparts in the multi-national force with the door open to all other parties wishing to join. No details were available on the potential number of troops that could be deployed under the plan.
"The threats that exist in the region are real and dictate the necessity of interaction with our Caspian neighbors," Ivanov said.
He spoke in Russia's southern province of Dagestan where he had arrived Friday to oversee the second stage of the biggest naval exercise in the Caspian Sea in years.
Over 10,000 Russian seamen, 60 warships and 30 fighter planes and helicopters have been involved in the exercise, launched Aug. 1.
Ex-Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are participating in the exercise but Turkmenistan rejected the offer. Iran has sent observers. The exercise will end Thursday.
The exercises are officially described as anti-terrorist and anti-narcotics maneuvers. Military analysts regard them as part of Russia's long-term strategy to revamp its armed forces that have been largely neglected over the last decade by the government of former President Boris Yeltsin.
But their location can hardly be lost on Russia's four Caspian states, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Iran. The world's largest inland sea overlays what geologists believe are petroleum deposits that could rival those of Saudi Arabia and its oil-producing neighbors.
On Saturday, Ivanov also attended the opening ceremony of a new ferry route linking Dagestan -- an autonomous region in the Russian Federation on the western shores of the Caspian Sea -- and its capital, Makhachkala, with the Turkmen port of Turkmenbashi.
At the ceremony, Ivanov was joined by Dagestan's State Council head Magomedali Magomedaliyev and Russia's Border Guard Service director Konstantin Totsky.
The event was staged to send a clear message that Russia was in full control of its maritime borders in the Caspian as the navy demonstrated the vessel's capabilities to meet highest military demands.
The ferry can take on board 200 seamen and up to 60 pieces of military equipment and vehicles, ORT television network reported.
In peacetime, the vessel will be used to ship train cars and other goods from Russia to Turkmenistan, as well as for deliveries of oil and gas in the opposite direction.
The new shipping route will thus provide for direct deliveries of Turkmenistan's oil and gas to Russia, bypassing Azerbaijan and Georgia.
So far, there was only one other major ferry route in the Caspian Sea linking Turkmenbashi with the Azeri capital, Baku.
In the future, Russia plans to launch another major ferry route connecting Makhachkala and the Kazakh port of Aktau, ORT reported.
Despite the high profile of the exercises, Russian officials insist that the training effort is not aiming to intimidate third parties.
"The exercise shouldn't be regarded as Russia's demonstration of force," Ivanov said Thursday.
He explained that a host of unsolved problems exist in the region, including stability threats, terrorism, fish poaching, ecological threats, etc.
"If the situation in the Caspian gets more complicated, the state should be ready to decisively and swiftly strike with its military might all those whom peace doesn't suit," he concluded.
Russia and its four neighbors have held for months extensive negotiations to reach a deal to divide the Caspian Sea.
Moscow signed bilateral deals with Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, agreeing that each country should receive the portion of the sea equal to its shoreline.
Iran and Turkmenistan have so far stalled the negotiations insisting that the Caspian be divided into five equal sections.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
WASHINGTON IN BRIEF - NRC warning
Saturday, August 10, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1151-2002Aug9.html
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission urged operators of U.S. nuclear power plants with pressurized water reactors to further inspect the top of their reactors for possible cracks and leaks. The NRC said it issued the bulletin in response to cracked and leaking nozzles found at several reactors and significant corrosion discovered in the reactor vessel head at the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant in Oak Harbor, Ohio.
-------- kentucky
Senator Questions Nuclear Plant Cleanup
Hinting at Coziness, Grassley Seeks Memos Between Energy Dept. and Lockheed
By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 10, 2002; Page A03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A756-2002Aug9?language=printer
A Senate Republican yesterday demanded extensive records of the Department of Energy's dealings with contractor Lockheed Martin Corp., questioning whether "cozy relations" were impeding a government probe of alleged fraud and environmental abuse at the agency's Paducah, Ky., uranium plant.
Sen. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, was the second senior lawmaker in as many days to publicly question the department's handling of the cleanup at Paducah, a nuclear-fuel plant that became the focus of a federal probe three years ago this month.
Although the department has acknowledged extensive environmental damage at the Kentucky plant -- and even issued an apology to workers -- it has not decided whether former plant operator Lockheed Martin should be held financially responsible. A Justice Department decision on whether to join a whistle-blower lawsuit against Lockheed has been delayed for more than two years, in part because the department has withheld its opinion on the merits of the case.
The lawsuit alleges that Energy Department contractors misled workers and the government about environmental contamination at the plant, built in 1952 to enrich uranium for nuclear bombs.
"I am troubled by the possibility that there may be a subtle effort underway at the Energy Department to slow or even sideline" the government's intervention in the case, Grassley wrote in a letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.
Too often, he wrote, "I have seen agencies place a premium on cozy relationships with their contractors . . . over and above the need to protect taxpayers." Grassley asked Abraham to turn over three years' worth of documents and memos between Energy officials and Lockheed.
Similar concerns were raised in a letter Thursday by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee. Waxman noted ties between Lockheed and the Bush administration -- Vice President Cheney's wife, Lynne V. Cheney, is a former Lockheed board member -- as well as the contractor's reputation for lobbying and political giving.
"If a corporation has indeed caused this terrible harm at Paducah, it would be outrageous to force the public to pay the bills three times over -- first for contract fees, second in suffering the harm and third for the cleanup," Waxman wrote.
The Energy Department yesterday promised to review the lawmakers' concerns. "We are carefully considering all points raised and seeking the views of all parties," department spokesman Joe Davis said.
Lockheed Martin has declined to talk about the specifics of the whistle-blower case, but spokeswoman Meghan Mariman said yesterday that the company has cooperated fully with government investigators. "We believe the case has no merit," she said.
The apparent ambivalence over the whistle-blower case stands in sharp contrast with the department's decisive steps in launching a $1.3 billion cleanup and assisting ailing workers.
On Thursday, Abraham announced changes intended to make it easier for workers to qualify for payments. "Employees of DOE contractors have performed important work for their country," Abraham said in announcing the rule changes. "Even though they may have worked for a government contractor, these dedicated individuals are our workers, and we are going to take care of them."
-------- nevada
Nev. Dem House Hopeful Decries GOP
August 10, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Democrats-Herrera.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Nevada Democrat inspired to run for Congress by the shipping of nuclear waste to his state criticized the Bush administration and House Republicans Saturday for failing to represent ordinary Americans.
``The Bush-Cheney environmental record is one of repeated broken promises,'' Dario Herrera said in the Democrats' weekly radio address. ``It's time for a change in Washington.''
``Here in Las Vegas, we know a thing or two about gambling,'' he said. ``We know that Social Security should never be put on the Wall Street roulette wheel.''
At 28, Herrera could become one of the youngest members of Congress if elected in November to Nevada's new 3rd Congressional District seat, created because of the state's population boom. The seat is critical to both parties in the battle for control of the House, where Republicans now lead Democrats 222-211, with two independents.
Herrera, chairman of the Clark County Commission, has said he knew he wanted to be a congressman when he was in Washington lobbying lawmakers to vote against sending nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
President Bush formally approved Yucca Mountain as the nation's high-level nuclear waste dump last month. It is scheduled to open in 2010, but the Nuclear Regulatory Commission still has to issue a license.
-------- us politics
BUSH STANCE ON IRAQ CRUMBLING
By Paul Gilfeather,
Whitehall Editor, UK Mirror
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12106289&method=full&siteid=50143
A LEADING Republican yesterday warned President Bush against war with Iraq.
Bush ally Dick Armey declared: "My own view would be to let Saddam Hussein bluster, let him rant and rave all he wants.
"As long as he behaves himself within his own borders we should not be addressing any attack or resources against him."
Yesterday, the US public said Bush should not attack Iraq without support from other countries. And the president also came under fire for his treatment of prisoners held in the war on terror.
As the Daily Mirror reported this week, Mr Bush is already showing signs of wobbling over a possible war with Iraq.
Mr Armey, a Texan and the most senior Republican in the House of Representatives, said: "If we try to act against Saddam Hussein, as obnoxious as he is, without proper provocation, we will not have the support of other nation states who might otherwise do so."
White House hawks feared the outburst could start a domino effect as public support for an attack crumbles. A poll for CBS News in America showed two-thirds of voters said President Bush must build support with allies before acting. The same percentage only backed action against Iraq with congressional approval.
Polls in Britain show strong opposition to any British involvement in a US-led attack on Iraq - and Tony Blair could face hostile debates at the annual conferences of the TUC and the Labour Party in Blackpool.
In Washington, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, admitted that intelligence on Saddam's weapons capability was vague. He said: "Obviously new intelligence isn't perfect but what we are certain of is that he has a great interest in chemical and biological weapons, conducts research and development into those systems."
Meanwhile, America's top lawyers told President Bush that there must be new safeguards to protect the rights of prisoners.
The 400,000-strong American Bar Association set up a six-man task force to review policy after the September 11 attacks.
Their report says: "While we must have the means to prevent more attacks like those of September 11, we must also ensure that there are sufficient safeguards to protect the innocent and prevent possible abuses of power.
"It cannot be sufficient for a President to claim that the government can detain whoever it wants, whenever it wants, for as long as it wants, as long as the detention bears some relationship to a terrorist act once committed by somebody against the United States."
----
U.S. Ties Military Aid to Peacekeepers' Immunity
New York Times
August 10, 2002
By ELIZABETH BECKER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/10/international/10COUR.html
WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 - The Bush administration, making use of a provision of the new antiterrorism law, warned foreign diplomats this week that their nations could lose all American military assistance if they became members of the International Criminal Court without pledging to protect Americans serving in their countries from its reach.
The threat to withdraw military aid - including education, training and help financing the purchase of equipment and weaponry - could be felt by almost every nation that has relations with the United States, though the law exempts many of its closest allies. The law gives the president authority to waive the provision and decide to continue military aid if he determines it is in the national interest.
This part of the new law, which passed Congress with broad bipartisan support and was signed last week by President Bush, provides the administration with its broadest and most coercive tool to keep American peacekeepers out of the hands of the new court.
Written by Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the majority whip, the measure is intended to force as many countries as possible to sign bilateral agreements not to extradite Americans to the new court for trial, according to a Republican Congressional aide who worked on the measure.
Romania and Israel have signed such agreements.
The Bush administration opposes the court, the world's first permanent forum for trying individuals charged with genocide and other crimes against humanity, on the ground that it could subject Americans to politically motivated prosecutions abroad.
This week, the State Department invited foreign ambassadors in for briefings to lay out American opposition to the court and to warn them of the prohibition against military aid to countries that are a party to the treaty establishing the court.
"That is a fact under the law, it's right there in the law," said Philip Reeker, a State Department spokesman. "The president welcomes the law - I can't underscore how important this is to us to protect American service members."
Another provision in the law gives the president authority to free members of the armed services or other Americans who are in the court's custody by any "necessary and appropriate means," including use of the military.
