Archive By Date | Today's Links to Search By
Activists' News | Nuclear | Depleted Uranium | Military | Police
Alternative Energy Etc. | From Subscribers
NUCLEAR
Kashmir Minister Slaying Stokes Tensions
Reporters Given Tour of Suspected Nuclear Facility
Japan minister denies TEPCO to restart reactor
Terrorist Threat Highlights Nuclear Insecurity
MILITARY
Blair Speech Mutes Protests by Union Leaders on Iraq
Colombian police get extra powers
Colombia Steps Up Emergency Powers
Military Investigated in Indonesia Ambush
U.S. Lacks Up-to-Date Review of Iraqi Arms
Overthrowing Saddam 'just the first step'
Saudi prince denies his country to blame
Anger at U.S. Said to Be at New High
NATO, Russia to Test Terrorist Attack Response
Navy Plane Missing Off Puerto Rico
Alleging Abuse, Russian Soldiers Leave Post
Putin Seems to Issue Ultimatum to Georgia Over Militants
Annan Urges No Unilateral Action Against Iraq
Air Defense Is Activated; Weapons Deployed in Region
U.S. Military on Highest Alert in Mideast
US Military Sending Command Staff to Gulf
U.S. Military Moving Staff to Qatar
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Senators: FBI Grabbing More Wiretap Powers
Guantanamo Bay suspects
Secret court weighs bid for more wiretap power
Bush Defends Limits on Legal Rights
Guantanamo Detainees Stay in Limbo
Plan to Attack Embassies in South Asia
Terror stalks America again
U.S. put on increased alert
ENERGY AND OTHER
Opinion: Bush Energy Policy Fuels Terrorists
ACTIVISTS
City Plans Protest... [Santa Cruz, California]
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- india / pakistan
Kashmir Minister Slaying Stokes Tensions
September 11, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-kashmir.html
SOGAM, India (Reuters) - India has blamed Pakistan for the assassination of a state minister in Kashmir, stoking fears of renewed tensions between the nuclear rivals over the disputed Himalayan region.
Two Pakistan-based Islamic groups have claimed responsibility for gunning down Law Minister Mushtaq Ahmed Lone on Wednesday, the first slaying of a senior Indian politician in a decade.
Kashmiri separatists have pledged to derail the state election that begins on Monday and more than 300 people, including another candidate and several party workers, have been killed since the poll was announced in early August.
The 45-year-old Lone, one of Kashmir's most heavily guarded leaders, was gunned down as he addressed an election rally ahead of Monday's first round of voting for a new Jammu and Kashmir state assembly.
India's junior foreign minister, Omar Abdullah, who heads Kashmir's ruling National Conference party, blamed Pakistan for Lone's slaying at Tikkipora village, near his home village of Sogam.
``Militants and their patrons in Pakistan were unnerved by the enthusiasm of the people to participate in the elections and so they are resorting to such dastardly acts,'' he said.
India and Pakistan are locked in a military stand-off over Kashmir that brought them close to another war this year and New Delhi has said the level of violence during the election would be a crucial indication of Islamabad's pledge to stop Islamic separatists crossing into Kashmir.
Three of Lone's police bodyguards were also killed and in separate attacks 12 others died on Wednesday as the world marked the anniversary of the September 11 suicide hijack attacks in the United States that Washington has blamed on Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
Some Afghan militants fighting alongside Kashmiri separatists are believed to have trained with al Qaeda.
A spokesman for the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, one of the largest groups fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, called the Kashmir Press Service to claim responsibility for Lone's killing, the most prominent assassination since a suicide bomber killed former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.
Lashkar is one of two groups India blames for a December attack on its parliament that triggered the latest crisis with Pakistan and a May attack on an army camp in Kashmir that brought the countries close to their third war over Kashmir since independence in 1947.
A previously unknown group, Al-Arifeen, also called the agency to claim responsibility.
Indian Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani condemned the violence.
``They are attacks intended to subvert the will of the people who would exercise their right of franchise to elect a new assembly and a new government,'' he told reporters in New Delhi.
India wants a big turnout and a peaceful poll to bolster the legitimacy of its rule in the state. But the main separatist alliance, the All Parties HurriyatConference, has urged a boycott, saying the election cannot be a substitute for 1948-49 U.N. resolutions calling for a vote to decide the territory's future.
Fears of violence, as well as general disillusionment with New Delhi's rule, have dampened campaigning.
Most election rallies attract only a few people, many either party faithful bussed in for the event or bemused passers-by. Rallies are protected by scores of heavily armed paramilitary troops and leading politicians appear only briefly.
An extra 45,000 soldiers, paramilitary and police have been brought into Jammu and Kashmir, mainly Hindu India's only Muslim majority state, to boost security for the election, in addition to the 450,000 already here.
The state virtually closes down at dusk. Streets are deserted and dark. Many villages have no electricity.
Security around Sogam has been stepped up ahead of Lone's burial on Thursday, which is due to be attended by Defense Minister George Fernandes.
The 13-year battle against Indian rule in Kashmir is one of the world's bloodiest and has killed more than 2,000 people so far this year. India says more than 35,000 people have died in the revolt, but separatists put the death toll above 80,000.
-------- iraq
Reporters Given Tour of Suspected Nuclear Facility
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, September 11, 2002; Page A10
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64528-2002Sep10.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 10 -- Surrounded by fences, walls and what appear to be man-made hills, the Tuwaitha nuclear complex on the outskirts of Baghdad has withstood its share of fighting over the years.
In 1981, Israeli warplanes destroyed a reactor on the site that allegedly could have produced weapons-grade nuclear material. In 1991, during the Persian Gulf War, U.S. aircraft struck the remaining two reactors at the complex, turning several buildings into heaps of rubble. In the mid-1990s, the facility was the scene of sparring between indignant Iraqi officials and irate U.N. weapons inspectors.
Now there's more conflict here, this time the rhetorical kind, as Iraq, the United States and Britain trade accusations about Iraq's weapons programs.
Over the weekend, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair described satellite images compiled by the International Atomic Energy Agency showing new construction at several suspected Iraqi nuclear facilities, including Tuwaitha. This, the leaders said, was evidence that President Saddam Hussein's government was trying to build a nuclear weapon.
So today, the Iraqis fired back. They took two busloads of foreign journalists to Tuwaitha, about 15 miles southeast of Baghdad, to show what was inside the buildings the IAEA had pointed to as new.
The first stop was a one-story, brown stucco building that appeared to be newly constructed. Officials said it is intended to be used to test medicines on rabbits and mice. "It's an animal house," said Faiz Al-Berkdar, director general of science policy at the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission.
A brief walk through the building did not reveal any animals, nor was there evidence of anything remotely nuclear.
"I would like to assure you that we are dealing with every kind of research except nuclear," he said. "We don't have nuclear facilities anymore. It's impossible for us to work with nuclear materials." Later, he went further, saying the Iraqi government has "no intention to build nuclear weapons."
Some foreign experts have come to different conclusions. The International Institute for Strategic Studies, an independent research group in London, issued a report today stating that developing nuclear weapons is a "core objective of the regime" and that Iraq could produce such a device "in a matter of months" if it acquired nuclear fissile material from an outside source.
Al-Berkdar and other officials said the Tuwaitha facility is now focusing on nonnuclear pharmaceutical and agricultural products. But it was not entirely clear to the journalists today what was going on in the buildings. There were always Iraqi officials around -- journalists were not permitted to wander. This correspondent was escorted away from the group for a few minutes to be shown U.N. identification tags on a chemical drying unit.
The tour was the latest example of the increased aggressivity displayed by Iraq's Information Ministry in putting its case before the several dozen foreign journalists now in Baghdad, many of them from nearby Arab countries, Japan and Europe.
On Monday, officials allowed a small group of television cameramen to accompany former U.N. arms inspector Scott Ritter as he visited Tuwaitha and Salman Pak, a facility near Baghdad that an Iraqi defector claimed was used to train terrorists. Ritter said the site, which included the shell of an aged Iraqi Airways jet, was used to teach commandos hostage-rescue techniques.
If the Iraqis are willing to let journalists visit at least a few contested sites, why not inspectors?
Al-Berkdar gave the government's stock response. "They were spying more than they were doing their jobs," he said.
Pointing to a color photocopy of the satellite image of the complex to indicate the disputed buildings he was showing off, Al-Berkdar led reporters to what he called a drug-production building and then to what by his account was an electronic drafting workshop, before finishing up inside a mushroom farm.
With a dozen television cameras rolling, one of the employees in the mushroom room decided to ham it up. He grabbed a particularly plump white one and announced: "If America doesn't believe us . . ."
Then he took a bite.
"Everything we produce in Iraq," he said, chewing, "is very delicious."
-------- japan
Japan minister denies TEPCO to restart reactor
Reuters JAPAN:
September 11, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17702/story.htm
TOKYO - Japan's trade minister yesterday denied a report his ministry and the country's biggest power firm were in talks to restart a nuclear reactor without repairing the cracks that led to a scandal over falsified repair records.
The daily Asahi Shimbun said Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) had started negotiations with government nuclear safety officials about restarting one of two reactors that had been closed, arguing that it posed no immediate safety problem.
"The newspaper article said TEPCO had started negotiations with the ministry's safety agency to restart the nuclear power plant but that is false," Minister of Trade, Economy and Industry Takeo Hiranuma told a news conference.
A company spokesman said no decision would be taken until Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency officials had completed an enquiry, which may take several weeks.
"A course of action will be decided after the investigation is complete," the TEPCO spokesman said. "We are not in a position to comment on details at present."
Late last month TEPCO said it had covered up the existence of cracks at several of its nuclear plants and local media have said the falsification of repair records was probably instigated by senior management.
Last week several top executives announced they would resign to take responsibility for the cover-up, which is thought to have begun in the late 1980s.
-------- terrorism
Terrorist Threat Highlights Nuclear Insecurity
September 11, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/sep2002/2002-09-11-09.asp#anchor2
WASHINGTON, DC,The heightened threat level in the U.S. is prompting new calls for increased security at nuclear power plants.
After Attorney General John Ashcroft raised the national threat condition to the Orange, or High, level on Tuesday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) advised nuclear power plants and other nuclear facilities to implement heightened security measures, based on pre-established procedures. The NRC informed its licensees that while there is no specific credible threat against any of them, there has been credible intelligence involving U.S. interests and facilities abroad, particularly in Asia.
Critics of the nation's nuclear power program say the extra measures are still not enough to safeguard the U.S. from a terrorist attack on a nuclear facility. The Nuclear Control Institute (NCI) is calling on the NRC to take steps to eliminate security vulnerabilities that still persist at U.S. nuclear power plants one year after the September 11 attacks.
"The NRC took its time in imposing new security requirements for nuclear power plants after September 11, and has not even begun to verify that these measures are in place," said Dr. Edwin Lyman, NCI president. "Now that the U.S. threat level has increased, the NRC must immediately bolster plant security or risk being caught flat footed by a surprise terrorist attack."
NCI also argued that until these measures are implemented and demonstrated through testing to be adequate to protect against offensives on the scale of last September's attacks, the National Guard should be deployed nationwide at all nuclear plants to supplement private guard forces. The group urged that serious consideration should be given to the deployment of surface to air missiles or other means to protect against aircraft attack at nuclear plants.
"The NRC cannot count on the prompt response of state and local police to save the day if a nuclear plant is attacked," said Dr. Lyman. "Nuclear plant defenses should be capable of deterring realistic threats at all times."
On Tuesday, activists from the environmental group Greenpeace staged a protest against the expansion of nuclear power at a gathering of industry officials in Washington DC being referred to as the Nuclear Renaissance Conference. Greenpeace members delivered their "No New Nukes" message to conference attendees in the form of an ice sculpture depicting a melting nuclear reactor.
"Greenpeace is putting plans for any 'nuclear renaissance' on ice," said Jim Riccio, nuclear policy analyst for Greenpeace. "Despite benefiting from millions of dollars of government subsidies, nuclear power plants are still too expensive to build, too dangerous to operate and too vulnerable to potential terrorist attacks."
