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NUCLEAR
Warren Buffett Moves to Help Group
Officials Say Asteroids May Confuse
A dangerous trade
Iraqi children live in fear of bombings
NATO Soldiers from Europe to Sue USA
Pakistan Tests Medium-Range Ballistic Missile
History of Pakistan Missile Program
India Test-Fires Surface Missile
India and Pakistan Test Missiles
Israel's arms inspector
U.S. Envoy Meets N.Korea's No. 2
Nuclear Stockpiles
FirstEnergy: Nuke Repairs Will Hurt Earns
Excerpts of Speeches Made on Senate Floor
Impasse Over Homeland Security
MILITARY
3 Killed in Renewed Fighting Between Afghan Groups
Ivory Coast Rebels Agree to Cease-Fire
U.N. Tribunal, With Surprise Guilty Plea, Rivets Bosnians
Closer Ties With China May Help U.S. on Iraq
U.S. to Train Colombia's New Commando Unit
New Role for U.S. in Colombia: Protecting a Vital Oil Pipeline
Iraq Has Bioweapons, U.S. Spies Say
Powell Wants New U.N. Plan on Iraq
Iraq Urges Security Council: Be Brave and Defy US
Clarke: Iraq already hiding weapons
Outside View: Bush's Iraq lies
Palestinian Urges Defiance; Plan to Grab Arafat Reported
NATO chief terms modernization as urgent
Pakistan Tests Medium Range Missile
Pakistanis Are Skeptical of Musharraf's Promises
Russian atomic city builds future on nuclear dreams
Russia Wondering What It Gets For Backing U.S. Against Iraq
Detention of Accused Spy Extended
CIA Accused of Obstructing Panel
Reports fail to reform intelligence agencies
Senator Insists C.I.A. Is Harboring Iraq Reports
Man arrested near U.N. after shots fired
U.N. Inspection Team Leaders Agree to Delay Return to Iraq
Military puts war preparations in high gear
Schools threatened
Court Might Not Rule On Correspondent's Refusal to Testify
Hague Tribunal Hears Arguments on Exempting Reporters
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Turkey Drops Death Sentence for Kurd
Prisoners: 9/11 Was First of Three
Shoe Bomber Admits He Tried to Blow Up Trans-Atlantic Jet
Terror Arrests Made in Oregon
ENERGY AND OTHER
UK offshore wind farms get green light, 20 mln stg support
High PCB levels reported in Alaska islanders
ACTIVISTS
Thousands of Workers Demonstrate in Paris
Peace Prize Panel Chooses Winner
More people find their voices in call to stop war
Retrospective Salutes an Indian Actress and Activist
-------- NUCLEAR
Warren Buffett Moves to Help Group Trying to Reduce Nuclear and Biological Threats
New York Times
October 4, 2002
By JUDITH MILLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/04/national/04BUFF.html
In a small but significant philanthropic gesture, Warren E. Buffett is opening his huge wallet to help support a group founded by Ted Turner and former Senator Sam Nunn whose aim is to reduce the threat of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
Calling the threat posed by nuclear and other unconventional weapons "the ultimate problem" confronting mankind, Mr. Buffett said yesterday that he had decided to give the group, the Washington-based Nuclear Threat Initiative, $2.5 million over five years and become an adviser to its board. His commitment to the group is to be announced on Friday.
"It's not that much money," said Mr. Buffett, American's second wealthiest man, who runs the investment company Berkshire Hathaway. But he said he hoped it would "encourage other businessmen to get involved" in confronting a challenge that "boggles the mind."
"The genie was let out of the bottle in the 1940's," he said, referring to the creation of the atomic bomb. While there was no "putting it back into the bottle," Mr. Buffett said, the "best answer is what Sam Nunn is doing."
The initiative was founded almost two years ago with a pledge of stock that Mr. Turner held in AOL Time Warner that was then worth about $250 million. Since January 2001, the group has spent roughly $37 million on projects such as helping secure nuclear material stored in Russia, helping create a revolving fund to respond quickly to infectious disease outbreaksand, most recently, removing highly enriched uranium from a poorly secured reactor in Belgrade to a safer site.
But the group has been hard pressed by the 77.9 percent decline in the price of AOL Time Warner stock. Mr. Turner has told the foundation that he would "do what he can to meet the $250 million commitment." But Mr. Nunn said in an interview, "There is no binding commitment beyond the number of shares." As a result, Mr. Nunn said, although the group was not cutting its staff of 32 and still planned to spend $30 million on projects this year and $25 million in 2003, it would be unable to undertake any expensive new projects. He said he would raise more money.
Given the fragile state of the stock market, Mr. Nunn said, "Warren Buffett's commitment is even more important than it would normally be at this stage."
Mr. Buffett said he had long been concerned about the danger posed by weapons of mass destruction but had not gotten involved because he did not initially believe the danger could be mitigated by money. As he came to know of the tive's work through his friendship with Mr. Nunn on the Coca-Cola board, he said he became convinced that the group's projects could make a difference.
"You don't want an Einstein or a Russian biological warrior to be starving," Mr. Buffett said, referring to American and international efforts to ensure that scientists with such deadly expertise are gainfully and peacefully employed. Investments in keeping such people and material out of harm's way, he said, "may increase the probability of getting through the next 50 years."
Mr. Buffett also supported President Bush's stance on Iraq, arguing that limiting the threat of Saddam Hussein's unconventional weapons might limit the danger he posed.
"If I thought the probability was high that a nation of some resources was developing really potent weapons to use against me, and that there was a high probability that he would use them, I think you have to act pre-emptively," Mr. Buffett said.
He declined to discuss what impact a war against Iraq would have on the economy. "People think I know what I'm talking about," he said. "So I have to be careful."
He said he looked forward to being consulted by Mr. Nunn and Mr. Turner as they saw fit. Mr. Nunn said Mr. Buffett's involvement with the initiative would be particularly valuable not only in fund-raising, but also in persuading pharmaceutical companies and other biotech concerns that it is worth investing in research and development efforts that rely on skills of former Soviet scientists.
Mr. Turner called Mr. Buffett to thank him for his gift to the initiative. "Ted comes in technicolor," Mr. Buffett said, adding that he admired him for thinking in terms of "big causes" and committing large sums to them.
-------- accidents and safety
Officials Say Asteroids May Confuse
By Paul Recer
AP Science Writer
Friday, October 4, 2002; 3:26 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41776-2002Oct4?language=printer
WASHINGTON -- At least 30 times a year, asteroids smash into the Earth's atmosphere and explode with the violence of a nuclear bomb. Now some officials are worried the natural explosions could trigger an atomic war.
Air Force Brig. Gen. Simon P. Worden told members of a House Science subcommittee that the United States has instruments that determine within one minute if an atmospheric explosion is natural or manmade.
But none of the other nations with nuclear weapons have that detection technology, and Worden said there is concern that some of those countries could mistake a natural explosion for an attack and immediately launch an atomic retaliation.
Worden, deputy director for operations of the U.S. Strategic Command, said there was the risk of such a mistaken atomic exchange last August when Pakistan and India, both with atomic bombs, were at full alert and poised for war.
Not far away, a few weeks before, Worden said, U.S. satellites detected over the Mediterranean an atmospheric flash that indicated "an energy release comparable to the Hiroshima burst." Air Force instruments quickly determined it was caused by an asteroid 15 feet to 30 feet wide.
"Had you been situated on a vessel directly underneath, the intensely bright flash would have been followed by a shock wave that would have rattled the entire ship, and possibly caused minor damage," Worden said in his testimony.
Although the explosion received little or no notice, the general said it could have caused a major human conflict if it had occurred over India or Pakistan while those countries were on high alert.
"The resulting panic in the nuclear-armed and hair-triggered opposing forces could have been the spark that ignited a nuclear horror we have avoided for over a half-century," he said.
Worden said the Air Force's early warning satellites in 1996 detected an asteroid burst over Greenland that released energy equal to about 100,000 tons of explosives. He said similar events are thought to have occurred in 1908 over Siberia, in the 1940s over Central Asia and over the Amazon basin in the 1930s.
"Had any of these struck over a populated area, thousands and perhaps hundreds of thousands might have perished," he said.
Worden said early warning satellites do a good job of detecting asteroid bursts in the atmosphere and that new equipment will be even better. He said the Air Force is working on an asteroid alert program that would quickly send information from the satellites to interested nations.
He said the Air Force is studying the establishment of what he called a Natural Impact Warning Clearinghouse that would be part of the North American Aerospace Defense Command communications center in Cheyenne Mountain near Colorado Springs, Colo.
NASA is in the midst of a 10-year program to find and assess every asteroid six-tenths of a mile or more in size that could pass close to the Earth and might pose a danger to the planet.
Such asteroids or comets are called "near earth objects" and if one struck the planet it could wipe out whole countries. An asteroid 1 mile across could snuff out civilizations, while one that is 3 miles across could cause human extinction, experts say.
Edward Weiler, head of NASA's office of space science, told the House committee that his agency has detected 619 near earth objects and is finding about 100 new ones each year. None poses a danger to the Earth.
Worden and others said that smaller asteroids also can be destructive. For instance, if an asteroid the size of a cruise ship smashed into the ocean it could cause huge waves, called tsunamis, capable of drowning coastal cities on two continents.
Worden called for a system of instruments and telescopes on land and in space that could scan the sky to find asteroids down to the size of 300 feet. He said telescopes and instruments weighing less than 150 pounds could easily be launched to establish an observing network.
On the Net:
Near Earth Objects: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/neo.html
-------- business
A dangerous trade
Senators Jesse Helms, Jon Kyl, John McCain, Richard Shelby, Bob Smith and Fred Thompson
October 4, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20021004-2475248.htm
Just as Congress is poised to authorize the use of force against Iraq because of its continued development of weapons of mass destruction, the House is about to consider legislation that will make it far easier for rogue regimes to acquire technology to build such weapons.
Passage of this bill, the Export Administration Act, would seriously hamper the president's ability to carry out his new national security strategy aimed at pre-emptively dealing with threats to the United States. Yet, some in Congress - and, remarkably enough, in the administration - are determined to push the bill through at the end of the congressional session.
The Senate passed the Export Administration Act just five days before the September 11 attacks. The bill was troubling enough then. But today, it is astonishing: It clearly does not reflect the fact that the world in which we live has changed dramatically over the past year.
The September 11 attacks made it obvious that those who hate freedom and democracy are willing to use any means to inflict mass casualties upon innocent civilian populations. And these terrorists would like nothing more than to obtain weapons of mass destruction to murder more innocent people. These unfortunate realities are the main impetus behind President Bush's strategy of pre-emption. It seems to us that 3,000 civilian deaths, a radical new national security strategy and an impending war are cause to rethink a bill that passed before September 11.
In addition, the U.S. government has released a number of recent reports that document how deficiencies in the U.S. export control system are exacerbating the problem of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. In fact, the bipartisan U.S.-China Security Review Commission concluded that the United States is a contributor to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction due in part to the relaxation of its export-control policies.
The pending Export Administration Act would only make matters worse. Administration officials recently confirmed that Iraq has sought to acquire thousands of specially designed aluminum tubes, which they believe were intended for use in Baghdad's nuclear weapons program, as components of centrifuges to enrich uranium. Under the bill, these aluminum tubes meet the criteria for "mass market" status and would be decontrolled. U.S. companies would thus be free to sell them without an export license.
Essentially, the bill requires the secretary of commerce to decontrol these "mass market" items (items that are available in large quantities in the United States). The president can make a determination that the item should remain controlled, but he must do so every six months. Items supposedly available from foreign sources are similarly decontrolled. For these technologies with "foreign availability" status, the president can maintain controls only for 18 months, after which the item is free for export without a license
The long list of items that meet one or both of these standards includes maraging steel, which serves a purpose similar to that of the aluminum tubes, nuclear weapon triggers, and glass and carbon fibers used in ballistic and cruise missiles.
As Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, recently informed the House Armed Services Committee, "It is manifestly absurd to decontrol the same technologies that we are worried about Saddam Hussein importing."
The danger in weakening our export-control system is also illustrated by another recent case. Last year, press reports surfaced that the Chinese firm, Huawei Technologies, assisted Iraq with fiberoptics to improve its air defense system. This is the same fiberoptic network that allied pilots in the no-fly zones have been bombing since last year.
During the 1990s, Huawei bought a number of dual-use items from the United States, such as high-performance computers and telecommunications equipment, including switches, chips and digital signal processing technologies. In other words, U.S. pilots are threatened by an Iraqi air defense network that could very well contain U.S. technology.
It is important that we develop a new export-control regime to regulate the flow of dual-use technologies from American companies to foreign sources in view of the new realities. A new Export Administration Act must find the appropriate balance between national security and trade. But it is clear that the bill currently being pushed through Congress is not the right vehicle to do so. Though it was crafted just over a year ago, it was, nonetheless, designed for a different era. Our country is now at war, and prudence demands that national security not be sacrificed for potential commercial gain.
• Sens. Jesse Helms (North Carolina), Jon Kyl (Arizona), John McCain (Arizona), Richard Shelby (Alabama), and Bob Smith (New Hampshire) and Fred Thompson (Tennessee) are all Republicans.
-------- depleted uranium
Iraqi children live in fear of bombings
Olivia Ward
STAFF REPORTER
Oct. 4, 2002 06:38 EDT
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?GXHC_gx_session_id_=77a9faa400711722&pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_PrintFriendly&c=Article&cid=1026146006289
]Photo] - SAD PLACE: An Iraqi woman sits with her son at the Basra Hospital for Women and Children. The boy has cancer, believed to be caused by weapons used against Iraq that contained uranium. - SALAH MALKAWI/GETTY IMAGES FILE PHOTO
BASRA, Iraq - In a southern suburb of this smog-ridden oil town, the shrill wail of an air raid siren surprises no one.
Women in long black abayas move purposefully along the burning pavements, their trailing robes raising puffs of dust. Two little girls play tag in the relentless sunshine, while their older brothers stroll in the shade, waiting for afternoon classes to begin.
"This happens every day," shrugs Amjed Mohammed, a tall, gangly 15-year-old. "There's nowhere we can hide, so we ignore it. We just hope they don't hit us this time."
In the impoverished Djun Gmhara neighbourhood, they speak from experience. Nearly three years ago, on Jan. 25, 1999, U.S. military jets launched missiles into the residential district, killing several people, including three children of one family.
Now, like the Basra airport - struck twice within the past week in an attempt to wipe out Iraqi air defences - Djun Gmhara has been patched up and life goes on with seeming normality in the face of U.S. preparations for a new war.
Yesterday, U.S. and British warplanes dropped thousands of warning leaflets on southern Iraq and bombed an air defence command centre after Iraq's military tried to shoot down planes that dropped the leaflets, the Pentagon said.
The U.S. Central Command said from its headquarters in Tampa, Fla., that a strike with guided bombs was launched at 4:30 a.m. EDT, 12:30 p.m. in Iraq, against a military air defence and operations centre near Tallil, about 260 kilometres southeast of Baghdad.
The U.S. Central Command said the target was a military communications hub for radar surveillance and anti-aircraft missile sites in the southern no-fly zone. They also said the strike was a response to Iraqi attempts to shoot down coalition aircraft that dropped 120,000 leaflets warning the Iraqi military against continuing to fire missiles and artillery at U.S. and British jets patrolling no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq.
"No tracking or firing on these aircraft will be tolerated. You could be next," said a sample leaflet, which included a drawing of a warplane firing missiles at a radar and anti-aircraft battery on the ground.
There have now been 46 strikes this year by U.S. and British aircraft policing two no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq set up after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Thirty-six of those have come in the southern zone, Reuters News Agency reported.
At the Basra airport, used by military as well as civilian aircraft, windows shattered in the recent air strikes have been replaced, and the shrapnel cleared out of the passenger terminal so that flights can resume from other cities in Iraq.
But, said Dr. Abed Al Kareem, deputy director of the Basra Hospital for Women and Children, "nothing is really normal in Basra. People are living with underlying stress and tension, because they can see the effects of war, and now there is a new threat. They know these things very well."
Unlike Baghdad, which was bombed during the Gulf War, and in Operation Desert Fox in 1998, Basra has repeatedly been targeted through more than two decades of hostilities with neighbouring Iran and then with the United States.
Basra lies on the Shatt-al-Arab, the main shipping route for food and commercial products between the Persian Gulf and Iraq.
Both Iran and Iraq have laid claim to islands in the channel. They were seized by Iran in 1971, and a decade later Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein decided to retaliate, attacking his neighbour, which was by then under control of a revolutionary Islamic government.
Between 1981 and 1988, Basra was in the middle of one of the bloodiest wars in the modern history of the Middle East: 375,000 Iraqis and more than 800,000 Iranians were killed or wounded, though the dispute was never resolved.
Today, statues of dead Iraqi soldiers stand around Basra's harbour, their arms pointing accusingly toward Iran. But nowadays the fingers of Basra's citizens are pointed in the direction of Washington.
"Not just the bombing, but illness is blamed on America," said Al Kareem. "Cases of leukemia and other cancers are rising steeply, especially in children. There are many abnormal births. People believe this is because of depleted uranium shells that have been fired at this region."
During the Persian Gulf War, Basra was hit by cruise missiles and air raids; much of the ammunition contained depleted uranium, used in armour-piercing shells.
A report by a German scientist claiming that the Basra region was contaminated made headlines in Iraq. In the city, it's an accepted fact among doctors as well as patients, particularly the dozen women each week Al Kareem said give birth to deformed babies at his hospital.
The fact that bombing, aimed at enforcing the no-fly zones which restrict two-thirds of Iraq's airspace, has continued throughout the 1990s only deepens the resentment.
----
NATO Soldiers from Europe to Sue USA
2002-10-04
Pravda
http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/10/04/37694.html
NATO soldiers from Europe suffering from cancer are going to open a court case next week against US firms, which did not warn them that the equipment they were handling was dangerously radioactive.
This case is not about Depleted Uranium, but radar systems, fabricated by Raytheon Company, General Electric Corporation, ITT-Gilfillan Inc, and Lucent Technologies. Lawyers Reiner Geulen and Remo Klinger, representing 450 soldiers who were exposed to radiation between 1958 and 1994 when handling this equipment, are to present their case on Tuesday.
The case is based around the fact that the soldiers were not warned that the radar tubes were not adequately protected against radiation.
The victims are seeking an elevated sum in financial compensation.
Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY PRAVDA.Ru
Related links:
PRAVDA.Ru Depleted uranium : New discoveries http://pravda.ru/cgi-bin/co.pl?action=out&from=http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/10/04/37694.html&to=http://english.pravda.ru/main/2001/05/24/5810.html
PRAVDA.Ru Iraq: Gulf War caused malignancies in children http://pravda.ru/cgi-bin/co.pl?action=out&from=http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/10/04/37694.html&to=http://english.pravda.ru/usa/2002/08/30/35611.html
The Independent (UK) : Depleted uranium found at Yugoslav bomb sites http://pravda.ru/cgi-bin/co.pl?action=out&from=http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/10/04/37694.html&to=http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=279212
Arabic News : WHO delegation in Iraq to investigate on cancer cases behind depleted Uranium http://pravda.ru/cgi-bin/co.pl?action=out&from=http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/10/04/37694.html&to=http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/010829/2001082912.html
Common Dreams : Depleted Uranium, Just The Tip of the Iceberg in Serbia http://pravda.ru/cgi-bin/co.pl?action=out&from=http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/10/04/37694.html&to=http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0131-05.htm
-------- india / pakistan
Pakistan Tests Medium-Range Ballistic Missile
From News Services
Friday, October 4, 2002
Washington Post; Page A24
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41727-2002Oct4?language=printer
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Oct. 4 (Friday) -- Pakistan said today that it had successfully test-fired a medium-range surface-to-surface ballistic missile.
The missile was described as the "indigenously developed" Hatf-IV (Shaheen-1). Jane's Defense Weekly says the missile, developed in Pakistan, has a range of 430 miles and can carry a 1,000-kilogram warhead.
"Prior notification of the test had been given to neighbors as well as some friendly countries," the Inter-Services Public Relations office said.
Nuclear-armed neighbors Pakistan and India have been locked in a tense military standoff, with about a million troops arrayed along their shared border, since an attack on India's Parliament last December that New Delhi said was carried out by Pakistan-backed militants. The device tested today is among a variety of medium-range missiles in Pakistan's arsenal, all capable of carrying conventional or nuclear warheads.
Both India and Pakistan conducted underground nuclear tests in 1998 and both say they have introduced nuclear weapons into their arsenals, but neither has specified the type or number of weapons.
"This is a sort of routine test," said Brig. Salat Raza, an army spokesman.
Pakistan last conducted a missile test in May, when it fired a surface-to-surface ballistic missile, called the Ghauri missile, which is also capable of carrying either a conventional or nuclear warhead.
At the time Pakistan and India were on a war footing, and the United States, among other nations, scrambled to avert an all-out war between the two.
Pakistan and India have gone to war three times in the last 55 years.
---
History of Pakistan Missile Program
The Associated Press
Friday, October 4, 2002; 9:55 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42653-2002Oct4?language=printer
Chronology of Pakistan's missile program:
1980 - Pakistan begins its surface-to-surface missile program.
1989 - Pakistan tests both the short-range Hatf-1 and Hatf-2 ballistic missiles developed in Pakistan but with the technical assistance of China.
1990 - United States ends military and humanitarian assistance to Pakistan to punish it for its alleged nuclear program.
1996 - Pakistan says its Hatf-2 has been inducted into its arsenal and is operational. It is capable of carrying both a nuclear and conventional warhead.
1997 - Pakistan announces it has developed a Ghauri long-range missile capable of hitting most targets in India.
1998 - Pakistan conducts underground nuclear tests in reply to India's tests.
1999 - Pakistan conducts flight tests of second-generation Ghauri missile.
2002 - Pakistan test-fires three ballistic missiles of varying ranges, all capable of carrying conventional and nuclear warheads.
Oct. 4, 2002 - Pakistan test-fires a medium-range surface-to-surface ballistic missile with a range of about 380 miles.
----
India Test-Fires Surface Missile
The Associated Press
Friday, October 4, 2002; 9:03 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42516-2002Oct4?language=printer
NEW DELHI, India -- India tested its most sophisticated surface-to-air missile from a remote testing range on the country's eastern coast Friday, the Defense Ministry said, hours after rival Pakistan conducted its own missile test.