Nations that are members of NATO and other major allies - including Israel, Egypt, Australia, Japan and South Korea - are exempted from the military assistance prohibition. The Pentagon said the measure could touch just about every other country on the globe.
"It is easier to list what countries do not receive American military assistance than those that do," said Lt. Cmdr. Barbara Burfeind of the Navy, a Pentagon spokeswoman. "Virtually every country but Cuba, Iraq, Iran and the other countries on the terrorist list receive some military training or aid from us."
Jonathan Grella, a spokesman for Mr. DeLay, said, "This is just an effective tool, and we have said numerous times that we have to do whatever it takes to protect our service members from this rogue court." The United States has about 9,000 peacekeepers stationed in nine countries.
After pitched debates with its European and North American allies, the administration won agreement from the United Nations Security Council last month to exempt American peacekeepers for one year.
After winning that temporary solution, the administration began seeking longer exemptions through a provision in the treaty known as Article 98, which allows nations to negotiate immunity for their forces on a bilateral basis.
Human rights groups condemned the administration's latest tactic of using the threat of withdrawing military assistance as a tool in those negotiations.
"This makes the remote possibility of American prosecution by the court trump every other definition of national interest - it is fixation to the point of craziness," said Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch.
His organization sent a letter to every country that has signed or ratified the court treaty informing them that they should not necessarily feel compelled to sign an agreement because of the presidential authority to waive the provision on military aid.
Military assistance programs that could be terminated include international military education that brings foreign officers and students here for professional military training and financing for the purchase of American weapons and services. The goal of military assistance programs, the Pentagon says, is to "enable friends and allies to acquire U.S. equipment, services and training for their legitimate self-defense and multinational security efforts."
Threatening to end these programs appears heavy-handed even to some of those who share the administration's concerns about the court.
James B. Steinberg, vice president of the Brookings Institution and a deputy national security adviser to President Bill Clinton, said he shared some of the administration's concerns about the court. Still, he added, military assistance programs "reflect shared common interest between the United States and foreign nations and should not be used as a club to get these countries to sign agreements."
"It's a very awkward way to deal with allies, " Mr. Steinberg said. "We ought to be able to persuade them rather than coerce them. This has a very heavy feel to it."
Several foreign diplomats said they were angry and puzzled by this threatened cutoff of military assistance even to countries that provided valuable military cooperation to the United States in the world wars, the Vietnam War, the gulf war and the current campaign against terrorism. None agreed to be quoted by name.
"Why is this court so important that Washington would risk our military friendship?" asked a diplomat who represents a country that was a wartime ally of the United States.
Even diplomats from countries exempt from the prohibition and who sympathize with some of the Americans' concerns said they were uneasy.
"Military aid is given out after much careful thought," one diplomat said. "How has the world changed so suddenly that now this military assistance is no longer in American national interests?"
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Afghan Blast Seen Most Likely an Accident
August 10, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-afghan-blast.html
JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Police investigating a huge warehouse explosion that killed at least 26 people on the outskirts of the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad said on Saturday it was most likely an accident, although sabotage could not be ruled out.
Deputy Police Chief Abdul Safa Momand told Reuters six officials of the Afghan Construction and Logistics Unit, where Friday's blast occurred, had been taken in for questioning, including the local head of the operation.
Momand said he had previously warned the ACLU of the need to take proper care of the explosives it used for road construction.
``The most likely reason is that they did not take care,'' he said when asked about the possible cause of the explosion.
He said a second possibility was that the blast was staged to cover up a fraud by destroying documents.
``A third possibility is that maybe al Qaeda gave one of the people working in that organization money do this,'' Momand said.
Before the fall of the Taliban at the end of last year, the outskirts of Jalalabad, a city about 70 miles east of Kabul, were dotted with training camps for the al Qaeda network of Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, who is wanted by Washington for masterminding the September 11 attacks on the United States.
On Friday, the U.S. military quoted initial reports from U.S. officials in Jalalabad as saying a truck bomb caused the blast.
The defense ministry said on Friday it was unclear if it was caused by a truck bomb or the accidental detonation of explosives. Government investigator Mohammad Samir said at the scene on Saturday it was still too early to draw any conclusions.
DIRECTOR SAYS NO SIGNS OF SUBVERSION
Engineer Mohammad Karim, the director of ACLU based in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, told the independent Afghan Islamic Press news agency that explosives used for road construction had been stored at the warehouse for the past 10-12 years.''
``It was our main store for the entire Afghanistan,'' he said, adding that it was also used to store urea, a chemical compound used in plastics, fertilizers and pharmaceuticals.
Karim expressed serious regret over the incident and added: ``I don't see signs of subversion in it. I think the explosion could have been caused by severe hot weather.''
Villagers say they saw smoke rise from inside the warehouse for a few minutes before the massive explosion sent bricks and metal crashing down on their homes.
The scene the day after was one of utter devastation for at least 50 meters (yards) around a three-meter (12-foot) -deep crater where the explosion occurred.
The defense ministry said on Friday that at least 26 people had been killed and 80 wounded.
Julian Harris, an official of the International Committee of the Red Cross said casualty figures from the hospital were 11 dead and 53 still in hospital receiving treatment, while 30 had been treated and discharged.
However, he said, the death toll could well be higher as villagers did not always take their dead to hospital. Rescue workers said 13 bodies had been found at the site of the blast. There were some ugly scenes at Jalalabad hospital, where angry relatives punched doctors overwhelmed by the numbers of casualties, officials there said.
The blast was another unwanted shock for the fragile government of President Hamid Karzai, who came to power after the fall of the Taliban last year.
His defense minister, Mohammad Qasim Fahim, survived an assassination attempt recently while on a visit to Jalalabad.
The Jalalabad region's most powerful warlord, Haji Abdul Qadeer was murdered in Kabul last month not long after he was appointed the country's vice president. The government in Kabul blames Taliban and al Qaeda followers for both incidents.
--------
Big Blast Kills 21 Afghans; Link to Terror Is Suspected
New York Times
August 10, 2002
By IAN FISHER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/10/international/asia/10AFGH.html
JALALABAD, Afghanistan, Aug. 9 - A huge explosion killed at least 21 people today near a road construction warehouse here, and investigators said that although its cause was unclear, they were treating it as a terror attack because the site was near a major hydroelectric dam.
The explosion spattered bricks and stone for hundreds of yards, killing people in nearby houses and in a bus more than 50 yards away.
Brick buildings were partly collapsed, and a metal warehouse was reduced to its skeletal frame. Two craters remained - one at least 20 feet across - and at least 85 people were injured, the police said. One official said people as far as 400 yards away had been killed.
"I have never heard such a bang in my life," said Ashiq Nabi, a local army commander who helped gather the dead, several of them women and children.
There was no definitive report tonight on exactly what had happened. One high-ranking local official was quoted in news reports as saying that the road construction company stored explosives in the building, and that it could have blown up accidentally.
But an army investigator, Maj. Abdul Qauam Azimi, said he believed that the explosives had been stored at the warehouse for a terror attack on the nearby Darunta hydroelectric dam, which provides power for this city in eastern Afghanistan. As it was, the explosion occurred only a few hundred yards from the dam and reportedly damaged its electrical works.
In recent weeks, Major Azimi said, intelligence reports of an imminent attack caused tighter security around the dam. He said he believed that explosives meant for the dam went off today by accident. "It's an act of terror," he said.
Major Azimi said four members of the construction company, a private aid organization called the Afghan Construction and Logistics Unit, were arrested today.
Although the major said fuses, mines and rocket shells loaded with explosive material had been uncovered at the site, he would not release further details of the investigation.
Jalalabad, some 70 miles east of the capital, Kabul, sits near the border with Pakistan, in a remote and unsettled area where fighters from Al Qaeda and the Taliban who escaped American forces are believed to be hiding. Not far to the northeast, American forces on patrol have been fired on twice in recent days.
On July 6, Hajji Abdul Qadir, a vice president of Afghanistan and the governor of Nangarhar Province, who lived here, was assassinated in Kabul, and Jalalabad residents have staged protests demanding the arrest of his killers. In April a bomb exploded here near the convoy of Gen. Muhammad Fahim, the Afghan defense minister. Five people died in that attack.
The explosion today - on the Muslim day of prayer - occurred at 12:30 p.m. The company's offices are believed to have been unoccupied except for four security guards, one of whom the police said had been killed. Another, Muhammad Alam, 27, said he had been eating his lunch when the blast went off.
"It was kind of like an earthquake," he said tonight, lying in a hospital bed with head and lower back wounds. "It was very loud, and it threw me very far."
He said that he did not know of any explosives stored at the compound and that he had seen no one there today but his fellow guards.
"I can't think what it might have been," he said.
Mr. Nabi, the army commander, said he had been posted not far down the road when the blast occurred. He described a scene of carnage, with bodies and body parts scattered amid rubble and bits of twisted metal. He said he had collected 13 bodies.
Officials here said the company was run by Afghans and did road construction and other building projects. The Associated Press reported tonight that it had been founded with the help of American government funds, but that the United States withdrew its support about a decade ago.
The news agency also reported that the group's founder, known as Engineer Karim, had been jailed during the Taliban government for refusing to place a Taliban representative on its board. An investigator here said Engineer Karim was currently in Peshawar, Pakistan, just over the border.
Damage from the blast was also reported at Jalalabad University, which is nearby. Several university students were injured, among them Abdul Rahman, 25, who lay in a hospital tonight with his head bandaged. His cousin, Asadullah Hamdani, said Mr. Abdul Rahman had been hit by debris while walking past the site.
Mr. Hamdani said he could not imagine the construction company's being involved in a terror strike.
"This was not an accident related to terror," he said. "It was a charitable group. It was helping the people."
-------- arms sales
The United States is Still #1 in Arms Sales
by Tamar Gabelnick
Saturday, August 10, 2002
by CommonDreams.org
http://commondreams.org/views02/0810-02.htm
For years, U.S. arms manufacturers have complained that excessively burdensome U.S. export controls and a lengthy licensing process damage their competitiveness on the global arms market. But a recent report by the Congressional Research Service shows that U.S. weapons makers are doing just fine.
According to the report, "Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations 1994-2001," released on August 8th, the United States has had the largest share of both new contracts and deliveries to the world for at least 8 years in a row. In calendar year 2001, U.S. arms manufacturers made new agreements worth $12.1 billion and delivered $9.7 billion worth of arms, capturing 45% of both markets.
The United States' closest competitor, Russia, came in a distant second with $5.8 billion in new contracts and $3.6 billion in arms deliveries. But Russia is not a real rival for U.S. arms makers. Its main clients are China and Iran, off limits to U.S. firms, and former Soviet bloc states in Asia and Africa that cannot afford expensive U.S. weapons systems. India, on the other hand, may be one place where Russian and American firms go to battle over a large market. In September 2001, the U.S. government dropped a ban on arms sales to both India and Pakistan, permitting transfers even during the height of the crisis between these nuclear-armed states. India is a longtime major Russian client.
