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NUCLEAR
'Brotherhood of the Bomb'
'Brotherhood of the Bomb': The Hunt for Oppenheimer
Mystery sickness creates new battles
Iraq Exile Says Nuclear Bomb Months Away - UK Paper
Yes, Let's Go Into Iraq With an Army of Inspectors
Report: N.Korea Plans to Halt Tests
Report: N. Korea to Halt Missile Test
Atomic Reactions
Paradise lost: Sailor's home in the Navy
Iraq Briefings: Don't Ask, Don't Tell
Bush planned Iraq 'regime change' before becoming President
Liberty Wins -- So Far
Could Striking First Mean Striking Out?
MILITARY
Iraq presses shopping spree for weapons in case of attack
Nigeria Urges U.N. on Arms Deal
For sale to the highest bidder
Ensuring Competition for Military Contracts
Burning of Chemical Arms Puts Fear in Wind
Iran Opposes War on Iraq, Slams U.S. for Solo Style
U.S., U.K. Attack Iraq in South
In Iraqi War Scenario, Oil Is Key Issue
Some Iraqis See A War Eroding Economic Gains
Israel Said Ready for Iraq Attack
Two Koreas Agree on Railway Work as Families Part
Hunt Grows In Yemen For Al Qaeda
Saudi Seems to Soften Stance on Iraq Action
Pakistan Urged to Release Qaeda Suspect to U.S. Custody
Border Crossings
Split on Iraq Emerges in the United Nations
In Brief: G.I. Blues
Administration says it could fight wars against terror and Iraq
Looking for the Elusive Two-Thirds Who Want War With Iraq
China Wages Rear-Guard Battle in Effort to Rein in Press
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Remaining structural defects
Notorious Brazilian Prison Closing
Suspects Said to Be Awaiting Order to Attack in U.S.
Arrests Raising Hopes in Hunt for Al Qaeda
Suspected terrorists linked to al Qaeda camp
OTHER
E.P.A. Pollution Report Omits Global Warming Section
ACTIVISTS
Riot Police Fire Rubber Bullets at Basque Demo
Palestinians March to Protest Curfew
-------- NUCLEAR
'Brotherhood of the Bomb'
By GREGG HERKEN
New York Times
September 15, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/15/books/chapters/0915-1st-herken.html
Early in 1939, Ernest Orlando Lawrence, the Berkeley physicist and inventor of the cyclotron, was planning a machine to change the world. It would be the largest and most expensive instrument thus far dedicated to scientific research. Requiring enough steel to build a good-sized freighter and electric current sufficient to light the city of Berkeley, Lawrence`s latest "atom-smasher" would, in theory, accelerate elementary particles to an energy of 100 million electron volts, enough to break the bonds of the atom and penetrate to its heart, the nucleus.
Almost a year after German scientists had first observed the fissioning of uranium, the atomic nucleus remained the unexplored ultima Thule of twentieth-century physics. Striking to its heart required giant machines capable of generating energies close to that of cosmic rays traveling from space. At such energies, charged particles, or neutrons, colliding with an atom broke it apart, laying bare its inner workings. The cyclotron was, in effect, a means of replicating the elemental forces of Nature.
Lawrence`s first atom-smasher had been an unimpressive glass contraption barely 4 inches across, covered with red sealing wax against vacuum leaks. By 1939, that original cyclotron hung, like a trophy, above the entrance to one of the new laboratories on the Berkeley campus. Unprepossessing, it was yet the stuff of which the dreams of alchemy were made: a twentieth-century philosopher`s stone, promising its possessor the ability to transform the elements of matter, once thought immutable.
But, beyond smashing atoms, exactly what the new machine would do remained mysterious even to Lawrence. The prospect he held up to Robert Gordon Sproul, the patrician president of the University of California, was worthy of a pre-Columbian explorer both for its sweeping vision and its lack of specificity: "Until we cross the frontier of a hundred million volts, we will not know what riches lie ahead, but that there are great riches there can be no doubt."
Like Paracelsus, Lawrence promised to turn lead into gold-but in infinitesimal amounts, and at prodigious cost. Mindful of the recent discovery of fission, Ernest chose to emphasize to Sproul another long-held hope of humanity that most scientists, he among them, had until now dismissed as illusory: "we may be able to tap the unlimited store of energy in the atom."
Lawrence`s moment of discovery had come a decade earlier, in early 1929. Then an unmarried twenty-eight-year-old associate professor of physics newly arrived from Yale, he was living at Berkeley`s Faculty Club and working late nights at the university library. It was on one such lonely evening, while struggling through a recent article a Norwegian engineer, Roll Wideröe, in a German journal, the Archiv für Elektrotechnik, that Ernest had his epiphany.
Wideröe`s article was about a new way of speeding particles to high energies repeated applications of a lower voltage. Resonance acceleration was an electromagnetic phenomenon without obvious practical application, in which positively charged particles are accelerated sequentially electrical impulses as they pass through a succession of vacuum tubes. The acceleration ceased only when the experimenter ran out of tubes, or the particles fell out of step with the electrical impulses and spread out, shotgun-like, hitting the tube walls. A diagram in the article showed the vacuum tubes arranged in a straight line, end to end. Since his German was weak, Lawrence was drawn to the diagram rather than the text.
With the intuitive understanding that was always his greatest strength, Lawrence instantly recognized that if the particles could be confined to a circle rather than a straight line, and kept focused a magnet while electrical impulses accelerated them-alternately pulling and pushing-there might be no limit to the energies obtained. The following day, Ernest excitedly described his idea for a "proton merry-go-round" to Berkeley colleagues.
For $25, Ernest built a tabletop model of his machine, debuting it a few months later before the American Physical Society. Lawrence reported on its promise to a September 1930 meeting of the National Academy of Sciences. Attached to a kitchen chair a clothes hanger, it was a sensation among the scientists assembled. The first lilliputian device never achieved the energies that Lawrence promised the National Academy, but proved the principle sound. A twenty-five-year-old graduate student from Dartmouth, Stanley Livingston, helped Lawrence fashion his next machine of durable brass.
Progress thereafter was rapid, for both Lawrence and his machines. In 1930, at the age of twenty-nine, Ernest became the youngest full professor in the history of the University of California. Magnetic resonance accelerator-Livingston`s term for the proton merry-go-round-gradually gave way to cyclotron, a word inspired the particles` path and the Radiotron vacuum-tube oscillators that propelled them. Cyclotron had the additional bonus of sounding futuristic to prospective funders.
An enthusiast nature, Lawrence began planning larger cyclotrons even before the capabilities of the existing one had been explored. A little more than a year after his first success, Lawrence and Livingston had built a machine capable in theory of accelerating protons to energies of 1 million electron volts. Measured the diameter of the magnet`s pole face, the 11-inch cyclotron was nearly three times the size of their first effort and cost disproportionately more to build: $800. Lawrence installed it, without fanfare, next to his office on the second floor of Berkeley`s physics building, LeConte Hall.
That summer, Lawrence and Livingston discovered the principle of magnetic focusing, using soft iron shims between the poles and the vacuum tank to compensate for variations in the magnetic field. Voltages obtained the 11-inch were doubled, and then doubled again-approaching the energy believed necessary to penetrate the invisible barrier that surrounds the atomic nucleus. Moving gradually up the slope, Lawrence and Livingston crossed the milestone million volts in August 1931. On a visit to New Haven to see his fiancée, Molly Blumer, Lawrence received the good news in a telegram from his secretary: "Dr. Livingston has asked me to advise you that he has obtained 1,100,000 volt protons. He also suggested that I add `Whoopee!`"
Ernest wed his longtime sweetheart in May 1932. Molly was a tall, statuesque Vassar honors graduate whose father was dean of Yale`s medical school. Enrolled in bacteriology courses at Radcliffe, Molly gave up her own promising scientific career to marry Lawrence. While still on their honeymoon, the newlyweds had just returned from a sail on Long Island Sound when Ernest learned in a radio broadcast that British scientists had been first to disintegrate an atom, using a simple voltage multiplier and a few hundred thousand volts. In a properly designed experiment, the 11-inch could have accomplished the same feat a year earlier. Quickly returning to California, Ernest made sure that he and his colleagues got credit for achieving the first atomic disintegration outside Europe. He promised Molly a longer honeymoon later.
The British discovery highlighted the fact that Lawrence`s enthusiasm sometimes overcame the discipline necessary to do science. Since he was often more interested in building grand new machines than in doing the hard work necessary to interpret experimental results, Ernest had paid less attention to having sensitive detection instruments.
To remedy that weakness, Ernest imported a friend from his Yale days, Donald Cooksey, a journeyman physicist who specialized in designing detectors. The son of a Yale professor and scion of an old California family, Cooksey had never bothered to finish the language requirement for his graduate degree. Nine years older than Lawrence, Cooksey was more cosmopolitan far. Ernest`s first view of the New York City skyline had come from the roof of the Yale Club, where he was staying as Cooksey`s guest. "DC," as he was known, soon became Ernest`s factotum, troubleshooter, and confidant at the lab.
Following his embarrassment at the hands of the British, Lawrence proposed an order-of-magnitude increase in the power of his next cyclotron. Early in 1932, he and Livingston had begun sketching plans for a 27-inch machine capable of accelerating particles to energies in excess of 20 million volts.
There would be no more trophies to hang on the wall. In the otherwise relativistic world of cyclotron physics, one linear relationship ruled: an almost direct correlation between input and output. Higher energies required proportionately larger and more powerful vacuum pumps and electromagnets. The magnet for the 11-inch cyclotron had weighed 2 tons. For the 27-inch, Lawrence already had his eye on an 80-ton magnet, originally built for a Bay Area firm, the Federal Telegraph Company, but now obsolete and rusting away in a Palo Alto junkyard.
Bigger machines and an expanding empire also required more room. Lawrence installed the 27-inch in an old wooden building on campus known as the Civil Engineering Testing Laboratory; the forestry and linguistic departments still maintained offices upstairs. He christened the structure, somewhat grandiosely, the "Penetrating Radiations Laboratory," a title later shortened to "Radiation Laboratory." For the growing number of grad students gathering around him, however, it was simply the "Rad Lab," just as their remarkable young phenom of a professor was "EOL."
By sheer force of personality more than any power of intellect, Lawrence was a commanding presence at Berkeley the early 1930s. Although tall and good-looking-he was over six feet, with startlingly blue eyes and a shock of blond hair combed straight back-Lawrence spoke in a tenor rather than a baritone and was never comfortable addressing large groups.
Ernest was born of Norwegian immigrants at the start of the new century. His father, Carl, was school superintendent and later president of a teachers college in Canton, South Dakota. Ernest`s mother, Gunda, recalled an early childhood spent in a sod hut on the prairie. Educated at St. Olaf College and the University of South Dakota, Ernest developed values that were decidedly, even determinedly, midwestern.
Yet Lawrence`s plebeian background had not yielded egalitarian beliefs. Primus inter pares would never be a familiar concept at the Rad Lab. To the cyclotroneers, EOL was "the Maestro" or simply "Boss." Visitors to the lab noticed a single gleaming china teacup and saucer amid the workers` grimy porcelain mugs. Following the morning coffee break, Cooksey locked the cup and saucer as well as a silver-plated spoon in a drawer conspicuously marked "Reserved for the Director."
Like a medieval lord, Lawrence presided over weekly meetings of the physics department`s Journal Club-convened promptly at 7:30 every Monday evening in LeConte`s library-from a massive red leather chair reserved for him alone. It was the one time that the cyclotron was turned off. Ernest introduced the presenter, usually asked the first question, and brought the proceedings to an abrupt close exactly ninety minutes later with the first ring of the campanile`s chimes, even if it meant interrupting the speaker in midsentence.
Colleagues from eastern schools found Lawrence`s informal manner popular with students, if somewhat disconcerting. Physicist Henry DeWolf Smyth, visiting from Princeton, was dismayed one of Ernest`s typically boisterous pep talks: "This seemed to me a rather inappropriate talk to a group of graduate students presumably of some sophistication. I found, however, not only that this was the tone of the talk which depressed me somewhat but it seemed to work, which depressed me even more."
Ernest`s strict Lutheran uringing meant that frustrations and setbacks at the cyclotron seldom provoked expletives stronger than "Fudge!" or "Oh, Sugar!" But Lawrence, for all his Scandinavian stolidness, had a quick and livid temper. When it flared, a vein stood out above his left temple-a kind of weather gauge and warning to students and colleagues alike.
Disdainful of most human frailties, Lawrence had a particular intolerance for lying. Once, after berating Molly for not listening to an interview he had given on the radio, Lawrence was brought up short her reply: "Ernest, would you rather I lied?"
The anodyne to Lawrence`s withering temper was his charm, equally celebrated and just as quick to surface. When Northwestern University had tried to lure him from Berkeley, Sproul joined with the head of the physics department, Raymond Birge, to thwart the attempt. As ammunition to persuade the regents to promote Lawrence to full professor, Birge and Ernest`s colleagues wrote a long letter to Sproul. In it, Lawrence`s affability and winning personality were given almost as much prominence as his research.
Possessed of energy and enthusiasm in seemingly equal measure, Lawrence terrorized the Rad Lab`s cyclotroneers-whom he affectionately called "the boys"-when at the controls of the machine. In those early days, starting the cyclotron involved closing a knife-switch. This simple act, noted one of the boys, was sometimes accompanied an "ensuing sparking, crash, and blowing out of lights," plunging the campus and even adjacent neighborhoods into sudden darkness.
Once the cyclotron was running, Lawrence always tried to coax the maximum voltage out of the machine. A penciled mark next to a slide-switch in the control room indicated the pinnacle reached on the last attempt. Success was measured the intensity and focus of the ionized particle beam, which emerged into the target chamber as a thin line of bright blue light. These sessions, usually brief, ended when an oscillator tube burned out or the cyclotron`s vacuum chamber sprung a leak-whereupon Ernest cheerfully promised to return when the boys had the problem fixed.
Hazards abounded. The popular method of locating vacuum leaks- playing a jet of natural gas over the sealing wax-was likened the boys to a race between explosion and asphyxiation. The cyclotron bathed its operators in so much radio frequency energy that it inspired a favorite trick: standing next to the machine, a cyclotroneer could get a lightbulb to flicker in one hand holding onto a grounded piece of metal with the other.
Frequent electrical faults caused heavy hooks to fall from overhead cages, shorting out the cyclotron with a resounding bang and an overpowering smell of ozone. Water spraying from the cooling system that Cooksey installed-common garden hose, for the most part-sparked fires as often as two or three times a day. The boys then ran around the machine with handheld extinguishers, desperately trying to put out the flames before they spread to the wooden floor, which was soaked with highly flammable transformer oil. (One cyclotroneer, puzzled that strangers at campus parties were always able to guess where he worked, finally realized that the sickly sweet smell of the oil on his clothes was the giveaway.)
Seemingly oblivious to the smoke, water, and stench of burned insulation, Lawrence remained resolutely hunched over the controls, pressing on to higher voltages and more tightly focused beams for as long as the current flowed.
Ernest`s obsession was legendary at Berkeley. Late at night or even in the early morning hours, Lawrence-sometimes still in formal wear, having just arrived from a dinner party at Sproul`s house-would appear without notice in the control room and demand a report on the current experiment from the cyclotron`s stunned operator. These impromptu nocturnal visits came to be known, not always affectionately, as the "bed check." Canny graduate students learned to leave the lights burning, their coats on a hook behind the door, while they stole away for dinner. Cyclotroneers grew used to the sight of Molly sprawled asleep in the red leather chair, following what Ernest had promised would be only a brief detour to the lab before dinner or a movie. Two-year-old Eric, the couple`s first child, learned to salute his father`s colleagues with a cheery, "How`s the vacuum?"
On those occasions when illness kept him at home, Lawrence remained in touch means of a bedside radio tuned off station to the cyclotron`s operating frequency. When the telltale hum ceased, Ernest was instantly on the telephone to inquire whether the machine was down or the boys simply malingering.
--------
'Brotherhood of the Bomb': The Hunt for Oppenheimer
New York Times
September 15, 2002
By DAVID A. HOLLINGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/15/books/review/15HOLLINT.html
J. Robert Oppenheimer was once much closer to the Communist Party than he ever admitted. Yet as director of the laboratory that built the atomic bomb and as a weapons adviser to the government after World War II, he served his country more scrupulously than did many of those who made an issue of his loyalty. This arresting paradox is at the heart of the most commanding history yet written of the internal politics of the United States during the early years of the nuclear age, ''Brotherhood of the Bomb,'' by Gregg Herken, a historian at the Smithsonian Institution.
Herken shows how high-ranking officials conspired, sometimes with illegal wiretaps, to push Oppenheimer out of government service in 1954, and forced an Army general to testify falsely that Oppenheimer was a security risk. He also shows that Oppenheimer's petty deceits about who told him what concerning potential Soviet espionage were motivated more by personal than political loyalties and damaged himself more than anyone else. Herken's new material includes recently opened F.B.I. files, more than 80 interviews, and previously closed papers of several key actors in the drama.
The ''brotherhood'' of his title has a double meaning. It refers to the men in the subtitle, ''The Tangled Lives and Loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence and Edward Teller.'' These giants of atomic physics were bound together for decades in complex, tension-ridden alliances partly of their own making, but often created by military and political institutions that used them. Their ventures were driven by vanity, political dogma, vested interests, lust for power and, most shocking, perhaps, honest assessments of the welfare of the nation and the world.
But Herken's title also invokes the relationship between Robert Oppenheimer and his brother, Frank, also a physicist, whom Robert brought into the Manhattan Project despite Frank's having been a member of the Communist Party from 1937 to 1941. Later, Robert Oppenheimer's contradictory stories about spies appear to have been designed to protect his brother. These lies made him vulnerable to attack by those who wanted to destroy him for other reasons, especially for opposition to specific weapons initiatives supported in the early 50's by Teller and the Air Force. Teller, who eventually replaced Oppenheimer as the nation's most influential adviser on nuclear weapons, testified in 1954 that Oppenheimer should be denied a security clearance.
Herken tells the stories of both brotherhoods simultaneously in an enthralling narrative that moves from Berkeley to Los Alamos to Washington and several other places where bombs were designed, tested and debated. The University of California, Berkeley, was the academic home of both Oppenheimer and Ernest Orlando Lawrence, a machine-designing experimentalist of enormous creativity who had won a Nobel Prize in 1939 for designing the cyclotron. Lawrence was the government's initial choice to direct the Los Alamos laboratory. But his casual attitude toward security gave pause to James B. Conant and Vannevar Bush, the top science advisers to the White House.
Lawrence had brought Oppenheimer into a committee of scientists advising the government about building the bomb, and he offered such shrewd advice on one technical question after another that he became indispensable to the project. Gen. Leslie Groves, the military officer in charge of the Manhattan Project, ultimately chose Oppenheimer, even though he was a theorist with no administrative experience, as director at Los Alamos. Groves was aware that Oppenheimer's family, friends and students included many former members of the Communist Party, but his own contact with Oppenheimer in 1942 convinced him of his integrity and loyalty.
Yet Herken's research places Oppenheimer closer to the Communist Party in 1940 and 1941 than even the F.B.I. was able to do during its intensive investigations in the 40's and 50's. Herken leaves open the possibility that Oppenheimer was a member of the party's secret ''professional section'' in Berkeley. He is more decisive on a much more important issue: he finds no evidence that Oppenheimer ever passed secret information to Soviet intelligence, or that any sympathy with Soviet political aims distorted the advice he gave the American government.
There certainly were spies at Los Alamos. Klaus Fuchs and Ted Hall have long since been identified, and there was at least one other whose identity remains undisclosed. But F.B.I. wiretaps quoted by Herken reveal Robert Oppenheimer's Communist friends in Berkeley plotting espionage while complaining ruefully about his refusal to talk to them about his secret work. Soviet documents available since the end of the cold war record frustration that agents had not been able to recruit Oppenheimer. Herken shows that Oppenheimer, once he entered government service, vindicated Groves's faith in him.
Groves was coerced into testifying against Oppenheimer in 1954. The episode is one of many recounted here that reveal the paradox of Oppenheimer's loyalty being made an issue by people less scrupulous than he was in the exercise of their duties. The basis for what amounted to a kind of blackmail was a conversation between Groves and Oppenheimer late in 1943, which made Groves vulnerable to prosecution for felony violation of a statute prohibiting withholding of material information about espionage in wartime.
The general ordered Oppenheimer to name physicists who had been approached by Soviet agents. Oppenheimer himself had alerted junior security officers that overtures had been made, but declined to identify the physicists who had been targeted as potential spies. Now he told Groves that there was only one -- his brother, Frank. But he extracted a promise that Groves was never to disclose this to the F.B.I. To the F.B.I. Oppenheimer gave yet another account of the espionage effort, making no mention of his brother, but implicating others, including Haakon Chevalier, a Berkeley professor of French who, Oppenheimer said, served as an intermediary in the Soviet initiative.
Groves not only kept his promise, but was a steadfast defender of Oppenheimer for the next decade, voluntarily giving Oppenheimer in 1950 a resounding written testimonial he could show to any authorities that questioned his loyalty. But back in 1943 an aide in whom Groves confided had leaked the Groves-Oppenheimer secret to the F.B.I. During the intervening years J. Edgar Hoover was furious at Groves for keeping from him what he already knew privately. So when Lewis Strauss, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, prepared A.E.C. hearings on Oppenheimer in 1954, Hoover was ready to help. Most of the evidence against Oppenheimer was information long on record about his associations with Communists, and his conflicting stories about the role of his friend Chevalier. But Strauss and Hoover knew that this old information might play differently if Groves could be induced to put a different construction on it.
Hoover worked closely with Strauss to orchestrate Groves's testimony in the context of Groves's vulnerability to prosecution. He was allowed to avoid mentioning his private conversation with Oppenheimer. Thus he was not obliged to contradict testimony Oppenheimer gave at the same hearing to the effect that his brother Frank had ''nothing whatever to do'' with the approach made by Soviet agents. All Strauss needed on the record from Groves was a clear statement that he now regarded his protege as a ''security risk.'' Groves delivered on cue.
Did Oppenheimer tell Groves the truth? And if so, might Oppenheimer's reluctance to see his brother branded as someone whom his Communist friends found to be good spy material have been based on awareness that his brother was, indeed, tempted? Herken did not find evidence to support an answer to these questions.
But ''Brotherhood of the Bomb'' enables us to put what we do not know in the perspective of what we do know: 35 years after his death, J. Robert Oppenheimer remains, more than ever, one of those people who, in Stephen Spender's phrase, ''leave the vivid air singed with their honor.''
David A. Hollinger is Preston Hotchkis Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley.
-------- depleted uranium
Mystery sickness creates new battles
Web posted
Sunday, September 15, 2002
About this series
By Mike Wynn and Johnny Edwards Staff Writers, Augusta GA Chronicle
http://augustachronicle.com/stories/091502/met_gulf_war1.shtml
On May 3, 1991, Carolyn Dixon hung a red, white and blue wreath on her front door and decorated her front lawn with yellow ribbons and a welcome-home banner.
Her husband, Aaron Dixon, had been away for seven months, hauling fuel through the deserts of Saudi Arabia and Iraq during the Persian Gulf War.
After a long flight home, he and the rest of the Army National Guard 1148th Transportation Company rode in buses from Bush Field to Fort Gordon, where a cheering crowd awaited them.
As Mrs. Dixon drove her husband home, she knew right away that something had changed about him. He barely spoke. He seemed solemn, disconnected and sedate.
"The same body came back, but not the same person," said Mrs. Dixon, 51.
Other changes would emerge later. Mr. Dixon, like a large portion of 1148th veterans, soon developed health problems that he says were caused by his service in the Saudi Arabian desert. First his joints began aching, mainly in both hips. He had trouble sleeping, suffered anxiety and memory loss, tired easily and had difficulty breathing through his nose.
"I've forgotten the times when I used to go to bed and sleep all night long," said Mr. Dixon, 50. "For the first few hours, I sleep like a baby, but after that it's catnaps."
The Augusta Chronicle tracked down 102 of the 166 people deployed with the 1148th, in some cases speaking with close relatives of veterans who had died. Seventy-five of the 102 said they have illnesses or ailments they attribute to gulf war service.
The most commonly reported problems were rashes and joint aches, along with memory problems, sinus problems and sleep disorders. Cases ranged from vets with mild joint pain or headaches to vets who have contracted cancer and died. At least three men - Douglas Scott, John O'Donnell and Willie Wright - have died in the past three years. Their relatives all say the same thing.
"Desert Storm is the cause of his illness," said Katrina Wright, Mr. Wright's widow.
Exposed to it all
For the 1148th, the Persian Gulf War really was all about petroleum. Its members never fired a rocket, a bullet or artillery shell during Desert Storm.
Their job was to keep the juice flowing, hauling fuel in tanker trucks through the bumpy, mine-laden desert terrain, where it would be pumped into jets, cargo trucks, humvees, tanks, cooking ranges and cars driven by senior officers. When it was over, the 1148th had carried 9.7 million gallons of fuel and trucked 527,000 miles - the most of any unit in its battalion.
Based on the array of theories about so-called gulf war syndrome, if any group of soldiers was susceptible, the 1148th was.. Its mission, in support of the 7th Corps, took it all over the theater of war, exposing its members to a range of hazards now believed to be possible causes.
For example:
They were in the area of fallout when weapons caches were destroyed at "the Pit" near Khamisiyah in Iraq. Rockets and bunkers blown up on March 10, 1991, were later found to have contained the nerve agents sarin and cyclosarin, and members received letters from the Department of Defense six years later saying they might have been exposed.
