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NUCLEAR
Radioactivity Detectors Offered to Emergency Staff
The Future of Challenger DU ammunition?
Japan court admits to WWII germ warfare
Geiger Counters Reused for Training
Utah Radioactive Measure on Ballot
Bush Seeks Secrecy For Pardon Discussions
Cheney makes case for war
In Cheney's Words: The Administration Case for Removing Saddam Hussein
MILITARY
U.S. Sweep in Afghanistan Yields Weapons, Not Enemy
10 Al Qaeda Suspects Caught In Afghan Sweep
General: U.S. Units Unaware Of Deaths Afghan Prisoners Reported Killed
Japan, N. Korea Fail to Bridge Differences but Agree to More Talks
U.S. Plants Footprint in Shaky Central Asia
U.S. Arms Negotiator Pessimistic on Bio - Weapons Deal
U.S. to Improve Bio - Attack Defense, Pentagon Says
Take It to the Security Council
No-fly zone pilots to benefit in case of war with Saddam
State Dept. Says No Consensus Reached on Iraq Action
Cheney Says Peril of a Nuclear Iraq Justifies an Attack
Bush Confronts Saudi Prince on Iraq
Legal concerns make the CIA 'risk averse'
Court Comes to Life Over Ruling on Post-9/11 Police Powers
Pledges by U.S. please summit
Pentagon May Extend Reservists' Duty
Journalists protest breaches of freedom
POLICE / PRISONERS
D.C. Police Struggle To Staff IMF Protests
'Flexibility' concept in national security has bipartisan use
Court Decries Terror Case Secrecy
Court denies closed hearing for terror-financing suspect
Court Backs Open Deportation Hearings in Terror Cases
Excerpts From the Ruling Against Secret Hearings
U.S. eases policy on foreign students
FBI turns to Florida for clues to anthrax
US city where you can be guilty until proven innocent
Population increases in corrections system
Bin Laden Reportedly Back at Helm of al Qaeda
Video bin Laden (pre-June 20, 2001)
American Gives Beijing Good News: Rebels on Terror List
Iran Arrests 150 on Terror Charges
OTHER
Green Minister's Resignation Shocks Belgium
Water Utilities Get Terrorism Prevention Training
Plague Closes Colorado Wildlife Area
World Development Forum Begins With a Rebuke
ACTIVISTS
Rand Says China Uses Web Against Activists
Campaigners from around the world determined to make voices heard at World
Street protest eclipses Earth Summit countdown
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
Radioactivity Detectors Offered to Emergency Staff
August 27, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2002/2002-08-27-09.asp#anchor3
WASHINGTON, DC, Surplus radioactivity detection equipment from the Department of Energy (DOE) is being made available to local emergency departments across the country.
The DOE and the Department of Justice have joined in a cooperative effort, called the Homeland Defense Equipment Reuse (HDER) Program, to provide surplus radiological detection instrumentation and other equipment to state and local emergency first responder agencies. The agreement is part of the larger federal effort to enhance the equipment and training available to the nation's emergency first responders.
"The Department of Energy (DOE) is proud to help ensure that our law enforcement and emergency personnel have the necessary equipment and training to prepare them to respond effectively and thoroughly to any emergency," said Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. "We are pleased to again provide DOE resources to help ensure America's homeland defense."
A variety of equipment to measure the presence of radiation will be made available through the HDER Program. The equipment, which comes from DOE sites across the nation, will be evaluated and refurbished by radiation equipment specialists at DOE's Office of Assets Utilization.
The Department of Justice's (DOJ) Office for Domestic Preparedness (ODP) will then work with established contacts in each state to identify appropriate users in their local emergency responder communities, and DOE will deliver the equipment to these jurisdictions at no cost.
"The HDER Program is an excellent example of federal agencies and private organizations working together to address a critical domestic preparedness issue," said Attorney General John Ashcroft. "This program demonstrates the administration's commitment to equipping those on the domestic front lines - our state and local emergency first responders - in the nation's effort to prevent future terrorist attacks."
Training on the use of the equipment will be available to the emergency responders through ODP's Domestic Preparedness Equipment Technical Assistance Program (DPETAP). If requested, DPETAP will provide detailed technical information and hands on equipment operation and maintenance training.
Local support for the equipment, including calibration, maintenance and follow up refresher training, will also be available through a partnership with the Health Physics Society, a 6,000 member national organization of radiation safety professionals.
A pilot phase for the HDER Program began on July 1. This pilot phase will be coordinated with the states containing the nation's 10 largest metropolitan areas, which include Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, New York city, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington DC.
More information on the HDER program is available at: http://www.oakridge.doe.gov, or on the DOJ's website: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/odp/
-------- depleted uranium
The Future of Challenger DU ammunition?
From: info@cadu.org.uk
Camille Warren Campaign Against Depleted Uranium
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2002
At CADU recently we have been receiving some information that has caused us to speculate over the future of Challenger II depleted uranium tank technology. This technology (known as 'Charm') is the lynchpin of the British military's known use of DU so if was being phased out this would be very significant.
Given last months parliamentary question that we emailed just previously to the list it maybe unlikely that we are seeing the back of 'Charm' just yet. However if anyone can shed anymore light on this issue after reading the following evidence please do let us know.
Firstly an article appeared in Jane's International Defence Review in May this year speculating that a switch to tungsten ammunition may be made as the Greek Army had decided to buy a German Leopard 2 tank with a smoothbore gun (making it incompatible with the DU rifled-bore gun technology). The British Army also wants to keep Challenger compatible with it's Future Rapid Effects System (FRES) till 2005. Jane's argues that it may be more logical to retrofit the Challenger with the FRES smoothbore gun than the other way around as this will allow it to use a greater range of ammunition.
This comes on top of the Ministry Defence research proposal (www.mod.uk/issues/depleted_uranium/du_research/military.htm) that stated that although they were to continue using DU as "the most operationally effective capability" they would start to carry research "radical alternatives" to DU KE penetrators.
Last month CADU received a reply from BAE Systems responding to correspondence about their involvement in DU. I have excerpted the relevent parts below: "BAE SYSTEMS RO Defence has been involved in the machining of depleted uranium ammunition components at its site at Featherstone, and in the assembly of these components into ammunition at its sites at Birtley and Glascoed. Depleted uranium components have only been machined and assembled for ammunition for the main armament of the Challenger Main Battle Tank. production of this nature of ammunition has been completed, and these sites are no longer engaged in the production of depleted uranium ammunition.
The site at Featherstone is currently engaged in the disassembly of surplus Challenger Main Battle Tank ammunition, which contains a depleted uranium component. This work will be completed in December this year, at which point the site will be decommissioned and closed."
However another source of ours explains this letter by arguing that the Challenger has a just-in-time procurement system that means ammunition is brought in efficient batch sizes rather than continuosly. This would mean that the army has enough stock not that they are ceasing use. There would be enough stock to keep the army in DU for the next 5-10 years. As for the disassemmbly of surplus stock this may refer to the L26 round but not the more effective L27.
If we combine this with the parliamentry answer (that I have included at the bottom of this email for reference) again it seems in doubt that DU is being phased out. Understanding the defence industry is a complex business indeed so we would appreciate any discussion or further information on this.
-------- japan
[Since the Japanese government has been VERY reluctant to provide health and financial assistance to victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing, this isn't a surprising decision. It is, however, disappointing. The same sophistry as the U.S. uses toward still-uncompensated downwinders in Utah and Nevada whose sheep, cattle, children, and parents died. et]
--
Japan court admits to WWII germ warfare
By Patrick J. Killen
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
August 27, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20020827-061629-8181r.htm
TOKYO, Aug. 27 (UPI) -- A Tokyo District Court judge said Tuesday that Japan conducted biological warfare in World War II that included spreading bubonic plague and cholera bacteria among Chinese civilians.
Judge Koji Iwata, however, dismissed a lawsuit by 180 Chinese victims and relatives who demanded the Japanese government apologize and pay compensation of 10 million yen -- about $84,000 -- to each of the plaintiffs.
"The evidence shows that the Japanese troops, including Unit 731 (a germ-warfare group) and others, used bacteriological weapons under the order of the Imperial Japanese Army's headquarters and that many local residents died."
But Iwata ruled that individuals had no right to seek compensation under international law and that the government had no responsibility for acts committed before the State Redress Law was enacted following the war.
Plaintiffs claimed Unit 731 operated in China from 1937-45 and conducted experiments on more than 3,000 people including Chinese, Koreans and Russians. Unit members managed to avoid the Tokyo War Crimes Trial by providing details of their activities to the Allies. Atrocities were confirmed by unit members and in other court cases although the Japanese government has remained silent.
Some Japanese involved in the experiments later led some of Japan's most successful pharmaceutical companies while others become academic leaders, according to published accounts.
Attorney Kohken Tsuchiya, who headed the legal team for the Chinese plaintiffs, told a news conference that Iwata's 100-page decision contained 10 pages in which "the court recognized and admitted the facts that biological warfare was conducted by the Japanese Imperial Army which inflicted very large damage (giving) location by location where the damage was inflicted."
The lawyer highlighted this because higher courts "can never overturn the recognition of the facts which have been admitted by the district court."
Tsuchiya said his legal team expected to file an appeal within two weeks. He said he planned to rebut the court's argument of non-responsibility by using Article 715 of the Civil Code in which the employer, in this case the Japanese army, is responsible for his employee's actions.
The lawsuit, filed in 1997, specifically charged that Unit 731 released fleas inflicted with bubonic plague and food laced with cholera bacteria in Zhejiang and Hunan provinces between 1940 and 1942, killing many civilians.
Wang Xuan, 50, a representative of the plaintiffs, said eight member of her great-grandfather's family died in an experimental germ attack on their village. Wang told reporters Tuesday she was disappointed and angry with the court decision.
Another plaintiff, Chen Zhifa, 71, who said his father and other relatives died of the plague, called the decision unfair. Plaintiff Xu Wabnzhi, 62, said, "We are ready for a prolonged fight."
-------- terrorism
Geiger Counters Reused for Training
August 27, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-BRF-Attacks-Recycling.html
OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (AP) -- Thousands of Geiger counters and other radiation detectors that had been destined for the scrap heap or auction block are being recycled for the war on terrorism.
The Energy and Justice departments are teaming up to offer the refurbished equipment and training in their use police, fire and emergency management agencies around the country.
Most of the instruments were used in Department of Energy cleanup operations and became surplus after the jobs were completed. Others were replaced by more sophisticated equipment.
``We are bringing the equipment to Oak Ridge, checking it out to make sure it is functional and useful for its intended purpose and then making it available to first responder agencies,'' Richard Meehan, who is overseeing the project at energy department's national recycling center in Oak Ridge, said Monday.
The Justice Department will provide hands-on operation and maintenance training. The 6,000-member Health Physics Society also will offer training and help in calibrating the instruments.
-------- us nuc waste
Utah Radioactive Measure on Ballot
August 27, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Radioactive-Petition.html
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- The Utah Supreme Court ordered an initiative aimed at raising taxes on radioactive waste on the November ballot, finding that a state law that had disqualified the measure gave a disproportionate voice to rural residents.
The 3-2 ruling Monday gave new life to an initiative strongly opposed by Envirocare, which operates a landfill in Utah that is one of just three in the nation that accepts low-level radioactive waste.
``We're stunned,'' Envirocare spokeswoman Betty Arial said. ``It's just a very, very poor way to tax, to make law.''
The initiative would increase taxes on radioactive waste shipped to the state and would bar waste of greater radioactivity than currently accepted. Envirocare says the higher tax could put it out of business.
Initiative supporters produced more than 91,000 validated signatures to put their proposal on the ballot, well surpassing the 76,180 required by one part of the initiative law.
But the law also required supporters to get signatures of 10 percent of the voters in at least 20 of the state's 29 counties. In rural counties, Envirocare employees and other opponents went door-to-door, asking those who had signed the petitions to have their names removed.
The result was the initiative narrowly failed to meet the second requirement, and Lt. Gov. Olene Walker, whose office handles elections, refused to put it on the ballot.
Initiative supporters then challenged the state's law, successfully arguing it gave more weight to voters in rural areas than to those in urban areas.
The court's majority ruling Monday said the provision made a Daggett County signature ``1,000 times as valuable'' as the signature of a Salt Lake County voter.
The court rejected the argument by the lieutenant governor's office that the purpose of the law was to make sure it didn't become too easy to clutter the ballot with questions.
``This clearly is not a legitimate legislative purpose,'' the court wrote. Citizens have a fundament right to make laws through ballot initiatives, and the legislature can't ``unduly burden or constrict'' that right, the court ruled.
Lisa Watts Baskin, who represented the petition supporters, said: ``We're delighted that it will be on the ballot. Let's let the people decide.''
Hugh Matheson of Citizens Against Unfair Taxes said the group has not decided on its next course of action, but he blasted the Supreme Court's ruling as ``liberal and permissive'' and said, ``Now the voice of rural Utah has been silenced.''
The other landfills that accept low-level radioactive waste are in Washington and South Carolina. Much of the waste is contaminated tools, clothing, laboratory animals and tissue from power plants, hospitals and research centers.
-------- us politics
Bush Seeks Secrecy For Pardon Discussions
By George Lardner Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 27, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64818-2002Aug26?language=printer
President Bush's lawyers are trying to keep secret the inside stories of President Bill Clinton's last-day pardons by invoking a claim of executive privilege that extends far beyond the White House.
In pleadings filed in U.S. District Court here this month, including affidavits from White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales and Deputy Attorney General Larry D. Thompson, the Bush administration contends that the privilege covers not only advice given to a president about individual pardons, but also government papers he has never seen and officials he has never talked to, such as the sentencing judge in a particular case.
The stance, taken in opposition to a lawsuit filed by the nonprofit group Judicial Watch for access to Clinton pardon records, represents a hard line that the government has never taken. In the past, executive privilege has been recognized for advisers who operate within the White House. Bush's lawyers say it covers officials in any part of the government who are asked for input about pardon requests.
The pardon is "a core Presidential power exclusively entrusted to, and exercised by, the President himself, and the documents generated in the process of developing and providing advice to him are squarely subject to the privilege," Assistant Attorney General Robert D. McCallum Jr. wrote in an Aug. 12 memo seeking summary dismissal of the Judicial Watch case.
A legal watchdog group that has challenged both Republican and Democratic administrations, Judicial Watch sued the Justice Department under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) last year for records concerning pardons granted or "considered" by Clinton in January 2001. The 177 pardons and commutations that he approved on his last day in office kicked up a storm, especially over the clemency he bestowed on fugitive financier Marc Rich, a man prominently listed on the government's international "lookout" list, and his business partner, Pincus Green.
"It's a bad-faith argument," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said of the government's position. "The courts have already said that executive privilege does not exist outside the White House. The Bush administration is now covering up for Bill Clinton, Marc Rich and Pinky Green."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said: "The president has always been entitled to receive confidential advice and candid assessments from attorneys in the federal government. . . . To release such documents would have a chilling effect on the deliberative process."
In the past, even pardon recommendations sent directly to the president from the Justice Department have been routinely made public by government archivists after several years. But in response to other recent requests for historical files, separate from the Judicial Watch suit, the Justice Department under Bush is asserting the same privilege to maintain the secrecy of pardon records as far back as 75 years ago. One set being withheld on instructions from the White House deals with the clemency granted Marcus Garvey, leader of the back-to-Africa movement, who was released from prison in 1927 after his conviction for stock fraud.
Bush, himself, has yet to invoke executive privilege in the Judicial Watch case, a Justice Department spokeswoman confirmed. In the past, the courts have said he must invoke the privilege personally, but the government's pleadings do not indicate whether he intends to do so.
Thousands of documents about Clinton's final pardons are at issue in the litigation, including many "authored or solicited or received by [Justice] Department officials in the course of preparing and providing information to assist the President in the exercise of his constitutional pardon power," McCallum wrote. These would include records showing whether a government prosecutor, sentencing judge or prison warden thought clemency was warranted and what the FBI found in background investigations that are normally conducted in response to clemency applications.
McCallum invoked a broad "presidential communications privilege" for all documents. He said many of the records are also exempt under the FOIA because they are protected by a narrower subset of executive privilege, the "deliberative process" privilege, in that they reveal "advice, deliberations and recommendations comprising part of the process by which Justice Department officials assisted and advised the President in the exercise of his clemency powers."
Clinton repeatedly short-circuited the pardon process, which requires applications to the U.S. pardon attorney at the Justice Department; investigation by the FBI; consultation with interested parties, from the sentencing judge to the victim; and a report and recommendation by the pardon attorney to the president, after a review by the deputy attorney general.
In his affidavit, Thompson, the deputy attorney general, said his office was withholding from Judicial Watch documents "that are subject to executive privilege," such as memos and e-mails between his staff and the pardon attorney's office; requests for information; and summaries of selected cases, including some with handwritten notes reflecting the deputy attorney general's viewpoint. This appeared to be a reference to Clinton's deputy attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr.
Thompson said his ability to advise the president about pardons would be "greatly impaired" if these records were "subject to public disclosure."
White House counsel Gonzales said in his affidavit that he is "aware" that Justice is withholding internal documents prepared "in the course of performing their responsibility" to the president. He said the assistance of officials and staff at Justice is "critical" to the president's exclusive authority to grant pardons.
In seeking dismissal of the case, McCallum also sought to head off congressional interest in the records. "Congress," he wrote, "has no constitutional authority to exercise oversight over the President's pardon power, or, therefore, to compel public production of records relating to the President's exercise of his pardon power."
Bush has granted no pardons or commutations since taking office. As of July 31, he had denied 508 pardon petitions and 1,346 commutation requests.
----
Cheney makes case for war
By Bill Sammon
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
August 27, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020827-3219620.htm
Vice President Richard B. Cheney yesterday said a return of weapons inspectors to Iraq would provide "no assurance whatsoever" that Saddam Hussein has given up his pursuit of nuclear weapons and should not avert "pre-emptive action" by the United States.
During a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention in Nashville, Tenn., Mr. Cheney provided the administration's most vigorous rebuttal to a rising chorus of voices opposing war against Saddam.
"I am familiar with the arguments against taking action in the case of Saddam Hussein," he said. "Some concede that Saddam is evil, power hungry and a menace, but that until he crosses the threshold of actually possessing nuclear weapons we should rule out any pre-emptive action.
"That logic seems to me to be deeply flawed," he added. "The argument comes down to this: Yes, Saddam is as dangerous as we say he is. We just need to let him get stronger before we do anything about it."
White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer cautioned reporters near the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas, that Mr. Cheney "did not make the case for pre-emptive attack."
"He made the case for the pre-emptive doctrine, and it's an important difference," he said.
The term Mr. Cheney repeatedly used was "pre-emptive action." And he seemed to equate the word "act" with "war" during a discussion of the ongoing military campaign against al Qaeda.
"In Afghanistan, the world has seen that America acts not to conquer but to liberate," he said.
Although the administration did not specify what kind of "action," other than a military strike, it is contemplating against Iraq, Mr. Cheney warned that "inaction" by the United States would embolden Saddam and doom future efforts at building an international coalition against Baghdad.
"As one of those who worked to assemble the Gulf war coalition, I can tell you that our job then would have been infinitely more difficult in the face of a nuclear-armed Saddam Hussein," he said. "And many of those who now argue that we should act only if he gets a nuclear weapon would then turn around and say that we cannot because he has a nuclear weapon.
"At bottom, that argument counsels a course of inaction that itself could have devastating consequences for many countries, including our own," he added.
Although Mr. Cheney and President Bush have publicly espoused a doctrine of pre-emption for months, yesterday's speech by the vice president was the administration's most detailed and comprehensive argument for action against Iraq. It took the form of a point-by-point rebuttal to naysayers on both sides of the political aisle.
It also marked a resumption of saber-rattling by the administration, which just last week was chiding the press for going into a "frenzy" of speculation about war against Iraq.
Mr. Fleischer said the president's tweaking of the press was limited to its coverage of a meeting Mr. Bush held with military advisers at his ranch to discuss missile defense on Wednesday. Although the White House told reporters before, during and after the meeting that Iraq was not on the agenda, the press remained preoccupied with the topic.
"The president's comments that day were limited to a day in which the president was having a meeting about missile defense," Mr. Fleischer said. "The president understands that there is a focus on Iraq. Questions about it are certainly appropriate."
In his Nashville speech, Mr. Cheney warned that Saddam cannot stave off U.S. efforts to oust him by merely lifting a ban on U.N. weapons inspectors, which Baghdad imposed in 1998.