Three nuclear corporations - Exelon, Entergy and Dominion Energy - have indicated that they will apply for permits to build new nuclear units at three existing nuclear plant sites. Dominion Energy will seek an early site permit for the North Anna site in Virginia, Entergy at the Grand Gulf site in Mississippi, and Exelon at the Clinton site in Illinois.
While these nuclear corporations plan to submit their applications in the fall of 2003 and expect the NRC to approve the permits by 2005, none of them have selected a reactor design.
"These nuclear corporations cannot choose a new reactor design because none of the new designs are economically viable," Riccio contended. "As a result, the nuclear industry hasn't ordered and subsequently completed a new nuclear reactor in nearly 30 years."
In February 2002, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) put forth a plan that would result in new nuclear reactors by 2010. In addition, the nuclear industry has their own plan to construct 50 new nuclear reactors by 2020, and the Bush administration intends on spending $38.5 million in 2003 to subsidize the siting of new plants in the United States.
"There are much safer and less expensive ways to produce electricity without threatening our families and communities the way nuclear energy does," said Riccio. "After all, terrorists aren't targeting windmills and solar panels as potential attack sites."
-------- MILITARY
-------- britain
Blair Speech Mutes Protests by Union Leaders on Iraq
New York Times
September 11, 2002
By WARREN HOGE
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/11/international/europe/11BRIT.html
LONDON, Sept. 10 - Prime Minister Tony Blair took on British critics of his hard-line stance on Iraq today, pledging to work for a solution through the United Nations and not to take any action without submitting the case to Parliament.
In a tough speech to the Trades Union Congress at its annual convention in Blackpool, Mr. Blair coupled his promise to involve the United Nations with a warning that "action will follow" if President Saddam Hussein of Iraq ignored demands to let weapons inspectors back into the country.
"If the challenge to us is to work with the United Nations, we will respond to it," he told the delegates. "But if we do so, then the challenge to all of us in the United Nations is this: The United Nations must be the way to resolve the threat from Saddam, not a way of avoiding it."
On Monday, the union held a noisy debate over Iraq, with a motion declaring that Britain should obtain United Nations approval for any action barely winning out over a more defiant measure condemning any move on Iraq. A number of union leaders had predicted that Mr. Blair would be heckled and jeered when he appeared today, but his 25-minute speech was greeted with respectful silence throughout and a standing ovation at its conclusion.
Mr. Blair effectively pre-empted protests by beginning his talk with a grim and graphic description of Saddam Hussein's history of the use of chemical weapons. He then delivered a disarming lesson from a year ago when he had been about to address the union at its conference in Brighton at the moment he received the news of the attacks in the United States and had to leave the stage to return to London.
"Suppose I had come last year on the same day as this year - Sept. 10," he said. "Suppose I had said to you: `There is a terrorist network called Al Qaeda. It operates out of Afghanistan. It has carried out several attacks and we believe it is planning more. It has been condemned by the United Nations in the strongest terms. Unless it is stopped, the threat will grow. And so I want to take action to prevent that.'
"Your response and probably that of most people would have been very similar to the response of some of you yesterday."
Mr. Blair, who met with President Bush at Camp David on Saturday, has been the staunchest foreign supporter of the Bush administration's call for action and has sought to generate support for the initiative among other European nations and in Russia, where he is scheduled to travel later this month.
But a majority of the British public, large numbers of Labor members of Parliament and a trade union movement that has become newly emboldened with the election of a new generation of militant leaders have expressed disapproval of Mr. Blair's closeness to Mr. Bush and of his commitment to involving Britain in the move on Saddam Hussein.
His performance seemed to calm the protest, at least temporarily. "I am quite happy with the speech; it wasn't the clash we predicted," said Derek Simpson, a former Communist who stunned 10 Downing Street in July by winning control of Amicus, Britain's second largest union, from Sir Ken Jackson, the prime minister's closest ally in the labor movement.
The general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, John Monks, said of the prime minister's talk, "Against a difficult background, I think he has earned a lot of respect from delegates."
In London, a move by dissident members of Parliament to hold an unofficial session in a church hall to protest Mr. Blair's failure to heed their call for a special session before Oct. 15, the end of its recess, appeared to lose steam with Mr. Blair's declaration that he would submit the matter to full debate.
"There is no substitute for the prime minister at the dispatch box responding to members of Parliament from all sides of the house," said Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrats' foreign policy spokesman and an outspoken opponent of swift action in Iraq. Mr. Campbell added that Mr. Blair "still has to make his case to the British people."
Mr. Blair is due back in the same hall in two weeks for the Labor Party's annual convention, and delegates have said they intend to make the Iraq policy a centerpiece of the conference business.
In his speech today, Mr. Blair said he was aware of the doubts in the country about taking military action, but he argued that not acting ran greater risks. "If we do not deal with the threat from this international outlaw and his barbaric regime, it may not erupt and engulf us this month or next, perhaps not even this year or the next, but it will at some point," he said.
"And," he said, "I do not want it on my conscience that we knew the threat, saw it coming and did nothing."
-------- colombia
Colombian police get extra powers
Uribe won a landslide poll on a promise to crush rebels
Wednesday, 11 September, 2002,
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2250227.stm
The Colombian Government has announced new powers to detain without warrants, restrict travel and impose curfews in the latest move in its offensive against leftist guerrillas.
The new measures - which suspend some constitutional guarantees - were taken under the power of a state of emergency declared by President Alvaro Uribe just five days after he took office on 7 August.
They are the strongest moves yet in Mr Uribe's hardline campaign platform to put an end to more than three decades of bloodshed, in which thousands are killed every year.
Mr Uribe has already ordered an expansion of the country's police and military, to try and wrest back control of the half Colombian territory in the hands of the guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries.
The new powers will allow:
The arrest and detention of suspects without warrants for 24 hours, after which they would have to be brought before prosecutors to secure another 36 hours' detention. Only then will charges have to be brought.
Searches to be conducted without presenting warrants.
The creation of special "Zones of Rehabilitation and Consolidation" in which travel can be restricted and curfews imposed. Military commanders would be authorised to find out where residents live and what they do for a living.
Communication lines to be tapped to secure evidence or prevent a crime.
"We've been tardy in taking measures of this nature," Defence Minister Martha Lucia Ramirez told parliament, according to the Associated Press news agency.
"In many cases, the security forces have had evidence of the presence of terrorist groups... but have had to deal with a restrictive legal framework that kept them from reacting quickly."
----
Colombia Steps Up Emergency Powers
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS,
September 10, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Colombia.html
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- Colombia stepped up its emergency powers Tuesday to battle growing insurgency violence, announcing it can detain people without warrants, restrict travel and impose curfews.
The move was the strongest yet taken by President Alvaro Uribe, who assumed office on Aug. 7 pledging to bring order to this violent South American nation.
Uribe imposed the ``state of unrest'' on Aug. 12, and immediately ordered a new tax to help finance the stepped-up war against rebels and paramilitaries. He also ordered an expansion of the country's police and military.
Going further, Uribe's government declared Tuesday it can conduct searches without presenting warrants and the president can create special zones in which travel can be restricted and curfews imposed. A military commander would be in charge of all security forces in the zones, but could also question civilian residents and visitors.
Judicial authorities would still have to authorize searches, but security forces would not have to present the warrants when conducting raids.
``We've been tardy in taking measures of this nature,'' Defense Minister Martha Lucia Ramirez told parliament.
``In many cases, the security forces have had evidence of the presence of terrorist groups ... but have had to deal with a restrictive legal framework that kept them from reacting quickly,'' Ramirez said.
The new measures announced Tuesday suspend some constitutional guarantees.
Under the decree, Colombia's security forces can arrest suspects without warrants. The detainee would then have to be brought before a prosecutor within 24 hours. Prosecutors would then have an additional 36 hours to charge the suspect with a crime.
Authorities can also tap communications lines with a judicial order in order to seek criminal evidence or to prevent a crime, the government said in a statement.
Foreigners in Colombia must appear before the authorities when ordered to, or face expulsion from the country.
Colombians, who elected the hardline Uribe by a landslide, have widely supported his efforts to crush the insurgents and impose state control over this turbulent nation. But there was some fear the government was going too far.
Gustavo Gallon, director of the Colombian Commission of Jurists, a human rights group, said security forces have been unable to find and arrest thousands of Colombians who already have warrants out for them, and are now being asked to arrest people with no warrants.
``Paradoxically, in seeking to create more security for the population, they are creating more insecurity,'' Gallon said.
One of the strongest measures authorizes the government to create ``Zones of Rehabilitation and Consolidation.''
One of the strongest authorizes the government to create ``Zones of Rehabilitation and Consolidation.''
``They are geographic areas affected by the actions of criminal groups in which the government can apply exceptional measures to guarantee the protection of civilians and institutional stability,'' the government statement said.
A military commander would be authorized to verify where residents and visitors in the zone live and what they do for a living.
Colombia's war, now in its 38th year, pits two leftist rebel armies against the government and outlawed right-wing paramilitary groups.
-------- indonesia
Military Investigated in Indonesia Ambush
Inquiry Into Deaths, Including 2 Americans, Puts Police at Odds With Armed Forces
By Alan Sipress and Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, September 11, 2002; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64282-2002Sep10?language=printer
JAKARTA, Indonesia, Sept. 10 -- Indonesian police are investigating whether soldiers were behind the killing of two Americans and one Indonesian near the Freeport-McMoRan gold and copper mine in the eastern province of Papua, the regional police chief said today.
Investigators also were exploring the possibility that Papuan separatists or local tribesmen carried out the Aug. 31 ambush. But the determination of the police chief, I. Made Pastika, to examine possible army involvement has put him at odds with Indonesia's powerful military.
Armed forces commanders have continued to insist that separatists ambushed a convoy of Toyota Land Cruisers traveling the foggy mountain road to the mine. The military's Papua commander, Maj. Gen. Mahidin Simbolon, today again blamed the attack -- the most violent in the area in 40 years -- on the Free Papua Movement (OPM), which has been waging an independence campaign marked by low-level, sporadic violence.
But Pastika, in an interview, said that members of the military may have carried out the attack to extort money or other concessions from the Freeport-McMoRan facility, the world's largest gold and copper mine. Furnishing security for multinational companies has proven lucrative for the military, known by its Indonesian initials as TNI, but Pastika said that some of its members are dissatisfied with the current arrangement. Investigators are also evaluating the possibility that special forces may have hired local Papuan fighters to conduct the ambush, he said.
"There are some rumors about the possibility of TNI or other [military] personnel maybe doing the attack. This is also one of the possibilities," Pastika said. "We are police and cannot ignore any of the possibilities."
The differences between the police and the military over the investigation reflects a broader and occasionally violent rivalry that developed after the two forces, once unified, were split after the 1998 ouster of the long-ruling President Suharto.
Though the purpose was to create stronger civilian institutions, with the police playing a greater role in internal security, the two organizations compete across the Indonesian archipelago for control over security and the patronage and money-making opportunities that come with it.
This is not the first time police have focused suspicions on the military over atrocities in the remote province at the far eastern end of the archipelago. The police accused the military's special forces of carrying out the November murder of Papuan separatist leader Theys Eluay, and 12 soldiers have been detained in connection with that killing.
If soldiers are found to be involved in the Aug. 31 ambush, it could undercut U.S. plans to restore military ties with Indonesia, suspended in 1999 to protest the army's role in orchestrating widespread militia violence in East Timor.
Simbolon, the Papuan military commander, rejected any suggestion of military involvement in the attack, which killed American teachers Edwin L. Burgon of Sunriver, Ore., and Ricky L. Spier of Colorado and their Indonesian colleague Bambung Riwanto,, all Freeport employees.
"No way," Simbolon said, when asked whether special forces or other soldiers could have been responsible. He said it was clear that the military was innocent because soldiers, who were protecting the police as they investigated the crime, were fired on by separatists on Sept. 1, a day after the ambush. In that exchange, one Papuan was killed, police say.