In January 1991, just before the launch of the ground war, doctors showed up at their base camp and injected them with the anthrax vaccine. Studies have shown that the vaccine given to soldiers was different from the drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the vaccine figures into various theories about the cause of gulf war illnesses.
They were ordered to swallow Pyridostigmine Bromide - or PB - pills to boost their immune systems in case of a nerve agent attack. The Department of Defense released a report in 1999 saying the pills cannot be ruled out as a contributor to veterans' illnesses. PB had not been fully approved and licensed by the FDA as a pretreatment for exposure to chemical warfare agents.
They inhaled toxic fumes emanating from the oil-well fires in Kuwait, set by retreating Iraqi troops.
They were often near the carnage left by battles where U.S. forces used bullets and shells containing depleted uranium, a slightly radioactive heavy metal that produces uranium oxide dust while burning.
They bathed in water that had been transported in a tank that also had been used to haul diesel fuel.
Before being sent home, they made camp in Dhahran over the cleared foundation of a building that had been destroyed by a Scud missile Feb. 25. In the deadliest attack on Americans during the war, a missile exploded over the Army barracks housing a reserve unit from Greensburg, Pa., killing 28 soldiers. Rumors persist that the Iraqis used chemical warheads in some Scud attacks, although it has never been proved. Chemical alarms went off frequently in the desert, prompting soldiers to wear chemical suits for extended lengths of time.
A researcher at the Medical College of Georgia who has studied symptoms of Desert Storm veterans said exact causes of their health problems may never be uncovered. Soldiers who traveled through various areas, such as those in the 1148th, came back with a wide array of nonspecific and inconsistent ailments.
"The problem is the clues are just all over the place, and we can't seem to put together a single picture that explains it," said Dr. Jerry Buccafusco, the director of MCG's Alzheimer's Research Center. "If people came back from gulf war and all had Parkinson's disease, or came back from gulf war and had bad kidneys, it would be a lot easier to track down what happened."
Desert duty
The 1148th's call to active duty came Sept. 17, 1990. The 166 reservists and their families gathered at the armory on Milledge Road six days later to say goodbye.
It was a bright Sunday morning. The soldiers were dressed in camouflage uniforms, their gear strapped over their shoulders.
They posed for snapshots with their wives, husbands, children and girlfriends. They gave hugs and kisses. Some cracked jokes. Others wiped away tears.
Flag-waving crowds shouting "God bless America" lined the streets as the soldiers pulled away in tanker trucks. They stayed at Fort Gordon for six weeks, then headed out in buses to Charleston, S.C., where they took a chartered Pan Am flight to Europe, which continued to the Middle East. They arrived in Dhahran on Nov. 6.
During their six months in Saudi Arabia, they would occupy two camps in the desert. They arrived Nov. 30 at the first location, Log Base Bravo, about five miles southeast of King Khalid Military City, an operations base where thousands of troops were stationed.
They called their first Saudi base "Camp Fain Augusta." In Arabic, fain, pronounced "fah-een," is the way to ask, "where is ...," so the name conveyed a sort of homesickness.
The unit made trips to the big refineries in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, and Dhahran on the coast of the Persian Gulf. It took the fuel northward toward Kuwait and Iraq, dropping it off at various transfer points where it left full trailers and retrieved empty ones. Other units would take the fuel to the front lines and pump it into vehicles.
Despite being in the hub of the world's oil production, there was no place for Army and Air Force vehicles to gas up.
"The area is so large and so dispersed that the infrastructure is not in place like it is in this country," said Steve Lineberry, who was a first sergeant with the 1148th. " You can look at the map and see that."
The 1148th's ability to surmount this problem of petroleum resources and geographic distances among Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq earned the unit a meritorious award.
When the men and women weren't on missions, they passed the time playing football or volleyball and watching movies on television. From their camp, they could see the road leading north and could see the military buildup happening as the traffic went by. They stocked up on cigarettes, soft drinks and candy at the shops in the area.
On missions, they often came across dead camels and goats. Victor Vining, a staff sergeant, recalls finding 50 to 100 dead sheep during one run. One of his duties was to check the chemical alarms, which went off constantly but were always ruled false alarms by the Army, he said. Other veterans recall sleeping in their chemical suits and gas masks.
Some gulf war researchers, including Dr. Robert Haley of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, say these alarms may have been triggered by low levels of chemicals and nerve agents dispersed by bombings of Iraqi weapons depots during the first few days of the air war. The Department of Defense contends that the alarms were usually activated by diesel exhaust, after-shave and cigarette smoke.
Ten days before the ground war began, the 1148th moved to its second camp, about 40 miles west of Hafar al Batin, not far from the Iraqi border. They called it "Camp Fain Augusta II."
It was here they were exposed to the black smoke of the burning oil wells of Kuwait, set ablaze by departing Iraqis. Thick clouds drifted over the camp, blotting out the sun.
"The smoke was so heavy it looked like it was 7:30 in the evening all the time," recalls LeRoy Brinson, 56, a sergeant during the war. "It seemed like the sun never did shine."
Missions after the ground war also put them in the path of the fallout when the Army destroyed munitions around Khamisiyah. About 100,000 members of the U.S. armed services may have been exposed to a plume of nerve agents.
Still wondering
Like many 1148th veterans, Charles Cramer has no way of knowing what is causing his health problems.
Mr. Cramer, 53, has trouble sleeping and has had surgery to help relieve sinusitis since returning from the gulf. He thinks the drugs the unit was forced to take are partly to blame.
"After we came back, we started hearing all these stories that this wasn't approved by the (FDA), and that wasn't approved," Mr. Cramer said. "During the gulf war the statement was made that what we did was validate our equipment that was built during the 1980s - the Abrams tank, the Bradley Fighting vehicles, the Apache helicopters. Also in return, I think they validated their medication."
He, like many other gulf war veterans, says the government has not been forthcoming about what happened to them.
"Somewhere in the halls behind closed doors at the Pentagon, I guarantee you, someone knows," said Mr. Cramer, who retired from active National Guard duty in 1998 after 26 years. "But bureaucracy is not going to let it happen. It's going to have to be dug out ... slowly but surely."
The cause of their health problems, many in the unit believe, will point back to Jan. 12, 1991. That evening, as the shadows of dusk crept over the camp, doctors showed up carrying syringes.
They told the soldiers to form a line and roll up their sleeves.
WHO TO CALL
If you are a Persian Gulf War veteran and believe you or someone in your family has been affected by gulf war illness, you can set up an examination at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Centers in Augusta by calling (706) 823-3999 or (800) 836-5561, Ext. 3999. The national help-line number is (800) PGW-VETS ((800) 749-8387).
For medical research information, log on to www.va.gov/gulfwar; or www.GulfLINK.osd.mil/medsearch.
ABOUT THE SERIES
The Augusta Chronicle tracked down 102 of the 166 men and women who served with Augusta's 1148th Transportation Company during the Persian Gulf War and looked at what has happened to its members and their families since, and what could happen if U.S. forces return to the gulf.
SUNDAY: The 1148th Transportation Company's job of hauling fuel during the war put its reservists all over the theater of combat, exposing them to almost every hazard associated with Desert Storm. http://augustachronicle.com/stories/091502/met_gulf_war1.shtml
MONDAY: On Jan. 12, 1991, members of the 1148th were injected with the anthrax vaccine, in some cases against their will. http://augustachronicle.com/stories/091602/met_gulf.shtml
TUESDAY: When their bodies began deteriorating after the gulf war, some veterans say, they didn't get the help they needed from the federal agency charged with caring for them. http://augustachronicle.com/stories/091702/met_gulf.shtml
WEDNESDAY: There is growing evidence that the men and women who served in Desert Storm are not the only victims of gulf war-related health problems. http://augustachronicle.com/stories/091802/met_gulf.shtml
THURSDAY: Some fear another war with Iraq could bring a repeat of the health problems plaguing so many Persian Gulf War veterans. http://augustachronicle.com/stories/091902/met_gulf.shtml
Reach Mike Wynn at (706) 823-3218 or Johnny Edwards at (706) 823-3225.
-------- iraq
Iraq Exile Says Nuclear Bomb Months Away - UK Paper
September 15, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-iraq-britain-nuclear.html
LONDON (Reuters) - An exiled Iraqi nuclear scientist believes Baghdad is closer to building an atomic bomb than previously thought, a British newspaper said on Monday.
The Times newspaper said Dr. Khidir Hamza, described as a top Iraqi nuclear researcher who fled to the West in 1994, believed that Iraq was able to make copies of a German-built centrifuge and use them to enrich uranium to produce a nuclear bomb.
The German-built centrifuge was dismantled by international arms inspectors before they were withdrawn from Iraq in 1998. But Hamza told the Times that Iraqi scientists had studied how the centrifuge was built and learned how to copy it.
``We videoed as it was put up, so we could build identical ones,'' the paper quoted the Iraqi as saying.
``When the inspectors took away the original centrifuge, we already had the know-how. I believe there are probably hundreds of copies today.''
The Times said unnamed ``experts'' believed the centrifuge method would take four to seven years to make enough nuclear material for a bomb. The program may have begun in earnest when the inspectors left in December 1998, or possibly even earlier, Hamza told the newspaper.
A respected British think tank, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), said this month that Iraq could build a nuclear bomb within months if it received nuclear material from abroad.
The Times story appeared to suggest that Iraq could produce the material itself, and quoted Hamza as saying the IISS had ``missed a few tricks.'' Independent experts could not be immediately contacted for comment.
The United States and Britain say that Iraq is trying to develop weapons of mass destruction and have called on the United Nations to approve the use of force if Baghdad does not permit weapons inspectors to return.
Britain is to present a dossier containing its evidence against Iraq before a September 24 parliamentary debate.
Iraq denies it is seeking nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and says the allegations are trumped up to provide an excuse to launch a war against it.
-------
Yes, Let's Go Into Iraq With an Army of Inspectors
By Rolf Ekeus,
Sunday, September 15, 2002
Washington Post; Page B01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A16366-2002Sep14?language=printer
For seven years, a United Nations team of inspectors under my direction uncovered biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs in Iraq by scouring financial records, tracking down imported equipment, searching laboratories and bases, and accounting for every one of the more than 900 Scuds the Soviet Union had provided to Baghdad. The Iraqi government did its best to conceal most of this dangerous infrastructure.
Our experience from those years proves beyond doubt that Iraq has the ambition and ability to acquire weapons of mass destruction. But it also shows that international weapons inspectors, if properly backed up byinternational force, can unearth Saddam Hussein's weapons programs. If we believe that Iraq would be much less of a threat without such weapons, the obvious thing is to focus on getting rid of the weapons. Doing that through an inspection team is not only the most effective way, but would cost less in lives and destruction than an invasion.
The question is whether weapons inspections can provide credible assurance to an international community anxious to disarm Iraq. On that, there is considerable debate and disagreement. But many people underestimate the sophistication of inspections and the experts who devoted themselves to this challenge.
Take Iraq's biological weapons program, often cited as evidence of Baghdad's ability to deceive weapons inspectors. In his speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday, President Bush attributed the successful uncovering of the bioweapons program to the fortuitous defection of a senior Iraqi weapons official in 1995. In this case, the president does not appear to have been well briefed. In fact, in April 1995, four months before the Iraqi official defected, U.N. inspectors disclosed to the Security Council that Iraq had a major biological weapons program, including a sizable production facility. In later reports in June and July, the inspection team, known as the U.N. Special Commission on Iraq, or UNSCOM, added details about Iraq's research into weapons that could spread anthrax, botulism, aflatoxin and gas gangrene. The defection of the Iraqi weapons official, a son-in-law of Saddam Hussein, in August provided some additional confirmation and prompted the Iraqi regime to make some more admissions, but the inspectors learned few new details.
The discovery of Iraq's bioweapons program was the work of smart inspectors, not a godsend. One example of the many discoveries shows the detective work involved. By examining letters of credit issued by Iraq's central bank, UNSCOM found a Western company that had exported a spray drying system to Iraq. The piece of equipment is common in agriculture. But when we interviewed them, puzzled company officials said that the Iraqi importer wanted to use it to mill particles so small they would stay suspended in the atmosphere. That set off alarm bells, because the only reason to do that would be to make sure that particles could be inhaled. There is no civilian reason to do that with this piece of agricultural equipment. To find other corroborating evidence, UNSCOM searched normally innocent institutions such as hospitals, university labs, health centers and veterinary centers, and slowly a picture emerged of a major weapons program. UNSCOM profited from breakthroughs in genetic analysis to discover traces of biological weapons in samples obtained earlier at suspect facilities. If, in the face of Iraq's total denial and non-cooperation, the inspectors could find that kind of carefully concealed activity, that should give us reason to trust a renewed U.N. inspection system.
UNSCOM had other successes as well. In 1995, we found out about missile guidance systems Iraq had smuggled in from Russia the same year, even as inspections were going on. With inspectors in hot pursuit, Iraqi officials tried to avoid detection by throwing the equipment into the Tigris River, but UNSCOM divers were able to fish it out. This case was proof that Iraq not only concealed, but tried to reconstitute prohibited weapons programs.
Using documentation of Soviet Scud missiles delivered to Iraq in the 1980s, including serial numbers of and data about individual missiles, engines, warheads, fuel pumps and guidance systems, and taking advantage of Russian and former East German experts with detailed knowledge of Scuds, inspectors were able to account for more than 900 missiles. The destruction of those missiles that still remained after the two earlier Gulf wars was then certified by UNSCOM.
The U.N. inspectors also found that Iraq was more advanced in its pursuit of nuclear weapons than it had admitted or than was widely believed. Iraq had obtained practically the entire design of a nuclear explosion device, and appeared to have mastered most other technical aspects of the production of nuclear weapons. It had not managed to acquire enough fissile material for a nuclear device, though. To remedy this, Iraq had embarked on expensive efforts to enrich uranium. This capacity was also dismantled by inspectors.
In similar fashion, UNSCOM also found and destroyed stockpiles of chemical weapons, such as mustard gas and the nerve agents sarin and VX. The inspectors also demolished large quantities of chemical weapons munitions, including rockets and bombs.
In all these endeavors, UNSCOM benefited from intelligence support, including imagery provided by U2 planes which flew regularly over Iraq.
For a while, notwithstanding obstacles, the inspection regime worked. Then, in 1998, Hussein started systematically blocking inspectors from entering certain sites that were under suspicion. The permanent five members of the U.N. Security Council were divided about how to react, the inspectors withdrew, and U.S. and British planes were sent to bomb Iraq in Operation Desert Fox. In the four years since, there have been no U.N. inspectors in Iraq.
Thanks to the work of U.N. inspectors, not much was left of Iraq's once massive weapons programs when inspections halted. The question now is how much Baghdad has managed to acquire since then. Because of Hussein's clandestine techniques, little can be proven. Assessments can be made on what is possible and what is probable. A strong case can be made that Iraq, with access to considerable financial resources from oil sales since 1998, is making extensive efforts to rebuild its capabilities in weapons of mass destruction. Given his proven recklessness and boundless ambitions, Hussein is again posing a threat to the peace and prosperity of the Gulf region and beyond.
With his U.N. speech, President Bush has opened the door for the U.N. to send in inspectors again. If the U.N. now said it wanted to send in inspectors, Bush would be hard-pressed to say no to an organization he sought to spur to action. But the door might not be open long. The United Nations should take this opportunity to create a system of coercive or armed inspections in order to guarantee access to suspected weapons sites, as proposed by Jessica T. Mathews and others from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
How should a U.N. inspection regime be reconstituted to prevent Iraq from blocking inspectors and sowing discord among the five permanent members of the Security Council? The answer lies in a radical strengthening of the inspection system, based on the existing and largely untested U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC). The inspectors should be backed up by an inspection implementation force positioned in neighboring countries and possibly in some parts of Iraq. Such a multinational force, preferably under an American commander, should be mandated by the Security Council.
Any obstruction by Iraq should be met with immediate reaction. The head of the inspection team, the executive chairman of UNMOVIC, should be given the exclusive authority to call upon the military backup forces for support if inspectors are blocked. No prior approval by the Security Council should be required. The force commander would be responsible for military operations in each situation. The goal of such an arrangement would be to deter Iraq from a policy of obstruction and force it to give up its notorious efforts at intimidation.
President Bush is right to be concerned about Iraq. There are strong reasons to believe that Hussein has designs on the Persian Gulf's oil resources and that he seeks unchallenged leadership of the Arab world. The only way Hussein can fulfill his ambitions is to back them up with intimidation of his neighbors. For that, weapons of mass destruction are the preeminent tools.
President Bush is also right to be worried about what we don't know about Iraq's weapons. The status quo cannot be an option. All the more reason to turn to inspectors to eliminate these tools. If we live in fear of not knowing what Iraq possesses, this is the only alternative to an invasion of Iraq, which would carry high risks for innocent Iraqi civilians, American and other international forces and the stability of the region. But the United Nations must ensure high quality inspections, strengthening their presence and guaranteeing access by providing inspectors with robust military backup so they can carry out their mission in full.
Rolf Ekeus, chairman of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and former Swedish ambassador to the United States, served as executive chairman of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) on Iraq from 1991 to 1997.
-------- korea
Report: N.Korea Plans to Halt Tests
The Associated Press
Sunday, September 15, 2002; 4:30 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A19873-2002Sep15?language=printer
TOKYO -- North Korea will agree to freeze missile tests and Tokyo will apologize for its actions in World War II when Japan's prime minister makes an unprecedented trip to the communist nation, a Japanese newspaper reported Sunday.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il are also expected to agree to resume talks on normalizing diplomatic relations, the Mainichi newspaper said.
Koizumi was making final preparations Sunday before his trip Tuesday. He will be the first Japanese prime minister to visit North Korea and meet with its leader. Details of the agreement will be finalized at the meeting, the Mainichi said.
Several thorny issues have prevented Japan and North Korea from normalizing relations, and officials from the two sides have negotiated the possible resolution ahead of Tuesday's summit. Japan accuses Pyongyang of developing nuclear weapons and alleges that North Korean agents abducted at least 11 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s to help train spies. A tentative agreement was also to mention the North's "regret" about the alleged kidnappings, the Mainichi said.
North Korea has denied the Japanese claims and said it is searching for the missing group. Pyongyang wants Japan to atone for its militarist past and its 1910-45 occupation of the Korean peninsula.
Pyongyang is expected to provide information on some of the 11 Japanese, the Mainichi said.
The North is also expected to agree to freeze missile tests beyond 2003, which it has previously pledged, and promise to keep its nuclear weapons programs within the international nonproliferation framework, the report said.
Koizumi is expected to provide an apology to address Pyongyang's demands for wartime compensation, to be paid as an economic package like Japan's 1965 settlement with South Korea, the newspaper said.
On Saturday, the North's official Korean Central News Agency said Kim wants to normalize ties with Japan during Koizumi's visit.
"This will be a turning point in normalizing (North) Korea-Japan relations," Kim said in written interview with Japan's Kyodo News agency, carried by KCNA.
--------
Report: N. Korea to Halt Missile Test
September 15, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Japan-NKorea.html
TOKYO (AP) -- North Korea will agree to freeze missile tests and Tokyo will apologize for its actions in World War II when Japan's prime minister makes an unprecedented trip to the communist nation, a Japanese newspaper reported Sunday.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il are also expected to agree to resume talks on normalizing diplomatic relations, the Mainichi newspaper said.
Koizumi will be the first Japanese prime minister to visit North Korea and meet with its leader. Details of the agreement will be completed at the Tuesday meeting, the Mainichi said.
Several thorny issues have prevented Japan and North Korea from normalizing relations.
Japan accuses Pyongyang of developing nuclear weapons and alleges that North Korean agents abducted at least 11 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s to help train spies. A tentative agreement was also to mention the North's ``regret'' about the alleged kidnappings, the Mainichi said.
North Korea has denied the Japanese claims and said it is searching for the missing group. Pyongyang wants Japan to atone for its militarist past and its 1910-45 occupation of the Korean peninsula.
Pyongyang is expected to provide information on some of the 11 Japanese, the Mainichi said.
After meeting with top officials to hammer out final details, Koizumi said Sunday that security and the abduction issue will take top billing on Tuesday's agenda. ``Normalization talks will not advance if the abduction problem is shelved,'' he said.
Many analysts believe Koizumi is staking his political future on this trip. Since the surprise announcement of the talks last month, he has faced enormous domestic pressure not to come home empty-handed on the abduction issue.
The North is also expected to agree to freeze missile tests beyond 2003, which it has previously pledged, and promise to keep its nuclear weapons programs within the international nonproliferation framework, the report said.
Koizumi is expected to provide an apology to address Pyongyang's demands for wartime compensation, to be paid as an economic package like Japan's 1965 settlement with South Korea, the newspaper said.
On Saturday, the North's official Korean Central News Agency said Kim wants to normalize ties with Japan during Koizumi's visit.
``This will be a turning point in normalizing (North) Korea-Japan relations,'' Kim said in written interview with Japan's Kyodo News agency, carried by KCNA.
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
Atomic Reactions
'Brotherhood of the Bomb' by Gregg Herken
Reviewed by Jennet Conant
Sunday, September 15, 2002
Washington Post; Page BW12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12482-2002Sep13?language=printer
BROTHERHOOD OF THE BOMBThe Tangled Lives and Loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, And Edward TellerBy Gregg HerkenHenry Holt. 448 pp. $30
It would be hard to imagine three men as profoundly different as Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence and Edward Teller, the three scientists most responsible for the advent of weapons of mass destruction. Each of these towering figures has been the subject of numerous biographies -- and in Teller's case, a recent autobiography -- dedicated to examining in depth his fascinating but flawed legacy. In Brotherhood of the Bomb, Gregg Herken sets himself the particularly daunting task of trying to contain all three overweening egos in one volume, which is a bit like inviting too many prima donnas to the same ball and watching them compete for the floor. Yet he succeeds in telling the vivid behind-the-scenes tale of these scientist's brilliant teamwork during World War II, and of the bristling jealousies, political intrigues and shifting loyalties that would ultimately bring them into bitter conflict.
A former Yale historian who is now curator at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum and the author of several studies of the nuclear age, Herken writes with an assurance that enables him to cover a lot of ground swiftly, and to paint the political and scientific landscape in bold strokes. We are plunged into the story in 1939, with a tall, good-looking Midwesterner, Ernest Lawrence, the inventor of the "atom-smasher," planning a machine to change the world. "By sheer force of personality more than by any power of intellect, Lawrence was a commanding presence at Berkeley," Herken writes, presiding over his weekly physics department meetings like "a medieval lord" and carving out a reputation as an enthusiastic, headstrong American in a field long dominated by Europeans.
In contrast, there was the thin, gangly, otherworldly Oppenheimer, three years younger than Lawrence and the product of an upper-class Jewish family in New York, whose chain-smoking and nervous manner -- he had seen a succession of psychiatrists while attending an elite private school -- "stood in contrast to Lawrence's usually detached Olympian calm."
Despite their disparate personalities and politics, the two men formed an unusually close bond, working and vacationing together and becoming members of each other's extended families. But there was an even more fundamental difference: Oppenheimer was a theorist rather than an experimentalist like Lawrence, and regarded himself as intellectually superior, though each championed the other's work. As one colleague observed ominously, "I can only think that perhaps when they were such really good friends, maybe they'd never really understood each other yet."
Then there was Teller, the moody young Hungarian theorist, known for his quick temper and driving ambition. Even the affable physicist Enrico Fermi remarked that Teller was "the only monomaniac he knew who had several manias." At a Berkeley seminar in the summer of 1942, Teller made it plain that as powerful as an atomic bomb might be, he was in favor of working on the much larger hydrogen bomb, the so-called "Super," which he argued would guarantee victory to the first country that possessed it.
Oppenheimer and Teller split on this issue early on and, perhaps not coincidentally, even as the Manhattan Project was being organized, Teller professed to find something suspicious about the attitude of the laboratory's new leader. He recalled "Oppie's" complaints about the restrictions that Gen. Leslie Groves was imposing on the scientists in the name of secrecy, and being taken aback by his prediction that the time would come "when we will have to do things differently and resist the military."
Anyone coming to this book expecting finely drawn character studies will be disappointed, and Teller, even more so than the others, never fully emerges as a person, coming across more as a dark shadow that falls upon their paths. Nevertheless, the story is well-crafted and meticulously researched, drawing on recently declassified FBI files and documents, and it moves at a helter-skelter pace, with new players, scientific breakthroughs and momentous events flying by so fast the war seems over almost before it began. But that is because the stage is being set for another deadly battle over who would be master of the new weapons they had created, a battle that seemed all the more brutal for being waged between old friends.
Oppenheimer was of the opinion, admittedly naive, that strategy and policy were better left to politicians than to scientists. In a hurry to escape his wartime duties, he vetoed Teller's recommendation that they continue researching the feasibility of the hydrogen bomb, and both Teller and Lawrence later blamed him for trying to shut down Los Alamos and Oak Ridge.
While Lawrence did not share Teller's growing hatred of Oppenheimer, his own ambitions focused on his long-delayed plans for his giant accelerator, which could turn out vast amounts of plutonium for future bombs, and he looked to the government as "the engine that would drive and even accelerate postwar scientific research at Berkeley." Lawrence was essentially apolitical, but opportunity can also make for strange bedfellows, and he realized that by joining Teller's flag-waving advocacy of the hydrogen bomb he could become the recognized leader of the country's nuclear establishment. He was also smarting from the eclipse of his stature as star physicist by Oppenheimer's wartime rise, and he wanted a chance to even the score.