"A person would be right to question any suggestion that we should just get inspectors back into Iraq, and then our worries will be over," Mr. Cheney said. "Saddam has perfected the game of shoot and retreat, and he is very skilled in the art of denial and deception.
"A return of inspectors would provide no assurance whatsoever of his compliance with U.N. resolutions," he added. "On the contrary, there is a great danger that it would provide false comfort that Saddam is somehow back in his box. Meanwhile, he would continue to plot."
Mr. Cheney warned that leaving Saddam alone to realize his ambitions would have catastrophic consequences.
"Saddam Hussein could then be expected to seek domination of the entire Middle East, take control of a great portion of the world's energy supplies, directly threaten America's friends throughout the region and subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail."
Mr. Cheney also promised that after deposing Saddam, the United States would remain in Iraq to help build a democratic society, much like it has in Afghanistan.
"We would act in that same spirit after a regime change in Iraq," he said.
In the past, the United States has urged Kurds and other ethnic minorities in Iraq to rise up against Saddam's regime, only to stand by while such uprisings were crushed. But yesterday, Mr. Cheney was promising such help only after Saddam is deposed by the United States.
The vice president also dismissed concerns about roiling the "Arab street" by acting against Iraq. Such concerns were raised before the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan.
"After liberation, the streets in Basra and Baghdad are sure to erupt in joy in the same way throngs in Kabul greeted the Americans," Mr. Cheney predicted. "Extremists in the region would have to rethink their strategy of jihad, moderates throughout the region would take heart, and our ability to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process would be enhanced just as it was following the liberation of Kuwait in 1991."
Mr. Cheney also implicitly disputed reports that war against Iraq was opposed by a prominent member of the Nixon administration.
"As former Secretary of State [Henry] Kissinger recently stated, the imminence of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the huge dangers it involves, the rejection of a viable inspection system and the demonstrated hostility of Saddam Hussein combine to produce an imperative for pre-emptive action," he said.
"If the United States could have pre-empted 9/11, we would have, no question," he added. "Should we be able to prevent another, much more devastating attack, we will, no question. This nation will not live at the mercy of terrorists or terror regimes."
--
Letter to the President (mailto:president@whitehouse.gov)
With copy to the Editor, Washington Times (mailto:mailto:letters@washingtontimes.com),
August 27, 2002,
emailed by Ellen Thomas (mailto:prop1@prop1.org):
Dear President Bush,
In the Washington Times article today, "Cheney makes case for war" (http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020827-3219620.htm), Bill Sammon notes a conflicting message:
"White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer cautioned reporters near the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas, that Mr. Cheney 'did not make the case for pre-emptive attack. He made the case for the pre-emptive doctrine, and it's an important difference.' The term Mr. Cheney repeatedly used was 'pre-emptive action.' And he seemed to equate the word 'act' with 'war' during a discussion of the ongoing military campaign against al Qaeda.
A logical action in lieu of war is to offer to open US weapons facilities to UN inspectors as an act of good faith, with the expectation that all other nuclear powers, real or suspected, must do the same thing. That will deflate Saddam Hussein, and increase the likelihood of more quickly eliminating nuclear weapons.
Of course, skeptics will scoff, "pie in the sky." Some people just haven't learned how to hope, or act, yet. It looks so far as though Dick Cheney's one of them. Let's hope George W. Bush is wiser.
---
In Cheney's Words: The Administration Case for Removing Saddam Hussein
New York Times
August 27, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/27/international/middleeast/27ITEX.html
Following are excerpts from a speech yesterday by Vice President Dick Cheney to a national convention of Veterans of Foreign Wars in Nashville, as recorded by Federal News Service Inc. A full transcript is online at nytimes.com/international.
In the days of the cold war, we were able to manage the threat with strategies of deterrence and containment. But it's a lot tougher to deter enemies who have no country to defend, and containment is not possible when dictators obtain weapons of mass destruction and are prepared to share them with terrorists, who intend to inflict catastrophic casualties on the United States.
The case of Saddam Hussein, a sworn enemy of our country, requires a candid appraisal of the facts.
After his defeat in the gulf war in 1991, Saddam agreed to U.N. Security Council Resolution 687, to cease all development of weapons of mass destruction. He agreed to end his nuclear weapons program. He agreed to destroy his chemical and his biological weapons. He further agreed to admit U.N. inspection teams into his country, to insure that he was in fact complying with these terms.
In the past decade Saddam has systematically broken each of these agreements. The Iraqi regime has in fact been very busy enhancing its capabilities in the field of chemical and biological agents, and they continue to pursue the nuclear program they began so many years ago.
These are not weapons for the purpose of defending Iraq. These are offensive weapons for the purpose of inflicting death on a massive scale, developed so that Saddam can hold the threat over the head of anyone he chooses in his own region or beyond.
On the nuclear question, many of you will recall that Saddam's nuclear ambitions suffered a severe setback in 1981, when the Israelis bombed the Osirak reactor. They suffered another major blow in Desert Storm and its aftermath.
But we now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. Among other sources, we've gotten this from first-hand testimony from defectors, including Saddam's own son-in-law, who was subsequently murdered at Saddam's direction.
Many of us are convinced that Saddam Hussein will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon. Just how soon, we cannot really gauge. Intelligence is an uncertain business, even in the best of circumstances. This is especially the case when you are dealing with a totalitarian regime that has made a science out of deceiving the international community.
Let me give you just one example of what I mean. Prior to the gulf war, America's top intelligence would come to my office in the Defense Department and tell me that Saddam Hussein is at least 5 or perhaps even 10 years away from having a nuclear weapon. After the war, we learned that he had been much closer than that, perhaps within a year of acquiring such a weapon.
Saddam also devised an elaborate program to conceal his active efforts to build chemical and biological weapons, and one must keep in mind the history of U.N. inspection teams in Iraq.
Even as they were conducting the most intrusive system of arms control in history, the inspectors missed a great deal. Before being barred from the country, the inspectors found and destroyed thousands of chemical weapons and hundreds of tons of mustard gas and other nerve agents.
Yet Saddam Hussein had sought to frustrate and deceive them at ever turn. . . .
Against that background, a person would be right to question any suggestion that we should just get inspectors back into Iraq and then our worries will be over. Saddam has perfected the game of shoot and retreat, and is very skilled in the art of denial and deception. A return of inspectors would provide no assurance whatsoever of his compliance with U.N. resolutions.
On the contrary, there is a great danger that it would provide false comfort that Saddam was somehow back in his box. Meanwhile, he would continue to plot. Nothing in the last dozen years has stopped him: not his solemn agreements, not the discoveries of inspectors, not the revelations by defectors, not criticism or ostracism by the international community and not four days of bombing by the United States in 1998.
What he wants is time, and more time to husband his resources to invest in his ongoing chemical and biological weapons program, and to gain possession of nuclear weapons.
Should all his ambitions be realized, the implications would be enormous for the Middle East and the United States and for the peace of the world.
The whole range of weapons of mass destruction then would rest in the hands of a dictator who has already shown his willingness to use such weapons and has done so, both in his war with Iran and against his own people.
Armed with an arsenal of these weapons of terror and a seat at a top 10 percent of the world's oil reserves, Saddam Hussein could then be expected to seek domination of the entire Middle East, take control of a great portion of the world's energy supplies, directly threaten America's friends throughout the region and subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail.
Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction; there is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies and against us. And there is no doubt that his aggressive regional ambitions will lead him into future confrontations with his neighbors, confrontations that will involve both the weapons he has today and the ones he will continue to develop with his oil wealth.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is no basis in Saddam Hussein's conduct or history to discount any of the concerns that I'm raising this morning.
We are, after all, dealing with the same dictator who shoots at American and British pilots in the no-fly zone on a regular basis, the same dictator who dispatched a team of assassins to murder former President Bush as he traveled abroad, the same dictator who invaded Iran and Kuwait and has fired ballistic missiles at Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel, the same dictator who has been on a State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism for better than two decades.
In the face of such a threat, we must indeed proceed with care, deliberation and consultation with our allies. I know our president very well. I've worked beside him as he directed our response to the events of 9/11. I know that he will proceed cautiously and deliberately to consider all possible options to deal with the threat that an Iraq ruled by Saddam Hussein represents.
And I am confident that he will, as he has said he would, consult widely with the Congress, and with our friends and allies before deciding upon a course of action. He welcomes the debate that is now being joined here at home, and he has made it clear to his national security team that he wants us to participate fully in the hearings that will be held in Congress next month on this vitally important issue.
We will profit as well from a review of our own history. There are a lot of World War II veterans in the hall today. To the United States, that war began on Dec. 7, 1941, with the attack on Pearl Harbor and the near total destruction our Pacific fleet.
Only then did we recognize the magnitude of the danger to our country. Only then did the Axis powers fully declare their intentions against us. By that point, many countries had fallen, many millions had died and our nation was plunged into a two-front war resulting in more than a million American casualties. To this day, historians continue to analyze that war, speculating on how we might have prevented Pearl Harbor and asking what actions might have averted the tragedies that rate among the worst in human history.
America in the year 2002 must ask careful questions, not merely about our past, but also about our future. The elected leaders of this country have a responsibility to consider all of the available options, and we are doing so.
What we must not do in the face of a mortal threat is to give in to wishful thanking or willful blindness. We will not simply look away, hope for the best and leave the matter for some future administration to resolve. As President Bush has said, "Time is not on our side."
Deliverable weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a terror network or a murderous dictator or the two working together constitutes as grave a threat as can be imagined. The risks of inaction are far greater than the risks of action.
Now and in the future, the United States will work closely with the global coalition to deny terrorists and their state sponsors the materials, technology and expertise to make and deliver weapons of mass destruction. We will develop and deploy effective missile defenses to protect America and our allies from sudden attack. And the entire world must know that we will take whatever action is necessary to defend our freedom and our security.
As former Secretary of State Kissinger recently stated: "The eminence of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the huge dangers it involves, the rejection of a viable inspection system and the demonstrated hostility of Saddam Hussein combine to produce an imperative for pre-emptive action."
If the United States could have pre-empted 9/11, we would have, no question. Should we be able to prevent another much more devastating attack, we will, no question. This nation will not live at the mercy of terrorists or terror regimes.
I am familiar with the arguments against taking action in the case of Saddam Hussein.
Some concede that Saddam is evil, power-hungry and a menace, but that until he crosses the threshold of actually possessing nuclear weapons, we should rule out any pre-emptive action. That logic seems to me to be deeply flawed.
The argument comes down to this: Yes, Saddam is as dangerous as we say he is. We just need to let him get stronger before we do anything about it. Yet if we did wait until that moment, Saddam would simply be emboldened, and it would become even harder for us to gather friends and allies to oppose him. As one of those who worked to assemble the gulf war coalition, I can tell you that our job then would have been infinitely more difficult in the face of a nuclear-armed Saddam Hussein.
And many of those who now argue that we should act only if he gets a nuclear weapon would then turn around and say that we cannot act because he has a nuclear weapon. At bottom, that argument counsels a course of inaction that itself could have devastating consequences for many countries, including our own.
Another argument holds that opposing Saddam Hussein would cause even greater troubles in that part of the world and interfere with a larger war against terror.
I believe the opposite is true. Regime change in Iraq would bring about a number of benefits for the region. When the gravest of threats are eliminated, the freedom-loving peoples of the region will have a chance to promote the values that can bring lasting peace. As for the reaction in "the Arab street," the Middle East expert Prof. Fuad Ajami predicts that after liberation, the streets in Basra and Baghdad are sure to erupt in joy in the same way throngs in Kabul greeted the Americans.
Extremists in the region would have to rethink their strategy of jihad. Moderates throughout the region would take heart, and our ability to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process would be enhanced, just as it was following the liberation of Kuwait in 1991.
The reality is that these times bring not only dangers but also opportunities. In the Middle East, where so many have known only poverty and oppression, terror and tyranny, we look to the day when people can live in freedom and dignity and the young can grow up free of the conditions that breed despair, hatred and violence.
In other times, the world saw how the United States defeated fierce enemies, then helped rebuild their countries, forming strong bonds between our peoples and our governments. Today in Afghanistan, the world has seen that America acts not to conquer but to liberate. It remains in friendship to help the people build a future of stability, self-determination and peace.
We would act in that same spirit after a regime change in Iraq. With our help, a liberated Iraq can be a great nation once again. Iraq is rich in natural resources and human talents, and has unlimited potential for a peaceful prosperous future. Our goal would be an Iraq that has territorial integrity, a government that is democratic and pluralistic, a nation where the human rights of every ethnic and religious group are recognized and protected.
In that troubled land, all who seek justice and dignity and the chance to live their own lives know they have a friend and ally in the United States of America.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
U.S. Sweep in Afghanistan Yields Weapons, Not Enemy
Troops Raise Possibility Taliban, al Qaeda Were Tipped Off
By Wally Santana
Associated Press
Tuesday, August 27, 2002; Page A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64623-2002Aug26?language=printer
NARIZAH, Afghanistan -- Flying huge American flags atop their Humvees, U.S. Army Special Forces troops swept through villages in southeastern Afghanistan last week in search of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. In most cases, however, the people and weapons the troops expected to find were gone, leading them to suspect that Operation Mountain Sweep, which ended Sunday, had been compromised by security leaks.
"I wouldn't say it wasn't successful," said Sgt. 1st Class Dwight Smith. "It's been going okay. We've recovered some caches. But it could be better."
More than 2,000 coalition troops, including U.S. Special Forces, paratroops and civil affairs specialists, took part in the eight-day operation in the rugged mountain terrain along the border with Pakistan. They found a ton of weapons, two caches of Taliban documents and took 10 people into custody. But main al Qaeda and Taliban units were nowhere to be found.
Instead, they turned up cooperative village leaders and curious children, even though intelligence reports said the area was rife with Taliban and al Qaeda sympathizers, some of them masters of guerrilla warfare, which they learned fighting the Soviets in the 1980s.
Maj. Craig Osborne, an operations officer, suspects the enemy knew the Americans were coming. "I have no firsthand knowledge of that, but there is some speculation of that," he said.
The operations around Narizah, a mud-hut village in Khost province less than six miles from the Pakistani border, were typical and underscored the frustrations of U.S. soldiers. U.S. intelligence had reported an unusually large number of vehicles and armed men around the village. As paratroops from the 82nd Airborne Division set up a security cordon around the area, troops from the 2nd Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group-Airborne approached the village.
Dozens of Afghan men and boys stared as Humvees and trucks rolled into the center of the village. Chickens scurried across the narrow streets; nervous goats pulled at the ropes tying them to the mud-brick walls.
Respectful of local customs, the Americans waited in the village center for the village elders. The soldiers told them they suspected there were weapons in the village and asked that Afghan militiamen be allowed to search. The Americans said they would wait until the women could be shielded from foreign eyes.
Village leaders withdrew to consult and then gave their approval. After searching each house, the Afghan fighters told the Americans what they had found. The Americans then went inside, surveying the weapons and confiscating most of them, leaving one AK-47 assault rifle per household. They looked in buckets, under mattresses, in bales of hay, even in toilets.
One Afghan man told soldiers there was nothing in his house but a couple of guns. However, the militiamen emerged with 12 rocket-propelled grenades, one grenade launcher and AK-47 ammunition.
An angry American confronted the man. "Are you Taliban? Are you al Qaeda? Why are you lying to me?" he shouted. "How can we trust you when you lie?"
The villager insisted he had given up the entire cache. Nearby, a woman was heard crying behind the wall as soldiers searched her home.
"You can search my house anytime," another man said. "But please bring the person who told you I had something so I can confront him."
Civilians have often complained that unscrupulous Afghans report them to the Americans as Taliban sympathizers to settle old grudges or steal property.
Although the troops found little at Narizah, they said they believed their intelligence was correct and that the village was an al Qaeda and Taliban stronghold. But they said they may have lost the element of surprise. Some suspected the enemy heard helicopters dropping troops in the area the night before the raid.
"We've done a lot of aircraft traffic in this area, and I think they knew we were probably coming eventually," Master Sgt. Curtis Curry said. "I really didn't expect to find a whole lot. And that's what we found."
----
10 Al Qaeda Suspects Caught In Afghan Sweep
Reuters
Tuesday, August 27, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64482-2002Aug26?language=printer
Coalition forces in Afghanistan captured 10 suspected al Qaeda members and found a group of women who had concealed grenades under their robes, the Pentagon said yesterday. The sweep of southeast Afghanistan also yielded two sets of Taliban documents and weapons including an antiaircraft gun.
CNN reported the sweep was aimed at a senior al Qaeda financier who managed to evade coalition forces, but a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, which is in charge of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, said it could not confirm this.
In what the Pentagon called a unique aspect of the sweep, seven women in the village of Narizah were found to be carrying nine rocket-propelled grenade rounds under their all-enveloping burqas.
Over 2,000 coalition forces participated in the sweep; there were no battle casualties for U.S. forces, according to the statement.
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General: U.S. Units Unaware Of Deaths Afghan Prisoners Reported Killed
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 27, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64997-2002Aug26.html
Responding to new accounts of hundreds of Taliban prisoners being killed in northern Afghanistan last November, Pentagon authorities have reviewed reports by U.S. Special Forces teams in the area at the time and found no evidence that American soldiers were aware of the alleged deaths.
Marine Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, disclosed the review yesterday following a report in Newsweek magazine last week that detainees -- captured by Afghan militiamen working with the United States -- were sealed in truck containers, left to suffocate and then buried in mass graves. A U.N. investigation in May also turned up indications of a mass burial in the same area.
As standard practice, Pace said, Special Forces units receive refresher training on human rights just before deploying. They are then expected to report any abuses they observe and to intervene in such instances. After their missions end, the U.S. teams are asked about any human rights violations that might have occurred, Pace said.
"We've gone back and reassured ourselves that in fact all the teams did get the proper training before they went, and we went back and reassured ourselves that the teams were debriefed when they came out of the field," Pace told reporters. "And in all of that there have been zero reported cases of human rights violations by the teams that we had on the ground."
The reported deaths occurred when hundreds of Taliban fighters who had surrendered were being transported from Kunduz province to the town of Shebergan in Jowzjan province for jailing and, in many cases, screening and interrogation by U.S. personnel. The region near the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif was, and remains, under the control of Gen. Abdurrashid Dostum, who fought alongside Mohammed Fahim, then commander of the Northern Alliance and now Afghanistan's defense minister.
Fahim has expressed skepticism about the existence of a mass grave at Shebergan. And last week, a statement issued by Afghanistan's government stopped short of pledging to organize an investigation, committing only to cooperate with any human rights group or other organization probing the reported killings.
But Pace said it was his understanding that Afghan authorities were going to conduct an investigation.
"I was told about two days ago that Fahim, the defense minister, is in fact going to do an investigation, an Afghan investigation, of Shebergan. So that's good," the general said.
At the same time, Pace indicated the Pentagon has no plans to assist in the probe. "If the Afghan government needs assistance, I'm sure they'll ask and we'll make a determination at that time as far as what kind of support . . . we can give them."
-------- asia
Japan, N. Korea Fail to Bridge Differences but Agree to More Talks
By Yuri Kageyama
Associated Press
Tuesday, August 27, 2002; Page A09
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64529-2002Aug26?language=printer
PYONGYANG, North Korea, Aug. 26 -- Japan and North Korea agreed today to hold more negotiations over the next month but remained far apart on their long-standing differences after their first high-level talks in two years.
"I repeatedly told them we must put all our problems on the table without avoiding any of them," said Hitoshi Tanaka, chief of Asian affairs at the Japanese Foreign Ministry. "This does not mean that specific problems were solved."
Both sides repeated their positions without compromise during the two-day talks in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang. The talks began Sunday between Tanaka and his North Korean counterpart, Ma Chol Su.
The talks brought a rare exchange of letters between Japan's prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, and North Korea's enigmatic leader, Kim Jong Il. Koizumi's letter, passed through the delegations Saturday, said Japan was sincere in wanting to tackle issues blocking normalization talks and expected the same from North Korea.
In a banquet tonight, Kim's reply was delivered: "It is a very encouraging message and I thank you."
With the divisions still deep, the two nations agreed to hold more talks to explore the possibility of full-fledged negotiations on establishing diplomatic relations for the first time since North Korea's communist government was founded in 1948.
They gave themselves a month to reach at least an initial agreement that would indicate whether some of the differences can be bridged, making normalization talks possible, a joint statement from Ma and Tanaka said.
If prospects appear hopeless after one month, there can be no normalization talks, Japanese officials said.
The resumption of talks between the countries -- which broke down two years ago -- came as North Korea, which needs foreign aid to feed its people, has been gradually seeking contact with the outside world.