Simbolon said a guerrilla group headed by local separatist commander Kelly Kwalik could have been the attacker. But he said another faction, led by Titus Murib, may also have been responsible. Simbolon said a body recovered from the firefight appears to be that of a member of the Moni tribe, which comes from an area where Murib is active.
Simbolon has vowed to crush the Papuan separatist campaign, raising concerns among human rights and community activists eager to see Jakarta reach a compromise with the independence movement. Simbolon, known for his tough tactics, assumed the top army post in Papua after serving as a commander in East Timor.
Pastika, the police chief, said it remained possible that separatists were behind the attack near the Freeport mine. If so, the ambush, carried out with automatic weapons including M-16 assault rifles, would represent a notable escalation for fighters who have traditionally used bows and arrows. He said police have learned that the Kwalik and Murib factions each have one or two assault rifles.
Pastika said another possibility is that the killings were committed by Papuans jealous of the allowances provided by Freeport-McMoRan to tribes living in the immediate vicinity of the mine.
The military has complicated the probe, he said. For instance, soldiers have smudged fingerprints and moved bodies and vehicles, he said, adding that this reflected soldiers' ignorance about how to treat a crime scene.
But Simbolon said that police-military coordination during the investigation has been excellent. "We're in full cooperation with the police," Simbolon said. "The Papuan police chief and me, as always, work together."
-------- iraq
U.S. Lacks Up-to-Date Review of Iraqi Arms
New York Times
September 11, 2002
By ERIC SCHMITT and ALISON MITCHELL
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/11/international/middleeast/11IRAQ.html
WASHINGTON, Sept. 10 - Senior intelligence officials acknowledged today that the government had not compiled an updated, cross-agency assessment of Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons capacities, although the Bush administration is pressing for a quick statement of support for military action against Saddam Hussein.
Intelligence officials, responding to repeated complaints from Senate Democrats, said today that they were working on the authoritative document. The last such thorough assessment on Iraq's clandestine weapons was produced about two years ago, Senate and administration officials said today.
Senior Bush administration officials have given Iraq's pursuit of nuclear weapons as the main argument that the United States must act now to oust President Hussein, before the Iraqi leader acquires nuclear arms and alters the strategic balance in the Persian Gulf.
But the administration has not yet prepared what is called a national intelligence estimate, the intelligence community's most definitive written judgment on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. The document contains the coordinated intelligence assessments from the Pentagon, State Department, Central Intelligence Agency and other government entities and any significant dissenting views.
Some Democrats said they wanted to see such an intelligence estimate before they voted on a Congressional resolution backing military action against Iraq.
"What did we learn from Sept. 11? That we had a failure of coordination of America's intelligence capability," said Senator Richard J. Durbin, an Illinois Democrat on the Intelligence Committee. "Now we're being asked to consider going to war and vote on it within days, and we learn that our intelligence community has not coordinated their efforts to put together this critical document that's essential for us to make this decision."
George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, and John E. McLaughlin, the C.I.A.'s deputy director, assured senators in classified briefings on Capitol Hill today that the intelligence community was in the midst of producing an updated intelligence assessment on Iraq, which senators and administration officials said could be completed within weeks.
Administration officials and some Senate Republicans sought to play down the lack of an updated national intelligence estimate. Senator Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat who heads the Intelligence Committee, first requested the new analysis on July 22 in a letter to the C.I.A., officials said.
While there are major gaps in what American intelligence knows about Iraq's abilities, there is a large amount of information in the public record, including C.I.A. testimony, reports by United Nations inspectors, and assessments from private groups like the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
"There are a variety of documents out there on the overall W.M.D. threat, which includes Iraq," said one American intelligence official, using the initials that stand for weapons of mass destruction.
But Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said there was no cross-agency judgment on Iraq's unconventional arsenal. "What I'm looking for," he said, "is the latest compilation that cross-analyzes agency assessments, that really gives you the best, state-of-the-art, up-to-date, full analysis of where they are." The national intelligence estimate represents the consensus of the full range of intelligence agencies produced by a rigorous cross-agency review.
"There's a certain extra credibility that goes along with that process," said Joseph S. Nye, a former chairman of the National Intelligence Council, which writes the national intelligence estimate.
Even as briefings continued on Capitol Hill, Democrats stepped up their opposition to a Congressional vote before the election.
"Unless there's some absolute urgent necessity to have this debate prior the election, I think it would be a much more thoughtful and constructive and nonpartisan debate if it takes place after the election," said Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat.
Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, the Republican leader, said a show of support by Congress would strengthen the President's hand with allies. "I think people need to know what's going on and where their representatives stand," he said.
Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the Democratic leader, said that if Mr. Bush insisted on a vote before the election "I don't think we have much choice but to respect the decision." But he added, "I think that's a deliberative judgment that hopefully will be made in concert and not dictated to the Congress."
In contrast to many Republicans, Representative Dick Armey of Texas, the House majority leader, continued to sound reluctant to go to war, recalling the failed raid in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993 that killed 18 American soldiers. "It broke our hearts," he said. "So I will need to see a plan before I will cast a vote. I need to see that it's necessary."
-------- mideast
Overthrowing Saddam 'just the first step'
September 11 2002
The Boston Globe, The Washington Post
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/09/11/1031608248668.html
As the Bush Administration debates going to war against Iraq, its most hawkish members are pushing a vision for the Middle East that sees the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein as merely a first step in the region's transformation.
The argument for reshaping the political landscape in the Middle East has been pushed for years by some Washington think tanks and in hawkish circles.
It is now being considered as a possible US policy by hardliners in the Administration, analysts and officials say.
Iraq, they argue, is just the first piece of the puzzle. After ousting Saddam the US will have more leverage to act against Syria and Iran, be in a better position to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and rely less on Saudi oil. Although the thinking does not represent official US policy, it has increasingly served as a justification for a military attack against Iraq, and elements of the strategy have emerged in speeches by US officials, particularly the Vice-President, Dick Cheney.
"The goal is not just a new regime in Iraq; the goal is a new Middle East," said Raad Alkadiri, an Iraq analyst with PFC, a Washington-based energy consulting organisation.
"The goal has been and remains one of the main driving factors of pre-emptive action against Iraq."
The push comes as the US quietly drops what has been a central argument in the case for military action against Baghdad: Iraq's links to al-Qaeda and other terrorist organisations.
Although US officials say they are still trying to build a strong case tying Saddam to global terrorism, the CIA has not found convincing evidence to back this up despite combing its files and redoubling efforts to collect and analyse information related to Iraq.
Most specifically, analysts say they cannot validate allegations by high-ranking US officials of links between Saddam and al-Qaeda members who have taken refuge in northern Iraq and a meeting in Prague in April last year between the September 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence agent.
"It's a thin reed," said a senior intelligence official, describing the information on both cases.
As a result of the CIA's conclusions, the Bush Administration has accepted that its strongest case against Iraq is Baghdad's apparent continued attempt to acquire chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
President George Bush is expected to focus on this during his speech to the United Nations tomorrow in which he will present the Administration's Iraq policy.
"At some point we will certainly make the case concerning Iraq and its links to terrorism," an Administration official said on Monday.
"We still have to develop it more."
The latest sign that the Administration has dropped references to Saddam's alleged links to terrorist groups came on Monday at a meeting in Detroit between Mr Bush and the Canadian Prime Minister, Jean Chretien.
Mr Chretien later told reporters he had asked Mr Bush about links between al-Qaeda and Iraq and that Mr Bush had said: "That is not the angle they're exploring now. The angle they're exploring is the production of weapons of mass destruction."
----
Saudi prince denies his country to blame
From combined dispatches
September 11, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020911-21258354.htm
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabia accepts no responsibility for the September 11 attacks in the United States, Defense Minister Sultan bin Abdul Aziz said yesterday, even though 15 attackers were Saudis.
The remarks reflected a defensive tone throughout the Arab world, where few events were scheduled to mark the anniversary and many citizens said they still admired the al Qaeda terrorists who carried out the attacks on America.
Prince Sultan insisted that the blame must be borne by individuals and not the state for the "dramatic day" when "innocents were killed" as hijacked airliners were crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.
"If some Saudi nationals abandoned the doctrines of Islam and their nationalism, then they must bear the blame and not" the country itself, said Prince Sultan, a brother of King Fahd who has been defense minister for more than 30 years. He is second in line for the Saudi throne after his half-brother, Crown Prince Abdullah.
The attackers "had waged a war against their own country more than any other country, and the whole world knows what they did in Saudi Arabia," Prince Sultan was quoted as saying by the official Saudi Press Agency.
"The Saudi kingdom shelters no criminal or terrorist because our religion and our nationalism prevent us from so doing," he said.
Saudi Arabia has been the United States' closest and oldest ally in the Arab world, with ties dating to the 1940s. Since September 11, relations have been strained because 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis.
Crown Prince Abdullah, meanwhile, sent a letter to President Bush and the American people saying the Saudi people felt "great pain" when they discovered the role of their fellow citizens.
Saudi Arabia at first denied that the hijackers included Saudis. In February, Interior Minister Prince Nayef became the first Saudi official to acknowledge that citizens of the kingdom had taken part in the attacks.
Elsewhere in the Arab world, a poll published yesterday found that terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden was still admired by most people in Kuwait, a startling figure 11 years after the United States went to war to liberate that country from occupying Iraqi forces.
The poll by the al-Rai al-Aam daily said 74 percent of 11,695 respondents said bin Laden was a "hero." It found that 19 percent regarded him as a "criminal," and that 6 percent had no opinion.
Kuwait has been an outspoken supporter of the United States since the 1991 Gulf war, and its officials have sided with Washington in its war on terror. Senior Kuwaiti officials are due to attend a ceremony at the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait today to commemorate the anniversary of the attacks.
In Ramallah, West Bank, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat accused Israel and the United States of having seized upon the September 11 attacks to lump his Palestinian people's uprising with the "war on terror."
But in an hourlong address to the Palestinian parliament on Monday, the Palestinian leader performed a delicate balancing act, extending his condolences to Americans.
Mr. Arafat, whom Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had compared to bin Laden, said in his keynote speech that he was willing to join the U.S.-led war on terror if it stayed within international law.
"I'd like to tell the whole world and in particular the United States we are fully prepared to participate in any international effort to eradicate that kind of terrorism within the framework of the United Nations and international legitimacy," he said.
But he added: "The Israeli government manipulated the changes after September 11 in order to brand our struggle 'terrorist' and to cover the reoccupation of our land, while we are victims of terror," he said.
In Afghanistan, thousands of people rallied in the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar yesterday and denounced the former regime and bin Laden for defaming Islam.
However, few citizens of the country where the September 11 attacks wrought their most significant consequences were grieving for its victims.
"For Americans, this day was a tragedy because lots of people lost their lives; for Afghans, it focused world attention on us, and now, thanks to that day, we are free, independent and secure," shopkeeper Mohammed Rahim said.
--------
Anger at U.S. Said to Be at New High
New York Times
September 11, 2002
By JANE PERLEZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/11/international/middleeast/11ARAB.html
CAIRO, Sept. 10 - Anger at the United States, embedded in the belief that the Bush administration lends unstinting support to Israel at the expense of the Palestinians, is at an unparalleled high across the Arab world, according to analysts and diplomats in the region.
The resolve of President Bush to use force against Iraq, they say, compounds the antagonism, which is expressed with particularly unvarnished dismay in Egypt and neighboring Jordan, Washington's crucial Arab allies.
More than in previous bouts of anti-Americanism in the region, the anger permeates all strata of society, especially among the educated, and is tinged, people acknowledge, with disillusionment at their own long-entrenched American-backed leadership.
Frustration at the failure of the Arab governments to forge a common front against the administration and its close relationship with the government of Ariel Sharon in Israel seeps through many conversations.
"There is a sense by many ordinary people and politicians that the moves against Iraq are an effort to redraw the map for the strategic interests of the United States and Israel," said Rami G. Khouri, an American-educated Jordanian journalist and a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, a research group with offices in Washington.