The domestically built Akash missile was fired over the Bay of Bengal from India's testing range at Chandipur, a coastal town in Orissa state.
"It was a routine test. We are testing different parameters of the missile since the past fortnight," said P. K. Bandhopadhyaya, the Defense Ministry spokesman. "The missile is meant for air defense. It will be used by the army and air force."
India's External Affairs Ministry had called a news briefing earlier Friday to say it was "not particularly impressed" with what it called "missile antics of Pakistan" after Pakistan test fired a new surface-to-surface missile, capable of carrying a nuclear or conventional warhead to an estimated range of 380 miles.
Nirupama Rao, the foreign ministry spokeswoman, said the Pakistani test was aimed at gaining publicity before general elections next week.
India's stock markets hardly rippled at the news of the Pakistani test, mainly because India had received advance warning of it, according to an agreement between the two neighbors, and because tensions between them are already at a low point.
The Akash, meaning "sky" in the Hindi language, is one of five missiles being developed by India's Defense Research and Development Organization. It has a range of 15 miles and a capacity to strike several targets simultaneously.
The Chandipur missile testing range is located 750 miles southeast of New Delhi.
India's missile arsenal includes Trishul, a surface-to-air missile which targets aircraft and can counter sea-skimming missiles; the intermediate-range Agni, which can reach 1,500 miles; the short-range ballistic missile Prithvi with a range of 95 miles; and the anti-tank Nag missile.
India conducted five nuclear tests in 1998, causing international consternation and provoking economic sanctions by the United States and other Western nations, and is perfecting its missile delivery system. India's tests were followed by nuclear tests by Pakistan.
----
India and Pakistan Test Missiles
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS,
October 4, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-India-Missile-Test.html or
http://wire.ap.org/?FRONTID=ASIA&SLUG=PAKISTAN%2dMISSILE%2dTEST
NEW DELHI, India (AP) -- Close on the heels of a missile test by neighboring Pakistan, India on Friday tested its most sophisticated surface-to-air missile from a remote testing range on the country's eastern coast, a news agency said.
The indigenously built Akash missile, was ``successfully'' fired over the Bay of Bengal from India's testing range at Chandipur, a coastal town in Orissa state, Press Trust of India news agency quoted officials as saying. No further details were immediately available.
-------- israel
Israel's arms inspector
Hilary Wainwright
Friday October 4, 2002
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,10551,804336,00.html
Sixteen years ago this week, an agent of the Israeli secret police, Mossad, enticed the Israeli nuclear technician, Mordechai Vanunu, to Rome. The holiday ended abruptly when Mordechai was kidnapped and taken to Israel, where he was charged with espionage and treason and given a prison sentence of 18 years. His crime? In 1986 he had blown the whistle on Israel's nuclear weapons.
In the absence of any international inspection of Israel's nuclear capacity, Vanunu was our unofficial, DIY arms inspector. He is now held in Israel's highest security prison, having spent 12 of his last 16 years in solitary confinement. Neither the UN nor any individual member of the security council has questioned his imprisonment or demanded that Israel's nuclear capacity be opened to international inspection.
His story reads like a tragic thriller. But it's real life. As real as the fact that the Dimona nuclear weapons factory where Vanunu worked, together with the biological and chemical weapons factory in Nes Zion, is still not open to international inspection. In 1994 Jane's Intelligence Review, the world authority on the arms industry, confirmed that Israel has 200 nuclear warheads, making it the world's sixth largest nuclear power. The same politicians who now threaten military invasion of Iraq because of suspected nuclear weapons capacities, have not demanded inspection of Israel's known nuclear weapons.
The double standards that scream at you whenever you see the words "weapons of mass destruction" cannot be excused on the grounds that Israel is abiding by international regulations. Israel refuses to sign any treaty regulating the use of nuclear weapons. All correspondence concerning the nuclear non-proliferation agreement, the nuclear test ban treaty and other copiously negotiated agreements on weapons of mass destruction go into the Israeli government's rubbish bins. Yet Israel receives $3bn (£2bn) of aid, annually, from the US. This is despite legislation, the Symington Accord, to prevent US governments from granting aid to countries who develop nuclear weapons outside of international control and agreement. Sharon claims that, until there is peace in the Middle East, Israel will do what it likes with its weapons. Sharon's policies of occupation, past and present, of all surrounding territories, Palestinian, Syrian, Egyptian and Lebanese suggests that what he likes is aggression. And, unlike in 1991, he has already threatened a nuclear response to any Iraqi attack.
MPs defending Tony Blair's close relationship with President Bush claim that he has more influence "in the tent than outside". Many of them agree with anti-war campaigners that action in Iraq must be combined with action over Israel's violation of UN resolutions on Palestine. This month, the Vanunu committee in Israel will test Tony Blair 's transatlantic influence by asking Kofi Annan to apply the same UN arms inspection requirements that it is applying to Iraq, to Israel. Egypt has been making this demand for some time. It's a demand that requires support in the security council. Will our prime minister use his influence on Bush and support this reasonable request? I fear not.
But surely the British government could do something about Vanunu, and make up for the Thatcher government failure, after the kidnapping in 1986, to take any action over Mossad's flagrant breach of international law? The dossier on Iraq's nuclear weapons, on which Blair rests his case for armed intervention, relies explicitly on information from Iraqi whistleblowers. These men have been given the status of heroes. Meanwhile Vanunu has still not been granted the parole he was due three years ago. He is a prisoner of conscience. He signed a contract of secrecy at Dimona without being told the whole truth, and when he discovered the true nature of his work he spoke out. Amnesty International has been calling for his release for years. The British government has supported legislation that encourages whistleblowers to speak out in the public interest. It could now - applying Article 19 of the UN's International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on the freedom to impart information regardless of national boundaries - give its support to a man who has spoken out in the interests of the whole of humanity. A spokesman for the foreign office made it clear that it will not be supporting Vanunu's application for parole when it comes up on October 29.
Vanunu wrote a poem that described his transition from technician to citizen: "Rise and cry out... You are the secret agent of the people. You are the eyes of the nation." It is an appeal to all of us. · Hilary Wainwright is editor of Red Pepper. hilary1@manc.org The Vanunu campaign: campaign@vanunu.freeserve.co.uk
-------- korea
U.S. Envoy Meets N.Korea's No. 2
Reuters
Friday, October 4, 2002
By Martin Nesirky
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42036-2002Oct4?language=printer
SEOUL (Reuters) - U.S. special envoy James Kelly met communist North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's No. 2 on Friday in a move underscoring the importance Pyongyang puts on restarting dialogue with Washington after a two-year hiatus.
The North's official KCNA news agency said Kelly, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, paid a courtesy call on Kim Yong-nam, the nominal head of state, with other members of the U.S. delegation.
KCNA gave no further details on the talks, which come as North Korea has embarked on tentative economic reforms and pushed its long-closed diplomatic door ajar.
Kelly held a second day of talks in Pyongyang as the most senior U.S. official to visit North Korea since President Bush said in January the country was part of an "axis of evil."
Kelly, who arrived in Pyongyang Thursday and returns to Seoul Saturday, did not take reporters with him. So it was difficult to find out more about his meeting with Kim, who heads the presidium of the country's parliament and is second only to Kim Jong-il in the ruling hierarchy.
"We may be witnessing the beginning of an improvement in Washington-Pyongyang ties," Lho Kyong-soo, professor of international politics at Seoul National University, told Reuters. He said there were bound to be blocks along the way and many tough demands on both sides.
Senior South Korean officials said it was likely North Korea would give some ground to sustain the diplomatic momentum, although it was difficult to predict exactly where.
"North Korea knows well what the position of the Bush administration is," Assistant Unification Minister Rhee Bong-jo told reporters in the South Korean port city of Pusan, venue of the Asian Games.
"Therefore it is likely North Korea will make concessions in order to continue dialogue with Washington," he said.
Rhee did not elaborate on where Pyongyang might give ground.
But the head of the ruling Millennium Democratic Party, Hahn Hwa-kap, told foreign correspondents it could be on nuclear inspections or missile tests, with the North asking Washington to help it gain access to international financial organizations.
"If the mission could not be successful, James Kelly would not have decided to go," said Hahn. "He did not go to come back with empty hands."
SEOUL RETURN ON SATURDAY
Kelly and his nine-member delegation made the short flight out over the Yellow Sea and on to the North Korean capital from South Korea Thursday and held initial talks.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Kelly had talks Thursday with a delegation led by North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye-gwan and an informal dinner with the same foreign ministry officials that evening.
"His mission is...to explore comprehensive dialogue with North Korea and, based on close coordination with South Korea and Japan, to explain U.S. policy and seek progress on a range of issues of long-standing concern to the United States," Boucher said in Washington Thursday.
Boucher said it was premature to go into the substance of the talks and he did not say whether Kelly would meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
Kelly's team is set to return to Seoul Saturday after the highest-level dialogue between the arch-rivals in two years and the first such encounter under the Bush administration, apart from a brief meeting between Secretary of State Colin Powell and North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun in Brunei in July.
Kelly is scheduled to brief reporters in Seoul Saturday.
The Korea Economic Daily, a financial newspaper, said North Korea could ask Kelly to consider taking Pyongyang off the U.S. list of states Washington believes sponsor terrorism. That would smooth the path to international funds for the shattered economy.
Kelly's small U.S. military passenger aircraft flew to Pyongyang over the Yellow Sea rather than over the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone that has bisected the peninsula since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armed truce and where rail and road links are being reconnected.
Kelly was resuming a dialogue that tailed off in the last weeks of the administration of former president Bill Clinton after a visit to Pyongyang by then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in October 2000 for talks with Kim Jong-il.
President George Bush reviewed policy toward North Korea for five months before agreeing to resume dialogue, but it has taken another 15 months to set up the Kelly trip.
In January, Bush said North Korea, Iraq and Iran formed an "axis of evil" bent on sponsoring terrorism and spreading weapons of mass destruction.
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
Nuclear Stockpiles
New York Times
October 4, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/04/opinion/L04NUCL.html
To the Editor:
Re "The Greater Nuclear Danger" (editorial, Sept. 27):
I disagree with your suggestion that this administration is devoting inadequate attention to nuclear materials abroad.
President Bush personally secured President Vladimir V. Putin's agreement to increase cooperation on nuclear security. With President Bush's strong leadership, we are making the protection and disposition of nuclear materials a priority.
I am working closely with the Russian minister for atomic energy to complete security upgrades for nuclear weapons material by 2008, two years ahead of schedule. We are helping the Russian Navy secure its nuclear warheads by 2006.
Financing for nonproliferation activities under President Bush is the highest ever. But we cannot secure nuclear material faster simply by appropriating more money. We must work through the laws and bureaucracies of host countries, and we are often limited not by money but by their capacity to absorb the work.
SPENCER ABRAHAM Secretary of Energy Washington, Oct. 1, 2002
--
To the Editor:
You offer a comprehensive picture of the threat of the vast, poorly controlled quantities of fissionable materials that now exist throughout the world (editorial, Sept. 27).
As someone who worked in the atomic bomb project in World War II, I have long believed that foolproof control of these materials is essential to continued peace in the world.
How constructive it would be for the United States to propose an enhanced worldwide program through the United Nations that would truly control fissionable agents. If we backed such a proposal with money that is even 10 percent of what we would spend on a war with Iraq, there could be remarkable results. What better investment in our national security could we make?
This would be a program that would find worldwide support and good will. It would not serve to fragment the international community, as our present policies are now doing.
NORMAN D. CARTER
Poughkeepsie, N.Y.,
Oct. 1, 2002
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- ohio
FirstEnergy: Nuke Repairs Will Hurt Earns
October 7, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-utilities-firstenergy.html
AKRON, Ohio (Reuters) - FirstEnergy, citing higher than expected costs linked to extensive repairs at its Davis-Besse nuclear power plant in Ohio, warned on Monday the outage would cut into its earnings.
The Akron-based energy provider said the extra cost of replacing a corroded reactor vessel head at the plant, which has been shut since February, would add up to about $115 million in 2002 and 2003.
The company said the outage costs and replacement energy costs would reduce its 2002 earnings by about 46 cents to 53 cents per share.
The company also said because of additional work, it now expects the 925 megawatt Davis-Besse plant ``to be ready for restart early next year,'' rather than by year-end, as it had previously predicted.
-------- us politics
Excerpts of Speeches Made on Senate Floor
New York Times
October 4, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/04/politics/04ITEX.html
Following are excerpts from speeches yesterday by Senators Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, and Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, about the use of force against Iraq, as recorded by The New York Times. Their remarks were addressed to the president pro tem of the Senate.
Senator Byrd
Titus Livius, one of the greatest of Roman historians, said all things will be clear and distinct to the man who does not hurry. Haste is blind and improvident. Blind and improvident, Mr. President, blind and improvident.
Congress would be wise to heed those words today. For as sure as the sun rises in the east, this country is embarking on a course of action with regard to Iraq that in its haste is both blind and improvident. We are rushing into war without fully discussing why, without thoroughly considering the consequences, or without making any attempt to explore what steps we might take to avert a conflict.
The newly bellicose mood that permeates this White House is unfortunate, all the more so because it is clearly motivated by campaign politics. Republicans are already running attack ads against Democrats on Iraq. Democrats favor fast approval of a resolution so they can change the subject to domestic economic problems.
Before risking the lives, I say to you the people out there who are watching through those electronic lenses, before risking the lives of your sons and daughters, American fighting men and women, all members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, must overcome the siren song of political polls and focus strictly on the merits, not the politics, of this most grave, this most serious undertaking, this most grave, this most serious issue that is before us.
Mr. President, the resolution S.J. Resolution 46, which will be before this Senate, is not only a product of haste, it is also a product of presidential hubris. This resolution is breathtaking, breathtaking in its scope. It redefines the nature of defense. It reinterprets the Constitution to suit the will of the executive branch. This Constitution, which I hold in my hand, is amended without going through the constitutional process of amending this Constitution.
S.J. Resolution 46 would give the president blanket authority to launch a unilateral, pre-emptive attack on a sovereign nation that is perceived to be a threat to the United States. A unilateral, pre-emptive attack on a sovereign nation that is perceived to be a threat to the United States. This is an unprecedented and unfounded interpretation of the president's authority under the Constitution of the United States, not to mention the fact that it stands the Charter of the United Nations on its head.
Representative Abraham Lincoln in a letter to William H. Herndon stated: "Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose. When you allow him to make war at pleasure, study to see if you can fix any limit to his power and disrespect. After you have given him so much as you propose, if today he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him I see no probability of the British invading us. But he would say to you be silent. I see it if you don't."
The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress was dictated as I understand it, said Abraham Lincoln, by the following reason: kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars pretending generally if not always that the good of the people was the object. This our convention understood to be the most oppressive of all kingly oppressions. And they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter and places our president where kings have always stood.
Mr. President, if he could speak to us today, what would Abraham Lincoln say of the Bush doctrine concerning pre-emptive strikes? In a Sept. 18 report the Congressional Research Service had this to say about the pre-emptive use of military force: the historical record indicates that the United States has never to date engaged in a pre-emptive military attack against another nation. Nor has the United States ever attacked another nation militarily prior to its first having been attacked or prior to U.S. citizens or interests first having been attacked, with the singular exception of the Spanish-American War. The Spanish-American War is unique in that the principle goal of United States military action was to compel Spain to grant Cuba its political independence.
The Congressional Research Service also noted that the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 represents a threat situation, which some may argue had elements more parallel to those presented by Iraq today, but it was resolved without a pre-emptive military attack by the United States. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution grants Congress the power to declare war and to call forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions.
Nowhere, nowhere in this Constitution which I hold in my hand, nowhere in the Constitution is it written that the president has the authority to call forth the militia to pre-empt a perceived threat. And yet the resolution which will be before the Senate avers that the president "has authority under the Constitution to take action in order to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States as Congress recognized in the joint resolution, on authorization for use of military force following the Sept. 11 terrorist attack." What a cynical twisting of words. What a cynical twisting of words.
The reality is that Congress, exercising the authority granted to it under the Constitution, granted the president specific and limited authority to use force against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attack. Nowhere, nowhere was an implied recognition of inherent authority under the Constitution to deter and prevent future acts of terrorism. It's not in there. It's not in that Constitution. There's no inference of it. There's no implication of it for that purpose.
Think for a moment of a precedent that this resolution will set not just for this president - hear me now, you on the other side of the aisle - not just for this president, but for future presidents. From the day forward American presidents will be able to invoke Senate Joint Resolution 46 as justification for launching pre-emptive military strikes against any sovereign nations that they perceive to be a threat.
You'd better pay attention. You're not always going to have a president of your party in the White House. How will you feel about it then? How will it be then? Other nations will be able to hold up the United States, hold up the U.S.A. as the model to justify their military adventures. Do you not think, Mr. President, that India and Pakistan, China and Taiwan, Russia and Georgia are closely watching the outcome of this debate? Do you not think that future adversaries will look to this moment to rationalize the use of military force to achieve who knows what ends?
Perhaps a case can be made that Iraq poses such a clear, immediate danger to the United States that pre-emptive military action is the only way to deal with that threat. To be sure, weapons of mass destruction are a 20th century and 21st century horror that the framers of the Constitution had no way of foreseeing. But they did foresee the frailty of human nature. And they saw the inherent danger of concentrating too much power in one individual. They saw that. That is why the framers bestowed on Congress not the president the power to declare war.
As James Madison wrote in 1793, in no part of the Constitution is more wisdom to be found than in the clause which confines the question of war or peace to the legislature and not to the executive department. Beside the objection to such a mixture of heterogeneous powers the trust and the temptation, the trust and the temptation would be too great for any one man. That was James Madison. The trust and the temptation would be too great for any one man.
Mr. President, Congress has a responsibility to exercise with extreme care the power to declare war. A war against Iraq will affect thousands if not tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of lives and perhaps alter the course of history. It will surely affect the balance of power in the Middle East. It is not a decision to be taken in haste as we are being pushed today, as we are being stampeded today to act in haste. Put it behind us they say before the election. It will surely affect the balance of power in the Middle East.
It is not a decision to be taken in haste under the glare of election-year politics and the pressure of artificial deadlines. And yet any observers can see that that is exactly, that is precisely what the Senate is proposing to do, the Senate and the House. What a shame. Fie upon the Congress. Fie upon some of the so-called leaders of the Congress for falling into this pit.
Mr. President, the Senate is rushing to vote on whether to declare war on Iraq without pausing to ask why. We don't have time to ask why. We don't have time to get the answers to that question why. Why is war being dealt with not as a last resort but as a first resort? Why is Congress being pressured to act now? As of today, I believe 33 days before a general election when a third of the United States Senate and the entire House of Representatives are in the final highly politicized weeks of election campaign.
Why, as recently as Tuesday, Oct. 1, this past Tuesday, the president said he had not yet made up his mind. As late as last Tuesday he had not yet made up his mind about whether to go to war with Iraq. And yet Congress is being exhorted, is being importuned, is being adjured to give the president open-ended authority now. Give it to him now to exercise whenever he pleases in the event that he decides to invade Iraq. Where are we? Where are our senses?
Why is Congress elbowing past the president to authorize a military campaign that the president may or may not even decide to pursue? Aren't we getting a little ahead of ourselves? The last U.N. weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retained some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capability. Intelligence reports also indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons, but has not yet achieved nuclear capability.
It is now October of this year of our Lord 2002. Four years have gone by in which neither this administration nor the previous one felt compelled to invade Iraq to protect against the imminent threat of weapons of mass destruction until today, until now, until 33 days before Election Day. Now we're being asked, now we're being told that we must act immediately. We must put this issue behind us. We must put this question behind us. We must act immediately we are told before adjournment and before the elections. Why the rush? Why the rush?
Is it our precious blood which will spew forth from our feeble veins? No. Those of you who have children, those of you who have grandchildren, those of you who have great-grandchildren should be thinking. It's the precious blood of the men and women who wear the uniform of these United States, that blood may flow in the streets of Iraq.
Yes, we had Sept. 11. But we must not make the mistake of looking at the resolution before us as just another offshoot of the war on terror. We know who was behind the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. We know it was Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda terrorist network. We have dealt with Al Qaeda and with the Taliban government that sheltered it. We have routed them from Afghanistan. We are continuing to pursue them in hiding. So where does Iraq enter into the equation? Where?
No one in the administration has been able to produce any solid evidence linking Iraq to the Sept. 11 attack. Iraq had biological and chemical weapons long before Sept. 11. We knew it then. We helped to give Iraq the building blocks for biological weapons. We know it now. Iraq has been an enemy of the United States for more than a decade. If Saddam Hussein is such an imminent threat to the United States why hasn't he attacked us already?
The fact that Osama bin Laden attacked the United States does not de facto mean that Saddam Hussein is now in a lock and load position and is readying an attack on these United States. Slow down. Think. Ask questions. Debate.
In truth, there is nothing in the deluge of administration rhetoric over Iraq that is of such moment that it would preclude the Senate from setting its own timetable and taking the time, taking the time for a thorough and informed discussion of this crucial issue.
Senator Brownback
As we look and move forward on the issue of Iraq and war with Iraq and the potential of providing the president with military authorization, I hope the body and the members and people across the country and across the world look at the potential of a post-Saddam Iraq.
Senator Kerry of Nebraska, former Senator Kerry of Nebraska and I have worked when he was in the Senate with a group called the Iraqi National Congress, it's an umbrella group of opposition leaders, to try to bring to the forefront opposition groups, bring them together and move forward with the track that once Saddam is out, moving forward with the democracy, with human rights, with individual liberties for the people of Iraq.
And I think a lot of times we get caught too much in the, well, it's not whether we can get Saddam out, it's what are going to be the problems with doing this, and not seeing the upside potential. There's clear downside potential in taking on Saddam Hussein. There's no question about that - potential loss of lives, of our troops, our people, terrorist threats, potential loss of lives in the region, loss of life in Iraq. All of that is unquestionable and undeniable.
It is also unquestionable and undeniable that Saddam Hussein has killed a number of people already. He's gassed his own people. He's attacked Iran. He's gassed Iranian people. He continues to rule by fear. He's killed people within his own cabinet. He's killed people within his own family. This is a man familiar with evil and has exercised it greatly. . . .
As Secretary Henry Kissinger said at a hearing that we had last week, former Secretary Kissinger said, he views that if we go in and deal with Iraq it's going to have a very positive salutary effect on the war on terrorism. It's going to say to a number of countries that we're serious on dealing with terrorists, we're serious that countries that house and support terrorists are our enemies - you're either with us or against us in the war on terrorism.