When making a case to loosen export controls, U.S. weapons makers usually cite intense competition from Western European firms. But this claim is also belied by the CRS figures. New contracts signed by the top four European exporters combined (France, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy) only totaled $4.5 billion, and deliveries were only worth $5.1 billion.
While the report already shows the United States dominating the world arms market, its statistics for the United States are actually on the low side. Data on new U.S. sales agreements only include government-to-government sales, leaving out potentially large commercial sales numbers because the State Department does not currently know which of the licenses it grants actually turn into signed contracts. Statistics on commercial sales deliveries are included, but these numbers are notoriously low because they are not systematically recorded.
U.S. arms producers may also proclaim that the relatively low global arms sales numbers in 2001 (down $12 billion from 2000) indicate a need for additional U.S. government support for their exports. (They already receive between $7-8 billion in annual subsidies for exports alone.) Unfortunately, the low figures in the global arms trade for 2001 is not necessarily indicative of a trend. It would be nice to believe the numbers show growing recognition of the dangers and wastefulness of the arms trade. Instead, it was probably caused by the global economic downturn in 2001. A similar dip in 1997 caused by Asia's financial crisis was followed by a steep climb in sales over the next three years, climaxing in $40 billion of sales in 2000 (in constant 2001 dollars).
The low numbers for 1997 and 2001 do show, however, that arms purchases are generally treated as a luxury good and are therefore quickly dropped when financial times are tough. Indeed, weapons sales that governments call essential to "modernization" are often little more than expensive toys for generals seeking a boost in national or regional stature.
If countries really felt a pressing need to rearm for their security, they would find a way to finance weapons purchases. Witness Israel, the number one arms importer in 2001 despite a declining economy and the United States, which has significantly raised its procurement budget even in the face of sharply reduced revenues and a recession.
Weapons sales may increase again in 2002 due to the U.S. effort to arm its partners in the war on terrorism. U.S. sales and military aid is already on the rise to Colombia, the Philippines, Georgia, and Indonesia, which have redefined their long-standing insurgencies as "counter-terrorism" activities. The U.S. government has also bought into Israel's argument that it needs sophisticated weaponry to fight Palestinian terrorists, selling them 52 F-16 fighter jets and six Apache attack helicopters in 2001 despite the fact that the disproportionate use of force that goes along with the use of these weapons has led to violations of humanitarian law.
All in all, the CRS report shows that U.S. weapons makers cannot in good faith claim that export laws damage their competitiveness on the global market. If anything, the U.S. share of world arms sales has risen over the past couple of years and is likely to increase further as the U.S. emphasizes arms sales in its global war on terrorism. Instead of buying into the arms industry's misrepresentation of export controls as unnecessarily restrictive, U.S. policymakers should think about how to strengthen them further to ensure that U.S. arms do not end up in the wrong hands.
Tamar Gabelnick( tamarg@fas.org )directs the Arms Sales Monitoring Project at the Federation of American Scientists. She is the author of several articles on U.S. arms exports and export policy, edits the project's newsletter, the Arms Sales Monitor, and served for two years as chair of the Arms Transfers Working Group, an alliance of 30-plus NGOs in DC working for more responsible arms export policy.
----
Pakistan Readies Karachi Arms Show
August 10, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Pakistan-Arms-Show.html
KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistan will tout its technology for extending the useable life of surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles at an arms show next month in Karachi, a top general said Saturday.
Maj. Gen. Syed Ali Hamid said none of the groups invited to attend International Defense Exhibition and Seminars, known as IDEAS 2002, had canceled, despite recent attacks against Western and Christian interests. He said providing security for the show would not be a problem.
``We are expecting a larger number of participants from countries the world over, including the United States, as in the first show two years back, when some 45 foreign companies and delegates participated in IDEAS 2000,'' Hamid said. ``All the countries we have extended invitations to have accepted the invitation, and we hope for a larger number of participants (than in 2000).''
The show, which will be opened by military ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf, runs from Sept. 17 to 20, and is expected to draw 40 official military delegations and 600 invited companies and guests.
Hamid said Pakistan would promote services that would extend a missile's life by five to seven years. After the last arms show, Pakistan's military exports jumped from $40 million to $85 million.
-------- drug war
DEA to Bolster Presence Along Mexican Border, in Central Asia
By Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 10, 2002; Page A11
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A643-2002Aug9?language=printer
The Drug Enforcement Administration is deploying agents to beef up its presence in Central Asia and take a bigger role in enforcement along parts of the Mexican border where the FBI has diverted agents to the war on terrorism, DEA chief Asa Hutchinson said this week.
The DEA will step up efforts to curtail the heroin trade in Afghanistan and plans to send 17 additional agents to the region, Hutchinson told reporters Thursday. Officials declined for security reasons to say how many agents are in the region, but they decribed the planned increase as a significant boost.
Drug agents are trying to break up heroin trafficking by controlling the flow of chemicals used to process the drug and working with the governments of Afghanistan and surrounding countries to block exports, Hutchinson said.
This year, he said, poppy production in Afghanistan will be reduced 20 percent to 30 percent but added, "We have to do more."
He said drug enforcement officials remain concerned about the use of drug money in financing political terror in Latin America and worldwide, by groups such as al Qaeda and Hezbollah.
But the DEA task seems destined to become more difficult because the agency must make up for the FBI's decision to divert about 400 of its agents from drug investigations to the fight against terrorism.
"We want to make sure there is no gap," Hutchinson said. "We're scrambling, and we're working hard. . . . We've got to make sure we're acting efficiently," he said.
If Congress approves, he said, 34 DEA agents and a small number of support workers will be moved from DEA headquarters in Crystal City to drug interdiction efforts along the U.S.-Mexican border in Texas. The FBI is transferring 60 of its drug investigators in that region to terror-related work.
One hundred DEA positions will be shifted to try to cover the shortfall created by the FBI's pullback on drugs. The DEA also is relying more heavily on local law enforcement officials to fill in where needed.
Hutchinson said his agency may seek more resources from Congress.
Hutchinson's comments came at a briefing that marked the end of his first year as head of the drug agency. Among the achievements he cited was a decline in the purity of cocaine being sold on American streets.
He credited joint international efforts in disrupting cocaine trafficking, specifically citing the governments of Bolivia and Colombia. "It's hard to imagine how cooperation could be at a higher level," he said.
While dealers have kept the price of cocaine constant, its purity has dropped 9 percent over the past several years, he said.
Hutchinson said he is optimistic that cooperation will continue under the new regime of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who took office Wednesday in an inaugural ceremony marred by a fatal attack by leftist guerrillas.
-------- germany
German Soldiers Criticize Schroeder
The Associated Press
Saturday, August 10, 2002; 10:44 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A2424-2002Aug10?language=printer
BERLIN -- The head of a soldiers group criticized Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's administration Saturday for ruling out German participation in any war with Iraq.
Col. Bernhard Gertz, chairman of the independent German Military Federation, a lobbying group that represents the interests of armed forces members, said it was "extremely unfortunate" Schroeder had announced Friday that Germany would not aid an attack on Iraq.
Gertz said that would make it much harder for the United Nations to put pressure on Saddam Hussein's regime to allow U.N. inspectors back to look for weapons of mass destruction.
"He who from the beginning says 'no' weakens the United Nations," Gertz told the national newspaper Bild am Sonntag in remarks to be published Sunday. "The United Nations needs to have a convincing threat in order to continue to demand a resumption of the weapons inspection program."
Schroeder, whose Social Democrats trail conservatives in polls for the Sept. 22 parliamentary elections, has seized on anxieties over the possibility of a U.S.-led war with Iraq as a campaign issue.
In the past week, he and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer both ruled out aiding a U.S. attack and warned that U.S military action could wreck the international anti-terror coalition and leave the Americans embroiled in Middle East turmoil for decades.
Wolfgang Schaeuble, the security expert in conservative leader Edmund Stoiber's shadow Cabinet, said Thursday that German participation in a U.N.-authorized attack on Iraq should not be excluded.
In his comments to Bild, Gertz said that even though the German military is stretched by peacekeeping missions, it could offer valuable support to its allies if there were an attack on Iraq "with the goal of bringing inspections teams to the country and stopping the production of weapons of mass destruction."
He said that the U.S. and British armies are better prepared for large-scale operations, but that a unit of 52 German soldiers now in Kuwait with six armored vehicles equipped for detecting nuclear and chemical hazards could be expanded.
"With that, the soldiers involved in military intervention (in Iraq) would be better protected," he said.
-------- iraq
Iraqi Opposition Groups Meet Bush Aides
New York Times
August 10, 2002
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/10/international/middleeast/10IRAQ.html
WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 - Leaders of the Iraqi opposition met with senior Bush administration officials today and vowed to work together to establish a democratic government if Saddam Hussein was removed from power.
The opposition leaders announced afterward that they had secured American support for a conference to discuss the future of Iraq if Mr. Hussein was deposed. The meeting is to take place in Europe in a month or so, they said.
The Iraqi leaders also asked the Bush administration to intervene militarily if Mr. Hussein began to crack down on groups inside Iraq that supported his overthrow. American officials responded that they were not in a position to agree to this appeal today but that they would pass on the request to President Bush, an Iraqi opposition leader said.
"We have presented our vision for overthrowing the dictatorial regime in Iraq and the establishment of a democratic and pluralistic government," said Hamid al-Bayati, a representative of the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution, an Iranian-backed group that was one of six that met with American officials today. "We sense more seriousness and commitment from the U.S. government to overthrow the Saddam regime and to work with the opposition," Mr. Bayati added.
In some ways, the meeting today was heavier on symbolism than on detailed planning. There was no discussion of providing military training to Iraqi insurgent groups, suggesting that the Iraqi opposition does not loom large in the Bush administration's military plans.
Administration officials acknowledge that the six groups whose representatives met at the State Department today do not represent all Iraqis and that it was premature to talk of a government in exile.
President Bush also told The Associated Press today that he had not given himself a timetable for deciding whether to order a military strike against Iraq and might not make that decision this year.
Still, the meeting today was a potentially significant step in the Bush administration's efforts to build a case for military intervention in Iraq. By bringing together the often fractious Iraqi opposition, the Bush administration is trying to show the American public and dubious allies that the Iraqi opponents of Saddam Hussein welcome American military intervention to overthrow the Iraqi leader and that the United States would be justified to act.
The meeting was also intended to show that the opposition is able to work together, crucial to any effort to govern Iraq if Saddam Hussein is deposed. Creating a viable government is widely seen as a potentially greater challenge than a military campaign itself.
The participants in the two-hour meeting at the State Department included representatives of the two main Kurdish parties: Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and Hoshyar Zebari, an aide to Masoud Barzani, the leader of the Kurdish Democratic Party.
Other Iraqi opposition leaders who attended were Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress, an umbrella opposition group; Ayadh Allawi of the Iraqi National Accord, a group that includes former Iraqi military officers and that was involved in a 1996 coup attempt; and Shaif Ali bin Hussein, who represents a group that wants to restore the monarchy.