But as Herken chronicles in wrenching detail, one small betrayal led to others. In their zeal to gain support for the H-bomb, Lawrence and Teller, "two experienced promoters," in Oppenheimer's words, turned on Oppenheimer for trying to impede their progress, and in doing so unleashed a firestorm of criticism that burned beyond their control. It culminated in the revocation of Oppenheimer's security clearance and in the Gray board's disastrous loyalty hearing, which bitterly divided the scientific community for years to come. Lawrence never had the decency to testify, though he certainly knew Oppenheimer to be no traitor. Teller, on the other hand, buried him with finely worded innuendo, on and off the stand.
The most controversial part of the book is bound to be Herken's assertion that Oppenheimer -- despite his repeated denials -- was in fact a card-carrying member of the American Communist Party during the 1930s and early '40s and, furthermore, was involved with a secret propaganda cell at Berkeley. The author bases his claim largely on newly revealed letters from Haakon Chevalier, a Berkeley colleague who figured in Soviet espionage circles, and who famously wrote to Oppenheimer in 1964 attesting that they had both been members of the same communist unit. But it is unclear how damning Herken's evidence really is: It was known that Oppenheimer had a pink background, that he had been active in various communist-front organizations, and that his brother and sister-in-law, wife, and former fiancée, not to mention countless friends and students, were party members. It was always a question of degree, and, just as the Gray Board found in 1954, Herken concludes that Oppenheimer was never "disloyal" and never spied for the Soviet Union.
Brotherhood of the Bomb is a gripping account of three tangled lives, but it is less a tale of loyalty than of ambition, and the sad, pointless destruction of a great man in the post-war scramble for power. •
Jennet Conant is the author of "Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science that Changed the Course of World War II."
--------
Paradise lost: Sailor's home in the Navy becomes a radioactive battlefield
By R.W. Rogers
Daily Press HAMPTON ROADS, VA
September 15, 2002
http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/dp-82141sy0sep15.story
With eyes closed, Jim Lyerly recounts landing at Hickam Field, Hawaii, in January 1955 as if retelling a dream. He breathes deeply and names the island smells - orchids, pineapple and sugar cane all swirled by sea wind.
The young man from east Rockingham, N.C., with an eighth-grade education had just been dropped into the lap of paradise - and he knew it.
Lyerly enjoyed the Navy, but Hawaii made him love it. He decided on the spot that the service would be his life, the sea his path, foreign ports his playground. He'd stay Navy until forced out. Then he'd retire to the islands surrounded by his children and grandchildren. He'd die a Navy man with sea-salt on his lips.
But when Lyerly opens his eyes, paradise is not on the horizon.
He lives in a single room in his daughter's house on a dead-end street in Denbigh. Cans of fat-free baked beans crowd a low table next to a stack of unopened medical bills. A white plastic bag keeps his urine from leaking through his diaper and into his linens.
A Shar-Pei named Rocki sniffs distractedly in a cage next to his bed. Biographies of admirals and generals lie nearby. Red-white-and-blue ribbons hang from his window. A souvenir-sized U.S. flag with a plastic base sits on a shelf next to packs of adult diapers.
A black-and-white photograph of Lyerly holding his infant son, now dead, sits propped against a box. In the photo a surgical scar - the first of many - crawls down the man's flat stomach.
Loss, pain and fear surge in Lyerly's throat and escape in a long wail. His head jerks up as if slapped, and his chin juts out. His face twists and his Southern drawl goes thick.
"They've taken everything from me. They lied, and they've continued to lie all through the years," he says. "They've taken everything from me. The government wants me dead because I'm an embarrassment to them. Then they can forget about me for good, like they've tried to forget me all these years."
Lyerly's an "Atomic Veteran." One of an estimated 220,000 American troops who tested nuclear weapons in Nevada or the Pacific or served at ground zero at Hiroshima and Nagasaki after World War II. Their names and numbers are now largely lost due to poor recordkeeping by the military.
Lyerly earned his status as an Atomic Vet at the Pacific Proving Ground, where from 1946 to 1958, men tested nuclear weapons more powerful than 7,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs.
The top-secret tests - Crossroads, Sandstone, Greenhouse, Ivy, Castle, Hardtack I and Redwing -hold little current interest. But in their day, they were considered crucial to the security - if not the survival - of the United States and the free world. America's superpower status today was built upon them.
Lyerly and his fellow Cold War warriors were expected to play their parts in unlocking the potential of The Bomb. Then they were expected to forget those roles for the good of the country.
Their secrets might've died with them if not for the radiation that burst like pollen from the flowery blasts. In the decades following the nuclear testing, the number of Atomic Vets complaining of rare cancers, multiple tumors and illnesses in their children and grandchildren grew.
When Lyerly entered the Navy in October 1954, the term "Atomic Vets" hadn't been coined, and the thought that something odorless, tasteless and invisible could destroy strong young men was unfathomable to everyone except those at the very highest reaches of the military and government.
Certainly Lyerly didn't believe such a thing and couldn't for years - even after he nearly bled to death, his wife miscarried and his children and grandchildren were born prematurely or with severe and mysterious health problems.
Now the silence is over. The Atomic Vets are talking.
Many are convinced that military and government officials have led a decades-long disinformation campaign about the radiation dangers Atomic Vets were exposed to and are now waiting for them to die before issuing an apology for past sins and turning the page.
So, like a dying tribe trying to preserve its history, Atomic Vets are collecting their stories while pushing for recognition and compensation.
Time is not on their side. Even younger Atomic Vets are in their 60s and many, like Lyerly, are in poor health.
Complications from prostate surgery earlier this year, and other health problems, have withered him from a lean 155 pounds in 1999 to a shaky 133 pounds today. Headaches blur his vision and he's in constant pain, except when he's on medication, which prompts sharp mood swings.
He doesn't walk so much as shuffle, bent at the waist.
With his crewcut, black watch cap and brown pea jacket, Lyerly, who turned 67 on April 28, looks like a thrift-store sailor on a Flying Dutchman and often feels just as damned.
"I think this is the last time that I'll be able to tell my story," Lyerly says. "I just want my story told true."
"USED US LIKE GUINEA PIGS"
"I joined the Navy just as fast as I could when I turned 18," Lyerly says. "My father wouldn't sign me up when I was 17, so I had to wait."
After the snow and wind of boot camp at Great Lakes, Ill., a 19-year-old Lyerly took a long flight and landed on Sunday morning, Jan. 2, 1955, at Hickam Field, Hawaii.
Assigned to the USS Walton, a World War II-era destroyer escort based at Pearl Harbor, Seaman Recruit Lyerly was one of 215 crewmen. He worked in the laundry, cut hair and ran the ship's store.
The long hours didn't bother Lyerly. Back in North Carolina he ran three newspaper routes by age 5 and worked in a cotton mill after quitting school at 14.
In the Navy he finally found a life he wanted instead of one he didn't. And like millions of young men before and after him, Lyerly embraced the military as his ticket to a better life.
Lyerly thrived under military discipline and for the first time succeeded. Walton logs kept at the National Archives in Maryland document his steady march up the ranks. His success made him dream big, of one day commanding a destroyer escort like the Walton and of retiring an admiral. It wasn't impossible. Others had done it, and Lyerly believed he could, too. He'd show those who'd teased him for being too poor to own shoes.
With a promising career ahead of him, Seaman Lyerly left Pearl Harbor in the spring of 1956 for what he thought was Korea.
Instead, the Walton stopped in Sasebo, Japan, before steaming to what was described by the ship's captain as "special operations." Lyerly, the crew of the Walton and 11,000 others were going to the Central Pacific and Operation Redwing.
Consisting of Bikini and Enewetak atolls in the Marshall Islands, the Pacific Proving Ground was the United States' premier nuclear testing site for the biggest and newest weapons in the arsenal. Smaller atomic weapons were tested in Nevada.
The Proving Ground was a bustling place. Redwing would be the sixth nuclear test series since 1946 to rip through the pristine lagoons and contaminate vast areas of ocean at this remote site.
Nearly 100,000 troops had already made their way to the beautiful atolls during 17 previous detonations, or "shots." One shot involved a hydrogen bomb that blew a canyon into the sea floor deeper than the Empire State Building is tall and large enough to hold several Pentagon-sized buildings, according to the Department of Energy.
Redwing alone would test 17 nuclear weapons. It followed the disastrous Operation Castle in 1954, which produced hundreds of radiation injuries and contaminated the Marshall Islands with uranium and plutonium fallout.
Wanting to avoid another Castle, Redwing's weapons were tested at reduced capacity to curb fallout, according to documents from the Federation of American Scientists, a think tank that studies defense issues. But even under that restriction, nuclear weapons equaling nearly 21 million tons of TNT were detonated at the Pacific Proving Ground between May 4 and July 22, 1956.
The government and the military counted on Redwing yielding a wealth of information as the United States faced the Soviet Union during some of the most frightening days of the Cold War. In 1956, nuclear war seemed possible if not likely. So learning how to win one was crucial. That meant developing powerful and diverse nuclear weapons as well as learning how men and equipment could best fight on the radioactive battlefield.
While a key Redwing test involved flying manned aircraft through nuclear clouds - including some planes from Langley Air Force Base - nuclear weapons testing was clearly the main goal of Redwing. Technical strides had greatly reduced the size and the weight of these weapons while increasing their punch. After a two-year testing hiatus at the proving grounds, weapons makers and the military were eager to see what their new designs could do.
Each of Redwing's shots was named for an American Indian tribe and ranged in power from a modest 0.19 kiloton device that weighed just 96 pounds to a massive 5 megaton one that weighed 15,735 pounds.
By comparison, the "Little Boy" nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, measured 15 kilotons and weighed 8,900 pounds. The "Fat Man" that flattened Nagasaki three days later measured 21 kilotons and weighed 10,300 pounds.
A one-kiloton weapon equals a thousand tons of TNT, while a one-megaton device equals a million tons.
To amass the most scientific information possible, the devices were detonated in various settings, including inside a water tank, from a tower, on a barge and airborne.
There were other differences as well. While some shots emitted relatively little radioactive fallout, others were dirty and emitted a great deal of radiation, according to documents from the Federation of American Scientists.
Besides gaining technical information, the military also wanted another piece of information and was willing to move troops ever closer to ground zero to get it.
"Injury criteria established by tests on dummies and animals should be validated by human tests to insure reliability," read a Sept. 6, 1955, Department of the Army memo titled "Amendment to Proposed Project Regarding Blast Injury Evaluation."
"All the volunteers," the memo continued, "concurred in the recommendation that this program be continued and that the participants be closer to ground zero in the future."
The reference is to nuclear tests that took place at Camp Desert Rock, Nevada, in the early 1950s.
This time, however, there would be a crucial difference.
"It is realized that the lateness of this proposal and other problems may make it impossible to include a volunteer program in Operation Redwing. However, since inherent dangers will necessitate a gradual approach to the threshold of intolerability of effects, it is probable that a program extending over several tests will ensue."
In other words, service men were "volunteers" whether they knew it or not.
The letter that outlines de facto human radiation experiments runs counter to the "Nuremberg Code" issued in 1953 by Defense Secretary Charles E. Wilson that barred experimenting on service members without informing them of the risks involved or getting their written consent.
While the authors of the Redwing memo might have thought it a good idea to move service members closer to ground zero, officials from the Atomic Energy Commission, which ran the nuclear weapons program in those years, had concerns.
Neither Lyerly nor other Redwing veterans say they volunteered for nuclear test duties. Nor, they say, were they informed of radiation dangers - or issued protective equipment other than dark glasses.
They do, however, vividly recall being ordered to watch spectacular detonations.
"We were told that we did not have a thing in the world to fear from the testing," Lyerly says. "But looking back, they used us like guinea pigs."
"Used like guinea pigs," is a refrain often repeated by Atomic Vets.
It might be worse than that.
"THOSE CLAMS WERE RADIOACTIVE"
Planners had intended that everyone taking part in Redwing wear radiation badges - one to measure daily exposure and another to measure cumulative exposure. In fact, Redwing was supposed to be the first nuclear test series in which radiation exposure for every participant was recorded.
But, for a variety of reasons, that never happened according to federal documents and Redwing veterans.
Lyerly recalls seldom getting a radiation badge. When he did, he said, the results were ominous.
"You would put them over your heart," Lyerly said. "And I remember one time I got one and within what seemed like seconds after the blast, it turned green and then went black. I remember looking down on the badge and watching it turn."
After the explosions, "They would come with a Geiger counter," Lyerly said, "and tell us what we had to do. I remember that one time we had to scrub down three times. I was washing clothes in water that was contaminated and taking showers in it, too."
Walter Lewis, Lyerly's shipmate, tells a story that hints at just how radioactive the waters were that the Walton was sailing through. Lewis posted his recollections on an Atomic Veterans' History Project Web site in October 1999.
Lewis said he never heard much about the level of radiation in the water until the day of the monster clams.
"One day me and a couple of others were diving on the coral reefs of Japtan Island, and we found some huge clams. We decided that we could talk the cook into fixing some clam chowder.
"So we collected a couple of them - they weighed 50 pounds each - and brought them back to the Walton. One of the biologists onboard saw us bring it aboard and he asked us to let him check it with a Geiger counter.
"He did," Lewis wrote, "and those clams were so radioactive that they probably glowed in the dark! No clam chowder that day!
"I believe that the level of radioactivity in the areas we sampled was far greater than anyone ever thought."
Lewis didn't know how right he was.
Some sailors spoke up about their radiation exposure. But not Lyerly.
"You didn't do a lot of complaining," Lyerly said. "I had one idea in my mind - the Navy was my home."
Rick Rogers can be reached at 247-4629 or by e-mail at rrogers@dailypress.com.
-------- us politics
Iraq Briefings: Don't Ask, Don't Tell
GOP and Democratic Lawmakers Frustrated as White House Reveals Little
By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 15, 2002; Page A04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A18569-2002Sep14?language=printer
Sen. John McCain strode into the most secure room in the Capitol for a "top secret" briefing by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on the threat posed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
With the windowless room swept for bugs and lawmakers sworn to deepest secrecy, Rumsfeld proceeded to disclose, well, absolutely nothing this group of lawmakers couldn't have read in the morning papers or watched on TV news channels, according to participants. Actually, they weren't told even that much. "It was a joke," said McCain (R-Ariz.), who soon rose and strode out the door.
This has become an increasingly familiar scene on Capitol Hill, especially since the Bush administration blamed senators this summer for leaking classified information about top-secret intercepts of communications among terrorists in the days leading up to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Since the leak, the White House has put even tighter controls on classified -- and unclassified -- information available to most lawmakers, even those with special intelligence clearance. The FBI is hunting the alleged leaker, even as the administration promises to consult more closely with Congress on how to deal with Hussein.
It's not the first time legislators have seethed over Bush's tight grip on classified information. Last October, members of both parties strongly objected to the president's decision -- later rescinded -- to limit sensitive briefings to eight of Congress's 535 members.
The president's distrust of lawmakers now appears to be undermining his campaign to win congressional authorization to go to war with Iraq. Rumsfeld and other top advisers are not only keeping most lawmakers in the dark about new intelligence on Iraq, but they also are aggravating relations with Congress by portraying their briefings as top-secret affairs, according to interviews with several lawmakers.
"It becomes almost insulting after a while," said McCain, a staunch supporter of Bush's Iraq policy. "Everyone that goes to them is frustrated." McCain said he's very sympathetic to White House concerns about leaks, but suggested Bush should suspend the briefings rather than go through the "charade" of acting like he's keeping lawmakers in the loop.
House Democratic Caucus Chairman Robert Menendez (N.J.) said several members are skipping the briefings rather than sign a secrecy pledge that restricts what they can and cannot talk about. "I heard nothing that was new, compelling, or that I have not heard before," said Menendez, who was briefed last week by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and CIA Director George J. Tenet.
Bush, who Friday said he wants Congress to vote on a resolution authorizing war in the next month, has offered the briefings as a means of building support for his Iraqi plans. "The White House will continue to as fully inform as possible members of Congress, while also preserving sensitive intelligence information so no inadvertent disclosure jeopardizes sources or methods or missions," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said in an interview.
After the handful of briefings held so far, members from both parties grumble that they're learning nothing new or revealing to back Bush's case. If this doesn't change, it could cost Bush when the resolution comes up for a vote, according to lawmakers.
"It makes it a lot harder for members who are policymakers and have a responsibility to their constituents" to vote for a resolution, Menendez said.
White House officials said they can't trust some members of Congress with classified information, which, if leaked, could jeopardize intelligence-gathering methods. "They say they will keep it quiet. They won't. They never do," said a senior White House official. This official said the president is aware of complaints but is unlikely to share much more than has been disclosed. To reveal more, the official said, "is a big risk to take."Vice President Cheney last week said in a television interview that the White House is withholding some "highly classified" information from Congress, but other officials said there's no "smoking gun" or "bombshell" being withheld.
Still, the White House seems to hold back information that might help bolster its case. Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) said they've been given access to information the public hasn't seen, and it has helped solidify their support for going to war with Iraq.
"In the briefings I have gotten, there has been additive information," Gephardt said. "But I understand some of the briefings I have not been at have not been credible or good. Members have told me of their frustrations."
A White House official said Gephardt's strong support for the war effort is evidence of a new, safer and more effective strategy for keeping key lawmakers in the know. The administration has pinpointed a select group of members in both parties whom they trust -- and whose support they need -- for more informative briefings, officials said. This helps explain why Democratic leaders are much more supportive of the Bush strategy than are rank-and-file members, the officials said.
Gephardt, for instance, had a private meeting Friday with Tenet to discuss the Iraq situation. The Missouri Democrat said the White House has gladly made top officials available to him since last September's terrorist attacks, and that as the trust has built, more information has flowed to him.
Lott talks often with Rice and others, and is Bush's most aggressive backer. Lott prodded the Senate to pass a resolution granting the president wide latitude and doing it before the United Nations Security Council votes on sending inspectors back into Iraq.
The White House plans another round of briefings this week, including more small group meetings in which more sensitive information can be shared. But unless the circle expands dramatically, some lawmakers say, many members will wonder why the administration isn't revealing anything new.
"It has us wondering," Menendez said, "if the administration does really have real, substantive, compelling information that, if shared, would change attitudes with Congress, the public and our allies."
----
Bush planned Iraq 'regime change' before becoming President
By Neil Mackay
Sunday Herald -
15 September 2002
http://www.sundayherald.com/print27735
A SECRET blueprint for US global domination reveals that President Bush and his cabinet were planning a premeditated attack on Iraq to secure 'regime change' even before he took power in January 2001.
The blueprint, uncovered by the Sunday Herald, for the creation of a 'global Pax Americana' was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice- president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), George W Bush's younger brother Jeb and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff). The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defences: Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century, was written in September 2000 by the neo-conservative think-tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC).
The plan shows Bush's cabinet intended to take military control of the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power. It says: 'The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.'
The PNAC document supports a 'blueprint for maintaining global US pre-eminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests'.
This 'American grand strategy' must be advanced for 'as far into the future as possible', the report says. It also calls for the US to 'fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars' as a 'core mission'.
The report describes American armed forces abroad as 'the cavalry on the new American frontier'. The PNAC blueprint supports an earlier document written by Wolfowitz and Libby that said the US must 'discourage advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role'.
The PNAC report also:
l refers to key allies such as the UK as 'the most effective and efficient means of exercising American global leadership';
l describes peace-keeping missions as 'demanding American political leadership rather than that of the United Nations';
l reveals worries in the administration that Europe could rival the USA;
l says 'even should Saddam pass from the scene' bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will remain permanently -- despite domestic opposition in the Gulf regimes to the stationing of US troops -- as 'Iran may well prove as large a threat to US interests as Iraq has';
l spotlights China for 'regime change' saying 'it is time to increase the presence of American forces in southeast Asia'. This, it says, may lead to 'American and allied power providing the spur to the process of democratisation in China';
l calls for the creation of 'US Space Forces', to dominate space, and the total control of cyberspace to prevent 'enemies' using the internet against the US;
l hints that, despite threatening war against Iraq for developing weapons of mass destruction, the US may consider developing biological weapons -- which the nation has banned -- in decades to come. It says: 'New methods of attack -- electronic, 'non-lethal', biological -- will be more widely available ... combat likely will take place in new dimensions, in space, cyberspace, and perhaps the world of microbes ... advanced forms of biological warfare that can 'target' specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool';
l and pinpoints North Korea, Libya, Syria and Iran as dangerous regimes and says their existence justifies the creation of a 'world-wide command-and-control system'.
Tam Dalyell, the Labour MP, father of the House of Commons and one of the leading rebel voices against war with Iraq, said: 'This is garbage from right-wing think-tanks stuffed with chicken-hawks -- men who have never seen the horror of war but are in love with the idea of war. Men like Cheney, who were draft-dodgers in the Vietnam war.
'This is a blueprint for US world domination -- a new world order of their making. These are the thought processes of fantasist Americans who want to control the world. I am appalled that a British Labour Prime Minister should have got into bed with a crew which has this moral standing.'
----
Liberty Wins -- So Far
Bush Runs Into Checks and Balances in Demanding New Powers
By Jeffrey Rosen
Sunday, September 15, 2002
Washington Post; Page B01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A16362-2002Sep14?language=printer
In the weeks and months after 9/11, we repeatedly heard that civil liberties in America would face their greatest challenge in a generation. Recalling the mass arrest of anarchists after World War I and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, civil libertarians predicted similar excesses. While nothing quite so dramatic has materialized during the past year, many defenders of liberty on both the right and the left have assailed the administration's actions and arguments.
Their fears raise a question: Will this period be regarded by future historians as another dark age for the balance between liberty and security? It's true that the Bush administration, like its predecessors in wartime, has pressed for sweeping increases in executive authority, based on the novel argument that the president has the unilateral power to detain and investigate American citizens and alien residents without oversight from Congress or the courts. But the more surprising development is that the courts and Congress, unlike their predecessors in wartime, are rejecting the president's most extreme claims.
In a series of court cases, federal judges have insisted on the importance of judicial oversight of the president's powers of detention and deportation. And in the debates over the USA Patriot Act and the homeland security bill, libertarians on the right have joined with civil libertarians on the left in persuading Congress to repudiate the Bush administration's more draconian proposals for expanded surveillance authority. In this sense, the greatest protector of American liberty during the past year turned out to be something so basic that we often take it for granted: the checks and balances provided by the separation of powers in the Constitution.
In the course of researching the state of liberty and security after 9/11, I've been especially struck by how restrained America's legal response appears when contrasted with that of our European allies. Although they weren't directly attacked, the countries of the European Union passed anti-terrorism measures during the past year that are far more sweeping than anything adopted in the United States. In October, France expanded the powers of the police to search private property without a warrant. Germany has engaged in religious profiling of suspected terrorists, a practice that was upheld in a court challenge. In Britain, which has become a kind of privacy dystopia, Parliament passed a sweeping anti-terrorism law in December that authorizes a central government authority to record and store all communications data generated by e-mail, Internet browsing or other electronic communications, and to make the data available to law enforcement without a court order. In May, the European Union authorized all of its members to pass similar laws requiring data retention.
The Bush administration has tried to emulate its European allies by expanding executive authority in similarly dramatic ways. It asserted that the president may designate citizens or aliens as enemy combatants and detain them indefinitely without judicial review. It claimed that the president may deport certain aliens based on secret hearings whose existence is withheld from the pressand the public. And it attempted to blur the legal lines that separate domestic law enforcement from foreign intelligence gathering, transforming the FBI into the equivalent of Britain's domestic security intelligence agency, MI5.
What distinguished America from Europe, however, is how quickly all three of these extreme positions met with opposition from the other two branches of government. In the case of Yaser Esam Hamdi, a 21-year-old American citizen seized on the battlefield in Afghanistan and now locked in the Navy brig in Norfolk, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit refused to embrace what it called the "sweeping proposition" of the Bush administration -- "namely that, with no meaningful judicial review, any American citizen alleged to be an enemy combatant could be detained indefinitely without charges or counsel on the government's say-so." Hamdi, who is being held without charge as an enemy combatant, is something of an accidental citizen -- his parents were Saudis who were working here for a Saudi company when he was born. But other countries have been even less solicitous of their citizens since 9/11. The new British anti-terrorism law (now under appeal) gives the home secretary unilateral power to designate as an "international terrorist" anyone whom he perceives as a "risk to national security," and to indefinitely detain the person without charge if the individual can't be deported.
American courts have also been aggressive in rebuffing the administration's effort to keep secret the names and deportation hearings of arrested aliens. In the months after 9/11, the government rounded up, arrested and jailed more than 1,000 non-citizens in America as part of its anti-terrorism investigation. Attorney General John Ashcroft refused to release the names, claiming implausibly that he was protecting their privacy. In August, Judge Gladys Kessler of the U.S. District Court in Washington rejected Ashcroft's interpretation of the Freedom of Information Act and the laws governing grand jury secrecy. She ordered Ashcroft to release the names, insisting that any need for secrecy could be established on a case-by-case basis.
Some of the judicial decisions rejecting the Bush administration's demands for unilateral authority after 9/11 have been legally adventurous. A week after the attacks, at Ashcroft's direction, the chief immigration judge ordered all proceedings in deportation hearings to be closed to the press and public, including family members and friends, in cases where the government claimed a "special interest." But in August, the Cincinnati-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit struck down the order as a violation of the First Amendment. The government could close individual cases, the appeals court held, but it couldn't unilaterally impose secrecy across the board. This conclusion was arguably a stretch: The Supreme Court has never held that the First Amendment requires the press and public to have access to civil as opposed to criminal trials. But the appeals court's refusal to defer to the executive branch even in a close case shows how confidently judges are asserting their authority after 9/11.