And if we don't go at Iraq, that our effort in the war on terrorism dwindles down into an intelligence operation. We go at Iraq and it says to countries that support terrorists, there remain six in the world that are as our definition state sponsors of terrorists, you say to those countries: We are serious about terrorism, we're serious about you not supporting terrorism on your own soil.
This is going to be a big statement that we will make. It is with a great deal of difficulty and it's with a great deal of cost. But the option of doing nothing is far worse than the option of doing something and acting now. And the upside potential of our acting and helping allow the Iraqi people their freedom to be able to move forward with a democracy is significant upside potential within that region for liberty and freedom to expand throughout that area.
So while we have this debate on granting military authority to the president, which is going to be a significant debate in this body, and hopefully we'll look at all of the issues, and I think we will. Particularly things like is Saddam Hussein going to be able to get weapons of mass destruction to terrorists and out of the country to attack other people during this period of time.
I hope we'll also look at the downside of not doing something and the upside of helping people pursue freedom and liberty like what is the potential of taking place in Iraq and the democracy there.
I also want to point out to people, a number I don't know that are familiar with this, but Saddam Hussein does not control the whole country. He doesn't control the north of Iraq. He doesn't control the Kurdish region. It was reported a number of Kurdish troops that are there that are outside of his control. He has sporadic control in the south of the country - controls it during the day and then other times he doesn't.
His main control is in the center, in the Baghdad region of the country. This is not a homogenous population, nor is it completely under his authoritarian rule. We're going to be able to work with populations in both the north and the south to pressure and to build pressure in on him in the center of this country when we move forward in addressing and dealing with Saddam Hussein.
It is a big issue. It's a big issue for the country. It's a big issue for the world. It's a big issue for liberty. It's a big issue on dealing with a very militant strain of, a militant politicized strain of Islam in that region and particularly in Iraq that Saddam Hussein seeks to exploit - even though he himself would not be viewing himself as associated with it, he's certainly working to exploit that at this point in time. This is an important argument and discussion for this country and for the world.
--------
Impasse Over Homeland Security
New York Times
October 4, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/04/opinion/04FRI1.html
The prospect of war so dominates Washington that vital elements of the campaign against terrorism have fallen by the wayside. One victim is the drive to establish a new Homeland Security Department by consolidating disparate parts of the government into an agency to protect Americans from attack. Such a department has widespread support in Congress, but President Bush is foolishly holding up its creation by demanding complete freedom to hire and fire those working there. He claims that such power is needed to run the department properly. There is no basis for such a claim. Moreover, the Democrats have made key concessions on personnel management for the department in recent weeks that give the administration almost everything it wants. Yet Mr. Bush and his Republican allies are inexcusably filibustering a homeland measure that has a majority of votes in the Senate.
For months after Sept. 11 last year, Mr. Bush and the Republicans adamantly opposed efforts to create a department for domestic security. When support for such a measure grew, the White House shifted tactics. Behind closed doors it wrote a bill that would give radical new powers to the president to hire, fire and punish employees without due process and to hire people from the outside without respect to Civil Service rules. Since there were no consultations with the departments being consolidated, it was obvious that this demand came more from ideology than from a careful look at what was needed to run the new department.
A group of conservative Democrats has joined with Senator Lincoln Chafee, a Rhode Island Republican, to give Mr. Bush substantially what he wants. The bill would confer on him the power to decertify union affiliation for any federal workers because of national security concerns, but it would require him to declare that their mission had changed in a way that justified such a move. This is a wholly reasonable limitation. The bill would also give the new agency head more flexibility than now available to offer raises, shift someone's job or punish an employee. But it would also require a good-faith effort to consult with the employee or union and submit any disagreements to a federal panel whose members would all be appointed by him.
In trying to eliminate even these narrow limits on presidential prerogative, Mr. Bush has accused the Democrats of putting "special interests" - by which he means unions and workers - above the nation's security. But one might equally argue that Mr. Bush, in refusing to compromise, is making the nation's security secondary to the administration's union-busting conservatism. If the homeland security bill goes down, it will kill not only a vital consolidation of federal agencies but also such measures as an independent commission to investigate the Sept. 11 attacks and increased funding to protect container ports against possible nuclear bombs. In the waning weeks of this session, Mr. Bush should compromise for the sake of one of the nation's most urgent priorities.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
3 Killed in Renewed Fighting Between Afghan Groups
New York Times
October 4, 2002
By CARLOTTA GALL
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/04/international/asia/04AFGH.html
KABUL, Afghanistan, Oct. 3 - Fighting has flared again in northern Afghanistan, killing three people in the second clash in the region in a week, despite United Nations-led efforts to mediate a cease-fire.
Groups from the two main factions in the north vied for control of several villages in Samangan Province, 100 miles south of the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, according to one faction commander. Three people were killed and six wounded as fighting broke out again overnight and continued into the morning, said Gen. Abdul Saboor, operational leader of the Tajik faction.
As in previous clashes, the fighting has involved supporters of the Uzbek general Abdul Rashid Dostum and his Tajik foe Gen. Atta Muhammad, who are nominally allies in the post-Taliban government but remain rivals for power in the north.
Both leaders have been absent from the region during the latest fighting, which may account for the rise in tension. General Dostum has been in Turkey and Uzbekistan for more than a month visiting family. General Muhammad has been in the capital, Kabul, for the last week.
The latest fighting was sparked on Wednesday by an argument between two soldiers, said the United Nations spokesman in Kabul, Manoel e Almeida de Silva.
But General Saboor accused General Dostum's party of bringing 800 troops into the area and seizing control of five or six small villages, looting and damaging property on the way. Both civilians and fighters were injured, he said, but it was civilians who suffered most from the looting.
Members of General Dostum's party could not be reached for comment, but they have in the past accused General Muhammad of trying to extend his control.
General Saboor complained bitterly that the central government had failed to pay attention to the problems in the north, sending low-level, ineffective officials to mediate.
"We are always saying that we want peace and stability," he said this evening in a telephone interview, "but it shows the weakness of the central government - they just send a very weak envoy."
The United Nations representative in the area, Mervyn Patterson, who heads a joint security commission with the task of ending armed clashes, found himself scrambling to quell the latest outbreaks.
Accompanied by the operational commanders of both factions, General Saboor and his Uzbek counterpart Ahmed Khan, Mr. Patterson was just returning from organizing a cease-fire in one region of Samangan, when the latest fighting began Wednesday in another part.
The commission rushed to the area and managed to impose a cease-fire, according to Mr. Almeida de Silva, but fighting broke out again Wednesday night and continued into this morning. The commission returned to the area today and once more forced a halt, General Saboor said.
"We stopped the fighting and tomorrow we are going to try to disarm these people," he said.
In an agreement announced last month, the two factions said they would send joint forces to intervene in any local fighting and use force to disarm unruly commanders.
Fighting last weekend in the remote mountain area of Dar-i-Suf killed two and injured six, General Saboor said.
-------- africa
Ivory Coast Rebels Agree to Cease-Fire
Reuters
Friday, October 4, 2002; Page A24
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41205-2002Oct3?language=printer
BOUAKE, Ivory Coast, Oct. 3 -- Rebels meeting with West African mediators today agreed to an immediate cease-fire in their insurrection, which has thrown the region into turmoil since it began here two weeks ago.
Officials from five West African countries met with the rebels outside a school in their stronghold of Bouake after arriving aboard French military helicopters from Ivory Coast's capital, Yamoussoukro.
The commander who led the rebels' representatives, Tuo Fozie, said talks on the rebels' grievances would continue Friday in the capital, where the cease-fire agreement would be officially signed.
"We want a stable Ivory Coast in which everybody is Ivorian and everybody is equal," said Fozie, who is from Ivory Coast's largely Muslim north, which has long complained of discrimination by southerners.
President Laurent Gbagbo has said he is ready to agree to a cease-fire, but the government does not want a de facto division of the country between north and south, which the truce would imply.
Prime Minister Affi N'Guessan said he was waiting to hear about the cease-fire from the mediators before commenting.
Bouake, the country's second-largest city, fell to the rebels on Sept. 19 when their coup against Gbagbo failed. Hundreds of people have died and thousands have been displaced by the rebellion, which has exacerbated tensions in the multi-ethnic country of 16 million people.
-------- balkans
U.N. Tribunal, With Surprise Guilty Plea, Rivets Bosnians
New York Times
October 4, 2002
By DANIEL SIMPSON
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/04/international/europe/04BALK.html
BELGRADE, Serbia, Oct. 3 - Muslims in Bosnia, who were caught between Serbian and Croatian fronts during the wars that ripped up Yugoslavia in the 1990's, expressed surprise today at having seen the former Bosnian Serb leader Biljana Plavsic become the first high official to plead guilty of crimes against humanity before the United Nations tribunal in The Hague this week.
On Wednesday Mrs. Plavsic admitted persecuting people on political or religious grounds, part of a plea bargain that allows for seven other charges against her to be dropped while she remains free until sentencing in December. Although her vitriolic statements helped fuel the poisoned atmosphere that gave rise to "ethnic cleansing" of Muslims and Croats, she later turned against her wartime boss, Radovan Karadzic, who has eluded the tribunal's grasp for seven years.
Most Bosnian Muslims remain more interested in what happens to Dr. Karadzic and his alleged sponsor in Belgrade, Slobodan Milosevic, who is being prosecuted on genocide charges for his role in trying to carve out a "greater Serbia" in Bosnia.
"It's a big step forward that she admitted guilt," said Muhamed Huric, of Sarajevo, about Mrs. Plavsic.
Newspapers in the Bosnian Serb Republic and in Belgrade gave Mrs. Plavsic's admissions prominent coverage, but stuck to factual reporting. There was little comment on the event's significance and no call for other indicted Serbs to follow suit.
Bosnian Serb politicians, who believe prosecutors are biased against their people, were less restrained.
Mirko Banjac, a senior official in Dr. Karadzic's old party, which is expected to regain power in elections this weekend, denounced the tribunal for cutting a deal with Mrs. Plavsic. "It says more about the seriousness of the court than about anything else," he said.
Serbs in Belgrade and Bosnia paid more attention to the appearance of the Croatian president, Stjepan Mesic, as a witness for the prosecution in the Milosevic trial. By accusing Mr. Milosevic of being implacably committed to war, Mr. Mesic, the last president of pre-war Yugoslavia, may have strengthened the case against him.
Television viewers in the Balkans were riveted by the theater of a courtroom tussle between the men, accompanied by frequent laughter from Croatian and Serbian observers behind bulletproof glass.
Croatian politicians and newspaper columnists were divided in their assessment of the evidence given by Mr. Mesic, unpopular with some back home for urging Croatia to cooperate with the tribunal.
Prime Minister Ivica Racan, a reformer who refuses to extradite the general, Janko Bobetko, for fear it would bring down his government, gave Mr. Mesic's performance top marks. "It was a testimony of extremely good quality," he said, "and very important for establishing crimes as well as Milosevic's part in the horrors that were visited upon Croatia and Bosnia."
Others were simply unimpressed by what they saw as Mr. Mesic's failure to outwit his old adversary.
"It's not that Milosevic wiped the floor with Mesic," said Pavle Kalinic, a member of Mr. Racan's party. "But it was like a talk show with Milosevic as host."
-------- china
Closer Ties With China May Help U.S. on Iraq
New York Times
October 4, 2002
By JAMES DAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/04/international/asia/04CHIN.html
WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 - After a stormy start, the Bush administration's relations with China have improved to the point where senior administration officials and many China experts say they think Beijing may agree not to block a tough United Nations resolution on Iraq.
Just 18 months ago, ties between the two nuclear powers were deeply strained by the collision of an American spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet over Hainan Island. But the war on terrorism has driven the two countries closer together, as has a shared need for Middle Eastern oil, officials and China experts say.
President Bush, who entered office pledging to take a tougher stand toward China, has brought a personal touch to the diplomacy, visiting China twice in one year, a first for an American president.
Later this month, China's president, Jiang Zemin, is scheduled to visit Mr. Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Tex.
Now, over the objections of its conservative allies in Congress, the White House is preparing to restart high-level military talks with China and expand a range of military-to-military programs that had been curtailed following the spy plane incident, senior administration officials said. China has lobbied to renew the military contacts.
In recent decades, America's relations with China have swung back and forth between cold antagonism and warm engagement, and some significant issues still separate the two countries, like Taiwan, which has received military support from the United States but which Beijing considers a renegade province.
Officials cautioned that the current warm period in United States-China relations could freeze over if China's support for the war on terrorism faded or Beijing became more belligerent toward Taiwan. But senior administration officials said they were heartened by the recent developments.
"China is changing," a senior administration official said. "We really see a China that is trying to establish itself as a more respected figure in a global sense."
China, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, has urged the United States to find a peaceful resolution to the impasse with Iraq. But unlike in the past, Beijing has not been sharply critical of the Pentagon's war preparations. It has also clearly left the door open to supporting military action against Iraq, though it has hinted it may favor the French and Russian approach.
"I definitely think it's something we can work with them on," a senior administration official involved in China policy said. "They might indeed vote yes."
The decision to expand military contacts is just the latest in a series of conciliatory gestures between the two nuclear-armed competitors that underscore a warming trend.
In August, China issued new regulations intended to restrict the export of missile technology to countries like North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria, which the United States has accused of aiding terrorists. Reducing such high-tech Chinese exports has been a major concern of American diplomats for a decade.
At the same time, the United States announced it was adding an obscure Chinese separatist group, the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, to a list of terrorist organizations, a move Beijing had lobbied for strongly.
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on Washington and New York, China has also allowed the United States to station an F.B.I. counterterrorism agent in Beijing and shared intelligence with the United States on militant Islamic groups based in Asia.
At Washington's urging, China has also pressured its close ally, Pakistan, to ease tensions with India, senior Bush administration officials said.
In an interview last month, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said he thought the Sept. 11 attacks had helped "speed up an improvement in our relations" with China.
"Here was something that had nothing to do with contests between two competing ideologies: communism and capitalism," Secretary Powell said. "Here was an enemy that affected us all. And it was something that everybody could join in against."
But hawks in the Pentagon and conservatives in Congress, who view China as an ambitious and potentially dangerous competitor in the Pacific, have been uneasy about the improving relations. In particular, many of them oppose expanding military contacts, arguing that the Chinese learn too much about American military capabilities from such exchanges.
"We can see no national security interest that is served by a resumption of more extensive contacts and exchanges," five conservative Republican senators said in a letter to President Bush in July.
The senators were Jesse Helms of North Carolina, Sam Brownback of Kansas, Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, Jon Kyl of Arizona and Robert C. Smith of New Hampshire.
Human rights advocates have also voiced concerns that the United States is turning a blind eye to rights violations in China in exchange for winning Beijing's support for military action against Iraq and Al Qaeda.
"The administration is trying to manage a balancing act, getting China's cooperation on Iraq and counterterrorism and keeping up pressure on human rights," said Mike Jendrzejczyk, the Asia director for Human Rights Watch in Washington. "So far, the record is mixed."
Administration officials deny relaxing their vigilance on China's rights record.
"We have not given up on any of our principles," Secretary Powell said last month. "We have let the Chinese know that we do not approve of some of their human rights practices."
But senior administration officials also acknowledge that warmer relations with Beijing could smooth the way for Chinese to accept military action against Iraq. China's tacit consent is also considered important if the United States is to keep warplanes and troops on China's western doorstep in Kyrgyzstan and other Central Asian countries.
Asked why China might accept American-led action against Iraq, a senior administration official said, "The Chinese have a new interest in stability in the Middle East and they are not interested in exporters of weapons of mass destruction, especially those that might go to terrorist groups."
The official added, "Future energy supplies are a concern for China in a way that never was the case before."
The United States' military-to-military programs - which can include exchanges between war colleges, joint exercises, equipment sales and port calls - have become an important diplomatic tool for dealing with both friendly and rival nations.
In the case of China, the programs were used for years to establish lines of communication between senior commanders. They were also intended to send a stern message about American military power by allowing Chinese officers to see up close advanced military hardware.
"We had a great deal to gain from making it clear about what our capabilities were, which were awesome," said Dennis Blair, a retired admiral who was commander of United States Pacific Command until May. "My view was, the more individual Chinese officers understood that with their own eyes, the better."
But critics of the programs, who call themselves the blue team, contend Chinese could use the exchanges to find weak points in the American military. They also complain that American officers are repeatedly sent to the same Chinese installations, which yield little information about China's equipment, training or tactics.
For that reason, the Pentagon plans to review all new exchanges closely to ensure that Beijing is providing greater access to American officers in China than in the past, military officials said.
"It's already expanding," a senior Pentagon official said.
"We still look at things case by case, and review to make sure things are consistent with our interest. But a lot of things are approved, and there is a lot of contact."
-------- colombia
U.S. to Train Colombia's New Commando Unit
Associated Press
Friday, October 4, 2002; Page A24
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41318-2002Oct3?language=printer
BOGOTA, Colombia, Oct. 3 -- U.S. Special Forces troops will begin training a new Colombian army commando unit this month to attack outlawed armed groups, U.S. officials said today.
The officials, speaking on condition they not be identified, said the Colombian soldiers would be trained at an army base near the capital and would then form a special forces commando battalion.
"It's similar to commando battalions in different armies around the world that do direct action raids," an official said.
Critics of U.S. military assistance to Colombia have warned Washington against allowing anti-drug assistance to evolve into broader military aid, which would involve the United States directly in the 38-year-old civil war.
The U.S. officials said the training of the new commando battalion is part of the war on drugs, known as Plan Colombia. They said congressional approval for the training was not needed.
"They will be focused on counter-narcotics operations and narco-terrorist organizations," one of the officials said at the briefing. Washington and the Colombian government consider all three of Colombia's outlawed armed groups -- two leftist guerrilla groups and a right-wing paramilitary force -- to be both drug-trafficking and terrorist organizations.
U.S. Special Forces troops have already trained a 2,000-member Colombian army brigade to combat drug trafficking. Its task is to wipe out the coca and opium poppy crops from which cocaine and heroin are made. Rebels and their paramilitary foes tax these crops, earning huge profits.
----
New Role for U.S. in Colombia: Protecting a Vital Oil Pipeline
New York Times
October 4, 2002
By JUAN FORERO
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/04/international/americas/04COLO.html
SARAVENA, Colombia, Sept. 27 - Casting a wary eye for rebel snipers, Lt. Felipe Zúñiga and his counterinsurgency troops slog through the wet fields and patches of jungle here. Their mission has nothing to do with drugs - until now, the defining issue in Colombia for American policy makers - but instead with protecting a pipeline that carries crude to an oil-hungry America.
The 500-mile pipeline, which snakes through eastern Colombia, transporting 100,000 barrels of oil a day for Occidental Petroleum of Los Angeles, is emerging as a new front in the terror war. One of Colombia's most valuable assets, the pipeline has long been vulnerable to bombings by Colombia's guerrilla groups, which along with the country's paramilitary outfits are included on the Bush administration's list of terrorist organizations.
Sometime in the next month, in a significant shift in American policy, United States Special Forces will arrive in Colombia to begin laying the groundwork for the training of Lieutenant Zúñiga and his 35-man squad in the finer arts of counterinsurgency. Over the next two years, 10 American helicopters will bolster the Colombian counterinsurgency efforts, and some 4,000 more troops will receive American training, which will begin in earnest in January, Bush administration and American military officials said in interviews in recent days.
The policy shift dovetails with the Bush administration's new, global emphasis on expanding and diversifying the sources of America's oil imports, with an eye to reducing dependence on Middle Eastern oil. That new approach, outlined in the administration's energy report issued last year, is gaining ever more importance with the threat to Persian Gulf oil supplies from the looming war with Iraq.
The $94 million counterinsurgency program is also an important element in the offensive by Colombia's new government against two rebel groups and a paramilitary force that dominate much of the country.
Pipeline bombings by the guerrillas cost the government nearly $500 million last year - a blow in a country where oil accounts for 25 percent of revenues. The two main rebel groups, which view Occidental as a symbol of American imperialism, have bombed the pipeline 948 times since the 1980's, while extorting oil royalty payments from local government officials.
The Colombian military has increased security recently, deploying five of the six battalions in the 6,000-man 18th Brigade to pipeline protection, up from just two battalions last year. As a result, the number of bombings has fallen to 30 this year, from 170 the year before, Colombian military officials say. But the goal is to eliminate the bombings altogether, they say, and to accomplish that they need help.
"We have been fighting here, but there are still so many things the Americans can teach us," said Lieutenant Zúñiga as he led a reporter on patrol along the pipeline. "I think it is going to make us much better."
The final product, officials say, will be an offensive-minded unit of Colombian counterinsurgency analysts who will interpret intelligence data gathered from high-tech equipment and informers and then deploy rapid-response forces stationed at strategic points along the pipeline to thwart rebel attacks.
"The idea is to prepare troops for the war we are living," said Gen. Carlos Lemus, commander of the 18th Brigade, which will receive much of the training here in Arauca Province. "We will be able to do so much more, with better intelligence and helicopters. The idea is to find out when something is going to happen and react."
The training could not take place in a more dangerous area. Though the army base here - with its neatly pruned hedges, modern barracks and billboard featuring the fighting words of Gen. George S. Patton - gives an air of familiarity American soldiers might find comforting, Saravena itself sits in a war zone.
"What they can expect is lead," boasted a local commander for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the country's largest and most belligerent rebel group. "What else? That and cadavers."
Indeed, the rebels have flexed their muscles all year in Saravena, launching dozens of homemade rockets that have destroyed the airport terminal, the city hall, the town council chambers and the prosecutor's office. Policemen on patrol are frequently fired upon, and military officials say that despite the new deployment of Colombian troops the pipeline is still exposed to attack.
"With these bandits," said Lt. Col. Emilio Torres, a local army commander, "if you leave the pipeline alone even 24 hours, they can blow the tube."
Alert to the dangers, American military officials said the trainers, Special Forces soldiers from Fort Bragg, N.C., will be limited to 20 to 60 and will be housed in specially fortified barracks.
Colombia's new president, Álvaro Uribe, also declared Arauca one of two security zones where military commanders can conduct searches without warrants, impose curfews and usurp some powers from local government - measures the United Nations says will erode civil rights.