North Korea and the United States broke off their dialogue two years ago, and tensions increased after President Bush in January called North Korea part of an "axis of evil" seeking to develop weapons of mass destruction.
The top U.S. arms-control negotiator said today that Washington has new information that North Korea has been producing nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and long-range ballistic missiles, as well as supplying missile parts and technologies to other nations.
"We remain very concerned about North Korea's outward proliferation activities," Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton told reporters in Tokyo. He did not say what evidence the United States has or which nations received the missile parts.
Washington remains open to talks with Pyongyang, Bolton said, but any discussions must address the weapons issue. Last month, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell met North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun and they agreed to work toward resuming talks.
In the talks here Sunday and today, both sides repeated their long-held stances on normalization.
North Korea said Tokyo must first apologize and provide compensation for its colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
Japan demanded to know what became of 11 citizens it says were kidnapped by North Korea in the 1970s and '80s to train North Korean spies.
----
U.S. Plants Footprint in Shaky Central Asia
By Robert G. Kaiser
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 27, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64817-2002Aug26?language=printer
TASHKENT, Uzbekistan -- The American military base in the arid hills of southwestern Uzbekistan is not imposing. The air-conditioned tents are laid out on a grid, along streets named for the thoroughfares of New York: Fifth Avenue, Long Island Expressway, Wall Street. About 1,000 U.S. troops live and work here, handling tons of supplies for the war in Afghanistan.
But the base, named K2, is a powerful symbol of the United States' arrival in a region that was once better known as a theater of operations for armies led by Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane. In fact, the U.S. troops here are the first Western soldiers to operate in this corner of the world since Alexander, who passed nearby in 329 B.C.
Central Asia's leaders consider the U.S. presence here the inauguration of a new era. Islam Karimov, the uncompromising leader of Uzbekistan, was held at arm's length by the United States for years because of his authoritarian policies. He now sees himself as an important U.S. ally. Since his friendly visit with President Bush last spring and the signing of a formal agreement committing the United States to respond to "any external threat" to Uzbekistan, Karimov said in an interview, his country has "a strategic partnership with the United States."
"The logic of the situation," said Abdulaziz Kamilov, Karimov's foreign minister, "suggests that the United States has come here with a serious purpose, and for a long time."
The purpose that brought the United States to Central Asia was the hunt for Osama bin Laden, his followers and protectors. Once U.S. officials declared war on bin Laden, they needed strategic assets near his base in Afghanistan. Uzbek officials signaled their willingness to help, and on Sept. 28 confirmed to Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton that a U.S. base could be established on their territory. K2 is just 80 miles from the Afghan border.
Thus did the United States find itself in this exotic and troubled neighborhood. In the weeks after Sept. 11, four of the five governments in the region offered military facilities to the United States. All five welcomed the U.S. deployment. The irony was not lost on any of them: In the 11th year of their independence, former republics of the Soviet Union had become military partners of the United States. "The world changed," Kasymzhomart Tokayev, foreign minister of Kazakhstan, said in an interview.
In the bargain, the United States has acquired new commitments and new allies in Central Asia that will alter U.S. policy for years to come. But how? And with what consequences? Five weeks of reporting in the region and extensive interviews with policymakers in Washington make clear that the commitments, though real enough and potentially costly, remain vague. Their full implications may not be understood for years.
The State Department describes U.S. policy in Central Asia since Sept. 11 as "enhanced engagement." In testimony to the Senate earlier this summer, B. Lynn Pascoe, deputy assistant secretary of state, explained the U.S. goal: to push the Central Asian states toward free markets and democratic politics to try to strengthen them against Islamic extremism and instability. Without political and economic reform, Pascoe said, "they cannot survive as modern states."
Today, all five countries are encumbered by corrupt and authoritarian politics and serious social and economic problems. In the view of numerous academic specialists, the situation is actually deteriorating. Kathleen Collins, a professor at the University of Notre Dame, in South Bend, Ind., wrote recently that these five countries "are not in transition to democracy, but are heading down a political and economic trajectory that can only be called sharply negative." Her view is echoed by many Central Asians. "We have a process of de-civilizing going on," said Murat Auezov, a Kazakh intellectual who was his country's ambassador to China in the early 1990s.
None of the leaders in the region permits free politics or fair elections, and as a result, all lack legitimacy, according to a Bush administration official. They are all "guys who just were there" as leaders of their republics when the Soviet Union collapsed or soon afterward, this official said. They wield highly concentrated personal power in fledgling systems whose institutions range from weak to utterly ineffectual. The assistant secretary of state for human rights, Lorne W. Craner, testified to Congress recently that the human rights situation in the five Central Asian states was "very poor," "poor" or "extremely poor."
Yet these new allies may be needed for years because the effort to stabilize Afghanistan will depend on them. Gen. Tommy R. Franks, commander of the U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for Afghanistan, affirmed this month that U.S. soldiers will be in Afghanistan for "a long, long time." Describing the sort of commitment Afghanistan will require, Franks mentioned South Korea, where U.S. troops have been based for more than half a century.
Like Afghanistan, all five of the Central Asian countries -- Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan -- need serious "nation-building." George W. Bush said during the 2000 presidential campaign that this should not be a U.S. avocation, but since last fall it has become one.
U.S. aid budgets for this region have increased this year by $200 million, to a total of $442 million. Americans are helping Central Asians learn to operate a market economy and teach English, train and deploy modern armed forces, develop independent news media and establish citizens' groups and a civil society. The U.S. Agency for International Development employs two "democracy specialist" positions for the region in the Kazakh city of Almaty, plus one each in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
For both the leaders of Central Asia and their new U.S. partners, regional stability is the overriding goal. But they define the term differently. The Central Asian presidents cite the need for stability to justify their crackdowns on domestic opponents. American diplomats argue, on the contrary, that stability will depend on tolerance for opponents and opportunities for them to compete for power. Ordinary people speak longingly of a stability accompanied by economic security and a sense of an orderly future. The powerful nations of the world with interests in the neighborhood all see stability as the antidote to the tendencies they fear -- Islamic extremism, violent opposition to sitting regimes, ugly contests for power and wealth.
A 'Great Game' Renewed
Central Asia has a long history as a venue for geopolitical intrigue. This was the site for the 19th-century test of strength and influence between Russia and Britain that Rudyard Kipling immortalized as "the great game." Then the area was the buffer zone between an eastward-expanding Russian empire and a nervous Britain that feared the Russians had designs on British India. Russian armies conquered most of Central Asia during the 19th century, stopping only at the Pamir Mountains and the Afghan border.
In the first years of the 21st century, the collapse of Russian imperialism, the rise of Muslim fundamentalism and the world's ever-increasing thirst for oil, have all contributed to a new kind of strategic significance for Central Asia. Geography is still critical. The five former Soviet republics and Afghanistan together constitute a zone of weak states in the middle of a neighborhood that includes Russia, Pakistan, India, Iran and China, whose western-most province, Xinjiang, borders Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. In this setting, what happens in Central Asia can have wide repercussions.
During the 1990s the United States began to quietly build influence in the area. Washington established significant military-to-military relationships with Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Soldiers from those countries have been trained by Americans. Uzbekistan alone will receive $43 million in U.S. military aid this year. The militaries of all three have an ongoing relationship with the National Guard of a U.S. state -- Kazakhstan with Arizona, Kyrgyzstan with Montana, Uzbekistan with Louisiana. The countries also participated in NATO's Partnership for Peace program.
"We wanted to extend our influence in the region, and promote American values, too," said Jeffrey Starr, a Pentagon official who was responsible for these relationships during the second Clinton administration as deputy assistant secretary of defense.
Oil and gas have enhanced the region's strategic value. Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan sit atop vast quantities of both. Geologists keep raising their estimates of Kazakh oil reserves as more becomes known about the oil fields beneath the Caspian Sea. The Energy Department now says Kazakhstan may have as many as 95 billion barrels of oil, or nearly four times Mexico's proven reserves. Chevron, a U.S. company, was the first to make a major commitment to the development of Kazakh oil, and the company -- now Chevron Texaco -- is investing billions of dollars in Kazakhstan.
"We have an enormous economic and energy stake in this country," said a senior U.S. official in Kazakhstan. "It's part of our national energy strategy." By 2015 Kazakhstan and its Caspian neighbors could make up one of the world's most important sources of oil, the official said.
That the people of Central Asia are predominantly Muslim has also become a geopolitical factor. Throughout the 1990s governments in the region had been nervous about the rise of Islamic militancy. This anxiety turned into stark fear after 1998, when a charismatic young Uzbek from the populous Fergana Valley, using the nom de guerre of Juma Namangani, established the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) with the stated aim of overthrowing Karimov's government. In 1999 armed men under the banner of the IMU, operating from Afghanistan, invaded Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. They failed in their goal to reach the fertile, densely populated Fergana, but they sent a shudder of fear through these countries. In 2000 the IMU invaded again, this time reaching the mountains northeast of Tashkent.
It was their safe haven in Afghanistan that made the IMU's exploits possible. The Afghan connection to Islamic militancy in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan alarmed all three governments. But until Sept. 11, their warnings about the threat of the Taliban were mostly ignored by the rest of the world.
Now the Central Asian governments see an opportunity to remake Afghanistan as a thriving, secular neighbor that can contribute to stability. "Afghanistan must be part of this region," said Kamilov, the Uzbek foreign minister -- and not just for stability. President Imamali Rakhmonov of Tajikistan and President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan both noted in interviews that an open highway across Afghanistan would bring much of Central Asia within a day's drive of the Pakistani port of Karachi -- a way for the landlocked countries to throw off their historic dependence on Russia for physical connections to the outside world.
The U.S. intervention has been most important for the Central Asians because it has eliminated the obvious threats to their own security. The United States and its partners in the international coalition against terrorism removed the Taliban and all but wiped out al Qaeda and the IMU. U.S. bombs apparently killed Namangani, the IMU leader, last year.
"From a military point of view, we don't face any threats," said Kodir Gulomov, Uzbekistan's defense minister. Just a year ago, Uzbekistan was nervously mining its borders and awaiting new attacks by the IMU.
Afghanistan still presents problems for its neighbors. Water supply is one. The Amudarya River, an important and already overused source for Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, demarcates the Tajik-Afghan and Uzbek-Afghan borders for hundreds of miles. Now that international donors have promised to rebuild the Afghan economy, including its agriculture, increased Afghan use of the Amudarya is inevitable, according to officials in the region.
Drugs are another problem. The IMU, the Northern Alliance (an ethnic Tajik group that dominated a slice of northern Afghanistan) and the Taliban turned Afghanistan into a giant drug factory that now provides 90 percent of the heroin consumed in Europe, according to the United Nations. Drug commerce makes up a substantial contribution to the economies of all the Central Asian countries.
But the leaders of Central Asia prefer to notice the great opportunity presented by the woes of Afghanistan -- holding the United States in their region. President Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, for example, said: "We'll need 15 to 20 years to stabilize Afghanistan now," and he anticipates an important role for the United States in the effort.
Soviets and Russians
Americans in the neighborhood cannot, however, dispel Central Asia's many problems. Stability may be the goal, but sources of potential instability are evident everywhere. All five countries suffer from serious social and economic problems; all are burdened by an unforgiving history; and none existed as a nation-state before 1991. The borders that define the countries, drawn arbitrarily by Joseph Stalin and his comrades in the 1920s and '30s, bore only scant connection to the historical distribution of ethnic groups and political power in the region.
The peoples of Central Asia have intermingled and intermarried for centuries. It's nearly impossible for a visitor to distinguish Uzbeks from Tajiks or Kazakhs or Kyrgyz, unless they're wearing national garments. Clan and regional ties have historically been more important than ethnic identification, according to Olivier Roy, a French scholar who has written extensively on the region.
None of the republics was psychologically prepared to become an independent nation 11 years ago, when the Soviet Union suddenly disappeared. This was something most Central Asians never dreamed of. The republics lacked the most basic tools of nationhood -- a banking system, for example, or a defense ministry, or a postal service. Their Soviet-era economies all collapsed, and none has gotten back to the standard of living their citizens enjoyed in 1991.
Soviet habits still survive. "There's still a lot Soviet in us -- Soviet mentality, Soviet methods for reaching decisions," said Joomart Otorbayev, deputy prime minister of Kyrgyzstan. "The Soviet system of management that buried the Soviet Union is still with us -- and, unlike Moses, there was no chance to take everyone into the desert for 40 years to shed the slave's mentality."
Today's Central Asians, from political leaders to taxi drivers, are ambivalent about Russia. Many say that without the Russian empire, they would all probably be as backward as the Afghans next door. But it is also easy to find resentment about the way Russians used this region for their own purposes, depriving its people of dignity and authority -- and often of their lives.
Nazarbayev, the Kazakh president, embodies this ambivalence: He made his career inside the Soviet system, rising to become a full member of the Politburo. Then he tried to prevent the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Today he casts himself as a Kazakh nationalist, and reports proudly that the ethnic Kazakh population, just 30 percent of the republic's citizens in 1975, is now 55 percent. An exodus of ethnic Russians -- which has occurred in all five countries -- explains most of the change. Birth rates are also high in all of Central Asia.
Central Asians long assumed that Russia would remain their protector, and a stabilizing force. Seeing the United States move in instead was a surprise; for some, it was a shock. But Americans can't fully substitute for Russians here. Millions of Central Asians live and work in Russia; armies in Central Asian nations use Russian weaponry; Central Asians who follow world affairs get most of their news through Russia's media. Russia remains an important market and, for Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, a crucial link for the export of oil and gas. "I think the future is with Russia," said Azamat Abdimomunov, 27, director of a staff of young intellectuals who work on "the future development of our country" in Nazarbayev's presidential apparat.
Russia's economic importance is largely a consequence of Central Asia's economic failures. Unemployment is staggeringly high in these five countries, though no one knows exactly how high. In Uzbekistan people say flatly that young men who don't have political connections simply cannot find a job. Poverty is a huge problem everywhere, even in relatively wealthy Kazakhstan. Poverty scares the politicians, partly because they can't alleviate it, partly because they're afraid of its consequences.
"Where does the threat [of international terrorism] come from?" asked Rakhmonov, the Tajik president. "Why does it come from this region? Because of . . . poverty, joblessness." Bin Laden picked Afghanistan as a base of operations "because that's just what the terrorists needed -- a poor, backward country" where they could recruit followers and buy the support they needed, Rakhmonov said.
He warned that the United States and other developed countries had to do more to improve desperate economic conditions in the region. "The people of Central Asia have a moral right to a better life," he said.
One beneficiary of poverty is Islamic militancy, according to numerous Central Asians. The fact that young men can't find jobs created recruiting opportunities for the IMU. Leaders in the region express their anxiety about Islam by trying to control it. In Uzbekistan, a state committee has complete control of religious practice in the country. The grand mufti of Tashkent has a large portrait of President Karimov in his office. His staff distributes the sermon read in every mosque in the country on Friday.
Economists and experts from the international financial institutions blame the governments for failing to reform their economies, support entrepreneurship and develop the regional economy. The utter failure of these five governments to work together on important issues since independence is a particularly sore spot. "I'd call it a children's disease," said Otorbayev, the deputy prime minister of Kyrgyzstan, discussing the rivalries that have blocked regional cooperation. "We've been independent for eleven years, a child's age."
Old Ways in New Nations
Corruption in Central Asia is seen as both a symptom and cause of the region's problems. Residents of all five countries say it has gotten worse since independence, but it is an ancient curse. From presidents to traffic policemen, Central Asians in positions of authority use their positions to make money.
So the family of President Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan has become enormously wealthy, and the police of Dushanbe, Tajikistan, routinely flag down drivers who have done nothing wrong to demand a payoff. The president of Turkmenistan has put the country's oil revenue into an offshore bank account that only he controls. Physicians in underfunded clinics expect bribes to provide treatment. Fuel for the American and French fighter jets flying out of Manas air base in Kyrgyzstan is provided by a firm owned by President Askar Akayev's son-in-law.
Though all five governments have embraced the outward symbols of democracy -- elections, legislatures, courts of law and constitutions -- none practices authentic democracy. All have preserved powerful, KGB-like political police forces. When elections are held, presidents win nearly all the votes, and serious opposition candidates are routinely banned. American diplomats have tried to convince Central Asian presidents that "winning an election with 60 percent of the vote is just as good as winning with 90 percent," one senior official said, but "they just can't internalize that point. They are complete control freaks."
There's been just one change of leadership in these five countries during 11 years of independence, and it came 10 years ago, when Rakhmonov replaced the hapless first president of Tajikistan. Akayev, the president of Kyrgyzstan, has announced his intention to retire at the end of 2004; none of the others has shown any sign of contemplating retirement. Asked about this in interviews, Karimov, Nazarbayev and Rakhmonov all said they had no intention of being permanent presidents, but none hinted when he might give up the job. Saparmurad Niyazov is president for life in Turkmenistan.
Central Asian leaders have yielded to U.S. pressure on some occasions, but they have ignored it on many others. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell sent a private letter this spring to Akayev, urging him to take steps to restore his early reputation as a democrat in Kyrgyzstan, with little evident result. Nazarbayev has ignored a series of public and private U.S. protests this year about his continuing crackdown on political opposition and independent news media in Kazakhstan, sticking with policies the United States specifically criticized.
"We're pushing harder than we've ever pushed before," a senior American diplomat said. Can the Americans reform Central Asia? Can the region's leaders change their ways? Will these economies ever prosper? The future is a risky subject in Central Asia, because it looks so uncertain. Nargiza Abraeva, a 26-year-old who lives in Tashkent, put it succinctly: "When you speak about the future, people start to shake."
But whatever the future, at the U.S. base in Uzbekistan, K2, the first permanent buildings are replacing tents. A headquarters building and a post office are being completed this summer; other structures will follow.
Staff photographer Lois Raimondo and researcher Robert Thomason in Washington contributed to this report.
-------- biological weapons
U.S. Arms Negotiator Pessimistic on Bio - Weapons Deal
August 27, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-usa-weapons-bolton.html
TOKYO (Reuters) - The United States' top arms negotiator said on Tuesday he doubted there would be much success in breaking a diplomatic impasse over the control of biological weapons, despite rising risks that a rogue state will use them.
Passing through Tokyo on his way to the divided Korean peninsula, U.S. Undersecretary for State John Bolton told reporters he was pessimistic about the prospects of a November meeting to review the Biological Weapons Convention.
``In a perfect world I would like to see (U.S.) proposals endorsed and acted upon. Whether that is possible in the current political context of the BWC I rather doubt,'' said Bolton, renowned for his fierce skepticism of international treaties.
Efforts to expand the convention to add enforcement mechanisms, such as inspections, came to a sudden halt last year when Washington vetoed the plans, arguing they were ineffective and could result in U.S. corporate secrets being given away.
Critics saw it as another example of the U.S. administration's unilateralist streak under President Bush.
Bolton said any solution could not work on a principle of one nation, one vote that placed the United States and its allies on the same level of trust as Iran, Iraq and North Korea, the countries that Bush has said form an ``axis of evil.''
``As long as you treat every country exactly the same, equally capable of culpability, equally capable of violating its obligations, of course you're not going to get an effective result.''
The United States complains that a minority of the 144 countries that have signed up to the treaty are nonetheless stockpiling and developing bio-weapons.
SENSE OF 'OUTRAGE'
Bolton said other countries needed to have a greater sense of ``outrage'' when they saw North Korea taking part in the talks at the same time as it develops its own bio-weapons program.
The deadlock in international efforts to control biological weapons comes at a time when all sides agree that the threat is growing.
Washington says that more than a dozen countries are trying to develop the weapons, which could devastate civilian populations, and last year's anthrax attacks that killed five people in the United States brought the issue close to home.
But it argues that the proposed expansion of the international convention would be ineffective since bio-weapons are much harder to detect than chemical or nuclear ones.
It also complains that the protocol would have forced U.S. biotech companies to share the fruits of millions of dollars in investment to rivals.
The United States wants the convention to focus more on enforcing export controls and punishing non-compliance. It has suggested it could back a British proposal to expand the UN Secretary-General's authority to investigate allegations of use of chemical and biological weapons.
A day before he visits South Korea for discussions likely to be dominated by the reclusive North, Bolton said the United States would continue to put political pressure on states under suspicion rather than work with them.
``We believe it is critical to put on notice such states that choose to ignore the norms of civilized society and pursue biological weapons,'' he said.
``These states must realize that their efforts to develop these terrible weapons will not go unnoticed.''
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U.S. to Improve Bio - Attack Defense, Pentagon Says
August 27, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-arms-usa-biological.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Defense Department said on Tuesday it will begin developing a nationwide program for military and civilian agencies to detect and respond more effectively to any biological attack against American cities.
