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NUCLEAR
Rio asked to clean up uranium mine work
Uranium Mine in Australian National Park Dead
Ireland to track controversial nuclear shipment
ABC Tests U.S. Border Security
U.N. Spy Photos Show New Building at Iraqi Nuclear Sites
U.N. Nuclear Experts Detect Changes at Iraqi Sites
Atomic Bomb Victims Demand Benefits
U.S. agrees with Israeli assessments on Libya's efforts to get nuclear weapons
Laser defenses: What if they work?
Nuclear Agency Outlines Latest Security Measures
Congressional cowardice and the risks of war
Congressmen briefed on Iraq
Congress Now Promises to Hold Weeks of Hearings About Iraq
Dick Cheney, American Warmonger
MILITARY
U.S. Seeks to Broaden Peacekeeping
Powell Warns of Reduction In Aid to Oil-Rich Angola
U.S. OKs $520M in Weapons to Taiwan
Sickening specter of a smallpox attack
Lockheed's Antitrust Worries 'Valid'
Trespasser Alert Shuts Chemical Depot
Key Secret Police Official Is Assassinated in Colombia
Canadian Panel Backs Legalizing Marijuana
100 jets join attack on Iraq
U.N.: Iraq Sites Under Construction
Arab League vows support for Iraq in military confrontation with U.S.
Israelis Intercept 'Mega-Bomb'
Deterrents that haven't deterred
Israel on High Alert After the Discovery of Huge Bomb
Panel urges improving system of intelligence
Israel denies spies pretended to be Canadian
Armed troops should back inspectors
UN Inspectors Increase Satellite Imagery on Iraq
Wake-up call
Pentagon considers a hit before buildup
Americans not happy with security efforts
In war, some facts less factual
ENERGY AND OTHER
EU seeks green energy goals after summit defeat
Pacific NW should move to solar/wind power - study
Environmentalists wary of nanotechnology
China Raises Estimates of H.I.V.-AIDS Cases to 1 Million
ACTIVISTS
Greenpeace protests Earth Summit atop Rio's Christ
Grassroots views on war
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- australia
Rio asked to clean up uranium mine work
REUTERS AUSTRALIA:
September 6, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17642/story.htm
SYDNEY - Environmentalists and Aboriginal leaders called on mining giant Rio Tinto Plc/Ltd yesterday to start rehabilitation work on a uranium deposit bordering World Heritage-listed parkland in Australia's far north.
Mining engineers had burrowed a 1.2 km long shaft on the site near the the giant Kakadu National Park as part of preliminary work to develop a mine. The work was carried out before the site was acquired by Rio Tinto.
The calls came after Rio Tinto chairman Robert Wilson repeated in a recent interview with the British Broadcasting Corp that no mine would be built without consent of the traditional Aboriginal landowners.
"What we will do is to rehabilitate that area, we will block off the adit (mine shaft), but this is not a very large area, nor in any way is it a threat to the environment," Wilson said.
He gave no time frame for performing the rehabilitation work.
Rio Tinto owns 64 percent of Energy Resources of Australia Ltd , following its acquisition of North Ltd two years ago, which already mines uranium about 15 km (nine miles) away.
"If the company is committed to no development, without traditional owner consent and the owners are opposed, then Rio Tinto needs to rehabilitate the area and plug the hole," Australian Conservation Foundation coordinator Dave Sweeney said.
The Mirrar People living near the site in a region called Jabiluka have opposed development of a mine for many years, fearing any leaks would desecrate parts of the area regarded by local tribespeople as sacred.
"So long as the threat of Jabiluka hangs over the Mirrar, Rio Tinto's commitments to sustainability and community consultation are meaningless and indeed contemptuous," Yvonne Margarula a Mirrar elder said in a statement.
Shares in Rio Tinto were up 2.2 percent at A$31.47 by early afternoon, while ERA was a cent firmer at A$0.56, in a broader market up about 0.6 percent.
---
Uranium Mine in Australian National Park Dead
September 6, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/sep2002/2002-09-06-01.asp
SYDNEY, Australia, - Aboriginal people and environmentalists are challenging mining giant Rio Tinto to abandon a proposed uranium mine in the heart of an Australian national park, after aborigines have made it clear that they oppose the project.
Kakadu National Park near the Jabiluka mine site (Photo courtesy courtesy Territory Greens)
After years of protests against the Jabiluka uranium mine in Kakadu National Park, it appears that Rio Tinto will not proceed with the proposed mine without permission from the Mirrar aboriginal people, who are firmly opposed to the mine.
Speaking on the BBC's "World Hardtalk" Rio Tinto Chairman Sir Robert Wilson restated the company's position that, "...there would be no development of that project without the consent of the traditional landowners, the Mirrar people...we won't develop it without their consent, full stop."
The Senior Traditional Owner of the Mirrar, Yvonne Margarula, Thursday reaffirmed her longstanding opposition to the mine.
Yvonne Margarula is a recipient of the Nuclear-Free Future Award. (Photo courtesy Nuclear-Free Future Award)
Margarula said, "It doesn't matter how many times they ask, I'm not going to agree to this mine, whatever money they ask for it. Mining ruins the land. Just like the way the other Rio Tinto uranium mine, Ranger, has destroyed my land. My mind is firmly set."
Rio Tinto owns 64 percent of Energy Resources of Australia Ltd., after its purchase of North Ltd. two years ago. North already extracts uranium at the Ranger mine about 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) away from the Jabiluka site.
The Mirrar are now challenging Rio Tinto to rehabilitate the Jabiluka mine site, where a 1.2 kilometer underground tunnel was drilled before the site was acquired by Rio Tinto.
Sir Robert has now committed his company to rehabilitating the mine site stating on the BBC that Rio Tinto will, "...rehabilitate that area" and "... block off the adit [mine tunnel], but this is not a very large area, nor in any way is it a threat to the environment," he said."
Portal entrance to Jabiluka Mine (Photo by Sam de Silva courtesy Territory Greens)
"It is now time for Rio Tinto to follow through on the wishes of its chairman and begin the rehabilitation of the Jabiluka mine site" said Leanne Minshull, corporate campaigner for The Wilderness Society of Australia.
The Mirrar also challenge Rio Tinto's claim that there has been no damage to sacred sites at Jabiluka.
The Mirrar have issued many statements regarding the desecration of sacred sites at Jabiluka. In July 1998, they sought a Northern Territory Supreme Court injunction against the construction of the mine tunnel, arguing that a sacred site would be desecrated.
Jabiluka has been the subject of persistent questioning and protest at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg, where Rio Tinto has been trying to persuade governments and the public that it supports sustainable development.
Hearings for an Australian Senate inquiry into the contamination at Rio Tinto's uranium operations at the Ranger mine begin on September 30.
-------- britain
Ireland to track controversial nuclear shipment
REUTERS REPUBLIC OF IRELAND:
September 6, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17626/story.htm
DUBLIN - Ireland's navy and air force will monitor the passage through the Irish Sea later this month of two ships carrying nuclear fuel to Britain, the Irish government said.
The decision follows a meeting of the government's Emergency Task Force - set up in the wake of last year's September 11 attacks on the U.S. - and comes amid bitter public opposition in Ireland to the shipment.
A Defence Ministry spokesman said patrol ships and surveillance aircraft would track the five-tonne shipment of potentially weapons-grade fuel as it passes close to the Irish coast en route to Sellafield in northwestern England.
Greenpeace, which has lobbied the government to take a stand, welcomed the move.
"This is an excellent response. It sends a very strong message to the British government that they just cannot keep doing this," spokeswoman Mhairi Dunlop told Reuters.
"The tragedy is that the shipment still has to come through, but under the circumstances we hope Britain will be listening loud and clear."
The cargo of mixed plutonium and uranium oxides (MOX) is being returned to state-owned British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) from Japan after the Japanese Kansai Electric power Co Inc discovered the data for a 1999 shipment from Britain had been falsified.
The Sellafield plant, 110 miles (180 km) across the Irish Sea, has been a long running source of friction between Ireland which says it pollutes the sea and poses a threat of terrorist attack, and Britain which has invested heavily in it.
Ireland's environment minister has expressed concern about the timing of the MOX transport so close to the anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
Greenpeace's flagship "Rainbow Warrior", currently docked in Dublin, will lead a 10-boat flotilla in a peaceful protest when the cargo ships arrive within the next two weeks.
BNFL insists the shipment is safely contained.
-------- depleted uranium
ABC Tests U.S. Border Security
September 6, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts/AP-TV-Smuggled-Uranium.html
NEW YORK (AP) -- While some news organizations have tried to sneak material through airport screeners, ABC News thought bigger: the network smuggled depleted uranium into New York.
ABC conducted its operation to test how authorities are guarding against the possibility of a nuclear ``dirty bomb'' attack. Correspondent Brian Ross' investigation will air as part of ABC's Sept. 11 anniversary coverage next week.
Federal authorities are angry that they've had to spend time on ABC's experiment.
``The U.S. Customs Service is engaged in a deadly serious business,'' said its spokesman, Dean Boyd. ``The American public wants us to focus on real threats, not fake ones.''
The story comes amidst controversy over stories in the New York Daily News and on CBS this week about how journalists tried to test airport security by trying to pass items that should have set off alarms.
ABC said it borrowed 15 pounds of depleted uranium from an environmental group, the Natural Resources Defense Council, to send on its journey. The network said it consulted with experts to make sure it was safe; the Customs Service said such material has less radiation than a typical chest X-ray.
Ross carried it by train from Austria to Istanbul, Turkey. The contents clearly marked, it was packed in a container with wooden horse carts and terra cotta vases and shipped overseas to New York. Through it all, the uranium went undetected.
``Seven countries, 25 days and 15 pounds of uranium,'' Ross said, ``and not a single question.''
The network was careful to obey all laws, federal and international, he said. The route and manner of transport followed a path outlined in court documents by an Osama bin Laden associate, who was investigated for his role in a plot to smuggle nuclear material, he said.
``One of our big concerns going into this was that we didn't want to teach terrorists something they didn't already know,'' he said.
ABC sent the container from Istanbul, a known smuggler's hotbed, to an address that had never received overseas shipping before because, in both cases, that should have made authorities suspicious, he said.
ABC and Customs differ on how authorities responded to a potential threat.
Of 1,139 containers on the vessel, the ABC package was one of fewer than a dozen identified for closer inspection before the ship even reached port, Boyd said. It was inspected by X-ray equipment and a separate device that tests for radiation and was found to pose no threat, he said.
Ross said, however, that the suitcase of depleted uranium would emit about the same radiation as live uranium would if it had been shielded in a lead-lined case. The container should have been opened and checked, he said.
``They missed it,'' he said. ``They could say that it was no danger, which is true because we made sure there was no danger. But I think that misses the point.''
Boyd insisted inspectors have ways to determine without opening the container whether the uranium was live or not.
``It was a fake threat that we were forced to divert resources and manpower to address,'' he said.
Responded Paul Friedman, executive vice president of ABC News: ``When did they divert any resources? They didn't catch a thing.''
Friedman said the press plays an important role in testing how well government is protecting its citizens.
-------- iraq
U.N. Spy Photos Show New Building at Iraqi Nuclear Sites
New York Times
September 6, 2002
By JULIA PRESTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/06/international/06NATI.html
UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 5 - A team of weapons inspectors, studying satellite photography, have identified several nuclear-related sites in Iraq where new construction or other unexplained changes have occurred since the last international inspections nearly four years ago, a United Nations official said today.
Experts in New York and Vienna have continued to scrutinize aerial photographs and pore over intelligence reports, even after United Nations inspectors pulled out of Iraq in December 1998 in advance of bombing by the United States and Britain.
Officials representing the team of nuclear inspectors in Vienna and a separate team on chemical and biological weapons based in New York said United Nations inspectors are equipped, trained and ready to go to Iraq and could begin their work within weeks if Baghdad gave permission. But they said it would take about a year to complete work to determine whether Iraq was developing prohibited weapons, and then only if Iraq cooperated fully.
A team of about 15 experts at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna noted the new structures and other alterations in photographs shot by a commercial satellite, said Jacques Baute, the French physicist who is the team leader of the nuclear inspectors.
The shots were compared to pictures and information from the sites gathered by inspectors the last time they were in Iraq. He declined to identify exact locations.
"We are very curious to see what is under the roof," Mr. Baute said, referring to the new buildings. "There are some activities that could be part of prohibited activities, but we have nothing now that allows us to draw a conclusion.
"We want to open any door we want to open," he said.
President Bush, facing concern from many nations over the possibility of a military strike by the United States against Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi president, plans to consult over the next two days with leaders from Security Council nations to see if new action can be taken through the United Nations to confront Iraq on the weapons inspections.
But even if inspectors were allowed to return, United Nations officials acknowledge that their timetable is slower than United States officials say they want. The inspectors said it would take them about 12 months to examine locations, scrutinize documents and analyze samples to get a full picture of Iraq's weapons efforts if they could work unimpeded.
Iraq has continued to allow annual inspections of one warehouse in a Baghdad suburb, part of the Tawaitha nuclear research center, by a different team of the atomic agency. In their last visit, in January, the inspectors did not detect any illegal weapons activity there.
But Iraq has not been reporting to the United Nations its "dual-use" imports substances that might be used for weapons production as well as nuclear fuel as it is required to do, according to a report released today by Hans Blix, the head of the biological and chemical weapons team.
That team, which is based in New York, was reorganized by the Security Council two years ago to make it more professional and finance it with revenues from sales of Iraqi oil, which is monitored by the United Nations. The team, which also will inspect for development of long-range missiles, now includes 63 permanent staff members from 27 countries.
After a meeting last weekend, European Union countries have been discussing the idea of setting a deadline to force Iraq to allow the United Nations inspectors to return. But diplomats in New York said that European governments had not yet decided on that course, and were waiting to hear from President Bush.
Secretary General Kofi Annan, increasingly impatient with Baghdad's delays, has resisted attempts by Iraq since August to draw him into new talks about the purpose of the inspections. Mr. Annan told Iraqi officials that their next exchange with him should be an invitation for the inspectors to return.
--------
U.N. Nuclear Experts Detect Changes at Iraqi Sites
September 6, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq-nuclear-un.html
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. experts studying satellite photos of Iraq have identified new construction at several sites linked in the past to Baghdad's development of nuclear weapons, U.N. officials said Friday.
But the experts said they could not draw any conclusions on the significance of the changes at these sites until U.N. weapons inspectors can get in to see them on the ground.
``We see changes on the ground. But we don't draw any conclusions,'' said Mark Gwozdecky of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Vienna-based nuclear regulatory arm of the United Nations.
``Until you get inspectors on the ground, you cannot tell what the purpose of the construction is,'' Gwozdecky said in a telephone interview.
Another official with the agency, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters, ``from the satellite photos, you can see that there are new buildings, but you can't get into the buildings.''
The report of new activity at the sites coincided with the Bush administration's campaign for military action against Iraq, contending Baghdad was probably reconstructing its atomic program, though no hard evidence has been disclosed.
The International Atomic Energy Agency is in charge of ridding Iraq of nuclear materials and its inspectors work in tandem with those from the New York-based U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, which is responsible for Iraq's chemical, biological and ballistic missile programs.
Both have access to commercial satellite photography, which was contracted earlier this year, but no dramatic disclosures have been reported. The inspectors left Iraq in mid-December 1998, hours before a U.S.-British bombing raid, and have not been allowed to return.
Iraq launched a crash atomic program to test its first nuclear bomb using highly enriched uranium after it invaded Kuwait in 1990. The target date was April 1991, after the Gulf War in January 1991 and after U.S. planes had destroyed many facilities.
After inspections and destruction of equipment, the International Atomic Energy Agency in 1998 said it found no more materials. However the agency said it would continue to monitor and test air samples, particularly focusing on isotopes used for medical purposes.
But since 1998 the International Atomic Energy Agency has said it could not make any analysis until its inspectors were back on the ground.
Inspections are a key requirement toward suspending sanctions against Iraq, imposed after Baghdad's troops invaded Kuwait in August 1990.
-------- japan
Atomic Bomb Victims Demand Benefits
By Hans Greimel
Associated Press Writer
Friday, September 6, 2002; 10:07 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A48302-2002Sep6?language=printer
TOKYO - A group of Japanese atomic bomb survivors applied for more compensation Friday in a push to win better benefits as victims of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki a half-century ago.
Mostly cancer patients, the 62 survivors from around Japan assert that Tokyo has shortchanged many victims by excluding them from payments earmarked for those with lingering symptoms of radiation sickness.
"This is a new movement because the government needs to recognize more people," said Michiko Kakezuka of the Japan Confederation of A-Bomb and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, the group leading the drive.
If their demands are rejected, the applicants may file a class-action lawsuit against the government, she said.
The government recognizes 285,620 people as survivors of the 1945 U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and has even given them a special name, "hibakusha."
But only 2,000 survivors are recognized with radiation sickness. They get an enhanced payment of $1,183 monthly.
The rest receive a monthly payment of $290 and are eligible for numerous benefits, including free medical exams, even if they're no longer ill.
The difference is based on a government formula for how far away a person was from ground zero at the time of the blast - a standard the group called too simplistic.
Last month, 76 survivors from around the country were the first to apply for larger payments, Kakezuka said.
The government has taken on the task of caring for survivors of the bomb. Benefits include nursing home care and medical checkups. When they die, their families are reimbursed for funeral expenses.
But special relief measures did not begin until 1953 - eight years after the bombing - and many suffered extreme privation in the years after the war.
And while researchers have concluded that the bombs have not caused genetic defects among the children of survivors, some still speculate that increased cancer rates could show up once the second generation is over age 50.
Survivors are also tainted by prejudice. In Japan, where it is common for families to have detectives investigate the past of a prospective mate, the presence of a "hibakusha" in the family tree can sour a potential match.
-------- libya
U.S. agrees with Israeli assessments on Libya's efforts to get nuclear weapons
By Ze'ev Schiff and Nathan Guttman,
Ha'aretz Israel
Friday, September 06, 2002 Elul 29, 5762
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=205610&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0
The U.S. agrees with Israeli assessments that Libya has renewed its efforts to acquire a nuclear bomb, and that those efforts have been stepped up since 1999, when the UN sanctions on the country were removed.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said this week that Libya is energetically seeking to develop a nuclear weapon. Israel believes that Libya is trying to acquire fissionable material for nuclear weapons through centrifuges, but that it is a slow process. Experts say that Libya may be cooperating with North Korea and Pakistan in the effort. The prime minister mentioned the same assessment, though he also raised the possibility the Libyans are getting aid from Iraqi experts. Sharon told media interviewers that it's possible that Libya will achieve nuclear status before Iraq.
Libya is considered Egypt's "backyard," and it is doubtful that Egypt could miss spotting extensive nuclear efforts. The Egyptian leadership knows the American administration suspects Libya is making efforts in that direction, and in light of this, the question becomes to what extent Egypt is aware of the efforts and what Cairo plans to do about them. Will it regard it as a threat to be prevented, will it ignore it, or will Cairo try to make indirect use of it?
The Libyan efforts came up in discussions between Israeli and American officials six months ago, when it became apparent to the Israelis that the Americans had acquired similar information to what Israel knows about Libya's nuclear ambitions.
Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton said in Washington on May 5 that the U.S. "has no doubt" that Libya is continuing its efforts to acquire a nuclear weapon. He said the administration believes that with the sanctions lifted in 1999, Libya's access to nuclear technology was increased.
But he added that while Libya needs foreign assistance to achieve its nuclear goals, there is reason to be concerned about the strengthening of Libya's nuclear infrastructure.
Bolton noted that on March 25, Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi told Al Jazeera TV that "we demanded the dismantling of Israel's weapons of mass destruction, otherwise the Arabs have the right to be equipped with the same weaponry."