Mr. Khouri, like many others, said the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, was deeply unpopular in the region.
"Everyone I know wants Saddam Hussein removed," he said. "Nobody I know wants the Americans to do it - because we believe they are the last people in the world who will work on the behalf of Arab interests."
But this deep antagonism toward the United States is mixed, Mr. Khouri and others said, with an affinity for the American way of life that feeds the disillusionment with the Bush administration.
"Arabs are much closer to Americans than to Europeans," Mr. Khouri said. "Arabs love American culture, the rocket to the moon, technology, fast cars. They love going to America. Now they feel like jilted lovers."
The authoritarian leadership in Egypt, the monarchy in Jordan and other governments across the region would probably survive the street protests that are likely to occur if there is a war against Iraq, most of those interviewed said.
The protests may be used to allow populations to vent their frustrations. Analysts said governments in the region were nervous about the unpredictable consequences of a war, and the almost certain heavy economic costs, particularly in Jordan, where cheap Iraqi oil keeps the country going.
Mustafa B. Hamarneh, the director of the Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan, said it was likely that governments would ban lengthy demonstrations so as not to risk confrontations between their armies and the people - and also to avoid antagonizing the United States.
"The regimes will tighten the screws on political expression to keep their own skins," he said. "If the American flag is burnt every night on the Cairo streets, do you think Congress is going to give them money?" Egypt is one of the largest recipients of American foreign assistance.
Opinion makers, businessmen and officials voiced what they emphasized was their bewilderment at what they saw as the broken promise of the Bush administration. Instead of reaching out to the Arab world, as they had hoped, they said Mr. Bush had assumed an unquestioning tolerance of the actions of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel against the Palestinians.
They talked bitterly of the United States behaving like an 18th-century imperial power with policies based on racism and gunpowder. The main difference between the United States today and the marauding forces of Genghis Khan was that Washington was able to project its power all over the globe, said one person who was interviewed who insisted on anonymity.
There was little confidence in the Bush administration's promise to bring democracy to the Arab world in the wake of a defeat of Mr. Hussein. The administration's terminology "regime change" was revealing in itself, several people said. It meant, they said, that Washington could easily target other governments in the Arab world for similar treatment.
"All this talk of democracy in the Middle East is baloney," Mr. Hamarneh said. "The United States wants to do this against Iraq to spite Arabs and in spite of Arabs."
Most of those interviewed said that rather than ushering in democracy, an attack on Iraq would bring disintegration and chaos.
"There is a sense that the United States is going to make a mess of the region," said Abdel Monem Said Aly, the director of the prestigious Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo.
Mr. Aly listed what he called four major flaws in the Bush agenda: unequivocal support for Mr. Sharon, which he said was the driving force behind Washington's desire to topple Mr. Hussein; dealing with Iraq militarily "without preparation"; misguided policies on dealing with terrorists; and the negative "general rhetoric" from Washington about Muslims and Arabs.
By threatening to act unilaterally against Iraq, the United States would lose its remaining credibility among one billion Muslims and 300 million Arabs, Mr. Aly said.
"You need at least the support of those who are pro the United States," he said. "If you lose all those, there is no way you can guarantee the security of the United States."
There was widespread skepticism about the Bush administration's contention that the Iraqi leader was close to developing nuclear weapons.
From his office overlooking the Nile, Dr. Hossam Badrawi, an American-trained physician and the scion of one of Egypt's wealthiest families, said it was close to impossible to believe that Mr. Hussein possessed such devastating weapons. Dr. Hossam, whose two children attend college in the United States, called Mr. Hussein a "monster."
But, speaking in a suite decorated with American paraphernalia, including a photograph of himself with an American ambassador to Egypt, he said, "If the argument was so strong, the leadership of the rest of the world would agree."
Expressing a general mood of gloom about the outlook for the American-backed Arab governments, Sari Nasir, an American-trained professor of sociology at the University of Jordan, said: "They will become a targets of their own people."
"People have asked them to take a stand against the United States for its support of Israel and they haven't," he said. "People in the Arab world are much more educated than before and they resent their regimes." This resentment would strengthen the hand of such extremist organizations as Hezbollah and Hamas, he said.
Across all the conversations in the past several days, people were assiduous in differentiating between the Bush administration and the American people.
There was strong exception to the question posed in the United States in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks: "Why do they hate us?"
Several people said they objected to the anonymous and derogatory tone of "they." The word "hate" was inappropriate because the feelings were more of disappointment and disillusionment, emotions that could be eased with a change in policies, they said. And "us" was misleading. The disdain was reserved for Mr. Bush, not Americans, they said.
But Mr. Khouri said the feeling of being scorned ran so deep that it would be tough to reverse. "People have given up because they don't believe the United States will change its policy," he said.
-------- nato
NATO, Russia to Test Terrorist Attack Response
September 11, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-nato-russia.html
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO and Russia will hold a civil emergency exercise this month to test their response to a terrorist attack on a chemical production facility, alliance officials said Wednesday.
It is the first such exercise between the Cold War-era foes since they set up a new forum for security cooperation last May. It will be conducted in Noginsk, 44 miles outside Moscow, from September 25 to 27.
``It's going to be quite spectacular,'' said one NATO official, who said the scenario would involve mass casualties, chemical contamination, collapsed structures, evacuation and a request for international assistance.
Fourteen countries belonging to the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council -- which is made up of the 19 NATO members and 27 partner nations -- will provide 300 personnel for the exercise and Russia will field 700.
The aim of the ``Bogorodsk 2002'' exercise is to improve coordination following an attack with chemical, biological and radiological agents, something NATO has focused on since the September 11 attacks on the United States raised global concern about weapons of mass destruction.
In a fact sheet outlining its contribution to the fight against terrorism one year after those attacks, NATO said it was planning a deployable nuclear, chemical and biological (NBC) analytical laboratory and an NBC event response team.
It said the alliance was also building a biological and chemical defense stockpile and a disease surveillance system.
The alliance also listed as a contribution to the fight against terrorism the establishment of the NATO-Russia Council.
The new council was the result of President Vladimir Putin's decision to align Russia squarely behind the U.S.-led war on terrorism after September 11, giving Washington intelligence and access to Central Asian airbases for its Afghan operations.
-------- puerto rico
Navy Plane Missing Off Puerto Rico
September 11, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Puerto-Rico-Missing-Plane.html
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- A U.S. Navy plane with three officers on board was reported missing during exercises off the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, a Navy spokesman said Wednesday.
The Navy searched all day for the S-3B Viking which lost radio contact at about 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, said Cmdr. Ernest Duplessis, a spokesman for the U.S. Second Fleet in Norfolk, Va.
``It's not clear where it went missing,'' Duplessis said.
The 53-foot plane, used for in-flight refueling and sea surveillance, took off from the aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman off the eastern coast of Puerto Rico.
Duplessis identified the missing officers as pilot Lt. j.g. Thomas McCombie, 25, of State College, Pa.; Lt. Cmdr. Jeffrey Gray, 40, of Mound, Minn.; and Lt. Cmdr. Michael Chalsant, 36, of Jacksonville, Fla. All there were based in Jacksonville.
The Navy continued bombing exercises on its firing range at Vieques Wednesday, said Navy spokeswoman Lt. Cmdr. Kim Dixon.
The exercises, which started Sept. 3 and were scheduled to last three weeks, includes 10 ships, two attack submarines and some 80 planes in the Truman Battle Group.
On the Net:
S-3B Fact Sheet: http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/factfile/aircraft/air-s3b.html
-------- russia / chechnya
Alleging Abuse, Russian Soldiers Leave Post
By Susan B. Glasser
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, September 11, 2002; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63771-2002Sep10.html
MOSCOW, Sept. 10 -- A group of 54 Russian soldiers escaped from their posts in southern Russia to protest what they said were abuses by their senior officers, an unusual mass walkout revealed by chagrined military officials today when they announced the capture of the young conscripts and an investigation into their alleged mistreatment.
The soldiers were captured early this morning in Volgograd after fleeing from their unit on foot on Sunday, military officials said. Five of the soldiers said they left after being beaten by one of their commanders on Sunday, and their escape was allegedly covered up by another commander. By late today, Gen. Gennady Troshev, head of the North Caucasus military district, announced he had stripped the two officers of their positions and opened a criminal investigation of the incident.
Desertions are a routine occurrence in Russia's demoralized and underfunded 1.2 million-man army. A report in the weekly defense review of the Moscow newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta in July quoted the Defense Ministry as saying that 2,270 servicemen deserted in the first half of this year, of whom 860 are still missing. But the saga of the 54 Volgograd deserters stands out. It is by far the largest such walkout to become public, and military officials reacted swiftly by saying they would punish the officers who allegedly abused the conscripts.
The incident began over the weekend, while officials in the 20th Motorized Rifle Division were investigating the theft of a military vehicle. According to military investigators, several sergeants allegedly took one of the unit's combat vehicles and drove it to a nearby village, where they got drunk. In the ensuing investigation, however, the unit's major beat and threatened five privates.
"The soldiers, who did not want to be subjected to more humiliation and beating, decided to leave the testing grounds, together with 49 other servicemen," said Mikhail Yanenko, a spokesman for the military prosecutor.
The soldiers left as a group, apparently intending to return to Volgograd and seek help. Russian television reported that they traveled about 40 miles on foot. Yanenko said prosecutors did not consider the soldiers to have deserted, and other military officials pointed out that they were unarmed and did not try to avoid capture.
At first, the conscripts tried to seek refuge at the local office of the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers, a human rights group, where they left a complaint about being beaten with the handle of a spade. According to military authorities, the soldiers then sought help from the Volgograd garrison military prosecutor. They were taken into custody about 2 a.m. today. At no time did the division commander "take any measure to restore justice," according to Alexander Savenkov, the chief military prosecutor. "He concealed the incident from the military prosecutor's office and his commanders."
--------
Putin Seems to Issue Ultimatum to Georgia Over Militants
New York Times
September 11, 2002
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/11/international/europe/12CND-RUSS.html
MOSCOW, Sept. 11 - President Vladimir V. Putin threatened today to order military strikes in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, saying that Russia had a right to defend itself from what he called terrorist attacks launched from Georgian territory.
In a statement that sounded like an ultimatum, Mr. Putin sharply criticized Georgia for failing to root out hundreds of insurgents from the Russian republic of Chechnya and warned that if Georgia did not do more, Russia would conduct raids in Georgia to crush the fighters' strongholds.
Meeting with his senior national security aides in the Black Sea city of Sochi, not far from Georgia's border, Mr. Putin announced that he had ordered Russia's military commanders to consider strikes against "reliably known bases of the terrorists" along the rugged border between Georgia and Chechnya.
For much of the summer Russia and Georgia, its much smaller neighbor to the south, have traded bitter accusations over the presence of Chechen fighters in Georgian territories, particularly in the lawless Pankisi Gorge, northeast of Georgia's capital, Tbilisi.
Russian aircraft have already crossed into Georgia at least five times this summer, launching strikes three times and, in one case on Aug. 23, killing a Georgian civilian near the gorge.
But Mr. Putin's warning today - broadcast in length on Russian television this evening - was by far the harhest and most ominous.
Mr. Putin used the anniversary of the terrorist attacks against the United States to make a public case for strong action against terrorists and, echoing President Bush's remarks a year ago, against countries that harbor them - that is, Georgia.
"One of the causes complicating the efficient struggle against terrorism is that in some parts of the world there are still territorial enclaves that are beyond the control of national governments, which for different reasons cannot or do not want to resist the terrorist threat," Mr. Putin said, sternly reading from note cards as he addressed his security aides.
Mr. Putin's warning appeared to stun Georgian officials. Last month, under pressure from Russia, Georgia's President, Eduard A. Shevardnadze, ordered 1,000 police and security forces into the Pankisi Gorge to establish order over a region that had largely been outside the government's control.