Finally, the courts have resisted the administration's efforts to dismantle the wall that separates domestic law enforcement from intelligence gathering. In March, Ashcroft proposed new guidelines allowing ordinary prosecutors to consult extensively with FBI agents who are conducting foreign intelligence operations, resurrecting the specter of domestic surveillance by the FBI that Congress specifically ruled out in the 1970s. In an opinion made public last month, the seven members of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court unanimously rejected the Bush administration's new guidelines, saying the rules subverted Congress's intent. "To protect the privacy of Americans in these highly intrusive surveillances and searches," the seven judges insisted on restoring the "bright line" that prohibits criminal prosecutors from directing and controlling the investigations of foreign spies and terrorists.
Congress, too, has resisted the Bush administration's most extreme demands for increased surveillance authority. Since 9/11, an unusual congressional alliance of civil libertarian liberals and libertarian conservatives has forced the administration to remove some of the most draconian provisions from the administration's proposed drafts of the USA Patriot Act and the homeland security bill. At the insistence of House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Tex.), for example, half of the new surveillance authorities in the Patriot Act will expire after four years, and the administration must report to Congress about its deployment of the Carnivore e-mail surveillance program. The House's version of the homeland security bill explicitly opposes proposals for a national identification card and for Ashcroft's TIPS program, which would encourage citizens to spy on each other. The USA Patriot Act, in its final form, includes new powers for e-mail surveillance and secret searches that the Clinton administration had sought -- unsuccessfully -- after the Oklahoma City bombing. But it would have been more extreme without the principled oversight of Republicans and Democrats suspicious of government power.
There were anti-government libertarians, of course, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but there was no judicial tradition of vigorous protection for free speech until after World War II. This is why President Woodrow Wilson's attorney general, A. Mitchell Palmer, had a free hand to arrest thousands of alleged communists in 1919 and 1920 and hold them without trial before deporting many of them. Until Vietnam, Congress was similarly deferential to the president during wartime: Even FDR's isolationist critics abandoned their opposition after Pearl Harbor, and none questioned the internment of Japanese Americans.
What explains the refusal of courts and Congress during the latest crisis to grant the Bush administration's most extreme demands for unilateral authority? Part of the explanation may reflect what Chief Justice William Rehnquist has written about the history of civil liberties during wartime. According to Rehnquist, the increasing judicial and congressional concern about civil liberties during the major wars of the 20th century has led to progressively fewer attempts at executive branch overreaching. So the reaction of the courts and Congress, one could argue, is in keeping with the established trend. Also, as Cass Sunstein and Jack Goldsmith of the University of Chicago have suggested, Americans in general -- as well as judges and legislators in particular -- may be less deferential to authority, and more committed to civil liberties, than they were before the legal and social transformations that followed the 1960s.
In the case of the courts, we may be seeing the bright side of the attitude of judicial supremacy that has become ever more pronounced since the 1960s. On both the left and the right, judges over the past four decades have become increasingly reluctant to defer to the political branches. When confronted with unilateral claims of executive authority, judges have seemed almost indignant at the administration's refusal to respect what they see as their unique prerogative to say what the law is. Judges who have no doubt about their own ability to resolve political questions -- from abortion to a presidential election -- are not likely to be cowed by the executive's demands for deference during a time of crisis; instead, the courts expect Congress and the president to defer to them. By refusing to make even a feint of respect toward judges who have become accustomed to casting themselves as national saviors, the Bush administration may be provoking a backlash even among more conservative judges who are instinctively inclined to show the flag.
Among libertarians in Congress, the dynamic is different. There have always been minority groups in America who are suspicious of central government, from the anti-Masons in the 19th century to the John Birch conservatives of the 1950s. What is distinctive about our most recent debate is the alliance of libertarian conservatives whose dislike for federal surveillance was honed during the Clinton era with civil libertarian liberals who remember President Richard Nixon's surveillance of Vietnam protesters.
In suggesting that the legal response to 9/11 might have been far more extreme if Congress and the courts had not opposed the Bush administration's unilateral demands, I don't mean to underestimate the challenges ahead. As William Stuntz of Harvard Law School has argued, legislative and judicial responses to visible crime waves tend to be felt a few years after the threat occurs. Certainly, if there is another terrorist attack, libertarians in Congress and the courts may not be able to resist the executive branch's and the public's unrealistic demand for security above all. And the administration is now considering a series of ill-designed security technologies -- from trusted-traveler programs to data mining and profiling at airports -- that might threaten privacy without increasing security, and might linger long after the immediate threat has passed.
Nevertheless, a year after 9/11, it's worth engaging in a cautious celebration of the resilience of our constitutional checks and balances. So far, in the face of great stress, the system has worked relatively well. The executive branch tried to increase its own authority across the board, but the courts and Congress are insisting on a more reasoned balance between liberty and security. Of all of the lessons about America's strength that have emerged since the attacks, this is one of the most reassuring.
Jeffrey Rosen is an associate professor at George Washington University Law School and the legal affairs editor of the New Republic. His book on liberty and security after 9/11 will be published by Random House next year.
----
Could Striking First Mean Striking Out?
New York Times
September 15, 2002
By TODD S. PURDUM
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/15/weekinreview/15PURD.html
UNITED NATIONS - As he implored the world on Thursday to disarm Saddam Hussein's Iraq before it unleashes a nuclear, chemical or biological whirlwind, President Bush made a blunt argument that boiled down to this: In dealing with rogue nations and suicidal terrorists, an ounce of pre-emption is worth a pound of deterrence.
"With every step the Iraqi regime takes toward gaining and deploying the most terrible weapons," Mr. Bush told the United Nations General Assembly, "our own options to confront that regime will narrow."
Pre-emption, or prevention, as a tool of diplomacy and military policy is hardly new. The Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after World War II was a complex web of economic assistance backed up by military muscle - aimed at pre-empting Communist hegemony on a continent twice consumed by war in the 20th century.
But Mr. Bush's current prescriptions go well beyond the geopolitical equivalent of an apple a day. More clearly than ever, he signaled that the United States is prepared to strike Iraq militarily, and all but alone if necessary, to topple Mr. Hussein and thwart his continued efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction.
For many in Mr. Bush's wary audience of nearly 200 nations, and other foreign policy experts, merely the notion raises sobering questions about traditional concepts of deterrence that have kept any number of mortal enemies, from India and Pakistan to North and South Korea, from trying to blow the other up first.
The administration may argue persuasively that a pre-emptive move is necessary, because the mere presence of American military might may not deter a despot like Mr. Hussein from slipping chemical weapons, whose source might never be traced, to a shadowy terrorist group. But if Mr. Hussein believes that Washington might strike first, could that be an extra incentive for him to make common cause with forces hostile to American power - or to strike first himself? By elevating pre-emption so prominently in the hierarchy of options, and defining it so explicitly and provocatively in military terms, the administration may be treading on a delicate and potentially dangerous path.
In the Clinton administration, aggressive diplomacy helped freeze North Korea's nuclear program and secure nuclear materials in what had been the former Soviet Union's arsenal.
"We saw pre-emption as an important and legitimate arrow in the quiver," said Ashton B. Carter, a former assistant secretary of defense and the co-author with former Defense Secretary William J. Perry of "Preventive Defense." "But when one talks about doctrines and so on, it implies that it's a preferred course."
And that's the very implication that gives Dr. Carter pause. "When you're dealing with weapons of mass destruction, you don't have the luxury that armies and nations had in times past, when you mobilized the nation and its industries to respond to an attack," added Dr. Carter, now at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "It's an appropriate question to ask whether the world now admits of that. At the same time, it's a big enough change, and a sensitive enough issue, that we need to not enunciate it as a general principle, if in fact it's not a very good generalized policy."
Last week, Mr. Bush made a public demonstration of willingness to honor the traditional rules of the game. He not only appealed to the General Assembly for action, but he dispatched Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to help draft a new Security Council resolution that would make the point that Iraq has already "unilaterally subverted" the United Nations.
A senior administration official acknowledged that it was not in the interests of the United States to apply pre-emptive action except in "a fairly narrow range of cases."
"First of all, it isn't new," the official said of the approach. "All that happened here is that it was more explicitly stated. You would want to exhaust a lot of other possibilities first, including in this case."
The president's aides have taken to invoking the 1962 Cuban missile crisis as a moment when President John F. Kennedy was prepared to launch a pre-emptive strike to take out Soviet missiles in Cuba before they were fully operational. In the end, though, Kennedy chose a naval blockade, which he was careful to call a "quarantine," because a blockade is an act of war.
"A pre-emptive strike was one that he considered," said Theodore C. Sorenson, a White House aide at the time, "but he also considered the innocent lives that would be lost, the international laws that would be broken and the allies and friends around the world who would be disaffected - as any thoughtful president would."
But Philip D. Zelikow, a historian at the University of Virginia who is an expert on the crisis and served on the National Security Council staff in the first Bush administration, said the missile crisis was "the most relevant analogy."
"Kennedy chose a diplomatic route, but he delivered an ultimatum, backed by the threat of military force," Mr. Zelikow said. "He insisted that those missiles be removed, and if they were not removed, he threatened to remove them with military action."
Of course, President Bush, like his father before him a decade ago, may yet hope to avoid a military campaign in Iraq. "War is never inevitable," Secretary Powell insisted on Friday.
But on the same day, Mr. Bush said that it was "highly doubtful" that Mr. Hussein would comply with weapons inspections. Last week, Mr. Bush emphasized Mr. Hussein's decade-long defiance of the United Nations resolutions, not the United States's demand, first formulated under President Bill Clinton, for regime change in Baghdad. But he clearly believes that the one goal depends on the other.
"The president's strong card on this is weapons of mass destruction," said Gary Sick, a former National Security Council staffer in the Ford, Carter and Reagan administrations who now leads the Middle East Institute at Columbia University. "On the terrorism side, I think he has a very hard case to make." In the first days after the hijackings, Mr. Sick acknowledged that he was among those who assumed that Al Qaeda had state assistance, and that Iraq was a logical suspect. But, Mr. Sick said, he changed his mind: "I think we underestimated Al Qaeda and the degree of organization it had."
His concern now, he said, was that "if Saddam sees us coming, and if we really push the idea that pre-emption is acceptable, what's to say that Saddam won't think he can hit us first?"
"The evidence that he is going after us is limited," he said. "The evidence that we are going after him is abundant. If I were him, I would certainly be thinking about how I can pre-position myself to strike back."
"To some degree, our emphasis on going in is not only an incentive but almost an imperative for him to do something," Mr. Sick said. "It is actually the reverse of deterrence; we are goading him to do more."
-------- MILITARY
-------- arms sales
Iraq presses shopping spree for weapons in case of attack
By Julian Coman, David Wastell and Damien McElroy
LONDON SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
September 15, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020915-33560776.htm
LONDON - The threat of invasion is spurring Iraq into a military shopping spree in an attempt to strengthen Saddam Hussein's hand before a U.S.-led military attack on his regime, officials and intelligence sources said.
U.S. intelligence reports have indicated a series of contacts between Iraqi officials and underground arms networks across the world since President Bush made it clear that the goal of his administration is to change the regime in Baghdad.
According to the intelligence reports, as the U.N. Security Council debates a "last-chance" resolution calling on Iraq to accept arms inspections and begin disarmament, the signs are that Saddam may be embarking on the opposite course of action.
"For someone with his mind-set, the current debate at the U.N. - if it drags on for too long - may become a last window of opportunity instead of a last chance to reform," a U.S. official said. "There are signals."
An unusually large number of illicit weapons transfers to Iraq from former Soviet states have been uncovered during the past few months. In an attempt to close down the source of "slush funds" from illegal oil exports that finance Iraqi purchases of arms, the U.S. 5th Fleet, which patrols the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, has just stepped up inspections of commercial shipping in the Gulf of Aqaba.
A number of clandestine shipments of Iraqi oil were detected off the Jordanian port of Aqaba during the summer, fueling fears that illegal oil exports were being increased to finance weapons deals as the risk of war grew.
Syria, which recently opened a new oil pipeline to Iraq, is receiving an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 cut-price barrels of oil a year from Iraq, in defiance of U.N. sanctions. This summer, the Syrian government was accused by Israeli intelligence officers of smuggling Eastern European tank engines, aircraft, radar systems and anti-aircraft guns to Baghdad, ignoring the U.N. arms embargo.
Two weeks ago, Czech police pressed charges against two Czech citizens believed to be the leaders of an arms-smuggling ring that dealt with Iraq. Investigators said the group had considerable experience in smuggling weapons to "Middle Eastern states under the United Nations embargo."
Michael Zantovsky, the chairman of the Czech Senate's committee for defense and security policy, said the group was suspected of selling weapons to Iraq during a three-year period. Police searched homes in Prague and discovered piles of catalogs offering military equipment to "interested persons in Arab states."
Investigators said that a number of significant deals had been successfully completed before the arrests were made. Sales to Iraq included Russian-made Mi-8 and Mi-17 combat helicopters, Kalashnikov rifles, anti-tank grenades and mobile anti-aircraft missile systems.
"Arms trafficking is now rampant throughout eastern Europe and, for obvious reasons, Iraq is one of the big customers," a senior Czech police officer said. "I guess the threat of war may well have something to do with the increased activity."
A large number of the illicit arms deals are being conducted through Jordanian middle men, who are falsely listed as the final user in transactions, intelligence sources said.
The arms dealers - many of whom are based at Aqaba - place legal orders for equipment such as conventional weaponry and machine tools vital for making the high-precision instruments needed in the construction of long-range missiles or nuclear weapons.
The items are then taken by trucks across the Iraqi border, where U.N. inspections are limited mainly to trucks carrying farm produce into Iraq under the U.N. oil-for-food program.
President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine is believed to have approved the sale of three Kalchuga radar systems to Iraq through a Jordanian middle man for $100 million earlier this year.
The Kalchuga long-range system is able to detect radar sources from more than 500 miles away, although Iraqi missiles are officially limited to a range of 93 miles by U.N. resolutions.
The State Department is also examining reports that Iraqi officials may be bargaining with the North Korean government over stocks of plutonium, which would be sufficient to create at least one nuclear warhead. British nuclear experts from the International Institute of Strategic Studies believe that Iraq could create a nuclear weapon "within months" if it were able to import fissile material such as plutonium.
Last week, the White House said Iraq was also attempting to buy high-strength aluminum tubes to enrich uranium to the extent required for a nuclear weapon.
Washington's studies of Saddam's sources of revenue have estimated that illegal sales of oil at cheap prices to neighbors - including Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iran - brought the Iraqi regime $2 billion last year.
Under the oil-for-food plan, Iraq is permitted to export oil in return for basic foodstuffs. However, at the U.N. General Assembly last week, Mr Bush said, "Saddam Hussein has subverted this program, working around the sanctions to buy missile technology and military materials."
Julian Coman reported from Washington, Damien McElroy from Beijing and David Wastell from London.
--------
Nigeria Urges U.N. on Arms Deal
September 15, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-Nigeria.html
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo urged U.N. members Sunday to seek a legally binding agreement to curb trafficking in small arms, which he said worsens many conflicts in Africa.
In a speech to the General Assembly, he said the ``root causes'' of terrorism and conflicts are ``poverty, ignorance, real and perceived injustice, and absence of basic freedoms.'' But, he added, many African wars are exacerbated ``by the influx of small arms into the continent.''
The United Nations has passed an action plan calling on governments to require manufacturers to mark such weapons and keep records so illegally trafficked arms could be traced. But efforts to produce a binding agreement on the small arms trade have failed, partly because of opposition from the United States.
Obasanjo also urged U.N. members to step up efforts to curb the AIDS pandemic ravaging Africa. The continent needs ``massive assistance'' to deal with AIDS and other diseases that ``are diverting scarce resources away from development programs and projects,'' he said.
He also challenged nations to come up with a treaty to curb corruption. ``The instances of corruption in developing countries have often supported by encouragement and inducements from the industrialized countries,'' he said.
On the crisis in Iraq, which is dominating the United Nations' annual 10-day ministerial meeting, Obasanjo urged ``caution and restraint.'' He said that ``any further escalation of tension would lead to very serious consequences.''
Obasanjo, one of Africa's more powerful leaders, is pushing during the U.N. meeting for a new initiative intended to turn around his continent's economy with the help of industrialized nations.
The General Assembly is to hold a daylong session Monday on the New Partnership for Africa's Development, known as NEPAD, forged by Obasanjo and the leaders of South Africa, Algeria and Senegal.
The program is designed to halve the number of Africans living in extreme poverty by 2015. To achieve that target, African countries must have annual economic growth above 7 percent for the next 15 years -- double the continent's average growth in 2001 -- and that will take an extra $64 billion annually, according to NEPAD.
``We are encouraged by the support that NEPAD has so far received from the international community,'' Obasanjo said.
--------
For sale to the highest bidder: Britain's secret weapons labs
Jamie Doward reports on how UK defence research could be compromised if innovator QinetiQ is bought by a venture capitalist firm linked to the Bush family
Sunday September 15, 2002
The Observer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/armstrade/story/0,10674,792258,00.html
Not even Tom Clancy could have dreamt it up. The government plans to sell a stake in its top secret defence laboratories - responsible for inventing the sort of hardware that would make 007's Q green with envy - to a shadowy American organisation that boasts ex-Presidents and Prime Ministers as special advisers and has invested millions of dollars for the bin Laden family and Saudi royalty.
This is not paperback fiction, however. It is the Government's latest plan for QinetiQ, the rebranded Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (Dera) that in recent years has developed a diverse portfolio of inventions, including a plastic tank that avoids radar, a new system for mapping the seabed, and technology that allows third-generation mobile phone masts to be installed in churches.
Having opted against floating the company on the stock market because of the global economic downturn, the government decided instead earlier this month to invite venture capital firms to take a stake in the business, which employs more than 9,000 people.
The deal is hugely controversial. The government's plans to privatise the defence laboratories drew fierce criticism when they were announced four years ago. Experts warned it was a way of allowing Ministers to distance themselves from allegations that Britain was underfunding such research.
Now, by opening up QinetiQ to outside interests, the government is accused of sacrificing the crown jewels of the UK defence industry because of the Treasury's addiction to public private partnerships at the expense of all other funding alternatives.
Few were surprised when the Carlyle Group emerged at the head of the stampede to acquire the QinetiQ stake, beating fierce competition from a reputed 40 firms. Carlyle is one of the biggest venture capital groups, a leviathan that commands respect and inspires awe in equal parts. Chaired by former US Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci, the group's tentacles spread far and wide.
John Major, George Bush Sr and his former Secretary of State, James Baker, are on its payroll. Arthur Levitt, former chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, and ex-Bundesbank president Karl Otto Pohl are among its advisers. Besides the bin Laden family, which has disowned Osama, it has managed funds for Prince Alwaleed and the likes of George Soros, earning its investors spectacular returns by taking strategic stakes in everything from Socpresse, parent company of French newspaper Le Figaro, to a subsidiary of the Japanese supermarket giant Daiei.
But the group, which has invested more than $13.5 billion across 20 private equity funds, is also renowned for investing in the defence industry, and QinetiQ fits its portfolio perfectly.
'It's a good, solid, well-run company. We believe it's well established as a supplier to the Ministry of Defence and the non-MoD sector. We conduct a lot of due diligence checks before making any proposals,' a Carlyle spokeswoman said.
Some have suggested that the MoD was keen to see a US firm win the bidding war. 'The Americans were very concerned when the government announced it was privatising its research arm because of the close relationship between the US and the UK defence departments. There were huge ministerial efforts to reassure the Americans that nothing would change, and it might have crossed the government's mind that bringing a US venture capital firm in might not be a bad thing,' said one expert familiar with the situation.
Carlyle is no stranger to controversy. Last year the group floated its biggest defence holding, the armoured vehicle and howitzer manufacturer United Defense, on the New York Stock Exchange via an initial public offering. The timing of the float - announced a couple of months after the 11 September atrocities - drew criticism that it was cashing in on terrorism.
US pressure groups such as Judicial Watch started to point out links between Carlyle and the White House. The close friendship between Carlucci and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld - wrestling buddies from university - was subjected to intense scrutiny.
Under the US Freedom of Information Act, Judicial Watch obtained letters exchanged between the two men in which they discussed the 'restructuring' of the Defense Department. 'Dear Don, thanks for lunch last Friday. It was great seeing you in such good spirits,' writes Carlucci in February 2001, before going on to introduce his ideas for the project.
Two months later Rumsfeld wrote back, congratulating Carlucci and his fellow director William Perry on their work. 'I may ask the two of you to come in and meet with some of the key staff folks who are working on those types of things here in the department,' Rumsfeld says.
As concerns about the links between the White House and Carlyle grew, pressure groups campaigned for George Bush Sr to relinquish his links with the group after its relationship with the bin Laden family was exposed. Carlyle and the bin Ladens dissolved their relationship, but critics continue to harry the former President. 'Bush Sr has to seriously consider the propriety of sitting on the board of a group that is impacted by his son's decisions,' said the campaign group, the Center for Public Integrity.
Attention has also focused on links between Bush Jr and Carlyle. In 1991 the firm gave George W. a seat on the board of the Texas-based Caterair International, an airline meals firm.
Now history is repeating itself, as Carlyle's defence interests again come under the spotlight. The putative QinetiQ deal has raised a series of questions. First, MPs are demanding assurances that UK expertise won't be sucked overseas. Sir John Chisholm, QinetiQ's chief executive, went some way to assuaging their fears by saying: 'Carlyle has undertaken to select investors who are predominantly UK or European, so economic ownership remains overwhelmingly British, while QinetiQ business management will continue to remain the responsibility of the QinetiQ management team and the board.'
The presence of government advisers on the company's board, coupled with the MoD's right to veto all of Qine tiQ's plans, will also act as security measures.
But there are also concerns that QinetiQ, which acts as independent adviser to the government on defence, should not be allowed to judge any tendering involving firms in which Carlyle has money invested.
In addition, Carlyle must prove to the government that its investors do not include any defence manufacturers, something that would open it up to conflict of interest claims. The group appears to have satisfied the government that this is so, although some critics have called for more transparency over the bidding process.
'There is a question about the process by which the government is satisfied that the company is not a defence manufacturer,' said Major General Alan Sharman, director general of the Defence Manufacturers' Association.
Then there is the issue of price and the size of the stake in QinetiQ that is up for grabs. The Government will keep a 'special share' in the firm to protect the UK's defence interests, but the exact size of Carlyle's stake is open to debate.
So far no one has managed to put a value on the deal. It is clear, however, that QinetiQ will not come cheap. Last year the QinetiQ group generated operating profits before exceptional items of £42.7 million from a turnover of £653.3m. Last year it paid £346m to acquire Dera from the MoD. There have been suggestions QinetiQ could be valued at £500m when it eventually floats.
There will be a huge public outcry if the government - which has argued that its plans are good for the taxpayer - is seen to be letting it go too cheaply.
Ultimately, though, the main problem could be that the presence of the Carlyle Group might actually threaten the value of QinetiQ, rather than enhance it - something that undermines the Government's main claim for legitimising the deal. By allowing a commercially orientated firm to take a stake in the business, experts fear the Government may end up risking QinetiQ's unique position within the defence sector.
'Who owns the technology? As long as QinetiQ was owned by the government, British industry was prepared to share its technology because there was no risk it would be exploited commercially,' Sharman said.
After privatisation, however, firms started breaking their links with QinetiQ. Carlyle will hope its reputation ensures a trickle does not become a flood.
-------- business
Ensuring Competition for Military Contracts
New York Times
September 15, 2002
By DANIEL ALTMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/15/business/yourmoney/15VIEW.html
THESE are halcyon days for military contractors. The Bush administration has raised its targets for military spending, and the president's single-mindedness about attacking Iraq is sending the shares of Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and others skyward.
Tax dollars pay for military projects. Yet the way the Defense Department contracts with its suppliers, experts say, gives few incentives for good performance.
Last week brought a case in point. On Monday, the Air Force extended by three years Lockheed Martin's share of a contract for a long-overdue chain of high-altitude satellites, intended to spot enemy missile launches.
The contract, initially priced at $1.8 billion in 1996, will now cost $4.2 billion. For failing to deliver on time and within its budget, Lockheed was penalized about $95 million over the last few years. The Air Force admitted that it shared the blame, having tinkered with the specifications of the satellites.
A law required the Air Force to either recertify or cancel the ballooning program - and 20 others like it - in May. Recertification came on May 2, but Lockheed's share price barely quavered. It also hardly budged when the contract was extended last Tuesday. Most likely, analysts and investors had correctly assumed that recertification, and a bundle of new money, would arrive.
They might also have assumed that Lockheed's poor performance would not cost the company any consideration for future contracts. During the last 15 or 20 years, said William P. Rogerson, a professor of economics at Northwestern University, the Defense Department has lost much of its ability to punish poor performers.
"There had always been, over the medium run, relatively intense competition to get the next program," he said. "You did that by performing well on this program. That's becoming less and less the case."
Military contracts are increasingly of the blockbuster, multibillion-dollar variety, he said. Only one or two "super-prime" contractors - often behemoths resulting from the merger wave of the 1990's - can legitimately compete for each of the big new projects, he said. Of money paid to the Air Force's top 50 suppliers in fiscal year 2001, more than half went to the top two - Lockheed Martin and Boeing.
Even if a contractor does a poor job, the government may have no choice but to buy from it again. For one thing, the company may be the only one with the skill to build a major, sophisticated system. And denying a company any part of a contract may put an otherwise valuable competitor out of business forever.
Often, as in the case of Lockheed Martin's satellites, the Pentagon can't threaten to use an alternative military system to keep up the pressure on a supplier. That wasn't always the case. When F-18 fighters were being built, Professor Rogerson said, they had to compete with F-14's and later with the Joint Strike Fighter.