The Pentagon said it would establish a test facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to improve electronic monitoring systems now used in Washington to detect biological agents and will move to improve coordination of emergency civilian and military health care in urban areas.
The department said it hoped to boost the ability to detect biological agents in the nation's capital by October 2003 and to use that capability to develop two prototypes for national use by mid-2004.
The announcement of the Biological Defense Homeland Security Support Program came two weeks ahead of the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on America using hijacked airliners that killed around 3,000 people.
President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have warned that the al Qaeda group headed by fugitive Osama bin Laden, blamed for the September attacks, is trying to obtain biological, chemical and nuclear arms.
Since the September attacks, a number of private and government-sponsored studies have determined that the United States is woefully unprepared for a biological or chemical attack that could cost thousands of lives in heavily populated areas.
Tuesday's announcement did not give specifics, but the Pentagon said: ``The purpose of the program is to achieve early detection and characterization of a biological-related incident in an urban area in order to reduce casualties, minimize disruption to infrastructures and support consequence management efforts.''
The program will seek to improve the current aerosol monitoring system and medical communications network in Washington D.C. and use that as a base to develop biological defenses in other urban areas.
Data gathered in the Washington program will be used to determine the best way to initiate similar urban bio-surveillance systems around the country.
-------- iraq
Take It to the Security Council
By Richard C. Holbrooke
Tuesday, August 27, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A122-2002Aug26?language=printer
The road to Baghdad runs through the United Nations Security Council. This simple truth must be recognized by the Bush administration if it wants the international support that is essential for success in Iraq.
To build such support, a new Security Council resolution is necessary, one that authorizes the use of force if Saddam Hussein refuses to allow an airtight weapons inspection regime -- no-notice inspections anywhere, anytime. Such a resolution would provide those nations (Turkey, Britain) that want to support an effort to remove Hussein a vital legitimizing cover for action, and put great pressure on those (Germany, France, Saudi Arabia) that are wavering or opposed.
Although the Security Council was in large part a creation of U.S. efforts at the end of World War II, few Americans today understand the enormous force, both moral and political, that a Security Council resolution authorizing military intervention carries in the rest of the world. Such a resolution mobilizes international opinion, forces concerted action and can mute much criticism. It can be sought without any weakening of the president's ability to act directly if vital national security interests are at stake; if achieved, it greatly strengthens America's hand.
The first Bush administration understood this perfectly in 1991, perhaps partly because George Herbert Walker Bush had once served as the American ambassador to the United Nations. Secretary of State James Baker and the American ambassador to the United Nations, Thomas Pickering, skillfully built international support through votes in the Security Council before Operation Desert Storm.
Today, unfortunately, Washington has a different attitude toward the United Nations. Bypassing the Security Council is obviously tempting for an administration that, with the exception of Secretary of State Colin Powell, shows little respect for the United Nations and has weakened it by unnecessary fights over secondary issues and periodic gratuitous insults.
But a campaign against Saddam Hussein cannot be waged without allies, and from Britain to Turkey the governments the United States needs most are facing growing domestic opposition over Iraq. Last month a senior adviser to British Prime Minister Tony Blair told me bitterly that Washington "was giving Blair nothing" in return for Blair's unstinting support, even as British domestic opposition to Blair's pro-American position was growing.
Some will argue that because existing Security Council resolutions dating back to 1991 have been clearly violated by Hussein, there is already, in Baker's phrase, "sufficient legal authority" to sanction the use of force against the Iraqi regime.
This argument may have some merit in legal circles, but it has none in political or practical terms. As Baker himself recently noted, predicating action against Hussein solely on existing Security Council resolutions will not be enough.
Washington policymakers have three core concerns when they discuss the Security Council route: first, that Iraq will agree to inspections and then cheat (again); second, that Russia or France will water down any resolution to the point of meaninglessness; third, that the resolution will not authorize regime change but only some lesser goal such as the elimination of weapons of mass destruction.
On the first point, Russia, France and China are the key countries; any one of them could block Security Council action by using its veto power. But if the new Bush-Putin relationship is worth anything, Moscow should support a tough regime; it has already indicated readiness to do so in private. As for France, it will undoubtedly play its normal role as a difficult and contentious ally, but in the end, it will not stop the concerted will of America and Britain. If London aggressively supports Washington, a resolution strong enough to lay the basis for action will be achievable. China will have its qualms, but it will not use the veto against the rest of the international community.
So the betting here is that effective American diplomacy -- including the direct involvement of the president, as was famously illustrated by the personal coalition-building efforts of the senior President Bush -- would result in a Security Council resolution strong enough to lay the basis for immediate military action if Iraq violated it, as it has violated previous resolutions. If, however, such a resolution cannot be achieved, the administration, having made a best-faith effort in the Security Council, will be in a much stronger position to garner international and domestic support for action than if it had never tried at all.
On the issue of American objectives, this administration has (rightly) called for regime change. Unfortunately, few other nations in the world, and especially in the region, will openly subscribe to such a goal. Other nations will probably seek to limit any resolution to the issue of weapons of mass destruction.
This is, however, less of a problem than it initially may appear. If military action against Baghdad begins, it will soon become evident that it is impossible to eliminate weapons of mass destruction without a change in regime.
Given that the Iraqi military is only one-third the size it was before the last war, and American forces far stronger, the odds favor an American success. But no one can foresee clearly what will occur once a war starts. Will there be an assassination, a rebellion, a crumbling of the Iraqi military, a quick victory that preempts Iraqi missile attacks on Israel, a protracted struggle, or something worse? Whatever happens, once launched, the effort against Saddam Hussein cannot be stopped until its goal is achieved and the overwhelming power of the United States has prevailed.
The president will have American support for the difficult decisions he will soon have to make, but it would strengthen his position greatly if he remembered the importance of using every nonmilitary tool at his disposal to build international support -- starting with the U.N. Security Council.
The writer was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President Clinton.
----
No-fly zone pilots to benefit in case of war with Saddam
ASSOCIATED PRESS
August 27, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020827-86065232.htm
A decade of patrolling the no-fly zones over Iraq has given coalition pilots intelligence and practical experience that could be helpful should the United States decide to go to war against Saddam Hussein.
U.S. and British pilots daily play a dangerous cat-and-mouse game as Iraq tries to shoot them down and they retaliate. The effort requires a commitment of crew, aircraft and $1 billion a year.
But the two operations - in a northern zone and a southern zone - have gone a substantial way toward checking any planned Iraqi aggression against neighboring countries and Iraqi dissidents, defense analysts say.
"They've been a cost-effective way of keeping [Saddam] in the box," the Brookings Institution's Ivo Daalder said, adding that the zones also have curtailed training by Iraq's air force.
Together, the zones cover about two-thirds of Iraq.
"I think the zones are problematic," said the Cato Institute's Chuck Pena. He noted, as Saddam has long complained, that the zones seek to hamper his activities in large pieces of his own sovereign territory.
"But they obviously, in combination with sanctions and other actions, have pretty much kept Saddam Hussein at bay," said Mr. Pena.
Kurds in the north and Shi'ite Muslims in the south tried to revolt against Saddam at the end of the Persian Gulf war but were brutally put down.
So a humanitarian zone was set up in the north from 1992 through 1996, followed by the no-fly zone there in 1997 to protect the Kurds. The much larger southern zone was set up in late August 1992 to protect the Shi'ites.
Patrols for the northern zone fly from Turkey. Those in the south have flown from aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf or from Saudi Arabia or Kuwait.
In a challenge to the coalition, Saddam last year redirected commercial passenger flights into the zones. His forces also have been trying to shoot down coalition planes since 1998.
Coalition aircraft only retaliate a fraction of the time. But so far this year they have bombed Iraqi air-defense facilities eight times in the north and 19 times in the south.
Pentagon officials say Iraq's chances of hitting an aircraft are slim.
The Iraqis are so afraid of U.S. anti-radar missiles that they usually fire their missiles without turning on their short-range targeting radar, giving them little chance of hitting a plane, officials say.
No American or British planes have been shot down, but it's a constant worry.
"Ultimately, if you fly enough missions into harm's way, statistically, at least you are likely to suffer a loss at some point," the Cato Institute's Mr. Pena said.
He said the decadelong effort has benefited coalition forces in some ways: "It's good for observing troop movements and things like that."
Nearly 300,000 flights have been flown in the zones, including about 265,000 in the south since 1992 and 33,000 in the north since 1997. A number of flights make up each mission because the patrol planes are accompanied by others that provide radar, aerial refueling and so on.
Having the ability to overfly the northern zone, where Kurds have autonomy, also has allowed teams of intelligence, diplomatic and military officials to move in and out to conduct their business with Saddam's enemies.
"And it has given our aircraft a whole lot of operational experience over hostile territories" in the two zones, making crews "much better prepared to go fight a war against Iraq than if they had not been in the zones," Mr. Pena said.
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State Dept. Says No Consensus Reached on Iraq Action
New York Times
August 27, 2002
By DAVID STOUT
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/27/politics/27CND-IRAQ.html
WASHINGTON, Aug. 27 - The State Department asserted today that President Bush had not decided on a military campaign against Iraq, and that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell had not been enlisted to marshal international support for a military operation.
The remarks by a State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, came a day after a speech by Vice President Dick Cheney, who argued that a pre-emptive strike against Iraq would be justified.
Secretary Powell, who is said to be leery of a military campaign, has not publicly spoken about Iraq in some days. During that time, other countries and some members of Congress have expressed reservations about, or outright opposition to, military action.
As a result, Mr. Boucher was asked at a briefing this afternoon whether Mr. Powell had been enlisted to help the administration in "beating the war drums," as one questioner put it.
Mr. Boucher said there was no disagreement within the administration on the danger that President Saddam Hussein of Iraq represented, though "there has been a certain amount of debate and discussion about how to deal with it."
"But as the White House has made clear, the president has not decided," Mr. Boucher said. "So there's no option to enlist people's support for, there's no war drum to beat, there's no particular action that we're trying to sell right now."
Mr. Bush had lunch at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., today with Ambassador Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia, an important American ally, which like almost all Arab countries opposes military action against Iraq.
At a briefing in Crawford, the chief White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said the president and the Saudi ambassador had had a friendly, wide-ranging discussion on several topics, including prospects for peace in the Middle East. Prince Bandar has been a friend of the Bush family since before the Persian Gulf war in 1991.
Mr. Bush reportedly told the Saudi ambassador that President Hussein was "a menace and a threat" to his neighbors and the United States. But there was no indication after the meeting that the Saudis would let the United States use its territory or airspace in any action against Iraq.
At the State Department, Mr. Boucher said his agency did not have a representative at the talks and would rely on information from the National Security Council.
Mr. Cheney, in his speech on Monday to a veterans' organization in Nashville, Tenn., said Iraq would have to be dealt with, and better sooner than later. He said Mr. Hussein was such a danger to international peace and to American security that a move against him would be fully justified.
Iraq said today that it was not afraid of the United States.
"We could not care less about the threats that are out there," Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan of Iraq told reporters in Damascus after meeting President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. "Iraq has a long history with these threats and such despotism."
--------
Cheney Says Peril of a Nuclear Iraq Justifies an Attack
New York Times
August 27, 2002
By ELISABETH BUMILLER and JAMES DAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/27/international/middleeast/27IRAQ.html
WASHINGTON, Aug. 26 - Vice President Dick Cheney today presented the administration's most forceful and comprehensive rationale yet for attacking Iraq, warning that Saddam Hussein would "fairly soon" have nuclear weapons.
Mr. Cheney said a nuclear-armed Mr. Hussein would "seek domination of the entire Middle East, take control of a great portion of the world's energy supplies, directly threaten America's friends throughout the region and subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail."
The vice president's remarks, to a Nashville convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, came as White House advisers said they were increasingly concerned about the news accounts and the growing debate in Congress and among former high-ranking foreign policy officials over the administration's plans for Iraq.
Mr. Cheney's speech, which his advisers said he was still writing on Sunday, appeared intended to quell the confusion and present the administration as united behind the central idea that Mr. Hussein must be ousted, sooner rather than later.
"What he wants is time, and more time to husband his resources to invest in his ongoing chemical and biological weapons program, and to gain possession of nuclear weapons," Mr. Cheney said.
The risks of inaction, he said, "are far greater than the risk of action."
Administration officials said Mr. Cheney's views mirrored those of President Bush, and were part of an ongoing effort to convince the allies, Congress and the American public of the need for what the administration calls regime change in Iraq.
The officials said Mr. Bush was expected to discuss Iraq in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 12, although they said the extent and nature of Mr. Bush's remarks on Iraq were still under discussion.
The speech by Mr. Cheney was the most prominent of several steps taken today by the administration to build a public case for going to war against Iraq.
At the State Department, officials said they planned to begin a four-day program on Tuesday to train 17 Iraqi expatriates in publicizing the brutality of Mr. Hussein's rule. Last week, the State Department also used one of its Middle Eastern radio services to broadcast remarks by the third-ranking Pentagon official calling for the Iraqi people to overthrow Mr. Hussein.
In Crawford, Tex., an administration spokesman said White House lawyers had concluded that the administration did not need Congressional approval to attack Iraq. The spokesman, Ari Fleischer, asserted that previous Congressional resolutions, as well as the president's power as commander in chief, already gave him that authority.
Mr. Fleischer said Mr. Bush would "consult" with Congress about Iraq, although he pointedly refused to say whether the president would ask Congress to support an invasion through a vote, as his father did before the Persian Gulf war in 1991. The White House position that it does not need Congressional approval was first reported by The Washington Post and The Associated Press.
Republicans said Mr. Cheney's speech, planned since early August, was intended to lay out the most serious and complete case for an attack on Iraq.
The speech appeared intended in particular to answer critics who say the administration lacks intelligence data on Iraq's nuclear abilities.
While Mr. Cheney argued that the administration could never know with precision the extent and type of Mr. Hussein's programs to develop weapons of mass destruction, he said it would be perilous to underestimate "a dictator who has already shown his willingness to use such weapons."
"There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction," Mr. Cheney said. "There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies and against us."
He cited as his sources Iraqi defectors, among them Mr. Hussein's son-in-law, Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamel, who Mr. Cheney said "was subsequently murdered at Saddam's direction."
General Kamel defected in 1995, was debriefed by the Central Intelligence Agency, returned to Iraq the next year and was then killed in a gun battle by family members.
Mr. Cheney also said it would be a useless, if not a dangerous delay, to seek a United Nations resolution requiring that Iraq submit to weapons inspectors, as the man who served as secretary of state for the first President Bush, James A. Baker III, argued in an opinion article in The New York Times on Sunday.
"Saddam has perfected the game of shoot and retreat, and is very skilled in the art of denial and deception," Mr. Cheney said. "A return of inspectors would provide no assurance whatsoever."
Mr. Cheney concluded that Mr. Hussein's threat made pre-emptive action against Iraq imperative, and noted that former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger had made the same argument in a recent opinion article in The Washington Post. He also appeared to try to counter those who have cautioned against war with Iraq, like Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser to the first President Bush.
"What we must not do in the face of a mortal threat is to give in to wishful thinking or willful blindness," Mr. Cheney said. "We will not simply look away, hope for the best, and leave the matter for some future administration to resolve. As President Bush has said, `Time is not on our side.' "
Republicans who favor war with Iraq welcomed Mr. Cheney's speech, calling it a direct and clear-headed opening shot in a public relations campaign that many said had seemed to veer out of White House control for much of August.
"When Cheney talks, it's Bush," said William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard and a hard-liner on Iraq. "I think the debate in the administration is over, and this is the beginning of the serious public campaign."
But other Republicans who caution against war with Iraq said Mr. Cheney's speech was another confusing signal from an administration whose debate over going to war has been uncharacteristically public.
"You've got the vice president making this detailed speech about why we should go to war," said Senator Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican who has been a frequent critic of the administration on Iraq. "The president is not saying anything."
The administration's message is confusing, Mr. Hagel said, adding that if the president wanted to go to war, "then he is going to have to step forward himself and make the case."
Members of the Senate and House said today that they expected Mr. Bush to ultimately seek Congressional approval, and some Republicans criticized the administration for asserting that it was not required.
"It's a matter for the Congress to decide," said Senator Arlen Specter, a Republican from Pennsylvania. "The president as commander in chief can act in an emergency without authority from Congress, but we have enough time to debate, deliberate and decide."
Other lawmakers said the administration's recent attempts to round up support for ousting Mr. Hussein had been been disjointed and sometimes contradictory.
"I do feel that generally the administration has not handled this well in recent months," said Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, a Democrat from Connecticut who is a leading Congressional proponent of invading Iraq. "They've been stuck in a gray area, a vacuum, in which opponents of military action and people who are just plain puzzled or anxious have begun to dominate the debate."
Last week, in a radio interview that was broadcast into Iraq from Kuwait, Douglas Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy, called for the Iraqi people to overthrow Mr. Hussein. "The future that we see from Iraq is a future that would be based on the Iraqi people freeing themselves from the oppression they are now suffering," he said.
-------- mideast
Bush Confronts Saudi Prince on Iraq
By Ron Fournier
AP White House Correspondent
Tuesday, August 27, 2002; 7:09 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A3768-2002Aug27?language=printer
CRAWFORD, Texas -- President Bush confronted Saudi Arabia's top diplomat Tuesday over Iraq and other issues chilling relations between the uneasy allies, calling Saddam Hussein "a menace to the world."
In an hourlong session with Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Bush expressed exasperation with the kingdom for failing to meet its commitment to provide financial assistance to the new government in Afghanistan.
Bush also cited "crying humanitarian concerns" as he accused the kingdom of dragging its feet in response to children abducted from the United States to Saudi Arabia.
The president did not sway Bandar on Iraq; U.S. officials said the Saudis still oppose potential military action against the Iraqi president.
Just hours before the meeting, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah's foreign policy adviser said U.N. inspectors can contain any threat posed by Saddam "without firing a single bullet."
"There is no country I know of supporting the use of force in Iraq at this time," Adel el-Jubeir said in an Associated Press interview in Washington. "Your allies in Europe don't. Your allies in the Middle East don't."
Still, Bush aides cast the meeting as a positive development after weeks of tension between the U.S. administration and the Saudis.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the meeting was "a social visit, as well as a business visit" that included a grilled-chicken-and-biscuits lunch and a coveted tour of Bush's 1,600-acre ranch.
Father of eight, Bandar brought his family, including one child who attends nearby Baylor University.
"They discussed a variety of issues, including prospects of enhancing peace in the Middle East. They discussed the war on terrorism and Saudi Arabia's cooperation in the war," Fleischer said.
The United States needs Saudi oil and a moderate Arab ally in the Middle East, but there are major sticking points in the relationship - including the kingdom's opposition to war against Iraq, its weak human rights record and links to extremism and perhaps even terrorism.
The Saudis, in turn, bristle at suggestions that the government is responsible for the fact that 15 of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were Saudis. A lawsuit filed by family members of the Sept. 11 victims fueled perceptions in Saudi Arabia that the relationship is not valued by Americans.
Saudis were particularly upset by a private defense analyst's recommendations to a Pentagon advisory board that the ally be given an ultimatum to stop supporting terrorism or face retaliation.
Bush telephoned Crown Prince Abdullah on Monday to assure him the recommendation did not reflect his views.
As for Iraq, Bush told Bandar he had not decided whether to U.S. military force, and promised to consult with the Saudis.
"The president made very clear again that he believes that Saddam Hussein is a menace to world peace, a menace to regional peace," Fleischer said.
A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that while opposing military action, Bandar expressed more sympathy with the U.S. position than Saudis generally do in public.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who sent his own troops against Iraq a decade ago as part of the U.S.-led Gulf War coalition, said Tuesday that if the United States hits Iraq, no Arab ruler would be able "to curb popular sentiments. There might be repercussions and we fear a state of disorder and chaos."
In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the U.S had solid relations with Saudi Arabia, but said "We don't necessarily agree on every issue."
One example: child abduction cases; Saudi courts almost always favor Saudi fathers in child custody cases involving non-Saudi mothers.
Bush specifically raised the case of Amjad Radwam, a 19-year-old U.S. citizen who was not allowed to leave Saudi Arabia with her mother, Monica Stowers, in 1985. Conservatives have been pressuring Bush to do more for Stowers and mothers like her.
"Not enough progress has been made, because people who should be allowed to come back to the United States have not been able to," Fleischer said.
The U.S. has a long list of complaints against the kingdom.