He described Libyan chemical weapons development, and spoke about their purchases of chemical materials in the Middle East, Asia and Western Europe, and noted that the Libyans had developed a ground-to-ground missile with the help of Serbia, India, North Korea and China. But he also said that Libya condemned the terror attack on the U.S. last year and that there had been great progress in the state's reduction of support for terror.
Bolton was recently in Israel, meeting with various people including Maj. Gen. Uzi Dayan, the outgoing head of the National Security Council.
Libya has been prominently listed on the State Department list of states that support terrorism but there was talk about removing it from the list this year to prove that the U.S. has a carrot and stick policy and that those countries that cease support for terror will benefit.
But with discussions of Libya now including its nuclear ambitions, the State Department was forced to note in its annual report on terror that while Libya "apparently" ceased support for international terror, there are still pockets of support for links with some groups. Libya's agreement for a compensation program for the families of the victims of the Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie has also helped its image in the U.S. in recent years. Nonetheless, the nuclear issue has now begun to overshadow that progress.
Israel's concern is that Libya, which doesn't have long-distance missiles capable of reaching Israel, could use one of its planes, a ship - or perhaps most dangerous - a terrorist organization to deliver a nuclear weapon, if it does acquire one.
-------- missile defense
Laser defenses: What if they work?
By Geoffrey Forden,
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
September/October 2002, Volume 58, No. 5, pp. 48-53
The idea behind missile defenses has always been to save people from the disastrous consequences of nuclear attack. How ironic it is, then, that some of the defensive systems the United States is actively planning - including the U.S. Air Force's Airborne- and Space-Based Laser systems - could well result in the deaths of many innocent people. In the case of a successful laser intercept, the difference would be that those who were killed would not be among those who had been targeted.
The number killed would vary dramatically, depending on what country launched the missile and at what point in its powered flight the boost-phase defense struck. If a missile aimed at a major U.S. city were launched from a point in the Middle East, the destruction of the missile would cause an intact warhead (or warheads) to fall short of the target, landing and exploding somewhere in Europe or in Turkey instead. On the other hand, a warhead carried on a missile launched from North Korea, aimed at the same U.S. city, could very likely come down in an isolated area of the Pacific Ocean, resulting in far fewer immediate deaths.
Layered defenses
President Bush has declared that he wants 'layered' missile defenses. Basically, this means using multiple methods for shooting down missiles in various stages of flight in order to improve the odds of actually hitting them. Over the years the Defense Department has studied a variety of systems that would try to engage incoming missiles at all stages of flight. These include boost-phase defenses, which would attempt to engage the missile when it is under power and actively accelerating; mid-course defenses, which would attempt to intercept a warhead as it coasts through the near-vacuum of space in free-fall; and terminal-phase defenses, which attempt an intercept as the warhead reenters the atmosphere.
Occasionally, 'post-boost-phase' and 'pre-boost-phase' defenses are also mentioned. Post-boost-phase systems would try to destroy a warhead or its 'bus' (a small platform that is capable of some maneuvering and provides the final alignment of the warhead with the target) after the main stages of the missile have burned out but are not yet separated. Such a system could in theory be effective if it could target the actual warhead rather than the missile. Striking the booster, the much larger part of the target, would be more likely, because doing so would be easier. It would also be ineffective.
The term pre-boost-phase missile defense refers to preemptive attacks before missiles are launched. Such a defense presents a unique set of policy issues that will not be discussed here.
Missile defense as we know it
The current plan for the 'Ground-based Midcourse Defense Segment,' formerly known as National Missile Defense or NMD, is to station ground-based interceptors in Alaska and perhaps in North Dakota. These interceptors are intended to collide with incoming warheads as they coast through space.
One of the problems with this plan, as many critics have pointed out, is that it would be relatively easy for an attacker to institute 'countermeasures,' especially the use of tens or perhaps hundreds of lightweight decoys, such as balloons shaped like warheads, which can be deployed from the same missile along with the true warhead.1 In the vacuum of space, they will travel along the same trajectory, making it extremely difficult for the system to distinguish between them and the actual warhead.
A global network of sensors, both ground-based radars and satellite-based infrared telescopes, will be designed to help discriminate between the decoys and the warhead.2 But the sheer number of decoys that can be deployed represents a tremendous challenge. In a July 14, 2001 flight test, the battle-management computer network was overwhelmed by the number of tracks being reported to it.3 Managing the number of tracks, if not identifying the actual warhead, though, is an engineering challenge that can eventually be overcome.
There are much more fundamental problems associated with discriminating between decoys and warheads, however. System engineers hope that two different sensing technologies - radar and infrared - will complement each other in the discrimination process. But here the attacker has a tremendous advantage.
Once the missile defense system is built and its operational parameters are fixed, the attacker can change the appearance of both the warhead and the decoys. For instance, the warhead could be placed inside a balloon; decoys might have various coatings that would change their appearance to both the radar and infrared sensors; and both the decoys and the warhead could be heated or cooled to change their appearance to the infrared sensors that will be installed on both tracking satellites and the interceptor.
The defense can never be flight-tested against the tremendous range of countermeasures, and the currently planned system will have to rely on computer simulations of a variety of countermeasures and then simulate the system's response to them.4
Terminal defenses
Terminal missile defense systems - in which the defense engages an incoming warhead after it has reentered the atmosphere - are already being developed for theater missile defense. These systems include the Patriot, PAC-3 (Advanced Patriot), and THAAD (Theater High Altitude Area Defense), although THAAD is intended to have some mid-course interception capability as well.
The major advantage of these systems is that they will aim to engage an incoming warhead after the atmosphere has stripped away any balloons or other lightweight decoys that may have been employed in mid-course. Unfortunately, however, intercontinental-range warheads re-enter the atmosphere at speeds greater than 7 kilometers per second, leaving very little time between the time the decoys are stripped away and when the warhead strikes the ground.5 This limits the system both in terms of how large an area can be defended and its necessary location near where the interceptor missile is based. In fact, differences of just a few seconds in when the decoys are stripped away by the atmosphere can reduce the defended area from something the size of the greater Washington, D.C. area, to nothing.
If the warhead is sufficiently aerodynamic, the upper atmosphere will not significantly slow it down, and the terminal defenses may have no capability at all. Developing newer, higher-accelerating interceptors may ease this restriction somewhat. On the other hand, both Russia and the United States have developed decoys that are capable of reentering deep into the atmosphere, raising the question of whether terminal defenses will remain free of the decoy problem.
The boost phase
Boost-phase missile defenses, which attack the missile during the first few minutes of flight, are being actively considered and - at least in the case of theater missile defense - developed. These defenses have a major advantage over mid-course and terminal defenses - they engage a missile while it is under power and still relatively slow moving. The target is very conspicuous with a bright plume, and the missile is comparatively fragile with large, thin-skinned fuel tanks. Another unique feature of the boost-phase period is that the trajectory of the warhead is not yet finalized - the debris from a successful engagement would land a considerable distance from the intended target.
The perceived advantages of boost-phase missile defenses have led to a wide variety of proposals aimed at implementing the concept. These proposals include stationing interceptor missiles relatively close to suspected launch sites, placing interceptor missiles in Earth orbit (the 'Brilliant Pebbles' concept), and mounting powerful chemical lasers in Earth orbit or on high-flying aircraft.6
Those defenses based on intercepting missiles with other missiles have the theoretical capability of targeting the warhead directly. Of course, turning theoretical capability into engineering reality would likely require large and sophisticated interceptors and enormous booster rockets. This in turn would place substantial limits on basing schemes. Laser-based systems, unfortunately, do not even have that theoretical capability. They take the easier approach of trying to destroy the larger and far more fragile missile body. Systems like these will have the potential to cause any warheads on intercepted missiles to fall short of their targets.
The U.S. Air Force's Airborne Laser is currently the most fully developed boost-phase missile defense system that could lead to warhead shortfalls, with a prototype entering final development. The Space-Based Laser is a variant that is being discussed as a next-generation system.
Both of these systems would be likely to cause substantial damage to third parties if U.S. missile defenses caused warheads to simply fall short of their intended targets. That is because the lasers will not be powerful enough to attack the warhead, which will be thermally insulated for its re-entry into Earth's atmosphere. Instead, a high-powered laser beam must be aimed at a section of the missile's fuel tanks, eventually heating them enough to cause a rupture in the missile's skin.
There are three ways a laser attack might cause liquid-fueled missiles - the design most likely to be fielded by a developing nuclear power - to fail. First, a missile may lose thrust when the pressure in the fuel tank drops, with a subsequent decrease in range. Second, changes in the ratio of fuel to oxidizer delivered to the engine might cause it to burn up from an excessively high combustion-chamber temperature. And third, there could be a catastrophic structural failure caused by a sufficiently large hole. (This would be the most likely failure mode for more advanced solid-fueled missiles using composite skins like fiberglass.) In the latter case, the force of the missile's own acceleration acting along the length of the missile could cause the rocket to bend in two. However, most large, intercontinental-range liquid-fueled missiles do not rely solely on their outer skin to supply structural support. Instead, there is a system of internal support rings and struts that carry a significant portion of the load, making catastrophic failure much less likely.
We know that one thing will not happen: The missile will not explode. There have been enough accidents involving space-launch vehicles with holes in their sides, including the Challenger space shuttle tragedy, to know that rocket fuels do not explode in the upper atmosphere, even if they are subjected to enormous temperatures. This is true for both solid- and liquid-fueled missiles.
All these circumstances would combine, if laser defenses were used, to leave the warhead intact - although in some cases a happy accident might cause debris from a structural failure to hit and destroy the warhead.
Falling short
What would happen to a warhead after a successful boost-phase missile defense engagement? Of course, if an interceptor should hit a warhead directly - as opposed to its booster - then the warhead would be destroyed outright or might burn up relatively harmlessly in the atmosphere. However, a nuclear warhead involved in a successful laser engagement, or in an intercept by a defensive missile that did not strike the warhead, stands a good chance of reentering intact, raising two critical questions:
Would it detonate?
And where would it land?
Chances are that a U.S. or Russian nuclear warhead would reenter the atmosphere but crash to the ground without detonating. And although the crash would spread radioactivity over a small area, perhaps several hundred square meters, such an incident would in no way be comparable to the death and destruction that would accompany a nuclear explosion.
Detonation would be avoided because both the United States and Russia reportedly use 'environmental sensors' on their nuclear warheads. The warheads cannot detonate until after a certain set of measurable events have occurred: The warhead must experience a certain maximum acceleration or G-force corresponding to the expected powered flight of its missile, followed by an appropriate period of weightlessness as it coasts through space, followed by another period of high acceleration as it reenters the atmosphere.
Successful boost-phase defenses would terminate the missile's initial thrust before it reached peak values, and thus fail the first acceleration requirement; lower peak accelerations would also reduce the time the warhead spent in freefall, meaning it would be likely to fail the second environmental requirement. Finally, a considerable reduction in deceleration during reentry would occur because the missile's speed would be significantly reduced. All these combine to make it highly unlikely a sophisticated warhead from either the United States or Russia would detonate.
There are sound reasons to believe that would not be the case with a warhead from a rogue nation just developing nuclear bombs. A rogue would be unlikely to include this type of safety device on its weapons:
First, an inexperienced nuclear power might be afraid that such sophisticated safety devices would fail to arm the warhead even after a successful flight. After all, many Defense Department scenarios postulate an attack by a rogue state after it has conducted few, if any, flight tests - and flight tests would be needed to test the reliability of environmental sensors. Second, a rogue nation would not consider these types of sensors to be as important to it as they are to the United States and Russia, both of which leave their nuclear weapons on fast-reaction alert for months or even years. Instead, a rogue might assemble a nuclear warhead right before launch, thereby all but eliminating the chance of an accidental detonation.
Finally, a rogue nation might not be altogether concerned about the possibility that a warhead would detonate short of its intended target. Its leaders might hope that the United States would be blamed for causing any resulting casualties.
If a warhead survives a successful missile defense engagement - and that seems highly likely for the airborne and the space-based lasers - then it still has to make it safely through reentry. It might, for instance, tumble as it reenters the atmosphere, having been thrown into a spin by the collapse of its booster. However, there is no fundamental law of nature that says warheads cannot tumble as they reenter. It has been reported, for instance, that one early version of the SS-18 warhead tumbled as it started to reenter without ill effect - except, of course, on accuracy.7 Furthermore, the current missile defense system has had great difficulty in discriminating decoys from real warheads in the case of tumbling warheads. It is at least possible that a country attacking the United States would design warheads to tumble as they reenter.8
Dealing death and destruction
A number of assumptions are required to estimate the possible number of casualties associated with the shortfall of a nuclear weapon. First, let us assume that the warhead would have a yield of about 20 kilotons (roughly the equivalent of 20,000 tons of conventional high explosive). There are a number of physical reasons why an unsophisticated bomb - one whose yield has not been 'boosted' by tritium - might have roughly this yield. These theoretical reasons have been augmented by the revelation that South Africa's nuclear bomb had a yield of about 20 kilotons.9 Second, let us assume that the warhead would detonate at or near the surface of the Earth, generating large amounts of prompt fallout. If we add to these factors an estimated 15-mile-an-hour wind, we can roughly estimate the number of prompt deaths from both blast and radiation.
Under the specified conditions, blast and fire effects would kill anyone within a 2,400-foot radius of detonation, and half the people within an additional area, from 2,400 to 6,000 feet out from ground zero.
Using an optimistic assumption - that survivors could be evacuated within four hours of the blast - then exposure to fallout would kill everyone in a swath three miles downwind and a little less than a mile wide, at its widest. Half the people in a swath extending from three to 10 miles downwind would die. Survivors, of course, would run the risks of long-term illnesses, including cancer, as a result of their exposure.
The actual number of people killed by the shortfall of a nuclear warhead would depend on its intended trajectory, when the engagement occurred, and the exact effect the engagement had on the missile - whether it completely terminated thrust or merely reduced it. However, a range of estimates of potential casualties can be arrived at by calculating the warhead's trajectory and assuming that thrust is completely terminated at various times, using estimates of population density at the point of impact.10
Estimates for trajectories originating in Iraq and North Korea against Washington D.C. are shown below.
Collateral casualty estimates are very different for the two launch points. Most boost-phase missile engagements with missiles launched from North Korea would stand a good chance of causing the warheads to fall in the ocean, with few if any immediate casualties. Even so, the timing of the engagement would have to be carefully orchestrated to avoid those parts of Russia and China that would be overflown by the missile. Of course, exploding a nuclear bomb over an unpopulated region of the Pacific would still have environmental implications for the world, but they would be far less deadly than if the bomb were to explode over a populated region.
If missiles launched from the Middle East were successfully intercepted by a boost-phase missile defense, it would be very likely that their warheads would kill thousands of innocent civilians in Syria, Turkey, or Europe. It would be very unlikely that a warhead would fall within the borders of the country launching a missile because of the time it would take for the missile to climb out of the denser part of the atmosphere (for a laser engagement) or for an interceptor to reach it.
No way to be sure
The consequences of successful boost-phase missile defense engagements can only be discussed in terms of probable outcomes. There would always be the chance that in a laser defense the incoming missile would be so completely destroyed that a piece of it would strike its own warhead and destroy it, or that a warhead sent tumbling by the defensive engagement might burn up as it reentered the atmosphere. Or perhaps the attacking country would employ sophisticated sensors that would prevent the warhead from detonating after an abbreviated trajectory. But there are strong reasons to believe that the probability of any of these events occurring, thus preventing the detonation of an incoming nuclear warhead, would be small.
If that is the case, then it is almost certain that - for an attack launched from the Middle East - thousands of Europeans who happened to live along the flight path of the incoming missile would be killed. The United States must consider that probability when it creates any defensive shield. After all, the countries that would be at risk are the same allies the United States would need in the battles after the missile was launched, and they may want to believe that the United States is as concerned about their citizens' lives as it is about its own.
The results of my calculations do not necessarily mean that boost-phase missile defenses will inevitably cause unintended casualties. There are other defenses that may engage the incoming missile during its boost phase by attacking the warhead directly rather than the booster's fuel tanks. However, these consist of interceptor missiles stationed close to a suspected launch site, and they would require a large interceptor with sufficient motor size to be able to change course at the last second; almost certainly too large to be stationed in space.
If the United States does decide to deploy such a system, it would be forced into basing the system in countries close to the trouble spot, requiring collaboration with a number of countries. And perhaps collaborative missile defense would offer the best missile defense - politically as well as technologically.
1. Andrew M. Sessler, et al., Countermeasures: A Technical Evaluation of the Operational Effectiveness of the Planned U.S. National Missile Defense System (Cambridge, Mass.: Union of Concerned Scientists, April 2000).
2. Geoffrey Forden and Raymond Hall, Budgetary and Technical Implications of the Administration's Plan for National Missile Defense, CBO Paper (Washington D.C.: Congressional Budget Office, April 2000).
3. Peter Pae, "Crucial Radar Failed Missile Defense Test," Los Angeles Times, p. A1, July 18, 2001.
4. From the author's interviews with Defense Department sources while working for the U.S. Congressional Budget Office.
5. George N. Lewis and Theodore A. Postol, "Future Challenges to Ballistic Missile Defense," IEEE Spectrum, September 1997, pp. 60-68.
6. Theodore Postol, "Hitting Them Where It Works," Foreign Policy, Winter 1999-2000, pp. 132-33; Geoffrey Forden, "The Airborne Laser," IEEE Spectrum, September 1997, pp. 40-49.
7. Personal communication with Theodore A. Postol.
8. Phase One Engineering Team Study 1998-5, Independent Review of TRW Discrimination Techniques: Final Report (www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/news00/postol_attd.pdf).
9. David Albright, "South Africa and the Affordable Bomb," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July/August 1994, pp. 37-47.
10. Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University; International Food Policy Research Institute; and World Resources Institute, 2000. Gridded Population of the World, Version 2 (Palisades, N.Y.: CIESIN, 2000) (www.sedac.ciesin.org/plue/gpw).
Geoffrey Forden is a senior research fellow in the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Nuclear Agency Outlines Latest Security Measures
September 6, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/sep2002/2002-09-06-09.asp#anchor4
WASHINGTON, DC,Responding to continuing questions about security at nuclear power plants, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has put out a fact sheet detailing the steps taken since September 11, 2001.
As the nation nears the one year anniversary of last year's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, many people remain concerned about the potential for a similar attack, perhaps using a large plane, on one of the nation's 103 commercial nuclear power plants. Such an attack might breach the containment vessel of the plant's reactor, releasing deadly levels of radiation.
According to the NRC, nuclear plants were already among the most well protected civilian facilities in the country before September 11. After the attacks, the NRC advised all major licensees of nuclear facilities to go to the highest level of security. A series of advisories, orders and regulatory alerts have since been issued to further strengthen security of NRC licensed facilities, control of nuclear materials, and security of all shipments of radioactive materials and spent fuel.
While the specific actions have not been made public, they include requirements for increased patrols, more and better trained security guards, additional security posts, installation of additional physical barriers, vehicle checks at greater distances from the plants, enhanced coordination with law enforcement and military authorities, and more restrictive site access controls for personnel.
The NRC is conducting a review of the agency's entire safeguards and security program, regulations and procedures. The agency also has studies underway to investigate the potential vulnerabilities of facilities to deliberate aircraft crashes.
While those studies are underway, the commission has directed nuclear power plant licensees to develop specific plans and strategies to respond to any event that could result in damage to large areas of their plants from explosions or fire. Licensees have been asked to provide assurance that their emergency planning resources are sufficient to respond to such an event.
The NRC has worked with the Federal Aviation Administration on regulations to prohibit planes from circling or loitering above nuclear power plants and other nuclear facilities. Additional measures have been put in place to provide additional protection against land attacks, including the use of a substantial vehicle bomb, and against water borne attacks.
Security exercises that were suspended in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks have been reinitiated, and now involve an array of federal, state and local law enforcement and emergency planning officials. Full security performance reviews, including force on force exercises, will be carried out at each nuclear power plant on a three year cycle, instead of the eight year cycle that had been used prior to September 11, 2001.