"What is surprising is the fact that the Russian president's statement came at a moment when the Georgian authorities are taking concrete action to restore order in the Pankisi Gorge," an adviser to Mr. Shevardnadze, Levan Alexidze, told the Interfax news agency in Tbilisi.
In more conciliatory remarks later, however, Mr. Shevardnadze said he believed that Mr. Putin would still give Georgia a chance to demonstrate its ability to impose order over Georgian territory. "This statement does not mean that Russia is planning to attack Georgia and start a war," he said after a hastily assembled meeting with his advisers tonight.
Mr. Putin, however, outlined a stark case for military action. He cited Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which gives nations the right to self-defense, as well as the resolution adopted after last year's terrorist attack that called on all nations to crack down on international terrorism.
He made his remarks hours after telephoning President Bush just after midnight today - still Sept. 10 in Washington - to once again express sympathy and support on the anniversary of the attack. Later today, Mr. Putin's office released a statement calling the United States and Russia essential allies in the fight against terrorism.
"Our common goal is to eradicate any forms of support for and connivance with terrorism on the part of sovereign states and public organizations," he said in the statement.
The deterioration of relations between Russia and Georgia has already ensnared the United States, which this year began a $64 million program to train and equip Georgia's army to undertake exactly the sort of operations that Russia has accused Georgia of resisting. Russian military action would put the Bush administration in the uncomfortable middle of two countries it considers allies.
After the bombing on Aug. 23, the White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, rebuked Russia, saying the United States "strongly supports Georgia's independence and territorial integrity."
In recent weeks Russia has repeatedly called on Georgia to mount joint operations in Pankisi and elsewhere, but Mr. Shevardnadze's government has rebuffed the requests, saying Georgian officials could accomplish the task itself.
American officials have said that Pankisi has served as a base for dozens of Islamic militants, as well as hundreds of Chechen fighters intermingled with some 4,000 Chechen refugees who fled Russia's second war in Chechnya in 1999.
Georgian forces have arrested a handful of militants since the operations in Pankisi began, but Russian officials say the operation - which was signaled in advance - simply shifted Chechen fighters to other parts of Georgia, near the border with Chechnya.
Mr. Putin said Georgia was not only harboring Chechen rebels, but also those responsible for three apartment bombings - two in Moscow and one in Volgodonsk, in southern Russia - that killed more than 300 people in 1999.
Russian officials said this week that a suspect in those bombings, Achimez Gochiyaev, was hiding in Georgia. Georgian officials denied that, noting that Georgia had previously extradited another suspect in the bombings, Adam Dekkushev, once presented with evidence.
Mr. Putin also called on Georgia to extradite 13 Chechen rebels detained on the border on Aug. 3 and 5. The fighters were part of a group of 60 who clashed with Russian forces in the Kerigo Gorge in Chechnya at the end of July, a battle that sparked the latest tensions. Russia said the fighters had crossed into Chechnya from Georgia, though the 13 fighters denied that.
"Russia has been firmly observing its international obligations, treats the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other states with respect," Mr. Putin said. "However, this demands the same attitude towards ourselves."
-------- un
Annan Urges No Unilateral Action Against Iraq
September 11, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-un-assembly-annan.html
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan will tell President Bush on Thursday that only the United Nations can sanction the use of force against Iraq.
Annan, without mentioning possible U.S. plans to attack Iraq, says any country can defend itself when attacked.
``But beyond that, when states decide to use force to deal with broader threats to international peace and security, there is no substitute for the unique legitimacy provided by the United Nations,'' he will tell the U.N. General Assembly, according to prepared remarks.
Annan, who also challenges U.S. policy by renewing a call for an international conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, speaks shortly before Bush sets out for the assembly his case for action against Iraq.
Bush is expected to challenge the United Nations to enforce post-Gulf War resolutions demanding Iraq disarm. The United States believes Iraq is developing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
``I'm going to the United Nations to give this speech for a reason, because I believe this is an international problem, and that we must work together to deal with the problem,'' Bush said on Tuesday.
A U.N. official said Annan's speech was being released early so it would not be overshadowed by Bush's address. A copy of his remarks was given to U.S. officials.
``The more a country makes use of multilateral institutions -- thereby respecting shared values, and accepting the obligations and restraints inherent in those values -- the more others will trust and respect it, and the stronger its chance to exercise true leadership,'' Annan says.
He says member states had shown they were willing to take actions under the authority of the U.N. Security Council they would not be willing to take without it.
``Even the most powerful countries know that they need to work with others, in multilateral institutions, to achieve their aims,'' Annan says in a carefully crafted speech.
Many European, Arab and other nations have voiced dismay at a U.S. drive to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and halt his alleged attempts to acquire weapons of mass destruction -- with or without approval by the U.N. Security Council.
Annan himself said this month it would be ``unwise to attack Iraq'' and that it would raise international tensions.
IRAQI DEFIANCE
Annan will tell the General Assembly that Iraq is defying Security Council resolutions, saying the return of U.N. arms inspectors is the ``indispensable first step'' to assuring the world that Iraq's deadly weapons have been scrapped and toward the suspension and eventual ending of U.N. sanctions.
``If Iraq's defiance continues, the Security Council must face its responsibilities,'' Annan declares, in a formula that clearly does not rule out U.N.-authorized military action such as that mounted by the U.S.-led coalition that drove Iraqi occupation troops from Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War.
The Bush administration worked closely with the United Nations to get support for a struggle against terrorism after last year's Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
But on other issues it has irritated many of its European and other allies by spurning global initiatives such as the Kyoto protocol on greenhouse gases and treaties against biological weapons, nuclear testing and land mines.
It has fiercely opposed the new International Criminal Court, sided with conservative Islamic states on women's health issues and cut off funds to the U.N. Population Fund.
The United States continues to accrue new debts to the world body and is now $1.2 billion in arrears for dues and peacekeeping expenses, despite an agreement in December 2000 from U.N. members to reduce the American contribution.
MIDDLE EAST CONFERENCE
Annan will call for an international conference ``without delay'' to seek a comprehensive settlement of the Middle East conflict, saying Israel and the Palestinians accept the vision of a two-state solution and an end to terror and to occupation.
``We can reach it only if we move rapidly and in parallel on all fronts,'' Annan says.
The United States has stopped advocating an international conference that it had proposed, and in a June 24 speech, Bush laid the onus on the Palestinians to change their leadership and halt violence before political progress could be achieved.
On Afghanistan, Annan says President Hamid Karzai's government needs help to extend its authority throughout the country and that donors must honor their aid pledges.
``Otherwise the Afghan people will lose hope -- and desperation, we know, breeds violence,'' the secretary-general adds.
-------- us
Air Defense Is Activated; Weapons Deployed in Region
By Bradley Graham and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, September 11, 2002; Page A19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64580-2002Sep10?language=printer
The Pentagon activated a network of air defenses in the Washington area for the first time in decades yesterday, placing live antiaircraft missiles next to launchers that had been moved into place in recent days.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld ordered the positioning of live ammunition with Avenger systems and shoulder-fired Stinger launchers as the Bush administration raised the nation's terrorism alert to its second-highest level. Rumsfeld's decision followed considerable debate among senior defense officials over the practicality of the weapons in guarding the capital and the public alarm a deployment would cause.
"This is not a response to any specific threat, but is a prudent precaution to increase the radar and air defense posture in the national capital region," a Pentagon statement said.
Rumsfeld's decision transformed what had been billed as an exercise to test Army air defense systems into an actual military deployment under Operation Noble Eagle, the name the Pentagon has assigned to air defense activities since the terrorist attacks on Washington and New York a year ago.
Pentagon officials declined for security reasons to give the locations of the air defense systems, which include Sentinel radar for spotting threatening targets as well as Avengers and Stingers for shooting them down. But one Avenger was clearly in view outside the Pentagon.
The ground-based systems, along with about 300 soldiers to operate them, are meant to provide an extra layer of defense, adding to round-the-clock air patrols by F-15 and F-16 fighter jets that resumed last Friday over Washington and New York. The patrols, which began after the Sept. 11 attacks, were scaled back last spring in the absence of a specific air threat and in recognition of the increased protection afforded by tougher airliner and airport security procedures.
The Stinger is a short-range, shoulder-fired supersonic missile that can hit aircraft flying as high as 10,000 feet with a heat-seeking, high-explosive warhead. It has a range of about five miles. Weighing just 35 pounds, it can be used against any aircraft flying at relatively low altitudes, whether jets, helicopters, cruise missiles or unmanned aerial vehicles.
The Avenger is a system that mounts the Stinger atop a rotating turret on a miltary Humvee, the modern equivalent of the World War II Jeep.
The vehicles usually carry eight Stingers. They also have a package of sensors to help them identify targets at night and during cloudy weather.
The Sentinel is a radar and communications system that is used to alert Avenger and Stinger crews. Towed by a specially equipped Humvee, it consists of a battlefield radar, a group of radios, a generator, and some related systems. It has a range of 25 miles.
The deployment recalled the early decades of the Cold War, when Nike guided missile systems ringed dozens of U.S. cities and military installations to knock down Soviet bombers if they ever attacked.
By the late 1960s, there were six such antiaircraft sites ringing Washington. Maryland had five -- in Rockville, Fort Meade, Annapolis, Davidsonville and Waldorf. The sixth was in Lorton.
The Nike system remained in service until the mid-1970s, when arms treaties required removal of most of the sites and Soviet military strategy had shifted to favor long-range missiles over bombers.
This week's exercise, originally dubbed Clear Skies II, was the second in a series that began in July to practice how ground-based systems might be deployed in the Washington area.
But some military officials questioned the feasibility of deploying the short-range systems around Washington, noting that the effective range and reaction time of the weapons made it unlikely they would actually be used.
--------
U.S. Military on Highest Alert in Mideast
September 11, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-attack-threat-military.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. military forces in the Middle East were upgraded to their highest alert status on Wednesday in response to warnings of possible terror attacks on the anniversary of strikes against America, defense officials said.
Army Gen. Tommy Franks, head of the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida, ordered the ``Threat Condition Delta'' protective alert for troops and their families throughout the Gulf, Middle East, Horn of Africa and parts of Central Asia, according to the officials, who asked not to be identified.
Forces in Bahrain, where the U.S. Fifth Fleet is based in the Gulf with some 4,000 troops, had been put on Delta on Tuesday and other bases in the Central Command region were at that time placed on slightly lower ``Threatcon Charlie.''
But in a precautionary move, that status on Wednesday was upgraded to Delta throughout the region of the Central Command, which also is responsible for U.S. military operations in the Horn of Africa and much of Central Asia, including Kazakhstan.
The defense officials declined to elaborate on the exact nature of the threats.
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and other top officials said on Tuesday that information from debriefings with a senior al Qaeda operative and from U.S. intelligence agencies pointed to possible attacks on American facilities in southeast Asia or possible suicide attacks on U.S. interests by individuals in the Middle East.
Several embassies and consulates in south and southeast Asia were closed on Tuesday and remained shut on Wednesday. Some embassies in Africa, where two U.S. embassies were bombed in 1998, would also be closed on Sept. 11, the State Department said.
--------
US Military Sending Command Staff to Gulf
September 11, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq-usa-command.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military's Central Command will move up to 600 members of its headquarters staff from Florida to Qatar near Iraq for an exercise in November and is considering making that shift permanent, defense officials said on Wednesday.
The decision by command chief Army Gen. Tommy Franks, who will take part in the three-week deployment, comes amid growing speculation that the United States might invade Baghdad to overthrow President Saddam Hussein.
Central Command, with responsibility for U.S. military operations in the Middle East, said from its headquarters in Tampa that up to 600 staffers would go to modern Al Udeid Air Base near Doha in friendly Qatar for command post exercise ``Internal Look,'' held biennially in the Gulf since 1990.
Navy Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Klee, a command spokesman, declined to say whether such a headquarters shift might become more permanent. But Pentagon officials, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters the move was being considered.
``Whether this would become something more permanent is something that is under consideration,'' one senior official said.