-The Saudis frustrated the American investigation into the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing of U.S. military personnel. Some U.S. officials believe the kingdom was hiding evidence of Iranian involvement
-The Saudis beheaded suspects in the November 1995 bombing of the U.S. mission to the Saudi National Guard in Riyadh before the FBI could question them.
-Saudi Arabia has become the biggest financial supporter of madrassahs - radicalizing Islamic schools that U.S. officials believe foment anti-American sentiments.
-Saudi charities provide a breeding ground for radicals, and are suspected of having direct connections to terrorists.
-------- spy agencies
Legal concerns make the CIA 'risk averse'
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
August 27, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020827-10608744.htm
The National Security Agency flagged the intercepted electronic communication from Iran as an urgent message. The next day, its contents were on the desk of White House National Security Adviser Anthony Lake.
The Iranian message said the CIA, using the White House National Security Council as cover, was planning to assassinate Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The plot, it said, was being hatched by a CIA officer working in northern Iraq under the code name Robert Pope.
The top-secret report detailed a message snatched from the air by NSA's worldwide network of electronic eavesdropping stations after it was sent from the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security in Tehran to a foreign station.
A furious Mr. Lake assumed the information was accurate, and that the CIA was moving against Saddam on its own. He called President Clinton and said he needed to see him right away. Inside the Oval Office, the national security adviser waved the NSA report at the president and shouted: "How can I run foreign policy with the CIA running rogue coups?"
Mr. Clinton advised Mr. Lake to ask the FBI to start an investigation. Mr. Lake telephoned FBI Director Louis Freeh, who obediently pursued the request.
It was March 1, 1995. Several weeks later the CIA recalled clandestine service officer Robert Baer, one of its few Arabic-speaking case officers, to agency headquarters in Langley Mr. Baer was pulled home from a covert operation in northern Iraq backing opponents of Saddam, an operation that the CIA hoped would lead to a coup in Baghdad.
His supervisor, Fred Turco, informed Mr. Baer that two FBI agents were waiting to talk to him. "We're conducting an investigation of you for suspicion of attempting to assassinate Saddam Hussein," one agent told the astonished CIA officer.
The Bob Baer case illustrates how the Central Intelligence Agency is no longer "central" or an "intelligence" agency, but very much an agency of government in the worst sense of the term - where preservation of its budget takes precedence over its performance.
What matters to the well-informed, highly trained Mr. Baer after September 11 is not how he became a whipping boy for Anthony Lake. What matters is how a vindictive CIA bureaucracy later ignored intelligence on Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorists that Mr. Baer urgently supplied after leaving the agency and writing a book about it.
The FBI investigation of Mr. Baer was not frivolous. Assassination of foreign officials is prohibited by a presidential executive order dating to the 1970s. Every CIA officer sent to the field must sign a statement confirming that he understands the prohibition.
But the Clinton Justice Department decided to investigate Mr. Baer, then a 19-year CIA veteran, for more than violating an executive order. He faced prosecution under a federal murder-for-hire statute.
The intercepted message turned out to be false information from the Iranians. The fact that a U.S. national security adviser trusted the Iranian government over the CIA, however, showed the low regard for that service held by Mr. Clinton and top advisers.
Mr. Baer explained to the FBI that he was not "Robert Pope," and that the Iranian assertion of an assassination attempt against Saddam was a lie. But it would take until April 1996, more than a year later, before the Justice Department would issue a "declination" letter stating that it would not prosecute one of the CIA's best field officers. Mr. Baer was cleared only after agreeing to take a lie-detector test.
The CIA did not come to the defense of its agent, an FBI official said. In fact, it was the FBI that warned Justice Department lawyers that the Baer investigation could be devastating for morale. But a CIA less concerned with results than political correctness had come to accept such probes as routine.
"Look, Bob, you've been overseas for almost 20 years," CIA lawyer Rob Davis told Mr. Baer. "Washington really has changed a lot. These kinds of investigations go on all the time now."
Lawyers, not spies
The CIA had years to penetrate the inner circle of bin Laden's al Qaeda network before the attacks of September 11. It had years to try to work successfully with other Middle Eastern intelligence services that managed to get fairly close. But the CIA failed.
And today's CIA sends scores of new officers into the field under the same failed, risk-avoiding policies that left the spy agency blind to and ignorant of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Case officers, those who are supposed to conduct espionage operations, routinely file embassy-based reports to Washington instead of working the streets and befriending terrorists (or at least their friends and supporters).
"All this pads reporting volume and builds careers," one intelligence professional in the U.S. government says. "And yet we will have no new assets, we will not have penetrated the hard targets and we will not know more about anything central to our national interest. But the political people - most of them anyway - will not understand this, or want to understand it."
A 20-year-old Islamic convert from California, John Walker Lindh, was able to join the Taliban in Afghanistan. Why is it that the CIA did not have a single agent or case officer working inside Afghanistan - let alone in the Taliban or al Qaeda?
CIA Director George J. Tenet, promoted to the job by Mr. Clinton in 1997 after two years as deputy director despite no professional training as an intelligence officer, said after September 11 that his agency had "a huge asset base" in Afghanistan before the attacks. More likely the CIA had one or two sources.
Lawyers, not field agents, are the pervasive force inside the CIA, as in any other Washington bureaucracy. Lawyers accompany agents in the field to make sure the government won't be sued for their actions. Indeed, the CIA seems to fear its own.
The CIA doesn't like specialists or Arabic-speaking officers who get "too close to the Arabs," or agents who get too close to foreigners in general, Mr. Baer says.
"Unless one of bin Laden's foot soldiers walks through the door of a U.S. consulate or embassy, the odds that a CIA counterterrorist officer will ever see one are extremely poor," former senior CIA officer Reuel Marc Gerecht warned months before September 11.
Mr. Gerecht quit the Directorate of Operations in frustration after nine years as a Middle East specialist. Officials were extremely "risk averse," he says, and refused to go after bin Laden in any serious way.
His overall conclusion, again months before September 11: "America's counterterrorism program in the Middle East and its environs is a myth."
Ignoring a cover-up
Twenty months after the FBI cleared him, on a cold night in December 1997, Mr. Baer met near the Syrian-Lebanese border with a former chief of police in the Persian Gulf sheikdom of Qatar.
The former police chief, exiled for antigovernment activities, told Mr. Baer that his government had uncovered a cell of al Qaeda terrorists. He said two of them, Shawqi Islambuli and Khalid Shaykh Muhammad, were identified as experts in airplane hijackings. The two were linked to Ramzi Yousef, another al Qaeda terrorist who was wanted by the FBI in connection with an airline bombing.
The FBI contacted the Qatari government, which agreed to turn over the terrorists. But when a team of FBI agents arrived in Doha, the capital, authorities sent the agents to a hotel and instructed them to wait while the Qataris "put the handcuffs on," the police official told Mr. Baer.
"The Qataris say, 'We'll go get the guy,'" Mr. Baer recalls. "They come back 24 hours later and say, 'Gee, the house is empty.' It had obviously been ransacked, cleared of the documents."
The account by the former Qatari police chief exposed how the Doha government was working against U.S. efforts to catch Islamic terrorists.
The exiled police official said the government minister in charge of religious affairs arranged for the two terrorists to flee the country. They were provided with passports and travel expenses and sent to Prague, in the Czech Republic. The ringleader, Khalid Shaykh Muhammad, then set up shop to continue terror operations under the name Mustaf Nasir.
Mr. Baer, who by this time had left the CIA, recognized that the Qatari exile's account was an important piece of intelligence that could be useful in stopping the al Qaeda network.
"Here's a local country in the Gulf, one of our allies, covering up bin Laden terrorism in '95, '96," Mr. Baer said.
The CIA veteran did the right thing. He sent an e-mail to a friend at the CIA, who forwarded it to the agency's Counterterrorist Center.
"Nobody called me back," Mr. Baer says. "Nobody sent me an e-mail. There was just no interest. So I'm out of the business, and I shut my mouth. I don't know what's going on."
Mr. Baer had no explanation for why the CIA failed to act on intelligence of Qatari support for Islamic terrorists. But he figured out what happened.
"I'm in Beirut; I'm the only one meeting people like this," he says. "I don't work for the CIA anymore. The mentality is that, 'Well, Bob Baer is out and he left in a huff. Even though he got an intelligence medal, we're not going to listen to him.'"
Conflict of interest
The source of the intelligence did not fare well. The former Qatari police chief apparently got "burned," as they say in the spy business. He disappeared and was presumed kidnapped by the Qataris.
Did the CIA turn on the source to protect its relationship with the Qatari government? The answer probably is yes.
The politics of Qatar and Washington are complex, and intelligence linking the Qatari government to bin Laden was ignored because of U.S. military concerns.
The Pentagon operates a secret air base in Qatar, Al Adid, that could be used for military action against Iraq. Al Adid, one of the largest such bases in the Gulf region, includes storage facilities for 100 warplanes and a 1,500-foot runway capable of accommodating the largest U.S. bombers, such as the B-52 and B-1.
The air base, built at a cost of $1.5 billion, was constructed under an agreement with the Qatari government reached after an April 2000 visit by Mr. Clinton's defense secretary, William Cohen. Qatar also is used to house "pre-positioned" equipment for the U.S. military, enough for a heavy brigade of several thousand troops.
Mr. Baer gathered more valuable information that U.S. intelligence officials ignored.
In the summer of 2001, he and another former CIA officer struck gold in Qatar: a list of some 600 known Islamic extremists linked to bin Laden and operating inside Saudi Arabia and Yemen. They also learned that Yemen was covering up information on the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Aden harbor.
Mr. Baer met with a Saudi official in Switzerland and gave him the list of names on a computer printout. The Saudi official never got back to him.
The list contained the names of 10 al Qaeda members living in Qatar who, after September 11, would be placed on the FBI's list of most-wanted terrorists.
Mr. Baer provided the same 600 names to a senior CIA officer, who passed them along to the Counterterrorist Center. Mr. Baer also faxed his new information about the Cole bombing to the CIA - to no avail.
"The CIA turned off free leads and information only because it did not like the source," Mr. Baer says, referring to himself.
The task ahead
The CIA made little headway in Iraq. Its operations against Saddam after the Persian Gulf war amounted to a dismal display of ineptitude, timidity and failure highlighting the vaunted spy agency's modern shortcomings, says foreign policy and intelligence consultant Randy Scheunemann.
"Coup plots were uncovered. Assets were killed. Sensitive equipment was lost," says Mr. Scheunemann, a former aide to Republican Senate leaders Bob Dole and Trent Lott whose proposed reforms at the CIA include repeal of the assassination ban. "The most promising venture - an umbrella coalition under the Iraqi National Congress (INC) - was first supported, then undermined, and, ultimately, abandoned by the CIA."
The CIA revived its efforts to oust the Iraqi dictator after September 11.
"Even today, CIA personnel spend more energy criticizing the INC than they do subverting Saddam Hussein," Mr. Scheunemann says.
"Running operations in the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact was exceedingly difficult," he says of the CIA's Cold War glory days. "But the task of implementing operations that will disrupt and destroy terrorist networks and undermine their state sponsors is far more daunting."
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Court Comes to Life Over Ruling on Post-9/11 Police Powers
New York Times
August 27, 2002
By PHILIP SHENON
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/27/national/27COUR.html
WASHINGTON, Aug. 26 - Almost no one has ever heard of this court before. It has never met to issue a ruling.
But almost a quarter-century after its creation, the nation's super-secret intelligence appeals court has been asked to make a critical ruling on the extent of the police powers that should be granted to the Justice Department in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, government officials said.
The three-judge court, the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, was created in 1978 to review decisions from another secret tribunal, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, that was established under the same law.
Until now, the Justice Department had never appealed a decision by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, an 11-member panel that is responsible for authorizing wiretaps and other surveillance of suspected spies and terrorists. In its 24-year history, the lower court had never turned down a wiretap request from the Justice Department.
As a result, the Court of Review, which is made up of three semiretired federal appellate-court judges appointed on a rotating basis by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, has essentially existed only on paper.
The court is now made up of Judge Ralph B. Guy of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati; Judge Edward Leavy of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco; and Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the United States Court of Appeals in Washington.
The Court of Review's inactivity came to an end last week, when the Justice Department, under Attorney General John Ashcroft, appealed a decision of the lower court, which had ruled against the department's secret request for broad new authority to allow criminal prosecutors and counterintelligence investigators to work together.
The department has argued that it is entitled to the new powers under the U.S.A. Patriot Act, the sweeping antiterrorism bill that Congress passed after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Specifically, the department wanted the court to approve secret regulations that would allow criminal prosecutors at the Justice Department to give advice to F.B.I. counterintelligence agents and to help direct the use of wiretaps against people suspected of spying.
The lower court rebuffed the request, ruling that the department was improperly trying to tear down the "wall" that was supposed to exist between criminal prosecutors, who are responsible for bringing criminal charges, and F.B.I. counterintelligence agents, who are responsible for ferreting out foreign spies in the United States.
The wall was erected by Congress in the late 1970's, largely in response to the domestic surveillance scandals of the Nixon administration, in an effort to prevent prosecutors from using counterintelligence wiretaps to conduct criminal investigations.
It is generally more difficult for prosecutors to gain court permission for wiretaps under criminal law, since the Constitution requires prosecutors seeking a criminal wiretap to show "probable cause" that a suspect is involved in a crime.
Civil liberties groups have long asserted that when criminal investigators lack probable cause to conduct electronic surveillance of a suspect, they improperly label a case as counterintelligence, making it easier to obtain court permission for a wiretap. The surveillance court, known by the acronym FISA, had not denied a single one of more than 10,000 applications it had received since 1978.
"The bottom line is that they use FISA because the procedures are so much looser," said James X. Dempsey, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology.
The ruling made public last week was the first time in its history that the surveillance court, which operates from a windowless, high-security courtroom on the top floor of the Justice Department, had allowed a decision to be released.
It was also the first time the court has ever suggested that there had been widespread abuses of the court-review system by the Justice Department and the F.B.I.
The court cited more than 75 cases - all in the Clinton administration - in which the F.B.I. acknowledged filing misleading applications to the court to conduct wiretaps or other surveillance.
The misstatements, the court said, often resulted from the improper sharing of information between counterintelligence officers and criminal prosecutors.
Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the surveillance court's ruling might "save the Justice Department from overstepping constitutional bounds in ways that could have dire consequences in our most serious national security cases."
In the appeals papers it filed last week, the Justice Department noted - and civil liberties groups acknowledge - that the U.S.A. Patriot Act was intended to make it far easier for prosecutors and counterintelligence investigators to cooperate.
The act amended the 1978 foreign-surveillance law to remove the requirement that investigators seeking a wiretap show the court that the sole purpose of the surveillance was to obtain foreign intelligence information, not evidence to be used in a criminal case
Under the U.S.A. Patriot Act, investigators are required to show only that the gathering of intelligence is just a "significant purpose" of the wiretap.
In its appeal to the Court of Review last week, the Justice Department said that the surveillance court had ignored the act in its decision. The lower court's holding, the department said, "was plainly wrong - the U.S.A. Patriot Act provides expressly for increased cooperation and was clearly intended" to end that previous limitations on their coordination.
Justice Department officials say they have no idea when the Court of Review might reach a decision on the appeal. If the department is unhappy with that ruling, it still has one avenue of appeal: the Supreme Court.
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Pledges by U.S. please summit
By Paul Martin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
August 27, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020827-14950543.htm
JOHANNESBURG - U.S. officials say specific promises of aid have set the stage for productive and congenial sessions at a major U.N. conference that opened yesterday, in contrast to the bickering that characterized such conferences in the past.
Foreign delegations and private organizations already are showing "a great deal of excitement" over a series of practical initiatives put forward by the Americans in dozens of private meetings, the head of the U.S. delegation said in an interview last night.
Assistant Secretary of State John Turner, who is heading the U.S. team until the arrival of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, said the United States "is committed that the summit will be a success and is fully committed to result-oriented action that will make a difference in key areas."
Tens of thousands of delegates taking part in the largest event of its kind Africa has seen will attempt during the next 10 days to agree on nothing less than a plan for the future of the planet.
Interviews with delegates from several Third World and developed countries confirmed there is a willingness to "cooperate rather than to confront," despite the efforts of pressure groups to provoke clashes.
The atmosphere of cooperation, unseen at other major U.N. conferences in past years, has much to do with a series of announcements expected during the next few days of U.S.- and Western-funded projects.
Mr. Turner pointed out that President Bush, the only major world leader not planning to attend the World Summit on Sustainable Development, recently promised to commit an additional $5 billion to promote development worldwide.
Mr. Bush "cares deeply about people and has thus committed considerable focus and resources to help reduce poverty and achieve sustainable development," he said.
Mr. Turner said he has pointed out repeatedly in Johannesburg that the United States "is coming with resources to address poverty, access to water and energy, fight hunger, recover forests, provide health care and education, protect oceans and marine resources, and enhance biodiversity."
The United States is embracing a new approach to addressing these problems, Mr. Turner said. "We are looking for partnerships with governments, with nongovernmental organizations, with philanthropic organizations."
The delegation chief said he saw the summit as "a historic opportunity" that must be grasped or "future generations will hold us accountable."
The success of the U.S. approach is evident in the willingness of normally hostile countries to set aside their anti-American and anti-Western rhetoric in favor of exploring how to approach specific development projects.
The Washington Times has learned that an announcement tomorrow will call for the Asian Development Bank to provide $500 million in soft loans to help Asian countries with water conservation and sanitation. The United States and Japan are the bank's biggest donors, each providing 25 percent of its funds.
Even the Arab delegations, who have pushed aggressively to condemn Israel in previous summits such as last year's world conference on racism in Durban, South Africa, say they foresee no serious battle over the issue.
Arab delegates said they had already given up on their effort to insert language saying Israel was guilty of "war crimes." The proposed wording now refers only to the "degradation" of the environment in the Palestinian territories as a result of the Israeli occupation, an Arab delegate said.
South African President Thabo Mbeki, the conference host, set the tone for the conference at yesterday's opening ceremony with remarks that, while hard-hitting, avoided pointing a finger at the West.
He chided the delegates for what he termed their failure to bring about the projects and plans promoted 10 years ago at the so-called "Earth Summit" in Rio de Janeiro.
"There is every need for us to demonstrate to the billions of people we lead that we are committed to the vision and practice of human solidarity, that we do not accept that human society should be constructed on the basis of a savage principle of the survival of the fittest," he said.
Mr. Mbeki said the failure to fulfill the promises made in Rio had led to an avoidable increase in human misery and ecological degradation, increasing the gap between developed and developing countries.
"It is as though we have decided to spurn what the human intellect tells us, that the survival of the fittest only presages the destruction of all humanity," he said.
Mr. Mbeki said delegates to the summit had an obligation to adopt a meaningful Johannesburg Plan of Implementation.
"The peoples of the world expect that this world summit will live up to its promise of being a fitting culmination to a decade of hope," he said.
-------- us
Pentagon May Extend Reservists' Duty
New York Times
August 27, 2002
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/27/international/27MILI.html
WASHINGTON, Aug. 26 - The Defense Department is notifying more than 14,000 reservists that they may be required to extend their duty, to serve up to two years instead of one, in a move seen as a contingency for possible action against Iraq.
The action, the first such extension since the Vietnam War, affects about 4,800 Air Force reservists and about 9,200 members of the Air National Guard, said Cmdr. Randy Sandoz, a Defense Department spokesman.
More than 76,000 reserve and National Guard troops are on active duty as a result of the American-led campaign against terrorism. A total of 1.3 million reservists are subject to being called into service for indefinite periods in the event of war.
Reservists - who typically train one weekend a month and for two weeks during the summer - are not usually asked to serve beyond one year. Even during the Persian Gulf war, when more than a quarter million of them were called into action, very few served beyond one year.
The decision is the first time since the United States established an all-volunteer military in 1973 that reserve troops have been asked to stay for up to two years.
The reservists being notified of the possible extension include military police, intelligence officers, pilots, mechanics and base guards, officials said.
-------- propaganda wars
Journalists protest breaches of freedom
August 27, 2002
By Shaikh Azizur Rahman
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020827-38243847.htm
NEW DELHI - Reporters and editors in India, the world's biggest democracy, are accusing the government of waging a campaign to squelch news reports that are critical of the ruling coalition.
At a meeting in New Delhi this month, which was followed by a demonstration on the street, top newspaper editors from across the country accused the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) of trying to muzzle the press in an "undemocratic" way because of the criticism it has leveled against the government.
The move by the journalists followed the jailing of a correspondent of a Kashmir daily, the detention of an investigative reporter of an Internet publication and curbs on covering a recent visit of the new Indian president to Gujarat state, where Hindu-Muslim violence broke out early in the year.