The NRC is still evaluating approaches for controlling all radioactive sources which might be used in a radiological dispersal device - sometimes called a dirty bomb - aiming to maintain control of such sources from their creation to their destruction.
-------- us politics
Congressional cowardice and the risks of war
September 6, 2002
WorldNetDaily.com
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=28852
Last week I (and many other Americans) called upon President Bush to seek the approval of Congress before proceeding with the war against Saddam. I stated that I opposed that war, but wanted Bush to submit to Congress for the sake of clarity.
Let those who feel as I do "come out of the closet" and declare their opposition - let's have a real debate and put the risks on the table for the people to decide. Every person in Congress should have the courage to either step up and vote for the thing, or step out in opposition.
But when push comes to shove, will Congress have the guts for a real debate? Early indications are not encouraging. I happen to know that most Democratic members of the Senate and House have serious misgivings about this war - some even privately oppose it. But all are trembling at the prospect of having an up or down vote on the issue.
Right now, Bush's only opposition to the war is coming from those pesky French, Germans and Russians. And in an America which has become much more patriotic since 9-11, these Europeans are no match for the president in carrying the argument. If both sides of the issue are to be debated, it can only happen on Capitol Hill.
So what's got our solons so terrified to speak their minds? When it comes to complaining about tax cuts, budget deficits and En-Com-Crossing scams, they're as chatty as a telemarketer. But when the question involves the lives of up to 250,000 young American men and women, potentially hundreds of billions in treasure and the potential of a nuclear, biological or chemical exchange somewhere in the region, Congress suddenly gets laryngitis.
In a word, polls.
The public supports this war, perhaps not having had the benefit of hearing all sides of the issue. But Congress surely remembers that in 1991, when Bush the Elder went for a congressional resolution on the Gulf War, all Senate naysayers had egg on their faces when the war was (relatively) easily won.
Think John Kerry. He voted against the Gulf War and now he's running for president. Do you think he wants to handle that question at his first presidential debate? (Assuming he makes it that far.) Not a chance. Al Gore - who voted in favor of the Gulf War Resolution - was thanking his lucky stars during his debates with Bush the Younger that he didn't have to answer the same question.
So here's how Congress - and particularly the Democratic members of the Senate - will likely handle the issue. Instead of taking Bush head on, they'll disingenuously move the goal line back by claiming that whatever evidence the administration presents them for the attack will not be enough; they'll whine about lack of disclosure; they'll slip speeches into the Congressional Record asserting all sorts of misgivings; in fact, they'll do any dance they can in order to take credit for a successful war while preserving the option of "I told you so" if things go badly.
As far as I'm concerned, this is the political equivalent of a soldier deserting his post under fire. The stakes are much higher than in '91. This time, there won't be a coalition to take out Saddam - except for Britain, the rest of Europe and the Middle East (except Israel) are not on board.
This time, Saddam has few restraints in deploying what weapons he has. And this time, the Scud missiles he launches against Israel are likely to be filled with chemicals or germs instead of TNT.
The Israelis surely believe it - two weeks ago, they began to inoculate their population with smallpox vaccine and are stocking antibiotics against anthrax and other diseases. And this time, if Saddam launches these weapons against Tel Aviv, does anyone doubt that Sharon is going to sit idly by?
Rumors are that Israel has somewhere around 200 deliverable nukes. Is this a war we want to get into on the say-so of a president who won Florida - the deciding state - by 500 votes?
If Congress votes for war, I'll support my country like any other patriot. But I must demand that Congress not insult the peoples' intelligence. Give us a full and fair televised debate, and then give us an up-or-down vote. No evasions, no pettifoggery and no both-sides-of-the-mouth bloviations.
In a democracy, declaring war is too important for generals or presidents. Let's have a vote.
Editor's note: Reporter Gareth Schweitzer contributed to this column.
----
Congressmen briefed on Iraq
By Dave Boyer
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
September 6, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020906-489512.htm
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle yesterday raised the specter of Vietnam in criticizing the Bush administration's war plans, but he softened his stance after a secret briefing on Iraq's weapons programs that another senator called "troubling."
"We learned the lessons of secrecy during Vietnam," Mr. Daschle, South Dakota Democrat, said in a morning press conference. "We learned the lessons of what it is to move without public support in Vietnam. And I would hope that we would not lose one American life because the American people were left in the dark" about the projected costs of attacking Iraq.
But he appeared to tone down his rhetoric hours later after receiving a 90-minute closed-door briefing by Vice President Richard B. Cheney and CIA Director George J. Tenet on Iraq's development of weapons of mass destruction. Also present were Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt. Mr. Daschle told reporters that the briefing was "very helpful."
"What I'm going to do is talk to my colleagues a little bit," he said. "We were in a position to ask a lot of good questions."
Mr. Lott, Mississippi Republican, said that "the information was interesting and troubling," and Mr. Hastert, Illinois Republican, was tight-lipped upon leaving the session.
The meeting with the congressional leaders was part of the administration's drive to convince lawmakers that the United States and its allies must take military action against Iraq. President Bush said this week that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is a "serious threat" to the United States and that "inaction is not an option."
Iraq also was among the topics of a Pentagon briefing yesterday for about two dozen senators, who met Mr. Cheney, Mr. Tenet and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
Sen. Richard C. Shelby, Alabama Republican and ranking member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, said lawmakers have been receiving "new revelations of a continuous effort by [Saddam] to build biological and chemical weapons and also to develop methods to deliver them."
A congressional source with access to intelligence information said Saddam is most likely not building a nuclear weapon "similar to what we used in 1945" against Japan.
"But we know he has enriched uranium and perhaps plutonium that he could use to make dirty bombs," the source said. "He's got the money to buy nuclear capability. If he gets it, would we then take him on?"
Mr. Bush said he will consult with Congress before deciding whether to ask for a resolution approving the use of military force. Some lawmakers, mostly liberal Democrats, went on record yesterday to oppose any plans by the administration to act against Iraq.
Rep. Peter A. DeFazio, Oregon Democrat, said the president's plans are being driven by "hawkish" advisers who served during his father's presidency during the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Mr. Cheney was secretary of defense at the time.
"Is this left over from his father's administration?" Mr. DeFazio said on the House floor. "They want to revisit the issue."
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat and a member of the intelligence panel, said there is "no evidence" that Iraq has nuclear weapons. She said an attack on Baghdad could provoke an invasion of Israel.
"There is some troubling evidence today of the preparation of a second front in southern Lebanon to attack Israel in the event we attack Iraq," Mrs. Feinstein said. "[American] Ambassador Dennis Ross recently told me of thousands - he mentioned 10,000 - extended-range Katyusha rockets that have been moved through Syria from Iran and into southern Lebanon for an attack on Israel."
Some conservative lawmakers signaled that they already are on board with the White House, saying Saddam has been a consistent threat to the world.
"The administration doesn't have to make a really strong case," said Sen. James M. Inhofe, Oklahoma Republican and a member of the Armed Services Committee. "We have elected a strong leader, and we need to give him our full support. There's no reason for us to believe what Saddam Hussein says."
Mr. Daschle said the challenge for the White House will be to convince "a large number of people in the middle," including him. But he mentioned the quagmire of Vietnam three times in the conference.
"We won't be able to walk away from Iraq," he said. "We're going to be there, and I think we need to acknowledge that. We need to be honest with the American people. This is not something that is hit-and-run; this is hit-and-stay, and stay and stay, perhaps. And we need to be ready for that."
Mr. Daschle also urged the administration to obtain approval from the United Nations Security Council for action against Iraq. He said rejection by the council "would be a factor for many of our colleagues" in deciding whether to approve a use-of-force resolution.
Mr. Lott said he already has met senior Republican senators to discuss the language for such a resolution.
"We haven't resolved that yet, but we have looked back at the 1991 resolution to get some guidance of a good way to proceed," he said.
----
Congress Now Promises to Hold Weeks of Hearings About Iraq
New York Times
September 6, 2002
By DAVID FIRESTONE with DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/06/international/06IRAQ.html
WASHINGTON, Sept. 5 - Congressional leaders said today that they would undertake weeks of hearings and debate on whether to support military action against Iraq, a move that could delay a final vote until after the November elections.
"I'm more concerned about getting this done right than getting it done quickly," said Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the Democratic majority leader, a day after President Bush agreed to seek congressional approval before any invasion. Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, the Republican minority leader, also made it clear that he did not favor forcing a quick vote, although on Wednesday Congressional and administration leaders had predicted that the debate could be concluded by early October.
Even as Congressional leaders discussed an extended timetable, a United Nations official said today that international weapons inspectors had identified several nuclear-related sites in Iraq where new construction or other unexplained changes had occurred since their last visit nearly four years ago.
The official said inspectors were prepared to return to Iraq immediately. But even with the cooperation of the Iraqi government, the official said, it would take about a year for inspectors to verify that Iraq was not developing prohibited weapons.
Neither the timetable presented by the inspectors nor that of Congress, which could spill into the fall election campaign, is likely to satisfy administration officials, who have begun to press their case publicly that the threat presented by Iraq's weapons programs is urgent.
White House officials have said that their patience with Congress would not extend much past the current session. With no guarantee that members would return for a lame-duck, post-election session, officials said they expected a resolution of support before adjournment.
The critical questions now may not be the outcome of the debate about Iraq, but rather how long it lasts, and what effect it has on the general election campaign this fall. How long it would take for the administration to field the forces needed for operations against Iraq is also not clear.
In any case, the president told voters in Kentucky and Indiana today that he did not expect a debate on Capitol Hill to alter his position.
"One thing is for certain - I'm not going to change my view" about the need to remove Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader, he said to applause in Louisville, Ky. "And my view is, we cannot let the world's worst leaders blackmail America, threaten America, or hurt America with the world's worst weapons."
As Congressional officials emphasized the need for international support before taking any action against Iraq, the White House said that Mr. Bush would talk on Friday to the leaders of Russia, China and France, before meeting Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain on Saturday afternoon at Camp David.
Together with the United States, those nations make up the permanent five members of the Security Council, and each could veto a security council resolution.
"This is about soliciting their views and explaining why he believes Iraq is a threat, and a threat that we have to deal with now," one senior White House official said. "It's a start. We're early in this process."
Such a deliberative approach by the lawmakers - at least three Senate committees will hold hearings - is not expected to undercut the pace of military planning, although crucial factors like mobilizing troops or deploying weapons in a war against Iraq could be greatly affected if Congress delays its support.
The Bush administration continued to pay close attention to the movement of troops and war-fighting equipment in and around Iraq.
Thomas E. White, the Army secretary, told a group of reporters today that the Army recently deployed weapons and supplies to a base in Kuwait near the border with Iraq as part of a training exercise to test both the equipment and the military's ability to move it quickly from one base to another.
Officials responsible for moving weapons throughout the area said a large volume of supplies had been shifting in and out of the gulf region.
Meanwhile, in southern Iraq today, allied warplanes attacked a command-and-control position at a military airfield about 240 miles west of Baghdad, military officials said. The United States Central Command said the strike was ordered after Iraqi forces had tried to shoot down American or British fighters that enforce the "no flight" zone over the area.
Still, the administration's most immediate concern involved persuading skeptical members of Congress to support its plans, which constitute uncharted political territory for both parties. About two dozen senators from both sides of the aisle were invited to the Pentagon today to discuss Iraqi policy with Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence. Later in the day, Mr. Cheney and Mr. Tenet provided evidence of Iraqi military capability to the top four Congressional leaders.
Although Congressional officials had been optimistic on Wednesday about moving quickly through the debate on Iraq, today they slowed their timetable after a day of consultation with many skeptical members and committee chairmen.
Mr. Lott, the Republican leader, said that Congress might also need to give the United Nations time to deliberate the issue. A final vote in Congress may not come until this fall or even next year, he said.
"It could take a little more time than just two or three weeks," Mr. Lott told reporters this morning. "So we just have to see. I don't think we should put a time line on it. I think we should do what is necessary when it is necessary."
Mr. Daschle, who had earlier in the day complained that he had not seen sufficient evidence from the administration to justify an invasion, seemed somewhat more impressed after the closed-door briefing. Speaking to reporters, he called the meeting helpful, and he said he would brief his colleagues about it.
Many of those colleagues are equally hungry for information on Iraq's military capabilities and an explanation of why Mr. Bush believes Mr. Hussein would risk his power and his life in attacking the West. Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan and the chairman of the Armed Forces Committee, said his panel would hold hearings in late September and early October to hear from both administration officials and opponents of invasion. He said he learned little from today's Pentagon briefing and predicted that the hearings would last as long as necessary to satisfy committee members.
"If it takes a month or two to do the deliberation on this, it ought to be done, and in a way which is very thorough and careful," he said. "That's important and I believe there's time to do it right." The issue will also be taken up by the Foreign Relations and Intelligence committees of the Senate.
Mr. Bush, at his appearances in Kentucky and Indiana, talked in a more colloquial way than he had before about why the United States, in his view, must move from a national security strategy of containment of nations like Iraq to one of pre-emptive action.
"My job is to not only chase down those who have hit, but to anticipate," he told a lunchtime rally in Louisville for Representative Anne M. Northup, who is running for re-election. "We're a battleground."
As part of his campaign to rally the American public, the president will be sending his highest-ranking aides out in full force this weekend to help make his case.
His vice president, secretary of state, secretary of defense and national security adviser will appear on network and cable talk shows on Sunday. While their appearances will coincide with the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, the questions they face, and the messages they offer, are certain to focus on Iraq.
----
Dick Cheney, American Warmonger
In which the pallid, angry veep fervently urges bombing the hell out of Iraq, because he just can't help it
By Mark Morford,
SF Gate Columnist
Friday, September 6, 2002
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/09/06/notes090602.DTL
We have a war-crazed vice president. An addict, a verifiable military junkie. Many of us perhaps do not fully realize this.
We are very unfortunately saddled with one of the least charismatic least interesting most intellectually acrimonious and most desperately hawkish, violence-hungry, soulfully inscrutable vice president in decades, and he wants this country at war, now and always. Oh yes he does.
Here is Dick Cheney, speaking to veterans of foreign wars, hyping up the need for a dramatic, wildly expensive pre-emptive strike against evil Saddam and evil Iraq because Saddam is without a doubt right this minute developing super-evil weapons of mass destruction and probably plans to rain them down on cute American babies and squads of helpless virgin cheerleaders at patriotic college football games any minute now, swear.
Here is Cheney, pounding his tight little fist on the podium and scowling hard and looking like a sad cross between the Pillsbury Doughboy and a mortician, trying not to get too agitated lest the defibrillator kick in, urging war war war now now now and never you mind how Iraq hasn't had weapons-grade plutonium to make nukes in well over a decade, thanks to ongoing UN intervention. This does not matter.
And never you mind how, even if Saddam has developed ugly biological weapons, and even if he were utterly foolish enough to want to aim them at the U.S., his paltry and utterly decimated military doesn't have a single rusty fighter jet or decent missile or otherwise remotely capable delivery method in its entire depleted force to effectively deploy such chemicals any further than a religious zealot can spit.
Does Iraq have chemical weapons? Oh goodness yes, swears an ever-petulant, oddly inanimate Dick. But then again, so do we. And so does Iran. And North Korea.
Shhh. We don't care about them. They do not threaten our oil relations. They do not offer the tantalizing and almost irresistible prospect of unobstructed access to that precious black lucre if we can just overthrow Saddam and set up a nice puppet government, just like -- once more, with feeling -- Afghanistan.
And Iran and North Korea, they do not snicker at us and call us names while openly mocking our attempts to further crush an already pre-crushed Afghan nation, despite how insodoing we apparently thoroughly screwed up and inadvertently allowed thousands of al-Queda fighters to escape into neighboring countries as we pondered how best to turn large Afghan rubble into smaller Afghan rubble. Whoops.
Here is Cheney, calling for quick attack right now let's get that paper tiger boys go go go, despite increased outcry and resistance and many, many voices of dissent, many from his very own conservative political party. Not to mention the complete lack of a single U.S. ally that supports the idea of such an attack. Not one. And why? Because there is simply no verifiable proof Iraq is any sort of significant threat.
But Dick shall not be deterred. He knows no other way. He is a military-manic businessman who raked in millions as CEO of Halliburton, setting up numerous oily deals with Iraq (and Saddam himself) not so long ago, and he knows the possibilities. Dick bleeds slippery military-industrial blood, eats dove ideology like raw jerky, dreams in Technicolor explosions. This is our vice president. And he does not really care what you think.
Because Dick fully realizes how much money there is to be made by his (and Dubya's) grinning corporate cronies if we can just find a way to keep the tanks rolling. Corporate America is already as giddy as schoolgirls at all those multibillion-dollar homeland security contracts coming their way, the biggest federal expenditure since the Cold War. Why stop there? Hey, now that you mention it, North Korea is acting sort of uppity. Hmm.
At some point we must step back and realize that the second most powerful man in the world -- the one who, as everyone knows, substantially controls every decision made by the most powerful man in the world, which hence makes him the de facto most powerful man in the world shhh don't tell Geedubya or he might have a tantrum -- is an outright war-eager hawk, a certifiable military addict, hell-bent on keeping America deeply and perhaps irrevocably engaged in war for as long as his cardio-Duracells have juice.
And we have to realize there is no one in the upper Bush administration who is acting as a balancing voice, who is calling for peace, perhaps urging a major rethinking of our oil and military policies, someone of significant intellectual depth and compassion who understands the nuances of our voracious foreign policy and if you said Colin Powell you haven't seen the pictures, all slumped shoulders and vacant eyes and impotent trips to Israel, emasculated and exhausted. Powell is Cheney's favorite footstool.
So here is Dick Cheney, howling into a vacuum, calling for more and increased violence and major expenditure and further stirring of anti-US hate in the face of almost unanimous global opposition. And Rumsfeld is grinning like mad.
And Bush, well, he's on the horn to his dad every night, slumping in the Oval Office chair as the old man advises and snickers and grumbles about old grudges against Saddam and how we need to rip him a new one dag-nabbit. Poor Dubya is getting it from both sides, his two main puppeteers, urging war, as the world frowns, shakes its head, sighs.
-- Thoughts for the author? E-mail him. mailto:mmorford@sfgate.com
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
U.S. Seeks to Broaden Peacekeeping
Pentagon Supports International Forces Outside Afghan Capital
By Vernon Loeb and Thomas e. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, September 6, 2002; Page A22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43132-2002Sep5?language=printer
Senior Bush administration officials yesterday endorsed expansion of an international peacekeeping force in Afghanistan and hinted at deeper, broader and possibly longer U.S. involvement in the country after a gunman attempted to assassinate President Hamid Karzai in Kandahar and powerful bombs rocked Kabul, the Afghan capital.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz issued the Pentagon's first explicit endorsement of deploying peacekeepers outside of Kabul in a speech yesterday morning at the Brookings Institution and said that the international force could be used to patrol outside the capital and assist new units of the Afghan army that the U.S. military is helping train.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the special White House envoy for Afghanistan, indicated deep concern for security in Afghanistan and said the administration is considering a variety of ways to bolster security in Kabul and elsewhere in the country.
He ruled out the use of U.S. forces in Afghanistan to expand the International Security Assistance Force -- a step numerous administration critics say is crucial to improving security throughout the country.
But Khalilzad said steps are being considered to accelerate the training of Afghan forces, and Wolfowitz disclosed that State Department Foreign Service officers have already been stationed in several regional centers to work with U.S. Special Forces in diffusing local conflicts. The U.S. military has 8,000 troops in the country who are not part of the peacekeeping force but have been involved in a variety of operations from combat to school construction.
Defense and intelligence officials in Washington said they do not know who was behind yesterday's attacks, which underscored the precarious security situation in Afghanistan and the enormous challenges that remain in reconstructing the impoverished, war-devastated nation.
The security situation in Afghanistan is better than it was a year ago, Khalilzad said, "but we have a long way to go."