Bush administration officials have said the reliable production of oil is imperative if Colombia is to have the resources to combat the guerrillas and paramilitaries. But oil is also critical to the national security planning of the United States, which by 2020 will count on imported oil for 62 percent of its oil needs, up from half today.
Much of that new oil will come from the Americas, which already supply the United States with nearly 50 percent of its imported oil. Along with Venezuela and Ecuador, the Andes now provides the United States with more than two million barrels a day, about 20 percent of its imports.
Colombia will never be the sole solution to America's voracious appetite for oil. But the country is known for high-quality oil that is cheap to produce and easy to refine, and is thought to have significant potential reserves that could be rapidly exploited if the guerrillas and paramilitaries could be brought under control.
"We're becoming increasingly dependent on imported oil, therefore the strategic goal of diversification has become more and more important," said Michael Klare, author of "Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict." "The Clinton administration and now the Bush administration have explicitly stated that that one of the regions they have wanted to rely on in the future is the Western Hemisphere."
Many oil analysts say reliance on this region could greatly increase if the major producer, Venezuela, increased its production capacity and if Colombia - which shares many of the same geological features as Venezuela - achieved enough stability to allow widespread exploration.
"We don't really know what's there," said Ed Corr, a former American diplomat in Latin America and an expert on the strategic aspects of petroleum. "But we certainly would be wise in getting the country in such a situation where we can find out."
Washington's shift to counterinsurgency was made possible in July, when Congress rolled back restrictions that had limited American aid toantidrug programs. The drug war continues unabated, but the phasing out of those prohibition has been warmly welcomed by energy companies, which have been pressing for a wider role for the United States to improve the business climate.
"You'll see more interest on the part of more companies," Larry Meriage, spokesman for Occidental, said in an interview. "Given the fact that there is a significant amount of oil there, and the sheer mass of oil that remains under-explored, there is considerable optimism."
Occidental, well-versed in Colombia's troubles by virtue of its two decades here, is close to the Bush administration and has long lobbied for the United States to be more involved in the conflict.
According to the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, the company contributed $1.5 million to presidential and Congressional campaigns between 1995 and 2000. Occidental also spent nearly $8.7 million lobbying American officials on Latin America policy, largely regarding Colombia, from 1996 to 2000, according to disclosure forms filed with Congress.
Other oil and energy companies also spent handsomely to influence Colombia policy, with Exxon Mobil Corporation, BP Amoco, the Unocal Corporation, Texaco and Phillips Petroleum spending about $13 million among them on Colombia in the same period.
"We see the oil companies leveraging their influence in Washington to move the United States toward a counterinsurgency policy," said Ted Lewis of Global Exchange, a San Francisco human rights group that closely follows business issues here.
Mr. Meriage counters that not taking strong action here could further weaken Colombia and its neighbors, which are economically dependent on oil. "We have long highlighted these problems," he said. "You see the potential danger of an entire Andean region being destabilized by the problems in Colombia. That's why this is important."
A tour of the Occidental facilities here in Caño Limón oil fields underscores the links between the company and Colombia's military. The 300 or so troops stationed here wear patches featuring an oil drilling rig. New motorcycle patrols zip down a network of roads, while antiguerrilla patrols work their way through the jungle. Light tanks and heavily fortified bunkers are strategically positioned along the pipeline to deter attacks.
Two military aircraft - a helicopter and a Cessna - patrol the pipeline with gasoline paid for by Occidental, and military helicopters carrying troops on operations often swing by here to fill their fuel tanks. Even the brigade commander, General Lemus, drinks coffee from a mug bearing the Oxy logo.
"This is an island of security that we have here, thanks to the army," said one Occidental official.
The company is now producing nearly twice as much oil as last year at its 212 wells. It has also signed contracts recently with the state oil company to explore three additional blocs covering 9,325 square miles.
"This is the Colombians' war to win, and they have to step up to the fight," said Brig. Gen. Galen Jackman, director of operations for American forces in Latin America. "And they have to put their country on a footing to be able to do that."
-------- iraq
Iraq Has Bioweapons, U.S. Spies Say ['but probably no nuclear weapons']
By John J. Lumpkin
Associated Press Writer
Friday, October 4, 2002; 2:27 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43810-2002Oct4?language=printer
WASHINGTON -- Iraq has biological and chemical weapons and some illegal long-range missiles, but probably no nuclear weapons, a new report from U.S. intelligence agencies concludes.
The unclassified report, released by CIA officials on Friday, contains some of the U.S. government's most definitive statements on Iraq's weapons programs since 1998, when U.N. inspectors were forced out of Iraq.
"If left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade," says the report, "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs." The United States categorizes nuclear, chemical, biological and radiological weapons under the heading "weapons of mass destruction."
Iraq's weapons programs have been the chief complaint of the Bush administration against the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Iraq maintains it has complied with all U.N. resolutions since the 1990-1991 Gulf War and destroyed all of its weapons.
The report, which officials described as an amalgam of information and analysis from various U.S. intelligence agencies, contains many of the same conclusions as a classified National Intelligence Estimate provided to lawmakers earlier this week. On Friday, CIA Director George J. Tenet held closed discussions with members of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Iraqi weapons programs.
Its authors discuss Saddam's capabilities but make no allegations that Saddam intends to use these weapons against U.S. interests. As an intelligence document, it does not recommend any particular U.S. course of action.
Saddam's nuclear program remains stymied by his inability to obtain weapons-grade enriched uranium or plutonium. If Baghdad is able to covertly acquire pre-made weapons material from overseas, Iraq could have a nuclear weapon within a year, the report says.
Otherwise, Iraq will have to make its own. Most analysts believe that Iraq will not be able to make its own material until the end of the decade, but, it says, Iraq "may have acquired enrichment capabilities that could shorten substantially the amount of time necessary to make a nuclear weapon."
As evidence of his continued nuclear ambitions, the report cites Saddam's efforts to secretly acquire high-strength aluminum tubes that could be used in centrifuges for a uranium-enrichment program. However, the report does note a minority of intelligence analysts believes the tubes are for conventional weapons, not a nuclear program.
The most immediate threat appears to be from Saddam's biological weapons programs, including anthrax, the report suggests.
Iraq has "some lethal and incapacitating BW (biological weapon) agents," the report says.
Its ability to produce more has grown in the last decade, the report says. Relying on mobile production plants that are difficult to detect, Iraq has a "large-scale, redundant and concealed BW agent production capability."
These weapons can be delivered by bombs, missiles, aerial sprayers and covert operatives, "potentially against the U.S. Homeland," the report says.
It notes Saddam's efforts to make unmanned aircraft with sprayer tanks and long-range ballistic missiles. Those missiles could reach his neighbors, but not the United States or even Western Europe, from Iraqi territory, the report says.
Baghdad has also renewed production of several chemical agents, probably including mustard, sarin, cyclosarin and VX, the report says. While mustard is a World War I-era blister agent, sarin, cyclosarin and VX are extremely deadly nerve agents.
Saddam probably has stockpiled between 100 and 500 metric tons of chemical weapon agents, the report says. However, Iraq's ability to produce and store chemical weapons is probably less than it was before the Gulf War, thanks to inspections, it says.
Iraq has been able to pay for these programs with money diverted from humanitarian aid programs and from oil smuggling.
----
Powell Wants New U.N. Plan on Iraq
By Barry Schweid
AP Diplomatic Writer
Friday, October 4, 2002; 2:52 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43924-2002Oct4?language=printer
WASHINGTON -- Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix says only some "loose ends" stand in the way of resuming his hunt for hidden arms depots in Iraq. But Secretary of State Colin Powell intends to slow him down until the Security Council drafts tougher rules.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan backed Powell before Friday's meeting with Blix. "He has got his men ready, but as the Council is discussing further guidance, it would be appropriate for him to know that further guidance before he resumes, and I hope that will be forthcoming shortly," Annan said in New York.
Powell was willing to talk about inspection arrangements, with Blix but he also was determined to get a new U.N. resolution through the Security Council with tough provisions. It includes a threat to use force if President Saddam Hussein refuses to disarm before Blix's team gets going.
The U.S. diplomatic drive is in high gear but gaining little ground, as Russia and France continue to resist threatening Iraq. Those countries remain inclined to take Saddam up on his offer to admit inspectors under old U.N. resolutions that uncovered some weapons but not all the United States suspects are hidden away.
Russia's deputy foreign minister, Yuri Fedotov, was quoted by ITAR-Tass news agency Friday as saying "the existing Security Council resolutions on the Iraqi problem are quite sufficient."
Powell telephoned U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on Friday, and talked Thursday to Straw, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and Canadian Foreign Minister Bill Graham.
Bush continued to turn up the rhetorical heat on Saddam, calling him a "cold blooded" killer during a fund-raiser in Boston Friday. "This is a man who is a threat. A threat to the United States, a threat to Israel, he's a threat to neighbors," he said.
"For the sake of our freedom, for the sake of peace - if the United Nations won't make the decision, if Saddam Hussein continues to lie and deceive, the United States will lead a coalition to disarm this man before he harms America," Bush said.
Meantime, the White House said Bush will give a rare evening speech to the nation on Iraq in Cincinnati Monday.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the speech will be newsworthy, but stopped short of calling it a major address and did not promise any new policy or evidence about Saddam's wrongdoings. He also said the networks would not be asked to carry the 8 p.m. EDT speech.
And Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said Iraq was making efforts to conceal its weapons of mass destruction programs in anticipation of U.N. inspections. Asked if she could elaborate, Clark said "No."
Faring much better is President Bush's pitch to Congress for authority to use force against Iraq. The House International Affairs Committee voted its approval 31-11 on Thursday and Senate leaders predicted wide margins of bipartisan support.
"It's up to us today to send a message to the world," said Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss. He predicted Congress would give Bush the authority he wants by next week and "set in motion the beginning of the end of Saddam Hussein."
Former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger said Thursday war with Iraq was inevitable.
"I don't see how the administration can pull back," Eagleburger said in a speech at a dinner of the Overseas Writers Club.
He said Vice President Dick Cheney was the driving force on U.S. policy toward Iraq but that President Bush mostly was "sailing on his own without people who knew what they were doing."
The Senate moved ahead with sporadic debate on the Iraq resolution. No votes were planned until next week.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., outlined his proposal to require Bush to first obtain U.N. approval before using force against Iraq.
Going it alone "entails serious risks and serious consequences for us in the Middle East and around the world," Levin told the Senate.
Levin's is one of several proposed alternatives that would put more checks on presidential authority. It is not expected to prevail.
But even as Congress lined up behind Bush, he was warned that it would be a mistake to use force against Iraq without the support of other countries.
"We don't want to do something alone, or with one other country, and bypass the U.N. and then, three years from now, have China or India or Russia or somebody else say, 'You did it, we can do it,'" House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., said.
Bush suggested Thursday he would build a coalition of world leaders willing to join the United States against Iraq - even if the United Nations did not. U.S. officials cite Britain, long steadfast in its support of the United States, and such smaller countries as Romania and Bulgaria.
Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz were scheduled to join, Powell and Blix, along with Mohamed ElBaradei, whose International Atomic Energy Agency is in charge of nuclear inspections.
----
Iraq Urges Security Council: Be Brave and Defy US
Reuters
Friday, October 4, 2002
By Hassan Hafidh
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42175-2002Oct4?language=printer
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's ruling Baath Party newspaper Friday accused certain states of not being "brave" enough to threaten to veto a U.S.-drafted new U.N. resolution demanding Baghdad to disarm or face military strikes.
Al-Thawra did not name these states but it was clearly referring to Russia, China and France, all veto-wielding permanent U.N. Security Council members.
"Some governments would commit a grave mistake if they do not take the brave and suitable decision at the suitable moment," Thawra said in reference to the veto power that these states enjoy at the Security Council.
"We know that these states have their own interests, but short-sighted consideration would threaten their strategic and vital goals," it said in a front-page editorial.
Washington and London are insisting on a tough new U.N. resolution setting out wide powers for U.N. weapons inspectors before they return back to Iraq. It would allow U.N. members, such as the United States, to decide when to carry out any military action should Baghdad not comply. Russia, China and France oppose this.
"Other (U.N.) Security Council member states should stand against the attempt to issue a new resolution and they should not bow to (U.S. and British) pressure," the paper said.
Iraq has said it accepts the unconditional return of the inspectors whose task is to verify the dismantling of banned chemical, biological, nuclear and long-range missile programs. Iraq has repeatedly said all such programs have been scrapped.
The inspectors had wanted to send advance teams to Baghdad on October 19. But after briefing the 15-nation Security Council Thursday they made clear they would hold off if the council did not adopt a resolution before then as Washington and London want.
"There is no need to issue a new U.N. resolution after Iraq has agreed to the return of the (U.N. weapons) inspectors," the paper said.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Saltanov said on Thursday that mention of automatic use of force in the draft was unacceptable.
U.N. inspection teams left Iraq in December 1998 on the eve of a U.S.-British bombing campaign intended to punish Baghdad for not cooperating with the inspectors in their hunt for weapons of mass destruction.
----
Clarke: Iraq already hiding weapons
By Pamela Hess
UPI Pentagon Correspondent
October 4, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20021004-110535-5505r.htm
WASHINGTON, Oct. 4 (UPI) -- Iraq is secreting its reserves of chemical and biological weapons in anticipation of a U.N. arms inspection, Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said Friday.
Clarke, who declined to elaborate on Iraq's activities, said experts would reveal more on the issue at a Pentagon briefing next week.
With U.N. arms inspections likely to begin within weeks, the Pentagon is preparing to detail Iraq's efforts to dupe the world, Clarke said.
"Lies, deception and deceit are an active part of their offensive," Clarke said. "They lie to their own people and they lie to the world. And people should consider that fact very, very carefully as they weigh their decisions on who to deal with Iraq ... There's a very, very high threshold to overcome with their credibility."
As the Senate takes up various resolutions with regard to U.S. action in Iraq, Clarke said the Pentagon is not attempting to influence policy in either way but wants to ensure Congress and the United Nations have all the information to make their decisions.
"We believe it is very important to provide you with as much information as possible so the people can judge for themselves the nature of the regime, what we're dealing with as we go forward and help them make the tough decisions," Clarke said.
The House has approved a resolution that gives President Bush broad powers to launch a military attack on Iraq.
In recent days, Pentagon officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, have briefed reporters on the worldwide threat posed by Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction and its violations of the no-fly zones imposed after the Persian Gulf War.
Next week, officials will detail Iraq's denial and deception operations -- "operations that are very organized, that are very comprehensive and clearly intended to hide Iraq's weapons of mass destruction," Clarke said.
The Pentagon is conducting an information operations campaign of its own Iraq: on Thursday an A-10 "Warthog" released 120,000 leaflets over Iraqi missile and radar sites. The leaflets warn gunners not to fire on or target coalition aircraft overhead or they will face destruction.
The A-10 dropping the leaflets was fired on, and a strike was called in on the radar site, but an Iraqi military spokesman said five civilians were killed in the attack on what he called "civilian and service installations."
--------
Outside View: Bush's Iraq lies
By Morgan Strong
UPI commentary
10/4/2002
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20021004-034429-3028r
NEWARK, N.J., Oct. 4 (UPI) -- A decade ago, the United States and its allies liberated Kuwait from Iraq's occupation. The actual battle to free Kuwait was far shorter than the battle to win the approval of the American people to go to war.
The military tactic of the battle to defeat Iraq and liberate Kuwait was quite similar to tactics used to convince the American public they had to go to war to defeat the evil menace of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. In American football, they call it the "End Around." The military calls it a "Flanking Movement"; it is the same thing. The idea is to get behind the other side's defense by deception, than attack from the rear.
President George Herbert Walker Bush did a marvelous job of getting behind the defenses of the American people and attacking their complacency and indifference from behind.
The first President Bush had to convince the American public of Saddam's unmitigated evil. He brought in his best troops, a public relations firm bristling with the powerful weapons of deception and fraud, to convince the docile Americans they had to rid the world of this most despicable and evil man. The Americans had an obligation to restore peace, tranquility and democracy to the helpless people of Kuwait now brutalized by the hideous thug Saddam.
The elder Bush had to show us just how evil Saddam was. So they told us about the atrocities the Iraqi army committed in Kuwait. They told us of how his troops had entered the hospitals of Kuwait and tore innocent babies from incubators and shipped the incubators back to hospitals in Iraq. We saw television news broadcasts of a young girl, a witness to this unimaginable horror, describe to a congressional committee how babies only days old were taken from incubators, thrown to the floor of the maternity ward in clear sight of their mothers, and stomped to death by Iraqi soldiers.
Nothing could outrage the people of this country more than this awful barbaric cruelty, surely.
The incubator story was repeated over, and over. There was testimony before the United Nations General Assembly by another witness, a Kuwaiti woman who said she also worked at the hospital and had seen this horror. Even the first President Bush repeated the story several times to demonstrate the extraordinary cruelty Saddam was capable of.
The American people were provided the tearful pleas of elected officials of Kuwait imploring us to restore democratic government and free their people from the tyranny of Saddam.
All of this was heart wrenching, and all of this was a lie. All of this was a product of a Washington D.C. public relations firm with close ties to the Bush administration.
While Iraqi troops did commit atrocities in Kuwait, they never tore little babies from incubators and murdered them -- and there was never democracy in Kuwait. We found all this out afterwards.
The young woman who testified to the horror before congress? She was the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to Washington. She was in Paris when the Iraqi's invaded Kuwait. She never worked in a hospital; she never worked in her life. Her father was a scion of the immensely wealthy dynasty that rules Kuwait. The woman who testified before the General Assembly? She was not in Kuwait at the time of the invasion either. She was the wife of the information minister of Kuwait
And Democracy? A single family rules the country. The al Sabbah family. The emir the aged patriarch, rich beyond belief, who ran Kuwait, lived in an opulent palace with a lot of gold trimmings. There never was, and there is not now, or will there ever be, a democratic government in Kuwait. The tribe, the family, the dynasty run Kuwait. I came to the conclusion during my time reporting on the war from Saudi Arabia and from the desert accompanying the army of Kuwait during the battle for the country, that they are not very nice people.
The American people had to be convinced that we were going to risk the lives of our young men and women to free the people of Kuwait and to rid the world of the evil of this man Saddam and his army. George Bush the elder lied to them to get them to agree. And they did. They tied yellow ribbons everywhere, rallied behind the men and women of their military. And we beat Saddam in a matter of hours. We beat his army and drove them in panic from Kuwait. And we were within sight of Baghdad. We could have gone into the city and routed Saddam from his palace. His army no longer existed.
Why didn't we? That is another lie. We did not do it because if we had occupied Iraq we would be obligated to create a democratic government in Iraq. Nothing could upset our Arab brothers, our allies, more than a real democracy in the Middle East.
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, are all run by despotic dynasties. How long would they last if Iraq was free, truly free? And the Americans were there to make sure Iraq stayed that way. Not very long, I would bet. And somebody, maybe George Bush the elder would have had to convince the American people that we had to support these despotic regimes, no less oppressive than Saddam's Iraq, when the people of those countries rebelled and demanded freedom. We would be sending troops to every country in the Middle East just to keep our supply of oil intact.
We can do business with dictators, we always have in the Middle East, and we would find it harder to do business with a free people.
No matter what the Bush administrations tells us we have to remember it is really about oil and money. The rest is nonsense.
-- Morgan Strong is a journalist and consultant on the Middle East for "60 Minutes" and others, and is a former professor of Middle Eastern History at Mercy College, Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.)
-- "Outside View" commentaries are written for UPI by outside writers who specialize in a variety of important global issues
-------- israel / palestine
Palestinian Urges Defiance; Plan to Grab Arafat Reported
New York Times
October 4, 2002
By JAMES BENNET
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/04/international/middleeast/04MIDE.html
JERUSALEM, Oct. 3 - Marwan Barghouti, a rising Palestinian leader on trial in Israel on charges of terrorism, today called on Palestinians throughout the West Bank to defy Israeli curfews, and an Israeli newspaper reported that the army has rehearsed an operation to snatch and deport Yasir Arafat.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has repeatedly sought to exile Mr. Arafat, whom he considers Israel's enemy, but most of Israel's top security officials have opposed the move and the coalition government has blocked it.
Mr. Barghouti, the top West Bank official of Mr. Arafat's Fatah faction, appeared today for a third hearing in advance of his trial on charges of planning attacks that left 26 Israelis dead and scores wounded. Mr. Barghouti has denied the charges and rejected Israel's authority to try him.
The trial is shaping up as a showdown between Israeli officials out to demonstrate links between mainstream Palestinian leaders and terrorism, and one of the most articulate of those leaders, who is trying to put the Israeli occupation itself in the dock. Mr. Barghouti's lawyers distributed his own 54-count indictment of Israel today.
Today's hearing, to evaluate a prosecution request to extend Mr. Barghouti's confinement, was once again marked by tumult inside and outside the Tel Aviv courtroom. Families of some Israeli victims scuffled outside with the police.
As Mr. Barghouti was brought in shackles into the courtroom, he called out, "I say one thing: The intifada will be victorious over the occupation." He clasped his chained hands over his head and shook them, smiling at supporters.
He was drowned out by bereaved Israelis screaming, "They shouldn't give you the right to speak!" and "They should castrate you!"
One of Mr. Barghouti's lawyers, Shamai Leibowitz, an Israeli, compared him to Moses. Speaking of Moses, he said, "According to some lawyers, he should be called a terrorist, but according to Exodus, he is a freedom fighter." Mr. Leibowitz argued that Moses killed an Egyptian not because he hated Egyptians but because the man was beating a fellow Jew.
Mr. Barghouti smiled, but Yaakov Shemesh, who lost his brother and pregnant sister-in-law in a bombing in Jerusalem earlier this year, shouted at the lawyer, "How dare you call yourself a Jew?"
Zvi Garfinkel, the chief judge of the three-judge panel, cut Mr. Leibowitz off, saying, "You can read me this story on Passover, not here."
At one point in today's proceedings, Mr. Barghouti said, "This isn't a court - this is a carnival." Access by the news media to the courtroom was restricted to a pool of reporters.
Mr. Barghouti calls himself a political leader, not a military one. He has said he supports attacks on Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, territory Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war, but not against civilians inside pre-1967 Israeli borders.
In a statement, Mr. Barghouti said, "What is on trial today is the conscience of all freedom-loving people around the world." He said that his crime was not terrorism but "that I insist on my freedom, freedom for my children, freedom for the entire Palestinian people. And if indeed that is a crime, I'd probably plead guilty."