Iftikhar Ali Geelani, New Delhi bureau chief of the Indian daily Kashmir Times and correspondent for the Pakistani newspaper the Nation, was arrested two months ago and charged with violating India's Official Secrets Act.
After raiding Mr. Geelani's residence in New Delhi, police said they found sufficient evidence to sue him for spying for Pakistan - a charge that Prabodh Jamwal, Kashmir Times editor, rejects as a "total fabrication."
Mr. Geelani remains in a New Delhi prison.
The Press Council of India says the so-called "secret" information found on Mr. Geelani's computer is available on the Internet.
Reporters Without Borders, in a letter to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell just before his visit to India last month, said Mr. Geelani had been arrested "solely because of his coverage of the Kashmir conflict in which he criticized the Indian government."
In another recent incident, India's media was left stunned when Gujarat state authorities restricted media coverage of Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam's meeting with a group of survivors of the Hindu-Muslim riots that left more than 2,000 Muslims dead. The local government cited "lack of space."
In June, Time magazine's New Delhi correspondent Alex Perry, a British national, was heckled by passport officials after an unflattering report on Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.
Venkat Narayan, president of New Delhi-based Foreign Correspondents' Club of South Asia, said: "Such moves by the government threaten to ruin India's reputation as a country where the press is truly free."
Of particular concern is the recent daylong detention of Aniruddha Bahal from the Indian Internet publication Tehelka, on charges of assaulting a government investigator.
Tehelka has been complaining for months of a systematic campaign of harassment by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the dominant party in the ruling coalition.
The publication says its journalists are being hounded by several government agencies for exposing an arms bribery scandal involving top politicians of BJP and one of its allies, severely embarrassing the government.
Mr. Bahal, who secretly filmed a BJP leader and top army officers accepting bribes, said during the Aug. 13 demonstration that he found the BJP "dangerous and duplicitous."
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS
D.C. Police Struggle To Staff IMF Protests
Outside Agencies Hesitate to Send Help
By David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 27, 2002; Page B01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64878-2002Aug26?language=printer
D.C. police said yesterday that pay concerns and jitters about the Sept. 11 anniversary are making it harder to recruit outside security help for next month's International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings, a situation that could require organizers to scale back their activities.
Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey said his department had requested 3,000 officers from departments in other cities and the Washington suburbs for the IMF-World Bank gathering, scheduled Sept. 28-29, but that so far he has received commitments totaling about 700.
Officials expect thousands of protesters in Washington for the meetings, and some demonstrators have announced plans for marches and traffic disruptions, beginning Sept. 25.
District officials said yesterday that without additional officers to supplement the 1,400 D.C. police working at the protests, they might be forced to patrol a smaller area, restrict delegates' movement or seek more help from federal law enforcement agencies or the National Guard.
The shortage of officers, Ramsey said, has already forced one major change: For the first time in years, all the business meetings normally held at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, in Woodley Park, will take place at the IMF and World Bank headquarters buildings in downtown's West End.
"We told them we can't serve both sites," Ramsey said.
Ramsey said that some jurisdictions have been reluctant to send officers to Washington because the IMF-World bank meetings will be held shortly after the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks; others have expressed concern that the District might not be reimbursed for the cost of the extra police protection -- and thus might not be able to pay officers from other departments.
"It would affect me if I was sending people somewhere," Ramsey said. "It's only right that the [federal] government reimburse us."
The District is negotiating with federal officials about reimbursing police for this fall's events and for a previous round of IMF-World Bank protests, in April.
Ramsey said the cost of police protection next month -- including overtime for D.C. officers and pay, transportation, food and lodging for out-of-town officers -- could be $14 million or more.
Under a plan proposed by President Bush, the federal government would provide $15 million to the District in fiscal 2003 to cover the cost of events such as the IMF-World Bank meetings. But those funds cannot be used to pay police protection expenses incurred during fiscal 2002, officials said.
Tony Bullock, a spokesman for Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D), said city officials, absent reimbursement, had threatened to scale back the police commitment significantly and force the federal government to provide security for the meetings.
"There is a very real possibility that we're not going to extend to them any significant police presence at this event," Bullock said. "We're in a 'Show us the money' mode at this point."
Ramsey played down the idea that D.C. police would ignore the protests. But other officials said a shortage of officers might mean that police are not available to escort cars carrying delegates or provide security at their hotels. Protesters might also be kept farther away from the meetings, officials said.
"If we are not able to get that kind of resources, we have a very different event," said Margret Nedelkoff Kellems, the District's deputy mayor for public safety and justice.
The IMF and the World Bank declined to comment yesterday about security arrangements.
Police and protest groups say it is too early to estimate how many demonstrators will come to Washington. Last fall, police lined up about 5,000 officers from other jurisdictions, but the meetings were canceled after the Sept. 11 attacks. This year, anti-globalization demonstrators are planning five days of marches, rallies and teach-ins before and during the meetings.
The Mobilization for Global Justice, a D.C.-based coalition that has organized many of the capital's anti-globalization protests, is planning a Sept. 28 rally and march. The group contends that many of the world's poorest countries have suffered under IMF and World Bank programs.
A day earlier, the D.C.-based Anti-Capitalist Convergence is planning a "People's Strike," in which activists are being asked to block traffic to stop people from getting in and out of the city.
Ramsey said his department had commitments from area and out-of-area police agencies but is waiting to hear back from New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Cleveland.
Staff writer Manny Fernandez contributed to this report.
----
'Flexibility' concept in national security has bipartisan use
Mike Causey
August 27, 2002,
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020827-705757.htm
Is the Bush administration push for management "flexibility" in the proposed new Department of Homeland Security a routine response to an emergency situation or an effort to bust government unions?
Backers of the proposal say the White House simply wants the authority given every other president since Jimmy Carter to exempt employees in national security jobs from collective bargaining and union representation.
They say it has been used 11 times - including at least once by President Clinton - since the 1970s without any public hue and cry. They claim that politicians - mostly Democrats but including Rep. Constance A. Morella, Maryland Republican - are using the issue to play politics or simply don't understand history.
Opponents of the plan to give managers more flexibility to hire, move, promote, pay, punish and terminate DHS workers say it will put two of the government's biggest white-collar unions out of business.
Agencies that would become part of the DHS include some of the most unionized and organized in government, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the U.S. Border Patrol and the U.S. Customs Service. The American Federation of Government Employees Union and the National Treasury Employees Union draw many of their members - and much of their legislative clout - from those three agencies.
People on both sides of the argument hope a settlement can be reached on differing House and Senate versions of the DHS legislation.
The Senior Executives Association has proposed a compromise that would allow employees transferred to the DHS to temporarily keep their union rights and protections - unless their jobs are specifically related to national security. It would maintain those rights for one year, after which they would have to be renegotiated.
Meanwhile, the homeland security issue, which one congressional staffer described as "the blob that ate Capitol Hill," has put a hold on action on half a dozen key federal-retiree legislative issues. Any (but not all) of them could be enacted at the last minute either as free-standing legislation or, more likely, as a "rider" on some otherwise vetoproof bill. They include:
•Premium conversion
This is a simple equity issue. It would extend to federal retirees a perk already available to federal and postal workers - the ability to pay health insurance premiums in pretax dollars.
The effect would be to lower taxable income, reducing taxes anywhere from $200 to $500 a year. With higher health premiums on the way any extra dollars made available to retirees will help. Retirees are looking at a cost of living adjustment of around 1 percent next January compared with the likely 4.1 percent raise federal workers will get.
•Social security offset/windfall
Under the so-called offset formula federal retirees, and teachers and other public employees, can lose most or all of the spousal (or survivor) benefit due them under Social Security. Various bills that would repeal or modify the formula (to let them keep at least part of the Social Security benefit) are pending.
There are also proposals to modify, or eliminate, the so-called windfall formula. It can reduce (but not eliminate) the earned Social Security benefit of Civil Service Retirement System retirees by as much as about $270 per month. The bills have lots of cosponsors and all they need is a vehicle to hitchhike to the White House (and a lot of luck getting a ride).
•50 plus TSP catch-up
The White House, most congressional Republicans and most Democrats favor legislation that would let feds 50 years old and older to make catch-up contributions to their Thrift Savings Plan accounts.
Most other American workers (who are 50 or older) can already do it. But Congress must change rules covering the Thrift Savings Plan before the catch-up contributions - $2,000 next year and $5,000 in the year 2006 and thereafter - are authorized for the TSP.
The lost tax revenue has been accounted for in the president's budget and approved by the Joint Congressional Committee on Taxation. But the Congressional Budget Office has put what amounts to a hold on the bill pending an explanation from Congress as to where that revenue shortfall will be made up.
Mike Causey, senior editor at FederalNewsRadio.com, can be reached at 202/895-5132 or by e-mail at mcausey@washingtontimes.com.
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Court Decries Terror Case Secrecy
By JAMES PRICHARD
Associated Press Writer
AUGUST 27, 2002
http://wire.ap.org/?FRONTID=NATIONAL&SLUG=ATTACKS%2dDETENTION%2dLAWSUIT
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) - A federal appeals court drew praise from media lawyers and civil rights advocates after ruling that the government cannot hold secret deportation hearings for a Lebanese man with suspected terrorism ties.
A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a harsh rebuke of the Bush administration in its ruling Monday - a decision that could affect other cases in the Sept. 11 terrorism investigation.
``A government operating in the shadow of secrecy stands in complete opposition to the society envisioned by the framers of our Constitution,'' Circuit Judge Damon J. Keith wrote in the panel's decision.
Lawyers who helped bring the lawsuit against the federal government on behalf of Rabih Haddad hailed the ruling as an important step toward achieving open and accountable government.
``The decision is a ringing reaffirmation of the public's right to see what its government does and a ringing denunciation of secrecy and the abuses that can flow from it,'' Detroit Free Press lawyer Herschel Fink told the newspaper for a Tuesday story.
The government wants the hearings to be closed to the public and the news media. Officials worry that some testimony, if made public, could hurt the nation's fight against terrorism.
The Justice Department released a written statement that took issue with the ruling. The department had not decided whether to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
``The Justice Department has an obligation to exercise all available options to disrupt and prevent terrorism within the bounds of the Constitution, and will review today's opinion in light of our duty to protect the American people,'' the department said.
The legal battle began after Haddad was arrested on Dec. 14 on a visa violation. The U.S. Department of Treasury froze the bank accounts of his Global Relief Foundation and agents raided its suburban Chicago office.
The Bush administration has said it suspects Global Relief of funneling money to terrorists. No criminal charges have been filed against Haddad or the foundation, and both have denied any involvement with terrorism.
After his arrest, Haddad had three closed hearings before a U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service judge in Detroit before being transferred to Chicago in January. The INS is part of the Justice Department.
The American Civil Liberties Union, several Detroit-area newspapers and Rep. John Conyers, D-Detroit, sued to have the proceedings opened to the public. Haddad's trial was to have started Tuesday but was rescheduled for Oct. 7 before INS Judge Elizabeth A. Hacker in Detroit.
On April 3, U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds in Detroit ordered the government to open the hearings. Edmunds ruled that the Justice Department violated the Constitution by barring the press and public.
The government appealed, and the 6th Circuit panel heard oral arguments Aug. 6. Federal attorneys argued that opening the hearings could give terrorists insight into the government's strategy in the war on terrorism.
They also said the hearings should be closed because they are administrative in nature.
Lawyers for the ACLU and the newspapers argued that the hearings are conducted exactly like criminal court cases and should be open.
On Monday, the panel gave the ACLU and newspapers the ruling they wanted.
``The court's decision clearly affirms that the government must be kept in check by the people,'' said Wendy Wagenheim, a spokeswoman for the Detroit-based ACLU of Michigan. ``As Judge Keith so clearly said, `Democracies die behind closed doors.'''
Haddad said he is seeking political asylum in the United States because he fears that he will be persecuted if he returns to his native Lebanon. He is being held in a county jail in Michigan.
In 1992, he helped found Global Relief, a nonprofit charity based in Bridgeview, Ill. The organization says it provides food, emergency relief, medical aid and education training in more than 20 countries, including Pakistan, Iraq and Chechnya.
On the Net:
Appeals court ruling: http://pacer.ca6.uscourts.gov
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Court denies closed hearing for terror-financing suspect
August 27, 2002
AP
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020827-86007876.htm
DETROIT - A federal appeals court yesterday upheld a lower court ruling that a deportation hearing must be open to the public for a man accused of running a charity that funneled money to terrorists.
Rabih Haddad of Ann Arbor has been detained since his Dec. 14 arrest on a visa violation. That same day, the Treasury Department froze the bank accounts of his Global Relief Foundation and agents raided its office in the Chicago suburb of Bridgeview.
Federal officials sought a closed deportation hearing for Mr. Haddad on national security grounds, arguing that opening the session to the public and news media would help terrorists understand the government's strategy.
A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati was unanimous in rejecting the government's appeal yesterday.
"A government operating in the shadow of secrecy stands in complete opposition to the society envisioned by the framers of our Constitution," it said.
The Bush administration has said it suspects Global Relief of having ties to terrorism. No criminal charges have been filed against Mr. Haddad or the foundation and both have denied any involvement with terrorism.
The government appeal had been opposed by attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union, several newspapers and Rep. John Conyers Jr., Michigan Democrat. Mr. Haddad's trial was to have started today but was rescheduled for Oct. 7 before Immigration and Naturalization Service Judge Elizabeth A. Hacker in Detroit.
"The court's decision clearly affirms that the government must be kept in check by the people," ACLU spokeswoman Wendy Wagenheim said.
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Court Backs Open Deportation Hearings in Terror Cases
New York Times
August 27, 2002
By ADAM LIPTAK
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/27/national/27DETA.html
The federal appeals court in Cincinnati declared yesterday that the Bush administration acted unlawfully in holding hundreds of deportation hearings in secret based only on the government's assertion that the people involved may have links to terrorism.
The decision, which was laced with stinging language questioning the administration's commitment to an open democracy, is the first major appellate ruling on the government's legal tactics concerning Sept. 11.
"Democracies die behind closed doors," wrote Judge Damon J. Keith for the unanimous three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. The Bush administration has sought, the panel said, to place its actions "beyond public scrutiny."
"When the government begins closing doors," the panel continued, "it selectively controls information rightfully belonging to the people. Selective information is misinformation."
Barbara Comstock, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, said the government had not decided whether to appeal.
"The Justice Department has an obligation to exercise all available options to disrupt and prevent terrorism within the bounds of the Constitution, and will review today's opinion in light of our duty to protect the American people," Ms. Comstock said in a statement.
The case was brought by four Michigan newspapers and Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan. They sought to attend deportation hearings concerning Rabih Haddad, a Muslim clergyman who had overstayed his tourist visa.
Mr. Haddad, a native of Lebanon and a resident of Ann Arbor, Mich., is the founder of the Global Relief Foundation, a Muslim charity whose assets were frozen after it came under federal scrutiny.
In April, a federal district judge in Detroit rejected the government's argument that it should be allowed to decide which hearings must be closed without presenting arguments and evidence to immigration judges. The judge, Nancy G. Edmunds, ruled that future hearings in Mr. Haddad's case must be open, and the government has released transcripts of the sealed hearings. Judge Edmunds was appointed by the first President Bush.
In similar decisions that have yet to be tested on appeal, trial court judges in Newark and Washington have also recently ordered the government to open hearings and release information about people held in connection with terrorism investigations.
According to information provided by the Justice Department last month, 752 people were detained on immigration violations in connection with Sept. 11 investigations. As of late June, 81 remained in custody. The rest were released or deported.
The appeals court in Cincinnati affirmed Judge Edmunds's decision with unusual speed, issuing its decision fewer than three weeks after it heard oral arguments.
"The panel was offended by the government's attempt to hide behind national security to strip us of our freedoms," said Herschel P. Fink, who represented The Detroit Free Press in the case.
Press lawyers were unrestrained in their enthusiasm for the decision.
"I want to weep it's so good," said Lucy Dalglish, the executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
Judge Keith, who was appointed to the appeals court by President Jimmy Carter, has a history of strong opinions on civil liberties. In 1971, as a district judge, he rejected an argument by Attorney General John Mitchell that wiretaps obtained without search warrants could sometimes be justified in the name of national security.
The appeals court panel also included Martha Craig Daughtrey, also of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and James G. Carr, a federal trial court judge from Toledo, Ohio, sitting as a visiting appellate judge. Judges Daughtrey and Carr were both appointed by President Bill Clinton.
A broader case on the same issues will be heard by the federal appeals court in Philadelphia next month. In that case, a Newark judge ordered that all deportations nationwide be opened to public scrutiny unless the government offered proof, case by case, of why secrecy was needed.
The Justice Department may be awaiting the outcome of that case before deciding whether to appeal in the Haddad case.
Yesterday's decision applied directly only to Mr. Haddad's case. Its reasoning, though, is binding on courts in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee and may be cited as precedent elsewhere.
The recent judicial activity is part of a historical pattern, said Lee Levine, a Washington lawyer and the author of a treatise on access to government proceedings.
"Some momentous event happens," Mr. Levine said. "There follows a governmentwide tendency to defer to the executive branch. Then at some point when a calm distance has been achieved from the precipitating event, slowly but surely the judiciary rises from its slumber and says, `We've forgotten what we're fighting for.' "
The decision rejected administration arguments that tried to distinguish immigration hearings, which are conducted within the executive branch, from trials conducted by the judicial branch.
The court held that deportation hearings look and feel like trials. They are, Judge Keith wrote, "exceedingly formal and adversarial."
Indeed, said Lee Gelernt, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union who represented some of the plaintiffs, "there is perhaps even greater reason to have public scrutiny of deportation hearings."
"There is no jury," Mr. Gelernt added, "and the defendants will often not have counsel. They're facing trained prosecutors, and they're often very literally sitting there all by themselves."
The appeals court decision was also notable, experts said, for a warm embrace of news organizations not seen in most courts since the Vietnam and Watergate eras. The public, the court wrote, has deputized the press "as the guardians of their liberty."
The panel emphasized that the government might well be able to meet its burden of persuading immigration judges case by case that given proceedings may be closed.
The panel wrote that the government has already outlined "compelling interests sufficient to justify closure."
Among the rationales for closing cited in government affidavits were physical danger and embarrassment to the detainees and people associated with them, along with the possibility of compromising investigations.
Ms. Comstock said the government was pleased with this aspect of the decision.
"As the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals recognized today," she said, "the government has a compelling interest in preventing terrorism and closing immigration proceedings that could reveal information" that might help terrorists avoid detection.
The panel held that the general interest in preventing terrorism must be argued to and accepted by immigration judges in the context of particular cases. The judge in Mr. Haddad's case made no such findings. Rather, she relied on a blanket directive issued by the chief immigration judge, Michael J. Creppy. It instructed immigration judges to keep so-called special-interest cases secret.
"Each of these cases is to be heard separately from all other cases on the docket," Judge Creppy wrote. "The courtroom must be closed for these cases - no visitors, no family, and no press."
"This restriction," he continued, "includes confirming or denying whether such a case is on the docket."
The appeals court panel said the directive violated the Constitution.
"The task of designating a case special interest is performed in secret, without any established standards or procedures, and the process is, thus, not subject to any sort of review," Judge Keith wrote. "A government operating in the shadow of secrecy stands in complete opposition to the society envisioned by the framers of our Constitution."
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Excerpts From the Ruling Against Secret Hearings
New York Times
August 27, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/27/national/27DTEX.html
Following are excerpts from a ruling yesterday by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, that the Bush administration illegally held hundreds of deportation hearings in secret.
The primary issue on appeal in this case is whether the First Amendment to the United States Constitution confers a public right of access to deportation hearings. If it does, then the government must make a showing to overcome that right.
No one will ever forget the egregious, deplorable and despicable terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. These were cowardly acts. In response, our government launched an extensive investigation into the attacks, future threats, conspiracies and attempts to come. As part of this effort, immigration laws are prosecuted with increased vigor. The issue before us today involves these efforts.
The political branches of our government enjoy near-unrestrained ability to control our borders. "These are policy questions entrusted exclusively to the political branches of our government." Since the end of the 19th century, our government has enacted immigration laws banishing, or deporting, noncitizens because of their race and their beliefs.
While the Bill of Rights jealously protects citizens from such laws, it has never protected noncitizens facing deportation in the same way. In our democracy, based on checks and balances, neither the Bill of Rights nor the judiciary can second-guess government's choices. The only safeguard on this extraordinary governmental power is the public, deputizing the press as the guardians of their liberty.