President Bush expressed relief that Karzai had not been injured in the assassination attempt and said he is looking forward to meeting with Karzai next week at the United Nations in New York.
"We're not leaving," Bush said of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan during a Republican fundraiser in Louisville.
Barnett R. Rubin, a New York University expert on Afghanistan, said that yesterday's bombings in Kabul were more significant than the July assassination of Afghan Vice President Abdul Qadir because they are the worst yet in a growing series of terrorist attacks in the capital.
"This shows there is now an underground devoted to violence and disruption, probably to try to drive out the foreigners and destabilize the government," said Rubin, who traveled around Afghanistan last month.
He and other experts also said they believe that support for the ousted Taliban regime is coming back in southern and eastern Afghanistan.
"People in the Pashtun areas are increasingly resentful," said Rubin, and tend to believe that the U.S. military has a bias against them.
Wolfowitz, the Pentagon's number two official, said the administration's top security issue in Afghanistan remains finding a country to assume leadership of the International Security Assistance Force once Turkey's six-month commitment expires in December. He also called on the international community "to provide the leadership and resources necessary" to expand the peacekeeping force outside of Kabul, where its activities are now confined.
Administration critics, who have long argued that the U.S. government should be more heavily engaged in "nation building" in Afghanistan, welcomed Wolfowitz's endorsement of expanding the ISAF but called on the Pentagon to provide troops to the force.
"I think the ISAF ought to be led by the United States," said Ivo H. Daalder, a National Security Council official in the Clinton administration who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "This notion that we want to expand but nobody was willing to contribute [came about] because we weren't willing to lead."
Bill Durch, a senior associate at the Stimson Center in Washington and a peacekeeping expert, said the administration must be willing to commit some of the U.S. troops in Afghanistan or some other form of logistical and financial support needed to expand the ISAF.
"We have to ante up something that's tangible and on the ground for an expanded force," said Durch, who has drafted a prototype plan for expanding the force that is circulating among policy experts in Washington. "We cannot simply stand on the sidelines and encourage others to do this."
-------- africa
Powell Warns of Reduction In Aid to Oil-Rich Angola
Country Must Tend to War Victims, He Says
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 6, 2002; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43762-2002Sep5?language=printer
LUANDA, Angola, Sept. 5 -- Secretary of State Colin L. Powell warned Angolan officials today that the apparent end of their country's 27-year civil war will require the oil-rich government to shoulder more of the burden of caring for former combatants and 4 million people displaced by fighting.
In a one-hour discussion with President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, Powell suggested the United States would soon begin to reduce direct humanitarian assistance to Angola, which totals $100 million a year. He told dos Santos to begin rooting out corruption, which skims $1 billion in oil revenue a year, allow political opposition to flourish and take other steps that would attract foreign investments.
"In the short term, there is a very real need for humanitarian assistance," a senior State Department official said. "But in the long term, Secretary Powell emphasized that you have to take the wealth you have and use it for your own people."
Powell's visit coincided with a U.N.-sponsored effort to foster reconciliation talks between the formerly Marxist government and rebel forces that fought for power for more than a quarter-century -- with U.S. support for nearly two decades of the conflict.
In rapid succession, Powell met with dos Santos, presided over the U.N.-sponsored meeting between the government and former rebels, heard moving stories from children who had lost their parents in the war and broke ground on a new U.S. embassy. The current embassy is a group of trailers decorated with a pair of fake pink flamingos.
The government reached a cease-fire agreement with the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, or UNITA, in April after the rebels' leader, Jonas Savimbi, was killed in an ambush by government soldiers. But previous agreements between UNITA and the government have failed to take hold, and the two sides disagree about how rapidly political and economic reforms can occur.
Dos Santos was receptive to Powell's message, the senior U.S. official said. He acknowledged the need to establish a pluralistic society, including accepting UNITA as "a serious political party," and he "completely agreed" with the idea of moving Angola's economy from a centrally planned system to a more market-oriented approach.
An official at the U.S. Embassy said officials expect to begin weaning Angola off direct U.S. aid within 12 to 18 months. The United States would continue to provide technical assistance in such areas as helping locate land mines and ensuring that former rebels receive deeds for farms.
U.S. officials say UNITA's forces -- 80,000 troops and about 200,000 family members -- have disarmed and moved into 36 camps where they have been given shelter and health care. Officials say they hope to begin reintegrating them into society.
Angola has one of the fastest-growing economies in Africa, largely because of its oil production. The country already exports about the same amount of oil to the United States as Kuwait.
But Angola's $6 billion in annual oil revenue has not improved the lives of many of the country's 13 million people. Per capita annual income is about $270, making Angola one of the poorest countries in the world. Four million Angolans have been displaced from their homes by the civil war, and half a million are close to starvation.
The U.S. Embassy official said about $1 billion in oil income, or about 15 percent of Angola's gross national product, goes unaccounted for every year. He expressed skepticism that Angolan officials are serious about reform and appear more inclined to rely on oil money to lessen Angola's dependence on international lending agencies that demand political and economic restructuring in return for loans.
After leaving Angola, Powell flew to Gabon, where he walked briefly down an elephant trail in a rain forest to celebrate the government's decision to set aside 10 percent of its territory to create 13 national parks. The United States is providing $36 million -- which will be matched by private sources -- for the Gabonese plan and to encourage other Central African nations to also set aside territory for
-------- arms sales
U.S. OKs $520M in Weapons to Taiwan
The Associated Press
Friday, September 6, 2002; 7:34 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A44670-2002Sep6?language=printer
TAIPEI, Taiwan - A U.S. defense agency said it has approved the sale of $520 million worth of weapons to Taiwan, a package that includes 631 missiles for helicopters and jets.
The deal could strain U.S.-China relations because Beijing fiercely opposes advanced arms sales to Taiwan. Chinese leaders consider the self-ruled island to be a part of China and believe that selling weapons delays peaceful unification.
Taiwan is interested in buying 182 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement this week. The missiles and related equipment - sold by Raytheon Systems Corp. in Tucson, Ariz. - would cost $36 million and would be used by F-16 jets, the statement said.
The agency - part of the Department of Defense - evaluates foreign requests for weapons sales and advises whether arms sales would be consistent with U.S. law and policy.
The agency endorsed Taiwan's proposed purchase of the missiles and other equipment, saying the arms "will not affect the basic military balance in the region." But the agency added that the sale has not been completed.
The Taiwanese also might buy 449 Hellfire II air-to-surface missiles for their Super Cobra and OH-58D helicopters, the agency said. The primary supplier of the missiles and related equipment - worth about $60 million - would be Lockheed Martin Electronics and Missiles of Orlando, Fla., the agency said.
Also included in the proposed deal are 54 assault amphibious vehicles and related equipment, the agency said. The bill would come to $250 million. The prime contractor would be United Defense LP Ground Systems Division of Santa Clara, Calif.
The shopping list is completed with the proposed sale of $174 million worth of material and spare parts for U.S.-made aircraft, missiles and communication equipment that Taiwan has purchased, the agency said.
On the Net:
For more about the Defense Security Cooperation Agency: http://www.dsca.osd.mil
-------- biological weapons
Sickening specter of a smallpox attack
Washington Times
EDITORIAL
September 6, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20020906-2148048.htm
It has been centuries since native North Americans were so vulnerable to the sickening sword of a smallpox attack. The first time it was so used was when Lord Jefferey Amherst, commander of the British forces in North America during the French and Indian War (1754-1763) approved sending smallpox-infected blankets and handkerchiefs to the Ottawa tribe attacking Fort Pitt. It had the desired effect subsequent epidemics probably killed more than 50 percent of affected tribes, a consequence of Native Americans having practically no immunity to the smallpox-causing variola virus.
The U.S. population now has about that same level of immunity, an unintended consequence of the extremely successful worldwide smallpox eradication campaign. The last known naturally acquired case of the disease was seen in 1977; smallpox vaccinations in the United States ended even earlier (1972). Unfortunately, that has made Americans highly vulnerable to any terrorist or autocrat who dares to use such an indiscriminate weapon.
A bit of background may be useful. Vaccines work because they present the "police" (actually B-cells and T-cells) of the immune system with the equivalent of molecular most-wanted posters. When "criminals" like the variola virus break in, the B-cells and T-cells already know what to look for, so they are able to make the "arrest" - destroy the invader, before damage is done, resulting in immunity. Immunity is lost when cells "forget" what invaders look like. It's not clear how long the "forgetting" process takes, so while it is clear that those unvaccinated are vulnerable to smallpox, it's not certain how many of those vaccinated Americans over age 30 retain even partial smallpox resistance.
Given the uncertainties involved, it's almost impossible to determine the casualties that a smallpox attack would cause. Variables range from the climate under which smallpox is released (it survives longer in cooler temperatures) to the number of individuals with compromised immune systems in an exposed population.
However, it is clear that even a small release of the variola virus - say aerosols sprayed simultaneously at several major airports - would have catastrophic consequences. Under optimum conditions, an infinitesimal amount of the virus can cause an infection, and historical data suggests that a single infected individual can transmit the disease to up to a score of others during their most infectious period (between seven and ten days from the onset of the characteristic rash). Those sickened could also be vulnerable to secondary infections from bacteria, but that is not a common occurrence, according to a consensus statement by smallpox experts published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in 1999. Smallpox will kill about 30 percent of the sickened individuals who fail to receive the vaccine within four days of virus exposure.
Supportive therapy is the only palliative available to those unfortunates who miss the vaccination window. There's no antiviral, and in fact, researchers still aren't exactly certain of the exact method by which the variola virus kills. The vaccine isn't perfectly safe. While the U.S. vaccination campaign was in full swing in 1968, about one in every 300,000 persons vaccinated came down with encephalitis, and about one-quarter of those (that is, one in every 1.2 million) died as a result.
So how should the risks be weighed? A small number of Americans will almost certainly perish in the course of a mandatory vaccination campaign, but a vast number of unvaccinated Americans will certainly die in a smallpox attack. Sen. Bill Frist, a heart and lung transplant surgeon, has made a number of sensible suggestions in this regard.
Mr. Frist proposed permitting each American to make an informed choice on vaccinations as soon as enough licensed vaccine is available. That might be as early as December. The senator has further proposed making vaccinations mandatory for military personnel who might be at high risk, but voluntary for everyone else, beginning with first responders and other health professionals.
Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson and his top experts have recommended voluntary smallpox vaccinations for first responders health professionals and police officers and firefighters but that proposal does not go far enough. As Mr. Frist has pointed out, voluntary national vaccinations will reduce the number of susceptible Americans and increase the ability of professionals to contain an attack.
Regardless of how many individuals are vaccinated, health professionals will need to be provided with ample doses of vaccine in the case of an attack. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention plans to apply a "ring" strategy to any smallpox outbreak regardless of how many individuals are initially exposed, but the logistics of such a vaccination campaign remain to be established.
But, as Mr. Frist argues, notwithstanding any other government policy, every American must have the right to decide for his or her family whether to vaccinate or not. Now that there are enough vaccines to go around for every American, it's not up to the government to withhold them from a free people.
-------- business
Lockheed's Antitrust Worries 'Valid'
Air Force Official Shares Concern Over Northrop's $7.8 Billion Purchase of TRW
By Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 6, 2002; Page E05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43276-2002Sep5?language=printer
Defense giant Lockheed Martin Corp.'s concerns about rival Northrop Grumman Corp.'s planned $7.8 billion acquisition of TRW Inc. are valid, a top Air Force official said yesterday.
"I think they do have a legitimate concern and I think it needs to be addressed in some serious way," Air Force Undersecretary Peter B. Teets told Reuters. Teets's spokeswoman, Angela Billings, confirmed his statement.
Teets is former president and chief operating officer of Lockheed. He is not involved in reviewing the acquisition but would like to be, Billings said.
TRW agreed to be acquired in July after Northrop Grumman raised its offer by $13 a share, to $60. It outbid BAE Systems North America, Raytheon Co. and General Dynamics Corp.
Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin did not put in a bid. Company officials say they think the acquisition would give Northrop control of most of the important components used to build satellites for telecommunications, missile launch detection, and collecting images and electronic intelligence, according to industry sources familiar with Lockheed's argument. Northrop could then block Lockheed's access to important technology and force it out of the business, they said.
"Our concerns relate to antitrust issues associated with the merger," a Lockheed official said.
"Lockheed Martin does not oppose the merger provided the government includes provisions that ensure Lockheed Martin's access to payloads."
The Justice Department will rule on the acquisition, but takes the Pentagon's opinion into account. Within the Pentagon, the decision will be made by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz, who is collecting impact statements from the armed services.
Teets heads the National Reconnaissance Office, which designs, builds and operates U.S. spy satellites.
Northrop officials said they still expect to close the deal by year-end and plan to give competitors access to technology, said Albert Myers, Northrop's executive in charge of mergers and acquisitions.
"The most likely outcome is that the transaction is approved, but with considerable constraints on how Northrop can use its dominant position in the payload part of the business," said Loren Thompson, head of the Lexington Institute, a Washington think tank.
-------- chemical weapons
Trespasser Alert Shuts Chemical Depot
By PAUL FOY
Associated Press Writer
AP correspondent Ron Fournier contributed to this report.
SEPTEMBER 06, 2002
http://wire.ap.org/?SLUG=CHEMICAL%2dDEPOT%2dALARM
TOOELE, Utah (AP) - An apparent intruder spotted at an Army depot where chemical weapons are stored never got close to the area where nerve gas and other chemicals are kept, officials said.
A terrorist alert was sounded Thursday, but Col. Peter Cooper, commander of the Deseret Chemical Depot, said the security of the depot was never at risk. Normal operations were to resume Friday morning.
``At this time we cannot confirm an intruder,'' Cooper said Thursday. ``We're not sure if it was an employee who was not in the right area.''
The person fled after being spotted within the heavily guarded perimeter by four soldiers during two separate patrols, Cooper said.
In Washington, a senior administration official speaking on condition of anonymity said there was no evidence that anything was stolen or that terrorism was involved.
The apparent trespasser, dressed in dark clothing, was sighted within a fenced area between the stored chemicals and the outer perimeter, authorities said.
Sheriff's deputies set up a roadblock around the depot after the alarm sounded at 9:24 a.m. and state law officers combed the grounds into the night before calling off their search for the possible intruder.
The depot, which is about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City and covers 19,000 acres of mostly barren, wind-swept desert, has been destroying a stockpile of deadly chemical weapons since 1996.
Earlier this year, it finished destroying the largest stockpile of sarin nerve gas in the United States. It is scheduled to destroy 1,300 tons of VX, a more toxic but less volatile nerve agent, and 6,100 tons of mustard gas, a blister agent that can dissolve tissue on contact.
On the Net:
Depot: http://www.tead.army.mil
-------- colombia
Key Secret Police Official Is Assassinated in Colombia
New York Times
September 6, 2002
By JUAN FORERO
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/06/international/06CND-COLO.html
BOGOTÁ, Colombia, Sept. 6 - The chief of the secret police of a leading Colombian province was shot dead Thursday by gunmen on motorcycles, ending the career of a diligent prosecutor and judge who had handled some of the country's most high-profile criminal cases.
Fernando Mancilla, 45, was shot 16 times as the gunmen pulled up alongside his car in the city of Medellín in Antioquia Province about 8 a.m. and opened fire. Mr. Mancilla, who had recently been named chief of the Administrative Department of Security, the country's secret police, in the province, was to have attended his swearing in ceremony in Bogotá hours later.
Mr. Mancilla was alone at the time of his death. State-sponsored bodyguards had not been assigned to protect him, as is usually the custom for high-ranking law enforcement authorities.
"I do not understand why he did not have security, especially since he had already started this new high-risk post," said Hernán Alonso Mazo, an official in the prosecutor's office in Medellín.
As a judge and prosecutor in the early 1990's, Mr. Mancilla investigated major money laundering cases, the internal workings of the cocaine cartel led by Pablo Escobar and the killing of the Colombian soccer star Andres Escobar, who was assassinated after he inadvertently scored a goal against his own team in a 1994 World Cub game against the United States.
It was unclear today who was responsible for the slaying, but Medellín's mayor, Luis Pérez, offered a $250,000 reward for anyone with information that led to the arrest of Mr. Mancilla's killers. "The death of this person who dedicated himself to serving the citizens and doing justice in the country hurts us," the mayor told reporters.
The cocaine cartel that Mr. Mancilla investigated a decade ago faded after Mr. Escobar's death at the hands of the police in 1993, but drug dealers still abound. The city's marginal neighborhoods are also home to various units of both leftist rebel groups and their archenemies, right-wing paramilitaries, both of which might have targeted Mr. Mancilla.
"We'll go beyond what is possible to find those responsible," Gen. Mario Montoya, who commands army troops in Antioquia, said.
The slaying comes as the country's new president, Álvaro Uribe Velez, embarks on a military buildup aimed at bringing order to Colombia's lawless countryside. Mr. Uribe has promised to double the combat strength of the army, and he has already begun a civilian informers network that will provide intelligence information on rebel movements to the security forces.
The rebels of Colombia's largest insurgency, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, have responded with bombings and killings throughout the country.
-------- drug war
Canadian Panel Backs Legalizing Marijuana
By DeNeen L. Brown
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, September 6, 2002; Page A26
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42937-2002Sep5?language=printer
TORONTO, Sept. 5 -- A Canadian Senate committee has proposed that Canada legalize marijuana, allow it to be grown by licensed dealers and perhaps be sold in corner stores to people 16 or older. Such a policy would make Canada one of the world's most tolerant countries toward the drug.
In a report, the committee found that marijuana was less harmful than alcohol and should not be treated as a criminal problem, but as a public health issue. The report called for amnesty for people convicted of marijuana possession.
"Whether or not an individual uses marijuana should be a personal choice that is not subject to criminal penalties," Sen. Pierre Claude Nolin, chairman of the committee, said at a news conference. "But we have come to the conclusion that, as a drug, it should be regulated by the state much as we do for wine and beer."
It was not clear whether the committee's proposal would become law. But it nonetheless prompted a debate in Canada and the United States about whether it would promote drug use here and increase drug trafficking to the United States.
"Canada is a sovereign nation, of course," John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said in a statement. "All I can talk about is our experience here in the United States with marijuana and the painful knowledge we've gained about its effects."
"We know that marijuana is a harmful drug, particularly for young people," he said. "We also know that if you make it more available, you'll get more marijuana use. More use leads to more addiction and more problems."
The Canadian Police Association denounced the committee's recommendations. "We've described this report as a back-to-school gift for drug pushers," said David Griffin, executive officer of the association, which represents 28,000 police officers.
Griffin said that Canada surpassed Mexico as a supplier of marijuana to the United States. "The more liberalized our drug laws, the more that industry will grow in producing drugs for the United States," he said.
He cited an international narcotics control board report that found that Canada produces 800 tons of the drug annually, of which more than 60 percent enters the illegal market in the United States.
Canada has long had a more tolerant approach to the drug than the United States. Police here often turn a blind eye to possession. And last year, Canada passed a law allowing people with serious illnesses to use marijuana for medical purposes if they obtained a government exemption.
Several groups in Canada praised the report, saying that prohibition of marijuana fuels crime. "With prohibition, we are giving a gift to organized crime," said Eugene Oscapella, a lawyer in Ottawa and a founding member of the Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy, a research group. "The Senate evidence is quite clear -- the law has little impact on the way people use drugs."
"The Senate report is intelligent, rational and well-researched," he said. "It shows some politicians with spine."
The proposal now goes to the Canadian Senate for debate and to various ministries. Several ministry officials have said they will consider it, but some analysts have expressed doubt the plan will become law.
-------- iraq
100 jets join attack on Iraq
By Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent,
UK Telegraph
06/09/2002
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/09/06/wirq06.xml/
About 100 American and British aircraft took part in an attack on Iraq's major western air defence installation yesterday in the biggest single operation over the country for four years.