Before the current conflict began two years ago, Mr. Barghouti, who speaks Hebrew and Englishfluently, was regarded in Israel as a serious Palestinian advocate of a two-state solution. Some Palestinians suspect that Israel, in choosing to make Mr. Barghouti such a high-profile defendant, is trying to build up his credentials among ordinary Palestinians as a fighter to improve his chances of ultimately succeeding Mr. Arafat.
Israeli officials say the truth is simpler and uglier, calling Mr. Barghouti a terrorist whose trial will establish direct links between Mr. Arafat and the violence.
The Israeli newspaper Maariv reported today that the army has practiced an operation forcing Mr. Arafat into exile by taking him to a secret place by helicopter. The newspaper said the army has even scouted a destination, which it described as "an isolated location without any population or settlement in the near vicinity," and added that the plan "is ready for immediate operation with very short notice."
An army spokesman said he could not confirm or deny the report.
On becoming prime minister in March 2001, Mr. Sharon privately promised President Bush that he would not harm Mr. Arafat. That promise, in part, has blocked the option of forcing Mr. Arafat into exile because security officials have warned that an attempt to capture the Palestinian leader could result in his injury or death.
Israel has repeatedly besieged Mr. Arafat inside his headquarters this year, destroying most of the Palestinian leader's official compound in Ramallah, on the West Bank, and Mr. Bush has backed Mr. Sharon's demand that Mr. Arafat be replaced before negotiations resume. But Israel was forced to abandon its latest siege this week after the Bush administration criticized it as hurting the chances of Palestinian democratic change as well as the American president's efforts to rally support for a possible war on Iraq.
Israel has now seized military control of six of the eight major Palestinian cities and towns in the West Bank, imposing curfews on hundreds of thousands of people. In Jenin today, an Israeli tank fired into a vegetable market where Palestinians were reportedly violating the curfew, Palestinians said. A 45-year-old vendor was killed, and three other people were wounded.
The Israeli Army said that its troops had responded after being fired on, and that it was investigating the incident.
-------- nato
NATO chief terms modernization as urgent
By Gareth Harding
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
October 4, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021004-19980292.htm
BRUSSELS - NATO Secretary-General George Robertson yesterday painted a bleak future for the alliance with more terrorism, failed states and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction that can only be avoided by an improvement in the militaries of the alliance's members.
Speaking at a conference looking into the challenges facing the alliance, Mr. Robertson said crises in the Caucasus, Central Asia, Northern Africa and the Middle East offered a "rich current and potential cocktail of instability."
Noting that all the regions were going through "political and economic transitions of historic dimensions," the NATO chief said, "Only the most blinkered optimist would argue that this process of change will happen without major convulsions."
Taken together, the threats posed by terrorists, failed states and "more fingers on more triggers" ensured a "guaranteed supply chain of instability," he said.
While conceding he was painting a "bleak picture" of the world, he said he remained optimistic that the challenges could be overcome if NATO members improved their armed forces.
"We need capabilities for the future, not for the past we need forces that are slimmer, tougher and faster; forces that reach further and can stay in the field longer," he said.
Throwing his weight behind U.S. calls for a NATO rapid-reaction force, the former British defense minister said that in the "uncomfortable security environment" of the future "geography will no longer act as our shield."
However, in a coded signal to Washington, Mr. Robertson cautioned against adopting a unilateral approach to crises.
"In today's world, no country can ensure its security entirely on its own. You need allies. You need partners," he said. "You must stand together against terror, consult on threats, coordinate responses, share risks and burdens."
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, a former NATO secretary-general, also pleaded for greater cooperation between the European Union and the United States.
"For us Europeans, multilateralism is our life. We are not multilateralists because we are naive, but because we know the alternative is war," Mr. Solana said.
Expressing doubts about the creation of a NATO rapid-reaction force, Mr. Solana argued that the 19-member alliance was a defensive rather than an offensive body. He also took issue with President Bush's goal of toppling Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
"We are not for regime change but we are as committed as the U.S. to ridding the world of weapons of mass destruction," Mr. Solana said.
NATO officials told United Press International that Mr. Robertson's stark warning was meant as a wake-up call to European governments reluctant to spend more on defense.
"You can't walk around with your hands in front of your eyes pretending problems aren't out there," one official said.
At a post-conference briefing, Mr. Robertson told reporters that European leaders had to close the capabilities gap between the old and new continents.
"Nothing comes for nothing," he said. "You have to go out and sell costly and sometimes unpalatable measures today to get solutions for tomorrow."
-------- pakistan
Pakistan Tests Medium Range Missile
October 4, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Pakistan-Missile-Test.html
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- With border tensions between South Asia's nuclear neighbors running high, Pakistan test fired a new surface-to-surface missile Friday, the official media announced.
Uneasy neighbor India was given prior warning of the test, according to the state-owned Associated Press of Pakistan.
The missile, believed to have a range of 380 miles, is one in a series of medium-range missiles in Pakistan's arsenal, all capable of carrying conventional and nuclear warheads.
Both India and Pakistan conducted underground nuclear tests in 1998, and both say they have introduced nuclear weapons into their arsenals, but neither has specified the type or number.
"This is a sort of routine test," said army spokesman Brig. Salat Raza.
Pakistan last conducted a missile test in May, when it fired a surface-to-surface ballistic missile, called the Ghauri missile, also capable of carrying both a conventional and nuclear warhead.
At the time Pakistan and neighboring India were on a war footing and the United States, among other nations, was scrambling to avert an all-out fighting between the two countries.
Pakistan and India have gone to war three times in the last 55 years.
World leaders have cautioned the two countries about forging ahead with their missile programs because it takes only four minutes for a missile to hit the other country.
Both Pakistan and India have said they want peace, but more then one million soldiers are deployed along their disputed Kashmir border, the flashpoint of two previous wars.
Both India and Pakistan claim the Himalayan region in its entirety. India accuses Pakistan of arming and training militants who are demanding an independent Kashmir or a Kashmir aligned to Pakistan.
Pakistan denies the charges, but says it sympathizes with the Kashmiris and demands the implementation of a United Nations resolution calling for a vote by Kashmiris to decide their future.
--------
Pakistanis Are Skeptical of Musharraf's Promises
October 4, 2002
By MICHAEL WINES
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/04/international/asia/04STAN.html
LAHORE, Pakistan, Oct. 3 - Shortly after Gen. Pervez Musharraf seized power three years ago, he promised a democracy, and in seven days, he said, when Pakistan elects its first Parliament since 1997, he plans to start delivering it.
Whether Pakistanis want what little democracy General Musharraf appears to them to be offering, however, is still not clear.
While the government itself is propagating the elections to a 342-member Parliament as the means to restore almost total civilian rule, virtually everyone here and in the circle of international election-watchers sees major flaws.
The leaders of two of the three major parties are living in exile. A government order has disqualified any candidate who lacks a bachelor's degree, thus barring 90 percent of the largely illiterate population from the contest, not to mention 30 percent of the last Parliament. The period for legal campaigning was cut in half. There are widespread charges of fraud and vote buying.
Were that not enough, General Musharraf decreed in late August that he could dissolve the Parliament and amend the Constitution at any time, and that while the Constitution may require him to consult the next prime minister, he will not be bound by any ministerial advice.
This smog-shrouded sprawl of colonial edifices and tumbledown shacks, four million people strong, is considered the epicenter of Pakistani politics. Yet there is not much beyond a splattering of wall posters here to suggest that a national election is nearing a climax.
"There isn't much activity," said Khalid Amad, a journalist at The Daily Times who is one of Pakistan's leading opinion columnists. "One reason is that not much money is available. But the other problem could be that some parties may be thinking of boycotting at the last moment. They're not really stepping up their campaigns."
And not only parties. "I don't vote, because these people are not so reliable," Sarfraz Khan, a 20-year-old holder of a freshly minted accounting degree, said as he stood outside a row of downtown storefronts. "When they're in power, they have their own money, they have their own ways."
"Not Benazir. Not Nawaz," he said, dismissing the last two civilian prime ministers, Benazir Bhutto, and Nawaz Sharif, both now in exile. "Who can make this country a little better?"
Pakistan has known mostly military rule since the 1950's - no elected prime minister has ever finished a term as civilian head of government. Mr. Sharif was ousted by General Musharraf and quickly sentenced to life imprisonment for terrorism and hijacking. He lives in Saudi Arabia. Ms. Bhutto was forced out of office by the military in 1990. Charged later with corruption, she lives in Dubai.
But criminal charges and exile have not meant banishment from politics. Far from it: both former leaders sought to run in next week's election, but they were barred and have since chosen to lead antigovernment forces from afar.
Ms. Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party simply added the word "Parliamentarians" to its name, and has fielded a full slate of candidates.
Mr. Sharif's supporters cleaved from the country's dominant political force, the pro-government National Muslim League, to form their own party, known as National Muslim League-Nawaz.
General Musharraf, of course, is not on the ballot, having won a five-year term in a referendum that conferred little legitimacy after opponents charged that as many as 75 percent of Pakistanis boycotted that vote.
But he will be on most voters' minds - and in many ways, this election is more crucial for him than for any of the campaigners, because he is broadly unpopular.
If the Pakistani economy is better than a few years ago, it remains on crutches, with bitter complaints about inflation and poor business conditions heard on every corner.
Moreover, the general's support of the American campaign against terrorism has rubbed many raw in a nation where Islam is something more than a religion, and anti-Americanism runs high.
President Bush's ever-harsher rhetoric toward Iraq has unleashed a torrent of criticism here, leaving General Musharraf struggling to look like a strong Pakistani leader and not a front man for what many view as an American crusade against Islam.
Were that not enough, opponents say, he cut a bad deal to boot: critics charge that the United States has repaid Pakistan's support by tilting toward its enemy, India, in their dispute over control of Kashmir, which almost brought the two countries to war - again - last spring.
"He may have started with very good intentions," said Mian Ijaz-ul-Hassan, a Lahore professor and intellectual who is running for Parliament on Ms. Bhutto's party slate. "But in order to wield power and protect himself, he has landed from one problem to another. Now the man who everyone thought would be a redeemer is an obstacle."
That said, General Musharraf has earned a dose of respect, even among critics, for bringing a measure of plurality to Pakistani society.
In local elections being held alongside the national ones, the government has allotted one-third of all seats to women. The national balloting has been altered to abolish a long-criticized system under which religious minorities voted separately for a handful of special Parliament seats, but were denied the right to cast ballots for ordinary candidates.
"Now, why didn't civilian rulers think of that?" asked Mr. Amad, the Daily Times columnist, who said that so-called separate electorates for minorities and Muslims helped create a two-track Pakistani society in which the views of Christians and Hindus could be safely dismissed by the overwhelming Islamic majority.
The question, he and others say, is whether those reformist moves - and the elections themselves - presage a longer-term trend toward democratic rule or whether this government will drift, like several of its predecessors, toward dictatorship.
In a report issued last month, a group of international observers from the nonpartisan National Democratic Institute for International Affairs sharply criticized General Musharraf, saying that he awarded himself near-absolute powers in August, and that his selective bans on less-educated - and otherwise unfit candidates - flouted international norms of democracy.
But the group also noted that the government had given free rein to outsiders to monitor next week's vote, and that Pakistan's independent press had had a relatively free hand to criticize its president.
Most experts expect the elections to produce a split Parliament led by the general's backers, dubbed the National Muslim League-Q to separate them from Mr. Sharif's faction. Tariq Rahman of Quaid-a-Azam University in Islamabad, one of Pakistan's leading political analysts, said that would be a boon to General Musharraf - in the short run.
"In his eyes and in the eyes of many people here, this will legitimize his rule for the moment," he said in an interview. "Whoever the prime minister is, people will look to him for solving the major problems: high prices, bad roads, crime, education, health. And when those problems do not improve, it will be the civilian prime minister who gets the blame."
In an independent poll this week, the British Broadcasting Company raised the prospect that Ms. Bhutto's party might actually win the most seats in the election, potentially creating a genuine political opposition.
Few others seem to believe that is likely. But the truth is that either Ms. Bhutto or Mr. Sharif would probably adopt most of General Musharraf's policies in the Parliament. The alternative is the militancy and fundamentalist drift in which Pakistan was swaddled before the terrorist attacks on America forced it to abandon support for the Taliban in Afghanistan and to fall in with Mr. Bush's campaign against terrorism.
Given Pakistan's problems, Mr. Rahman said, the general might do worse than to share some of his burden with credible and democratic rivals.
"General Musharraf might well believe he can keep the country calm and quiet for the next many years," he said. "But that is open to doubt. If I were him, I might say, `Let me crawl out of here and give them a chance.' "
-------- russia
Russian atomic city builds future on nuclear dreams
Friday, October 04, 2002
By Larisa Sayenko,
Reuters
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/10/10042002/reu_48605.asp
ZHELEZNOGORSK, Russia - The streets of this Siberian city are eerily clean and uniform, free of the buzz of commerce and jumble of billboards found even in the smallest and poorest of Russian provincial cities.
The few visitors who enter the city through the miles of pine forest and the rings of barbed wire are met instead by a banner reading, "Honor and homeland above all."
It is not easy to get into Zheleznogorsk, one of Russia's nine 'closed cities,' a well-preserved bastion of the Soviet defense complex where satellites are built and the plutonium stuffing of nuclear warheads was produced.
With the country scrapping, not building, nuclear weapons and Russian space programs chronically under-funded, the big business in this city is the burial of spent nuclear fuel from Russian reactors and former Soviet satellite states of Eastern Europe.
"You think the city sighs with joy when the country sends up a new satellite?" asked one Zheleznogorsk resident. "No, only when a train arrives with spent nuclear fuel. That means salaries will probably be paid for the next six months."
Zheleznogorsk's hopes for prosperity rest on a storage facility that holds 6,000 tons of spent fuel from Russian and foreign nuclear power plants. Russia's Atomic Energy Ministry has said the storage facility earns $50 from each 2.2 pounds of Russian spent fuel, $200 from that sent from former members of the Soviet bloc, and hopes to earn $1,000 from the unwanted fuel of developed countries.
HOLES IN THE FENCE
At the nuclear cemetery, 3,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel already lie cooling in containers under several yards of clear water. Many residents of Zheleznogorsk would happily take more. Some worry that with the pools more than half full, space is running out.
As it is, there is often not enough in the state coffers to pay the scientists, most of whom say they survive on the produce from their vegetable gardens. "I know of some holes in the fence (surrounding Zheleznogorsk)," a local journalist said. "People with cottages make them to get to their vegetable patches quicker."
A local engineer said the city had tried plans to convert military plants to civilian use, but they had not worked out. "This is how we live: We look forward to each trainload of somebody else's crap," said the engineer, who like other sources, declined to be identified.
NUCLEAR COMPETITION
For more trains carrying spent fuel to roll into Zheleznogorsk, Moscow needs to cut a deal with the United States, which has made Russia's nuclear ambitions a bone of contention. Washington says Russia's contract to build civilian nuclear reactors in Iran could end up helping Tehran acquire nuclear weapons and that without proper security, Russia's own nuclear materials could end up in a 'dirty bomb.'
Washington has the power to influence Russia's access to 90 percent of the world's spent fuel, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, a U.S. nongovernmental organization. "Russia has two options: One, act alone and lose the market, or two, enter into a cooperative agreement with the United States," Tom Cochran, director of the NRDC's Nuclear Program, said in Moscow.
Residents, however, say they see a 'great game' unfolding between the United States and Russia for an international market in spent nuclear fuel.
Russia's Atomic Energy Ministry plans to build a new facility to hold 20,000 tons of nuclear waste in Zheleznogorsk, nearly one-eighth of the world's total.
President Vladimir Putin signed a law last year allowing the import of foreign spent fuel into Russia despite opinion polls that showed a vast majority of Russians opposed it. The government, however, has yet to sign a series of decrees needed to bring fuel in from further abroad than former Soviet satellites such as Bulgaria. Soviet-era reprocessing agreements with those countries are still in effect, allowing them to ship fuel to Russia.
'LIFE IS GOOD THERE'
Russia's environmentalists have rallied to oppose nuclear waste imports. A national environmental group, Ekozashchita, set up a tent camp on the road to the Krasnoyarsk nuclear camp earlier this year to protest spent fuel import plans.
But in Zheleznogorsk itself, even the local environmental newspaper, Citizen Initiative, writes about spent fuel in economic terms. "In our rich region, it is a crime to live in poverty. We should put the situation to rights as far as payment for spent fuel storage is concerned and get full payment, not the crumbs that the Atomic Energy Ministry throws us," Citizen Initiative wrote recently.
Its pages are also full of obituaries. "People don't live so long there," said a Krasnoyarsk taxi driver. "What's worse, radiation can wreck a man below the belt.' But life in the closed cities is good. The bus is free, and they get free coupons to the cafeterias. Everything is good, like it was before."
----
Russia Wondering What It Gets For Backing U.S. Against Iraq
In Moscow's View, Promises of Partnership Not Kept
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, October 4, 2002; Page A22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40893-2002Oct3?language=printer
MOSCOW, Oct. 3 -- As U.S. diplomats try to figure out Russia's price for supporting a new U.N. resolution threatening force against Iraq, they could start with just two words: Jackson Vanik.
In the Russian view, that was supposed to be the trade-off the last time President Bush wanted President Vladimir Putin's backing for a war. Shortly after Putin permitted U.S. troops into Central Asia to attack Afghanistan last year, the Bush administration promised to remove trade restrictions imposed on Russia by the law known as the Jackson-Vanik amendment.
A year later, U.S. troops remain in Central Asia, and Jackson-Vanik remains on the books because Congress has not acted. Now, as Russian policymakers and opinion leaders study the balance sheet, the United States has failed to live up to many promises of a new partnership envisioned following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, particularly in strengthening economic ties.
As Washington seeks Moscow's help again, increasingly skeptical Russian leaders want to make the sure they get something in return.
"We really would like to see some reciprocal steps," Dmitri Rogozin, an ally of Putin's and chairman of the international affairs committee in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, said in an interview.
"There is a great deal of disappointment in the Russian political class, most of all on the economic side of the issue," Andrei Kokoshin, a former national security adviser, said in a separate interview.
U.S. officials said the message has begun to come through in their conversations with Russians about Iraq. "They've been making the point very strongly that this can't be an all-give-and-no-get relationship," said a senior Bush administration official. "I don't think their concern is entirely justified . . . but they do have a point that a growing relationship has to be reciprocal, and they're making the argument very strongly."
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, speaking before the U.S.-Russia Business Council today, said the administration was committed to releasing Russia from Jackson-Vanik. "We're working it with all the energy and force that we can, and hopefully we will get it behind us soon," he said.
At the United Nations, Russia is a permanent Security Council member with veto power. Putin will play a key role in whether the United States can forge a consensus in favor of a new resolution against Iraq. Among the other permanent council members, Britain supports Bush, and U.S. officials said they believe that, if they can reach agreement with Russia, France will go along and China will abstain.
So far, Putin's standoffish reaction has frustrated U.S. efforts, despite Bush's phone calls and the work of U.S. delegations sent to Moscow. Putin opposes the tough language of the U.S.-drafted resolution and supports the return of U.N. weapons inspectors to Iraq.
At home, disillusionment with Putin's friendship with Bush has grown as many Russians see few gains from the relationship. Putin wants to preserve the good ties with Bush, according to analysts and lawmakers, yet also wants to avoid inflaming hard-liners who say he has given up too much already to an ungrateful Washington.
Rogozin urged Bush to make concessions to Russia. "It would be very important at this moment to give support to President Putin, who has come up against the problem of having to prove the correctness of his political choice," he said.
The doubts about the United States come after a year of remarkable change. Putin was the first world leader to call Bush with condolences after the terrorist attacks. Later, he not only allowed U.S. forces to use bases in Central Asia, he also acquiesced to U.S. withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and to NATO membership for the former Soviet republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
He closed Soviet-era bases in Cuba and Vietnam, accepted the deployment of U.S. military advisers to the former Soviet republic of Georgia and swallowed a three-page treaty on strategic arms cuts instead of the full-blown pact he wanted.
In return, as Russians see it, Putin has received little. Although the administration gave Russia largely symbolic recognition as a market economy and this week announced a $300 million Export-Import Bank loan to develop the Russian oil industry, Putin's advisers had far higher hopes for help rebuilding Russia's economy.
Overall, foreign direct investment has gone down. Soviet debt has not been restructured or forgiven. Russia is no closer to membership in the World Trade Organization. Bush's decision earlier this year to impose tariffs on foreign steel was seen here as an act of hostility.
"The Russian experience has taught us that secret American understandings should not be trusted; they simply tend to cheat all the time," Sergei Markov, a political strategist close to the Kremlin, said at a conference this week. Mikhail Leontiev, a prominent television commentator, added that when it comes to obligations, "not to speak of debts of gratitude and so on, that concept is simply absent in American political culture."
To the Russians, the most galling example is Jackson-Vanik, a 1974 trade law amendment that prohibits countries without market economies from enjoying normal trade relations with the United States if they do not have open emigration policies. For years, Russia has received an annual waiver, but the fact that it still must undergo that process -- when China no longer does -- rankles deeply here.
During his summit with Putin last November, Bush promised to push Congress to lift Jackson-Vanik, but it bogged down amid Democratic objections to giving up leverage during WTO accession talks. The Bush team has not made a sustained lobbying effort since the Moscow summit in May, according to a Democratic congressional aide.
Meanwhile, Russia has upset Washington by renewing contacts with old allies who now make up what Bush termed an "axis of evil" -- proposing new nuclear cooperation with Iran, negotiating a $40 billion economic agreement with Iraq and inviting the leader of North Korea for a visit.
Some Russian hawks have proposed using such issues as bargaining chips. "We need to identify possibilities for creating such threats and 'sell' them to the West in exchange for Russia's integration into the Western world," Andronik Migranyan, an analyst at the Council of Foreign Defense Policy, wrote recently.
Putin, though, seems to want to find a deal. After reports surfaced about the $40 billion agreement with Iraq, a planned signing ceremony was put on hold. And while a deputy Iraqi oil minister arrived here this week to meet with Russian energy companies, Putin has eschewed any personal contacts with Baghdad lately.
-------- spies
Detention of Accused Spy Extended
The Associated Press
Thursday, October 3, 2002; 4:00 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A39419-2002Oct3?language=printer
MOSCOW -- A Moscow city court on Thursday extended the pretrial detention of a Russian arms control researcher accused of spying for the United States, one of his lawyers said.