Today, the executive branch seeks to take this safeguard away from the public by placing its actions beyond public scrutiny. Against noncitizens, it seeks the power to secretly deport a class if it unilaterally calls them "special interest" cases. The executive branch seeks to uproot people's lives, outside the public eye and behind a closed door. Democracies die behind closed doors. The First Amendment, through a free press, protects the people's right to know that their government acts fairly, lawfully and accurately in deportation proceedings. When government begins closing doors, it selectively controls information rightfully belonging to the people. Selective information is misinformation.
The framers of the First Amendment "did not trust any government to separate the true from the false for us." They protected the people against secret government.
The office of the chief immigration judge, under the authorization of Attorney General John Ashcroft, designates certain cases to be special interest cases, conducted in secret, closed off from the public. Arguing that closure of these hearings was unconstitutional, plaintiffs in three separate cases sought an injunction against such action. . . .
The district court granted the injunction, finding blanket closure of deportation hearings in "special interest" cases unconstitutional. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the district court's order. . . .
The public's interests are best served by open proceedings. A true democracy is one that operates on faith - faith that government officials are forthcoming and honest and faith that informed citizens will arrive at logical conclusions. This is a vital reciprocity that America should not discard in these troubling times.
Without question, the events of Sept. 11, 2001, left an indelible mark on our nation, but we as a people are united in the wake of the destruction to demonstrate to the world that we are a country deeply committed to preserving the rights and freedoms guaranteed by our democracy.
Today, we reflect our commitment to those democratic values by ensuring that our government is held accountable to the people and that First Amendment rights are not impermissibly compromised. Open proceedings, with a vigorous and scrutinizing press, serve to ensure the durability of our democracy.
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U.S. eases policy on foreign students
ASSOCIATED PRESS
August 27, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020827-78651480.htm
Immigration officials yesterday reversed a post-September 11 security directive that would have barred Canadian and Mexican students from enrolling part-time in U.S. colleges.
Colleges just within the U.S. border can continue to accept part-time foreign students, but the students will be required to have more paperwork to make their daily commutes across the border, the Immigration and Naturalization Service said.
For Mexican students, in particular, this could mean months of waiting for foreign-student visas.
Citing security concerns after the September 11 attacks, the INS announced in the spring that U.S. colleges could not accept new part-time students from Canada and Mexico.
The proposal drew heavy outcry from students and universities.
"This new rule will prevent the significant disruption of part-time studies, which have become an accepted fact of life along our borders with Mexico and Canada," INS Commissioner James Ziglar said in a statement yesterday announcing the revised policy.
Under federal law, foreigners going to school in the United States cannot be classified as visitors, but they cannot be called students unless they carry a course load of at least 12 credits.
For years, border points like El Paso, Texas, and Buffalo, N.Y., have made exceptions for part-time Canadian and Mexican students, who entered on daily visitor passes and travel visas.
Under the revised policy, Mexican students must have foreign-student visas and Canadians must show border inspectors copies of I-20 immigration forms, which indicate they are enrolled in a school.
Students must attend INS-approved schools no farther than 75 miles from the border.
Part-time students who were already studying in the United States must obtain the same documents required of new students by the beginning of 2003.
Marlene Johnson, executive director of NAFSA: Association of International Educators, said the new policy recognizes the links between border communities.
INS spokesman Dan Kane said processing times for I-20s depend on how quickly the school does the paperwork.
Ed Dickens, spokesman for consular affairs, said foreign-student visa applicants can expect to wait six to eight weeks and possibly longer. Men between 16 and 45 have to fill out extra forms, he said.
"Students in particular who are in certain areas of study that have security implications, such as biochemistry or nuclear physics, would also have to expect long processing times for their visas," Mr. Dickens said.
Under the North American Free Trade Agreement, Canadians do not need visas to enter the United States, Mr. Kane said.
College officials on both borders were happy to hear of the new policy. Robert Murphy, student affairs vice president at D'Youville College in Buffalo, N.Y., said the school spent the summer trying to find ways to make it possible for the students to legally attend classes.
Seventeen miles from the U.S.-Mexican border, 15 of 425 international students at the University of Texas Pan American in Edinburg are part-time students, mostly studying international business. Many more would come if they could cross easily, said Phil Clay, international-student adviser.
"It will give us a big boost for our foreign-student population," Mr. Clay said.
Rep. Jim Kolbe, Arizona Republican, who was sponsoring legislation that would allow the border students to attend classes, said he is happy with the policy change but wants to improve it.
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FBI turns to Florida for clues to anthrax
By Guy Taylor
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
August 27, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020827-8178114.htm
The FBI is going back to the beginning of the anthrax probe by sending investigators to search a federally quarantined building in Boca Raton, Fla., where the first anthrax victims were infected in the fall.
During the search, which the bureau said will begin today and is expected to last two weeks, investigators will re-enter the headquarters of American Media Inc., the publisher of such grocery store tabloids as the National Enquirer, the Globe and the Weekly World News.
FBI Special Agent Hector Pesquera said investigators will use a new technique to locate lingering anthrax spores and will hunt for a letter believed to have been the source of the deadly bacteria that contaminated the building in early October.
Mr. Pesquera, who leads the FBI's Miami division, told reporters that the goal of the search is "to bring to justice the person or persons responsible" for the anthrax attacks.
He said the search "has nothing to do with Steven Hatfill," the bioweapons researcher whom authorities named as a "person of interest" in the investigation.
The American Media building was evacuated and sealed the first week in October, when Robert Stevens, a photo editor there, died from exposure to anthrax.
Mr. Stevens, 63, who apparently became infected at his desk inside the building, was the first of five persons nationwide to die of anthrax.
During the weeks after his death, letters filled with anthrax-laced powder were delivered to media outlets in New York and to two senators on Capitol Hill.
Although authorities believe that a similar letter was sent to American Media, no note has been found. Initial searches of the building focused on the mailroom and workstations used by several other employees who tested positive for exposure to anthrax.
Mr. Pesquera declined to comment on what new tactics would be used to search the building.
He said investigators, wearing bodysuits and plastic boots, will collect thousands of samples with the goal of locating the highest concentration of anthrax spores and determining how readily and prevalently the bacteria spread through the building.
Dr. Dwight Adams, assistant director of the FBI's laboratory division, said spores found at American Media will be compared with the anthrax sent to Washington to determine whether they originated from the same stock.
The FBI has not named any suspects in the anthrax investigation, although the bureau is said to have a list of 30 "persons of interest."
Mr. Hatfill, who twice during the past month has held press conferences declaring his innocence, is the only one on the list to be named by authorities. He worked at Fort Detrick, the Pentagon's top biological-defense research center in Frederick, Md., until 1998.
The FBI has searched his Frederick apartment twice during the past six months, in February and on Aug. 1.
Mr. Hatfill, 48, has accused the FBI of ruining his life by investigating him without naming him a suspect. On Sunday he said the FBI mistreated his girlfriend during a search of her apartment, and he criticized Attorney General John Ashcroft for labeling him a person of interest.
FBI agents recently canvassed downtown Princeton, N.J., with photographs of an unidentified person who shop owners said looked like Mr. Hatfill.
A spokesman for the bureau said the agents' presence in Princeton was routine because anthrax spores had been discovered in a blue curbside postal mailbox in Princeton.
The FBI spokesman refused to say whether photographs were being shown.
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US city where you can be guilty until proven innocent
Police make sure they have some usual suspects - before the crime
Oliver Burkeman in New York
Tuesday August 27, 2002
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,781131,00.html
In a sinister, authoritarian American city of the future, cutting-edge surveillance technology and over-zealous policing combine to create the ultimate weapon in the war on crime: the ability to track down individuals who will go on to become criminals - before they have even done anything wrong.
This may be the premise of Minority Report, the sci-fi thriller starring Tom Cruise, set in Washington DC in 2054 - but it also appears to be par for the course today, barely 100 miles away in Wilmington, the largest city in the otherwise unremarkable US state of Delaware.
Civil liberties campaigners have responded with anger to the news that, for the last three months, Wilmington police have been compiling a database of people whom they believe are likely to break the law in the future.
At least 200 people have had their photographs taken and stored, along with personal information, to aid police in finding potential suspects when crimes are subsequently committed, according to the Wilmington police department.
The individuals, mostly black men, were photographed by "jump-out squads" of police officers, who cruise high-crime neighbourhoods in the city, often in unmarked cars, then jump out at street corners to round up and search people gathering there.
"So if they've stopped you three times on Eighth and Washington, and a crime occurs on Eighth and Washington, they've got your name and they know you were stopped three times," said Drewry Fennell, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Delaware, who called the scheme a "terrible idea".
In Minority Report, based on a novel by Philip K Dick, Cruise plays John Anderton, a police chief who pursues future criminals using information provided by three semi-conscious psychics, called "pre-cogs" - until the pre-cogs visualise the murder that he himself is about to commit. Wilmington police, not known for their psychic powers, rely instead on targeting areas where drug-dealing is believed to be rife.
Opponents argue that the policy is unconstitutional, not least because the first amendment permits free assembly. "This is an intimidating practice that causes people to be unwilling to assemble," Ms Ferrell told the Guardian. Addressing police claims that people assembling on street corners was an indicator of illegal drug dealing, she said: "People are not there because there is drug use. There is drug use because there's people there."
But city authorities are giving the objectors short shrift, pointing to the so-called Terry laws, which allow police to stop and frisk people they think are acting suspiciously. Calling critics "asinine," Wilmington mayor James Baker ruled out suspending the policy.
"I don't care what anyone but a court of law thinks," he said. "Until a court of law says otherwise, if I say it's constitutional, it's constitutional... These are targeted, directed sweeps in high-crime areas where police have been turned loose to attack bad people." Invoking a principle frequently condemned by civil liberties ad vocates - that the practice need not worry those who had done nothing wrong - Mayor Baker added: "Good little kiddies in the wrong place at the wrong time are not getting their picture taken."
Chief of police Michael Szczerba, Wilmington's nearest equivalent to Tom Cruise, was even more succinct in an interview with the Wilmington Journal, encapsulating his attitude with the words: "Say cheese and tell the judge how you plead."
Any legal challenge to the database is likely to rest on whether police had reasonable suspicion to believe that each person photographed had already committed, or was committing, a criminal offence - a standard that would be hard to meet if, as critics allege, whole crowds are being frisked, sometimes including people who gather to witness proceedings after the squad has arrived.
"If you stop someone unlawfully, any evidence you obtain is inadmissible. But if you had reasonable suspicion, your stop-and-frisk information becomes admissible for later prosecutions," said Tom Reed, a professor at the Widener university school of law in Wilmington.
"If I make a drugs sale, but I'm actually working for the police, and I don't know who the purchaser was, and my fellow officers lay out a 200-photo spread of people who are not just felons but others, and I can identify the perpetrator - if the original stop met the Terry standard, then I think that the photospread can be used."
Wilmington may not quite mirror the Washington of Minority Report: potential suspects in Delaware are not, after all, imprisoned for their uncommitted offences, and nobody has accused Mr Szczerba of murdering anyone in the future. But Prof Reed found a different cinematic analogy for the controversy. "Look, we know what they're doing," he said. "They're doing this for the obvious reason that Claude Rains said in Casablanca: 'Round up the usual suspects'."
News of the Wilmington scheme coincided with release of new figures on the prison population of the United States, showing a record 6.6 million in the country's correctional system.
At the end of last year, one in every 32 adults in the nation was in jail, or on probation or parole, the Justice Department reported.
The prison population grew by 1.1% to 1.3 million and the number of people on probation by 2.8% to 4 million.
Of those in jail, 46% were black and 36% white.
Delaware: The claims to fame
Area 1,982 square miles - the second-smallest state in the union
Population 783,600
Major products Soybeans, corn, crabs, sand, gravel and rubber products
Claim to historical fame On December 7, 1787, it became the first of the 13 original states to ratify the US constitution, making it, according to some authorities - mainly Delaware-based - the "first state"
Claim to present-day fame Over half of the Fortune 500 companies are incorporated in Delaware, primarily because it costs so little and there is no corporate income tax for firms incorporated there which do not carry out business in the state
Famous Delawareans Naming any is a challenging parlour game, but locals will cite Robert Montgomery Bird, playwright; Howard Pyle, illustrator; Henry Heimlich, inventorof the Heimlich manoeuvre to prevent choking.
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Population increases in corrections system
August 27, 2002
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020827-3514464.htm
The number of people in the U.S. correctional system hit a record 6.6 million - more than 3 in every 100 adults - last year, the Justice Department says.
The adult population either behind bars, or on probation or parole climbed by 147,700, or 2.3 percent, between 2000 and 2001. That is compared with fewer than 4.4 million adults in 1990, the department reported Sunday.
Nearly 4 million people were on probation, 2.8 percent more than in 2000, while there was a 1 percent increase of those on parole, to 731,147. The number of people in prison grew by 1.1 percent to 1.3 million, the smallest annual increase in nearly three decades.
There was a 1.6 percent increase of people in jails, to 631,240. More than half of those on probation - 53 percent - had been convicted of felonies, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics report.
Analysts noted a trend toward fewer arrests for murder, rape and other violent crimes. Many of those on probation were convicted of using illegal drugs or driving while intoxicated.
In addition, some states have eliminated mandatory minimum sentences for certain crimes. California's Proposition 36, which passed in 2000 with 61 percent of the vote, requires treatment rather than incarceration for nonviolent drug offenders. Most of those drug users wind up on probation.
"The collection of reforms, from drug courts to treatment in lieu of incarceration to sentence reforms like getting rid of mandatory minimums and expanding community correction options, have the effect of redirecting people from prison to probation," said Nick Turner, director of national programs for the Vera Institute of Justice. The nonprofit research group works with governments on criminal justice issues.
However, said Marc Mauer, assistant director of Sentencing Project, which favors alternatives to incarceration, "The overall figures suggest that we've come to rely on the criminal justice system as a way of responding to social problems in a way that's unprecedented."
-------- terrorism
Bin Laden Reportedly Back at Helm of al Qaeda
Tue Aug 27, 2002
Reuters
By Michael Georgy
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=574&u=/nm/20020827/wl_nm/afghan_binladen_qaeda_dc_2&printer=1
LONDON - Osama bin Laden ( news - web sites) is firmly back in command of al Qaeda and the group is digging in for guerrilla attacks on U.S. troops in Afghanistan ( news - web sites), an Arab journalist with close ties to the militant's associates said on Tuesday.
Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based daily al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper, said al Qaeda associates recently told him the network had regained confidence after facing intense U.S. bombing and was ready to fight U.S. troops over the long haul.
"Al Qaeda were shattered during the U.S. bombing so it was difficult for bin Laden to stay in control. Now they said he is fully in command again and they have regrouped and are organized again," Atwan told Reuters.
"Al Qaeda people say they are relaxed now and they will fight a war of attrition against U.S. soldiers," added Atwan, who interviewed bin Laden in 1996 and keeps in contact with his associates and followers.
Bin Laden was in good health and "safe" and was planning new attacks on the United States, he was told, but his whereabouts were not disclosed.
The United States launched strikes on Afghanistan last year to flush out al Qaeda and hunt down bin Laden, its prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, and punish the Taliban regime that protected him.
But remnants of al Qaeda and their Taliban allies have continually frustrated the U.S.-led coalition by hiding in mountains, melting into the local population or fleeing into neighboring Pakistan or Iran.
Atwan said that the al Qaeda and Taliban had re-established links that were severed when the United States began its military campaign in Afghanistan.
"They are working together again. They are organizing," he said.
There is no trail, meanwhile, leading to bin Laden.
Bin Laden's associates told Atwan that the Saudi-born militant was well, "safe" and planning new attacks on the United States. They did not say where bin Laden was currently living.
"My sense is that he will time any new attack to coincide with a U.S. attack on Iraq. He would want to capitalize on this to appeal to the Arab street so he will probably delay any attacks until the United States moves on Iraq," said Atwan.
"He will probably want to be seen as the only Arab standing up to the United States when the United States attacks Iraq."
Bin Laden made a series of defiant videotapes broadcast on television as U.S. warplanes pounded Afghanistan. But he has recently stayed out of sight.
His associates said Bin Laden, who has a $25 million U.S. bounty on his head, was well protected but his entourage was small in order to avoid capture, said Atwan.
"He is the master of disguise and he is making sure that he is not giving anything away so he travels in a small group," he said.
Bin Laden's top aide Ayman al-Zawahri, the Egyptian-born chief strategist of al Qaeda, was with him along with a small group of militant bodyguards, Atwan was told.
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Video bin Laden (pre-June 20, 2001)
Tue Aug 27, 2002
Reuters
from Kuwaiti newspaper al-Rai al-Aam
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/020827/161/24f8n.html
Osama bin Laden is shown aiming a weapon at an unnamed location in this undated video obtained by Kuwaiti newspaper al-Rai al-Aam on June 20, 2001. Bin Laden is firmly back in command of al Qaeda and the group is digging in for guerrilla attacks on U.S. troops in Afghanistan, an Arab journalist with close ties to the militant's associates said on August 27, 2002. (Kuwaiti Al-Rai Al-Aam via Reuters)
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American Gives Beijing Good News: Rebels on Terror List
New York Times
August 27, 2002
By ERIK ECKHOLM
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/27/international/asia/27BEIJ.html
BEIJING, Aug. 26 - The Bush administration has listed an obscure Muslim group fighting Chinese rule in the western province of Xinjiang as a terrorist organization, a visiting senior American official disclosed here tonight.
The step pleased Beijing, which is anxious to portray its crackdown on restive Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang as part of the global campaign against terrorism, and it might bolster China's cooperation in that American-led campaign.
Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage described the listing - of an apparently small organization that is said by China to have close ties with Al Qaeda - during a meeting with reporters tonight.
He spoke after an day of intense talks, described as preparations for an Oct. 25 summit meeting in Texas between President Bush and President Jiang Zemin.
The Chinese, for their part, helped buoy the mood with their announcement on Sunday of rules to control the export of missile-related technologies, a step long demanded by Washington and now welcomed.
In these conveniently timed policy moves, and in Mr. Armitage's ebullient comments tonight as well, were signs of a warming trend in Chinese-American relations. Whatever topic was raised at tonight's briefing, Mr. Armitage seemed ready to apply a positive gloss, suggesting that the mutual suspicions so rampant in the early days of the Bush administration had faded away for now.
"I think the senior leadership of the United States is quite intent on building a good, solid relationship with the People's Republic of China," Mr. Armitage told reporters, brushing aside the hawkish, guarded stance of some in Congress and inside the administration. "There's enough mutual trust and confidence that we can disagree without being disagreeable."
Today's meetings, with Hu Jintao, the vice president and heir apparent, as well as several foreign policy and military leaders, addressed issues including missile proliferation, human rights, Taiwan and the American threats regarding Iraq, as well as the shared goals in the campaign against terrorism and in reducing India-Pakistan tensions.
Mr. Armitage's disclosure that a Xinjiang group had been added to the list came in response to questions.
"It's done - it was done several days ago," he said of the decision to put the group, known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, on the enemies list. The group was virtually unknown until last winter, when China asserted that it was linked to Al Qaeda, with members who had trained in Afghanistan. Now the Bush administration has agreed.
"After careful study we judged that it was a terrorist group, that it committed acts of violence against unarmed civilians without any regard for who was hurt," Mr. Armitage said.
Listing the group will help dry up its funds, he said. But the biggest gain for Beijing may be symbolic.
This group has played at most a small role in the simmering ethnic unrest in Xinjiang, where Muslim of the Uighur ethnic group, few of whom are fundamentalists, chafe at China's stringent rule. The certified condemnation may help China describe its often heavy-handed repression in Xinjiang as a necessary flank in the global antiterror campaign, not as an issue of human rights.
China was gratified by the decision to put "East Turkestan separatists" on the list of terrorist organizations, Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan said, not mentioning the specific group in question, in a report by the New China News Agency.
Mr. Armitage assured reporters that while the Bush administration condemned this violent group, he had also strongly urged Beijing to respect the rights of Uighurs and other minorities. He expressed a cautious hope that with China's new missile export rules, the longstanding rancor over the country's role in the spread of weapons could abate.
"We welcome the news," Mr. Armitage said of China's new regulations, though he added that American experts had to study the details before drawing firm conclusions. He said he was hopeful, though, that further talks would permit the United States to ease its ban on hiring Chinese rockets to launch satellites.
Mr. Armitage acknowledged differences over the American threat to make war on Iraq. He said he had presented the security grounds for toppling President Saddam Hussein and told the Chinese that President Bush was still considering "all options." But he also promised Chinese officials, he said, "that we would consult with them as we moved forward" in deciding what to do.
China strongly opposes military action in Iraq without specific approval by the United Nations Security Council, where it holds veto power.