AN INITIAL THREE-WEEK MOVE
Klee said the communications exercise would last for one week and for the first time test the mobility of a newly-constituted ``deployable headquarters'' from Central Command. The command element will be in Qatar for three weeks.
This would also be the first time that headquarters elements from Central Command moved to Qatar. The small Gulf state located about 300 miles southeast of Iraq, is a close friend of Washington and has recently expanded and improved Al Udeid, where U.S. forces and warplanes are supporting U.S. American military operations in Afghanistan.
Press reports have speculated that the base in Qatar could play a key command role in any invasion of Iraq.
Saudi Arabia, a neighbor of Qatar, has said that it would not allow major U.S. air power at its big Prince Sultan Air Base to be used against any Iraq invasion. The United States, working with Qatar, has in recent months sharply increased its military presence -- including communications and intelligence links -- at Al Udeid as a backup to Sultan.
``General Franks will take part,'' Central Command spokesman Klee said in a telephone interview with Reuters. ``It is a command post exercise which will test our command, control and communications.''
FORCES ON HIGH ALERT
The command move emerged as U.S. military forces in the Gulf and Middle East on Wednesday were upgraded to their highest alert status in response to warnings of possible terror attacks on the anniversary of strikes against America, defense officials said.
Franks ordered the ``Threat Condition Delta'' protective alert for troops and their families throughout the Gulf, Middle East, Horn of Africa and parts of Central Asia, according to the officials, who asked not to be identified.
Forces in Bahrain, where the U.S. Fifth Fleet is based in the Gulf with some 4,000 troops, had been put on Delta on Tuesday and other bases in the Central Command region were at that time placed on slightly lower ``Threatcon Charlie.''
But in a precautionary move, that status on Wednesday was upgraded to Delta throughout the region of the Central Command, which also is responsible for U.S. military operations in the Horn of Africa and much of Central Asia, including Kazakhstan.
The defense officials declined to elaborate on the exact nature of the threats.
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and other top officials said on Tuesday that information from debriefings with a senior al Qaeda operative and from U.S. intelligence agencies pointed to possible attacks on American facilities in southeast Asia or possible suicide attacks on U.S. interests by individuals in the Middle East.
--------
U.S. Military Moving Staff to Qatar
September 11, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Central-Command.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Core staff of the U.S. military command responsible for operations in the Persian Gulf and Central Asia will be shifted from their headquarters in Florida to the Gulf nation of Qatar in November, defense officials said Wednesday.
The shift suggests further preparations by the Pentagon for a possible military assault on Iraq.
Officials at Central Command, based at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., said the shift will be a one-week exercise, but other officials who discussed the matter on condition of anonymity said it was possible the command staff would remain indefinitely at al-Udeid air base in Qatar.
One official said the administration is considering moving the entire Central Command headquarters permanently to Qatar, although that is separate from the November movement of a core staff.
The core staff of about 600 people at Central Command have been running the war in Afghanistan from MacDill Air Force Base, but President Bush's pending decision on whether to launch a war to depose Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has made it more likely they would be moved to the Gulf.
Central Command said that besides shifting the core staff to Qatar, it also will send its newly constructed mobile headquarters as part of the exercise, dubbed ``Internal Look '03.'' The mobile headquarters consists of several modular buildings designed for command, control and communications.
For more than a decade, Central Command has conducted biannual exercises in which the core staff tested its communications and command capabilities in a war scenario. But it has never moved the core staff to Qatar or another Gulf nation for exercises, two defense officials said.
During the 1991 Gulf War, in which Iraq's army of occupation was forced from Kuwait, the Central Command staff was moved from Florida to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to run the war. For months, the U.S. military has been building up its command and communications facilities and equipment at al-Udeid air base in Qatar, which likely would be a major U.S. asset in any war against Iraq.
Among the capabilities being developed at al-Udeid is an air operations center that duplicates a facility used by U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia. In the event the Saudis refused permission to use the facility for U.S. attacks on Iraq, the facility in Qatar would provide a viable alternative, officials have said.
Central Command's top commander, Gen. Tommy Franks, has run the 11-month-old war in Afghanistan from his Tampa headquarters. Periodically, he visits the region to consult with his subordinate commanders and local government officials.
Among other Central Command forces in the Persian Gulf region are more than 5,000 U.S. Army soldiers at Camp Doha, Kuwait; a few thousand U.S. Air Force personnel in Kuwait and a few thousand U.S. sailors in Bahrain.
On the Net: Central Command: http://www.centcom.mil
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Senators: FBI Grabbing More Wiretap Powers
Wednesday, September 11, 2002
Fox News,
By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,62671,00.html
WASHINGTON - Senators complained Tuesday that the Justice Department is trying to assert more authority in federal wiretap cases than it was authorized to have under last year's USA Patriot Act.
In a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, senators pointed to a recently declassified May 17 ruling by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, which said the Justice Department's interpretation of its wiretap powers under the Patriot Act were wrong and had overreached the original intent of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
"The glimpses offered by this unclassified opinion raise policy, process and constitutional issues about implementation of the new law," said Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
But Justice Department officials say that they need new wiretap authority to chase down multi-layered terror cells whose existence may first be discovered through criminal leads that are seemingly unrelated to terror plots.
"What's at stake here really is the government's ability, effectively to protect this nation against foreign terrorists and espionage threats," said David Kris, associate deputy attorney general.
The FISA court was set up in 1978 as a "secret" appellate court charged with granting search warrants in foreign surveillance cases, but not average criminal activities at home. The court, which meets on the sixth floor of the Justice Department, has denied only one out of the 10,000 applications it has received from the feds since its creation.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, Congress made it easier for FISA to rule on warrant cases, allowing for such secret warrants even if foreign security matters were only a "significant" piece of the case, and the rest were criminal.
That change in the law prompted the Justice Department to rewrite its guidelines for the new wiretap laws to allow for warrant applications in which criminal activity is a "primary" reason for the surveillance. It says this was the true interpretation of the new guidelines under the Patriot Act.
Now the Justice Department says the court, and several senators, went too far.
In May, the court refused to give the Justice Department certain powers that might blur the line between criminal law enforcement and national security.
The court wrote that the new guidelines were "not reasonably designed" to safeguard the privacy of Americans and allowed for the misuse of information in criminal investigations.
"These procedures cannot be used by the government to amend the [surveillance] act in ways Congress has not," the court wrote.
It also admonished the department for making more than 75 errors in applications for top-secret espionage and terrorism warrants during the eight years of the Clinton administration. Applications can never be disputed by the defendants named in the requests, which are all classified.
On Monday, the court heard an appeal from the Justice Department to let it continue its pursuit of criminal warrants.
"In our view, [the court] incorrectly interpreted the Patriot Act, and the effect of that incorrect interpretation is to limit the kind of coordination that we think is very important," Justice Department spokeswoman Barbara Comstock said.
What will come out of the court's Monday meeting may never be made public, but the dispute was enough for some Democratic senators to lash out at the department on Tuesday, suggesting that the department was making a grab for more power at the expense of citizens' constitutional rights.
"We sought to amend FISA to make it a better foreign intelligence tool. We did not amend FISA to make it a better law enforcement tool," Leahy said. "We did not seek to obliterate the line between the two."
"In my mind there has been a skewing, Mr. Chairman, of what we set up," added Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif.
Republicans, however, argued that the very secrecy of FISA has not allowed them to get the full story. They warned that they did not want to overreact and then weaken the laws, putting the nation at even greater risk than prior to Sept. 11.
"Our intelligence gathering agencies must be able to communicate and share information," said Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, adding that he believes that FISA doesn't give law enforcement enough powers.
"Some of us believe ... that the interpretation of the original FISA law has become tighter and tighter and more burdensome over the years," he said. "I believe that the interpretation may have affected our national security."
----
Guantanamo Bay suspects to be held as long as terror war continues: Powell aide
Janet McEvoy,
AFP
9/11/2002
http://www.thenewsmexico.com/noticia.asp?id=34994
WARSAW - The United States on Tuesday defended its indefinite detention of hundreds of suspected al-Qaeda prisoners at a U.S. naval base in Cuba, saying the people concerned were too dangerous to let go and would be held as long as the war on terror continued.
"We are not going to let them go back as long as the conflict continues, so that they can sign up again to al-Qaeda," William Taft, the top legal advisor to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, told a European human rights conference by telephone link.
Taft was brought in to address the OSCE rights conference, on the eve of the anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the U.S., to mount a defense of Washington's record in the face of charges from rights groups that it had relaxed its commitment to human rights since its launched its war on terrorism a year ago.
More than 500 people suspected of being members of the network behind the September 11 attacks have been held at the base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but not been charged, leading to concerns from rights organizations that the U.S. is breaching international rules on detentions.
Washington stands accused of detaining the suspects without proper control and without giving them a proper trial.
Taft reiterated that the suspects were being treated humanely.
He said they would continue to be detained "as long as their capabilities and intentions continue," referring to the al-Qaeda movement behind the September 11 attacks.
"Certainly at the moment they are continuing. They are intent on carrying on the conflict against us," he said.
He also defended Washington's plans for military trials, saying that such trials were provided for and even required in some cases under international humanitarian law.
Taft's arguments failed to satisfy some human rights observers, including Ambassador Gerard Stoudmann, the director of the OSCE office for democratic institutions and human rights, which is responsible for monitoring human rights across the 55-nation OSCE zone spanning Europe, Central Asia and North America.
He told AFP that he was aware of no specific human rights violations against individuals in the U.S. since the attacks one year ago, but that the lax application of some laws could set a bad example and precedents to less democratized countries, notably in Central Asia.
"What I'm concerned with is some trends and some precedents that are being established in the context of fighting terrorism," he said, saying he was referring to the United States and Britain among others.
"What I see in some cases is that there's discriminatory treatment. This is a very bad example which can be misused in many countries which are dictatorships," he said.
Britain has also come in for heavy criticism from rights groups for its treatment of terrorist suspects.
In particular Stoudmann said he was dissatisfied by Taft's defense of the U.S. refusal to give the detainees in Cuba protection under the Geneva Convention.
"This is a situation which can also send a wrong signal, and can also backfire on U.S. troops," he said.
The OSCE, originally set up as a point of contact between NATO and Warsaw Pact countries, has evolved since the end of the Cold War into an organization mainly concerned with safeguarding human rights, democracy and the rule of law in Europe.
Individually its member countries have lent valuable support to the campaign launched by U.S. President George W. Bush after the attacks on New York and Washington a year ago.
----
Secret court weighs bid for more wiretap power
ASSOCIATED PRESS
September 11, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020911-45707506.htm
A secret appellate court has met for the first time in its 24-year history to consider a request from the Justice Department for more power to wiretap suspected terrorists and spies, according to department officials.
The appeals court, the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, convened in a high-security room at the Justice Department in Washington Monday and made no announcement of whether it had made a decision.
But senators immediately asked the court to publicly release its decision and the arguments Justice Department lawyers made in front of it, so lawmakers can know how government prosecutors are using the changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act granted after the September 11 terrorist attacks last year.
"We need to know how this law is being interpreted and applied," Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat, said yesterday. No answer had been received from the Monday request, Senate officials said.
The appeal stems from a decision from the main court that assesses the legitimacy of Justice Department and FBI requests to spy on people suspected of foreign espionage inside U.S. borders.
Civil liberties groups denounced the secret nature of the court.
"Hearing a one-sided argument and doing so in secret goes against the traditions of fairness and open government that have been the hallmark of our democracy," said Ann Beeson, a litigation director at the American Civil Liberties Union.
When or if the court's ruling on the department's request will ever be made public was not clear.
In August, the secret court struck down a government surveillance request and the government's assertion that national security concerns justify some lessening of previously recognized civil liberties or privacy rights, lawyers said.
The Justice Department had argued that under the new laws, the FBI could use the surveillance law to perform searches and wiretaps "primarily for a law enforcement purpose, so long as a significant foreign intelligence purpose remains."