Steven C. Grundman, a former deputy under secretary of defense who now works for Charles River Associates, a consulting firm in Boston, said growing contract areas, like surveillance, could offer competition among ground-based, air-based and space-based platforms.
Professor Rogerson said he considered this type of competition - among suppliers of competing products at a given point in time - far more important than any incentives that can be built into a single contract. Setting incentives can be difficult, he said, because contractors know far more about their productive abilities and technical challenges than the government does.
T'S also hard to open up competition to more companies. Professor Rogerson suggested requiring that components of big systems be "plug and play," so that several contractors could bid on easily integrated parts of the same system.
Another proposal, said an expert from the military establishment who insisted on anonymity, was to keep at least two companies in on a contract right up until production. Yet the armed forces rarely regard the gains of competition as large enough to justify doubling expenses. On the other hand, the expert said, allowing more companies, even those that couldn't actually mass-produce an arms system, to stay in competition longer might promote innovative ideas.
Creativity could be especially important given the range of terror threats facing the United States. "There's a real issue today, with 9/11, with all the different varieties of terrorist threats," he said. "You have to really wonder whether these demands for national security writ large aren't going to dominate `Do we need another tank? Do we need another fighter?' "
-------- chemical weapons
Burning of Chemical Arms Puts Fear in Wind
New York Times
September 15, 2002
By RICK BRAGG with GLYNN WILSON
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/15/national/15CHEM.html
ANNISTON, Ala. - Some nights, when he is in a worrying mood, Samuel Robinson sits by himself in the glow from his television screen and counts the windows in his home.
It could get in here, he thinks.
It could get in there.
Any place a breath of air could creep in, he says, so could a tiny amount of deadly vapor, a smidgen of the poison gas that the nearby chemical weapons incinerator plans to begin burning in October, after years of delay, cost overruns and safety concerns.
"And I'll be thinking, what could I do?" said Mr. Robinson, 74, who lives just a few miles from the Anniston Army Depot, where stockpiles of deadly nerve gas and mustard gas, some leaking from corroded shells, rockets and barrels, await destruction in a $1 billion incineration plant.
"One in each bedroom, two in the living room, one in the kitchen," he said, running over the windows in his house, and the room he would try to seal with plastic wrap if an alarm sounded. "No, I couldn't. I'd just get nervous and give up."
The Army's scientists say that when the burning starts, at 2,700 degrees, 2,254 tons of the most inhuman weapons ever devised will be rendered little more dangerous than water vapor. Most of the chemicals are 40 years old or older and have become obsolete because age has caused the chemicals to deteriorate and because the necessary guns and launching platforms no longer exist.
It will take seven years to erase the stockpile, the Army says, and insists that the risk to the incinerator's neighbors is minimal to nonexistent and that it is far better to burn these weapons than to let them sit and crumble.
But similar Army efforts elsewhere, while avoiding disaster, have been marred by mechanical foul-ups and human error, and some health experts, environmentalists and residents say it is madness to burn weapons of mass destruction in a county of 116,000 people.
After years of wrangling with the federal government to finance a $41 million effort to protect the public, and with the scheduled start-up just weeks away, the county still has not fully carried out the plan. It has not given residents materials to seal their homes, or protected all the surrounding schools with equipment that raises the air pressure indoors so gases outside cannot leak in.
"We are not ready," said Mike Burney, director of the Calhoun County Emergency Management Agency. "It has been a constant battle to get the funding to put a protective plan in place."
Mr. Burney said the Department of Defense only recently freed up the money for protection efforts, spurred by a state lawsuit that threatened an injunction to halt the opening of the incinerator if the federal government did not pay for pressurizing schools and more. But Mr. Burney conceded that if burning begins on schedule and if a disaster occurs, he can no more affect the impact on his community than a weatherman can steer a hurricane. All he can do, at least until preparations are in place, is watch from a command post in nearby Jacksonville.
With backing from the city's business leaders and only a small number of opponents willing to raise an outcry, the Army has pushed ahead.
The Department of Defense says that unlike Iraq, whose past use and reported stockpiling of poison gas have led to talk of war, the United States has never used chemical weapons. Civilians in Alabama are certainly not going to be the exception, said Michael B. Abrams, a spokesman for the Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility.
"It is unrealistic to live in fear, or assume that the entire community is on the edge of Armageddon," Mr. Abrams said. "This community does not have to live on edge."
If there is a chemical leak, alarms will warn people who live within a few miles of the depot. The 35,000 people who live within nine miles are expected to have only 8 to 15 minutes to evacuate. For those who cannot get away quickly, the plan is simple. They have been told to go inside, seal a room with duct tape and plastic sheeting and wait. Some people, especially the old, sick and poor, smile bitterly at this.
They can neither run nor hide.
"I could not, with God's help," said Raymond Whitten, 59, who lives about a mile from the depot fence. He has heart trouble, had a bypass operation recently and lives with his wife, Lee, in a 1976 model mobile home. "You couldn't get it airtight if you poured concrete over it," Mr. Whitten said.
Whatever happens at the incinerator, the residents of western Anniston, near the depot, have already been poisoned. An immense chemical plant here run by Monsanto, now called Solutia, leached PCB's into the soil and water over decades.
But for years, the depot spread only paychecks through the community. Anniston has always been a pro-military city, even after the loss of its Army base, Fort McClellan, in 1995. Local and state politicians have long acted on the assurance that most residents preferred incineration to other methods - like chemical neutralization - and that only a vocal minority, mostly college professors and malcontents, opposed it.
"The risk is the stockpile," Mr. Abrams said. "While some people do not trust the technology, we do. We can either wait for a silver bullet to arrive and gamble that nothing will happen, or employ the incinerator."
But a recent survey, commissioned by a Republican candidate for governor, found that the community was divided, with slightly fewer than half of the residents saying they preferred incineration and a slim majority saying they preferred using existing technology like neutralization or waiting for some other technology to emerge.
Gov. Donald Siegelman has said he will look into other ways to destroy the stockpile, including neutralization. But the people closest to the incinerator say it is too late. They wonder whether the incinerator will really shut down once the stockpile is burned, as state and federal laws now mandate, or whether it will merely shift gears and begin burning hazardous waste or other materials.
Even spokesmen for the incineration plan concede that the depot's life span might depend on the whims of future legislators and Congress.
As the start date draws closer, more residents are beginning to wonder who, if anyone, will protect them in a catastrophe. The Army says it is not its duty to protect residents in an accidental release.
"I firmly believe that the incinerator should not be burdened with the safety of the community, when we don't present a realistic threat to the community," Mr. Abrams said. Barring a devastating fire, a complete power failure or an explosion outside containment rooms, he said, there is no threat to the community.
Even if a chemical does leak, "the chance of it going past the fence line is about impossible," Mr. Abrams said. The fence line is about four miles from the incinerator.
But Peter deFur, a toxicologist and biologist with Virginia Commonwealth University who has researched incinerators and their health effects, said a record of accidents during incineration in the 1990's on Johnston Island and in Tooele, taken from Army reports, shows "abnormal operations, accidents, spills, things have gone wrong."
"Even if you have a low probability of something going wrong," Mr. deFur said, "if you operate long enough, hard enough and fast enough, then chances are, something is going to get out."
In August, a laboratory technician at a chemical weapons incinerator in Oregon took home a vial of solution containing sarin, a deadly nerve agent, in what federal officials have called an accidental breach of procedure. Also in August, the Army and the Environmental Protection Agency confirmed the accidental release of nerve gas - 45 times higher than the permitted level - from the incinerator on Johnston Island as that plant was being closed.
No one has been seriously hurt, but watchdog groups say the frequency of incidents is troubling.
Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, an organization that has fought off plans to build an incinerator in Kentucky, said the "pattern of detecting chemical agent in material that has been run through the incinerators is very disturbing." Mr. Williams added, "It calls into question the fundamental destruction capability of the whole incineration approach and should be of great concern in communities where incinerators are scheduled to operate."
Mr. deFur said the emissions from the incineration will include PCB's, dioxin, lead and mercury. Exposure through the air, contaminated water or food from contaminated soil, he said, is especially dangerous for unborn children, older people and people with weakened immune systems.
The Army says the incineration will have no long-term effects.
In April, the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, accused by many environmentalists of often rubber-stamping permits for polluting industries and government agencies, found that the Anniston depot had violated its permit through improper storage and labeling of hazardous waste containers.
"The performance of the lab is disturbing," the agency wrote in an April letter. "These reports reflect a general attitude of lax management and offer at least a hint of collusion between the laboratory branches to prevent any major discrepancies from seeing the light of day."
But protests here have been small. A recent public hearing drew only 75 people.
A protest rally Sept. 8 attracted about 150, including civil rights figures like the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, who fought segregation a half-century ago. On Sept. 13, Mr. Williams of the Chemical Weapons Working Group said that his coalition was preparing a lawsuit to halt the incineration.
Before the rally, Mr. Shuttlesworth said the incinerator was a civil rights issue because it threatened the weak and poor. "I haven't been to jail since Reagan was in, and I've got the jailhouse itch," he said. "Anniston is the place to break the back of pollution like Birmingham was the place we broke the back of segregation."
Hattie Howze, 89, taught school here for generations. She has not thought much about the incinerator.
As with any threat, like a tornado or a thunderstorm, she will respond to the alarm by taking shelter in her hallway, not by trying to cover her house in tape and plastic. "I have trouble closing the drapes," she said.
"I fear it," she said. "But you just have to trust in the people who are supposed to know."
-------- iran
Iran Opposes War on Iraq, Slams U.S. for Solo Style
September 15, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq-un-iran.html
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Iran declared its opposition to any military attack on its former foe Iraq on Sunday and criticized the United States for going its own way on global problems such as disarmament.
Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told the U.N. General Assembly his country wanted Iraq to fulfill Security Council resolutions and readmit weapons inspectors to allow the lifting of sanctions imposed for Baghdad's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
``We are against any unilateral measure or military intervention in Iraq, underline the central role of the United Nations in this regard, and hold that it is up to the people of Iraq to determine their own future through democratic means,'' he said.
Iran fought a bitter war with Iraq from 1980 to 1988 and stayed out of the 1991 Gulf War in which a U.S.-led coalition drove Iraqi troops from Kuwait after a seven-month occupation.
In January, President Bush branded Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an ``axis of evil'' that was seeking weapons of mass destruction and might give them to terrorists.
Kharrazi, whose country denies Bush's charges, accused the United States, without naming it, of undermining global efforts to control nuclear weapons testing, ballistic missiles, biological warfare and the trade in small arms.
FIGHTING TERRORISM
He said the ``tragic terror attacks of September 11'' were a challenge to the world, but warned that ``fighting terrorism with unbridled use of violence'' would only make matters worse.
Kharrazi advocated a ``law-based counter-terrorism strategy'' with which all countries could cooperate, as well as an attempt to identify and address the root causes of terrorism.
He called for a world summit to tackle the issue and develop a generally acceptable definition of terrorism.
The United States accuses Iran of sponsoring terrorism by supporting Palestinian Islamic militant groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as Lebanon's Hizbollah guerrillas.
Kharrazi said international law gave Palestinians the right to fight Israeli occupation. ``Labeling a nation, which only fights to liberate its home, as terrorist must be condemned.''
He did not refer to Israel, but indicated that Iran would not reject the Palestinian leadership's policy of seeking a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict. ``We respect the choices that Palestinian people make,'' he said.
``It is the legitimate right of the Palestinian people to decide, through democratic means, their future political system and the manner in which they elect to establish their civil and political order,'' the Iranian minister added.
Bush, who has refused to meet Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, said in June the Palestinians must choose leaders ``not compromised by terror'' if they wanted a state of their own.
Kharrazi said global problems should be tackled through close international cooperation within a democratic framework.
``The logical extension of such an approach is the clear rejection of multilateralism and attempts by a single state, however powerful, to impose its norms and policies,'' he said.
-------- iraq
U.S., U.K. Attack Iraq in South
The Associated Press
Sunday, September 15, 2002; 1:36 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A20873-2002Sep15?language=printer
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- U.S. and British warplanes bombed Iraqi installations in the southern no-fly zone Sunday, an Iraqi military spokesman told Iraq's official news agency.
The agency report did not say if the early morning raid in Dhi Qar province, about 210 miles south of Baghdad, caused any damage or casualties.
The U.S. military confirmed the attack.
A statement released by U.S. Central Command headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida said coalition aircraft responded to Iraqi ground fire by launching precision-guided weapons to strike an air defense communications facility.
The Iraqi spokesman told the official agency U.S. and British warplanes bombed "civil and service installations."
"Our heroic missiles and anti-aircraft units fired at the aircraft, forcing them to flee back to Kuwaiti territories," the spokesman said without providing further details.
Sunday's raids brought to 38 the number of strikes reported this year by the U.S. and British coalition formed to patrol northern and southern Iraqi zones after the 1991 Gulf War. The last attack was Sept. 9.
The latest strikes also come three days after President Bush told the U.N. General Assembly that Baghdad must grant access to U.N. weapons inspectors or face confrontation. Bush accuses Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of stockpiling weapons of mass destruction and sponsoring terrorists, and says he must be toppled.
Arab leaders oppose a U.S. attack against Iraq, but want Baghdad to comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions concerning weapons inspections and disarmament to avert any conflict with America.
Attacks and counterattacks in the no-fly zones have been ongoing for several years. The numbers ebb and flow, and the Pentagon says there is no particular increase now.
Iraq considers the patrols a violation of its sovereignty and frequently shoots at the planes with anti-aircraft artillery and surface-to-air missiles. In response, coalition pilots try to bomb Iraqi air defense systems.
----
In Iraqi War Scenario, Oil Is Key Issue
U.S. Drillers Eye Huge Petroleum Pool
By Dan Morgan and David B. Ottaway
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, September 15, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A18841-2002Sep14?language=printer
A U.S.-led ouster of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein could open a bonanza for American oil companies long banished from Iraq, scuttling oil deals between Baghdad and Russia, France and other countries, and reshuffling world petroleum markets, according to industry officials and leaders of the Iraqi opposition.
Although senior Bush administration officials say they have not begun to focus on the issues involving oil and Iraq, American and foreign oil companies have already begun maneuvering for a stake in the country's huge proven reserves of 112 billion barrels of crude oil, the largest in the world outside Saudi Arabia.
The importance of Iraq's oil has made it potentially one of the administration's biggest bargaining chips in negotiations to win backing from the U.N. Security Council and Western allies for President Bush's call for tough international action against Hussein. All five permanent members of the Security Council -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China -- have international oil companies with major stakes in a change of leadership in Baghdad.
"It's pretty straightforward," said former CIA director R. James Woolsey, who has been one of the leading advocates of forcing Hussein from power. "France and Russia have oil companies and interests in Iraq. They should be told that if they are of assistance in moving Iraq toward decent government, we'll do the best we can to ensure that the new government and American companies work closely with them."
But he added: "If they throw in their lot with Saddam, it will be difficult to the point of impossible to persuade the new Iraqi government to work with them."
Indeed, the mere prospect of a new Iraqi government has fanned concerns by non-American oil companies that they will be excluded by the United States, which almost certainly would be the dominant foreign power in Iraq in the aftermath of Hussein's fall. Representatives of many foreign oil concerns have been meeting with leaders of the Iraqi opposition to make their case for a future stake and to sound them out about their intentions.
Since the Persian Gulf War in 1991, companies from more than a dozen nations, including France, Russia, China, India, Italy, Vietnam and Algeria, have either reached or sought to reach agreements in principle to develop Iraqi oil fields, refurbish existing facilities or explore undeveloped tracts. Most of the deals are on hold until the lifting of U.N. sanctions. But Iraqi opposition officials made clear in interviews last week that they will not be bound by any of the deals.
"We will review all these agreements, definitely," said Faisal Qaragholi, a petroleum engineer who directs the London office of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an umbrella organization of opposition groups that is backed by the United States. "Our oil policies should be decided by a government in Iraq elected by the people."
Ahmed Chalabi, the INC leader, went even further, saying he favored the creation of a U.S.-led consortium to develop Iraq's oil fields, which have deteriorated under more than a decade of sanctions. "American companies will have a big shot at Iraqi oil," Chalabi said.
The INC, however, said it has not taken a formal position on the structure of Iraq's oil industry in event of a change of leadership.
While the Bush administration's campaign against Hussein is presenting vast possibilities for multinational oil giants, it poses major risks and uncertainties for the global oil market, according to industry analysts.
Access to Iraqi oil and profits will depend on the nature and intentions of a new government. Whether Iraq remains a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, for example, or seeks an independent role, free of the OPEC cartel's quotas, will have an impact on oil prices and the flow of investments to competitors such as Russia, Venezuela and Angola.
While Russian oil companies such as Lukoil have a major financial interest in developing Iraqi fields, the low prices that could result from a flood of Iraqi oil into world markets could set back Russian government efforts to attract foreign investment in its untapped domestic fields. That is because low world oil prices could make costly ventures to unlock Siberia's oil treasures far less appealing.
Bush and Vice President Cheney have worked in the oil business and have long-standing ties to the industry. But despite the buzz about the future of Iraqi oil among oil companies, the administration, preoccupied with military planning and making the case about Hussein's potential threat, has yet to take up the issue in a substantive way, according to U.S. officials.
The Future of Iraq Group, a task force set up at the State Department, does not have oil on its list of issues, a department spokesman said last week. An official with the National Security Council declined to say whether oil had been discussed during consultations on Iraq that Bush has had over the past several weeks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Western leaders.
On Friday, a State Department delegation concluded a three-day visit to Moscow in connection with Iraq. In early October, U.S. and Russian officials are to hold an energy summit in Houston, at which more than 100 Russian and American energy companies are expected.
Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) said Bush is keenly aware of Russia's economic interests in Iraq, stemming from a $7 billion to $8 billion debt that Iraq ran up with Moscow before the Gulf War. Weldon, who has cultivated close ties to Putin and Russian parliamentarians, said he believed the Russian leader will support U.S. action in Iraq if he can get private assurances from Bush that Russia "will be made whole" financially.
Officials of the Iraqi National Congress said last week that the INC's Washington director, Entifadh K. Qanbar, met with Russian Embassy officials here last month and urged Moscow to begin a dialogue with opponents of Hussein's government.
But even with such groundwork, the chances of a tidy transition in the oil sector appear highly problematic. Rival ethnic groups in Iraq's north are already squabbling over the the giant Kirkuk oil field, which Arabs, Kurds and minority Turkmen tribesmen are eyeing in the event of Hussein's fall.
Although the volumes have dwindled in recent months, the United States was importing nearly 1 million barrels of Iraqi oil a day at the start of the year. Even so, American oil companies have been banished from direct involvement in Iraq since the late 1980s, when relations soured between Washington and Baghdad.
Hussein in the 1990s turned to non-American companies to repair fields damaged in the Gulf War and Iraq's earlier war against Iran, and to tap undeveloped reserves, but U.S. government studies say the results have been disappointing.
While Russia's Lukoil negotiated a $4 billion deal in 1997 to develop the 15-billion-barrel West Qurna field in southern Iraq, Lukoil had not commenced work because of U.N. sanctions. Iraq has threatened to void the agreement unless work began immediately.
Last October, the Russian oil services company Slavneft reportedly signed a $52 million service contract to drill at the Tuba field, also in southern Iraq. A proposed $40 billion Iraqi-Russian economic agreement also reportedly includes opportunities for Russian companies to explore for oil in Iraq's western desert.
The French company Total Fina Elf has negotiated for rights to develop the huge Majnoon field, near the Iranian border, which may contain up to 30 billion barrels of oil. But in July 2001, Iraq announced it would no longer give French firms priority in the award of such contracts because of its decision to abide by the sanctions.
Officials of several major firms said they were taking care to avoiding playing any role in the debate in Washington over how to proceed on Iraq. "There's no real upside for American oil companies to take a very aggressive stance at this stage. There'll be plenty of time in the future," said James Lucier, an oil analyst with Prudential Securities.
But with the end of sanctions that likely would come with Hussein's ouster, companies such as ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco would almost assuredly play a role, industry officials said. "There's not an oil company out there that wouldn't be interested in Iraq," one analyst said.
Staff writer Ken Bredemeier contributed to this report.
----
Some Iraqis See A War Eroding Economic Gains
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, September 15, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A18853-2002Sep14?language=printer
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 14 -- The newest craze among well-to-do teenage boys here is to stalk the streets at night, finishing off the enemy with the rat-a-tat-tat of an M-1 carbine.
At a few dozen computer centers that have recently sprouted up around the sprawling Iraqi capital, patrons sit at small consoles adorned with posters from the latest Hollywood movies and play the latest shoot'em-up video games on the latest Pentium-powered computers connected to each other with the latest networking technology.
For Zaid Abdul Amir, a 34-year-old computer engineer fiddling with his keyboard and surrounded by boys half his age, playing war on the computer is "something fun to do." But, like many people here, he has little desire for the real thing.
"Can we imagine living for six months without electricity, without water, without enough food?" said Amir, who was part of an Iraqi army unit that invaded Kuwait in 1990. "Of course we don't want that to happen again. We are all for a peaceful solution with the United States."
Without explicitly disagreeing with their government, several Iraqis said in interviews over the past week that they hoped their government would readmit U.N. inspectors to look for weapons of mass destruction, saying that it was the best way to avoid military confrontation with the United States. The lives of Iraqis have been improving, at least in economic terms, and they insist the last thing they want is a war that could erode those gains.
"Our government says that it no longer has these weapons, so let them [the inspectors] come back," one Baghdad resident said. "If this is what it takes to stop an American attack, we should do it."
Wamidh Nadhmi, a political scientist at Baghdad University, said that "a lot of Iraqis do say the same thing."
"I don't think any responsible Iraqi would like to see another military confrontation with the United States of America," he said. "We were witnesses of the 1991 war. It was a war from one side. It was an unequal war. There is no reason to repeat it."
President Bush warned the United Nations on Thursday that "action will be unavoidable" against Iraq unless Hussein's government consents to a resumption of inspections to determine whether it possesses nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. Bush and other U.S. officials contend that Iraq has resumed its weapons programs since U.N. inspectors left in 1998.
Iraq maintains that all its weapons of mass destruction have been destroyed. At a news conference this evening, Iraq's deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, said his country would be willing to consider the return of inspectors if conditions were placed on their activities and if the U.N. Security Council also lifted the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq after it invaded Kuwait.
But Aziz said his government believed that even if it let in the weapons inspectors, the United States and Britain would seek to engineer a confrontation that would lead to military action. "It's doomed if you do, doomed if you don't," he said.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to gauge Hussein's support among the Iraqi population. Criticizing the president, who is glorified on billboards at every major intersection, can invite arrest and imprisonment. Even so, some Iraqis have tried to convey to this correspondent -- through furtive glances, by pointing to a passage in a book or by their reluctance to launch into an immediate glorification of Hussein -- that they are eager for political change.
"Our system is not perfect," said a middle-aged man here who works as a trader. "But I cannot say more than that."
But even among those who have suggested that they are not happy with their government, there was no discernible support for U.S. military action to overthrow Hussein. Every one of more than two dozen Iraqis interviewed over the past week -- including a few people who spoke out of earshot of a minder from the Information Ministry -- bristled at the idea of a U.S. invasion to set up a new government.
"We do not want the Americans to give us a new government," the trader said. "We do not like the idea of that sort of aggression."
Amir, the computer engineer and army veteran, said he would be willing to reenlist. "Everyone here has a gun," he said. "If they don't, they at least have a knife. And if not, we'll throw stones at them like the Palestinians. Bush is crazy if he thinks the Iraqi people will welcome the Americans."
Nadhmi said that strong anti-American sentiments among ordinary people did not begin with the Persian Gulf War, but a few years later, as the sanctions began to squeeze the population. Food became scarce, as did medicines. Basic staples either were impossible to find or too expensive for anyone but the ultra-rich. The value of the dinar, Iraq's currency, against the dollar plummeted.
"The [Gulf] War was seen in certain circles not as an American aggression but as a reply to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait," Nadhmi said. "But with the continuation of sanctions, and when the sanctions started hurting the civilian population more than the government, the people started to think that Iraqi society at large is the real target of the Americans."
Nadhmi and others here also said the U.S. government's deferential treatment toward Israel and its security operations in the Palestinian territories have been seized upon by Hussein to intensify anti-American sentiments. He has made supporting Palestinian militants a key national goal, going so far as to train a militia to wrest Jerusalem from Israeli control and to make payments of $25,000, U.S. officials say, to the families of each Palestinian suicide bomber. In April, Hussein suspended crude oil exports for one month to protest Israeli occupation of Palestinian cities in the West Bank.
Meanwhile, analysts said, the slow but steady rebirth of the economy has further bolstered Hussein's image. The growth has been driven largely by an expansion in the U.N. oil-for-food program, which has allowed the country to purchase almost $37 billion of humanitarian supplies and oil-industry equipment since 1996. The most noticeable effect of the additional revenue has been an increase in the rations of rice, wheat, sugar and tea that the government provides to every Iraqi.
Hussein's government also has sought other ways to jump-start the economy. His government has signed free-trade agreements with nine countries over the past year. Analysts said it also has vastly increased smuggling and other illicit trade in oil, leading to some estimates that the value of Iraq's imports outside the oil-for-food program might total more than half the amount coming in under U.N. monitoring. As a consequence, the country's economy grew by a torrid 15 percent in 2000.
Flush with cash, the government has finished repairing almost all of the bridges, factories, utility plants and government buildings that were damaged by U.S. bombs during the Gulf War.