The raid appeared to be a prelude to the type of special forces operations that would have to begin weeks before a possible American-led war. It was launched two days before a war summit between President George W Bush and Tony Blair in America.
The Prime Minister promised that Britain would be alongside the Americans "when the shooting starts".
The raid seemed designed to destroy air defences to allow easy access for special forces helicopters to fly into Iraq via Jordan or Saudi Arabia to hunt down Scud missiles before a possible war within the next few months.
Although only 12 aircraft dropped precision-guided bombs on to the H3 airfield, 240 miles west of Baghdad and close to Jordan, many support aircraft took part.
The strikes were carried out by nine American F15 Strike Eagles and three RAF Tornado GR4 ground attack aircraft flying from Kuwait.
At least seven types of aircraft took part. Fighter cover was provided by US F-16 Fighting Falcons and RAF Tornado F3s from Saudi Arabia. RAF VC10 tanker aircraft flying from Bahrain were among the support aircraft.
These also included EA6b Prowlers, which send out signals to confuse enemy radar, and E3a Awacs aircraft that co-ordinate operations and carry out reconnaissance of any response.
RAF Tornados also took part in the reconnaissance. American central command refused to go into detail about the number of aircraft involved in the raid.
It said: "Coalition strikes in the no-fly zones are executed as a self-defence measure in response to Iraqi hostile threats and acts against coalition forces and their aircraft."
The Pentagon said that the raid was launched in "response to recent Iraqi hostile acts against coalition aircraft monitoring the southern no-fly zone".
Iraq had made 130 attempts to shoot down coalition aircraft this year.
The Ministry of Defence in London refused to confirm that RAF aircraft had taken part, but defence sources said that Tornado ground attack and reconnaissance aircraft played a key role. The attack on what the American central command described as an "air defence command and control facility" was the first time that a target in western Iraq had been attacked during the patrols of the southern no-fly zone.
Until yesterday, all strikes had been against air defence sites in the south, around Basra, Amara, Nassairya and Baghdad.
Central command said it was still assessing the damage caused by the attack. If the air defence installation was not destroyed, a second raid is expected.
As well as blinding Iraqi radar to any special forces helicopters, the loss of the H3 installation would allow allied aircraft mounting major raids on Iraq a trouble-free route into the country.
In a further sign that America was preparing for war, a Pentagon official confirmed that heavy armour, ammunition and other equipment had been moved to Kuwait from huge stores in Qatar.
Thomas White, the army secretary, said: "We have done a lot with pre-positioned stocks in the Gulf, making sure that they are in the right spot to support whatever the president wants to do."
Any war on Iraq is likely to begin with a gradual intensification of attacks on air defences. But yesterday's raid appears more likely to be related to the special forces Scud hunts.
It was the SAS which specialised in the attempts to hunt down the Scuds during the Gulf war. Although the raids were largely unsuccessful, they spawned a series of rival books by former members of the regiment.
Mr Bush, speaking in Louisville, Kentucky, said that, besides having talks with Mr Blair, he would be meeting the leaders of France, Russia, China and Canada over the next few days. He would tell them that "history has called us into action" to oust Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq.
He said he was looking forward to the talks, but suggested that the US could do the job on its own if need be.
"I am a patient man," he said. "I've got tools; we've got tools at our disposal. We cannot let the world's worst leaders blackmail, threaten, hold freedom-loving nations hostage with the world's worst weapons."
----
U.N.: Iraq Sites Under Construction
By George Jahn
Associated Press Writer
Friday, September 6, 2002; 11:20 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A48754-2002Sep6?language=printer
VIENNA, Austria - The head of a U.N. weapons inspection team banned by Baghdad said Friday that satellite photos of Iraq show unexplained construction at sites the team used to visit in its search for evidence that Saddam Hussein was trying to develop nuclear arms.
Jacques Baute did not offer details about the construction or the sites, and he and other U.N. inspections experts emphasized that no conclusions on whether Iraq had restarted nuclear weapons programs could be deduced from the images.
"We can't draw any conclusions from a new building or a new road," said Mark Gwozdecky, a spokesman for the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, a U.N. agency that oversees inspections of nuclear programs.
However, the White House expressed concern, and independent experts said the images were a worrisome indication of how little control the outside world has over potentially lethal developments in Iraq since Baghdad banned outside inspectors four years ago.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the photos could indicate the Iraqi president "may seek to develop nuclear weapons and may be making progress." He called the agency's comments "troubling."
Independent Iraq analysts said while the existence of such images was common U.S. government knowledge, the photos would be welcomed by the Bush administration as it seeks to wear down worldwide resistance to the idea of toppling Saddam by force.
"I think that this is basically a preview of ... the type of information that the U.S. government is going to be using to make the case for doing something about Iraq," said John Pike, of the nonprofit group GlobalSecurity.org, based in Alexandria, Va.
The last U.N. inspectors pulled out of Iraq in December 1998, ahead of bombing by the United States and Britain. But even though Baghdad has refused to let U.N. teams looking for nuclear or other prohibited weapons programs back in since then, monitoring has continued through satellite photography and other intelligence gathering.
Baute, a French physicist and leader of the U.N. nuclear inspection team, said in a telephone interview that reviews of commercial satellite images since 1999 show "some buildings that have been reconstructed ... and some new buildings (that) have been erected" at sites its team visited before the ban.
Without identifying them, Baute described the sites as having potential "dual-use capabilities," meaning they could potentially be locations for both civilian and military nuclear programs.
In a related development, a report released on Friday and drawn up by Hans Blix, chief inspector of the team assigned to look for chemical and biological weapons, said Iraq has not been reporting to the United Nations its "dual-use" imported goods - items that can be used in peaceful and military programs.
In the absence of inspections, Blix said, the U.N. inspection agency is stepping up other ways of monitoring Iraq - including investigating new sources for commercial satellite imagery and seeking more photos from governments on activities and changes at suspected weapons sites.
The United States has accused Iraq of trying to rebuild its banned weapons programs and of supporting terrorism, and has called for Saddam's ouster.
In seeking international support for a military strike on Iraq, the Bush administration contends Saddam's pursuit of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in defiance of his disarmament pledge after the Gulf War is a powerful case for a regime change.
Facing opposition from traditional allies to such an attack, Bush has scheduled consultations with heads of countries sitting on the U.N. Security Council to establish whether new U.N. pressure can be brought to bear that would force Baghdad to again allow weapons inspectors in.
On Friday, Bush telephoned leaders of China, Russia and France. Fleischer, the White House spokesman, said the president stressed that "Saddam Hussein was a threat and that we need to work together to make the world peaceful."
Bush was scheduled to meet Saturday with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, the only major U.S. ally supporting Saddam's ouster through military means. In comments broadcast Friday, Blair reiterated his backing, saying Britain was prepared to shed blood to support the United States.
But other traditional allies remained defiant. A large delegation from Turkey arrived in Baghdad on Friday, just a day after Arab states declared their allegiance to Iraq and called U.S. threats against Saddam threats against the whole Arab world.
The U.S. administration is likely to ask the U.N. Security Council to adopt a resolution setting a deadline for Iraq to admit weapons inspectors or risk punitive action.
Officials of the Vienna-based U.N. agency declined to give details about the sites or when the images were taken, saying only that satellite photos of previously inspected areas were continually being upgraded.
But Gary Napier of Space Imaging in Thornton, Colo. - one of the companies on contract with the U.N. inspection agency - said his company's satellite photos are able to provide close-up details of objects a little larger than a yard, as long as the backdrop is a contrasting color. He said a single image covers an area nearly seven miles in length.
Pike, of GlobalSecurity.org, said the images from Iraq will not provide "a smoking gun image that clearly ... shows they're working on atomic bombs."
"What we are going to see is a lot of buildings with a lot of locations associated with their (suspected) missile program or their nuclear program, and these buildings have either been rebuilt or continue to be used," he said.
"All of it proves that they have a lot of facilities where you would suspect they would be working on prohibited weapons."
On the Net:
IAEA, www.iaea.org
Global Security, www.GlobalSecurity.org
----
Arab League vows support for Iraq in military confrontation with U.S.
Rajiv Chandrasekaran,
The Washington Post
Friday, September 6, 2002
International Herald Tribune
http://www.iht.com/articles/69852.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43145-2002Sep5.html CAIRO The foreign ministers of 20 Arab nations jointly pledged Thursday to support Iraq in its showdown with the United States, warning that American threats against Saddam Hussein's regime were threats to the entire Arab world.
Handing a diplomatic triumph to Baghdad at the conclusion of a two-day Arab League meeting here, the ministers issued a resolution declaring their "total rejection of the threat of aggression on Arab nations, in particular Iraq, reaffirming that these threats to the security and safety of any Arab country are considered a threat to Arab national security."
The ministers' stance is the latest and strongest sign of opposition among Arab nations to any U.S. military action aimed at toppling Saddam. The support of at least some Arab countries, particularly those that share land borders with Iraq, is regarded by many military analysts as crucial to a U.S. ground invasion.
Foreign Minister Naji Sabri of Iraq lauded the Arab ministers' resolution as he left the closed-door meeting. Arab nations, he said, voiced a "total rejection of the aggressive intentions of the United States."
Although some Arab governments have urged Baghdad to permit UN weapons inspectors to return in an effort to defuse the crisis, the ministers' statement Thursday did not specifically mention the inspectors. Taking a more deferential tone, the council of ministers instead said it "welcomes the initiatives by Iraq to forge a dialogue with the United Nations."
The ministers also echoed Baghdad's recent call for a "comprehensive settlement" of all of its disputes with the United Nations, calling for an end to UN trade sanctions imposed on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Iraq, which insists that its stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons have already been destroyed, has flip-flopped on whether it will allow weapons inspectors back into the country. After dismissing the idea, senior Iraqi officials said earlier this week that they would be willing to consider the return of inspectors if sanctions were lifted at the same time.
The UN Security Council, which imposed the sanctions after the Gulf War, has insisted that its inspectors verify that Iraq has stopped building weapons of mass destruction and has destroyed its stockpiles before the sanctions can be lifted. Iraq contends that it has ceased its biological and chemical weapons programs, but it has nonetheless forbidden UN inspectors from entering the country since 1998.
The Arab League's secretary general, Amr Moussa, said a military strike against Iraq would "open the gates of hell" in the Middle East. Western and Arab military analysts predict that Iraq may seek to respond to any U.S. attack by launching missiles at Israel in an effort to spark a wider conflict in the region.
Despite their pledge of support for Iraq's stance, the foreign ministers did not discuss whether they would lend military assistance to Iraq if it were attacked. A spokesman for the group said the issue was "too hypothetical."
No rush to war, senator says
David Stout of the New York Times Service reported from Washington:
The Senate majority leader, Tom Daschle, promised Thursday that lawmakers would not be rushed into a decision on Iraq and would conduct a thorough debate "whether that takes a week, two weeks, a month or longer."
"We're going to do it right, or we're not going to do it at all," Daschle said a day after Bush pledged to seek formal approval from Congress before taking action against Iraq and its leader.
Senator Daschle, Democrat of South Dakota, made it clear in response to questions that he would not succumb to time pressures. "I'm more concerned about getting this done right than getting it done quickly," he said. "I think getting it done right means involving the international community."
Daschle spoke at about the same time that Bush was making an appearance in Louisville on behalf of Republican candidates in Kentucky. The president devoted a passage in his speech to Iraq.
Bush emphasized his commitment to seeking advice and support on whatever course he decided upon, and he noted that he would consult several foreign leaders, including Tony Blair of Britain on Saturday.
The president gave no hint that he had backed away from his stated desire to see a change of leadership in Iraq. "We can't let the world's worst leaders blackmail, threaten, hold freedom-loving nations hostage with the world's worst weapons," he said to applause.
Daschle said Bush faced a big test on Sept. 12, when he addresses the United Nations. "I would hope he would get a Security Council vote of approval, like his father did," the senator said, referring to the first President Bush's gathering of support for the Gulf war.
But Daschle emphasized that he was not linking United Nations support, or support from other countries, to Capitol Hill support for the White House.
-------- israel / palestine
Israelis Intercept 'Mega-Bomb'
Worries Grow Over Threat of Unconventional Attacks
By Molly Moore and John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, September 6, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43403-2002Sep5.html
JERUSALEM, Sept. 5 -- On the eve of the Jewish New Year, Israeli civilian guards manning a back-road checkpoint today intercepted a vehicle outfitted with what authorities here described as a mega-bomb: 1,300 pounds of explosives, two barrels containing gasoline and metal shards, and a cell phone rigged as the detonator.
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said that had the bombers reached a target, "It would have cost such loss of life that it would have changed almost the entire political situation in one moment."
The bombers' target was unknown to officials, but in the past four months, Israeli authorities have encountered at least a half-dozen efforts to carry out large-scale attacks designed to kill hundreds, even thousands, of Israelis -- similar to the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, officials said. In one case, military commandos discovered a pickup truck packed with 1 1/2 tons of explosives intended to blow up the landmark Azrieli Towers, gleaming side-by-side skyscrapers in downtown Tel Aviv not far from Israel's military headquarters.
Other planned large-scale attacks went undetected by the authorities, however, and failed only because of bungling by the bombers, according to senior Israeli security officials.
With the approaching anniversaries of Sept. 11 and the start of the Palestinian uprising on Sept. 29 two years ago, the Israeli public and security officials have become increasingly apprehensive about a mammoth attack or other unconventional strike that could produce many more fatalities than the suicide bombings that have become the trademark of Palestinian militant groups.
"We know terrorists are always trying to outdo the last attack to continue ratcheting up the fear," Gil Kleiman, spokesman for the Israeli national police, said after this morning's discovery of the explosives-laden automobile. "All the rules are off. Mega-terror is something we're trying to deal with."
The latest example came just after 2 a.m. today when two suspicious vehicles sped past a civilian-patrolled checkpoint near the Israeli town of Pardes Hana, about 30 miles north of Tel Aviv on a dusty, winding road leading out of the West Bank, according to law enforcement officials. The volunteer sentries chased the Volkswagen Golf and Isuzu 4x4, but the two drivers leapt from the vehicles and fled. Police discovered the Isuzu loaded with 1,300 pounds of explosives, two highly flammable barrels of gasoline laced with metal fragments, and the cell phone detonator, which has become a staple of Palestinian explosives.
Sappers detonated the vehicle at the scene and police said they did not know which militant group was responsible for the bomb. Security agencies already had increased alert levels throughout the country out of concern that attackers were preparing to strike during celebrations of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, which begins Friday evening.
Israeli military and security officials said the nation's security forces and emergency preparedness networks have expanded contingency plans for unconventional attacks, in response to evidence that militant Palestinian groups have tried to bolster suicide bombs with rat poison and have experimented with lacing bombs with cyanide and other poisonous chemicals. In two cases, officials said, Palestinians might have used suicide bombers suffering from hepatitis B to infect survivors of the attacks.
Those anxieties have been exacerbated by U.S. threats of another war against Iraq, which many Israeli officials fear would spur President Saddam Hussein to launch a chemical or biological attack against Israel.
"It's not a theoretical question," said Boaz Ganor, executive director of the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya, just outside of Tel Aviv. "There have been concrete plans to execute this kind of attack. No one can turn a blind eye to the real risk."
So far, the highest number of deaths resulting from a single suicide bombing in Israel is the 29 people killed March 27 during a seder at the Park Hotel in the resort of Netanya. Military officials said the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, which asserted responsibility for the bombing, experimented with a bomb containing cyanide for use in that attack, but the cyanide could not endure the heat of the blast.
A spokesman for Hamas, Abdel Aziz Rantissi, denied that the organization had tried to enhance bombs with chemicals, describing the accusation as "propaganda by the Israelis."
"Our organization is not interested at all in using mega-attacks," Rantissi said in a telephone interview, adding that "martyr attacks" -- the Palestinian term for suicide bombings and conventional military-type operations -- "are enough to resist the occupation. We are not thinking at all of using other weapons that are forbidden internationally."
During the last four months, the Israeli military has discovered several huge caches of explosives, and officials said they have linked at least two to specific plots to bomb major buildings.
Two Palestinians captured by Israeli special forces in the West Bank city of Qaqilyah in April led the commandos to the first tangible evidence of plans for a mega-attack: a pickup truck packed with 1 1/2 tons of explosives. The truck was destined for the Azrieli Towers, landmarks of Tel Aviv's skyline 16 miles to the west. The 50- and 46-story buildings include an upscale shopping mall and house the Israeli headquarters of major Western companies, including Philip Morris, AT&T Corp. and British Airways PLC. The plot was reminiscent of the first attack on the World Trade Center, in 1993.
Palestinians interrogated by Israeli security forces said members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine planned to drive the truck into the buildings' basement parking area, then detonate it. Since that discovery, the Azrieli complex and most other major office buildings and malls in Israel have imposed stringent security measures for all vehicles entering parking garages. Even drivers' purses and briefcases are inspected.
Just over two weeks ago, on Aug. 19, soldiers discovered a one-ton cache of explosives and bomb-making ingredients, including acetone and potassium, in a house in the old city warrens of Nablus in the West Bank. The Palestinian city has been under nearly continuous curfew for more than two months and suffered the greatest damage from Israeli forces during incursions last April.
"This could have taken down the Azrieli Towers," said an Israeli regional commander, describing the explosives discovered and detonated by soldiers in Nablus. "This is our twin towers. It's the dream of any terrorist in Nablus."
In at least three other instances, Israeli officials said, Palestinian militants have come perilously close to blowing up their targets: a massive fuel depot near Tel Aviv and two speeding trains.
On May 23, a bomb attached to the underside of a tank truck exploded inside Israel's biggest fuel depot, near a densely populated residential area and the interchange of three major highways. The bomb was detonated by a cell phone, officials said. Military officials now say a major disaster was averted at the Pi Glilot depot because militants used a truck carrying diesel fuel rather than a much more flammable gasoline tanker for the operation.
"They picked the wrong truck," said a senior military official. "This was the difference between a mega-terrorist attack and a flop. If the truck had been gasoline, it would have ended in thousands of deaths."
Two attempts to bomb passenger trains this summer also failed, military officials said. In one case, the bombers set up the bomb on the wrong track and detonated it just as the train whisked by on a parallel track. In the second, the bombers set off the explosive under the thickly plated locomotive, injuring the driver but leaving the train and tracks intact.
Israeli officials two weeks ago accused a Hamas cell operating from Arab East Jerusalem of helping carry out the bombings of the fuel depot and the two trains.
Asked to respond to those allegations, Hamas spokesman Rantissi said: "If Israel is blowing up houses in Gaza and Nablus and Ramallah and Bethlehem, then we will do the same. They are striking us in our cities, so why should they be safe in theirs?"
During the past few months, Israeli military, law enforcement and emergency health officials have been conducting drills to prepare for mega-attacks. In June, emergency and security workers simulated an attack on an office high-rise in which a plane crashed into the ninth and 10th stories, followed minutes later by an explosion in the building's basement. Rescue workers estimated that about 400 people would have been killed in a real such attack.
Israeli military and health officials also have focused increasingly on less predictable types of attacks. Doctors discovered over the past year that several suicide bombs have been packed with rat poison, which acts as a blood thinner and causes excessive bleeding in victims hit by tainted shrapnel.
Doctors removing bone fragments of suicide bombers that lodged in the victims of a mall bombing in Netanya and a disco bombing in Tel Aviv last year discovered that the bomber had been carrying hepatitis B and recommended treatment for victims.
Some analysts speculated that the hepatitis carriers had been selected as bombers because of the chance of spreading their disease. But other medical experts said the disease is so common in the Middle East that it was more likely that the bombers were coincidental carriers.
Even so, the findings have heightened concerns that militant Palestinian groups might begin to experiment with new methods of terror.
"There are nonconventional terrorist acts we haven't experienced yet," said a senior Israeli military official. "Chemical, biological, poisoning waters -- all kinds of nightmares. We're trying to find systematic answers, but it doesn't work that way."