The USA Patriot Act, passed late in 2001, changed the surveillance law to permit its use when collecting information about foreign spies or terrorists is "a significant purpose," rather than "the purpose," of such an investigation. Critics at the time said they feared government might use the change as a loophole to employ espionage wiretaps in common criminal investigations.
----
Bush Defends Limits on Legal Rights
September 11, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Bush-Interview.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush defended new limits on legal rights imposed by his administration in the war on terror, declaring that ``the Constitution is sacred'' and will not be undermined in the effort to improve Americans' security.
In an interview with a ``60 Minutes II'' special broadcast airing Wednesday night on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks, Bush said he is pleased with the job being done by the Justice Department, despite criticism from civil liberties groups that Americans' individual freedoms are being eroded.
Among the Bush administration moves that have come under criticism are new authority in terror cases to imprison Americans indefinitely, allowing federal agents to monitor attorney-client conversations in federal prisons, the detention of thousands of Middle Eastern men who entered the United States since 2000 and immigration hearings that are no longer public.
Bush told the CBS News program that questioning and court review of those actions is healthy -- ``part of America.''
``We will protect America,'' he said. ``But we will do so within the guidelines of the Constitution, confines of the Constitution. ... But the American people got to understand that the Constitution is sacred as far as I am concerned. ``
The president reiterated that the U.S. policy of ``regime change'' in Iraq has not changed. Bush has made toppling Iraqi President Saddam Hussein a priority because of his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, though he has not said how he plans to realize the goal and has received little support from other world leaders.
``I get all kinds of advice,'' Bush said. ``I'm listening to the advice. I appreciate the consultations.''
Bush recalled his thoughts as the terrorist attacks of last Sept. 11 and the days after unfolded.
``I can remember sitting right here in this office thinking about the consequences of what had taken place and realizing it was the defining moment in the history of the United States,'' Bush said of his time on Air Force One as it tore across the country in the hours after planes crashed in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. ``I didn't need any legal briefs, I didn't need any consultations. I knew we were at war.''
Days later, at Ground Zero in New York meeting with the families was one of the most painful moments.
``I felt the same now as I did then, which is sad,'' Bush said. ``And I still feel sad for those who grieve for their families but through my tears I see opportunity.''
In an opinion piece for Wednesday's editions of The New York Times, Bush said the attacks have ``brought new clarity to America's role in the world,'' along with opportunities.
``America's greatest opportunity is to create a balance of world power that favors human freedom,'' he wrote.
While he didn't mention Iraq specifically, Bush said the United States will defend peace by preventing violence by terrorists and ``outlaw regimes.''
``We will use our position of unparalleled strength and influence to build an atmosphere of international order and openness in which progress and liberty can flourish in many nations,'' he wrote. ``We preserve this peace by building good relations among the world's great powers and we extend this peace by encouraging free and open societies on every continent.''
Repeating his reasoning for a possible pre-emptive attack on Iraq, Bush said the United States must also confront regimes that support terror and seek nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
``On this issue, the consequences of inaction could be catastrophic,'' he said.
--------
Guantanamo Detainees Stay in Limbo
September 11, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Sept-11-Guantanamo.html
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) -- As flags flew nearby at half-staff to mark the Sept. 11 attacks, detainees at this isolated military base spent Wednesday as they have everyday since their capture -- in a legal limbo that has brought international criticism.
``We're not making any special announcements to them,'' said Brig. Gen. Rick Baccus, who heads the detention mission at the base in remote eastern Cuba, thousands of miles away from ground zero.
Outside the prison camp, dozens of soldiers stood to attention as the strains of taps floated from a loudspeaker to mark the anniversary of the terror attacks.
In the evening, people crowded into a chapel, lighting candles in somber remembrance. Some broke down and cried.
``Every day, we remember why we're here. But today is a day of remembrance. It's a day of mourning,'' said Army Spc. Blair Winner, a 20-year-old guard from Mentor, Ohio.
Since the first detainees arrived in January, interrogations have gone at snail's pace and yielded little, prompting the government to ask whether it will have enough evidence to bring them before military tribunals, or should send them home.
But Lt. Col. Dennis Fink, a spokesman the task force in charge of interrogations, indicated even detainees with little information might offer a nugget that could lead to a gold mine.
In Paris, the head of France's counterespionage service said six French suspects at Guantanamo Bay have told investigators they were trained to be financially independent and use false papers to travel inside Europe.
In an interview with Le Monde published Wednesday, Pierre de Bousquet de Florian said several dozen extremists who went to Afghanistan for training managed to escape the fighting and had returned to France and other European countries.
It's still unclear what will become of the 598 detainees, suspected members of al-Qaida terrorist network or the ousted Afghan Taliban regime who have been denied access to lawyers.
``No trials are imminent,'' said Maj. Ted Wadsworth, a Pentagon spokesman. ``No charges have been approved.''
Court challenges to the indefinite detentions -- filed by several human rights organizations -- have all failed.
``The question here is that it's a year after (Sept. 11), and they have no charges,'' said Michael Ratner of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights. ``France should be screaming, England should be screaming, Australia should be screaming.''
But Australia has said it has no concerns about the treatment of 27-year-old David Hicks.
His father, Terry Hicks, used the anniversary to call for his son's release from Guantanamo.
``My son had nothing to do with Sept. 11,'' he said.
U.S. officials say the detainees are being treated humanely under conditions set by the Geneva Conventions though Washington has refused to classify them as prisoners of war, calling them unlawful combatants.
About 80 men are being held in solitary confinement, said Army Col. John Perrone, who is in charge of Camp Delta. He refused to say why the men were being held in solitary and for how long.
Four detainees tried to kill themselves in July and August.
After the first detainees arrived in January, dozens launched a hunger strike. Recently, they have thrown water at guards or banged on their bunks.
``I believe October will be a time of healing and we will start to see some of the detainees sent home because the United States knows many of them are innocent,'' said Najeeb Al-Nauimi, Qatar's former justice minister and a lawyer trying to have detainees returned to their homelands.
-------- terrorism
Plan to Attack Embassies in South Asia Cited for Terror Alert
New York Times
September 11, 2002
By RAYMOND BONNER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/11/international/asia/11INDO.html
JAKARTA, Indonesia, Sept. 10 - The Bush administration's decision today to declare a higher terrorist alert status was made after investigators uncovered a plot by a radical Islamic organization with links to Al Qaeda, American officials said. The group was planning attacks at several American embassies in Southeast Asia, the officials said.
In response, embassies in Indonesia and Malaysia were shuttered indefinitely, while those in Vietnam and Cambodia were closed through Wednesday. Three other embassies and one consulate in the Middle East and Asia were ordered closed today for Sept. 11.
American officials - interviewed several hours before the alert was declared - said crucial confirmation of the plot came to light during the continuing interrogation of a Qaeda operative, Omar al-Faruq, who was picked up in central Java in June and quietly turned over to the United States, according to Western intelligence officials. "He has proved reliable in the past," said an American official in the region, who refused to provide further details.
In Washington, senior government officials would neither identify the source of the information that led the Bush administration to act, nor comment on whether Mr. Faruq was the main source. But in a description that fit Mr. Faruq, they said the source had been in custody for several months in another country and was a mid-level Qaeda operative who had only in recent days started to supply information about possible attacks in Southeast Asia.
The information provided by the source was very precise, American intelligence officials said, going so far as to identify specific embassies as targets. It was generally corroborated, they said, with information United States investigators had received recently from a more senior Qaeda operative.
The embassies that closed down had already seen warning signs that caused them to take the new threat seriously, officials said. In recent days, American security personnel had noticed suspicious activity around the embassies in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur, suggesting that they might be under surveillance.
[Citing "a general terrorist threat," Britain temporarily closed its embassy in Jakarta on Wednesday, Reuters reported.]
Officials said there were similarities between this plot and one uncovered in late 2000, when the American embassy here detected that it was under surveillance by a group linked to Al Qaeda. Some six months later, a group of men came from Yemen to carry out the attack but the men fled before they could be captured.
The discovery of the current plot is evidence that the group Mr. Faruq was associated with, Jemaah Islamiyah, has more of a regional reach and is more active in Southeast Asia than the Americans had realized, an intelligence analyst said.
During joint naval exercises this summer by the United States and Indonesia, American intelligence picked up credible information that the group was planning attacks on the American ships, he said.
The Bush administration is preparing to put Jemaah Islamiyah and its founder, Akbar Bashir, on its list of terrorist organizations, officials said today, a move that could create diplomatic tensions here.
Mr. Bashir, an Indonesian cleric of Yemeni descent, lived in Malaysia for many years before returning in 1998 to run a religious boarding school in central Java. Intelligence officials say members of Jemaah Islamiyah helped arrange for two people involved in the Sept. 11 attacks to move to and from Malaysia in 2000 for a meeting that now appears to have been critical to the plans.
The United States and Singapore have long asked the Indonesians to crack down on the organization and arrest Mr. Bashir, but the government has been reluctant to do so, fearing a backlash from Muslims.
Mr. Bashir, 64, denied involvement in any plot against American embassies and dismissed the incident as nothing more than a propaganda ploy by the United States.
"They want to create the impression that Indonesia is filled with terrorists, so that there is a justification for arresting Islamic leaders," he said in a telephone interview late this evening.
Mr. Bashir said that he was fully prepared to be put on the terrorist list but that he was unconcerned. "I am innocent," he said.
Officials in Singapore have said Jemaah Islamiyah was behind a plot to blow up the American, Australian and Israeli Embassies there last year. That scheme was thwarted when 13 men were arrested in Singapore and several more were detained in Malaysia.
The organization has links to Al Qaeda, having received money from Osama bin Laden and having sent many of its members - including Mr. Faruq - to Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, Western and Asian intelligence officials said. They stress, however, that Jemaah Islamiyah has its own regional agenda and acts on its own. Officials said today that there was no evidence that Mr. bin Laden, if he is still alive, or any of his lieutenants had been behind the plot that led to the embassy closings.
Other embassies in the region remained open despite the threat, deciding either that they were not targets or that their defenses were more than adequate.
The road in front of the embassy in Bangkok can be closed, for example, and the embassy in Singapore looks like a prison on a hill. The American ambassador there, Franklin L. Lavin, said the embassy had no plans to close and was planning to hold a memorial service on Wednesday.
The embassy in the Philippines was also open today in spite of reports there that Philippine intelligence had uncovered evidence of a similar plot.
Today, the American Embassy here released a statement urging American citizens in Indonesia "to maintain a high level of vigilance" and to "maintain a low profile." But American officials said privately that there was no evidence that American individuals or American businesses here had been targeted, and most went about their day as usual.
--------
Terror stalks America again
Anti-aircraft missiles ring Washington; Vice-President goes into hiding
From Roland Watson in Washington,
UK Times,
September 11, 2002
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-411055,00.html
AMERICA was put on high alert last night and Dick Cheney, the Vice-President, was taken to a secret location, adding eleventh-hour nerves to today's first anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
In Washington, the intended target of two of last year's four hijacked planes, the military loaded live missiles into surface-to-air anti-aircraft launchers stationed around the capital. The Pentagon said the move was a precaution.
Overseas, some two dozen embassies and consulates were closed, including those in Malaysia, Indonesia and Pakistan, after terrorist threats.
The key American naval base in Bahrain, home of the US 5th Fleet and 4,000 sailors and troops, was placed on Threat Condition Delta, the highest military alert. US naval officials issued a warning to all shipping in the Gulf that oil tankers would be an al-Qaeda target.
The domestic security alert, raised from "elevated" to "high", or yellow to orange, was the first time that status had been raised since the new colour-coded system was introduced earlier this year.
The warnings came as President Bush said that there could be no neutrality in the war against terrorism. In a message to the world he said: "September 11 was not the beginning of global terror but it was the beginning of the world's response. History will remember that day not only as a day of tragedy but as a day of decision when the civilised world was stirred to anger and to action. And the terrorists will remember September 11 as the day their reckoning began." The security alert level was the highest since the attacks on Washington and New York a year ago. John Ashcroft, the Attorney-General, said that there was a high risk of terrorist attacks, and the warnings were based on credible information from an al-Qaeda source. Symbols of American power and authority such as military facilities and national monuments were potential targets, he said.