The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Shiite group backed by Iran, also sent a representative from Tehran for the first time in nearly a decade: Abdelaziz al-Hakim, the brother of the leader of the faction, Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim. It was unclear whether his attendance indicated that Iran wants to play a role in removing Mr. Hussein or is simply interested in keeping an eye on the Bush administration's efforts to do so.
Still another purpose of the meeting was to show that the Bush administration has been overcome the divisions in its ranks. The chairmen of the meeting were Marc Grossman, the under secretary of state for political affairs, and Douglas J. Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy. The conspicuous cooperation between senior State and Defense officials follows months of behind-the-scenes infighting in which the two agencies have backed different opposition groups.
"To see the U.S. officials all working together was something new and different and very encouraging for us," Mr. Chalabi said in an interview.
To reinforce the impression that the Bush administration is finally united, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell made a point of dropping by the meeting. Vice President Dick Cheney, who is vacationing in Wyoming, also planned to speak to the Iraqi opposition leaders in a videoconference on Saturday.
Even with such a broad array of opposition leaders, some important issues remain. One reason American officials are reluctant to speak of a government in exile is that the Iraqi groups who attended the meeting today do not represent all Iraqis.
The United States is hoping that some Iraqi military units will switch sides and join the fight against Mr. Hussein if Washington opts for military action. These and other Iraqi military groups may be reluctant to act unless they think they will have a role in a new government, a possibility that might seem to be foreclosed if a government in exile is fashioned without their participation now.
The Bush administration also has yet to decide how it would react if Mr. Hussein unleashes a military crackdown on his opponents inside Iraq. Iraqi opposition groups are looking for explicit assurance that Washington will rush to their defense, not simply retaliate militarily at some time in the future.
"For the U.S to say that it would respond at a time and place of its choosing is insufficient for us," Mr. Chalabi said. "Iraqis are taking a big risk. Saddam could do something to threaten a number of areas."
--------
U.S. pledges protection for Kurds in Iraq
August 10, 2002
By Ben Barber
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020810-78527.htm
The United States agreed yesterday to protect Kurds in northern Iraq during any operation to oust Saddam Hussein to avoid a repeat of an aborted 1991 uprising that the Iraqi leader crushed.
But a senior U.S. official declined to say the United States would offer similar protection to dissident Shi'ite Muslims in southern Iraq, who contend that Washington abandoned them during their simultaneous 1991 uprising.
The official said that "should Saddam move against the Kurds, we would respond."
"Beyond that, all is hypothetical," the official told reporters after a day of meetings with six dissident Iraqi groups at the State Department to coordinate strategy to oust Saddam.
"We realize these Iraqis are running risks," the official said of Shi'ite Muslims, who occupy Iraq's southern marshlands.
"That's why we have in place Operation Northern Watch and Southern Watch," the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. He was referring to no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq that are off-limits to Iraqi aircraft and patrolled by American and British fighter jets.
In Baghdad, official Iraqi media warned that U.S. forces would be walking to their own graves if the "cowboys" in Washington unleashed a military campaign.
"The Iraqi people will make Iraq the graveyard of U.S. attackers and leave their bodies to be devoured by wild animals," the official Al-Iraq newspaper said.
"The Iraqi people will not disarm. They will go to the end to bring victory or die as martyrs."
In Berlin, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, a key U.S. ally, ruled out German participation in a U.S.-led attack on Iraq, in an interview on public television.
"I think that if there is military intervention, we should be cautious. That means that Germany will not take part" in any US-led action against Iraq, Mr. Schroeder told the ARD station.
Despite the clear signs of opposition in the ranks of allies, including public sentiment and Britain's Labor Party's reluctance in Britain to go to war, the United States stayed on the offensive in confronting Saddam.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said a long-standing U.S. strategy of using economic sanctions and no-fly zones to contain Iraq is not working because it still has weapons of mass destruction.
"So there is no way any reasonable person could look at that record and say that it's worked. It hasn't worked. And it's not working," he said at a Pentagon news conference.
It was Mr. Rumsfeld's most direct repudiation yet of the strategy pursued by the U.S. government since the 1991 Persian Gulf war to keep the Iraqi leader in check.
After the day of meetings at the State Department, the dissident Iraqi leaders issued a statement saying, "The Iraqi opposition had productive meetings with Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman and Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith and agreed to work for the overthrow of the dictatorial regime in Iraq.
"We asked for the protection of all Iraqi people under U.N. resolutions," in case threats or military action by the United States sparks repressive measures by Saddam Hussein, said Hamid al Bayati, who represented the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, reading from the statement.
Mr. Bayati's group primarily represents the Shi'ites in southern Iraq, who had been reluctant to back the latest U.S. campaign because of its failed attempt to oust Saddam in 1991.
The group, based in Iran, says it has 10,000 armed fighters ready to take on Saddam.
The Iraqi opposition leaders agreed yesterday to summon a conference in the near future of all Iraqi opposition groups, including those unable to attend yesterday's meetings.
No time or place for the conference was announced.
Yesterday's meeting sought to revive U.S. cooperation with the splintered opposition movement.
Congress voted to spend $97 million on the Iraqi opposition, including some military training and equipment, but the Clinton administration was reluctant to give out the money.
Failure to provide reliable accounting for whatever funds were disbursed further dampened enthusiasm for the Iraqi opposition.
The Iraqis at yesterday's meetings said they had major fears that they would be abandoned by America and left to be picked off by Saddam.
"The question is, are the Americans serious? I think this administration is serious to change the regime," said Mohammed Sabir Ismail of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
"We have had experiences in 1991," Mr. Ismail said, referring to the uprising in which Saddam bombed the Kurds and his troops forced them to flee barefoot into snow-covered mountains.
He cited a 1996 campaign by Saddam to crush an Iraqi opposition group operating in the Kurdish region and an earlier Kurdish uprising, in 1975, that faltered after initial sponsorship by the United States.
Mr. Ismail discounted warnings by Arab leaders that unless the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is settled, it will be impossible to overthrow Saddam.
"For us, Iraq is important - the Iraqi people suffer too much," he said.
What most impressed the U.S. side, the administration official said, was that all the six groups represented agreed on the need for a democratic, pluralistic Iraq that would maintain the "territorial integrity" of the Arab nation of 23 million people.
Turkey fears that an independent Iraqi Kurdish state would encourage Turkish Kurdish separatists. And Arab countries, as well as the United States, fear that Shi'ite Iraqis might be absorbed by Iran.
The opposition leaders' statement spoke of a "federal" government once Saddam is replaced, reflecting a desire by the diverse ethnic and religious groups such as Kurds, Sunnis, Shi'ites and others to have local control over their regions.
The opposition leaders included Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress, Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Hoshyar Zebari of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Sharif Ali bin Hussein of the Constitutional Monarchy Movement and Iyad Allawi of the Iraqi National Accord.
In a sign that Iran is quietly endorsing the Bush administration's moves to oust Saddam - Iran's enemy from their 1980-1988 war - the leaders of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq also attended the meeting yesterday by traveling from Iran, where the group is based.
The opposition groups did not ask for military assistance, training or weapons yesterday, the administration official said.
The Iraqi opposition leaders today are to hold a televised conference with Vice President Richard B. Cheney, who is spending this month at his Wyoming residence.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell walked into the room and met the Iraqis during their meeting at the State Department yesterday.
-------- israel / palestine
C.I.A. Chief to Meet with Palestinians
August 10, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast.html
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A Palestinian gunman killed an Israeli woman and seriously wounded her husband in the West Bank late on Saturday, while in Washington the head of the CIA and the Palestinian interior minister discussed security reforms.
Earlier, Israeli troops reported killing a gunman who had tried to enter the Israeli town of Nir Am in the Gaza Strip. Troops also shot dead a 53-year-old Palestinian municipal worker going about his duties in the West Bank town of Nablus.
An Israeli army spokeswoman said the woman had been killed when a gunman raided the settlement of Mehora in the Jordan Valley in darkness after the end of the Jewish Sabbath.
She said troops had killed the gunman.
Israeli media said the woman and her husband had been sitting in a car outside their home when they were shot. The husband was seriously wounded and taken to hospital, while another person in the settlement was also wounded.
No Palestinian group immediately claimed responsibility.
In Washington, Central Intelligence Agency chief George Tenet met Palestinian Interior Minister Abdel Razzak al-Yahya for about 90 minutes at the agency's headquarters.
They were believed to have discussed a U.S. plan to reshape Palestinian security services as a prerequisite for rapprochement with Israel after 22 months of violence.
A source close to the Palestinian delegation gave few details but said the Palestinians believed the talks had gone well.
Proposed reforms include the merger of different branches of the security services run by Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority, to make them more accountable and able to rein in Islamic militants responsible for attacks on Israelis.
HAMAS STEPS UP ATTACKS
The Islamic group Hamas claimed the man seeking to infiltrate Nir Am in Gaza as one of its own. Hamas has stepped up its attacks since Israel killed its military commander in the Gaza Strip along with 15 other Palestinians in an air strike last month.
Though dedicated to Israel's destruction, Hamas recently hinted at its willingness to hold truce talks on condition that the Jewish state relinquish areas of the West Bank that it reoccupied after suicide bombings in June and stop its track-and-kill operations against senior militants.
Hamas's founder met Palestinian Catholic Patriarch Michel Sabbah in Gaza City on Saturday -- the first time the two have held talks -- and reiterated Israel had to make the first move.
``We cannot provide any initiatives at this time. This is not a time of initiatives. That comes when Israel returns our land, leaves (Palestinian areas) and stops its aggression,'' Sheikh Ahmed Yassin told reporters.
The army expressed its regret over the killing of the Nablus municipal worker, who was driving an electrical repair van that was marked as authorized to travel in the city despite an Israeli curfew.
``This just goes to show how insufferable our situation is -- even those supposedly permitted to be out and about are at risk,'' Nablus Mayor Ghassan Shak'a said.
The army has reoccupied much of the West Bank, with curfews and closures causing widespread economic damage. Israel says the measures are needed to keep out suicide bombers.
WASHINGTON TALKS
Palestinian officials began high-level talks in Washington on Thursday on ending the violence -- the first such contacts since President Bush sought to sideline Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in June and called for Palestinian reforms and democratization.
Under U.S. and Israeli pressure, Arafat has promised security reforms and elections as preliminary steps toward reviving talks with Israel on creating a Palestinian state. The talks stalled in 2000 and the Palestinian uprising broke out soon after.
In his first public acceptance of foreign involvement in reform of his security apparatus, Arafat said on Friday that U.S., Egyptian and Jordanian officials would oversee the changes.
At least 1,496 Palestinians and 587 Israelis have died since September 2000 in violence linked to the uprising.