At the conclusion of a recent military intelligence briefing on the potential for a mega-attack in Israel, the officer ended the presentation with the admonition, "Reality is beyond imagination," according to an official who attended the session. He then flashed to the closing slide, a photograph of the airliner ripping through the second tower of the World Trade Center.
----
Deterrents that haven't deterred
By Amira Hass,
Ha'aretz Israel,
Friday, September 06, 2002 Elul 29, 5762
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=202232&contrassID=2&subContrassID=4&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=YWednesday
The IDF and Shin Bet claim that demolishing the homes of terror suspects and expelling their families to Gaza is a deterrence that has already yielded results. Such an opinion relies on the ignorance or willful amnesia of the Israeli public.
Senior IDF and Shin Bet officers depend on Israelis not taking note of the fact that for the last two years most of Israel's military activity in the territories has been about deterrence. The punishments meted out were collective and harmed the entire Palestinian population. But the terrorist attacks not only proliferated and became bloodier, but were aimed at ever larger numbers of people, and Palestinian public opinion polls show support for the attackers has not declined.
Here are some of the collective deterrent measures tried in the last two years:
1. In the first weeks of the intifada, characterized mostly by mass demonstrations, stone-throwing and later by Palestinian gunfire in the air, the IDF responded with live fire or with "rubber" bullets that killed scores - including children - and wounded hundreds. The presence of armed Palestinians among the demonstrators and rock-throwers made it easy to loosen the rules of engagement and use lethal fire. The Israel Defense Forces can say they were only responding to fire directed at troops, but have never explained the deaths of civilians - including women and children - far from the scenes of clashes. Nor can they explain snipers killing and wounding people not involved in shootings or even stone-throwing, although they were at the scenes of clashes. Just because the IDF have never examined or investigated these many cases of shootings and have never drawn any conclusions from it, and just because Israelis paid little attention to Palestinian reports of such killings does not alter the Palestinian experience of mass bereavement - meant to be a deterrent - since the start of the intifada.
2. IDF bulldozers have demolished hundreds of homes of people not involved in shootings or bombings - at first, mostly in the refugee camps of Rafah and Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip. The army said armed Palestinians used the houses to shoot from, or built tunnels under the houses for arms smuggling. Thousands of buildings have been seriously damaged by IDF fire. The explanation - they were being used as firing positions against the army. Dozens of other buildings were damaged when the IDF blew up neighboring houses alleged to be the homes of relatives of terrorists, or when it bombed Palestinian Authority facilities. In other words, thousands of Palestinians have already been through the experience of "the deterrence" of demolished homes.
3. For "security reasons" bulldozers and tanks have plowed under thousands of dunams of farm land, uprooted tens of thousands of trees, and demolished greenhouses and wells. The collective emotional anguish over this mass destruction is even more deeply felt than the financial damage.
4. IDF assassinations, starting with the first on November 1, 2001, have accidentally killed civilians, including women and children unlucky enough to be in the area when the wanted men happened to pass. The climax came on July 22 in Gaza in the Air Force bombing to kill Salah Shehadeh, the Hamas military leader. In other words, dozens of families and hundreds of people with nothing to do with terrorism, have been "deterred" by the most costly loss of all - their loved ones.
5. Expulsion to Gaza is portrayed as a deterrent because it will cut people off from their families - exactly what closures and curfews have been doing anyway. The limits on freedom of movement that Israel imposes on the Palestinians gets tighter and tighter, completely disrupting the family lives of three million people. Thousands of elderly parents have not seen their children or grandchildren for a year or more. Family events are held with many members of the family missing. The fact that Israelis don't know and don't care about this doesn't mean the so-called "deterrent" effect isn't felt as a collective punishment by the entire Palestinian population.
The military logic that now holds sway in the government and army says whatever has been tried and didn't deter enough, should be tried more forcefully. In the army and the government are people with imaginations that are feverishly working overtime to devise the most deterring deterrents. Just how long can their mistaken conclusions continue to mislead the Israeli public and the judges of the High Court of Justice?
--------
Israel on High Alert After the Discovery of Huge Bomb
New York Times
September 6, 2002
By SERGE SCHMEMANN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/06/international/06CND-MIDE.html
JERUSALEM, Sept. 6 - Stunned by the interception of a huge bomb the day before and warned that more attacks were possible, Israel was on high alert today as Israelis hunkered down to celebrate the Jewish New Year.
Security officials said the half-ton bomb had been prepared by Islamic Jihad, a small but lethal terror group, apparently in Jenin. The charge was fashioned from ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer, combined with other chemicals that are relatively easy to obtain in Israel.
The attack was foiled almost by chance, when a joint police-volunteer unit set up an ambush on a dirt road to spot stolen cars and gave chase to two suspicious vehicles. Officials speculated that the explosives were intended for Haifa, the nearest major city.
With warnings that Palestinian militants were still trying to mount a huge attack during the high holidays, thousands of soldiers, police officers and volunteers were deployed on roads, in synagogues, at popular holiday venues and in other crowded places.
All entrances to West Bank cities and towns were sealed off except for ambulances, and army roadblocks effectively cut the Gaza Strip into three sectors.
In public statements, officials sought to reassure the public.
"The army has done everything, everything, so that this holiday might be good for the people of Israel," said Defense Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer. "I think the people will be doing the right thing if they travel throughout the country and realize that we are ready for this holiday with a broad smile."
But the police said there were ample warnings that militants were making special efforts to attack during the holiday. The danger was compounded by fears that the radical Hezbollah organization could intensify shelling of northern Israel and that Al Qaeda might strike at Israel for the anniversary of Sept. 11. There was also the threat of an attack by Iraq as the Bush administration continued preparations for a strike on Iraq intended to remove Saddam Hussein.
In addition to the increased security on the ground, the Israeli Army deployed three Patriot missile batteries, in the north, center and south, to guard against an attack from the skies.
After a lull of about a month in terror attacks, the interception of the half-ton bomb, and the explosion of a bomb in the Gaza Strip that destroyed an Israeli tank, made clear that the danger was not over, and that the violence could still reach new levels.
Israelis are especially mindful of heightened danger during holidays since the devastating suicide attack on a hotel in Netanya on Passover eve last March, in which 29 people were killed. That bombing prompted Israel to begin its offensive in the West Bank.
Yet no bomb of the scale of the intercepted one has ever been discovered before. The half-ton charge could have brought a building down, officials said, and that would have amounted to a strategic attack with doomsday consequences.
"Such an attack would have been liable to spur Israel into a response alongside which Operation Defensive Shield," the offensive of last spring, "would have seemed like a field trip," wrote Alex Fishman, a reporter with good contacts in the military, in the newspaper Yediot Ahronot.
"Together with the hundreds who would have been buried under the rubble, the Palestinian dream for any sort of sovereign entity wrote would also have been buried. The present Palestinian leadership would no longer be here the day after such an attack, and we would have a new Middle East."
The circumstances of the attempted infiltration also served as a reminder of the limitations of all the intensive operations Israel has been conducting over the past half year. Even under the toughest of cordons, Palestinians have been able to reach Israel through the many back roads along the long "green line" between Palestinian lands and Israel proper.
The Israeli patrol, composed of two police officers and four volunteers, had set up a spot ambush on a dirt road connecting Kfar Kara and Kfar Glickson when they noted an Isuzu Trooper sports-utility vehicle and a Volkswagen Golf sedan. When the vehicles tried to flee, the patrol gave chase until the drivers jumped out and ran off.
The patrol called explosives experts, who discovered three large barrels in the back of the Trooper with a detonator attached to a cell phone. The explosives were destroyed in a huge explosion.
Mr. Fishman wrote that Israel had explicitly prohibited bringing fertilizer into the West Bank, but that the substances used in the bomb were apparently smuggled in by Israelis. The know-how for making the bomb, he wrote, was easily accessible.
While that bomb was stopped, a lesser but still powerful one made of similar ingredients blew up an Israeli-made Merkava Mark II tank in Gaza, destroying the tank and killing the driver.
An umbrella group representing several Palestinian factions claimed responsibility in a call to The Associated Press.
All the while, the Israeli Army continued its daily raids into Palestinian villages and towns in search of militants.
Israel radio said two Palestinians were killed early today in an exchange of fire with army troops. One was described as an officer in the Palestinian security forces, the other as a leading member of the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, a militant group linked with Yasir Arafat's Fatah movement.
-------- spy agencies
Panel urges improving system of intelligence
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
September 6, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020906-40110079.htm
The September 11 terrorist attacks that killed more than 3,000 people reflected a "massive intelligence failure" in intelligence management, information gathering and dissemination, House lawmakers said in hearings yesterday.
"There is no way to get around the fact that this was a massive intelligence failure," said Rep. Saxby Chambliss, the Georgia Republican who chairs the terrorism and homeland security panel of the House intelligence committee.
Many of those problems still plague key agencies such as the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency (NSA), he said, although agency directors were moving to resolve the inefficiencies.
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III "has been cracking heads at the FBI and moving forward," Mr. Chambliss said. But "we've got to do a better job."
Mr. Chambliss and his Democratic counterpart Jane Harman, of California, led a House oversight team, which examined the terrorist threat to the United States and the counterterrorism capabilities of U.S. intelligence and law enforcement.
Their conclusions were made public in July, though 90 percent of the document remained classified. Yesterday was the first time they were publicly questioned on the report.
Mr. Chambliss, in testimony to lawmakers, said that in the years before the attacks, "some people in the CIA hierarchy had their priorities mixed up and the counterterrorism mission - along with human intelligence and analysis missions - suffered."
The CIA's counterterrorism capabilities had "significantly" eroded over the last decade, due to a lack or misplacement of resources, the absence of any language training and an over-reliance on foreign intelligence services, he said.
"What we discovered after [September 11] about the way al Qaeda operatives were functioning freely in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia clearly demonstrates the pitfalls of a strategy that relied too much on others in the spying game."
The CIA continues to rely on "liaison for CT [counterterrorism] operations," he added. Mr. Chambliss said though there had been "a lot of dropping of the ball by a number of individuals and agencies," he acknowledged there was no guarantee that plans for attacks such as those occurred September 11 could have been thwarted or tracked down.
"Things are changing so fast. The terrorist community is now spread out all over the world. The September 11 plot looks like it was hatched in Hamburg [Germany]. The next plot could be hatched" anywhere, he said.
But the worldwide reach of terrorist networks only heightens the need for swift and significant improvement of U.S. human intelligence capability to infiltrate such organizations, he stressed.
----
Israel denies spies pretended to be Canadian
Sep. 6, 2002
Toronto Star
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_PrintFriendly&c=Article&cid=1026144899667
JERUSALEM - Israel denies claims that Israeli agents posed as Canadians during an undercover operation in the Gaza Strip, and Canadian embassy officials say they are satisfied with that denial.
The Palestinian newspaper Al Ayyam had reported the "confession" of a man who claimed he was recruited by agents posing as Canadians and passed along information the Israelis used to kill a top Hamas leader in a missile strike in Gaza this summer.
"There's absolutely nothing to this," Israeli government spokesperson Daniel Seaman said yesterday.
"I'm here at a wedding right now with members of the foreign ministry and the prime minister's office," Seaman said by telephone. "I've asked around. Nobody knows what they're talking about."
A spokesperson for the Canadian embassy in Tel Aviv said Canada "has no involvement with this or any other purported Israeli incident.
"Our ambassador asked Israeli authorities to look into this individual's claims," said spokesperson Natalie Amar. "The Israelis staunchly denied any Canadian involvement."
Amar said the embassy considers the matter closed, with no further investigation expected.
In November, 1997, then-Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised Lloyd Axworthy, Canada's foreign affairs minister at the time, that Israel's secret service would never again use Canadian identities as cover.
The promise came after Ottawa reacted angrily, recalling its ambassador, to the revelation that an Israeli hit squad was found carrying forged Canadian passports during a bungled attempt to assassinate a top Hamas leader two months earlier in Amman, Jordan.
"There was an event in the past where Israelis used Canadian passports," Seaman said. "Since that time we promised the Canadians we would never do it again. And we stick by our promises."
Potter
-------- un
Armed troops should back inspectors
By Anne Penketh
06 September 2002
UK Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=330864
The weapons inspector who oversaw the destruction of much of President Saddam Hussein's arsenal of chemical and biological weapons called yesterday for an armed force of 50,000 men to back up the United Nations experts.
Rolf Ekeus, chief UN inspector from 1991 to 1997, said "coercive inspections" could offer President Saddam a credible alternative to being overthrown by a US military intervention. "Iraq may well accept, if this is an alternative to an invasion," said Mr Ekeus, who now chairs the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. "The prospect of a military invasion may concentrate Saddam's mind."
The proposals are part of a report to be released today by an influential US think-tank, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Mr Ekeus said he was initially sceptical but is now one of the report's authors. His doubts evaporated after "hard-nosed feasibility discussions" with the retired air force general Charles Boyd, a former deputy commander of US forces in Europe, he said.
The UN arms experts were systematically stymied by Iraq during years of monitoring weapons of mass destruction in the 1990s. But the threat of military strikes alone was able to persuade the Iraqis to end some tense stand-offs. The inspectors have been barred from Iraq since they pulled out in December 1998, hours before the US and Britain launched Operation Desert Fox.
The new plan calls for the UN Security Council to set up a "powerful, multinational military force" to back the inspections. The force would be composed of air cavalry with at least four brigade-sized units stationed in Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
"This is a simple and viable idea," Mr Ekeus said. "Saddam with his weapons, if he has them, is a serious international problem. Saddam without the weapons is an unpleasant local thug who is a problem for the Iraqi people. The key is if we can get rid of his weapons, we don't need to have bloodshed.
"The problem is to convince the international community and the American administration that the inspectors really can clean up the country. I believe in that." Bush administration hawks argue instead for pre-emptive action to overthrow President Saddam.
--------
UN Inspectors Increase Satellite Imagery on Iraq
September 6, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq-un-inspectors.html
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. inspection teams have stepped up their use of satellite imagery and briefings from intelligence agencies around the world in the absence of any agreement from Iraq that the arms experts could resume their work, a new report said on Friday.
The inspectors from the U.N. Monitoring Verification and Inspection Commission, known as UNMOVIC, have been ready for months to return to Baghdad but a series of talks with Iraqi officials, which ended in Vienna in July, made no progress.
The new quarterly report to the U.N. Security Council from Hans Blix, the executive chairman of UNMOVIC, said the headquarters staff was composed of 63 people, including 10 women, of 27 nationalities. A further 220 experts from 44 countries are ready to join inspections to search for any remaining chemical, biological and long-range missile programs.
``In the continued absence of inspectors in Iraq,'' Blix said his staff had ``stepped up its efforts to utilize other sources of information.''
The inspectors left Iraq in December 1998, a few hours before bombing by the United States and Britain. They have not been allowed to return since. Ridding Iraq of dangerous weapons is a key requirement for lifting sanctions, imposed when Baghdad invaded Kuwait in August 1990.
Nuclear weapons are under the jurisdiction of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency. Its experts, who work in tandem with UNMOVIC, said the satellites showed photos of new construction on sites linked in the past to nuclear-related activity.
``But until you get inspectors on the ground, you cannot tell what the purpose of the construction is,'' Mark Gwozdecky, spokesman for the IAEA, told Reuters on Friday. ``We see changes on the ground but we don't draw any conclusions.
Iraq launched a crash atomic program to test its first nuclear bomb using highly enriched uranium after it invaded Kuwait in 1990. The target date was April 1991, after the Gulf War in January 1991 and after U.S. planes had destroyed many facilities. By 1998, the IAEA was convinced little remained of the original program.
Blix did not mention any disclosures from the satellite imagery in his report. It was released as President Bush was consulting with key U.N. Security Council members over a military strike against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and exploring action through the United Nations.
European Union nations have considered setting a deadline to force Iraq to allow the inspectors to return but have not drafted a resolution before getting consent from Washington.
Blix's teams could begin work within weeks if Iraq permitted it, but Security Council resolutions give them from six months to a year to analyze if Iraq still has any weapons of mass destruction, a timetable far slower than the Bush administration has in mind.
The satellite imagery of Iraq comes mainly from Space Imaging LP, a Denver company that operates the world's first high-resolution commercial satellite, and was hired by UNMOVIC in June. The Blix report said the United Nations was negotiating with another U.S. firm it did not identify and had been given access to other photographs by ``supporting governments with access to satellite imagery.''
UNMOVIC is continuing to use California's Monterey Institute of International Studies to review publicly available documents and has signed a contract with the French Research Institute for similar material, the report said.
Blix said in the report an electronic archive had been created with 30,000 entries of material collected in Iraq and elsewhere since 1991.
-------- us
Wake-up call
Friday September 6, 2002
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,786992,00.html
If the US and Iraq do go to war, there can only be one winner, can't there? Maybe not. This summer, in a huge rehearsal of just such a conflict - and with retired Lieutenant General Paul Van Riper playing Saddam - the US lost. Julian Borger asks the former marine how he did it
At the height of the summer, as talk of invading Iraq built in Washington like a dark, billowing storm, the US armed forces staged a rehearsal using over 13,000 troops, countless computers and $250m. Officially, America won and a rogue state was liberated from an evil dictator.
What really happened is quite another story, one that has set alarm bells ringing throughout America's defence establishment and raised questions over the US military's readiness for an Iraqi invasion. In fact, this war game was won by Saddam Hussein, or at least by the retired marine playing the Iraqi dictator's part, Lieutenant General Paul Van Riper.
In the first few days of the exercise, using surprise and unorthodox tactics, the wily 64-year-old Vietnam veteran sank most of the US expeditionary fleet in the Persian Gulf, bringing the US assault to a halt.
What happened next will be familiar to anyone who ever played soldiers in the playground. Faced with an abrupt and embarrassing end to the most expensive and sophisticated military exercise in US history, the Pentagon top brass simply pretended the whole thing had not happened. They ordered their dead troops back to life and "refloated" the sunken fleet. Then they instructed the enemy forces to look the other way as their marines performed amphibious landings. Eventually, Van Riper got so fed up with all this cheating that he refused to play any more. Instead, he sat on the sidelines making abrasive remarks until the three-week war game - grandiosely entitled Millennium Challenge - staggered to a star-spangled conclusion on August 15, with a US "victory".
If the Pentagon thought it could keep its mishap quiet, it underestimated Van Riper. A classic marine - straight-talking and fearless, with a purple heart from Vietnam to prove it - his retirement means he no longer has to put up with the bureaucratic niceties of the defence department. So he blew the whistle.
His driving concern, he tells the Guardian, is that when the real fighting starts, American troops will be sent into battle with a set of half-baked tactics that have not been put to the test.
"Nothing was learned from this," he says. "A culture not willing to think hard and test itself does not augur well for the future." The exercise, he says, was rigged almost from the outset.
Millennium Challenge was the biggest war game of all time. It had been planned for two years and involved integrated operations by the army, navy, air force and marines. The exercises were part real, with 13,000 troops spread across the United States, supported by actual planes and warships; and part virtual, generated by sophisticated computer models. It was the same technique used in Hollywood blockbusters such as Gladiator. The soldiers in the foreground were real, the legions behind entirely digital.
The game was theoretically set in 2007 and pitted Blue forces (the US) against a country called Red. Red was a militarily powerful Middle Eastern nation on the Persian Gulf that was home to a crazed but cunning megalomaniac (Van Riper). Arguably, when the exercises were first planned back in 2000, Red could have been Iran. But by July this year, when the game kicked off, it is unlikely that anyone involved had any doubts as to which country beginning with "I" Blue was up against.
"The game was described as free play. In other words, there were two sides trying to win," Van Riper says.
Even when playing an evil dictator, the marine veteran clearly takes winning very seriously. He reckoned Blue would try to launch a surprise strike, in line with the administration's new pre-emptive doctrine, "so I decided I would attack first."