President Bush said: "The threats that we have heard recently remind us of the pattern of threats we heard prior to September the 11th. We have no specific threat to America, but we're taking everything seriously."
He added, however: "Americans need to go about their lives. They just need to know that their Government (at the) federal, state and local level will be on an extra level of alert to protect us."
Mr Cheney spent last night under guard and cancelled a scheduled speech. He was "in a secure, undisclosed location," a White House official said. Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, said that his removal was "based on an ongoing review of information received, as well precautions, a combination of the two, which makes these determinations necessary".
Britain's Armed Forces have been on high alert for some time and Scotland Yard is deploying dozens of extra armed officers on London's streets today. The City of London force has cancelled all leave.
Scotland Yard has code-named the security plans Operation Calm, and efforts in London will be controlled by a special centre with the call-sign GT. A senior commander will be on duty watching security operations across through several dozen monitors linked to thousands of CCTV cameras.
He will work alongside a senior officer from the City force and have links to the British Transport Police, the Ministry of Defence police and the Royal Parks police. The Yard's S013 branch, which handles counter-terrorism, will be in constant contact with regional units round the country.
Special units trained in chemical and biological warfare will be on standby across the capital ready to move to any sign of danger. They are equipped with special protective clothing and normally form part of the Yard's mobile reserve for serious outbreaks of crime and disorder. The Yard has also mobilised more than 300 armed officers from its S019 specialist firearms unit and protection teams for VIPs and senior politicians have been beefed up.
The Stock Exchange and major finance houses have made plans to move to emergency premises and be prepared to begin trading within hours if an attack takes place.
Forces throughout the country have also been alerted. Special patrols are likely to be mounted at sensitive targets such as nuclear installations.
Police marksmen and dozens of plainclothes officers will be on duty in and around St Paul's Cathedral for the memorial service attended by the Prince of Wales, Prince Harry and most of the Cabinet. Other acts of remembrance will take place throughout the country, including a one-minute silence beginning at 1.46pm, Concrete blocks ring the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square and US military offices in North Audley Street. US bases and the offices of major American companies in Britain will also be on a high level of alert.
---
U.S. put on increased alert
By Rowan Scarborough,
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
September 11, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020911-28655628.htm
The Bush administration yesterday raised the national alert status for a terrorist attack to the highest level to date, as the military, police and local governments ratcheted up security for the first anniversary of September 11.
Based on fresh intelligence reports, President Bush accepted a recommendation from homeland security advisers to increase the alert one notch, from code yellow to orange, indicating an increased chance of attack.
Officials said there is no information about a specific target or time, and intelligence suggests any attacks today will occur overseas. Key information came from a captured member of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden's terror group, which carried out last year's attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.
"The threats that we have heard recently remind us of the pattern of threats we heard prior to September the 11th," Mr. Bush said while visiting the embassy of Afghanistan, the country that became the first battlefield in the war against terrorism.
Locally, police and government authorities stepped up security at monuments and federal buildings, and U.S. Capitol Police officers changed from 8-hour shifts to 12-hour shifts so more officers could be deployed today.
Congress will remain open for business today and no special road closures are planned, said Lt. Dan Nichols, a spokesman for the U.S. Capitol Police. "I think it's going to be rather transparent to the visiting public," he said of the increased level of security.
D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams told reporters yesterday that the nation's capital was vigilant.
"There are not any specific threats against this city or against any other city in the United States that we know of," Mr. Williams said. "Our plan at this point is not to overreact."
As part of a military exercise announced Monday, anti-aircraft missile batteries have been stationed at undisclosed locations around Washington.
Yesterday's escalation of the alert level came after intelligence agencies collected information about potential attacks on U.S. citizens and embassies abroad. Code orange is the second-highest of five color warnings. The highest, code red, signals a specific attack is imminent.
"The increased threat level is based on specific intelligence received and analyzed by the full intelligence community," Attorney General John Ashcroft said in a Justice Department announcement.
"This information has been corroborated by multiple intelligence sources," Mr. Ashcroft added, indicating the United States was not taking the word of the captured al Qaeda member alone.
Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, who designed the color-coded system for warning citizens, said: "We are now at high risk of a terrorist attack. For now, we are at level orange."
A senior intelligence official, who asked not to be named, said there is no indication of an impending attack on the United States. He predicted there will be relatively small attacks overseas today in the form of suicide or car bombings.
Vice President Richard B. Cheney went to an undisclosed location Monday night in reaction to the new information. He returned to the White House yesterday, then again left for his hideaway.
Mr. Ashcroft did not recommend the cancellation of public events or airline flights. The Federal Aviation Administration will limit air traffic over Washington, New York and Shanksville, Pa., - sites of September 11 crashes of four hijacked airliners - during ceremonies today.
The FBI in the past year has issued alerts periodically, warning of attacks on power plants, nuclear facilities and government buildings. But this was the first time the body of evidence was great enough to justify a move from code yellow to code orange since the system started in March.
Mr. Ashcroft said yesterday's alert was based on three assessments from the intelligence community, which includes the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon:
-A captured senior member of al Qaeda told debriefers that attacks on U.S. interests are planned for around September 11. Individual cells of al Qaeda have been set up in Southeast Asia. Since January, they have accumulated explosives to execute car bombings.
-Intelligence sources say terrorists in the Middle East plan suicide attacks against Americans.
-There are indications low-level al Qaeda members may choose September 11 for attacks anywhere in the world. "Widely dispersed, unsophisticated strikes are possible," the attorney general said.
Mr. Ashcroft said the information comes from "multiple intelligence sources" - a phrase that likely means spies - and from monitored communications, in addition to information from the detained al Qaeda member.
Besides raising the alert status, the administration also closed 14 U.S. embassies and consulates around the world. Embassies in Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan and Bahrain were closed. The embassy in the Gulf nation of Qatar canceled a memorial event. The State Department in Egypt warned U.S. citizens to be vigilant.
The headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Fleet in Bahrain on the Persian Gulf, where about 4,000 sailors and other troops are based, was put on "Threat Condition Delta," the military's highest.
The Pentagon already had taken extra precautions as Mr. Bush planned to visit the headquarters of the nation's armed forces today to honor those who lost their lives in the Pentagon attack.
The military is launching extra jet-fighter air patrols over undisclosed cities in case al Qaeda operatives try to repeat the attacks of a year ago. Then, 19 al Qaeda hijackers drove two passenger jets into the World Trade Center in New York, and one into the Pentagon. Passengers on the fourth commercial jet fought the terrorists, and the plane crashed into a farm field near Shanksville.
A year later, the United States is far more aware that its people and its soil are targets.
"The most likely targets of al Qaeda attacks are the transportation and energy sectors and facilities or gatherings that would be recognized worldwide as symbols of American power or security," Mr. Ashcroft said. "At this time, most intelligence focuses on possible attacks on U.S. interests overseas."
- Tom Ramstack, Guy Taylor and Patrick Badgley contributed to this article, which is based in part on wire service reports.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- energy
Opinion: Bush Energy Policy Fuels Terrorists
September 11, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/sep2002/2002-09-11-09.asp#anchor1
WASHINGTON, DC,The Bush Administration must rethink its energy policy if it is to succeed in the war on terrorism, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director James Woolsey said today.
Speaking on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon at the independent energy and environmental research center, Resources for the Future, Woolsey called on the president to reduce U.S. dependence on Middle East oil by:
encouraging the use of more fuel efficient hybrid cars generating ethanol from biomass or waste beefing up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to one billion barrels increasing Russian oil production by 50 percent
"I have not been pleased with the president's energy policy, to put it mildly," Woolsey said. "I admire President Bush's effort in the fight against terror, but his energy policy goes against what he is trying to accomplish in that war."
Woolsey said people in the Middle East have some justification in thinking the U.S. has but one interest in the region - oil.
"They think we want to use it as a gas station, that we have no interest in the people," Woolsey explained. "They perceive that America is in bed with their own oppressive regimes, and believe our lack of willingness to stand up for human rights in their countries is based on our thirst and appetite for oil."
While the terrorists of al Qaeda are motivated by hatred of U.S. freedoms and envy of the nation's success, Woolsey said oil wealth in the Middle East was also fueling terrorism.
"They understand the leverage they hold has a lot to do with our own behavior, and we must start to understand that as well," he said.
Critical of both the Administration and Congress for rejecting plans to tighten fuel economy standards, Woolsey said the move to highly fuel efficient hybrid cars must be encouraged.
"We have five passenger hybrid cars in the dealerships now," Woolsey said, noting that these hybrids get fuel efficiencies of 50 miles per gallon (mpg) compared to the average sport utility vehicle's 10 to 15 mpg. "There should be as many incentives as possible to scrap older cars and move to hybrids," he added.
He added that rather than concentrate on fuel cells and other new technologies that would not be available for some time into the future, the urgency of the war on terror required solutions with existing technologies that can be adopted now.
"We have to focus on what we have now, what technology we have now, what can be incentivized now, what's in dealer showrooms now," he said.
One such idea was the use of biomass or waste with genetically modified biocatalysts to produce ethanol. Relying on biomass rather than corn to produce ethanol would mean that cars - without much adaptation - could be as much as 85 percent fueled by ethanol.
Woolsey also said the U.S. must take urgent steps to increase the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to at least one billion barrels, and encourage U.S. allies to stockpile oil. He also called on the Bush Administration to take steps to double Russian oil producing capacity from its current 6.9 million barrels a day.
Full video coverage of Woolsey's talk is available at: http://www.rff.org
-------- ACTIVISTS
City Plans Protest With Pot Giveaway
September 11, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-City-Hall-Pot.html
Calif. City Plans Marijuana Giveaway
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (AP) -- City leaders plan to join medical marijuana users at a pot giveaway at City Hall next week, hoping to send a message to federal authorities that, in this town, medical marijuana is welcome.
The invitation comes one week after agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency arrested the high-profile owners of a pot farm and confiscated 130 plants that had been grown to be used as medicine.
``It's just absolutely loathsome to me that federal money, energy and staff time would be used to harass people like this,'' said vice mayor Emily Reilly, who with several City Council colleagues plans to pass out medical marijuana to sick people from the garden-like courtyard at City Hall on Tuesday.
Though the council passed a resolution denouncing the raid, there is no official city sponsorship of the event -- council members and medical marijuana advocates are simply acting on their own in a public space, said City Attorney John Barisone.
DEA spokesman Richard Meyer was surprised at the plan.
``Are you serious? That's illegal. It's like they're flouting federal law,'' he said. ``I'm shocked that city leaders would promote the use of marijuana that way. What is that saying to our youth?''
State law in California, as well as Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, allows marijuana to be grown and distributed to people with a doctor's prescription. Federal law prohibits marijuana use under any circumstances.
In recent months, federal agents -- working without local support -- have been busting pot clubs and farms in Northern California, including a small pot farm last week about 55 miles south of San Francisco, arresting owners Valerie and Michael Corral.
No indictment was filed against the couple, leading activists for medical marijuana; their attorney said federal authorities do not plan to prosecute. A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office said she could not comment.
California medical marijuana growers and distributors work closely with local law enforcement, and are quite open about their programs. In fact, the farm raided by DEA agents had been featured in national media, and the program is listed in the local telephone book.
``The courage of the Santa Cruz City Council and the growing anger in Congress are signs of a genuine grassroots rebellion all across this country that will put an end to these attacks on the sick and vulnerable,'' said Robert Kampia, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project.
In 1992, 77 percent of Santa Cruz voters approved a measure ending the prohibition of medical marijuana. Four years later, state voters approved Proposition 215, allowing marijuana for medicinal purposes. And in 2000, the city council approved an ordinance allowing medical marijuana to be grown and used without a prescription.
-------
------- OneList (submissions from subscribers)
------- Depleted Uranium Keeps On Killing!
-----------
Posted
without profit or payment for research and educational
purposes only,
in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107.