-------- pakistan
Pakistan Killings Raise Fear of Rise in New Militancy
New York Times
August 10, 2002
By DAVID ROHDE
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/10/international/asia/10STAN.html
TAXILA, Pakistan, Aug. 9 - Raising fears of a resurgence of Islamic militancy, a bomb attack on a Christian hospital here this morning killed 3 Pakistani nurses and wounded 23 people as they left a chapel after prayer services.
After the attack, the second on a Christian target this week, Western diplomats and Pakistani officials voiced concerns that Islamic militant groups might be mounting a new challenge to one of the United States' most important allies in the war on terrorism, President Pervez Musharraf.
Witnesses and officials said there had been three assailants, one who held the hospital's lone guard at bay while two others hurled powerful homemade explosives at dozens of nurses.
The attack came just four days after six Pakistanis were killed when masked gunmen attacked a Christian missionary school 40 miles from here.
Both attacks were carried out in towns close to the capital, Islamabad, in areas thought to be firmly under government control. In the more volatile western city of Quetta, near the border with southern Afghanistan, unidentified gunmen shot and critically wounded a Pakistani general today.
Pakistani experts warn that the country may be entering a period of repeated terrorist attacks by a broad array of militant groups enraged by President Musharraf's decision to align himself with the United States after the Sept. 11 attacks.
"These militants are fighting back, and I think it will continue for many months," said Tariq Rahman, a linguistics professor at Quaid-e-Azam University who has studied the groups. "They are calling the bluff of the government."
A Western diplomat predicted: "You will have more and more of these kinds of attacks. It's open season against not only foreigners and Christians but also Musharraf."
No group had claimed responsibility for the attack by tonight.
Pakistan's minister for information, Nisar Memon, said today's killings were "a sinister attempt to drive a wedge between the Muslim and Christian communities of Pakistan." About 97 percent of the 140 million Pakistanis are Muslim; less than 2 percent are Christian.
Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who leads one of the two important opposition parties but is banned from taking part in October elections, claimed that the military leadership was losing its grip. "It claims to be a strong, one-man show, whereas the reality is that the situation is slipping out of hand," she said in a statement from London, where she lives in exile rather than face charges of widespread corruption during her two terms in office.
The October elections are supposed to create a democratic legislature and government to counterbalance General Musharraf, who is becoming increasingly unpopular.
Pakistanis generally welcomed his rise to power in a coup in October 1999 after a series of corrupt civilian governments. But his heavy-handed methods, particularly a clumsy referendum last spring to prolong his rule, have cost him support among pro-Western Pakistanis, while anti-Western militants have detested his alignment with the United States.
Pakistani officials were reluctant to speculate on who might have carried out this week's attacks.
But diplomats say some small militant groups may be spontaneously conducting separate strikes, while others may be working on larger operations with help from the remnants of Osama bin Laden's Qaeda guerrillas, who are thought to have fled from Afghanistan to Pakistan as Taliban rule collapsed.
The attacks, coordinated or not, come at a sensitive time for Pakistan and the region.
Attacks in Kashmir that brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war this spring are also on the rise again as Pakistani militants vow to disrupt Kashmir elections scheduled for September and October.
In Afghanistan, the interim government selected in June is still struggling to extend its authority beyond Kabul.
Western diplomats and Pakistani experts say the latest attacks may be a last desperate effort by militants slowly losing their bases of support in the region.
After General Musharraf announced a crackdown on militant organizations in January, members of various groups formed a loose coalition that vowed to topple the military government. Named Lashkar-e-Omar, or Omar's Army, the coalition draws its name from Ahmed Omar Sheikh, the militant leader convicted of masterminding the kidnapping and murder of the American journalist Daniel Pearl in Karachi.
The attack on the Taxila Christian hospital today laid out a scenario that observers fear could be repeated over and over in Pakistan. "How do you stop something like this?" an ashen-faced Western diplomat said today as he stood among pools of blood and shattered glass.
Previously, militants had selected targets like the American consulate in the restive southern city of Karachi, where an explosion killed 12 Pakistanis in June and 11 French contractors died in a suicide bombing in May. On July 13, a grenade thrown at foreign tourists following the ancient Silk Road in Mansehra in northern Pakistan wounded nine Europeans.
But this week's attacks have hit institutions associated with Christianity and foreign missionaries. Only Pakistanis have been killed, but diplomats said they were apparently attacked for their association with these Western, Christian institutions.
At 7:30 a.m., witnesses said, roughly 100 doctors, nurses and administrators gathered in a small stone chapel for their morning prayer services. Thirty yards away, the first visitors began filing through the main gate. A lone unarmed guard stood watch.
At roughly 7:45 a.m., according to the police and witnesses, two men entered the compound carrying bags and walked toward the hospital's administrative building. Eric Khursheed, the unarmed security guard, shouted at the two men to come back to the gate. A third man suddenly walked up to Mr. Khursheed, pulled a pistol and ordered him to go inside a nearby guardhouse.
The two men walked past a sign that read "the chapel is open for prayers at all times," opened a small blue metal gate and headed down a narrow brick path toward the church, witnesses said. Dozens of women clad in white nursing uniforms began to file out of the church in the drizzling rain. Some carried umbrellas. Others had white nurse's hats pinned to their hair.
The men hurled two powerful explosives at the women and ran. Alishma Masih, a nurse and mother of two, was one of the first to die. Naziran Masih and Bushra Masih were also mortally wounded. (The three women shared the last name of many local Christians, which means "Jesus.")
The detonations were so powerful that they carved two-foot-deep craters in the brick walkway. Windows in stores across the street were shattered. The twisted silver metal spokes of an umbrella landed in a tree branch 10 feet away.
After hurling the bombs, the two attackers ran out the main gate, but one of them collapsed. A small piece of shrapnel had pierced his back and apparently killed him, doctors said. Mr. Khursheed, the security guard, said the man with the pistol escaped. He said that based on his accent, the man appeared to be a Pakistani, but not from the area.
Throughout the morning, local Muslims, who make up the vast majority of the hospital's patients, came to console wounded Christians. "These people cure the Muslims," Manafia Begum, a local Muslim, said as she held the hand of one wounded nurse. "And look what happens."
--------
3 Christians die in Pakistan attack
August 10, 2002
By Munir Ahmad
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020810-75808952.htm
TAXILA, Pakistan - Assailants hurled grenades at worshippers leaving a hospital chapel yesterday, killing three Pakistani women and reinforcing fears that Islamic militants are targeting Christians in Pakistan in retaliation for the government's support for the U.S.-led war on terrorism.
Investigators said they suspected that the attackers were from the same cell of militants behind an assault Monday at a school for children of Christian missionaries in Murree, outside the capital.
In yesterday's attack, three men, one of them brandishing a pistol, ran through the front gate of a Presbyterian-supported hospital in Taxila, 25 miles west of Islamabad. They locked two watchmen in a guard booth and then hurled grenades at women leaving the church on the hospital grounds.
Three Pakistani nurses were killed, and at least 25 other persons were wounded, half of them seriously.
One attacker died when shrapnel from an exploding grenade entered his back and pierced his heart, police said. The others escaped.
Pakistan has been rocked by terrorist attacks since President Pervez Musharraf abandoned his Afghan Taliban allies and joined the U.S.-led anti-terror campaign after Sept. 11.
"We have drawn the conclusion that a group of between 15 to 20 terrorists is actively trying to kill Christians and Westerners to express their anger against Pakistan's support for the United States in the war against terrorism," chief police Inspector Raja Mumtaz Ahmad said.
He said the group was believed to have divided into four teams to stage attacks in northern Pakistan.
He said security had been stepped up at Christian churches throughout the country. Christians make up less than 2 percent of Pakistan's 145 million people, almost all the rest of whom are Muslim.
"It looks to be the same chain of terrorists," said S.K. Tressler, the government minister in charge of minority affairs. "It is clear that terrorists are targeting the Christian community in Pakistan."
The attack took place four days after several gunmen raided the Murree Christian School about 40 miles east of the capital, killing six Pakistanis, including guards and non-teaching staff. None of the students, who come from 20 countries, was injured.
On the following day, three men blew themselves up to avoid arrest after police stopped them in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, police said.
Police said the three had boasted of taking part in the Murree raid and said other groups would soon carry out similar attacks against "Americans and nonbelievers."
Regional police commander Moravet Shah said the attacker who was killed in Taxila was wearing Western athletic clothing similar to that worn by the school attackers.
Most attacks against Westerners or Western interests have been centered in the southern city of Karachi. Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl was kidnapped there in January and slain.
On May 8, a bomb exploded in front of a Karachi hotel, killing 11 French engineers and three others, including the suicide bomber. Another explosion killed 12 Pakistanis outside the U.S. Consulate in Karachi on June 14.
The Taxila hospital is supported by the Presbyterian Church USA and the Presbyterian Church of Pakistan. It was founded in 1922 and treats mostly poor Muslims, specializing in eye diseases. After the attack, outpatient services were suspended for the day.
"We never thought we would be a target," said Ernest Lall, former director of the hospital. "We have been here since 1922, and someone throws a bomb. I don't know why."
Shahbaz Bhatti, leader of the All-Pakistan Minorities Alliance, urged authorities to increase security for the Christian minority.
"If immediate steps are not taken by authorities to provide protection to Christians, I fear that it will lead to the start of genocide in Pakistan," he said. "We strongly condemn this incident, and we will definitely stage protests. We will not remain silent."
Mr. Bhatti said some Christian congregations in remote areas were suspending or rescheduling services because of the recent attacks.
Alexander John Malik, chairman of a group that represents all Christian churches in the country, said it was "tragic and shameful" that a hospital "serving the people of Pakistan without distinction of color and creed for the past 150 years" had been attacked.
-------- us
Military Suspect Arrested, Laptops Recovered
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 10, 2002; Page A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A984-2002Aug9?language=printer
Military investigators recovered two laptops yesterday that had disappeared from a war-planning room at Central Command headquarters in Florida, finding them in a "personal residence" and arresting a service member who confessed to taking them, defense officials said.
The name, rank and service of the suspect were not released, pending the filing of charges. Military spokesmen also declined to disclose the service member's explanation for taking the computers, except to say that espionage did not appear to be a factor.
Maj. Michael Richmond, a spokesman for the Air Force investigations office that conducted the probe, also ruled out any connection between the missing computers and last month's leak to the New York Times of Centcom war plans for Iraq.
It was while probing the source of the leak that officials learned last week that the computers were missing from an operations room at the command's headquarters building. The room is protected by a card entry system, and the entire Centcom facility is monitored by surveillance cameras.
The discovery prompted the Air Force to flood MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, home to the Central Command, dispatching an additional 46 criminal investigators on top of the five usually at the base.
"There was a lengthy list of people we wanted to talk to," Richmond said. "In the course of talking to everyone, the suspect confessed and was taken into custody."
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS
Under Fire, Justice Shrinks TIPS Program
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 10, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A921-2002Aug9?language=printer
Justice Department officials have decided to scale back the controversial Operation TIPS program before it even begins, saying yesterday that they no longer plan to ask thousands of mail carriers, utility workers and others with access to private homes to report suspected terrorist activity.