Van Riper had at his disposal a computer-generated flotilla of small boats and planes, many of them civilian, which he kept buzzing around the virtual Persian Gulf in circles as the game was about to get under way. As the US fleet entered the Gulf, Van Riper gave a signal - not in a radio transmission that might have been intercepted, but in a coded message broadcast from the minarets of mosques at the call to prayer. The seemingly harmless pleasure craft and propeller planes suddenly turned deadly, ramming into Blue boats and airfields along the Gulf in scores of al-Qaida-style suicide attacks. Meanwhile, Chinese Silkworm-type cruise missiles fired from some of the small boats sank the US fleet's only aircraft carrier and two marine helicopter carriers. The tactics were reminiscent of the al-Qaida attack on the USS Cole in Yemen two years ago, but the Blue fleet did not seem prepared. Sixteen ships were sunk altogether, along with thousands of marines. If it had really happened, it would have been the worst naval disaster since Pearl Harbor.
It was at this point that the generals and admirals monitoring the war game called time out.
"A phrase I heard over and over was: 'That would never have happened,'" Van Riper recalls. "And I said: nobody would have thought that anyone would fly an airliner into the World Trade Centre... but nobody seemed interested."
In the end, it was ruled that the Blue forces had had the $250m equivalent of their fingers crossed and were not really dead, while the ships were similarly raised from watery graves.
Van Riper was pretty fed up by this point, but things were about to get worse. The "control group", the officers refereeing the exercise, informed him that US electronic warfare planes had zapped his expensive microwave communications systems.
"You're going to have to use cellphones and satellite phones now, they told me. I said no, no, no - we're going to use motorcycle messengers and make announcements from the mosques," he says. "But they refused to accept that we'd do anything they wouldn't do in the west."
Then Van Riper was told to turn his air defences off at certain times and places where Blue forces were about to stage an attack, and to move his forces away from beaches where the marines were scheduled to land. "The whole thing was being scripted," he says.
Within his ever narrowing constraints, Van Riper continued to make a nuisance of himself, harrying Blue forces with an arsenal of unorthodox tactics, until one day, on July 29, he thinks, he found his orders to his subordinate officers were not being listened to any more. They were being countermanded by the control group. So Van Riper quit. "I stayed on to give advice, but I stopped giving orders. There was no real point any more," he says.
Van Riper's account of Millennium Challenge is not disputed by the Pentagon. It does not deny "refloating" the Blue navy, for example. But that, it argues, is the whole point of a war game.
Vice-Admiral Cutler Dawson, the commander of the ill-fated fleet, and commander, in real life, of the US 2nd Fleet, says: "When you push the envelope, some things work, some things don't. That's how you learn from the experiment."
The whole issue rapidly became a cause celebre at the Pentagon press briefing, where the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, got the vice-chairman of the joint chiefs-of-staff, General Peter Pace, to explain why the mighty US forces had needed two lives in order to win.
"You kill me in the first day and I sit there for the next 13 days doing nothing, or you put me back to life and you get 13 more days' worth of experiment out of me. Which is a better way to do it?" General Pace asked.
Van Riper agrees with Pace in principle, but says the argument is beside the point.
"Scripting is not a problem because you're trying to learn something," he says. "The difference with this one was that it was advertised up front as free play in order to validate the concepts they were trying to test, to see if they were robust enough to put into doctrine."
It is these "concepts" that are at the core of a serious debate that underlies what would otherwise be a silly row about who was playing fair and who wasn't. The US armed forces are in the throes of what used to be called a "Revolution in Military Affairs", and is now usually referred to simply as "transformation". The general idea is to make the US military more flexible, more mobile and more imaginative. It was this transformation that Rumsfeld was obsessed with during his first nine months in office, until September 11 created other priorities.
The advocates of transformation argue that it requires a whole new mindset, from the generals down to the ordinary infantryman. So military planners, instead of drawing up new tactics, formulate more amorphous "concepts" intended to change fundamentally the American soldier's view of the battlefield.
The principal concept on trial in Millennium Challenge was called "rapid, decisive operation" (RDO), and as far as Van Riper and many veteran officers are concerned, it is gobbledegook. "As if anyone would want slow, indecisive operations! These are just slogans," he snorts.
The question of transformation and the usefulness of concepts such as RDO are the subject of an intense battle within the Pentagon, in which the uniformed old guard are frequently at odds with radical civilian strategists of the kind Rumsfeld brought into the Pentagon.
John Pike, the head of GlobalSecurity.org, a military thinktank in Washington, believes the splits over transformation and the whole Van Riper affair reflect fundamental differences of opinion on how to pursue the war on Iraq.
"One way is to march straight to Baghdad, blowing up everything in your way and then by shock and awe you cause the regime to collapse," Pike says. "That is what Rumsfeld is complaining about when he talks about unimaginative plodding. The alternative is to bypass the Iraqi forces and deliver a decisive blow."
Van Riper denies being opposed to new military thinking. He just thinks it should be written in plain English and put to the test. "My main concern was that we'd see future forces trying to use these things when they've never been properly grounded in an experiment," he says.
The name Van Riper draws either scowls or rolling eyes at the Pentagon these days, but there are anecdotal signs that he has the quiet support of the uniformed military, who, after all, will be the first to discover whether the Iraq invasion plans work in real life.
"He can be a real pain in the ass, but that's good," a fellow retired officer told the Army Times. "He's a great guy, and he's a great patriot, and he's doing all those things for the right reasons."
----
Pentagon considers a hit before buildup
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
September 6, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020906-27287554.htm
The U.S. military would need 60 to 90 days to put a full invasion force of troops, tanks, ships and warplanes in position to attack Iraq, if President Bush authorizes an assault to topple Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
But the president could authorize a different kind of military buildup. Rather than following the World War II doctrine of positioning forces for months before attacking, the United States could begin an assault with forces now in the region, then bring in more troops.
About 100 U.S. and British aircraft yesterday took part in an attack on a major Iraqi air-defense installation, in the biggest single operation over the country in four years, the London Daily Telegraph reported. Twelve warplanes dropped precision-guided bombs in the raid, but scores of other support aircraft also took part in the attack in western Iraq.
The aim of using assault forces in the region before a full buildup would be to gain tactical advantage so that Saddam would not have time to order retaliatory strikes using chemical and biological weapons.
The Pentagon says it has an undisclosed amount of war-fighting equipment and gear, including M1A1 main battle tanks, pre-positioned in friendly Persian Gulf nations.
Army Secretary Thomas White said yesterday that some of that materiel was moved in July from Qatar to Kuwait on the Iraqi border. This is the area where any U.S. ground invasion is likely to begin.
"We have done a lot with pre-positioned stocks in the Gulf, making sure they're accessible and that they're in the right spot to support whatever the president wants to do," Mr. White told a group of reporters, according to the Associated Press.
"But we have done nothing specifically against any particular scenario," he said.
The Army secretary's remarks came the day after Reuters news agency cited a commercial shipping document in reporting that the U.S. Navy has booked a heavy transport ship to carry war-fighting gear to the Gulf.
In a build-first approach, the U.S. Transportation Command would need two months to move the tanks and armored vehicles on which Army soldiers would invade Iraq from Kuwait. More quickly, the Air Force would move fighter jets to bases in the Persian Gulf, including a new sprawling airfield in Qatar. The Navy would have to rearrange carrier commitments to ensure that Gen. Tommy Franks, who heads U.S. Central Command, would have two or more carrier battle groups to launch warplanes and Tomahawk cruise missiles.
The Air Force and Army maintain bases in Kuwait to enforce a southern no-fly zone and to deter Iraq from invading Kuwait, as it did in August 1990. The Army recently increased its troop strength and stepped up exercises in the desert outside Kuwait City as a show of force, while the United States wiped out Taliban and al Qaeda terrorist positions in Afghanistan.
The U.S. Air Force runs four main bases in the region: Prince Sultan in Saudi Arabia, the base in Kuwait, the airfield in Qatar and a NATO base in Incirlik, Turkey.
During the 1990s, Saudi rulers refused to let U.S. warplanes use Prince Sultan for strikes against Saddam's weapons facilities. The royal family does, however, let U.S. fighters launch from the base to enforce the southern no-fly zone over Iraq and for support aircraft, such as Airborne Warning and Control System planes.
During Operation Desert Storm, the 1991 U.S.-led offensive that liberated Kuwait from Saddam's invading army, the Saudis opened their country to hundreds of thousands of allied ground forces and hundreds of aircraft. But this time, the United States must find other nations to house an invasion force.
For that reason, and other considerations, some military experts are advocating three days of quick air strikes using forces now stationed in the Gulf, bolstering them with other forces in stages on a regular rotation.
"If we do a buildup of any sort, it's most prudent to do so under the cover of what is already there for the war on terrorism," said a Desert Storm combat veteran, who asked not to be named. "If you do war buildup prior to any hostilities, the minute you start building up, it's a spear at Saddam's heart. This time he knows it's about him and not about Kuwait."
One big question being weighed by war planners is whether Saddam, with nothing to lose, would respond to an invasion by unleashing chemical weapons at Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Three days of lightning strikes using in-place forces would be designed to isolate Saddam, knock out his command and control facilities, and destroy any weapons of mass destruction he may have.
"If you sit around and wait for a deployment, then in this war, which would be about destroying his weapons, you are really asking for him to use them on you," the combat veteran said.
Senior Bush administration officials have repeatedly said it is U.S. policy to seek a regime change in Iraq. In recent public comments, Vice President Richard B. Cheney and Mr. Bush have made the case for invading Iraq to ensure that Saddam never obtains nuclear weapons.
Saddam oversaw a comprehensive nuclear-weapons development program before Desert Storm, when allied jets bombed a number of key installations, according to a report this year by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
But the bombs did not kill his cadre of nuclear scientists and engineers or destroy Baghdad's nuclear-weapons designs. Experts say they believe Saddam has reconstituted much of his old program, moving it underground to escape U.S. bombs.
Without fissile material, Baghdad would need five years to build weapons, the center's report said. "Less time would be needed if sufficient fissile material were acquired illicitly," the report said.
-------- propaganda wars
Americans not happy with security efforts
By Christian Bourge
UPI Think Tank Correspondent
September 6, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20020905-115956-7427r.htm
WASHINGTON, Sept. 5 (UPI) -- Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz Thursday pointedly did not discuss the heated debate over whether or not to invade Iraq as part of the yearlong war against international terrorism when he addressed a forum entitled "Sept. 11, One Year Later" at a prominent Washington think tank.
Wolfowitz's choice not to offer any new insights into the White House's views about toppling Saddam Hussein's regime fit well with data from a new poll released later at the forum, which shows significant public dissatisfaction with the efforts by the administration of President George W. Bush to explain the threat posed by the Iraqi dictator.
Following Wolfowitz's speech at the Brookings Institution event, Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, announced that 52 percent of Americans polled by the Pew Center believe Bush has failed to lay out a clear case for military action in Iraq.
Some attendees were surprised that Wolfowitz -- widely recognized as one of the administration's leading hawks on Iraq, and a key proponent of invading the country to dismantle Hussein's suspected stockpile of chemical and biological weapons and derail his nuclear weapons development program -- did not address the issue of Iraq, especially given Bush's announcement that the White House will begin a campaign to gain both international and domestic support for American action to topple the dictator.
Instead of Iraq, Wolfowitz focused on what he described as a "larger struggle" beyond the war on terror, one "that does not get emphasized enough," he said.
"That larger war we face is the war of ideas -- the struggle over modernity and secularism, pluralism and democracy, and real economic development," he said.
Sidestepping any mention of the reported infighting between Bush administration officials over invading Iraq, Wolfowitz stressed the need to encourage moderate Islamic belief as part of the larger struggle against "enemies of tolerance and freedom the world over."
"We must appeal to broad populations -- especially those voices struggling to rise above the din of extremism, voices that tell us the Islam of Mohammad is not the religion of bin Laden and suicide bombers," he said.
"Where's Iraq?" asked one think tank official about Wolfowitz's speech.
This question underlined the findings in the Pew survey. The survey found that although Bush's current approval rating of 60 percent is 9 points higher than it was prior to the attacks last fall, only 37 percent of the 1,802 Americans polled nationwide said that Bush has "clearly articulated reasons for using force to end Saddam Hussein's rule."
Kohut said it was Bush's responsibility to give the American public the information it seeks on Iraq.
"People have mainly heard criticism, they have not heard a great deal from President Bush," he said. "In the end it is the president who must sell a war, and he has not sold this war yet."
Kohut also reported that the public's approval of both the government effort to defend against terrorism at home, and the international military anti-terror campaign, have fallen since last fall.
Approval ratings for the government's homeland security efforts have dropped from a peak of 69 percent in October 2001 to 57 percent in the most current surveys, he said.
In terms of the international efforts to thwart terrorism, Kohut reported that the overwhelming majority of Americans surveyed -- 70 percent -- currently believe it is too early to tell if the war on terrorism has been successful, but that only slightly more than one-third of Americans believe that terrorists are less able to launch an attack than a year ago.
A full 39 percent of those surveyed believe the capacity of terrorists to launch an attack is the same, and about one in five (22 percent) believe that this ability has actually increased.
Also, 62 percent of those surveyed indicated that they were very or somewhat worried about the possibility of a new attack in the United States.
Kohut added that at no point over the last year did less than a majority of Americans indicate that they were at least somewhat worried about the prospects for additional terrorist attacks.
-------
In war, some facts less factual
Some US assertions from the last war on Iraq still appear dubious.
By Scott Peterson
The Christian Science Monitor
September 06, 2002
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0906/p01s02-wosc.html
MOSCOW - When George H. W. Bush ordered American forces to the Persian Gulf - to reverse Iraq's August 1990 invasion of Kuwait - part of the administration case was that an Iraqi juggernaut was also threatening to roll into Saudi Arabia.
Citing top-secret satellite images, Pentagon officials estimated in mid-September that up to 250,000 Iraqi troops and 1,500 tanks stood on the border, threatening the key US oil supplier.
But when the St. Petersburg Times in Florida acquired two commercial Soviet satellite images of the same area, taken at the same time, no Iraqi troops were visible near the Saudi border - just empty desert.
"It was a pretty serious fib," says Jean Heller, the Times journalist who broke the story.
The White House is now making its case. to Congress and the public for another invasion of Iraq; President George W. Bush is expected to present specific evidence of the threat posed by Iraq during a speech to the United Nations next week.
But past cases of bad intelligence or outright disinformation used to justify war are making experts wary. The questions they are raising, some based on examples from the 1991 Persian Gulf War, highlight the importance of accurate information when a democracy considers military action.
"My concern in these situations, always, is that the intelligence that you get is driven by the policy, rather than the policy being driven by the intelligence," says former US Rep. Lee Hamilton (D) of Indiana, a 34-year veteran lawmaker until 1999, who served on numerous foreign affairs and intelligence committees, and is now director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. The Bush team "understands it has not yet carried the burden of persuasion [about an imminent Iraqi threat], so they will look for any kind of evidence to support their premise," Mr. Hamilton says. "I think we have to be skeptical about it."
Examining the evidence
Shortly before US strikes began in the Gulf War, for example, the St. Petersburg Times asked two experts to examine the satellite images of the Kuwait and Saudi Arabia border area taken in mid-September 1990, a month and a half after the Iraqi invasion. The experts, including a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst who specialized in desert warfare, pointed out the US build-up - jet fighters standing wing-tip to wing-tip at Saudi bases - but were surprised to see almost no sign of the Iraqis.
"That [Iraqi buildup] was the whole justification for Bush sending troops in there, and it just didn't exist," Ms. Heller says. Three times Heller contacted the office of Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney (now vice president) for evidence refuting the Times photos or analysis - offering to hold the story if proven wrong.
The official response: "Trust us." To this day, the Pentagon's photographs of the Iraqi troop buildup remain classified.
After the war, the House Armed Services Committee issued a report on lessons learned from the Persian Gulf War. It did not specifically look at the early stages of the Iraqi troop buildup in the fall, when the Bush administration was making its case to send American forces. But it did conclude that at the start of the ground war in February, the US faced only 183,000 Iraqi troops, less than half the Pentagon estimate. In 1996, Gen. Colin Powell, who is secretary of state today, told the PBS documentary program Frontline: "The Iraqis may not have been as strong as we thought they were...but that doesn't make a whole lot of difference to me. We put in place a force that would deal with it - whether they were 300,000, or 500,000."
John MacArthur, publisher of Harper's Magazine and author of "Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War," says that considering the number of senior officials shared by both Bush administrations, the American public should bear in mind the lessons of Gulf War propaganda.
"These are all the same people who were running it more than 10 years ago," Mr. MacArthur says. "They'll make up just about anything ... to get their way."
On Iraq, analysts note that little evidence so far of an imminent threat from Mr. Hussein's weapons of mass destruction has been made public.
Critics, including some former United Nations weapons inspectors in Iraq, say no such evidence exists. Mr. Bush says he will make his decision to go to war based on the "best" intelligence.
"You have to wonder about the quality of that intelligence," says Mr. Hamilton at Woodrow Wilson.
"This administration is capable of any lie ... in order to advance its war goal in Iraq," says a US government source in Washington with some two decades of experience in intelligence, who would not be further identified. "It is one of the reasons it doesn't want to have UN weapons inspectors go back in, because they might actually show that the probability of Iraq having [threatening illicit weapons] is much lower than they want us to believe."
The roots of modern war propaganda reach back to British World War II stories about German troops bayoneting babies, and can be traced through the Vietnam era and even to US campaigns in Somalia and Kosovo.
While the adage has it that "truth is the first casualty of war," senior administration officials say they cherish their credibility, and would not lie.
In a press briefing last September, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld noted occasions during World War II when false information about US troop movements was leaked to confuse the enemy. He paraphrased Winston Churchill, saying: "Sometimes the truth is so precious it must be accompanied by a bodyguard of lies."
But he added that "my fervent hope is that we will be able to manage our affairs in a way that that will never happen. And I am 69 years old and I don't believe it's ever happened that I have lied to the press, and I don't intend to start now."
Last fall, the Pentagon secretly created an "Office of Strategic Influence." But when its existence was revealed, the ensuing media storm over reports that it would launch disinformation campaigns prompted its official closure in late February.
Commenting on the furor, President Bush pledged that the Pentagon will "tell the American people the truth."
Critics familiar with the precedent set in recent decades, however, remain skeptical. They point, for example, to the Office of Public Diplomacy run by the State Department in the 1980s. Using staff detailed from US military "psychological operations" units, it fanned fears about Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista regime with false "intelligence" leaks.
Besides placing a number of proContra, antiSandinista stories in the national US media as part of a "White Propaganda" campaign, that office fed the Miami Herald a make-believe story that the Soviet Union had given chemical weapons to the Sandinistas. Another tale - which happened to emerge the night of President Ronald Reagan's reelection victory - held that Soviet MiG fighters were on their way to Nicaragua.
The office was shut down in 1987, after a report by the US Comptroller-General found that some of their efforts were "prohibited, covert propaganda activities."
More recently, in the fall of 1990, members of Congress and the American public were swayed by the tearful testimony of a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, known only as Nayirah.
In the girl's testimony before a congressional caucus, well-documented in MacArthur's book "Second Front" and elsewhere, she described how, as a volunteer in a Kuwait maternity ward, she had seen Iraqi troops storm her hospital, steal the incubators, and leave 312 babies "on the cold floor to die."
Seven US Senators later referred to the story during debate; the motion for war passed by just five votes. In the weeks after Nayirah spoke, President Bush senior invoked the incident five times, saying that such "ghastly atrocities" were like "Hitler revisited."
But just weeks before the US bombing campaign began in January, a few press reports began to raise questions about the validity of the incubator tale.
Later, it was learned that Nayirah was in fact the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to Washington and had no connection to the Kuwait hospital.
She had been coached - along with the handful of others who would "corroborate" the story - by senior executives of Hill and Knowlton in Washington, the biggest global PR firm at the time, which had a contract worth more than $10 million with the Kuwaitis to make the case for war.