Baghdad's shops, once bereft of merchandise, now are replete with imported goods, including Pert shampoo, Kellogg's Corn Flakes and Panasonic videodisc players. Outdoor cafes bustle with customers. Saddam International Airport has reopened for flights to Jordan, Syria and Moscow. Even poor people say they are able to put more food on the table these days.
"There were times I never thought I would be able to say this, but life is good," said Jaleel Jabbar, 34, who opened a computer center two months ago with $8,000 he had saved by working as a graphic designer for his uncle's cosmetics business. His small center, sandwiched in a downtown Baghdad strip mall, is packed on most evenings with teenage boys using their mice and keyboards to try to kill each other.
Jabbar lives with his grandmother in a comfortable apartment. He drives a full-size, 10-year-old Oldsmobile that was smuggled in from a neighboring country. On Friday, he was dressed in a snappy black Armani polo shirt and Levis.
Jabbar said he did not listen to Bush's speech -- it was not televised here -- but said he could not understand why the United States was considering a military strike if Iraq refused to accept weapons inspectors. "We're not a threat to America," he said in rapid-fire Arabic. "We're not going to attack America. Why would we be so stupid to do that?"
Across the city, from dusty market stalls to the newly built Mother of All Battles Mosque, many Iraqis voiced similar sentiments. Iraq, they said, might hate the U.S. government, but it has no desire to start a war with a superpower.
"It would be very foolish," said Kais Khiruddin, 53, an employee at a cotton factory that he said was bombed in the Gulf War. "We don't want to be bombed again."
If the United States invades, Jabbar said he plans to be ready. He said he has been "training" on his computer, playing a game called Medal of Honor, where his character is a World War II-era U.S. soldier assigned to hunt down Nazi forces in North Africa.
"We will fight on the street if we have to," he said. "But I would rather just do it on the computer."
-------- israel / palestine
Israel Said Ready for Iraq Attack
The Associated Press
Sunday, September 15, 2002; 9:56 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A20397-2002Sep15?language=printer
JERUSALEM -- Israel is more prepared than ever if Iraq attacks it in retaliation for any U.S. military action, Israel's military chief said Sunday.
The commander, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, shrugged off media reports of a lack of gas masks and bomb shelters for civilians, insisting that Israelis are the "most protected in the world" against unconventional attacks.
Military officials confirmed the reports Sunday that about a fourth of the Israeli population does not yet have updated gas masks but said that it was only a matter of time, possibly as little as a few days, before masks could be distributed to all citizens. Masks would also be given to foreign workers and tourists, the officials said on condition of anonymity.
Israel began preparing for several attack scenarios soon after Sept. 11, Yaalon said.
"We started to get ready for the terror like that which attacked on Sept. 11 or that which would come from irresponsible parties in the region, like Iraq and Hezbollah," Yaalon told Army radio. "And actually now we are on a very high level of preparation, so we won't be surprised."
Iraq attacked Israel with 39 Scud missiles in response to the U.S. airstrikes in the 1991 Gulf War. Israelis have been lining up at gas mask distribution centers in recent days for fear Saddam Hussein may have chemical or biological weapons that could be used against Israel.
The Haaretz newspaper reported Sunday that Iraq may call on Palestinian militant groups to strike down airplanes taking off from Israel's Ben Gurion Airport.
At least one Palestinian group, the Arab Liberation Front, is funded by Baghdad and takes orders from Hussein. The group tried last year to carry out such an attack against the Israeli airport but was caught by Israeli security.
-------- landmines
Two Koreas Agree on Railway Work as Families Part
September 15, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-north-agreement.html
SEOUL (Reuters) - South and North Korea agreed on Sunday to begin clearing mines along their border and to set up a military hotline to smooth work on relinking railways as separated families ended three days of reunions.
Extending an unprecedented series of contacts between two countries still technically at war, military negotiators for both sides agreed to start clearing land mines in the Demilitarized Zone separating them on Thursday, the day after railroad groundbreaking ceremonies.
The decision was reached during marathon talks that began on Saturday and ran into Sunday morning at the truce village of Panmunjom.
``The meeting was very significant in that it helped build up a mutual military trust and enabled the relinking of railways and road routes,'' senior Defense Ministry official Kim Kyong-duck told reporters.
The talks coincided with reunions in North Korea of families separated for half a century by the 1950-53 Korean war and came just days before Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will make an historic visit to the north.
In a rare interview conducted in writing and published on Saturday, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il raised hopes for rapprochement with his country's former colonial master, telling Japan's Kyodo news agency he wanted to establish diplomatic ties with Tokyo.
MINE CLEARANCE
The railroad groundbreaking will start the reconnection of two lines and is part of efforts to make reunions easier.
The Kyongui line, which traces the Yellow Sea coast on the west, has been severed since the Korean War cemented the division of the peninsula into the communist North and the pro-Western South.
The East Sea route runs along the Sea of Japan, and Russia has shown strong interest in linking the line to its Trans-Siberian Railway to connect Korea to Europe by rail.
``Taking into account safety and convenience of transportation, the two sides will work within a width of 250 meters for the Kyongui railroad and 100 meters for the East Sea line,'' the agreement said.
``There will be no military facilities set up except for guard offices within the construction area, while any issues raised during the work would be discussed through telephone,'' it said.
The South will also provide the North 50 billion won ($41.97 million) of building materials starting in late September, said reports from a pool of journalists covering the talks.
The sides scheduled more talks on Monday and Tuesday to sign and exchange agreements. With one million aging South Koreans cut off from immediate relatives in North Korea, Seoul has long sought to make reunions routine and hopes the railways will make such contacts easier.
That day cannot come soon enough for 200 Koreans given a tearful sendoff after meeting their kin on the other side of the world's last Cold War frontier for the first time in half a century.
``Don't cry, we'll meet again,'' 71-year-old Choi Soon-ok consoled her 93-year-old South Korean mother. ``Be good and healthy, then we will see each other for sure.''
Shin Myong-kyun, a retired former head of North Korea's opera house, tried to console his sister. ``Don't go, don't go,'' she sobbed.
The South Koreans will take a cruise ship home on Sunday afternoon as a second group of 99 separated families leaves for the North to meet their kin for three days.
The reunion is the fifth round of such meetings since South Korean President Kim Dae-jung held a summit with Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang in June 2000, when they agreed to promote reconciliation and inter-Korean exchanges.
There have been no mail, telephone or other communication links between the two Koreas since the peninsular was divided.
-------- mideast
Hunt Grows In Yemen For Al Qaeda
Persian Gulf Nation's Links To Terror Fuel U.S. Resolve
By Dana Priest and Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, September 15, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18839-2002Sep14.html
The United States has stepped up its hunt for al Qaeda operatives in Yemen, the tiny Persian Gulf state that has moved to the top of the list of hot spots on the war on terrorism, U.S. government sources said.
The intensified focus goes beyond the cooperative efforts in recent months that have included U.S. Army Special Forces trainers and intelligence exchanges, the sources said.
"Yemen has become an area of increased interest for U.S. and allied forces," said one senior administration official.
The apprehension over the past few days of nine Yemenis in Pakistan, including confessed Sept. 11 planner Ramzi Binalshibh, and five members of an eight-person Yemeni American al Qaeda cell in New York state reflect the intense but secretive effort by military, law enforcement and intelligence agencies to move beyond Afghanistan in breaking up suspected terror rings. Last month, Yemeni authorities in the capital city of Sanaa discovered a 650-pound cache of plastic explosives stashed in pomegranate crates when they responded to an accidental explosion that killed two al Qaeda operatives.
The United States has been particularly determined to track down several high-ranking al Qaeda members who have found safe haven in Yemen's remote tribal areas, Osama bin Laden's ancestral home.
One of them, Abu Ali al-Harithi, is suspected of having organized the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen's harbor at Aden; Binalshibh is also suspected of aiding in the USS Cole attack, U.S. officials have said. He and other al Qaeda members have found refuge and protection among the militant Islamic chieftains who rule Yemen's forbidding dunes and hill country. A battle to roust them last December by special forces of the Yemeni government ended disastrously, with 13 soldiers dead and the terrorists gone. It had been launched at the urging of the Bush administration, which was pressuring the Yemeni government to be more aggressive.
Over the summer, an al Qaeda suspect now being held in U.S. custody in Afghanistan revealed the names of cell members in Yemen who were amassing the stockpile of plastic explosives, and described their intentions to do harm to American interests in the region. U.S. law enforcement officials said yesterday that one of eight Buffalo-area cell members has also been cooperating, revealing information about the cell's activities and accomplices.
Yemen's importance as a refuge for al Qaeda members who fled Afghanistan was highlighted in February by the FBI. It issued an extraordinarily detailed alert that named and showed photos of 17 suspects it said might be planning an attack against U.S. interests in Yemen. Thirteen of the suspects were Yemenis.
U.S. officials do not rule out the possibility that even bin Laden is hiding there. "It's a very volatile place," said a senior counterintelligence official. If bin Laden is alive, he said, "it's a legitimate place he might go, along with Pakistan."
But, said the counterterrorism official, Yemen has nonetheless become a much less hospitable place for terrorists, partly because of the increased U.S. law enforcement and military presence there.
In the months following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Defense Department sent Army Special Forces A-teams from the 5th Special Forces Group to train and advise Yemeni troops in counterterrorism. At the same time, the Defense Department, FBI and CIA significantly increased contacts with Yemeni law enforcement and intelligence officials. They sent teams of intelligence specialists into the capital to establish better monitoring capability and formed a new set of personal relations the Americans hoped would pay off in the months and years ahead.
As the war on terror has swept through Afghanistan and Pakistan and has flared in South Asia, the coastal nation of Yemen has been relatively calm. But it has long been viewed by some governments as a possible staging area for militants who would like to overthrow the Saudi royal family.
The U.S. government has known of Yemen's importance as a safe haven and transit point for al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. For years, the Pentagon and commanders at the U.S. Central Command argued for increasing intelligence and military links with Yemen.
They worried that Yemen -- impoverished, isolated and ruled as much by competing clans as by the central government in Sanaa -- had become a breeding ground for radical anti-Saudi, anti-American terrorists. In 1998, the U.S. military began a program to remove land mines. The U.S. Special Forces involved also used that program to gather boots-on-the-ground information about areas of concern, defense officials have said.
But State Department diplomats, including its ambassadors, canceled plans for larger cooperation. They were worried that increasing the presence of the U.S. military and CIA would upset rival anti-American power centers and threaten President Ali Abdullah Saleh's tenuous steps toward liberalization.
The bombing of the USS Cole prompted the administration to end military and other cooperation with Yemen. The FBI, which took the lead in investigating that attack, found it extremely difficult to operate on the ground, and Yemeni officials were only partly helpful.
Although often described as a Wild West, Yemen also stands out in the Persian Gulf region because its parliament is freely elected and shares an increased amount of power with Saleh, whose re-election is all but guaranteed each term.
Like Gen. Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan, who calls himself pro-American even though his country for years harbored al Qaeda, and funded and otherwise supported the Taliban in Afghanistan, Saleh has been careful not to let his cooperation with the United States upset the violent Islamic factions that control the north and northeast of the country.
But the recent arrests and the increased U.S. focus on Yemen demonstrate that some progress has been made in the relationship. Operating in Yemen is extremely difficult for U.S. personnel, said Charles Dunbar, former U.S. ambassador to Yemen. "Where we've begun to see success is when we cooperate closely with the local forces."
How far that cooperation extends may soon be tested. Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu-Bakr al-Qurbi told an Arabic publication on Sept. 8 that his country "will not hand over" any al Qaeda captives to foreign nations and will try them at home instead.
Research editor Margot Williams contributed to this report.
----
Saudi Seems to Soften Stance on Iraq Action
September 15, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Saudi-Iraq.html
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- The Saudi foreign minister said Sunday the kingdom would be "obliged to follow through" if the United States needed bases in the kingdom to attack Iraq under U.N. authority.
The comments to CNN by Prince Saud al-Faisal would mark a significant shift in Saudi policy. In an interview last month with The Associated Press, Saud declared that U.S. facilities in the desert kingdom would be off limits for an attack on Iraq.
When asked by CNN specifically if Saudi bases would be available to Washington, Saud said: ``Everybody is obliged to follow through.''
Saud said, however, that he remained opposed in principle to the use of military force against Saddam Hussein or a unilateral American attack.
The remote Prince Sultan Air Base south of Riyadh hosts most of the 5,000 U.S. troops based in Saudi Arabia.
Saud's apparent policy shift came as world opinion shifted toward taking some collective action to contain Iraq, accused by the United States of stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, harboring terrorists and defying the United Nations.
Last week, Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher of Egypt, among the most influential Arab states, said his government would support a U.S. strike on Iraq if it were under U.N. auspices.
Saudi Arabia has joined Iraq's other Arab neighbors in cautioning the United States not to attack, saying it would only further destabilize a region made volatile by Israeli-Palestinian fighting.
Also Sunday, Saud urged Iraq to quickly allow the return of U.N. weapons inspectors to head off a Security Council resolution that could open the way for military attacks.
"Timing is important, and allowing inspectors back before a Security Council resolution to that effect would be in Iraq's favor," he told the London-based Arabic-language newspaper Al-Hayat.
"We are afraid that (a refusal) would harm the Iraqi people and increase their burden. We are worried about Iraq's unity, stability and independence," al-Faisal said.
In New York Saturday, envoys from Arab League issued a similar plea during the General Assembly, saying Iraq should heed international calls to allow inspectors back and avert a confrontation with the United States that could further destabilize the Middle East.
Arab League ministers said Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri told them Saturday that Iraq was ready to let the inspectors return but not before certain conditions were met. The United Nations has rejected any conditions.
President Bush, who accuses Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, has proposed a U.N. Security Council resolution that would set a short deadline for a resumption of inspections and threaten action if Iraq does not comply. Bush also has said the United States would act unilaterally if Iraq continued its defiance and the international community did not respond.
U.N. Security Council resolutions passed after the 1991 Gulf War say Iraq must eliminate weapons of mass destruction, and the means to produce them. Iraq claims to have done so, but it has refused to admit U.N. arms inspectors since 1998.
Given that Iraq denies it has a program to stockpile or produce such weapons, Saud said Iraq should not fear the return of inspectors.
"What is wrong in allowing them back and put all this to an end? We believe it would be a wise move," Saud said.
Saud told CNN Sunday that in the event of war, Saudi Arabia "will do everything we can" to keep oil prices stable and he believed other OPEC members would cooperate.
-------- pakistan
Pakistan Urged to Release Qaeda Suspect to U.S. Custody
September 15, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Attacks-Binalshibh.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States wants custody of Ramzi Binalshibh and will work with Pakistani authorities to have them hand over the suspected Sept. 11 plotter captured last week in Karachi, President Bush's national security adviser said Sunday.
``Oh, we will be working with the Pakistani officials to make certain that he gets to the right place,'' Condoleezza Rice said. ``There's no doubt that the United States will want to have access to him and to have him, because this is an important breakthrough.''
One important obstacle to Binalshibh's transfer to the United States fell Sunday when Germany decided not to pursue his extradition to face a mass murder-conspiracy indictment.
Pakistan said a second high-level al-Qaida figure also was captured last week but has refused to identify him by name or nationality.
There had been speculation that the suspect was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, one of Osama bin Laden's chief lieutenants. Pakistan's interior minister, Moinuddun Haider, told The Associated Press on Sunday that Mohammed is not the man.
Binalshibh and at least nine other al-Qaida operatives remained under interrogation by Pakistani and U.S. intelligence agencies, an official of Haider's ministry said.
``The other people who were captured or killed here are perhaps equally important as to what happened with Binalshibh, but we will see who else was gotten in this raid,'' Rice said on ABC's ``This Week.''
Binalshibh was not yet in U.S. custody, she said, and the Pakistani Interior official said U.S. authorities were primarily responsible for questioning the suspects.
``We certainly want custody of him, and we certainly want to be able to find out what he knows,'' Rice told ``Fox News Sunday.''
Germany announced Saturday it would seek custody of the 30-year-old Yemeni, who was a member of the Hamburg cell of al-Qaida terrorist network. Germany has charged Binalshibh with more than 3,000 counts of murder for allegedly conspiring on German soil to plan the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.
``I think he's a pretty big fish. I mean, this is perhaps within the circle of those who were responsible for 9/11. And so, I think he is a pretty big catch,'' Secretary of State Colin Powell said on CNN's ``Late Edition.''
The cell included Mohamed Atta, suspected ringleader of the hijackers who piloted one of the hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center. Binalshibh has claimed to have coordinated the four simultaneous hijackings.
Binalshibh was frustrated in his attempts to receive a visa to enter the United States in 2000, where, U.S. and German officials allege, he had planned to join the other 19 hijackers.
Rice said that despite U.S. successes in Afghanistan against the al-Qaida terror network, ``there continues to be concern about remnants of the organization that might still be plotting and planning'' because U.S. officials have believed it could function without a central command.
``One of the issues is, how decentralized is the decision-making? Does there have to be an order to go ahead and launch an attack? And we're learning a lot more about the organization from these people that we're capturing,'' she said.
That has expanded the fight against terrorism to other countries, including Pakistan and Yemen, in an effort to prevent al-Qaida from regrouping elsewhere, she said.
``It's not the organization that it once was, but we believe that the better part of valor is to continue to consider it a dangerous organization,'' Rice said.
-------- spy agencies
Border Crossings
'Into Tibet' by Thomas Laird and
'The CIA's Secret War in Tibet' by Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison
Reviewed by James Rupert
Sunday, September 15, 2002
Washington Post; Page BW13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12485-2002Sep13?language=printer
INTO TIBET The CIA's First Atomic Spy and His Secret Expedition to LhasaBy Thomas LairdGrov. 364 pp. $26
THE CIA'S SECRET WAR IN TIBETBy Kenneth Conboy and James MorrisonUniv. Press of Kansas. 301 pp. $34.95
In July 1950, a world focused on the Korean War took only brief note of Douglas MacKiernan's singular death. "U.S. Consul, Fleeing China, Slain By Tibetan on Watch for Bandits," read the headline of the lone front-page story in the New York Times.
For more than a half-century, that's all the news on MacKiernan that his real employer, the CIA, has wanted to see. The agency still classifies as secret his identity as an officer (the first to be killed on duty) and his early Cold War missions: on the Chinese-Soviet frontier in Sinkiang, and in Tibet, as it desperately sought independence from Mao's communist China.
Among the CIA's secret anti-communist wars -- in Cuba, Central America, Southeast Asia and elsewhere -- its operations in Tibet have remained particularly obscured. Only in 1999, in his book Orphans of the Cold War, did former CIA trainer of Tibetan guerrillas John Kenneth Knaus break the silence with the first broad account of the agency's effort, from about 1950 to 1970, to build an armed Tibetan resistance movement.
Guerrillas trained and armed by the CIA helped the Dalai Lama flee to India, where he and other exiles have kept alive the Tibetan cause. But in their high Himalayan plateaus and valleys, fighting the People's Liberation Army, the rebels against China's rule could do no more than delay the conquest of their land. The United States was never going to provide open, direct support for Tibetan independence, and the CIA ultimately dismantled the guerrilla army and the hopes it had nurtured among its fighters.
Now two books reveal more of this hidden history. Thomas Laird, a photographer, journalist and 30-year Himalayas aficionado based in Nepal, tells a gripping tale of Douglas MacKiernan's mission. Into Tibet helps illuminate what the agency was doing in China at the birth of the Cold War, and suggests some particular embarrassments about MacKiernan that may help explain why the CIA keeps his file, and its Tibetan history, so resolutely classified. Laird has performed impressive research, combing other archives and tracking down MacKiernan's family and colleagues for interviews.
MacKiernan was a technical-scientific wizard -- at radio communications, cryptology and meteorology -- and during World War II, he shoved his way into Army intelligence. The Army sent him to Sinkiang, on northwestern China's border with Soviet Central Asia, to run a weather station that predicted what skies America's B-29 pilots would find while bombing Japan.
After the war, the newborn CIA scooped up many military intelligence officers and sent MacKiernan back to Sinkiang under consular cover. Now Soviet troops had seized part of that region and were mining uranium for the weapons that would soon challenge America's atom-bomb monopoly. Riding into the desert, MacKiernan got ethnic Kazakh tribesmen to help him investigate, and try to disrupt, what the Soviets were doing.
Laird argues that MacKiernan played an even more critical role, by burying transmitters in Sinkiang's sands -- perhaps even inside the Soviet Union -- and using microphones to pinpoint the nuclear blast that created the world's second nuclear power in August 1949. Within weeks of the Soviet blast, Sinkiang was falling to Mao Zedong's Communists, and MacKiernan was the only American left there, except for Frank Bessac, a CIA agent who had stumbled into town after failing to organize an anti-communist front among ethnic Mongols. Washington ordered the pair to flee -- not southwest to India, but on a more treacherous route across the Takla Makan Desert in northern Tibet. As they left, MacKiernan handed gold to his Kazakh friends in support of their rebellion against communist rule. News of that act got quickly to Beijing, which proclaimed MacKiernan a spy.
Months later, as the bedraggled Americans stumbled toward the Tibetan border, Washington was in chaos over Sen. Joseph McCarthy's charges that spies riddled the State Department. Amid infighting, State officials dithered over notifying Tibet of the Americans' arrival, and Tibetan frontier guards confronted them, shooting MacKiernan dead.
The big picture of America's role in Tibet is sharpened in another book, by James Morrison, a former Army officer who took part in CIA operations in Laos, and Kenneth Conboy, an Asia scholar. Morrison died in 2000; The CIA's Secret War in Tibet is the last in a series the two men co-wrote on clandestine CIA operations in Asia. Whereas the CIA-trained Knaus focused more on the broad politics of the operation, the livelier Conboy-Morrison account offers more details of how the secret war worked on the ground. Together, the two books may represent the best overall picture possible of the CIA's war in Tibet until the agency cracks open its files.
Conboy and Morrison seem to have interviewed every American and Tibetan participant in the operation who could be found, and their book is alive with the sitcom-style mishaps (and minor characters) that bedeviled the CIA as it tried to run a covert war in a land where its officers had almost never set foot. Training its troops at a former high-altitude Army camp in Colorado, for example, the Tibet program nearly blew its own cover, once by letting a planeload of strange Asian men be discovered at the airport in nearby Colorado Springs, and another time by accidentally blowing up a transcontinental telegraph line while experimenting with rockets.
The secret war effort had to scavenge for key skills. Training its first guerrillas, the CIA discovered that their illiteracy would prevent them from sending Morse code messages even in their own language. It hired a polyglot Mongolian Buddhist monk, Geshe Wangyal, to teach them grammar and, later, to interpret their transmissions from the field. Wangyal worked out of a safe house off Wisconsin Ave. But an erudite lama wandering the streets in beard and traditional robes drew too much attention. "He would go into a Chinese restaurant," recalled a CIA officer, "and the staff would all start bowing."
In the end, the operation ran more in accordance with the Americans' needs and interests than with the Tibetans'. The United States (and India, which helped run the program in its latter years) shut down the last Tibetan guerrilla units at the start of the 1970s, just before the Nixon administration opened relations with Beijing.
So why is the CIA's operation in Tibet still such a secret? Laird argues that it's largely because Tibet operations were entwined with sensitive U.S. espionage against Russian and Chinese nuclear programs.
The obvious part of the answer is that digging up the Tibet war risks upsetting the increasingly important Sino-U.S. relationship. In particular, the United States may want to hide its use of MacKiernan, Bessac and others to encourage ethnic rebellions -- Mongol, Kazakh and Tibetan -- against the Chinese.
Beyond that, as Laird notes, may be potential embarrassments for Washington, notably the implications of ordering MacKiernan, his cover blown, into Tibet in 1950. Beijing knew MacKiernan had encouraged rebellion among the Kazakhs, so by sending him to Tibet, Washington may have alarmed China in a way that inadvertently hastened its invasion of the land that America claimed to be trying to help protect. •
James Rupert, a former correspondent for The Post in South Asia, is deputy foreign editor of Newsday.
-------- un
Split on Iraq Emerges in the United Nations
New York Times
September 15, 2002
By JULIA PRESTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/15/international/15NATI.html
UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 14 - With some American allies forcefully reaffirming their support for the United States' campaign to persuade the United Nations to bear down on the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, differences with other influential nations emerged sharply today.
In Britain's strongest statement yet on the issue, the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, said in a Sky Television interview to be broadcast Sunday that Mr. Hussein's government will have to fall if it does not comply with Security Council resolutions requiring it to rid itself of biological, chemical or nuclear weapons.
"Either he deals with those weapons of mass destruction or his regime will have to end," Mr. Straw said. "But the choice is his, and he hasn't got much time to make up his mind."
In an address today to the General Assembly, Mr. Straw closely echoed President Bush's appeal here on Thursday, saying, "The authority of the United Nations itself is at stake."
In contrast, Germany's foreign minister, Joschka Fisher, who spoke soon after, said that Germany was "full of deep skepticism" about the United States' threat of military action to topple Mr. Hussein if he did not abide by United Nations resolutions. Contending that international efforts to fight terror, rebuild Afghanistan and calm the conflict in the Middle East could be destabilized by a military strike against Iraq, he appealed for a diplomatic solution.
President Bush, who met at Camp David today with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, noted in his weekly radio broadcast that Congress was scheduled to begin debate on the Iraq issue next week, and added, "Congress must make it unmistakably clear that when it comes to confronting the growing danger posed by Iraq's efforts to develop or acquire weapons of mass destruction, the status quo is totally unacceptable."
After an initial warm response to President Bush's decision to work through the United Nations to confront Iraq, many nations were more vocal about their reluctance to use a military force to topple the Iraqi leader.
Late on Friday, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan said in a news conference here that he had told President Bush in a meeting earlier that "the use of force is a last resort when there are no other options." While not a Security Council member this year, Japan is a politically important voice at the United Nations.