Lawyer Valdimir Vasiltsov said the decision extends Igor Sutyagin's detention until Tuesday and the court is to meet on Friday to decide whether to order a further extension.
The Federal Security Service argued that Sutyagin could flee Russia if released, Vasiltsov said.
Sutyagin, a scholar at Moscow's respected USA and Canada Institute, was arrested in October 1999 on suspicion of passing information on new-generation submarines and the combat-readiness of Russia's nuclear weapons and missile warning systems to a British company allegedly set up as a CIA cover. Prosecutors have asked for a 14-year sentence.
Sutyagin has pleaded innocent, maintaining the analyses he wrote were based on open sources and that he had no reason to believe the British company was an intelligence cover.
A court in Kaluga, about 100 miles south of Moscow, had been expected to deliver a verdict in the case last December, but instead instructed prosecutors to continue investigating and left Sutyagin in jail.
The pretrial detention period was to expire in September, but a Moscow city court extended it until Oct. 8. Sutyagin's lawyers appealed that extension to the Supreme Court, which sent it back to the Moscow court for review on Wednesday.
Although the case against Sutyagin is still being handled by Kaluga authorities, the Moscow court has jurisdiction over his detention. Sutyagin was moved from Kaluga to a Moscow jail in June.
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CIA Accused of Obstructing Panel
Graham Says Agency Delayed or Withheld Information
By a Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 4, 2002; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40834-2002Oct3?language=printer
Bob Graham (D-Fla.), chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, yesterday accused the CIA of "obstructionism" for failing to provide the panel with crucial intelligence assessments of Iraq in a timely manner.
Graham said the CIA's foot-dragging had affected committee members' ability to judge for themselves whether it is time to go to war with Saddam Hussein.
"We're trying to carry out a very important responsibility, and given the nature of this classified information, we are the only means by which the intelligence community can communicate to the legislative branch of government," Graham said. "And if they refuse to do so . . . then they are effectively shutting down the people who the Constitution says have the responsibility to declare war and support wars and the intelligence operation that wars require."
At issue are two National Intelligence Estimates. One concerns Iraq's biological, chemical and nuclear capabilities; the other, its conventional military forces.
NIEs are detailed reports generally written on long-term, foreign-based problems. They survey the views of various intelligence agencies and are particularly valuable because they reveal disagreements in analysis among them.
In July, the committee requested an NIE on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. The CIA delivered the 90-page report to the committee staff Tuesday at 10 p.m., too late for most members to digest before a closed-door meeting Wednesday with CIA officials on Iraq.
The report omitted information some lawmakers believed critical to their decision-making on the issue.
"We had asked for a number of strategic areas to be covered, such as what will be the effect of different forms of conflict in Iraq on neighboring states, and they did not cover that issue," Graham said. "So there was a great deal of dissatisfaction on the CIA's obstructionism on those two items."
He said the CIA response was "very irritating."
The Wednesday meeting further strained relations because CIA Director George J. Tenet, who had been asked to attend, did not. Tenet was at a long-scheduled meeting with President Bush, a senior CIA official said. The agency sent Tenet's deputy, John McLaughlin, and Robert Walpole, its expert on nuclear matters.
A senior CIA official said yesterday that the agency hopes to complete the estimate on Iraq's conventional forces "in a couple of weeks." He confirmed that the CIA had declined a congressional request for an estimate on the CIA's clandestine operations in Iraq, saying NIEs are done on foreign capabilities and are not used to review the CIA's or other U.S. programs.
"We are cooperating to the full extent possible," the CIA official said. "And we look forward to answering all the questions from Capitol Hill."
At Tenet's request, he and Graham met yesterday. Leaving the meeting, Tenet told reporters the session had been "great."
Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), ranking member of the Senate intelligence committee and a persistent critic of the CIA, said yesterday that "I feel I'm getting pretty good intel on Iraq, but some members feel they need more." He added, however, that the dispute over the NIE shows again how badly relations with the CIA have been strained.
Tension between the CIA and congressional committees increased in recent weeks with revelations of the CIA's mishandling information it had about the Sept. 11 hijackers. Last week, the staff of the House-Senate panel investigating Sept. 11 wrote in a briefing book that it expected a top CIA counterterrorism official to "dissemble" during his committee testimony.
That revelation brought a rebuke from the counterterrorism official, Cofer Black, and an angry response, in writing, from Tenet.
Meanwhile, at an open hearing of the joint panel yesterday, four national security experts urged the committee to undertake a broad restructuring of the nation's intelligence agencies.
The "intelligence community," which is comprised of 13 separate agencies, needs one single leader, they said.
"The new demands on intelligence demand a new management structure," said retired representative Lee H. Hamilton, (D-Ind.), former House intelligence committee chairman and currently director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. " . . . If we were starting all over again, I cannot imagine we would create such a vast enterprise and have no one clearly in charge."
Counterintelligence, the ability to know what anti-U.S. operatives are up to, "is in the worst shape of all," said retired Lt. Gen. William E. Odom, former director of the National Security Agency.
"Five organizations run counterintelligence operations with no overall conductor," he said. "The parochialism, fragmentation and incompetence are difficult to exaggerate in the U.S. counterintelligence world."
Since 1995 alone, the U.S. government has undertaken more than 14 major reviews and studies of reforming the intelligence world but, "many of the most far-reaching proposals have not been acted on to any significant degree," said Eleanor Hill, joint inquiry staff director.
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Reports fail to reform intelligence agencies
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
October 4, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021004-16826423.htm
Numerous studies over the past several decades have called for reforms that could improve U.S. intelligence capabilities, but they produced few changes or improvements, a congressional investigator said yesterday.
Meanwhile, the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence complained yesterday that the CIA was refusing to provide congressional oversight committees with reports on Iraq.
"This was unacceptable," said Sen. Bob Graham, Florida Democrat. "We're trying to carry out a very important responsibility and given the nature of this classified information, we are the only means by which the intelligence community can communicate to the legislative branch of government."
In testimony before a joint House-Senate committee investigating intelligence failures related to September 11, Eleanor Hill identified some 25 commissions and studies since the CIA was formed in 1947.
"Many proposals have been made to address perceived shortcomings in the community's structure, management, role and mission," Mrs. Hill said. "These have ranged from a fundamental restructuring of the community to tinkering with its component parts."
The studies identified several areas where changes were needed, including improvements in human spying capabilities, information sharing, more analysts and linguists, and restructuring to improve intelligence work between the CIA and the Pentagon.
"While there has been a plethora of recommendations for reform over the years, many of the most far-reaching proposals have not been acted on to any significant degree, particularly in the area of organization and structure," Mrs. Hill said.
Sen. Richard C. Shelby, Alabama Republican and vice chairman of the Senate committee, said numerous proposals have been issued in response to "significant intelligence failures" since 1993.
Many recommended changes called for further empowering the CIA director or setting up intelligence arms within the Pentagon. However, "all of them so far have gone nowhere," Mr. Shelby said.
"When such ideas do not founder upon the rocks of interdepartmental rivalry and what the military calls rice-bowl politics, they simply fail to elicit much interest from an intelligence community that, even to this day, insists that nothing is fundamentally wrong," Mr. Shelby said.
"Too often, serious reform proposals have been dismissed as a bridge too far by administration after administration and Congress after Congress and have simply fallen by the wayside," he said. "While very modest attempts at reform have been enacted, they've been ignored by succeeding administrations and openly defied by our current director of central intelligence," George J. Tenet.
Mr. Shelby said a special task force in Congress looked at reform for several months and recommended a "fusion" center that would circumvent "vested interests" and "holdover bureaucrats" inside intelligence agencies.
"This organization would draw upon all the information available to the federal government and use the resulting knowledge to achieve a single clear goal - dismantling and destroying terrorist groups that threaten the U.S.," Mr. Shelby said. "This, they hope, might allow meaningful reform to take place without initially having to upset entrenched bureaucratic apple carts."
Regarding the CIA's refusal to provide reports to Congress, Mr. Graham said members of Congress were unhappy with an intelligence report sent Wednesday that failed to address key questions needed for the debate over the use of military force against Iraq.
Mr. Graham told reporters the issue would be discussed in a meeting with Mr. Tenet, the CIA director, set for today.
CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said Mr. Tenet values the role of intelligence oversight by Congress and "believes our relationship with Congress is extremely important."
"We are looking forward to continuing to cooperate with the committee, and respond to their questions and concerns," Mr. Mansfield said.
The dispute is over classified "National Intelligence Estimates," a consensus report representing the views of all 14 U.S. intelligence agencies.
One estimate sent late Tuesday to Congress focused on Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons capabilities.
Mr. Graham said the report was sent too late to permit senators to read it before a Wednesday meeting. "Several of the questions we asked were purposely omitted," he said, including the impact of military action on the region.
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
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Senator Insists C.I.A. Is Harboring Iraq Reports
New York Times
October 4, 2002
By NEIL A. LEWIS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/04/politics/04INTE.html
WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 - The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee asserted today that the Central Intelligence Agency was cutting Congress off from information it needed to carry out its constitutional role as the nation decided whether to wage war against Iraq.
The chairman, Senator Bob Graham, Democrat of Florida, accused agency officials of "obstructionism" and said that "their behavior is unacceptable." He spoke to reporters before a public hearing this morning of a special joint Congressional committee investigating intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks.
George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, quickly set up an afternoon meeting with Mr. Graham to address the tension building between the agency and Congress.
"We're trying to carry out a very important responsibility and, given the nature of this classified information, we are the only means by which the intelligence community can communicate to the legislative branch of government," Mr. Graham said. "If they refuse to do so to us, then they are effectively shutting down the people who the Constitution says have the responsibility to declare war and support wars and the intelligence operation that wars require."
Intelligence officials said that they believed Mr. Tenet told Mr. Graham in their meeting that the agency was not concealing matters from the committee and was providing reports as soon as they were ready.
The committee had made two requests to the agency for national intelligence estimates involving Iraq. Congressional officials said on Wednesday that the agency told them last week that it would not provide one of them, a synthesis of several agencies' views about Iraq's conventional military capabilities. The analysis would include a geopolitical intelligence assessment containing information on agency covert-operations plans in a possible attack on Iraq.
Mr. Graham said the other report the committee sought about Iraq was delivered too late and did not address an important topic the committee had requested. He said the report, which was supposed to assess Iraq's progress in developing weapons of mass destruction, was delivered late Tuesday night, just before a committee meeting on Wednesday morning that was called to consider the issue.
Mr. Graham said the report did not satisfy the committee's request for an assessment of what political impact a Congressional resolution authorizing the use of force would have on Iraq's neighboring nations.
Senior intelligence officials said that the report on Iraq's capabilities to produce weapons of mass destruction was delivered to the committee as soon as it was ready. One official said the 90-page report was written in record time and given to the committee before some senior administration officials received it.
A report on Iraq's conventional weapons capability will soon be ready, the official said, and Mr. Tenet will address some of the issues in a closed committee session on Friday.
Discussing his afternoon meeting with Mr. Tenet, Mr. Graham said this evening that Mr. Tenet had addressed some but not all of his concerns. Mr. Graham said that he still did not have enough information to cast an informed vote on a resolution authorizing force.
Moreover, he said, the agency's answers suggested that the Bush administration had already settled on a policy toward Iraq even though crucial intelligence reports on Iraq's capabilities were still incomplete.
The friction concerning the reports occurred when relations between the agency and Congress were already frayed over several other issues, notably the joint committee's investigation into the failure to recognize the terrorist threat before Sept. 11.
The committee has already yielded evidence of significant lapses at both the C.I.A. and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Today, the special committee heard recommendation for change from former senior officials involved in national security work.
Lee Hamilton, the former Democratic representative from Indiana who had been chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, recommended overhauling the intelligence bureaucracy and creating an intelligence "czar" known as the director of national intelligence. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and a member of the special committee, today introduced legislation to achieve his proposal.
Mr. Hamilton said that intelligence agencies were too decentralized and often distrustful of each other. "We need a single cabinet-level official who is fully in charge of the intelligence community," he said.
William H. Webster, a former director of both the F.B.I. and C.I.A., disagreed, saying that such a cabinet officer would be "without any troops" and might merely duplicate the role of the director of the White House's national security agency.
Next week, the joint committee is to resume its review of Sept. 11 intelligence failures, with testimony scheduled from Louis J. Freeh, the former director of the F.B.I., on Tuesday, and from Robert S. Mueller III, the bureau's current director, and Mr. Tenet on Thursday.
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Man arrested near U.N. after shots fired
By Dafna Linzer
ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 4, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021004-23780300.htm
NEW YORK - A man jumped the fence surrounding U.N. headquarters yesterday, fired seven shots into the air, threw leaflets on the ground and was quickly tackled by U.S. Secret Service agents. There were no injuries but shots hit at least two upper floors of the U.N. building.
The gunman was identified as Steve Kim. U.N. security said his nationality had not been confirmed but that according to his identification, he was born in 1945.
Shots from the pistol hit the 18th and 20th floors of the U.N. building, including the women's restroom on the 18th floor and an American Express office on the 20th floor, according to U.N. security chief Michael McCann.
Mr. McCann said several shots narrowly missed U.N. employees inside the Secretariat building.
The suspect was apprehended by Secret Service agents who were part of a team protecting visiting Cyprus' President Glafcos Clerides.
"The first people to reach this individual were U.S. Secret Service personnel," Mr. McCann said.
They were assisted moments later by members of a State Department protective detail also on site, as well as U.N. security, he said.
The shooting occurred at 1:10 p.m. while the Security Council was holding discussions on Iraq and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was meeting with Mr. Clerides and the leader of Turkish-occupied Cyprus.
Leaflets thrown by the suspect and found by reporters near the scene were handwritten in English with many misspellings and were addressed to "all people who love freedom and justice."
"In a shinning and civilized 21st century, most people in the world enjoying peace and freedom. North Korea however is groaning under the weight of starvation and dictatorial suppression. They don't have even the most basic of human rights since all things body and spirit plants and plows belong to one named greatest general Kim Jong Il," it said.
It was signed: "A citizen of U.N., Steve Kim, Oct. 2, 2002."
Mr. Kim was questioned by U.S. law-enforcement authorities before being transferred to FBI custody and taken out of U.N. headquarters 90 minutes after the shooting.
Security Council members appeared unaware of the incident when they emerged from their meeting. U.N. security officials assured U.N. employees that no one was injured.
Police sealed off First Avenue in front of the United Nations building, and cleared the street of onlookers. The United Nations also sealed off the Secretariat building, and would not allow anyone but Diplomatic Security officers to come and go.
The United Nations was conducting floor-to-floor searches for more bullets after the shooting. The FBI was among those questioning the suspect, along with Diplomatic Security officers and the New York City Police Department.
U.N. spokeswoman Hua Jiang, who witnessed the incident from the window of her office, said she did not know whether the man was an employee of the United Nations.
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U.N. Inspection Team Leaders Agree to Delay Return to Iraq
New York Times
October 4, 2002
By JULIA PRESTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/04/international/middleeast/04NATI.html
UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 3 - The leaders of United Nations weapons inspections teams, responding to intense pressure from the United States and Britain, said today that they would delay their return to Iraq until the Security Council gives them new instructions to guide their work.
In a closed meeting with the weapons experts, the 15 nations who sit on the Council moved significantly toward agreement that they should toughen the rules governing the inspections, diplomats said. But even as President Bush warned again, in strong terms, that he would take military action to disarm Iraq if the United Nations did not, the Council came no closer to accord on a strong resolution including an authorization of military force.
"The choice is up to the United Nations to show its resolve," Mr. Bush said in remarks to Hispanic leaders in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington. "The choice is up to Saddam Hussein to fulfill his word. And if neither of them acts, the United States, in deliberate fashion, will lead a coalition to take away the world's worst weapons from one of the world's worst leaders."
The Bush administration, with its full-court press in Washington and world capitals, appeared to have made headway toward persuading the skeptical Council to adopt a new measure requiring Iraq to accept far more intrusive inspections that would include the palaces of the Iraqi president.
But France and Russia, two veto-bearing Council members, dug in their heels against giving the United States and its ally Britain blanket permission in an initial resolution to launch a strike to topple Mr. Hussein.
The Council today heard from Hans Blix, the head of the biological and chemical weapons inspection team based here, and Mohammed el-Baradei, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, on their meetings in Vienna this week with Iraqi officials.
"It would be awkward if we were doing inspections and then a new mandate with changed directives were to arise," Mr. Blix said after the Council session. Asked if he is planning to delay the teams' departure beyond Oct. 19, the date Iraq has offered, he said, "If the Council puts some new suggestions or directives to us, of course we are in their hands."
Diplomats said Mr. Blix, a seasoned diplomat and veteran arms inspector, had made a practical decision to hold off his trip as he saw how intense the negotiations over the inspections have become.
"We have not purchased air tickets yet," Mr. Blix said. "But we have plans, our readiness is there to go, yes." He said he hoped it would not be a "long delay."
Mr. Blix reported to the Council that there were "loose ends" left over from his talks with the Iraqi officials. The issue of immediate access for the inspectors to Mr. Hussein's compounds was not resolved, Mr. Blix and Mr. Baradei reported. They did not talk about procedures for interviewing Iraqi scientists or for removing items from Iraq for deeper study, he added.
Mr. Blix said he had not reached agreement with Iraq on how the inspectors would be protected inside the no-flight zones over large swaths of northern and southern Iraq, which are patrolled by United States and allied aircraft. The Iraqi officials said they could not guarantee the inspectors' safety in those areas, but Mr. Blix said today that he did not foresee a problem coordinating with the allied forces.
Mr. Blix told the Council he would welcome a new resolution to guide his work. Many of his "loose ends" are addressed in a draft resolution the United States and Britain have drawn up but not yet introduced in the Council.
In the meeting, France and Russia said they were ready to clarify the mandate for the inspectors, diplomats said. While the tide seemed to shift in favor of a French proposal for two resolutions - one to set up the inspections and another to authorize military action if they fail - American officials insisted forcefully on their single draft resolution. It calls for "all necessary means" against Iraq if Baghdad makes any move to block the arms inspectors.
The resolution has to include "a mechanism to deal with noncompliance," an administration official said. "It's not negotiable."
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell kept up intensive telephone diplomacy today, speaking with the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, the French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, and his Russian counterpart, Igor S. Ivanov.
"The discussions are intricate, but I am optimistic that we will find a way forward in the Security Council," Secretary Powell told a meeting of Russian and American businessmen this morning.
On Friday, Secretary Powell and the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, are to meet in Washington with Mr. Blix to "talk about his capabilities and ask if he needs anything more from us," a senior Bush administration official said.
The State Department spokesman, Richard A. Boucher, repeatedly played down any suggestion that Washington would try to block the return to Iraq of the United Nations inspectors, for example by refusing to provide logistical and intelligence support.
A senior administration official summed up the situation in the Security Council this way: "It's becoming increasingly clear that even on some days when the Iraqis say yes, people notice the next day when they say no. And people in the Council are realizing we're going to have to specify what the rules are."
"Those who most want to see this settled peacefully are realizing that only with thorough and credible inspections is there any chance this will be resolved peacefully," the official said, "and only when serious and credible consequences are threatened is there a chance of getting cooperation from Iraq."
But French officials continued today to insist on their strategy of two resolutions. Answering questions in the French Senate, Mr. de Villepin reiterated the view that France was "against unilateral preventive action" and believed that "using force can only be the last resort."
Before addressing the Senate, Mr. de Villepin met a group of senators in a closed-door session. Former Prime Minister Édouard Balladur, who attended the closed session, later quoted Mr. de Villepin as saying that while "certain modifications" were possible, they could clearly not include "automatic recourse to military steps, as far as the text of the first resolution is concerned."
Mr. Chirac said Wednesday after meeting with Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany that both were "totally hostile" to the idea of a single resolution that would have automatic character.
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Military puts war preparations in high gear
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.,
National Journal
October 4, 2002
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1002/100402nj1.htm
The Marines land in Kuwait. The Air Force bombs Saddam Hussein's command posts. Covert teams slip into Iraq. Army tanks rehearse crossing the Euphrates River. Navy crews race to ready their warships for sea. Transport vessels laden with supplies steam unheralded toward the Persian Gulf. Factories churn out precision weapons at an ever-accelerating pace.
The world may not be ready to accept a war on Iraq. Washington may not be, either. Even many in the Pentagon have doubts. But the military buildup is well under way. The armed services of the United States have put a formidable amount of force into position just since September 11, 2001. And in truth, they have been preparing for this fight since the end, 11 years ago, of what we may soon have to call the First Gulf War.
The Persian Gulf is where the post-Cold War world began. Hurried deployments to unfamiliar lands; precision air strikes, like lightning from clear skies; the professionalism of the all-volunteer force; the need for an endless U.S. presence afterwards-all these recurring motifs of the past decade were first seen in the war against Iraq. Since then, U.S. forces have been to Somalia, to Bosnia, to Kosovo, even unto the ends of the Earth in Afghanistan. Now they have come full circle: the same place, the same enemy, even some of the same Americans who fought last time. But the forces have changed.
In 1990, the U.S. military was still blinking at the collapse of its 50-year foe, the Soviet Union. The Army and the Air Force, in particular, were geared for a stand-up fight in Central Europe, close to major bases, lavish stockpiles of supplies, and well-established U.S. garrisons. To deploy a half-million troops halfway around the world was a tremendous stretch, mentally and physically. Transport ships set sail only to break down in midocean. Overworked cargo jets literally started showing cracks. Without clear manifests of what had been shipped, logistics officers had to stage scavenger hunts through thousands of containers of supplies-and many supplies were sent back unused, after the war. Building up sufficient forces to attack took six sometimes-nerve-racking months.
Since then, "there's been a massive improvement," said retired Gen. Charles Krulak, former commandant of the Marine Corps. "We have aircraft that can carry more people and equipment further and faster than we had in 1990. We have ships that are far more capable, [and] weaponry has gained even greater lethality, so the amount you need to transport has been cut down.... But the most important thing is a mind-set that has you agile enough to respond when the whistle blows."
What follows is a look at how far the military has come since the first Gulf War, in getting ready for a possible second.
Prepositioning
The race is not always to the swift. Sometimes the way to win is through the art of guessing where the battle will be, and the science of warehousing enough matériel there in advance. The military calls this "prepositioning."