"We didn't know it wasn't true at the time," Brent Scowcroft, Bush's national security adviser, said of the incubator story in a 1995 interview with the London-based Guardian newspaper. He acknowledged "it was useful in mobilizing public opinion."
Intelligence as political tool
Selective use of intelligence information is not particular to any one presidential team, says former Congressman Hamilton.
"This is not a problem unique to George Bush. It's every president I've known, and I've worked with seven or eight of them," Hamilton says. "All, at some time or another, used intelligence to support their political objectives.
"Information is power, and the temptation to use information to achieve the results you want is almost overwhelming," he says. "The whole intelligence community knows exactly what the president wants [regarding Iraq], and most are in their jobs because of the president - certainly the people at the top - and they will do everything they can to support the policy.
"I'm always skeptical about intelligence," adds Hamilton, who has been awarded medallions from both the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. "It's not as pure as the driven snow."
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
EU seeks green energy goals after summit defeat
REUTERS SOUTH AFRICA:
September 6, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17629/story.htm
JOHANNESBURG - Still smarting from its failure to win green energy targets at the Earth Summit, the European Union urged countries to join a new group to push for global goals on renewable energy.
The EU had sought a global target that would bind countries at the World Summit on Sustainable Development to derive at least 15 percent of their energy supply from renewable energy sources by 2015, but that plan was quashed by the United States, Japan and OPEC states on Monday.
The EU called on "like-minded states" to adopt time-bound targets to increase renewable green energy output by means such as solar and wind power to cut emissions from the fossil fuels blamed for warming the planet and to improve the health of people who use wood stoves as their main energy source.
"Increasing the use of clean renewable energy will have multiple benefits for rich and poor countries alike," said Margot Wallstrom, European environment commissioner.
The EU has its own target of doubling its use of renewables to 12 percent of total energy consumption by 2010.
The proposal, backed by several central and eastern European states, small islands, New Zealand, Norway and Turkey, said that while it endorsed the more modest goals agreed at the Earth Summit, targets would help guide investment and develop the markets for renewable energy technologies.
Nations at the summit agreed an energy plan that called for developing cleaner fossil fuels and urged states to develop green energy, but mandated no goals.
Energy had been key focus at the summit, which attracted tens of thousands of delegates and more than 100 world leaders to follow-up on the promises made at the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit a decade ago.
----
Pacific NW should move to solar/wind power - study
REUTERS USA:
September 6, 2002
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Pacific Northwest could diversify about 20 percent of its future electricity sources to include wind and solar energy without hurting the regional economy, a new report by the RAND Corp. research institute said this week.
For five decades, the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana have had a cheap, plentiful supply of hydroelectric power. About 82 percent of the region's power now comes from dams, 4 percent from natural gas, and the rest from coal and nuclear plants.
However, population growth means new sources of electricity must be built in the future, and current forecasts predict natural gas-fired plants will claim 22 percent of the market by 2010, according to the RAND study.
The region should instead adopt wind and solar power for 20 percent of future new electricity, a move which have a "nominal impact" on the region's economy, the RAND study said. Such a change would reduce the region's gross product by less than half of 1 percent over two decades, the researchers said.
"We're trying to put forward the message that we should look at electricity production like we look at an investment portfolio," said Mark Bernstein, a RAND analyst. "It's not wise to invest only in a couple of stocks, and by the same token we should look at multiple sources of electricity."
Adopting wind and solar energy sources would initially be more expensive and reduce the number of jobs at natural gas-fired plants, the study said. But those impacts would be canceled out by new jobs at wind and solar power companies, and a fall in the price of natural gas as demand is reduced.
"We found that you can diversify the region's supply of electrical power without having either a significant positive or negative impact on the economy," Bernstein said.
Solar and wind power have other benefits, he said.
Air pollution from natural gas power plants would be reduced, and the region would have greater flexibility during years of drought or low water supplies. Also, operating costs would not be as volatile as with natural gas-fuelled plants.
Some utilities, such as Scottish Power Plc's PacifiCorp have already begun adding alternative energy sources. PacifiCorp plans to bring on line 1,000 megawatts of new wind and geothermal energy by 2005, and has solar energy projects planned for Oregon and Wyoming.
The RAND study also examined the economic impact of removing four hydroelectric power plants along the lower Snake River, a move favored by environmental groups that want to help restore threatened wild salmon that spawn in the river.
While such a move would reduce hydroelectric power and disrupt some farming and other businesses, it would not have a major impact on the region's economy, according to the RAND analysis.
The report was funded by the Pew Charitable Trust.
-------- environment
Environmentalists wary of nanotechnology
Friday, September 06, 2002
By Jim Krane,
Associated Press
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/09/09062002/ap_48366.asp
NEW YORK - It's supposed to make computers small enough to implant into a wrist and supply materials that strengthen and lighten bridges and airplanes. It might even cure cancer.
But some environmentalists fear that nanotechnology, the fast-advancing science of manipulating materials at the molecular scale, may create contaminants whose tiny size makes them ultra-hazardous.
"If they get in the bloodstream or into ground water, even if the nanoparticles themselves aren't dangerous, they could react with other things that are harmful," said Kathy Jo Wetter, a researcher with the ETC Group, an environmental organization that also opposes genetically modified crops. \
Scientists say such fears consist mainly of speculation. Nanotechnology, they say, involves well-known materials such as carbon, zinc and gold - both toxic and benign. New tools simply let researchers alter those materials at the atomic level, where the particles are measured in nanometers, or billionths of a meter.
"It may have some unexpected consequences. Some could be toxic," said Mihail Roco, the National Science Foundation's senior adviser on nanotechnology. "But this happens with larger particles and in other industries. The risks are very small in comparison with the benefits."
Nanotechnology research is one of the U.S. government's top science initiatives, fed by $604 million in federal funds this year. ETC estimates worldwide research funding at $4 billion, including government initiatives in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and Australia.
Wetter, whose Canada-based group organized discussions at the World Summit on Sustainable Development last week in South Africa, believes the coming industrial production of nanoparticles has not been properly scrutinized for environmental or health risks.
What if the tiny, man-made particles accumulate in the liver or lungs? she asks.
Carbon nanotube molecules currently touted as a substitute for silicon in ever tinier transistors closely resemble spiky asbestos fibers, she said. Although a pair of studies on mice and guinea pigs indicated that the carbon fibers probably posed little risk to humans, Wetter and others speculate they could damage humans' lungs.
In a move that researchers believe is too dramatic, ETC is asking governments to halt development of nanotechnology until environmental and health concerns are researched and assuaged.
"Commercial applications are getting closer," Wetter said. "This is a new material and it needs to be looked at."
In the United States, the federal Environmental Protection Agency hopes to hatch a pair of such studies this year, although research grants to fund them have yet to be awarded, said Peter Preuss, director of the EPA's National Center for Environmental Research.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration plan to examine agricultural and food aspects during a nanotechnology workshop in November.
"We're moving on it, but we don't have any work under way at this point," Preuss said.
The ETC Group poses other scary potential scenarios. It says nanoparticles being tested as bloodstream carriers for medicines that attack cancer and other diseases might as easily deliver toxins.
Since nanoparticles have been able to evade the brain's defenses against blood impurities, a toxin-toting piece of nanomatter could take hold in the brain, Wetter said. Scientists have called this a speculative long shot.
The ETC Group also worries that future nanotech-enabled foods such as so-called "interactive beverages", which could change color or flavor at the guzzler's behest, would require ingesting millions or billions of nanoparticles.
Rick Smalley, the Nobel Prize-winning nanotechnology researcher at Houston's Rice University, labeled the idea of such foods a futuristic scenario that would first need to pass muster with the FDA.
Nanoparticles are so small that they pass through most filters, and can't be seen. Some, like carbon nanotubes, aren't believed to exist in nature. If there were a problem, and nanoparticles needed to be removed from a normal environment, it might be too late. There remains no detector or sensor that can find some types of nanoparticles outside the laboratory.
Still, several companies are already producing nanoparticles, mainly those used in paints and sunscreen, along with the carbon nanotubes touted for electronics.
For instance, Japan's Mitsubishi Corp. has announced it will soon be involved in industrial-level production of carbon nanoparticles for use in everything from transistors to makeup. Smalley's company, Carbon Nanotechnologies Inc., produces about a pound of carbon nanotubes per day, mainly for research. The company hopes to increase that to 1,000 pounds per day, he said.
Smalley said an as-yet unreleased National Aeronautics and Space Administration study showed little cause for alarm, though one mouse tested died after receiving "vast amounts" of nanotubes in its lungs.
Besides, most potential uses of nanoparticles find them sealed inside a polymer used in a cell phone case, perhaps, or a car door or computer chip, Smalley said.
"Just because you have some nanothing in a product doesn't mean it is floating around and getting into your food," he said.
Some nanoparticles, like those of gallium arsenide, which contain arsenic, are known to be toxic - as is regular gallium arsenide, a substance used in computer chip manufacture.
"Are there going to be classes of nanomaterials that are going to pose health problems? Sure," said Kevin Ausman, director of the Rice University Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology. "But those are things we'll know beforehand. We can plan around them."
-------- health
China Raises Estimates of H.I.V.-AIDS Cases to 1 Million
New York Times
September 6, 2002
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/06/international/06CND-CHIN.html
BEIJING, Sept. 6 - China took significant steps today in facing up to its growing H.I.V.-AIDS epidemic, raising its estimate of the number infected to 1 million and saying that it would manufacture a full complement of AIDS drugs if Western patent-holders do not lower their prices.
It was a striking reversal by Chinese health officials, who had previously insisted that, as a new member of the World Trade Organization, China had to be hypervigilant about respecting patents and would not permit the use of generic AIDS drugs.
But even as the government was articulating its new sense of urgency and commitment to action, it once against displayed the defensiveness that experts both in and out of China say has precluded an effective response to the crisis. China's Bureau of State Security confirmed that it had detained the country's most outspoken advocate for AIDS patients, Wan Yanhai, who disappeared in Beijing two weeks ago.
In their announcements today, officials for the first time publicly asked for international help with the country's AIDS problem, which they had insisted they could handle on their own.
"We need international organizations to help us in this battle to control AIDS," said Qi Xiaoqiu, director general of the Department of Disease Control at China's Ministry of Health. "We need more capital support and expertise."
It is unclear exactly why the government decided to take the plunge and talk more candidly, although China is in the process of submitting a $90 million grant application to the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and desperately needs to show some good faith efforts on AIDS to help its application.
That money is earmarked for dealing with the rural AIDS epidemic in central China, including cocktail therapy for AIDS sufferers, said someone who has seen an early draft. China's first application to the fund, seeking money to be used for AIDS prevention and treatment among drug addicts, was rejected earlier this year partly because of the government's closed attitudes about the problem, leading to unreliable statistics and other shortcomings.
Mr. Qi said that "drugs and other medicine are especially needed in places where there are a large concentration" of AIDS patients, referring to poor villages in central China's Henan Province, where large numbers of farmers contracted H.I.V. through unsanitary blood sales.
Last week China licensed its first domestically produced anti-AIDS drug, a version of the medicine A.Z.T. Mr. Qi said a shipment had already gone off to Henan, where it was being used by patients, although he did not say how many had access to the drug.
Dr. Wan, whose arrest was confirmed today, had posted on the Internet in late August a classified document prepared by the Henan Health Bureau, showing that officials in that province were well aware of a serious H.I.V. problem as early at 1995. Selling blood was officially banned in that year, although it continued for several years in a number of villages, people from Henan say.
Dr. Wan, who had been followed and harassed by security officials all summer, disappeared off a Beijing street on Aug. 24. He founded Aizhi Action, a small organization that ran a Web site and conducted AIDS advocacy work in China and and was to receive a prestigious Canadian human rights award this month. On Thursday state security officials told one of his colleagues that he was being held for revealing the secret report.
"Finally someone admits that Wan is in their hand," his wife, Su Zhaosheng, who is studying in Los Angeles, wrote in an e-mail.
The main focus of today's news conference was on the AIDS crisis among farmers in central China and on the need to provide patients with affordable drugs, two hard-to-solve problems that health officials had previously mostly sought to avoid.
At today's news, Mr. Qi emphasized that China was taking the epidemic seriously, calling the situation "very dangerous." He revealed that the Communist Party's Central Committee had commissioned a special study on the epidemic, the first time it has lavished that kind of attention on a disease. He said that the central government had already earmarked 80 million yuan, about $10 million, to be directed toward Henan to combat AIDS.
But perhaps the biggest breakthrough was Mr. Qi's indication that China would consider bypassing patents to produce its own cheaper versions of AIDS drugs, especially the expensive Western medicines used in the AIDS cocktail, if the major Western producers do not reduce prices by the end of the year.
Until now China had vehemently rejected that route; it has tried to get cheaper drugs only by negotiating discounts from foreign manufacturers.
China has stubbornly maintained this position even as many other developing countries, including Thailand, India and Brazil, have started to produce or buy generic versions of the drugs, making effective treatment affordable for victims in those countries and saving countless lives.
Earlier this year, the World Trade Organization basically granted countries the right to bypass drug patents if the medicines were declared essential to combating a national health emergency and were otherwise unaffordable.
To date, China's negotiations with drug companies have yielded only piecemeal results, bringing the price of the AIDS cocktail here from an exorbitant $8,000 a year to a merely unaffordable $3,000 to $4,000, not including the testing that being on such drugs involves. The same medicines, in generic form, cost about $300 in Thailand.
As a result, Mr. Qi acknowledged that only about 100 patients in China were now on the AIDS cocktail, and most of that had been donated by foreign groups.
"We are ready to negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies, but if affordable prices cannot be reached, we will need to go that other route," Mr. Qi said. When asked how much longer the Chinese were willing to negotiate, he said: "Until the end of this year."
To activists here, poor access to medicines has been particularly galling, since China has a strong pharmaceutical manufacturing industry, one that is notorious for expertise in copying expensive Western drugs. One Chinese company, Shanghai's Desano Co. Ltd, already legally makes the raw ingredients for many of the pills in the AIDS cocktail, which it then ships to India to be transformed into generic pills that are unavailable to Chinese.
That anger has been generally mounting among China's experts as well. "We need a group of drugs to treat patients now," Dr. Shao Yiming, one of China's leading AIDS specialists said recently on China Central Television. He added: "It's a dead end to wait for patents to expire. It's up to our government, under the appropriate circumstances, to invoke the W.T.O. clauses."
If Chinese manufacturers started producing generic medicines, it still remains unclear how much benefit patients might reap, since all hope to make profits from the venture. A spokesman for the Shenyang Dongbei Pharmaceutical Company, which is newly licensed to make A.Z.T., refused to say how much the newly marketed generic is selling for, calling that a "commercial secret."
At the news conference today, Mr. Qi also discussed in greater detail than ever before the AIDS epidemic's relationship to the selling of blood in rural China.
Based on government statistics, he estimated that in one severely affected part of Henan, Shangcai County, about 10,000 people had contracted AIDS and that 1,000 had died.
Poor farmers sold their blood for about $5 a bag. They were infected with H.I.V. because the government-affiliated blood stations often used highly unsanitary processing practices that involved harvesting the fraction of blood used to make medicines and then re-injecting a portion of pooled blood to the sellers.
But, as before, the details provided were at best sketchy and government estimates still seemed well below those suggested by the few independent experts who have quietly worked in the area. These experts say that the majority of adults in some villages now carry H.I.V. and that there may well be over a million people infected in the province.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Greenpeace protests Earth Summit atop Rio's Christ
Friday, September 06, 2002
By Reuters
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/09/09062002/reu_48356.asp
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil Greenpeace activists scaled Rio de Janeiro's hill-top Christ statue Thursday and hung a giant banner across its outstretched arms in protest at what they called the failure of South Africa's Earth Summit.
"Rio+10 - a second chance?" read the bright yellow letters displayed on one of Brazil's most photographed attractions by activists dangling from ropes, one day after the international environment and development conference ended in Johannesburg.
Green campaigners decried the outcome of the marathon Earth Summit, known as Rio+10 since it came a decade after the Brazilian city hosted a similar event. They called it a major let-down for the poor and the planet.
"What most outraged us was that 10 years ago here in Rio a seed of hope was planted for a change in attitude toward the environment and development," Frank Guggenheim, Greenpeace's chief executive in Brazil, said Thursday. "The Johannesburg summit ended and a second chance to do something was lost, like to establish targets, implementation times or energy resources to be used in the future."
Brazil had proposed to the Earth Summit that countries commit to generate 10 percent of the world's energy with renewable sources by 2010 but the proposal was rejected.
Police arrested the five Greenpeace members when they climbed back down the world-famous Christ that watches over the beaches, bays and slums of the city.
"The Christ is a Catholic symbol and the activists did not ask for permission to protest," said Jose Benedito Reis, a priest from the archdiocese of Rio.
Other Greenpeace members protested at the 17th World Petroleum Congress in Rio, where they performed a symbolic burial of the Earth Summit by President Bush. Campaigners blame Bush, the United States and international oil companies for blocking efforts to halt environmental destruction.
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Grassroots views on war
Friday September 6, 2002
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,3604,786956,00.html
I hoped against hope that Blair's strength to keep some distance from the US line would hold (Bush: last chance to avoid war, September 5). I live in the US rural Bible belt. It is a hard-right town run by logging interests, where locals think Bush has gone soft for waiting and not just "bombing I-rak to hell". It is a town where flags are plastered in every window and fly on every car. Where homosexuality is a sin against God and America, and women's rights are the basis of moral decay. It is not the America most people visit. It is the grassroots of Bush's Republican party.
With other progressives, I sit and watch as Bush dismantles environmental and education laws and civil rights. Most small towns in the US probably have people like us struggling to stay hopeful and keep fighting. The elections are a critical time for the left and centre-left here. Both houses are up for grabs and Republicans gaining control of both is a real possibility. I was convinced Bush was fighting his damndest to get into Iraq by the elections, which would swing the vote in his favour. Now, as the rhetoric gears up, that is even clearer. My only hope was that Europe would stand firmly in his way.
By giving in to Bush, Blair is offering probably the biggest single election boost he could to the most sinister, corrupt and isolationist of regimes. For Bush this is domestic. It is about total rightwing control of the house, senate and politically appointed courts, with all the implications that has for us and the world. Why don't you get it, Mr Blair? Louise Gray USA (address supplied) tolouisegray@hotmail.com
· It would be nice if your House of Commons would rein in Mr Blair. If you folks were to put Mr Blair on a short leash, where would the "big dogs" in Washington find another ally to support their asinine adventure? Robert Bauserman Edinburg, Virginia, USA
· From my little corner of the globe, I thought Mo Mowlam's article (The real goal is the seizure of Saudi oil, September 5) was excellent. I have been very uncomfortable with the US posture regarding its "responsibility" as the world superpower and "moral arbiter". The main failure of the Americans is their unwillingness to come to terms with and appreciate other peoples' diverse cultures and values.
I do not condone terrorism. And I am aware there are many rogue regimes which exploit their people. But I still believe the world and the Middle East in particular will benefit more if the Americans (and the west) are seen to be empathetic and act as such. Nothing will be gained by their strutting about the globe, upsetting conferences, and being perceived as a bigoted lot obsessed with their economic and political might. Tony Okoromadu Lagos Business School, Nigeria
· The US is the only country which has used nuclear weapons. It used chemical weapons in Vietnam and dropped uranium-based weapons over Iraq, Yugoslavia and elsewhere. The US also helps to arm allies like Israel with weapons of mass destruction. Is the right to possess and use them solely the prerogative of the Anglo-Saxon civilisation? Dr Mahboob Hossain University of Asia Pacific Bangladesh
· During his premiership, Mr Blair has already taken this nation to war on more occasions than any previous leader of Britain, either monarch or commoner. Now he proposes to mobilise again. It is a long way from what was in my mind when I voted Labour in 1997. What does this astonishing record of bellicosity tell us about the prime minister himself? W Stephen Gilbert Corsham, Wilts
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