The decision comes as the latest setback in the federal government's halting efforts to enlist citizens as the eyes and ears of the war on terrorism. Many of the initiatives have produced mixed results or are barely off the ground nearly a year after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
TIPS, or the Terrorism Information and Prevention System, was billed as a way for various workers -- including mail carriers, utility employees and truckers -- to alert authorities to suspicious behavior they encountered on the job.
But the idea has come under fire from civil liberties groups and lawmakers as a citizen spy network, and it was targeted for elimination in the bill approved by the House last month to create a Department of Homeland Security.
Under revised Justice Department plans announced yesterday, the program would involve only truckers, dock workers, bus drivers and others who are in positions to monitor places and events that are obviously public, officials said. Officials also stressed that the initiative would be voluntary.
"People have very legitimate concerns about the privacy and sanctity of the home," said Deborah Daniels, assistant attorney general for the Office of Justice Programs. "Because of those concerns, the program will not include workers who have access to private property." TIPS is just one of several federal citizen initiatives that have run into difficulties since Sept. 11, according to officials and advocates involved with the efforts.
Many law enforcement officials complain that nearly a year after the terrorist attacks, most people remain confused about which government agency to call with suspicions of terror-related activity. Various state and federal law enforcement agencies maintain a patchwork of hotlines and citizen alert programs, while the FBI dismantled its own Sept. 11 terrorist tip line last fall.
In addition, President Bush's initiative to double the number of Neighborhood Watch organizations, announced in March, has gotten off to a slow start. Many officials say they have been disappointed in the relative lack of interest among the public for such programs.
"Initially after 9/11, everyone was hot to trot and ready to go," said North Miami, Fla., Police Chief William Berger, who serves as president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
"But on the national level, I just haven't seen what I thought would take place: hundreds of thousands of people lining up to pitch in," Berger said. "A lot of people are saying, 'I guess the government doesn't need me.' "
Not all the efforts are foundering, and experts said programs with strong grass-roots components have been particularly successful. Jim Copple, a spokesman for the National Crime Prevention Council, said law enforcement officials have rethought many of the plans other than the TIPS program that called for centralizing information in the nation's capital.
One Justice Department initiative launched in May, the Volunteers in Police Service (VIPS), has already tripled the number of programs that give local residents the opportunity to help police departments by answering phones or performing other civilian tasks, Daniels said. The need for such aid has soared since Sept. 11 as local authorities focus on preventing terrorism and cope with declining budgets, law enforcement officials said.
"The initial instincts were to have these centralized lines that all came to Washington and the FBI," Copple said. "What's happening now is an adjustment. Wherever something takes place, whether it's Seattle or San Diego or Houston, there is going to be a local response first, so there has to be local involvement."
Thomas N. Faust, executive director of the National Sheriffs' Association, which oversees the National Neighborhood Watch program, estimated that about 2,100 new watch groups have been formed nationwide since March, when the Bush administration announced a goal of doubling the total from 7,500 to 15,000.
Faust said the campaign is "off to a pretty good start" but conceded that organizers will face serious challenges in reaching the two-year goal.
"It's a natural tendency to have a spike at first, when people's interests are piqued," Faust said. "The challenge is to keep the level of interest up so we can continue to expand."
The TIPS program, first mentioned by Bush in his State of the Union speech, was intended to be launched this month but was sidetracked in July after the American Civil Liberties Union called attention to the little-noticed initiative and said it would encourage "government-sanctioned peeping Toms."
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) compared the initiative to domestic spying efforts in World War I and to a widely criticized ghetto informant program under the late FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. The U.S. Postal Service, which had been mentioned as a possible participant, quickly announced that its employees would not be involved.
In the House, Majority Leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.) inserted language in the homeland security reorganization bill that would effectively kill the effort, leaving the issue in limbo until the House and Senate hammer out a final measure.
Attorney General John D. Ashcroft defended the program in testimony on Capitol Hill last month, noting that telephone technicians or others with access to private homes are already free to pass on suspicions to the FBI or local police.
But Ashcroft also promised lawmakers that Operation TIPS would not maintain a centralized database of the reports it received and would serve only as a "clearinghouse" for other agencies.
Justice Department officials, who complain that the TIPS program has been the victim of misunderstandings and distortions, said yesterday that they hope that removing the most controversial aspects of the program will allay the fears of lawmakers and civil liberties groups.
"This was never a program intended or designed to infringe on privacy concerns," said one official.
But Laura W. Murphy, head of the ACLU's Washington office, said the revisions fail to provide enough safeguards against abuse. "They have cut out a major area of concern, but they haven't solved all the problems," Murphy said. "The government is still enlisting private industry in a way that could encourage vigilantism."
----
Anthrax Inquiry Draws Protest From Scientist's Lawyers
New York Times
August 10, 2002
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/10/national/10HATF.html
This article was reported by William J. Broad, David Johnston and Kate Zernike and written by Mr. Broad.
A lawyer representing Steven J. Hatfill, a germ weapons expert, has protested to the Justice Department that the government is violating his client's rights in its search for the culprit in the anthrax attacks that killed five people last fall.
"We are very angry at the way they have treated this man, who has done nothing but cooperate fully with federal authorities," said Jonathan Shapiro, the criminal lawyer Dr. Hatfill hired to represent him after government inquiries about him intensified last week.
Mr. Shapiro would not describe how this anger had been conveyed to the Justice Department, except to say "we've made it clear."
Government officials say Dr. Hatfill is one of scores of scientists in and out of government who have been "persons of interest" in their investigation of the anthrax attacks. But their interest in him intensified recently. On Aug. 1, agents armed with a search warrant searched Dr. Hatfill's apartment complex in Frederick, Md., as a news helicopter beamed pictures of the hunt worldwide. Their search warrant, federal officials said, represented an escalation over a voluntary search conducted months earlier.
The next day, Dr. Hatfill was suspended with pay from a new job he was taking at Louisiana State University as associate director of the National Center for Biomedical Research and Training, a program financed by the Justice Department that teaches police, firefighters, health professionals and federal agents how to handle germ attacks. Officials said they decided to suspend Dr. Hatfill after investigators' interest in him appeared to intensify.
Dr. Hatfill had already lost an earlier job at a federal contractor for reasons that are in dispute. In an interview in the spring, he said incessant questioning by reporters led to his dismissal. Company officials say publicly only that he was dismissed in March. Insiders at the company say he was let go because he lost security clearances after failing lie-detector tests last summer on matters unrelated to anthrax.
Senior law enforcement officials have disclosed the F.B.I.'s searches of Dr. Hatfill's home and related sites, even as they carefully avoided declaring him a suspect.
In interviews, Mr. Shapiro complained bitterly about this technique. He conceded that the government had no obligation to keep Dr. Hatfill's name secret and could not control the activities of journalists. But the result has severely damaged his client, Mr. Shapiro said. "Through innuendo in the public eye they have begun to destroy this man's life, his standing in the scientific community, his ability to make a living," he said. "That is absolutely wrong."
He also accused the government of leaking details from the affidavit submitted with the application for the search warrant, details that he said are supposed to be kept secret. "That is outrageous," he said.
The situation is particularly offensive, Mr. Shapiro added, because Dr. Hatfill has cooperated fully with the anthrax investigation.
Repeated efforts to reach Dr. Hatfill by telephone this week were unsuccessful.
Many of his colleagues describe Dr. Hatfill, a 48-year-old medical doctor, as a patriot, if at times abrasive, and law enforcement officials say they have found nothing but weak circumstantial evidence to tie him to the anthrax attacks.
In part, officials say, the F.B.I.'s investigative effort is intended to clear Dr. Hatfill of suspicion of the crime definitively. They say they are mindful of embarrassments like the deadly bombing at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, when F.B.I. agents focused on Richard Jewell, a security guard, as their suspect but were later forced to acknowledge that they were after the wrong man.
They are quick to say that repeated searches of Dr. Hatfill's apartment and related locations have yielded no incriminating evidence. Agents have examined his home computer, looked through documents and even brought in bloodhounds to sniff his clothing. Borrowing investigative techniques used in espionage cases, they have compiled a minute-by-minute timeline of Dr. Hatfill's whereabouts on days when the anthrax-tainted letters were mailed.
They say Dr. Hatfill is among dozens of people whose backgrounds in science and bioterror research have attracted close attention, yet no one else in the case has been subjected to such scrutiny, or such wide publicity.
For more than six months, some biowarfare experts in and out of government have spoken quietly of him as fitting their profile of the anthrax attacker: a knowledgeable person worried enough about the nation's vulnerability to germ weapons to send anthrax spores to the news media and Senate as a warning. By this theory, the attacker's motivation was never to kill or hurt but rather to alert the nation to a looming threat.
Dr. Hatfill's emergence comes as the larger F.B.I. investigation into the baffling case seems to be going nowhere and the agency is under heavy pressure to make progress, especially as the anniversary of the mailings draws near.
In the spring interviews, Dr. Hatfill denied any role in the anthrax mailings and expressed contempt for those who raised questions publicly about him as a possible culprit.
Mr. Shapiro, a criminal lawyer in Alexandria, Va., who has represented such high-profile clients as Brian P. Regan, a retired Air Force master sergeant charged with trying to sell American secrets to foreign countries, said in an interview that the government's publicizing the case had seriously hurt his client.
"We're extremely angry at the course of this investigation and the way the United States has seen fit to trash Dr. Hatfill," he said, adding that he and Victor M. Glasberg, Dr. Hatfill's civil lawyer, formally complained about it this week.
For their part, government officials say their interest in Dr. Hatfill has grown for several reasons. He clearly had the skills and access necessary to obtain anthrax spores and turn them into a weapon. He has also long complained publicly that the government was paying too little attention to the bioterror threat. Finally, investigators have uncovered aspects of his past that raise suspicions and have discovered inconsistencies in his accounts of his life.
Mr. Glasberg said yesterday that the focus of the legal work was on the government's investigation, not Dr. Hatfill's résumé. "Our hands are full," he said, "we have not been concerned to address matters going back 25 years. We are focusing on what's happening today."
Dr. Hatfill was born in St. Louis and grew up in Illinois. In 1975, he graduated from Southwestern College, in Winfield, Kan., where he studied biology and took time off to work in Zaire on rural health care.
After that, his career is the subject of some dispute. Résumés he has produced at various times assert that he served with the Army Special Forces after college, from June 1975 to June 1977, but an Army spokesman says he "was never part of the Special Forces."
He moved to Rhodesia, joining the military there in 1978 and saying he had "combat experience" during the guerrilla war against white rule. In 1979 and 1980, while he was in Rhodesia, thousands of black tribesmen became infected with anthrax. Some analysts call it the first modern case of germ warfare. Dr. Hatfill has never been linked to the outbreaks.