Now that the Bush administration is engaged with the Security Council on the issue, American diplomats, led by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, face a tricky task to craft a new resolution that will not go beyond the limited aim of most Council members to bring new pressure on Iraq for the inspectors' return. To meet Washington's goal, the resolution must also leave the way open for the United States to spearhead military action.
After a closed meeting here, the foreign ministers of the Arab Group declined to issue any joint appeal to Iraq to allow the return of the inspectors.
Only Egypt pressed Iraq's foreign minister, Naji Sabri, forcefully to readmit the inspectors, while others did not respond to an appeal by Secretary General Kofi Annan for help in getting them back in. The inspectors were withdrawn in late 1998 in advance of an American and British bombing raid on Baghdad, and have been barred by Iraq since.
President Bush urged the United Nations "to show some backbone" on Iraq and made clear he was prepared to confront Mr. Hussein with or without world support.
"Not once, not twice, 16 times, he has defied the United Nations," Mr. Bush said of Mr. Hussein. "Enough is enough."
"Make no mistake about it," he added, If the United States has "to deal with the problem, we'll deal with it."
American diplomats, who have been pressing their case on all fronts, have made significant progress with Russia, a permanent, veto-bearing member of the Security Council. On Friday Russia issued a new warning to Iraq, saying that it would face consequences if it did not comply with United Nations resolutions.
A senior Bush administration official who negotiated with the Russians this week said the main argument has been economic. The message to the Russians, he said, is that "they're a lot more likely to get their debts paid off and have a better commercial relationship with Iraq if it's part of the international community again."
The official said the United States had not made specific offers, but did not rule out the possibility of negotiating explicit guarantees for Russian interests, mostly oil-related.
One area where differences loomed between the United States and other Council countries was over the role of the weapons inspectors. Many Council nations wanted to see a new measure that would secure the return of the inspectors and also allow them enough time to conduct substantial inspections. That could take at least six months, according to timetables laid out in earlier resolutions.
The Bush administration has outlined a much shorter time frame to see if Mr. Hussein has dismantled his weapons of mass destruction.
In an interview on Wednesday, Hans Blix, the leader of the team of inspectors in charge of checking for biological and chemical weapons and long-range missiles, acknowledged that there were some limitations to what his team could accomplish even if it was allowed to return.
Mr. Blix said his inspectors might not be able to detect mobile laboratories for producing biological weapons materials, or underground storehouses for weapons substances, if the inspectors did not have information about such sites from the last time they were in Iraq or have not seen traces of them in satellite surveillance photography.
Mr. Blix said he had no evidence at this time that Iraq had such mobile units or storage depots or had pressed ahead with a prohibited weapons program. But he said he could not draw conclusions without inspections.
He argued that the presence of the weapons inspectors in Iraq would have great value because it would make it difficult for Mr. Hussein to complete production and placement of such weapons.
"If they were actually trying to pursue a program, then such an effort would become much more difficult if you have inspectors that are entitled to go anywhere in the country at any time without delay," Mr. Blix said.
-------- us
In Brief: G.I. Blues
Sunday, September 15, 2002
Washington Post; Page BW13
Zofia Smardz
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12484-2002Sep13?language=printer
Every war has its stories, though the fictional ones take a while to gestate. A decade after the Persian Gulf War, that outwardly pristine conflict comes at last into its literary own in Gabe Hudson's comically macabre debut short-story collection, "Dear Mr. President" (Knopf, $19). The seven stories and one novella here are more about the after than the during of Desert Storm, which registered as pretty much of an eyeblink in the public's consciousness but left its veterans scared and scarred, in more ways than one. Most of Hudson's heroes suffer from some form of Gulf War syndrome, physical or psychological, real or delusional, and that means, as you can imagine, lots of trouble in their lives.
In one story, a vet wracked with guilt over his actions in the war discovers his bones are disintegrating even as the neighborhood thug stalks him in fury over an affront on the basketball court. In another, a former POW who believes he's become his dead 13-year-old daughter tries to convince military psychiatrists that he's sane so that he can keep flying combat missions. In the title story, an unhappy husband back from the Gulf writes to the White House for help after his wife leaves him when a third ear appears on his torso. Or does it? Is that really an ear? Or something else? Or nothing at all? In Hudson's weird, wonderful and worrisome world, it's hard to know the difference.
--------
Administration says it could fight wars against terror and Iraq
09/15/2002
Associated Press
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2002-09-15-administration_x.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration insisted Sunday that the U.S. military can simultaneously fight terrorism and confront Iraq, as White House officials said Congress and the United Nations must act quickly to show resolve against Saddam Hussein.
Members of Congress, however, were split on whether it was wise to act within four weeks on an undefined resolution about Iraq, as Secretary of State Colin Powell called for. There were signs of a possible stalemate before the midterm congressional elections in November.
"We don't know what this administration wants to do," Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said on ABC's This Week. He said President Bush had yet to ask for a resolution on Iraq. But Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said: "Obviously, it is up to the Congress to offer resolutions, not to the administration."
Several leading lawmakers made clear they will consider such resolutions on their own timetable.
Daschle was noncommittal on whether Congress could pass such a resolution before Election Day, saying only that it was possible. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said it would help Bush if Congress acted before its planned mid-October recess.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said he agreed with that timetable, but added that the resolution should not necessarily authorize force against Iraq.
He said on CBS's Face the Nation that he preferred "something that could get 100-to-nothing vote, something that says to the United Nations, look, we are really serious about this and we're all behind the effort to try to seek a consensus on dealing with Saddam Hussein."
On the diplomatic front, Powell said he hoped that intensive work on drafting a resolution for the Security Council could begin by the end of this week. He was optimistic about a vote by the Security Council within a few weeks.
The measure should give the Iraqi president "a matter of weeks" to comply with long-standing U.N. resolutions on his weapons program, Powell said.
He met with council members last week to win support for a tough resolution and planned to return to New York on Monday to resume the effort.
Powell and Rice declined to answer other specific questions about what should be in the resolution. But both said that new resolutions would not permit any negotiations with Saddam.
"The time for Iraq to respond was years ago," Powell said.
Some lawmakers, including Daschle, D-S.D., have questioned whether war with Iraq would undermine the hunt for al-Qaeda terrorists behind the Sept. 11 attacks.
"We fully believe that the United States is capable of conducing the war on terrorism and dealing with other threats," Rice said on ABC. "We don't believe there are limits on what we can do in the war on terrorism and dealing with a major threat of weapons of mass destruction."
But Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., said on Fox News Sunday that Saddam is "not one of the primary threats to the United States."
Pointing to the arrests of five men who allegedly belonged to a terror cell near Buffalo, Graham said, "What worries me is that I think the war on terrorism has bogged down."
"Why were those five people arrested in Buffalo? Primarily because we had evidence that they had been at an al-Qaeda training camp in 2001," said Graham, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. "Those camps, in my judgment, are the real threat to the United States security, and that's what I think our priority ought to be, in terms of protecting the people America, is taking them out."
Graham also said Bush should warn Iran, just as he has warned Iraq, against helping terrorists.
He echoed administration fears that Iran is tied to the terror group Hezbollah - "the A Team of international terrorism," Graham said.
-------- propaganda wars
Looking for the Elusive Two-Thirds Who Want War With Iraq
New York Times
September 15, 2002
By MATTHEW PURDY
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/15/nyregion/15TOWN.html
FISHKILL, N.Y. - The White House seems like a good place to look for attack-Iraq fervor.
This White House is a bar on Main Street here in solidly Republican Dutchess County. The proprietor, Michael Hayden, disdains Saddam Hussein, but is not convinced war is necessary now. He suggests asking Bill Sohan, at the nearby Italian restaurant. "He's a Vietnam veteran," Mr. Hayden says.
Mr. Sohan interrupts lunch preparations. "I'm a staunch Republican," he says, "and I want to see more proof." Mr. Sohan, 55, has three sons and says, "I don't want my sons doing what I did - without having the support of the country, without a clear intent."
He suggests asking Noel R. Schetter, local insurance agent and V.F.W. member.
"You've got the wrong guy," Mr. Schetter says. "I think it's ridiculous." Stopping Saddam Hussein will not stop terrorism. "You're going to agitate 780 million Muslims," he says. "If you're going to pour gasoline on something, you've got to be sure you're burning up everything you're trying to destroy, which won't happen with Iraq."
Mr. Schetter suggests asking his V.F.W. buddies, who are meeting that night. "Why don't you come?" he says.
Already, the morning's returns from Fishkill are confusing. Polls show that as much as two-thirds of the country favor military action to oust Hussein, but support turns mushy once you begin poking around.
Sure, there are people like Joe Cataudella, an auto parts salesman, who says of Hussein, "I'd put a bullet in his head if I could."
And Tom Vantine, Fishkill's building and fire inspector, says that if we do not attack soon, "we're going to see another Sept. 11."
But it is hard to argue with Mr. Vantine's observation that America's fighting spirit is easing. Perhaps people were confused by the president's switch to Saddam, with Osama still not in the bag. "There was emotion," he says of last week's Sept. 11 ceremonies, "but there was no anger. Last year there was anger."
Natalie Salvas, a recent college graduate eating at the local fancy coffee shop, says, "I would be against attacking Iraq. I'm a pacifist." To hear the war cry, she says, "go to West Point."
The military academy is across the Hudson River in Highland Falls. Rose Pozo is arranging flowers at a florist shop where a sign outside says, "We Will Always Remember." She says a friend lost her husband and son on Sept. 11. As for attacking Iraq, she says: "I have a bad feeling. Innocent people over there are being killed just like innocent people here."
If not the woman with the flowers, surely the soldier with an M-16 outside West Point's visitors' center wants war. "I hope not," he says. "A lot of innocent people would be killed."
You begin to get the feeling that either the polls are wrong or it's tough to put a percentage on unease.
"It's a tough one," says an Army sergeant who strongly favors an attack. "We can handle Iraq on our own," he says, but it's risky going against world opinion.
Thomas Kirk, a carpenter from North Carolina touring West Point, says Rush Limbaugh convinced him that Hussein was an urgent threat. "We can't just sit here and hope people will get along," he says. But he has a caveat: "We need world support."
A cadet emerging from a classroom discussion of Mr. Bush's military options says: "The general feeling is that he should do it. But there were arguments against it. The question of sovereignty is first and also, what is the aim?"
Where is that unwavering war cry? Perhaps back in Fishkill at the meeting of V.F.W. Post 1286.
Attack Iraq? "Absolutely," says a World War II veteran. "The sooner the better."
Jim Chirico, a Korean War veteran, says if we do not attack Iraq, Iraq will attack us. "If we don't do something or if we do, it's going to cost lives," he says.
What about the risk of unleashing international mayhem? He worries about his grandson, a marine, but says: "I'm an old man, I've lived my life. Selfishly, I say it doesn't bother me."
Finally, the gung-ho spirit!
But wait. Who is that familiar-looking Army veteran? It's Pete Seeger, aging lefty folk singer and faithful member of Post 1286. His voice may sound out of place at the V.F.W., but it's rarely off key.
"I think the world doesn't realize the danger of modern weapons," he says. "It's going to get worse and worse and worse."
--------
China Wages Rear-Guard Battle in Effort to Rein in Press
New York Times
September 15, 2002
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/15/international/asia/15CHIN.html
BEIJING, Sept. 14 - As China's Communist Party prepares for its all-important 16th Congress this November, Ding Guangen, head of the party's propaganda department, has a thankless task: making sure China's increasingly freewheeling state news media are docile and on message.
To that end, the department sent out a thick memo to editors this summer detailing the dos and don'ts of this highly political season. There was to be no independent reporting on this year's leadership changes, of course. But then it went on, for pages. Problems with rural tax reform, major industrial accidents and the fact that Chinese sometimes eat foreign breeds of dogs were labeled off limits, for example. Stories about grisly crimes like multiple stabbings were discouraged as "bad for social stability," as was talk of the growing divide here between rich and poor.
Although last year the Communist Party was trumpeting its decision to admit entrepreneurs, this year editors have been told not to publicize the fact that private business owners are party members, even serving as Congress delegates.
Not so long ago, China's propaganda czars and journalists were players in the same band. But as state subsidies have dropped sharply in the last 10 years, much of the Chinese media have found another master - the market - and have gained a new sense of professionalism. Now the relationship between the camps has turned dissonant if not, at times, downright hostile.
Dozens of aggressive small newspapers and magazines, as well as regional and satellite television stations, have emerged in the last decade. Many are inclined to hew more to readers' tastes than to the government's demands. Although they are at least nominally state-owned, and dare not venture into critical reporting of the central government, for example, the more adventurous are nonetheless peppered with tales of financial scandals, sex, natural disasters, corruption, even lawsuits against the government.
"Some media take too much pleasure in the government's miseries," the propaganda department's memo complained.
It added: "The party congress is fast approaching, so we need to prevent problems. For those newspapers that frequently have problems, we'll discuss whether to let them keep running."
The warning has quieted the press - but not entirely. Within the last month, China Economic Times reported on a bridge collapse in central China, concluding that government casualty numbers were faked.
China News Weekly examined sexual abuse of students by teachers, focusing on recent cases in Beijing. Workers Daily reported that nearly half of important government coal mines had dangerously high levels of gas and almost the same number had no safety monitoring.
Some major newspapers, like People's Daily, fall directly under the Communist Party and meticulously toe its line, but few people confess to reading them. Many more newspapers are sponsored by a range of government offshoots, from the Communist Youth League to the Disabled Persons Federation. While none of the newspapers are privately owned or completely independent, many are managed with the primary goal of being profitable.
"These days, there are government papers and government papers," said Hu Shuli, the flamboyant American-trained editor of Caijing, far and away China's most daring business magazine, which since 1998 has criticized practices at China's state banks and published exposés of well-connected companies, including one involving a relative of China's late leader Deng Xiaoping.
"I think it's fine for the government to have an organ for propaganda, but now we are also seeing the development of good commercial media as well, even though they are relatively small and beset by many troubles," Ms. Hu said.
Those "troubles" are well known to Chinese journalists, many of whom were willing to complain bitterly - if anonymously - about the pressures of working under government scrutiny. Those pressures have increased recently as the leadership has tried to clean up the media as well as the Internet in preparation for the congress. Virtually all agreed that, as the news media have become more unruly, the censors' efforts have intensified.
Mr. Ding has initiated a system under which the propaganda department appoints all top editors at major newspapers. Errant reports generate a soccerlike system of yellow warning cards - three cards and a newspaper risks being shut down.
But most experts say it is an often futile battle, noting that China's growing diversity, as well as the sheer size of its media industry, make it difficult to patrol. The department cannot foresee every news event, and so cannot prepare guidelines for every eventuality - allowing news-hungry reporters to rush in.
"The wheels at the department turn much more slowly than those in the media these days," said a senior newspaper editor. "It is often now caught unawares by trends and unexpected events that there are no rules for governing."
Once an unacceptable report has appeared, the department generally responds with often clunky efforts at damage control, threatening editors or prohibiting others from running it.
This spring, for example, propaganda officials forced Southern Weekend to suspend its press run after they got wind of a front-page exposé of corruption at Project Hope, a government-backed educational charity that is unrelated to the American charity of the same name.
The department subsequently issued a ban on the topic. But copies of the story circulated widely on the Internet and among intellectuals, giving the scandal a special cachet.
This summer's propaganda memo castigated an unnamed newspaper in Guangdong Province that called for constitutional protections for private property. The paper was "clamoring for private ownership, and that is utterly erroneous," the memo said.
Such conflicts are certain to increase. Journalism schools at top universities, which enjoy relative independence from day-to-day government interference, now aim to train fledgling reporters in Western-style journalism, instructors say, and allegiance to the Communist Party is not part of the curriculum.
Assigned readings include articles reprinted from Western newspapers that would almost certainly be unprintable in the state press, on topics from AIDS to local corruption.
"The younger generation of journalists is made up of people who don't put much stock in their relationship to the propaganda department," said one young reporter. "They obey when they have to, but otherwise their focus is on putting out articles that people want to read."
With an increasing number of competing newspapers on sale, editors who do not test limits to attract readers inevitably lose out.
"Yes, there is pressure from the government, but there is also commercial pressure, and they need to consider readers' tastes and interests to make money," said Yu Guoming, a journalism professor at People's University in Beijing, who said market concerns and professionalism had profoundly changed journalism in the last five years.
He added that the Communist Party has always seen propaganda as vital to its success and is unlikely to abandon that weapon soon. "The Communist Party rose on propaganda and they really believe that power comes from controlling guns and pens," Mr. Yu said. "That is especially true now, at this crucial time, since today's leaders lack confidence in their ability to maintain control."
Even now, on issues deemed threatening to the party's dominance, discipline can be swift. Journalists in Henan Province who reported on the local AIDS epidemic were fired. But government censure can often be a calling card rather than a black mark, and most have since landed good jobs in Beijing.
Many journalists predict legal changes in coming years that will guarantee greater press freedom, as China's entry into the World Trade Organization opens its news media to more foreign competition.
Already, some magazines, like Caijing, have won a measure of protection from the propaganda machine, thanks to powerful government sponsors. Ms. Hu says her bosses at the government-backed China Stock Exchange Executive Council "understand that investors will not invest here unless they can get reliable news; so we have to provide that."
But such probing journalism has its hazards. The real estate company with good political ties sued Caijing for slander, and the magazine lost.
"It's two steps forward, one step back; but, in the last few years, it keeps getting better," Ms. Hu said. "As China's market economy develops, the media will gain more financial independence and, with it, freedom."
But perhaps she had forgotten items 23 and 24 of the "Problems and Concerning Reports" section of the propaganda department memo: "Chinese media should not be privatized"; and "Don't refer to media as a commercial business."
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Remaining structural defects
September 15, 2002
Washington Times
Cal Thomas
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20020915-7438505.htm
On last Sunday's "Meet the Press," Vice President Richard Cheney referred to highly classified intelligence, which he said would be enough to convince anyone of Saddam Hussein's evil intentions if it could be made public.
A good follow-up question would have been, "Mr. Vice President, speaking of intelligence, what is being done to improve ours?"
Former President George Bush told the "Today" show on NBC last week that he thinks the CIA, which he once headed, has been too harshly criticized for failing to sound the alarm about the September 11 terrorist attack. "What I didn't like was the blame game that followed," Mr Bush said. "I get so irritated by these Monday morning quarterbacks who come rushing in with what should have happened."
Two of those quarterbacks are members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. In candid interviews with the New York Times on Tuesday, Sen. Richard Shelby, Alabama Republican, and the committee chairman, Bob Graham, Florida Democrat, indict the CIA and other intelligence agencies for failing to warn authorities of the attack. Mr. Graham said: "We had significant blocks of information, but those blocks never got before a single set of eyes who could analyze them and put them together and see the pattern that was emerging from those individual blocks. That's going to be a very big challenge to see that we can break down our organizational and cultural resistance to achieve the purpose of getting maximum value out of the intelligence that we collect."
Mr. Shelby charged that intelligence agencies are dragging their feet supplying information to the committee, hoping to run out the clock on the current Congress so they won't be held fully accountable. "I think the failures in the intelligence are so widespread, so deep," he said, "that we owe the American people a searching job. Time is on the side of those people who've been investigated We were told that there would be cooperation and I question that. Most of the information that our staff has been able to get that is real meaningful has had to be extracted piece by piece."
If the senators are tired of waiting for the intelligence community to be more forthcoming, they should read a new book by reporter Bill Gertz of The Washington Times. Mr. Gertz, who may have more defense and intelligence sources in Washington than the congressional oversight committees, has written "Breakdown: How America's Intelligence Failures Led to September 11" (Regnery Publishing).
Mr. Gertz summarizes his remarkably detailed and well-sourced conclusions: "The intelligence failures of September 11 were the result of institutional, systemic and cultural problems within the U.S. intelligence community, made up of more than a dozen agencies. At its core, September 11 represented a failure of human intelligence-gathering, not analysis or technical spying."
This is not "Monday morning quarterbacking." This is an indictment of failure, sparked by institutional rivalries, self-preservation and even cover-up, which is what Mr. Shelby suggests.
Mr. Gertz writes of how Defense Intelligence Agency analyst Kie Fallis was blocked from issuing a terrorist threat warning that could have saved lives of American sailors killed in the October 2000 bombing of the destroyer USS Cole in Yemen. "Fallis fought hard with an entrenched bureaucracy to have a warning issued about an imminent attack, but DIA refused," Mr. Gertz reports. "The reason was office politics: He had dated a woman who wrote an astounding incorrect analysis the month before the Cole bombing, arguing that terrorists were not capable of conducting a small boat attack on a ship. DIA higher-ups said he pushed his analysis to contradict that of his ex-girlfriend. In reality, Fallis had developed a unique methodology that led him to conclude an al Qaeda attack was imminent."
Mr. Gertz reveals an internal letter from CIA spies sharply criticized the politically correct policies of CIA Director George Tenet. Numerous other CIA shortcomings and failures are detailed by Mr. Gertz.
These kinds of pettiness, inattention and incompetence led to September 11, a low-tech attack that could have been prevented. Learning what went wrong, and why, is essential to making sure that this sorrowful event is not repeated.
If the Senate Intelligence Committee continues to have problems extracting information from the CIA and other intelligence agencies, President Bush has the power to order them to cooperate, or to name an independent commission without an expiration date to learn the facts. Preserving American lives is more important than preserving the hide of government officials.
Meanwhile, reading Mr. Gertz's book gives congressional investigators and the rest of us a peek into the reasons behind September 11 and shows how it need not have happened.
Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist
--------
Notorious Brazilian Prison Closing
September 15, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Brazil-Prison-Closing.html
SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- Defiant to the end, the last inmates left Brazil's massive Carandiru prison Sunday shouting curses and banging on the walls of their bus as authorities closed the facility billed by prisoners as a ``university for crime.''
As the bus rolled out of Carandiru, police, guards and administrators watched them leave, smiling and clapping politely. A statement by state officials said it had been Latin America's largest prison.
After years of unrest, infighting and rioting, the state government decided to shut Carandiru down permanently. The prison gained international notoriety in 1992 when police killed 111 inmates during a prison riot.
Built in 1956 as a detention to center to house as many as 3,250 inmates awaiting trial, it quickly became an overcrowded prison housing -- at times -- as many as 8,000 convicted criminals.
``We are shutting down what can only be described as an inferno,'' Nagashi Furukawa, head of the state Prison Administration Department, said in a recent interview.
``It has been a breeding ground of lawlessness, organized crime groups and corruption where guards have no control over the inmates and where rehabilitation is all but impossible.''
Sanitary conditions in the prison grew so bad that that the government was forced to eliminate the kitchens, and hired a private contractor to deliver 8,000 meals a day.
There were some bright moments in Carandiru's history. In May 2001, 63 inmates married their brides in a mass ceremony behind bars. Many of the couples had met as pen pals and during prison visits.
But it's the terror and despair that is etched on the walls.
Standing in the empty yard of Pavilion 9 on Sunday, a prison warden pointed to a large hole in the wall where an iron gate used to separate him and his colleagues from the 1,600 prisoners under their watch. He was held hostage several times in the eight years he worked at Carandiru.
``All we had was God and those bars,'' said the warden, who asked to remain anonymous.
Roberto da Silva was on the other side of the bars, before becoming a prisoners' rights campaigner.
Abandoned by his mother, he grew up on the streets was in and out of young offenders' institutions more times than he can remember. He was locked up in Carandiru three times, the last stretch for eight years.
``This was the university of crime,'' da Silva said. ``Everyone's been through here at some point. It was the axis of communication for all the criminal factions in the state,'' he said.
``The size made it unmanageable for the authorities,'' said da Silva.
The state government has moved the prisoners to 11 new, smaller jails built across the state at a cost of $40 million.
Carandiru's closure isn't the end, though. Some 3,000 prisoners are kept in the adjacent state penitentiary, women's penitentiary and infirmary, which will all remain open.
But the rest of the prison will be demolished, transformed into a public park. Four other prison blocks will be converted into cultural and educational centers.
-------- terrorism
Suspects Said to Be Awaiting Order to Attack in U.S.
New York Times
September 15, 2002
By PHILIP SHENON
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/15/national/15INDI.html
WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 - Five Arab-American men charged today with operating an active Al Qaeda terrorist cell in western New York received weapons training in Afghanistan in the summer of 2001 and had been sent back to the United States to await the order for an attack on American targets, federal law enforcement officials said today. The five suspects, all of them born in the United States and of Yemeni descent, were arraigned today in Buffalo on federal charges of providing "material support" to terrorists. They were arrested on Friday night in raids on their homes and businesses in Lackawanna, a suburb of Buffalo that has a large Yemeni community and where the suspects lived within a few blocks of one another.
The arrests in New York suggest that, for the first time since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Justice Department may have detected and shut down an active Qaeda terrorist cell in the United States.
Law enforcement officials in Washington said they had no evidence to suggest that any attack by the group was imminent.
"We have not seen any plans of an imminent attack in western New York or elsewhere in the United States," the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, said in announcing the arrests. But he added, "We do not fully know the intentions of those who are charged today."
Federal officials in Washington said they were tipped to the existence of the cell by two other members of the group, who were cooperating with the authorities.
Those two have said that members of the Lackawanna cell trained together in June 2001 at Al Farouk training camp near Kandahar, law enforcement officials said. The officials said the pair had reported that while they were at the camp, Osama bin Laden had visited, delivering a speech in which he repeated his familiar call for a holy war against the United States and Israel.
At a news conference at the Justice Department, Larry Thompson, deputy attorney general, said that the five men had received training at the camp in the use of "Russian assault rifles, handguns and long-range rifles."