--------
Iran Arrests 150 on Terror Charges
August 27, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iran-Arrests.html
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran arrested 150 people in the past five months on charges of terrorism and espionage, the country's intelligence minister was quoted as saying.
Since March 20, the beginning of the year in the Iranian calendar, ``50 spies, 100 terrorists and other counterrevolutionaries have been arrested and 1,000 pieces of illegal weapons confiscated,'' the English-language daily Iran News quoted Intelligence Minister Ali Yunesi as saying.
He did not specify any groups, but Iranian officials usually use the words terrorist and counterrevolutionary to refer to the Iraq-based Mujahedeen Khalq, an Iraqi-based opposition group. The group frequently launches attacks inside Iran against the country's leadership.
It wasn't clear if the 100 alleged terrorists were al-Qaida or opposition members. Details on the 50 alleged spies were not provided.
Earlier this month, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said Iran expelled 16 members of the al-Qaida terror group, blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks, to Saudi Arabia.
In other comments to the paper, Yunesi said the United States -- which is weighing plans to strike Iraq -- might also make a small-scale attack on Iran, though he ruled out a full-fledged assault.
``The possibility exists that it may strike Iran on a limited basis or a single raid in order to inflict limited economic, political and military damage,'' he said.
President Bush labeled Iran -- along with Iraq and North Korea -- as members of an ``axis of evil,'' and accused Tehran of sponsoring terrorism. U.S. officials have said Iran is also moving forward with its clandestine nuclear weapons program.
Yunesi also denied Iraqi accusations that Iran was setting up an Islamic militant group in the Kurdish zone of northern Iraq, calling the claims ``sheer lies,'' according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
Odai Hussein, the son of the Iraqi president, accused Iran earlier this month of setting up the group, ``Jund al-Islam,'' which he added was not connected to al-Qaida.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- environment
Green Minister's Resignation Shocks Belgium
August 27, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2002/2002-08-27-02.asp
BRUSSELS, Belgium,Belgium's Environment Minister Magda Aelvoet parted company with the government last night in protest over a weapons sale to Nepal. The Green minister's resignation followed approval by Liberal Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt and Foreign Minister Louis Michel of a Belgian shipment of 5,500 machine guns to Nepal, where a civil war is raging.
Aelvoet's spokesperson told reporters that the politician's decision had been made to resolve her "personal conflict with the position of the government" and to remain "coherent with her green beliefs."
Former Belgian Environment Minister Magda Aelvoet (Photo courtesy government of Belgium)
The minister, who represents the Flemish Green party Agalev in Parliament, had a wide reaching portfolio that included health, consumer affairs and social welfare.
Under the current six party ruling coalition in Belgium, the new minister must come from the Green party. The party itself is keen to find a replacement quickly to prevent a crisis of confidence in the government. A new appointment is expected to be announced this week.
The spokesperson said that the loss of Aelvoet would not result in changes in the policy direction she had established during her four years in the post. This includes a hard line on genetically modified organisms.
In May she invoked the precautionary principle to block field trials of a genetically modified oilseed rape and a transgenic apple tree trial. Three other applications were approved on condition that the firms concerned assume liability for any damage to human and animal health or property.
She also took a tough stance on chemicals. In April, she imposed tighter controls on three pesticide ingredients: diuron, simazine and alkylphenols.
During the Belgian Presidency of the European Union last year, Aelvoet stated her priority as "sustainable development and quality of life."
"This means that, throughout this Presidency, the promotion of sustainable consumption and production patterns will serve as the principal guideline for the environmental policy of the European Union," she said.
Aelvoet supported European ratification of the Kyoto climate protocol which Belgium did ratify this year, along with the other European Union member states.
"It is the decision of the party to follow the policies of Mrs. Aelvoet," the spokesperson said. As for the future, with "elections next year, she will surely be active in the campaign," the spokesperson said.
{Published in cooperation with ENDS Environment Daily, Europe's choice for environmental news. Environmental Data Services Ltd, London. Email: envdaily@ends.co.uk}
---------
Water Utilities Get Terrorism Prevention Training
August 27, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2002/2002-08-27-09.asp#anchor5
WASHINGTON, DC, The Water Environment Federation (WEF) will host a series of new training seminars to assist wastewater utilities in evaluating approaches for reducing their vulnerability to terrorist attacks.
The new series, offered through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), will build on the preliminary general vulnerability assessment training sessions already conducted by WEF and EPA. The training seminars, designed for wastewater treatment plant managers and operators, will focus on the Vulnerability Self Assessment Tool wastewater security training software developed by the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies in collaboration with PA Consulting Group and SCIENTECH Inc.
For more than 300 of the nation's largest publicly owned treatment works, WEF and EPA will conduct 12 two day training sessions geared toward these utilities' specific needs. The sessions will be held across the country between October 2002 and July 2003. The experts who designed VSAT will provide hands on training at these sessions.
Publicly owned treatment works staff with responsibility for security planning will bring data from their own plants to the training and initiate a vulnerability assessment with VSAT wastewater designed specifically for their circumstances. Participants will then learn how to develop a security plan based on their initial vulnerability assessments.
Utilities of all sizes will be able to access training without leaving their facility thanks to two Web based sessions. The "Click, Listen and Learn" sessions, offered by WEF in cooperation with the EPA and the American Public Works Association, will be open to all utilities.
The first Web based session will be held in November and will summarize the general vulnerability assessment principles covered in the WEF/EPA phase I training, as well as provide an overview of the VSAT wastewater software. It will also introduce the EPA's Water Utility Response, Recovery and Remediation Guidance for Man-made and/or Technological Emergencies.
Following the initial online training session, a second session will be held in early 2003 to provide more detailed training on VSAT and summarize experiences and lessons learned from initial use of the software.
Beginning in October, WEF and EPA will also be offering train the trainer sessions in each of the EPA's 10 regions that will train about 150 people on the use and capabilities of VSAT. These sessions will be offered by invitation only.
All portions of the training will be free for publicly owned treatment works. For more details, contact James Sullivan at jsullivan@wef.org
-------- health
Plague Closes Colorado Wildlife Area
August 27, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2002/2002-08-27-09.asp#anchor6
CROOK, Colorado, The Colorado Division of Wildlife has closed Red Lion State Wildlife Area near Crook due to an outbreak of bubonic plague.
Testing by the Northeast Colorado Health Department found the disease in prairie dog colonies adjacent to the Red Lion State Wildlife Area, which has been closed to all access until further notice to protect the public. Samples from nearby Duck Creek State Wildlife Area are also being tested for the presence of plague.
"Beginning immediately all of Red Lion State Wildlife Area is closed," said Larry Budde, area wildlife manager for the Colorado Division of Wildlife. "Depending on what tests reveal from Duck Creek State Wildlife Area, closures could go into effect there too."
Bubonic plague can be spread to humans by fleas that bite infected animals. Symptoms of the disease include fever, headaches and weakness, along with swelling lymph nodes in the armpits, groin or neck. In a small percentage of plague victims, the disease spreads to the lungs and causes a form of pneumonia that is almost always fatal if not treated with antibiotics.
One year ago, a partial closure was put into effect at Red Lion and Duck Creek state wildlife areas because of bubonic plague. And in July 2001, a portion of Jumbo Reservoir State Wildlife Area in Colorado was closed after the health department confirmed that the disease had infected nearby prairie dog colonies.
All of these areas are popular with hunters and wildlife watchers.
-------- imf / world bank / WDF
World Development Forum Begins With a Rebuke
New York Times
August 27, 2002
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/27/international/africa/27SUMM.html
JOHANNESBURG, Aug. 26 - Tens of thousands of officials, environmentalists and advocates for the poor converged on this old mining city today to devise an ambitious blueprint to promote development while protecting natural resources.
Participants from all over the world flocked to the United Nations' World Summit on Sustainable Development in flowing African robes, Indian saris and pinstriped suits. They celebrated the spirit of global solidarity and vowed to hammer out a plan to protect rain forests, to clean polluted air and to help millions of people escape from poverty.
More than 100 presidents and prime ministers, including most European leaders, will attend this summit meeting to show their commitment to their new pledges. But many here are expressing doubts about the developed nations' sincerity and are especially critical of the fact that President Bush, the leader of the world's biggest economy and its largest polluter, has decided not to attend.
American officials here today said they were committed to the meeting's agenda and would soon announce investments of more than $970 million in projects to provide access clean water to Africa and other developing nations. They said they want to focus on offering concrete support for specific projects instead of getting mired in debates about the targets and time frames for foreign aid that the developing nations are seeking.
But as participants gathered in the gleaming convention center here, nearly everyone was haunted by the failures of the past.
Ten years ago, the world's leaders left the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro with an ambitious agenda that is mostly remembered by the participants here as a string of broken promises and squandered opportunities. In his opening speech today, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa said pointedly that the world had stood by and allowed environmental degradation and deepening poverty to threaten the future of the Earth.
Mr. Mbeki said leaders had failed to muster the political will to reduce poverty and to protect natural resources despite the promises made in Rio de Janeiro. He urged officials to develop a plan during this 10-day meeting to rescue a world increasingly characterized by dying lakes, retreating forests, global warming and desperately poor people.
"Poverty, underdevelopment, inequality within and among countries, together with the worsening global ecological crisis, sum up the dark shadow under which most of the world lives," Mr. Mbeki said in his speech. "It is no secret that the global community has, as yet, not demonstrated the will to implement the decisions it has freely adopted."
"We need to take stock of the inertia of the past decade and agree on very clear and practical measures that will help us to deal decisively with all the challenges that we face," he added. "This is the central task of this summit."
The officials here applauded his words. But as the day wore on and negotiators huddled in the ballrooms, it was clear that coming up with a strong plan would be very difficult.
No new treaties will be signed here. Instead, negotiators are focusing on the link between poverty and environmental degradation and on how to spur growth in poor countries while protecting the environment.
But there are deep disagreements between rich and poor nations about how to achieve those goals.
Poor countries say they need to improve their economies before they will be in a position to protect their natural resources. They want wealthy nations to provide aid to developing countries equal to 0.7 percent of the wealthy nations' gross national products. They also want the wealthy nations to reduce or eliminate tariffs on agricultural goods from poor countries and, by 2015, to reduce by half the number of people who lack access to sanitation.
Officials from the United States and the European Union have refused to make commitments for time frames to eliminate agricultural subsidies, which protect their farmers from foreign competition. "We do not see Johannesburg as a place to have these negotiations," said Catherine Day of the European Union at a news conference today.
The European Union is willing to discuss setting targets for increasing foreign assistance to the poor and for converting to renewable energy sources, but the United States opposes such measures.
"I think goals are important, but they're only lofty rhetoric without the commitment of resources," said John F. Turner, the assistant secretary of state for oceans and international environmental and scientific affairs.
"The opportunity here is for partners to start committing resources in these critical areas to reduce poverty and ensure a more sustainable future," Mr. Turner said. "That's what we ought to be focused on."
But officials from developing nations said the wealthy countries were being inflexible. "What's in there for us?" asked one official, who supports specific targets for foreign aid. "We're not advancing at all."
Nearly 25 percent of the summit meeting's action plan remained contested today. As diplomats scrambled for consensus, some officials warned that the meeting might produce little more than reaffirmations of old promises.
Environmentalists and advocates for the poor are already vowing to march through the streets by the thousands on Saturday to ensure that the link between poverty and environmental decay remains high on the agenda. Much of their anger is directed at President Bush.
Last year, President Bush upset many leaders when he rejected a treaty negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, which set targets for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.
Marcel Furtado, a Brazilian representative of the advocacy group Greenpeace, said both developing and developed countries were to blame for the failure of pledges made in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
Mr. Furtado said many delegates had learned from the failures of the past. He said they resented the United States and the European Union, to some extent, for blocking efforts to infuse this meeting's action plan with new and concrete commitments. "We have a job to do, which is to deliver change," he said. "It looks like the real issues are not making it into the document."
Klaus Toepfer, the executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, urged negotiators to strive for consensus, no matter how difficult the negotiations become. No one, he said, can afford to give up.
"The eyes of the world are upon us here waiting for signs that we are able to bridge our differences," he said. "The time has come to translate our political commitment into action."
-------- ACTIVISTS
Rand Says China Uses Web Against Activists
August 27, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Chinese-Cyberactivists.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Chinese dissidents are doing their best to use the Internet to bring democratic change to their society, but government crackdowns and the nation's rural demographics mean that more freedoms are unlikely to come soon, says a private study.
Released by Rand Corp., the report, ``You've Got Dissent,'' said that while dissidents use the Internet for liberation, the Chinese government uses the same tools to keep an eye on activists.
``There was a lot of very loose talk about how the Internet was going to bring down all the authoritarian regimes,'' said James Mulvenon, one of the authors of the report released this week. However, he said, ``the Chinese government has proven surprisingly nimble over the past five or six years in surpassing the technological challenges the dissidents have presented them.''
About 33 million Chinese were online as of January 2002, the authors said, though there is a significant Chinese ``digital divide.'' Most Chinese Internet users are young, well-educated men in eastern cities like Beijing and Shanghai. Only two percent are rural peasants, although peasants make up the bulk of China's population of 1.2 billion.
In comparison, the Commerce Department reported that 143 million Americans, more than half of the population, were online as of last year.
Chinese dissidents -- whether Tibetan exiles, democracy activists or members of the banned Falun Gong meditation sect -- use many different methods to spread their messages.
Some, particularly Chinese expatriates, use unsolicited e-mail to recipients in China. While such e-mail, known as ``spam,'' is a nuisance in the United States, in China an e-mail to hundreds of thousands of recipients gives readers plausible deniability if they are harassed by government officials.
Using the Web has become more difficult thanks to government measures. Chinese Internet surfers used to use ``proxy sites'' to visit banned Web sites, though Mulvenon said the government -- which has complete control over Internet access in China -- is quick to block off those proxies within hours of their use.
The Chinese government has been cracking down on unlicensed Internet cafes, particularly after a June 2002 fire in a Beijing cafe that killed 24 customers. Officials said cafes in Beijing and other cities were shut down for safety reasons, though thousands have been closed over the past year for failing to install surveillance software.
According to the Rand report, at least 25 Chinese have been arrested in the past two years due to their online activities.
Some Chinese non-governmental organizations have hacked Falun Gong Web sites in order to take them offline, the report said.
China has used regulatory measures to get Chinese companies to censor their own customers as well. Internet providers in China are responsible for the activities of their customers, Mulvenon said, so these providers have hired employees, known as ``big mamas,'' who monitor chat rooms and kick out subversives.
Chinese dissidents have started to find new weapons in their guerrilla war. File-trading networks, the same technology that gives American music and movie companies fits, can help dissidents communicate. Since modern networks like Gnutella and Kazaa have no central source, they would be harder to turn off.
``You find people very quickly using something that could be a forum for political dissent and using it to trade music and pornography,'' Mulvenon said.
The Rand authors believe time is on the dissidents' side. They say many Chinese look to their Korean and Taiwanese neighbors and want economic prosperity before political freedoms, but the Internet is gradually bringing both.
On the Net:
Rand Corporation: http://www.rand.org
----
Campaigners from around the world determined to make voices heard at World
Tuesday, August 27, 2002
By Alexandra Zavis,
Associated Press
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/08/08272002/s_48267.asp
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Jewish students danced with farmers from Lesotho. Some people meditated. One artist made ice sculptures. Activists campaigning for everything from access to clean water to world peace vowed Monday to make their voices heard while those in power attend a United Nations environmental summit.
"We do not want a scenario where those who control the dollars, the yens, the rands, the pesos, that they are the ones who make the decisions," said Gordon Bisham, co-chairman of a parallel gathering of civil society groups. "We want to ensure that we have national development strategies that are homegrown."
As representatives of government, businesses, and international organizations met in the exclusive Sandton suburb for the U.N. World Summit on Sustainable Development, campaigners from around the world began their own talks on poverty eradication, environmental protection, globalization, health, and education at the Global Peoples' Forum on the outskirts of the sprawling township of Soweto.
Men and women in traditional African dress stood side-by-side with suited delegates talking into cell phones in the long lines of people waiting to clear security at the entrance to the forum.
Inside, Jewish students danced with farmers from the tiny southern African nation of Lesotho.
An artist fashioned penguin ice sculptures with a chain saw, leaving them to melt in the sun to represent the effects of global warming. And two Falun Gong followers sat cross-legged on the floor meditating next to a display of photographs illustrating the suppression of the spiritual group in China, where it is outlawed as an "evil cult."
Other protesters sang songs from the South African struggle against apartheid and waved placards describing the World Trade Organization as "a monster" and proclaiming: "Release land for landless people."
Despite the festive atmosphere, however, the forum has been plagued with logistical failings.
Organizers had yet to finalize a list of speakers for the event, which officially began Saturday. A promised address by former South African President Nelson Mandela was canceled at the last minute - his office said he was never told he was expected to be there.
Only about half of the anticipated 40,000 delegates registered over the weekend. While people continued to arrive Monday, the main hall was more than half empty for the start of talks.
Participants at the 10-day U.N. summit - a follow-up to the Earth Summit held 10 years ago in Brazil - have promised to translate commitments to save the environment and fight poverty into action. But some activists fear wealthier nations could sabotage any meaningful progress.
"There is a lot of anger from ordinary people regarding how leaders from rich nations have trashed international treaties and dashed hopes of the poor, in the process endangering the long-term health and sustainability of our environment," said Muzi Khumalo, spokesman for the People's Forum.
The United States in particular has been criticized for its resistance to setting specific targets and insistence on good governance as a precondition for receiving aid.
To ensure their concerns are heard, participants at the Peoples' Forum plan to march to the summit Saturday from the impoverished township of Alexandra.
--------
Street protest eclipses Earth Summit countdown
Story by Jodie Ginsberg
REUTERS SOUTH AFRICA:
August 27, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17447/story.htm
JOHANNESBURG - South African police guarding the Earth Summit on the weekend accused demonstrators of involving children in a banned street protest that stole attention from talks on the future of the planet.
Police said they made one arrest and fired three stun grenades to disperse about 700 leftists who tried to stage a banned march on Saturday evening in central Johannesburg, some 20 km (12 miles) from the summit venue.
"Members of the public order police warned the demonstrators that the march was illegal and formed a human barrier to prevent the march from proceeding," Police Director Henriette Bester said in a statement, adding there were no injuries.
"I was personally very perturbed by the highly irresponsible behaviour of the demonstrators who involved children in this illegal march," she said.
Bester told Reuters that infants in pushchairs were in the march which had been banned under the Gatherings Act that requires prior notification of protests to the local authority.
About 10,000 extra police and troops are on duty in South Africa's economic capital for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) that formally starts work yesterday and runs until September 4.
Uphill negotiations ahead of the U.N. summit resumed on the weekend in the tightly guarded Sandton conference centre between rich and poor nations to try to agree a blueprint to safeguard the planet.
DRAMATIC IMAGES
Dramatic television images fanned interest in Saturday night's confrontation between police and the anti-privatisation and pro-landless protesters.
U.N. officials were despondent that media coverage had been so rapidly dominated by the protest, following massive and violent demonstrations at previous international meetings in Seattle, Genoa, Prague and Davos.
"I hope that we start generating news here in terms of the environment. That's what will get people's attention," summit Secretary General Nitin Desai told Reuters.
"One has to accept that the media will pick what they want to pick in an open environment like this," he said.
Pessimism surrounds any prospects for major agreement at the summit after the last negotiating session had ended deadlocked in Bali in June.
Scant progress was made on Saturday, when rich countries expressed reluctance to grant new aid as part of a 77-page document meant to halve poverty in developing nations by fuelling environmentally friendly economic growth.
Delegates said compromises on issues including boosting healthcare, reining in pollution from burning fossil fuels and protecting dwindling fish stocks might have to await the arrival of an expected 100 world leaders for a two-day finale.
"It could go right to the end," one African delegate said.
"I think it's looking like we're going to get a pretty modest set of outcomes," said Tony Juniper, vice chairman of Friends of the Earth International. "It's clear that we're going to get no legally binding targets."
Environment and other ministers will lead formal talks starting yesterday after what is billed as a spectacular opening ceremony with African dancing and drumming on the weekend night.
Organisers say they expect up to 100 world leaders to attend - not including U.S. President George Bush. But they have slashed predictions for the number of delegates from 65,000 to about 40,000.
Johannesburg is a follow-up to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro a decade ago that set goals for protecting the planet, ranging from curbing emissions of the polluting gases blamed for global warming to preventing the spread of deserts.
But even U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan says progress since Rio has been "far from satisfactory".
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