He remained in Rhodesia after blacks won majority rule and the country was renamed Zimbabwe, graduating in 1984 from the Godfred Huggins School of Medicine in Salisbury, now Harare, with the British equivalent of an M.D. degree, his résumé says. One fact about his time in Zimbabwe later caught the eye of investigators: he lived near a neighborhood called Greendale, and a nonexistent "Greendale School" was the return address on the anthrax envelopes sent to Senators Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont last fall.
After leaving Zimbabwe, Dr. Hatfill practiced medicine in South Africa. At times he has listed on his résumé a Ph.D. in molecular cell biology from Rhodes University in South Africa. But Stephen Fourie, the university's registrar said, "Rhodes did not, repeat, did not award a Ph.D. to Hatfill."
As a medical doctor, Dr. Hatfill published more than a dozen scientific papers, many on his African research. One tracked untreated disease in rural Zimbabwe. Others focused on leukemia, H.I.V. and the Ebola virus.
He moved to England in 1994, according to his résumés, working at an Oxford University hospital as a clinical research scientist. At least one of his résumés says he was a member of the Royal Society of Medicine, but a spokeswoman for the society said it had no records of his ever being a member.
Dr. Hatfill returned to the United States in 1995, when he went to work for the National Institutes of Health. From September 1997 to September 1999, he worked at the Army's biodefense laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md., home of the nation's abandoned program to make germ weapons.
In this time, he became a protégé of an expert on germ warfare, William C. Patrick III. In the 1950's and 1960's, Mr. Patrick made germ weapons for the American military and, after the program was shut down, became a private consultant. In this period, Dr. Hatfill would say on a résumé, he gained "a working knowledge" of wet and dry biological warfare agents, their chemical additives, spray disseminators and designs for germ weapons.
In the late 1990's, Dr. Hatfill became known around Washington as an outspoken advocate of bolstering germ defenses. In late 1998, he began working at Science Applications International Corporation, a contractor for the Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency that specializes in developing germ defenses.
In 2000, Dr. Hatfill trained in France to become a United Nations inspector ready to hunt for germ weapons in Iraq, said Ewen Buchanan, a United Nations spokesman. He never went there because the government refused to let inspectors in.
Dr. Hatfill suffered a major setback at Science Applications last summer, federal officials and former colleagues said, when his application for a high-level federal intelligence clearance was rejected after he failed a lie-detector test. They added that he then lost his regular clearance as well.
Last fall, after the anthrax attacks killed five people and sickened more than a dozen others, Dr. Hatfill found himself among those questioned by federal authorities who administered more lie-detector tests, officials said.
As no clear suspects emerged, private experts began to argue that the culprit was probably a federal insider who meant to warn of terrorist dangers. As evidence of the mailer's benign intent, such analyses noted that the seams on the tainted envelopes were sealed with tape, presumably to keep spores from leaking out. In addition, the letters warned of anthrax and suggested that openers of the envelopes take antibiotics.
A main proponent of the insider view was Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, an expert on biological weapons at the State University of New York at Purchase. Publicly, Dr. Rosenberg never named any suspects. But Dr. Hatfill's name circulated on the scientific grapevine.
In an interview, Dr. Hatfill said he lost his Science Applications job in March after a reporter questioned senior managers about him. A spokesman said the company could say nothing about Dr. Hatfill's career except when he was employed and his job title, staff physician. Company officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Dr. Hatfill was fired because the loss of his clearance hindered his work.
Dr. Hatfill spoke to a reporter for The New York Times in late May and early June, before his name emerged publicly in the anthrax case. By turns, he was conciliatory, angry and acerbic. Protesting his innocence, he bristled at the private experts who had pursued him as a suspect, and belittled F.B.I. agents as having little or no "idea what they're doing."
Still, he claimed that the bureau had exonerated him. "I've got a letter from the F.B.I. that says I'm not a suspect and never was," he said in an interview in May. "I just got caught up in the normal screening they were doing, because of the nature of my job."
In June, he declined to show a reporter the F.B.I. letter. "Why should I?" he snapped. "My reputation is intact. I was caught up in the first round" of the federal investigation. "So what?"
In an interview this week, Dr. Stephen L. Guillot, director of the biomedical research center at L.S.U., said Dr. Hatfill had impressed him as a "technically very competent individual" but not in anthrax. "Steve's expertise is Ebola," Dr. Guillot said.
In recent weeks, some critics have faulted the F.B.I. investigation as well as the insider thesis as too narrow. Such approaches to the anthrax case, they argue, have too quickly ruled out foreign terrorists or hostile states like Iraq.
--------
Homeland insecurity
EDITORIAL •
August 10, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20020810-19259583.htm
In 1995, Bill Clinton - accepting the Secret Service's requests - shut down two blocks of Pennsylvania Avenue to motorists except those cleared to visit the White House. The closure created a traffic nightmare, stunting commerce for nearby businesses. The unilateral decision drew such broad and nonpartisan criticism that reopening America's so-called Main Street became an issue in the Republican Party's 2000 platform. Since September 11, the Secret Service has become even more cautionary.
Yesterday, the Secret Service began prohibiting trucks along an eight-block stretch of 17th Street NW - from H Street, which is the northern side of Lafayette Square, to Constitution Avenue, the east-west corridor that is already gridlocked with locals, tourists and commuters. The eight-block stretch includes federal entities, such as the old Executive Office Building and offices of the U.S. Trade Representative, as well as the American Red Cross headquarters, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Organization of American States and the headquarters of Daughters of the American Revolution. E Street, which runs behind the White House, is closed, and parking, stopping and standing is prohibited on 17th Street. Rush-hour traffic yesterday morning was painful. The evenings likely will prove to be worse - since the Secret Service moved the vendors, which sell the usual tourist items, onto Constitution Avenue. Also, there are post-September 11 traffic restrictions around Capitol Hill, where blocks of parking were already limited to staffers on Capitol Hill.
Secret Service spokesman Brian Marr said no specific threat led to the recent street closures, and he probably wouldn't tell us anyway. Fine. Even a generic threat - i.e., a truck bomb is headed toward downtown Washington - merits securing the perimeter of the White House. That, perhaps, explains why, the night before the restrictions took effect, law-enforcement officers were stopping trucks of all sizes around the city.
We understand that the world we fell asleep to on September 10 is far different than the one we awoke to September 11.
That new reality requires new security calculations. But maintaining a functional traffic flow is also necessary.
The Secret Service, like any bureaucracy, will reach (and historically has reached) for more restrictions than necessary. Ultimately, the president must make the call. Because security issues may inhibit a full public debate of the matter, the White House should assemble and work with a panel of respected community and business leaders to design a plan that assures both the White House security and acceptable traffic flows. Because the solution may cost real money, a Senate and House appropriator should probably be on the panel.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- environment
U.S. Seeks to Limit Conservation Law
New York Times
August 10, 2002
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/10/politics/10NAVY.html
WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 - The Bush administration is arguing that a major environmental law does not apply to the vast majority of oceans under United States control, a move that environmentalists say could allow military maneuvers, oil and gas pipelines, commercial fishing, ocean dumping and scores of other activities to escape public environmental review.
In a federal court case in Los Angeles that involves the testing of a new type of sonar system by the Navy, the Justice Department said that the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 - landmark legislation that requires federal agencies to review the environmental implications of their projects - did not apply beyond the nation's territorial waters, which traditionally extend three miles from shore.
That view is being challenged by the Natural Resources Defense Council, which asserts that in addition to the territorial waters, the act covers all activity within the nation's "exclusive economic zone," which extends 200 miles from shore.
A decision in the case is expected later in the summer.
Environmentalists say that barring application of the act in these zones would open up the oceans to unregulated activity that could damage them and destroy marine life.
In addition to the sonar project, which they say could disorient and kill whales and dolphins, they say other unregulated activity would include commercial fishing for depleted species, proposals for liquified natural gas plants and pipelines, and other energy projects.
Offshore oil and gas drilling would not be affected by the administration's position because another law, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, specifically requires that the environmental law apply to such activity.
At issue is the National Environmental Policy Act, often referred to as the Magna Carta of environmental law. Signed by President Richard M. Nixon on Jan. 1, 1970, the act requires all federal governmental actions to be reviewed and analyzed for their effect on the environment.
In an indication of the importance of the matter, the White House Council on Environmental Quality convened with ranking officials from five agencies and departments to discuss the implications of the Justice Department's position both before the department filed its brief and then again this week, administration officials said. They plan to discuss it further in September.
Administration officials said there was little disagreement at the meeting, which was first reported today by The Times-Picayune of New Orleans, about the administration's approach. And the Justice Department has argued in the sonar case that federal agencies should decide case by case whether to apply the National Environmental Policy Act in the oceans.
But e-mail messages written before the meeting suggested that officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration disagreed with the Navy.
One message written by a Navy official hailed the "good news" that the Justice Department agreed with the Navy, "over NOAA objection," that the environmental law "does NOT extend beyond the limits of our territorial waters."
Administration officials said that the Justice Department position and the meeting did not represent a change of policy, but environmentalists disagreed.
"This is a major policy change," said Andrew Wetzler, a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council in Los Angeles. "For the first time, the White House is considering stepping in and seeking to impose the Navy's restrictive view of the statute on the entire federal government."
The Navy has long believed that the act does not extend to activities conducted within the nation's "exclusive economic zone," which stretches 200 miles off all coastal waters and thus covers more than one million square miles off all American coasts, including those of Alaska and Hawaii. The Navy appears to be the driving force behind the Bush administration's discussion of whether to apply that concept to all federal activity in the zone.
Administration officials believe that the environmental act is too restrictive, that it spawns nettlesome lawsuits and that most ocean activity is already regulated by an executive order signed in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter, according to administration officials and internal e-mail correspondence that was obtained by environmental groups opposing the administration's view.
Environmental groups assert that the Carter executive order is too weak to guarantee enforcement. They say it does not provide for lawsuits or public review, meaning that an array of damaging activities could take place far out at sea without public knowledge or recourse.
Michael Jasny, a senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Los Angeles, said that the National Environmental Policy Act "depends on public comment and public scrutiny and judicial review for its effectiveness, and if you do away with it, all of that would be lost - we'd have no public accountability" about military and industrial activities in the oceans.
Tim Eichenberg, a lawyer with Oceana, a group in San Francisco dedicated to preserving the oceans, called the executive order "a very poor cousin" to the policy act.
"The executive order doesn't provide for public input or any analysis of alternatives and it doesn't allow for judicial review - there is no recourse for the public," he argued.
Administration officials said that their position in the California case did not represent a change of policy. They said that the National Environmental Policy Act, signed into law before the United States established its exclusive economic zones, was never intended to apply to the ocean beyond the territorial waters and did not apply now.
But an internal Navy document contradicts that view, noting that the Justice Department and the Council on Environmental Quality in the Clinton administration "pressed to apply N.E.P.A. worldwide."
Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of a subcommittee on oceans and fisheries, issued a statement saying: "I am incredulous that the Bush administration may actually be considering rolling back central environmental protections of our oceans and marine environment. The National Environmental Policy Act is the cornerstone of protection for our citizens and natural resources - and new limits on the law would have profound impacts on coastal issues from fisheries management to marine protection to ocean dumping."
-------- ACTIVISTS
Vietnam's Highest - Ranking Dissident Dead at 78
August 10, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-vietnam-dissident-death.html
HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam's most prominent dissident, Lt. Gen. Tran Do, who broke ranks by criticizing the ruling Communist Party he had faithfully served for nearly 60 years, has died at 78 after a long hospitalization.
``Tran Do died on Friday in this hospital. That's all I can tell you,'' an official at Huu Nghi (Friendship) hospital in the capital city told Reuters on Saturday.
Human rights groups had said Do suffered from gangrene and diabetes and was admitted to hospital last June with serious bleeding of the urinary tract.
He is believed to be survived by a wife and at least two children.
Do was a decorated military veteran who led campaigns against the French and Americans and a former top ideologue of the party that maintains an iron grip on Vietnam.
In recent years, he became a prominent advocate of political reform in the southeast Asian country of 80 million, which resulted in his expulsion from the party in January 1999. He had declared the party had to ``change or die'' and ditch socialism if that would boost economic growth.
In late 1997, he began writing letters to party leaders advocating free elections and freedom of expression. He began the crusade after unrest over official corruption in his hometown province of Thai Binh, south of Hanoi, broke out that year.
Despite reports of harassment and house surveillance by the authorities, Do refused to be silenced and in 1999 was said to be seeking permission to publish a newspaper.
His memoirs were confiscated by the government last year, who accused him of spreading documents with subversive content.
``Our fight for democracy (in Vietnam) in the last 15 years or so has been more meaningful than the fights forindependence decades before,'' Do was quoted as saying in a Web site of overseas Vietnamese.
Officials at the Press Department and Ministry of Defense could not immediately be reached for comment on Do's death. It was not clear whether Do would be buried with military honors, as would be expected for his rank and service.
``He's probably the most prominent in the series of revolutionaries. He's attracted a lot of sympathy and support,'' said Carl Thayer of the Canberra-based Australian Defense Force Academy, who has written extensively about Vietnam.
``His outbursts really shocked the party,'' Thayer said, noting Do was an unusual dissident with his military and ideological credentials.
Nguyen Thanh Giang, another Hanoi-based key dissident and a close friend of Do, was quoted on the overseas dissident Web site as saying: ``Do's death was the result of oppression.''
Giang called for a public commemoration for Do, saying that would aid the cause of other Vietnamese revolutionary veterans seeking to promote democracy in the country.
Do's defection from the party led other prominent officials to also turn in their party memberships.
His death leaves a vacuum, observers say. Thayer said he knew of no one of Do's stature who might take on the mantle.
--------
Israel Blocks U.S. Peace Activists
August 10, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Activists-Rejected.html
AMMAN, Jordan (AP) -- Israel blocked American peace activists traveling with U.S. congressional staff members from entering the West Bank Saturday on a fact-finding mission to the Palestinian territories and Israel, according to the activists, the State Department and an Israeli official.
The activists were three representatives of the American Muslims for Jerusalem organization and Jews for Peace in Palestine and Israel organization, said Josh Ruebner, head of the latter group. He said they planned to meet with American and international humanitarian organizations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
``Since Israel has the sovereign right to decide who can enter Israel and who can't, we have the right to prevent groups who we know ahead of time are coming to demonstrate and cause provocation in places where Israeli soldiers are fighting terrorism,'' said Yaffa Ben-Ari, a spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
In Washington, the State Department said two of the three ``coordinators'' with the congressional staff members were denied entry into Israel when they arrived at the Allenby Bridge border crossing from Jordan.
The congressional staff members then decided not to seek entry, the State Department said.
It wasn't immediately clear for which U.S. representatives the congressional staff members worked. The delegation could not be reached for comment, and Khalid Turanni, executive director of the American Muslims for Jerusalem, refused to provide their names.
Ruebner said he was allowed to enter Israel but refused because two other activists were denied permission.
In a statement faxed to The Associated Press, Ruebner criticized Israel for blocking the entry of the activists and the congressional staff members. Both Israel and the State Department said that the U.S. team never attempted to cross the border.
``This unprecedented slap in the face to members of Congress is Israel's way of repaying the institution which gives it three billion dollars of taxpayers' money every year,'' he said. ``What does Israel not want Congress to see?''
Turaani said he and the other American Muslim activist were denied entry because they were Muslims. ``We still maintain that the Israeli discrimination against the American Muslims in the delegation is disturbing and the State Department's acquiescence is shameful.'' Turaani is Jordanian-American of Palestinian origin.
The State Department said the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem and the embassy in Tel Aviv had been involved in trying to arrange entry for the entire group.
Before they left the United States, a State Department officer discussed the trip with the coordinators and urged that they contact Israeli officials in advance to facilitate their entry. When they arrived at the bridge, the Tel Aviv embassy urged Israeli Foreign Ministry and Interior Ministry officials to give every consideration to their entry, the State Department said.
--------
Japanese Drop Out of New ID System
August 10, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Defiance-in-Japan.html
TOKYO (AP) -- Ever since their computerized ID system switched on a few days ago, Japanese citizens have dropped out in droves from what many resent as a ``big brother'' monitoring of the people.
The dozens of protest groups that have popped up are planning a rally Monday at which demonstrators will show their outrage by ripping up the papers being sent out by the government to assign every citizen an 11-digit number.
``To start with, giving a number to people is a violation of our individual human rights,'' said Eiji Yoshimura, one of the protesters. ``We have absolutely nothing to gain from this system.''
Several local governments have refused to participate in the system, which began last Monday. Yokohama, a Tokyo suburb of 3.4 million people, is giving its residents a choice of hooking up or not.
The government is assigning each of Japan's 126 million citizens an ID number that will link into a nationwide computer system. The idea is to streamline Japan's cumbersome bureaucracy by making it easy to obtain basic personal information during administrative procedures.
Critics worry about loss of privacy, and some fear government officials will misuse the information.
The disenchantment some Japanese express toward the registry underlines a deep, although often hidden, distrust of government that is surprisingly common in a nation known for orderly, conformist behavior.
``I don't especially enjoy being called by a number. It feels like a prisoner,'' said Yasuyoshi Ban, a 60-year-old truck driver.
One worry is the computer system will be vulnerable to computer hackers. An even bigger fear is the potential for abuse by someone inside the government using the stored personal information for improper ends, such as harassing dissidents. Some people worry about criminals stealing identities.
Eventually, the new ``Juki Net'' will give bureaucrats access to information now contained in unconnected computer systems, such as the family registry, social security file and residence record.
The national government, which has made electronic governance part of its policy, spent years preparing Juki Net, which is shorthand for ``residents' network'' in Japanese.
For now, only a person's name, address, gender and date of birth are stored under their ID number. Next August, people will receive a card embedded with a computer chip, allowing instant identification.
Supporters promise the card will make it easier in the future to get passports and social security benefits.
So far, there is only one tiny benefit -- it allows people to obtain proof of residence papers from any government office in the country. Such documents, which are essential for such matters as opening bank accounts, now can be picked up only at a person's neighborhood office.
Juki Net, which costs $157 million a year to run, has been hit with glitches in the early going.
The city of Naha on Okinawa had problems getting the system started for two days. Twins and other people with the same birthday in a single household got wiped off the records in the central city of Daito. In Sanda, 23 people with foreign spouses received papers showing them married to random Japanese residents.
Central government officials shrugged that off as growing pains.
``Everything is progressing smoothly,'' said Naoki Nagumo, an official at the Public Management Ministry. ``The glitches aren't causing bodily harm and they certainly aren't dangerous. It's the first time we are trying this system out.''
The skeptics aren't convinced.
The government had promised to have legislation protecting privacy and outlawing the abuse of personal information when Juki Net went into operation. But the law has yet to pass Parliament.
One protest Web site offers a download of a figure peering desperately out of a bar-code prison with the slogan ``Ten digits for cows; 11 digits for people.'' It's a sarcastic reference to a state ID program for beef herds that began after mad-cow disease was found last fall.
Attempts by the authorities to ensure food safety have been widely criticized as inept, and Juki Net's critics are not too sure the government is serious about protecting their privacy.
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NAGASAKI DAY COMMEMORATION SEES SEVEN ARRESTS AT NAVY E.L.F. SITE
From: "Nukewatch" <nukewatch@lakeland.ws>
AUGUST 10, 2002
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CLAM LAKE, Wisconsin -- Seven anti-nuclear weapons activists were cited for federal trespass at the Navy's nuclear submarine transmitter site near Clam Lake, Wisc. during an August. 9 commemoration of the U.S. atomic attack on Nagasaki, Japan. Friday was the 57th anniversary of the U.S..S. plutonium bomb's destruction of Nagasaki that killed 70,000 people.
The ELF system sends one-way messages to submerged nuclear-armed U.S. Trident and fast-attack submarines around the world. It's been the target of dozens of protests especially since the collapse of the Soviet Union and end of the Warsaw Pact's nuclear threat.
Just one of the Trident submarine's 24 missiles carries nuclear firepower equivalent to 38 Hiroshima bombs. As 140,000 people died in the Hiroshima attack, a single Trident missile (with its eight 475-kiloton warheads) can potentially kill 42,560,000 people. The U.S. has 18 Tridents.
About 55 demonstrators gathered at the remote facility which is secluded in the Chequemagon National Forest where it makes use of the granite bedrock to create an Extremely Low Frequency electromagnetic signal that encircles the earth and reaches the subs deep underwater.
Those cited for trespass were: Greg Boertje, 47, Scott Mathern-Jacobson, 31, Michael Walli, 53, and Mark Engebretson, 32, all of Duluth, Minn.; Kathleen Uhler, 61, of Brooklyn, NY; and Lisa Brightup, 39, and the Rev. Carol Rose, 42, both of Wichita, Kansas.
They were charged with federal misdemeanor trespass and told they would be informed when to appear for arraignment in federal district court in Madison. Conviction carries a possible maximum of 6 months in prison, and/or a $5,000 fine.
Eleven similarly charged protesters face trial in the same court Sept. 10, 2002. Six were charged during Martin Luther King Holiday protest in January and five during a Mothers' Day demonstration in May.
After 19 years of Ashland County prosecution of anti-nuclear weapons activists at the federal site, the federal district court in Madison has now brought charges against 15 protesters who have walked onto ELF property since Oct. 2001. Friday's action will bring the number to 22.
NOTE:
ELF and Trident resister John Heid, 47, of Anathoth Community Farm in Luck, Wisconsin, will be sentenced Thurs., August 22, in federal district court in Madison, at 1:30 p.m., for his refusal to pay a $500.00 fine imposed for a trespass conviction stemming from an October 2001 protest. John was also recently sentenced to 6 months in federal prison camp for a trespass conviction at School of Assassins in Georgia.
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