Among the other young Muslim men who trained at Al Farouk in the summer of 2001 was John Walker Lindh, who was captured in Afghanistan by American forces late last year and has since pleaded guilty to taking up arms against the United States as a soldier in the Taliban army.
As part of his plea agreement, Mr. Lindh agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department; federal officials would not comment today on whether information provided by Mr. Lindh helped lead investigators to the men arrested in upstate New York.
Mayor John Kuryak of Lackawanna said today that he was informed six months ago that the F.B.I. was conducting an investigation in the city, an old steel town southeast of Buffalo.
"When you first hear about it, you do get that initial shiver," Mr. Kuryak said. "You almost tell yourself, `Not in my backyard, not in my community.' "
But while federal authorities were reported to have had the city's large Yemeni community under scrutiny for several months, federal law enforcement officials in Washington said that the information that led to the arrests was received only in the last several days.
That information, apparently from the two cooperating witnesses, had been among the factors that led to the Bush administration's decision on Sept. 10 to raise the nationwide terrorist alert status to "orange," symbolizing a high risk of a terrorist attack, officials said.
Mr. Thompson cautioned today, however, that "the elevation of our status alert was made after considering a number of factors" and that the discovery of the Lackawanna cell had "not specifically" led to the nationwide warning on Tuesday, the day before the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Officials said the initial investigation began on the basis of information from within the Muslim community of Lackawanna and nearby communities in western New York that people loyal to Mr. bin Laden and Al Qaeda might be living among them.
At the news conference in Washington, Mr. Thompson and other officials repeatedly praised the cooperation received from American Muslims in New York and elsewhere in the search for terrorists on American soil.
"I want to thank the Muslim community of Buffalo for their extraordinary cooperation," he said, offering few details on the nature of that cooperation and adding that the arrests "send an unambiguous message that we will crack down on terrorists where they hide."
The five men arrested on Friday were identified as Yahya Goba, Sahim Alwan, Shafal Mosed, Yasein Taher and Faysal Galab.
They were charged with violating a federal statute that makes it a crime to provide "material support" to a designated foreign terrorist organization like Al Qaeda. In this case, the men are charged with providing support in the form of their participation in training at the camp in Afghanistan.
In 1996, when the law was passed, Congress broadly defined material support to include almost anything of value except for medicine or religious materials - a list that included the provision of "personnel" or "training" to a foreign terrorist organization.
If convicted, each of the men would face up to 15 years in prison.
The Justice Department's description of the case today suggested that at least one other member of the Lackawanna cell was still at large. According to that account, eight members of the cell - the five men under arrest, the two cooperating witnesses, as well as another unidentified man - traveled together to Afghanistan last year.
Mr. Thompson hinted that other arrests of members of the cell might be imminent.
"I want to emphasize that the investigation of the Buffalo cell is ongoing," he said. "We are working to develop additional evidence and information about the activities of this cell."
--------
Arrests Raising Hopes in Hunt for Al Qaeda
New York Times
September 15, 2002
By DAVID JOHNSTON with DOUGLAS FRANTZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/15/international/asia/15TERR.html
WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 - The capture of Ramzi bin al-Shibh in Karachi gives American investigators and their allies an unexpected chance to strike a major blow against the Qaeda network in Europe and Southeast Asia, according to intelligence officials and diplomats.
His arrest, coming at the same time as those of five American citizens of Yemeni descent in Buffalo, also provides a lift to the government's counterterrorism operation, which has often been criticized in the last year for its inability to penetrate Al Qaeda or determine whether Osama bin Laden is alive or dead.
Officials said Mr. bin al-Shibh's significance is that he might be one of the few people still alive with intimate knowledge of the Sept. 11 plot.
But his potential importance appears to go well beyond that. His name has also come up in connection with other Qaeda operations in Europe and North Africa, including a recent bombing in Tunisia, according to German and Spanish investigators. He may be able to provide the names and location of Qaeda associates across Germany, Spain and Southeast Asia.
"One by one, we are hunting the killers down," President Bush said this morning at Camp David, during an appearance with the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. "We are relentless, we are strong, and we are not going to stop."
In April, the Spanish police said they found his telephone number when they arrested the chief financier of Al Qaeda's Spanish operations. The financier is suspected of providing money for the Sept. 11 plot and other operations.
Mr. bin al-Shibh was in Spain at the same time as Mohamed Atta, one of the hijacker pilots, in July 2001. Although there is no hard evidence that they met, American and Spanish investigators said they believed that the two men and several others who are unidentified met to discuss final plans for the American attacks.
In Buffalo, criminal charges filed today against five American citizens of Yemeni descent accused them of traveling to Afghanistan in the summer of 2001 for weapons training. The charges represented the first substantive evidence since the Sept. 11 hijackings that an active Qaeda cell was operating in the United States. The discovery gave some credence to repeated government warnings that had proved empty up to now.
The twin breakthroughs in the antiterror investigation came at the end of a week in which Americans commemorated the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, were warned of a high risk of further attacks, and heard the Bush administration set out its arguments for taking the campaign against terrorism into Iraq.
Today, Mr. bin al-Shibh's legal status remained unclear. He was apprehended by the Pakistani authorities operating in coordination with the United States, but it was uncertain whether he was in Pakistani or American custody.
How Mr. bin al-Shibh will respond to interrogation is a critical and unresolved issue. In the past, it has taken long sessions to extract information from senior Qaeda prisoners, and some have refused to talk, according to intelligence officials.
Mr. bin al-Shibh has been charged in Germany with 3,000 counts of murder for his role in the attacks. The Germans today said they would ask for his extradition from Pakistan. But the Americans are sure to want him. The German interior minister, Otto Schily, recognized the problem today, saying, "if there are competing claims then we are going to sort them out." One issue in the conflict is that Germany and other members of the European Union do not have a death penalty, unlike the United States.
Mr. bin al-Shibh has also been identified as unindicted co-conspirator in the charges against Zacarias Moussaoui, the man accused as the suspected 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks. American officials, who expect that Mr. bin al-Shibh will be turned over to the United States, have not yet decided whether he will be charged in the United States with criminal violations or held as an enemy combatant.
Today, officials in Pakistan and the United States offered somewhat contradictory accounts of Mr. bin al-Shibh's arrest. By some accounts, the Pakistani authorities played a central role in an arrest in which Mr. bin al-Shibh was said to be found almost by chance. American officials said United States intelligence officials played a key role in helping the Pakistanis locate Mr. bin al-Shibh.
Mr. bin al-Shibh's obvious value to investigators will be in reconstructing the events leading up to the attacks. He could answer many of the lingering questions about the attacks on New York and Washington, ranging from Mr. bin Laden's exact role to who provided the money for the operation. The indictment against Mr. Moussaoui accused Mr. bin al-Shibh of wiring money to Mr. Moussaoui and one of the hijackers, Marwan al-Shehhi.
Interrogators are expected to focus hardest on getting information about Mr. bin al-Shibh's contacts with Qaeda cells as well as his knowledge of ongoing operations and methods of financing attacks and communicating with operatives in the field.
"If he cooperates, it will be a major breakthrough to efforts to break up the remnants of Al Qaeda in Europe and other places," a Western diplomat said in an interview today.
The Western diplomat said Mr. bin al-Shibh, a 30-year-old Yemeni, could be the most important Al Qaeda leader captured since the arrest of Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan. The American authorities said Mr. Zubaydah had provided important information, though the interrogation has been laborious.
In recent weeks, through interrogations of Qaeda prisoners at the American base in Cuba and information from witnesses in Germany and elsewhere, the authorities have pieced together a better picture of the Sept. 11 plot. They said in recent interviews that Mr. bin al-Shibh was suspected of playing a larger role than was previously known.
Investigators said they also have photographs and credit card receipts indicating that Mr. bin al-Shibh met with two other hijackers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in January 2000. If true, that would mean he might knowledge of Qaeda operations in Southeast Asia.
More recently, the German police said his number had been discovered in raids conducted in the German city of Duisburg in connection with Qaeda-sponsored suicide bombing outside a synagogue in Tunisia in April that killed 21 people.
A European intelligence official said earlier this summer that Mr. bin al-Shibh was also wanted for questioning in connection with the attack on the destroyer Cole in October 2000 in Yemen, near where he grew up. Mr. bin al-Shibh was in Yemen a month before the attack and applied for a visa at the American Embassy.
Mr. bin al-Shibh himself indicated that he has extensive knowledge of Al Qaeda's network and operational techniques in an interview broadcast this week on Al Jazeera, the Arab satellite television network.
In the interview, he indicated a willingness to talk that bordered on boasting, though the situation was far different from the interrogation he will face from the American authorities.
Speaking with confidence, if not cockiness, he described methods of communication and code words used as part of the Sept. 11 planning. He also displayed a suitcase containing what he described as "souvenirs" of preparations for the attacks - flight manuals, CD-ROMs for flight simulators and other material that he boasted the Hamburg cell had collected in preparation for the attacks.
Mr. bin al-Shibh said he had been disappointed not to have taken part in the suicide hijackings. He also spoke glowingly of Mr. Atta and Mr. bin Laden.
The network broadcast only audiotape from the interview with Mr. bin al-Shibh and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, another Qaeda leader. Al Jazeera said the interviews took place in June in Karachi. American officials said they believed that it was Mr. bin al-Shibh on the audiotape.
American intelligence officials long suspected that Mr. bin al-Shibh was in Pakistan, but he was last tracked early in September 2001. The Spanish authorities said earlier that he flew from Germany to Madrid on Sept. 5, but that they lost his trail.
Mr. bin al-Shibh was supposed to be the 20th hijacker on Sept. 11. Investigators say that in Hamburg he was a roommate and close associate of Mr. Atta, who piloted one of the planes that struck the World Trade Center and is the man suspected of organizing the attacks.
The German police said he traveled to Afghanistan for training in late 1999, the same time that Mr. Atta and two others suspected of involvement in the plot went there.
But Mr. bin al-Shibh was refused a visa to the United States four times. American officials have said the refusals were routine because the bar is high for Yemenis to get visas.
He then acted as logistics chief, investigators said, coordinating efforts in Europe and Southeast Asia and providing money to the man American prosecutors say was to take his place, Mr. Moussaoui.
Mr. Moussaoui is awaiting trial in the United States on charges of conspiring in the Sept. 11 attacks. Mr. bin al-Shibh could be an important witness against him.
Mr. Moussaoui trained in Afghanistan in 1998, and some investigators believe that he was recruited for the Sept. 11 plot by Mr. bin al-Shibh. Records show that on Dec. 2, 2000, Mr. bin al-Shibh traveled to London, where Mr. Moussaoui was living.
The two men left London on separate flights a week later, Mr. bin al-Shibh returning to Germany and Mr. Moussaoui flying to Pakistan. After picking up $35,000 in cash, Mr. Moussaoui went to the United States to enroll in flight school.
Mr. bin al-Shibh later wired nearly $15,000 to Mr. Moussaoui in the United States, just as he had wired money to one of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Marwan al-Shehhi, in Florida a few months earlier.
--------
Suspected terrorists linked to al Qaeda camp
September 15, 2002
By Ben Dobbin
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020915-98672688.htm
BUFFALO, N.Y. - Five American men of Arab descent charged yesterday with supporting terrorism were trained to use assault rifles and other weapons at an al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan where Osama bin Laden spoke about his anti-American beliefs, authorities said.
U.S. Magistrate H. Kenneth Schroeder unsealed a criminal complaint against the five men, who appeared in court yesterday. They are in their 20s, of Yemeni descent and living within a few blocks of one another in the Buffalo area.
The men, dressed in casual clothes and handcuffed and shackled, quietly answered "yes" or "no" as Judge Schroeder asked whether they could afford lawyers.
The judge entered a "not guilty" plea for each man and set a detention hearing for Wednesday. He ordered the men jailed until then.
Charged were Shafal Mosed, 24; Faysal Galab, 26; Sahim Alwan, 29; Yasein Taher, 24; and Yahya Goba, 25. If convicted, each could face as long as 15 years in prison.
Officials did not say what support the men were suspected of providing. However, they said the discovery of the cell was connected to information that also prompted the Bush administration to raise the United States' terror alert to "code orange" - the second-highest - on the eve of the September 11 anniversary.
Deputy Attorney General Larry D. Thompson announced yesterday that the men had trained at an al Qaeda terrorist camp in Afghanistan where bin Laden gave a speech promoting his anti-American and anti-Israeli views.
"The United States law enforcement has identified, investigated and disrupted an al Qaeda trained terrorist cell on American soil," Mr. Thompson said at a news conference in Washington.
FBI Special Agent Edward J. Needham wrote in the complaint that unindicted co-conspirators had told him Mr. Goba, Mr. Alwan, Mr. Mosed and Mr. Taher attended al Qaeda's al-Farooq terror training camp near Kandahar, Afghanistan, where they were trained to use Kalashnikov assault rifles, handguns and long-range rifles.
One of the three co-conspirators said Mr. Mosed also trained to use heavy artillery and that bin Laden spoke to the trainees, the agent said. The co-conspirators are not named, but two are described as U.S. citizens.
Agent Needham said that in one interview, Mr. Alwan "stated that he and his friends had attended terrorist camps" in the spring and summer of 2001.
It was the same camp John Walker Lindh attended, but officials declined to say whether Lindh assisted with the investigation.
About a half-dozen family members rushed from the court after the hearing, declining comment.
Just before the hearing in U.S. District Court, a carload of people drove by the federal building chanting: "U.S.A, U.S.A." Three members of the protest group Act Now to Stop War and End Racism silently held signs reading "Stop the racist witch hunt" from across the street.
"It's taking away people's rights for due process under the law, and you see it happening here, where people are being tried in the press before any evidence is revealed," said Beverly Heistand, of Buffalo.
Officials said that although they had evidence of contacts with foreign terrorists and training, there was no evidence the men arrested in the Buffalo area were in the midst of starting an attack.
Mr. Thompson, in Washington, said the investigation stemmed from information "indicating that a number of individuals" from the area had participated in weapons training last year at a terrorist camp in Afghanistan.
Citing the complaint filed against the men, Mr. Thompson said two of the men confirmed that they and six associates attended a training camp in Afghanistan and that bin Laden visited the camp.
"We do not want to get into the details of the investigation, but we have had great cooperation from the Muslim-American community and we appreciate that a great deal," Mr. Thompson said.
The five men were arrested Friday night after federal agents raided several houses and a social club. Agents were seen taking two boxes and a blue cooler from an apartment above an Arabian foods deli.
John Kuryak, mayor of the Buffalo suburb of Lackawanna, said the FBI told him six months ago that agents were investigating a national security matter in the area.
Relatives of the men denied they were involved with the al Qaeda terrorist group. Albaneh Mosed said FBI agents burst into his home and arrested his brother, Shafal Mosed.
"If he was a terrorist, I'd be the first to know," he said. He said his brother, who is married with a 3-year-old, attended community college and worked as a telemarketer. "He's a peaceful person."
Ahmed Jamil said he was painting a house when FBI agents raided it Friday night looking for a man in his 20s. He said the man occasionally filled in for the leader at the Lackawanna Islamic Mosque, two blocks away. Mr. Jamil said he didn't believe any of the men had ties to the al Qaeda network.
Phone messages at the mosque were not immediately returned.
Mohamed Albanna, a local civic leader and member of the Yemenite Merchants Association, said he knew many of the people targeted in the federal investigation.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- environment
With White House Approval,
E.P.A. Pollution Report Omits Global Warming Section
New York Times
September 15, 2002
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/15/politics/15CLIM.html
For the first time in six years, the annual federal report on air pollution trends has no section on global warming, though President Bush has said that slowing the growth of emissions linked to warming is a priority for his administration.
The decision to delete the chapter on climate change was made by top officials at the Environmental Protection Agency with White House approval, White House officials said.
"Some people at pretty high levels in my organization were saying, `Take it out,' " said an E.P.A. official outside Washington who helped prepare the report. Others at the agency confirmed his account.
Agency officials say the decision was made for two reasons: the agency has issued two other reports on climate this year, and the annual report is mainly meant to track pollutants that directly threaten people or ecosystems - substances like lead, carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain.
The report, released early this month, is an overview intended for the public that draws on more detailed E.P.A. data on air pollution trends. Most emissions have been sharply reduced in the last decade, but not carbon dioxide, the heat-trapping gas that most scientists say is the main contributor to global warming. Most carbon dioxide comes from burning fossil fuels.
Industry lobbyists are praising the decision. Coal, oil and car companies say carbon dioxide, which occurs naturally, should not be labeled a pollutant. But environmental groups say the omission reflects the administration's close ties with industry.
"White House censors may have made global warming disappear from this report, but that won't make it disappear as a serious threat to our environment," said Jeremy Symons, an authority on climate policy at the National Wildlife Federation.
Mr. Bush said last year that carbon dioxide appeared to be linked to rising temperatures, and he has since said that voluntary measures should be taken to slow emissions but that the evidence is not yet clear enough to require reductions.
The new report, "Latest Findings on National Air Quality: 2001 Status and Trends," is online, with those from previous years, at: epa.gov/airtrends/reports.html.
Published since the 1970's, the reports have focused on air pollution restricted under the Clean Air Act as directly harming human health or ecosystems. But starting in 1996, the report also included sections on emissions that affect the global atmosphere, including chemicals that damage the ozone layer and carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
The latest report has a section on the ozone-depleting chemicals, which are rapidly being reduced under the 15-year-old Montreal Protocol. But there is no section on climate change.
Global warming is mentioned twice: once in a note in fine print at the bottom of the table of contents, listing agency Web sites with climate data, and once in a paragraph that refers, apparently by mistake, to the omitted section on climate.
"Although the primary focus of this report is on national air pollution," the paragraph says, "global air pollution issues such as destruction of the stratospheric ozone layer and the effect of global warming on the earth's climate are major concerns and are also discussed."
Environmental and conservative groups have accused the administration of sowing confusion on the climate issue.
In late May, the White House approved a climate report that was then submitted by the State Department to the United Nations, though it contained far more dire projections of harm from global warming than Mr. Bush had publicly accepted. The president quickly distanced himself from the report, saying it was "put out by the bureaucracy." New copies of the report have been changed to emphasize scientific uncertainty about the effects of global warming. Some officials at the E.P.A. said the handling of that State Department report heightened concern about climate documents, prompting the changes in the new report.
"There's a complete paranoia about anything on climate, and everything has to be reviewed widely," an agency official said.
Other officials said the report was changed to avoid redundancy with earlier documents and to draw a line between carbon dioxide and pollutants that fall under air quality rules.
The annual report focuses on pollutants "that pose a local and regional threat to human health and the environment," said Joe Martyak, a spokesman for the agency. "The whole issue of climate change doesn't fall under that category."
The change in the document was welcomed by Myron Ebell, an authority on climate policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
"After such a long string of disasters on climate, this is the first glimmer of good news," he said. "If they have now gotten clear with the E.P.A. that they're not in the business of regulating CO2, that's a hopeful sign."
-------- ACTIVISTS
Riot Police Fire Rubber Bullets at Basque Demo
September 14, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-spain-basques.html
BILBAO, Spain (Reuters) - Riot police fired rubber bullets and tear gas on Saturday to disperse more than 10,000 demonstrators protesting against Spain's crackdown on Basque separatist party Batasuna over alleged links to ETA.
Protesters chanting ``Independence'' hurled bottles, stones and litter bins at hundreds of Basque police who blocked the march with a wall of riot shields, complying with a Spanish High Court judge's order to prevent the demonstration.
Judge Baltasar Garzon last month suspended Batasuna for three years, and outlawed protests by supporters, on evidence the party funds armed separatist group ETA, which has killed over 800 people in a campaign for an independent Basque nation.
``We are protesting against the loss of fundamental political freedoms in the Basque Country,'' said Unai, 27, a student. ``This protest shows that the people oppose the authoritarian policies of the Spanish government.''
The demonstration in the industrial port of Bilbao had started peacefully beneath a giant banner reading ``Long Live the Basque People.'' Crowds applauded as nationalist leaders paraded silently behind a huge red, white and green Basque flag.
Trouble flared only half an hour later, when heavily armed police in red helmets and wielding batons barred the course of the march. A handful of protesters stripped naked and taunted the Ertzaintza, or Basque police, who responded with blows.
Violent skirmishes ensued as police chased demonstrators into neighboring streets, where protestors burned barricades. Authorities said at least three arrests were made.
Police used water cannon and tear gas to try to break up the protest, but the thousands of protestors refused to disperse. Some demonstrators had wounds and bruising from rubber bullets clearly visible on their faces and bodies.
``Today we have seen who is defending human rights,'' Batasuna leader Arnaldo Otegi told the crowd in a closing speech before the protest finally dissipated. ``There will be new demonstrations and new opportunities. We ask you that this should end peacefully.
RIFT BETWEEN MODERATE, RADICAL BASQUES
Batasuna denies being ETA's political wing, but Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's center-right government and crusading judge Garzon say they have much evidence linking the two.
Aznar's Popular Party government, backed by the country's mainstream political parties, recently passed a law aimed at banning Batasuna for refusing to condemn violent acts by ETA.
Although the moves to ban a democratically elected party, which commands a tenth of the vote in the Basque country, have won backing from Spaniards weary of ETA violence, they have raised concerns elsewhere.
Garzon's ban on pro-Batasuna demonstrations prompted Amnesty International to warn Spain it risked ``undermining fundamental freedoms.''
The most immediate effect of Saturday's police action was to deepen the rift between Batasuna's radical nationalist supporters and the more moderate ranks of the Basque region's ruling PNV party.
Although the PNV has protested at Madrid's clampdown on Batasuna, it finally bowed to political pressure from Madrid to declare the march illegal. Spain's government had warned it would consider a failure to do so a serious offence after Basque authorities allowed a smaller protest last weekend.
On Friday, Basque authorities had said they would merely serve the organizers of the march with a copy of Garzon's order.
But in an apparent climbdown, the Basque region's moderate nationalist government said in a statement on Saturday that it had told the Ertzaintza force to take ``the necessary measures to prevent the celebration of the march.''
The decision angered many people in the crowd.
``The march had barely begun when the police started firing rubber bullets at the crowd,'' said one middle-aged Basque woman, who refused to give her name. ``They are like fascists. All the PNV care about is money and power.''
Hundreds in the crowd chanted ``The PNV are Spanish,'' a clear insult to any supporter of Basque nationalism.
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Palestinians March to Protest Curfew
September 15, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html
JERUSALEM (AP) -- With Israel on high alert for attacks on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, about 200 Palestinians defied an Israeli-imposed curfew to march through Nablus Sunday in protest of a new security checkpoint in the middle of the West Bank town.
In Jerusalem, meanwhile, an east Jerusalem Arab was indicted on suspicion of plotting to poison diners at a popular restaurant where he worked as a cook, a Justice Ministry spokesman said.
Also Sunday, Israeli forces moved into an area of the Gaza Strip east of Gaza City to take control of a major intersection, witnesses and the army said. Israeli bulldozers destroyed farmland, an irrigation pool and roads in the area. There were no casualties in the raid, which lasted four hours, witnesses said.
An Israeli army spokesman said part of the main north-south road in Gaza was damaged to prevent terrorists from moving within the territory, and to prevent mortar attacks. The spokesman said four mortar shells were fired at Jewish settlements overnight.
The Israeli daily Haaretz, on its English language Web site, reported that troops entered three separate points in the coastal strip and destroyed electrical infrastructure in Gaza City, leaving some residents without power. It cited accounts from witnesses.
The army allowed the Nablus march and it was peaceful, witnesses said. The Israeli military has enforced a round-the-clock curfew in the town for nearly three months, since it took over most of the West Bank towns in a bid to end attacks by Palestinian militants against Israelis.
Demonstrators shouted ``Free Palestine'' and ``Out with tanks.'' They complained that the new checkpoint, established two weeks ago, has severely hampered traffic between the eastern and western sides of Nablus, the largest West Bank city.
In nearby Tulkarem, shots were fired at an Israeli helicopter hovering over houses in the town, witnesses said. No one was injured, but the helicopter suffered minor damage.
A military official said Israeli forces were on high alert for terror attacks on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement which lasts this year from Sunday night to Monday night. Israel has been tightening its closure of Palestinian areas during Jewish holidays for fear of attacks.
For many Jews, Yom Kippur is a time for prayer and somber reflection, and much of Israel shuts down for the duration. There is no public transport -- bus and train services were to stop on Sunday afternoon. Ben-Gurion International Airport closed at 2 p.m. Sunday with flights to resume Monday night. Empty streets fill with children riding bicycles.
Before the onset of Yom Kippur, an east Jerusalem Arab was indicted in a Jerusalem court of allegedly plotting to poison diners at a popular Jerusalem restaurant, said Justice Ministry spokesman Jacob Galanti.
Othman Kianiya, 22, a cook at Cafe Rimon, was the third man indicted as part of an alleged plot to poison drinks with a substance that slows the heart rate and can be fatal if ingested in large doses, Galanti said. In court, Kianiya told reporters: ``I didn't do anything ... They didn't find any substance.''
According to an indictment of the two other men last week, Kianiya was to dissolve Digoxin tablets -- which are used to regulate the pace of the heartbeat but are fatal if an overdose is taken -- in the drinks of diners.
It says Kianiya and his accomplices planned to test the drug on cats first. The other men, Soufian Abdu, 23, and Mussa Nasser, 22, are believed to have worked with the militant Palestinian group Hamas on the plan.
The three men were also alleged to have planned a suicide bomb attack on a procession of right-wing Israelis last month. That plot was clocked by Israeli authorities before it was carried out, officials said.
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