The U.S. military had actually been stockpiling supplies, quietly, in Saudi Arabia and its neighbors for some years before Saddam invaded Kuwait in August 1990. But the vast bulk of the Pentagon's overseas war stores were in Europe, awaiting World War III. Since 1991, the focus, and much of the equipment, has shifted to the Gulf.
And even more has moved since 9/11. It is difficult to get an exact tally of what has been moved to the Gulf region, because the Pentagon has essentially been playing an intercontinental shell game, involving chartered commercial ships, the military's own sealift ships, and ports in the United States, Europe, the Gulf, and the British-owned island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. "They are definitely doing what they can to obscure exactly what is where," said analyst John Pike, head of GlobalSecurity.org, a research group in Alexandria, Va. But by Pike's count, the Army's stockpiles in the region are being doubled-and those hard by the Iraqi border in Kuwait may triple by year's end.
Army prepositioning dates back decades. The Cold War military maintained not only hundreds of thousands of troops in Europe, but supplies and equipment for tens of thousands more: beans, bullets, missiles, trucks, even entire battalions of tanks parked in warehouses and waiting to go. The stockpiles held everything a unit needed except its men, the lightest part of a modern army. It took just days to fly the troops in from the states for the annual "Reforger" exercises in Europe, when they would break out their stored gear for war games. The problem was that "Reforger" stood for "Return of Forces to Germany." And in 1990, the military needed those warehouses to be a thousand miles to the southeast, in the Persian Gulf.
The Marine Corps, by contrast, had come up with the idea of a floating warehouse. Focused even during the Cold War on responding to brushfires around the world, the Marines had stationed cargo ships (what they call the "Maritime Prepositioning Force") in the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, and the western Pacific. Each of the three squadrons held enough weapons, vehicles, and other equipment to outfit a Marine Air-Ground Task Force of about 15,000 riflemen, pilots, and support personnel apiece. In addition, the other armed services maintained several ships full of fuel, ammunition, and other supplies (although not weapons and vehicles as with the Marines). In 1990, all of these vessels could converge on the Gulf in a few weeks.
After the war, the Marines lobbied successfully for more floating stockpiles. The Maritime Prepositioning Force has expanded from 13 ships then to 15 today, and a 16th is planned for 2003.
The Army, meanwhile, both borrowed a page from the Marine Corps manual and updated its own Cold War playbook. On land in the Persian Gulf, the Army has been steadily acquiring more warehouse space in Qatar and Kuwait. Three times a year since 1996, a couple of thousand Army troops have flown to Kuwait, driven their armored vehicles out of the warehouses, and practiced in the desert, sometimes less than 30 miles from Iraq. And they stay in place until the next practice battalion flies in to relieve them-in a kind of perpetual rotating Reforger. In the past few months, this rotating force has been tripled to brigade size-about 6,000 troops.
The stranger change since 1991 is that the Army now has a navy, in the form of a dozen ships. The bulk of the Army fleet is seven Watson-class LMSRs-Large Medium-Speed Roll-On/Roll-Off ships-anchored off the British territory of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, a few days' sail from Iraq. An eighth LMSR, finished this September, is due at the island in February. Each 1,000-foot-long ship has decks reinforced to hold 70-ton tanks and includes ramps to let them drive right off without laborious unloading by longshoremen with cranes. All told, these ships carry equipment and supplies for an armored brigade, plus an array of supporting units: according to one official memo, some 10,000 troops.
And more matériel is on the way. Months before 9/11, the Army was already planning to move its remaining prepositioned stocks from Germany into the Gulf. "One of those brigade sets, I believe, showed up at Diego Garcia this past spring," said Pike, who has been tracking published reports of commercial vessels chartered by the military. Another appears to be headed for Kuwait, where a huge new warehouse complex, Camp Arifjan, was finished this summer. And the Army has publicly acknowledged transferring equipment from its Qatar stockpile to Kuwait, closer to Iraq. "At the beginning of this year," said Pike, "the Army had one heavy division of equipment in theater. And I think it's entirely possible that that they either have or very soon will have an additional heavy division."
Two armored divisions would comprise nearly 40,000 troops. The three Marine task forces whose equipment is prepositioned at sea would add 50,000 more. The total, it so happens, would be comfortably in the middle range of estimates for how many ground troops it would take to invade Iraq.
Lift
For all the Pentagon's far-flung stockpiles and bases, the United States homeland remains the chief arsenal of democracy. Most U.S. forces are here (indeed, a larger percentage than in the Cold War), as is America's arms industry. Any sustained combat overseas requires a steady stream of reinforcements and supplies from home. The "pipeline" that pumped power from the United States to the Gulf in 1990-91 was staggering: At its peak, a ship was sailing every 50 miles across the ocean, while a flying bridge of transport planes outdelivered the record 65-week Berlin airlift of 1948-49-and did so in the first six weeks of Desert Shield. Since then, the military's capacity has only increased-and in ways that make possible new and more daring operations, as shown in Afghanistan after 9/11.
Airplanes may be faster and more glamorous than seagoing vessels, but even a large plane carries only about 1 percent of the cargo of a single big ship. So the most efficient way to supply a war is still what it was in World War II-by sea. The good news is that there are no more submarines lurking in ambush for our transports. The bad news is that there is not much of a Merchant Marine left, either. So as the commercial shipping industry has shifted overseas-and has come to rely increasingly on standardized containers that cannot accommodate bulky items such as tanks or helicopters-the U.S. government has had to build up its own fleet.
In 1990, the military had a reserve of moored cargo ships and part-time civilian crews on standby, able to set sail for any destination as soon as four days after getting the order. The Gulf War was the fleet's first test. It passed, but not with flying colors. Some transports were creaky geriatrics: "I loaded on a ship that looked like it came out of a Humphrey Bogart movie," recalled Patrick Sweeney, a Gulf War veteran who now teaches at the Naval War College. And even newer ships had problems. Eight "Fast Sealift Ships" acquired in the 1980s could travel at a staggering 30 knots, faster than any civilian transport-but engine problems stranded one ignominiously in the mid-Atlantic during the buildup for Desert Storm.
Since 1991, the military has tightened standards for its standby fleet, which now numbers 70 vessels ranging from fuel tankers to troopships. The civilian Maritime Administration, which oversees the fleet in peacetime, has stepped up inspections-especially in recent months, say analysts at Stratfor (for "strategic forecasting"), a private, Washington-based provider of intelligence. And since the Gulf War, brags the military's Transportation Command, during 147 no-notice drills only two ships sailed behind schedule, and then by less than 10 hours.
The fleet is not only readier, but larger. The focus has been on "roll-on/roll-off" ships ("Ro/Ros" in Pentagonspeak), a kind of giant seagoing ferry that has grown ever rarer in commercial shipping, but which is prized because it enables military vehicles to drive straight on and off, without having to be loaded and unloaded by crane. The 1980s-vintage Fast Sealift Ships, still in service, are of this type. And since the Gulf War, the reserve fleet has acquired 10 new Large Medium-Speed Roll-On/Roll-Off ships-slightly smaller versions of the seven LMSRs prepositioned at Diego Garcia-and 14 smaller Ro/Ro transports. All are kept on four days' notice to sail.
Still, the swiftest ship cannot catch a plane. Even where the military has prepositioned whole warehouses of equipment, it has to rely on aircraft to quickly bring in the personnel necessary to operate the equipment. And as shown in Afghanistan, the United States now has so many cargo planes that it can sustain a fair-sized war in a landlocked, all-but-roadless country, halfway round the world, by airlift alone.
In 1990, by contrast, an airlift to the Mideast was considered nearly a worst-case scenario because it would have to carry nearly the same tonnage of supplies as for a war in Europe but would have to take it on much longer flights. One expedient was to call up commercial jetliners, the first-ever use of a program called the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (which still exists). But most of the burden in the Gulf War rested on the military's own aircraft. The Air Force had and still has hundreds of propeller-driven C-130s, able to land on short, rough airstrips, but these were smallish aircraft with a rather short range. The giant C-5 Galaxies, by contrast, could carry two 70-ton tanks apiece and fly a longer distance, but they required a correspondingly enormous runway, and lavish maintenance to match, and so had to land mostly at major airbases far from the front. In between these extremes were the C-141 Starlifters, the workhorses of the Gulf War airlift. But these 1960s-vintage planes were flown so hard that they simply wore out. In 1990, the Air Force had 234 Starlifters in service; only 76 remain.
Their replacement is the C-17. In its early years it was an extraordinarily troubled program, even by Pentagon standards, but the C-17 has become a favorite of the military and Congress alike, with 91 built and 89 more on order. It can fly as far as a C-141 with twice the cargo and needs only 60 percent as much airstrip. Unlike older transports, it can also jam or decoy the enemy missiles that just may be aiming for it as it arrives at forward bases. In Afghanistan, according to Transportation Command's Col. Curt Ross, "the self-defense system on the C-17 allowed us to go into places that we probably couldn't have taken a C-141, certainly in the early stages of the war."
And the C-17's recent performance in Afghanistan suggests daring new possibilities in Iraq. There are repeated reports that U.S. engineers are already in Iraq, upgrading airfields in the Kurdish-controlled north. Such primitive frontline landing strips would be inadequate for U.S. attack aircraft, but they could help greatly with the airlift. Now, an airlift alone cannot sustain an all-out ground attack on Iraq. But the Pentagon could use these small, forward fields to deploy substantial Special Operations units that would direct air strikes and stiffen Kurdish resistance against Saddam, or even-with the C-17-deploy a small armored force to attack the Iraqi military's flank.
Air Bases
Airpower has inspired an almost religious terror ever since the first fighters sputtered aloft in World War I. The uncanny precision of modern weapons has only added to that aura. But in fact the U.S. Air Force is mostly earthbound. Every knight of the air requires scores of grease-stained squires on the ground to refuel, rearm, and repair the planes; radars and command centers to direct their flight; and thousands of yards of smooth, hard runway to land on and take off from in the first place.
In the Gulf of 1990, most of this had to be made from scratch, or rather sand. Since then the Air Force has built up more than a decade's worth of infrastructure and experience in the region. And since 9/11, its bases in the region have been getting bigger, and its air strikes have become larger and heavier in the two no-fly zones that U.S. aircraft patrol in Iraq.
When Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990, Saudi Arabia and its neighbors had already been constructing major airfields with U.S. help. But when Desert Shield dawned, these were mostly incomplete, some of them little more than landing strips cutting through bare desert. Everything else that makes a base-the machine shops, the weapons stores, the quarters for personnel-had yet to be constructed. "In the Gulf War, we had to literally create cities in the sand," said retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert Scales. "That won't be necessary this time around."
The reason is that once the Air Force set up for Gulf War I, it never entirely left. The no-fly zones meant to prevent Saddam from strafing rebel villages in Iraq's north and south have kept U.S. (and British) aircraft in the region for the past 11 years. Although reluctant Middle East allies often restricted U.S. operations against Iraq from their airfields during the 1990s, they also permitted the steady upgrading of those bases, especially in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. And some Gulf states have outright vied with their neighbors to build the most lavish facilities for the Americans. After 9/11, Saudi qualms over attacking Iraq raised the threat that the United States could not use its Arabian bases, including an elaborate command center just completed in 2001. But Qatar, a small peninsular country that juts out from Saudi Arabia into the Persian Gulf, let the Air Force shift equipment to an alternative site at Al Udeid, where a huge new base boasts the longest runway in the region. The war on Afghanistan also saw unprecedented U.S. access to airfields in the Gulf state of Oman-where reports hint that a proposed airfield at Musnana'h is closer to completion than the official public schedule says.
The flip side of these physical improvements has been an equally important shift in mind-set. In the Gulf region, U.S. pilots have been on patrol continuously, and in combat repeatedly, over Iraq for more than a decade. The weight of this burden has reshaped Air Force culture. After decades of dependence on well-established garrisons in the United States and Europe, where personnel would live with their families for years, the Air Force learned to cycle units-including Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard squadrons-in and out of countries constantly and quickly. Those airmen who did not quit in exhaustion accumulated practical experience that their Cold War predecessors never had. And starting in 1999, most squadrons were put on a planned and scheduled rotation so they knew when they had to be ready for the next deployment; this "Air Expeditionary Force" system was designed in part for the recurrent flare-ups over Iraq.
Those flare-ups have also worn down Iraqi air defenses. The air strikes peaked in 1999. But since 9/11, the bombing has picked up again-and shifted focus. In August, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld explicitly ordered that retaliation for Iraqi threats to U.S. aircraft should fall, not on the anti-aircraft gun or missile batteries themselves, but on their command and communications centers. There has even been at least one strike against Iraqi anti-ship cruise missiles-which are no threat to airplanes overhead, but a real worry for ships unloading supplies in Kuwait, or for Marine amphibious ships landing in Iraq.
This fall's stepped-up air strikes do not approach the aerial onslaught of 1991. But the increased use of smart bombs makes today's limited attacks hit harder than much larger raids a decade ago. For all the awe that they inspired, precision weapons made up just 7 percent of the U.S. bombardment in the Gulf War-and almost all of that was dropped by the Air Force; the Navy had only a few aircraft with the electronic gear necessary to launch smart bombs. In Afghanistan, the percentage of precision weapons surpassed 60 percent-and every Navy fighter could drop them. More precision means more damage from fewer raids, which use up not only fewer bombs, but also a lot less fuel en route to the targets. And that efficiency, in turn, dramatically reduces the sheer tonnage that U.S. logisticians must put in place for war. Army veteran Scales noted, "The two greatest bulk items for strategic deployment are not men and equipment: They're munitions and fuel."
Command And Plans
Modern warfare is a matter of mass. Since 1991, the American military has done much to reduce the mass it must move into the Gulf for war. It has built up infrastructure, prepositioned equipment, and smartened up its bombs with precision guidance so it takes fewer to destroy the targets. And the Pentagon has increased its ability to haul what still needs hauling, with a larger and more capable inventory of sea and air transports.
But logistics is also about information-and in this intangible realm, the United States has also made real strides. In 1990-91, the pipeline pumping supplies overseas was massive, unceasing, and opaque: Nobody knew exactly what was in it. The Pentagon's unified Transportation Command, intended to reduce the overlap between Army, Navy, and Air Force transport assets, was only three years old back then. Transcom, as it is known, had barely begun to bring order to a Cold War array of mutually incompatible tracking systems, which had fallen far behind the standards of commercial shippers such as FedEx. Shipments hauled across the ocean got stuck just short of the front line because the combat units did not know the goods had been delivered. Many containers did not even have clear printed manifests. Recalled retired Col. Scott Feil (now with the Association of the United States Army), the attitude among logisticians inevitably became, "I don't know whether it got there, so I'd better send another one." Piled on top of a worst-case estimate of how long the war would take, this inefficiency led to vast desert stockpiles that ultimately had to be shipped back.
"There were a lot of stories after the war of acres on acres of unopened containers," said Transcom's Ross. "There were also stories of people who ordered parts and ordered them again and again." But since the Gulf War, the military has been working on new processes, and new computer networks, that help supply front-line forces with what they need, instead of piling three of everything in the rear. Getting Army, Navy, Marine, and Air Force logisticians to enter the same data in the same electronic formats is still problematic. But now they can track every transport, sea and air, and have a decent idea of what's inside it.
Transcom is not the only headquarters that has grown up. In 1990, the Pentagon's Central Command, which oversees the Middle East theater, did have a detailed plan for fighting a Gulf War-but the conflict envisioned was in Iran, and against invading Soviets. The parts about pouring friendly forces into Saudi Arabia still held good when the enemy became Iraq; everything else had to be thrown out. Since then, a new war against Saddam has become the standard planning scenario, not just for Central Command, but for the entire Pentagon as it works out its budget, force structure, and global strategy.
Indeed, military reformers have often said that all the attention lavished on preparing for another big tank battle in the Gulf has drained energy from more-innovative planning. In recent years, however, the example of an all-airpower war over Kosovo has shaken up the Pentagon. So has the Special Operations-dominated fighting in Afghanistan.
And the Afghan war has not only changed the way U.S. planners think, it has changed where they are. Central Command's naval component, the U.S. 5th Fleet, has been based on Bahrain, an island state near Qatar, since the Gulf War. But the corresponding Marine Corps command had stayed in the Pacific-until its top general and much of his staff moved to Bahrain in January. The month before, the U.S. Third Army headquarters moved from Fort MacPherson, Ga., to Kuwait to be closer to ongoing ground operations in Afghanistan. The Air Force now has two alternative command posts in the region, one in Saudi Arabia and the other, in case of Saudi jitters, in Qatar. The Central Command itself remains at its headquarters in Tampa, Fla. But 600 of its staff will deploy to Qatar in November as an exercise. No one expects them home right away.
Considering these relocations, the increased air strikes, the prepositioning of supplies, repeated stories of covert operations inside Iraq, and intense war games from Kuwait to Texas, the invasion may seem imminent. But these moves can be overhyped. This summer, a minor media storm erupted over a State Department solicitation to humanitarian groups for $6.6 million of aid work in Iraq-including regions still under Saddam's control. Some analysts said the contract showed that Washington was already preparing for the aftermath of an invasion. But officials hastily emphasized that the program was aimed at displaced Kurds in the rebel-held north. And $6.6 million would hardly be even a down payment on rebuilding a post-Saddam Iraq.
"These small things that are happening, [such as] two thousand Marines doing an exercise in Kuwait,... look less like the vanguard of a deployment than the prudent preparation of a defense" of our bases in the Gulf lest Saddam try a pre-emptive strike of his own, said Michael O'Hanlon, an analyst at the Brookings Institution. To deploy forces for a full-scale invasion, which O'Hanlon estimates would require more than 100,000 troops, would take about two months.
Even GlobalSecurity.org's Pike, who suspects that an invasion might take as few as 50,000 troops deployed in just 10 days, agreed that such troop movements would produce telltale signs we have not yet seen: "There's no way you can deploy that number of troops, and that number of aircraft, without it being obvious."
But it is well worth noting that even O'Hanlon's conservative estimate still presumes a much smaller force, and a much quicker time line, than in the Gulf War. The consensus of experts, military and civilian alike, is that a second Desert Storm would blow in far faster than the first. "It's not going to be a six-month buildup," said Army Lt. Col. Robert Boyko, recently retired from Transcom. "In a sense, we've had a 10-year buildup."
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Schools threatened
Inside the Ring Notes from the Pentagon
Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
October 4, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021004-92332157.htm
U.S. intelligence agencies received reports this week indicating Islamic terrorists have targeted American schools for attack, intelligence officials said.
The reports indicate that the targeting includes plans to attack all levels of educational institutions in the United States, ranging from elementary schools to colleges and universities, said officials familiar with the reports.
The information on schools as terrorist targets is among the scores of threat reports received by U.S. intelligence agencies every day. Some officials questioned the veracity of the report but said U.S. intelligence agencies have to weigh all the reports carefully.
Gitmo dispute
The Defense Intelligence Agency, which is in charge of interrogating the prisoners held at the prison at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is having trouble getting information. Defense sources tell us interrogators are being undermined by the general in charge of the prison, Army Brig Gen. Rick Baccus, who is being too nice to the 598 captured terrorists.
Pentagon officials tell us Gen. Baccus has catered to the prisoners who are there, after all, because of actions that sprang from their extremist version of Islam.
Gen. Baccus in April addressed the detainees and began speaking with the words "peace be with you" and finished with "may God be with you." He promised that as long as he is in charge the prisoners will be "treated humanly."
Gen. Baccus also authorized putting up posters supplied by the International Committee of the Red Cross around the camp. The posters remind prisoners they need only cooperate as required by the Geneva Convention on the rules of war - name, rank and serial number.
The too-kind treatment upset Army Maj. Gen. Michael Dunlavey, who is in charge of the interrogation unit at Guantanamo Bay, nicknamed "Gitmo." A spokesman for Gen. Dunlavey could not be reached for comment.
Lt. Col. Joe Hoey, a spokesman at Guantanamo Bay for Gen. Baccus, said he was unaware of any dispute.
"We have to do what we have to do," Col. Hoey said. "We're feeding them three times a day, and letting them practice their religion five times a day, and taking care of their medical needs. If that hinders interrogations, that's too bad."
Presidential brief
The "Defense Program Overview" brief prepared for President Bush while he vacationed in Crawford, Texas, in August is pretty much the same document presented to reporters a few weeks later at the Pentagon.
But we thought two questions needed to be addressed. Under the heading of "cost cutting capability and process issues," both briefings mention the "active-reserve mix" - a reference to the 1.4 million active and 1.3 million Guard and Reserves.
A senior defense official says the administration is looking at ways to save money by cutting troops, if not next year, then two to four years from now. The source said the target is 70,000 active and Reserve forces.
Asked about the briefing's reference to "cost cutting capability," the Pentagon released a statement to Inside the Ring. "At this time, we are not planning any cuts from the fiscal year 2002 end strength levels for either the active force or Reserve components. We are, however, studying what might be the right mix of skills and units, especially in the Reserve components. We are seeking to capitalize on the unique strengths of the Reserves in meeting the evolving needs of the nation in the 21st century."
The briefing also says the Pentagon is prepared to accept greater risks - normally a reference to casualties - in the second of two simultaneous wars. This would essentially be a trade-off in order to meet other transformation goals. The Pentagon did not respond to questions about increased risk.
Dissidents
Pentagon insiders say most of the skepticism on going to war with Iraq does not rest with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but with its planning arm, better known as the Joint Staff.
While the six chiefs are asking "what if" questions, and some are pushing for more ground troops than civilian planners believe are needed, they are not opposed to a war to prevent Saddam Hussein from possessing nukes.
But there is strong dissent within units of the Joint Staff. Some argue the United States cannot count on Iraq military defectors to do their share. They also worry about detracting from the ongoing war on terrorism and about further destabilizing the Middle East.
Libel redux
Former Navy Lt. Carey Dunai Lohrenz is appealing the decision by a U.S. District Court judge to dismiss her libel lawsuit against Elaine Donnelly, who heads the Center for Military Readiness.
The judge ruled that Mrs. Lohrenz is a public figure, thus requiring her to show that Mrs. Donnelly demonstrated a reckless disregard for the truth when she charged that the pioneer woman fighter pilot received special treatment during flight qualifications. The judge ruled Mrs. Lohrenz failed to meet the public-figure burden.
The former pilot's attorneys are appealing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
Rummy's top 10
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld shows no sign of letting up in his drive to change the way the armed forces budget and fight. He sent a memo to his top aides Sept. 17 giving them direction for bringing change in the fiscal 2004 budget, which goes to Capitol Hill early next year.
"As you develop proposals for the fiscal year 2004 DoD legislative program, you should adopt the perspective that now is the time to change the way we operate," Mr. Rumsfeld writes.
"Every week it seems a senior official in this department tells me we are constrained in our ability to do something by an obsolete legal provision," he adds. "Similarly, I often hear of initiatives we would like to take, but for which we need additional statutory authority."
He concludes: "The war on terrorism does not supplant the need to transform DoD; instead, we must accelerate our organizational, operational, business, and process reforms."
The defense secretary's top 10 priorities: war on terrorism; joint war-fighting; transforming joint forces; improving intelligence; fine-tuning career paths; forming new relationships worldwide; countering weapons of mass destruction; homeland security; shortening acquisition process; and improving policy-making within interagency process.
Maginnis offer
We wrote last week that well-known conservative pundit Robert Maginnis had left the Family Research Council and was seeking to find another base in a Washington think tank.
Well, it did not take long for the pro-drug-war Maginnis, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, to get a job feeler. It came, tongue in cheek, from the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws:
"Col. Bob: Always a position open here at www.norml.org for a military expert who would seek to defend marijuana smokers who also serve their country, of which there are many. Let us know & good luck wherever you go."
•Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough are Pentagon reporters.
Mr. Gertz can be reached at 202/636-3274 or by e-mail at bgertz@WashingtonTimes.com.
Mr. Scarborough can be reached at 202/636-3208 or by e-mail at rscarborough@WashingtonTimes.com.
-------- propaganda wars
Court Might Not Rule On Correspondent's Refusal to Testify
By Matt Daily
Reuters
Friday, October 4, 2002; Page A25
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41271-2002Oct3?language=printer
THE HAGUE, Oct. 3 -- A test case on whether journalists can be forced to testify at war crimes trials in The Hague could fade away with no resolution, lawyers in the case said today.
Former Washington Post correspondent Jonathan C. Randal has refused to testify for the prosecution before the international war crimes tribunal. His lawyers argue that any attempt to force testimony from journalists would endanger war correspondents and hamper their ability to cover the fighting.
Prosecutors have wanted Randal to give evidence against Radoslav Brdjanin, a former Bosnian Serb deputy prime minister on trial for war crimes, and to confirm a story Randal wrote quoting Brdjanin as saying he wanted to get rid of the non-Serb population.
But today lawyers for Brdjanin shunned the court and appeared to back away from calls to question Randal. Prosecutor Joanna Korner said if the veracity of an article that Randal wrote about Brdjanin was no longer in dispute, "we don't need to call Mr. Randal."
Randal is supported by more than 30 organizations, including The Post, the New York Times, the BBC and news media in the former Yugoslavia, that see the case as a test of journalists' rights.
Brdjanin has been charged by the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia with deporting, torturing and murdering Croats and Muslims during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
A judge at the tribunal ordered Randal to testify last June, but he appealed the ruling. In today's hearing, the opposing sides presented their arguments in that appeal.
Floyd Abrams, a lawyer from New York who represented the media organizations, told the five-judge appellate panel that journalists should be granted a limited privilege to gather information.
Prosecutors argued that Randal's case did not fit traditional journalist privilege because he was not protecting an anonymous source.
Prosecutors subpoenaed Randal after Brdjanin's lawyers said that an article written by the correspondent in 1993 had misquoted their client. Brdjanin's lawyers said they wanted to cross-examine Randal in court.
Prosecutors later submitted a written statement from Randal reaffirming the quotes, and Brdjanin's attorneys dropped their request to question the journalist on the article's veracity.
However, an e-mail from Brdjanin's legal team indicated his attorneys might want to question Randal on alleged omissions of crucial context from his article, lawyers involved in the case said. Brdjanin's attorney, John Ackerman, has to clarify this position before it would become clear whether the test case could proceed, the lawyers said.
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Hague Tribunal Hears Arguments on Exempting Reporters
New York Times
October 4, 2002
By MARLISE SIMONS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/04/international/europe/04HAGU.html
THE HAGUE, Oct. 3 - Lawyers representing 34 news organizations appeared at the war crimes tribunal today, urging the court to drop its demand that a former war correspondent testify against his will, but the issue may have become moot because the reporter may no longer be called as a witness.
In June, the tribunal ruled that a former correspondent for The Washington Post, Jonathan Randal, should appear before it to confirm the contents of an article he wrote in 1993 because prosecutors wanted to present it in evidence in the trial of Radoslav Brdjanin, a Bosnian Serb politician. Mr. Brdjanin was quoted in the article as seemingly advocating the expulsion of non-Serbs.
The ruling, and Mr. Randal's subsequent appeal, have drawn much attention because the outcome was expected to set a precedent for relations between war correspondents and war crimes tribunals. It could affect the rules at the new permanent International Criminal Court, which despite opposition from the Bush administration opened its doors in The Hague in July.
The request to question Mr. Randal, who lives in Paris and is now writing books, was first made by the Bosnian Serb's defense lawyer, John Ackerman, who is based in Texas. Today, however, as lawyers for The Washington Post and for a group of 34 news organizations, including The New York Times, asked that reporters be exempted from testifying in war crimes trials, the court learned that Mr. Ackerman had changed his mind and no longer planned to question Mr. Randal.
The result was an unusual hearing, in which the five judges of the appeals court listened to four hours of arguments about an issue they would no longer be required to decide: whether Mr. Randal or any other war correspondent can be subpoenaed to testify before a war crimes tribunal.
Floyd Abrams, a First Amendment lawyer based in New York, represented the news organizations. He said he had come to the court "in support of a principle: subpoena journalists last."
Journalistic sources would dry up if reporters were routinely summoned and perceived as adjuncts to war crimes investigators, he said.
"We urge you to give some protection to journalists," Mr. Abrams argued. "They cannot have access to people if those people believe the journalist will testify against them."
He suggested that the court adopt "a modest rule" similar to the guidelines used by the United States Department of Justice, which say that journalists should be summoned only if their information is essential to prove guilt or innocence and cannot be obtained elsewhere.
Geoffrey Robertson, who led The Washington Post's legal team, told the judges to bear in mind the services that newsgatherers provide.
"Without the work of war correspondents and camera persons bringing home the reality of war atrocities," he said, "this court and the new permanent international criminal court may not have come into being."
The prosecutor, Joanna Korner of Britain, argued against them, but in the end she said she had no interest in calling Mr. Randal to court as long as his article was admitted into the record. Still, she warned the judges not to tie their hands by granting privileges to journalists not available to other civilians.
European reporters and documentary filmmakers have already testified voluntarily in several cases at the tribunal, but Americans, when asked, have declined to appear. Mr. Randal is the first reporter known to have received a summons.
Mr. Abrams said he was not claiming any "special nobility" for reporters. But, he said "they do go into harm's way to recount for the public what they have seen." When he said that at their best, reporters have three attributes, "neutrality, impartiality and independence," there were snickers in the gallery.
In private, several lawyers conceded that the summons of Mr. Randal had not provided a clear case for testing the principle that reporters in war zones deserved protection against appearing in court. Mr. Randal's case did not involve protecting sources because he published his source's name and quoted him, and he said he had no additional material. Mr. Randal, who is 69, is no longer an active correspondent. Moreover, Mr. Ackerman, the defense lawyer who wanted to question him, had been unclear, changing his position several times. One of the judges noted with some irritation that he had not shown up in court today.
"We have a very odd situation here," said Mr. Abrams, as the reason for the hearing evaporated. Noting that Mr. Randal risked no personal danger by being summoned, Mr. Robertson said, "Randal is 69 and retired," and, then looking up at the judges, added hastily, "Sixty-nine may be an old age for a war correspondent, but it is a young age for a judge."
The five judges dealing with the appeal, who are from France, Guyana, Sri Lanka, Turkey and the United States, indeed appeared a good deal older than Mr. Randal.
a name="police">
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
-------- death penalty
Turkey Drops Death Sentence for Kurd
New York Times
October 4, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/04/international/europe/04TURK.html
ANKARA, Turkey, Oct. 3 (AP) - Turkey today formally commuted the death sentence of Abdullah Ocalan, the Kurdish rebel leader, to life in prison. Two months ago, Parliament abolished capital punishment as part of Turkey's bid to join the European Union. Turkey has not executed anyone since 1984.
Mr. Ocalan, the sole inmate in an island prison in Istanbul, was sentenced to death for treason in 1999 for leading the Kurdistan Workers Party in a 15-year war for autonomy in southeast Turkey, which is mostly Kurdish.
The rebels declared a cease-fire in 1999, shortly after Mr. Ocalan's arrest in Kenya. The government rejected the move, saying it would only be acceptable if rebels surrendered, which they would not.
Sporadic clashes continue. About 37,000 people, mainly Kurdish rebels and civilians, have died in the fighting, which began in 1984.
-------- terrorism
Prisoners: 9/11 Was First of Three
By Larry Margasak and John Solomon
Associated Press Writers
Friday, October 4, 2002; 4:50 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41909-2002Oct4?language=printer
WASHINGTON -- John Walker Lindh and other al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners told U.S. interrogators the Sept. 11 hijackings were supposed to be the first of three increasingly severe attacks against Americans. Their claims have not been corroborated, government officials said.
Lindh will be sentenced Friday, likely to 20 years in prison, for supplying services to the Taliban and carrying an explosive during commission of a felony. He heard some of the claims while serving in a 20-man Taliban infantry unit of Arabic speakers in Afghanistan, according to people familiar with his account.
Authorities have gathered similar information from prisoners of various levels of the terrorist network. But the officials said the United States hasn't found specific plans for two additional large-scale attacks and they suspect the claims could involve disinformation or folklore that circulated among low-level terrorists and Taliban soldiers after Sept. 11.
"We have not been able to corroborate the claims among the thousands of pages of documents and other evidence we have gathered the last year," one senior law enforcement official said. "We believe some of these prisoners may have been trained to give misinformation or simply were passing on rumors."
One law enforcement official said some al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners said the second and third wave attacks could involve biological, chemical or radiological weapons to increase casualties and were designed to paralyze Americans with fear and cripple the economy.
Details of Lindh's extensive interrogation, part of his plea agreement, remain secret. However, Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert who worked with defense lawyers and interviewed Lindh, said the Californian told him he picked up battlefield rumors about two waves of post-Sept. 11 attacks.
Reading from his interview notes, Gunaratna said Lindh told him: "The original attack plan was in three phases, totaling 20 separate attacks. the first phase was ... two attacks on the World Trade Center, an attack on the Pentagon and a third attack on the White House."
The notes also reflected that Lindh said: "The second phase of attacks was going to be using biological agents and also attacks on natural gas and nuclear infrastructure.
"The second phase was going to make the U.S. forget about the first phase. The third phase was to finish the U.S. and was to take place within the next six months (after Sept. 11)."
Gunaratna said that while Lindh used the word "biological," he believes from other sources that the weapon could be a radiological device, a so-called dirty bomb.
Gunaratna spoke with Lindh in his jail cell for eight hours on July 25-26 as a defense consultant, and submitted a report to a federal judge that concluded Lindh never swore loyalty to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida.
Still, Gunaratna said, Lindh would be a valuable U.S. intelligence asset because he understood what makes Islamic fundamentalists join conflicts around the world.
Lindh also said he heard that 50 people were going on 20 suicide missions, but added he received the information on the front lines in October - not prior to Sept. 11 when at a training camp, as his original indictment indicated.
Officials have had indications that additional attacks may have been planned immediately after Sept. 11.
For instance, shortly after the jetliner crashed into the Pentagon, German intelligence intercepted a phone call from the United States suggesting other terror teams were on the ground and ready to strike, U.S. and foreign intelligence officials say.
Officials said prisoners from the war on terrorism, including some kept at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have given similar accounts about two more attacks that were supposed to follow Sept. 11.
The details of the prisoners' account vary widely, officials said, but most agree that the subsequent attacks were supposed to be more severe than the Sept. 11 attacks that leveled the World Trade Center, damaged the Pentagon, crashed a plane in Pennsylvania and killed more than 3,000.
Lindh, 21, pleaded guilty July 15. He was captured last December with other Taliban in Afghanistan, the last stop on his journey from a teenage convert to Islam in San Francisco's suburbs to a foot soldier for the vanquished Afghan regime.
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Shoe Bomber Admits He Tried to Blow Up Trans-Atlantic Jet
New York Times
October 4, 2002
By TERENCE NEILAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/04/national/04CND-SHOE.html
A British citizen who described himself as a follower of Osama bin Laden and an enemy of the United States pleaded guilty in Boston today to trying to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight with explosives stuffed into his shoes.
"Basically I got on the plane with a bomb," the Briton, Richard C. Reid, 29, told Judge William Young of Federal District Court. "Basically I tried to ignite it."
"Basically, yeah I intended to damage the plane," courtroom observers said he added with a laugh.
The judge asked, "Did you intend to blow that plane up and kill the people on that plane and yourself?"
Mr. Reid replied, "Yeah," and smirked.
Asked why he pleaded guilty, he said, "Because I know what I've done. At the end of the day I know that I done the actions."
Mr. Reid surprised prosecutors earlier this week when he decided to enter a plea of guilty, saying he wanted to save his family from "the negative impact" a trial would have on his family.
As part of the plea, Mr. Reid had asked that any mention of his alleged ties to Al Qaeda be removed from the indictment. The plea was accepted by Judge Young, although he refused to remove from the indictment any mention of Al Qaeda, the group led by Mr. bin Laden. The subject, however, can be brought up at the time of Mr. Reid's sentencing, set for Jan. 8, the judge added. Federal prosecutors said they would ask for a sentence of 60 years to life in prison.
Prosecutors filed court documents late Thursday saying the Al Qaeda allegations were supported by witnesses "with personal knowledge of Reid's presence at Al Qaeda training camps" and "corroborating circumstantial evidence."
"I don't care," Mr. Reid said today. "I'm a follower of Osama bin Laden. I'm an enemy of your country and I don't care."
Mr. Reid was accused of trying to murder 197 passengers and crew members aboard American Airlines flight 63 on Dec. 22, 2001, which took off from Paris bound for Miami. He was overpowered after he tried to set light to a fuse in his sneakers and the plane was diverted to Boston escorted by fighters planes.
Mr. Reid pleaded guilty to eight charges: attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction; attempted homicide; placing an explosive device on an aircraft; attempted murder; two counts of interference with flight crew and attendants; attempted destruction of an aircraft, and using a destructive device during a crime of violence.
A ninth charge, attempted wrecking of a mass transportation vehicle, was dismissed by the judge in June.
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Terror Arrests Made in Oregon
October 4, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Terror-Arrests.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Authorities have arrested three people in Portland, Ore., and another in Michigan on terrorism-related charges, U.S. officials said Friday.
The law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a regional joint terrorism task force coordinated a series of arrests in the two states.
Six people were charged with conspiracy to support al-Qaida and other terrorism-related charges in an indictment returned in Oregon by a federal grand jury.
The two others are fugitives outside of the United States, officials said.
In Portland, police tape was put up around the Westport Square Apartments early Friday, and people nearby reported seeing substantial police activity.
The U.S. attorney's office in Portland confirmed what it described as a ``series of law enforcement actions in Oregon'' but declined to provide further details.
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft planned a news conference for 1 p.m. EDT to discuss the arrests.
The task force on Sept. 9 arrested Sheik Mohamed Abdirahman Kariye, a religious leader at the Islamic Center in Portland, and charged him with Social Security fraud. He remains in jail with a trial date set for Nov. 5.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
UK offshore wind farms get green light, 20 mln stg support
REUTERS UK:
October 4, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18042/story.htm
LONDON - Britain's first two offshore wind farms have won 20 million pounds in government aid to power 100,000 homes and boost green energy, the Department for Trade and Industry said this week.
"These developments are a major step forward for the UK offshore wind industry, and the clearest signal yet that UK manufacturing can play its part in the growing market for sustainable energy at home and abroad," UK Energy Minister Brian Wilson said in a statement.
The funding will be split equally between the two sites off the coasts of North Wales and Norfolk which are the first to gain full consent out of 18 potential projects identified by offshore developers.
National Windpower, part of UK utility Innogy, will operate the North Wales site, comprising 30 turbines and a total capacity of 90 megawatt (MW), to provide 50,000 homes with electricity. Innogy is owned by German energy company RWE.
Powergen, owned by German utility E.ON, will operate the other site, which will include 39 turbines and have a capacity of up to 80 MW to power 50,000 homes.
The 20 million pounds aid package is part of a wider 300 million pounds programme to boost the use of renewable energy such as solar, wind and biomass power and cut polluting greenhouse gas emissions on the energy-hungry island.
The burning of fossil fuels such as oil and coal emit greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) - widely blamed for global warming.
Britain aims to cut its CO2 emissions by 12.5 percent by 2010 on 1990s levels under a global Kyoto Protocol to cut greenhouse gases and curb gloabal warming.
It also plans to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 23 percent during the same period.
Under a Renewables Obligation the UK government wants electricity suppliers to take 10 percent of their power from renewable energy sources by 2010.
Britain currently takes 2.8 percent of its electricity from renewable energy.
The government also launched new guidelines for developers on where to locate their wind farms to avoid interfering with military and civil aviation operations. Radar can be disrupted by wind turbines.
-------- environment
High PCB levels reported in Alaska islanders
Story by Yereth Rosen
REUTERS USA:
October 4, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18037/story.htm
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - High levels of cancer-linked contaminants have been found in the blood of residents of a remote Alaskan island in the Bering Strait, partly because of lingering pollution from two mothballed Cold War military stations, said a study released this week.
The study released by Alaska Community Action on Toxics (ACAT), an Anchorage-based environmental group, said elevated levels of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, were found in the blood of St. Lawrence Island residents.
Average PCB levels for the 60 tested islanders were 7.5 parts per billion, compared to a national average of 0.9 to 1.5 parts per billion, said the study.
The highest PCB levels were found in the blood of people who spent time at a site known as Northeast Cape, where an Air Force post was once located and where the Yupik Eskimo islanders have long gathered their traditional foods.
The study was launched because of concerns about cancer and other diseases striking the island's 1,300 residents, said June Martin, St. Lawrence Island project coordinator for ACAT.
At stake is not only the residents' health but their Yupik culture, which is based on collection of fish, game and wild plants, said Martin, who is from Savoonga, one of the island's two villages.
"Our future generation on St. Lawrence Island is going to be impacted by these contaminants," she said. "They're too scared to harvest food at Northeast Cape because of these contaminants."
The study was funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, part of the organization's environmental justice program.
At the height of the Cold War, St. Lawrence Island was considered a strategic site for U.S. military operations, just 40 miles southeast of the Russian mainland. An Air Force post at Northeast Cape and an Army post at the village of Gambell conducted surveillance and communications operations.
But when they shut down in the 1970s, they left behind junk piles, heavy metals, fuel spills and chemical deposits, including PCBs. Wastes were buried or simply left on the tundra's surface.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been working since the late 1980s on a cleanup of the St. Lawrence Island sites. Corps spokeswoman Pat Richardson said the agency had received the blood-sample report but had no comment yet on the findings.
St. Lawrence Islanders are at risk from more than military pollution, said Dr. David Carpenter of the State University of New York School of Public Health, who coordinated the blood-sample study.
Some of the PCB contamination likely results from pollution emanating from more temperate climates, Carpenter said. So-called "persistent organic compounds" are carried by atmospheric currents to high latitudes, where they collect in fish and wildlife and, ultimately, the people who eat wild foods. Other studies have found such contamination in remote Alaska villages, Carpenter said.
But the blood study presents convincing evidence that the old military sites are causing health problems on St. Lawrence Island, he said.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Thousands of Workers Demonstrate in Paris
Plan to Sell State Firms Draws Ire
By Jean-Marie Godard
Associated Press
Friday, October 4, 2002; Page A23
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41272-2002Oct3?language=printer
PARIS, Oct. 3 -- France's center-right government faced its first serious challenge today when tens of thousands of public workers marched through Paris to protest plans to sell off parts of state-owned companies.
The demonstrators came from all over France and carried signs that read "Public Services Aren't for Sale."
The protest was led by electricity and gas workers but also included employees from partially state-owned companies such as Air France, railway authority SNCF and struggling telecommunications giant France Telecom.
Police said the protesters numbered 40,000, but organizers put the figure at between 60,000 and 80,000.
Air France reported no delays due to the walkout. Six unions representing employees of the company joined protesters, as did employees of Paris's two airports. Air France said it had to cancel 24 flights form Charles de Gaulle airport, but attributed the move to a decline in reservations.
The government said it would probably cut its 56 percent stake in the airline by about half.
"This is an important day which should make [the government] reconsider its economic and social plans," said Bernard Thibault, the head of a powerful Communist-affiliated union.
The massive demonstration comes as Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin is struggling to balance France's deficit to meet European Union standards. His government wants to sell minority stakes it owns in utility companies to help raise billions of dollars.
But the privatization plan is fiercely opposed by the public sector's unionized workers.
They fear the government will have to trim generous pension benefits to lure investors, and workers will no longer have lifetime job security. Others worry about job losses at a time when major companies have announced big layoffs.
"If the government in France tries to privatize a single public service, it will get its throat cut because the French won't let them do it," Jean-Luc Melechon, a protester, told France-Inter radio.
For some, the demonstration rekindled dark memories of the winter of 1995. At that time, a strike by transportation workers spread through the public sector, paralyzing France for three months. When elections came a year later, the Socialists swept to power.
Today's edition of the left-leaning daily Liberation, playing off the concern that more demonstrations were to come, put the story on its front page with the banner headline: "First Round."
But the government sought to play down any comparison to 1995.
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Peace Prize Panel Chooses Winner
By Doug Mellgren
Associated Press Writer
Friday, October 4, 2002; 1:50 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43608-2002Oct4?language=printer
OSLO, Norway -- After months of pondering, the secretive Nobel Peace Prize committee has chosen this year's winner in a decision that seems bound to send a message to a world shocked by terrorism and fearing a U.S.-led war in Iraq.
The final decision was made Thursday and the winner will be revealed on Oct. 11. As usual, the panel offered no hints about its decision.
President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were nominated for leading the war against terrorism, but were seen as unlikely winners in wake of their efforts to convince the world of the need to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
"Impossible," said Stein Toennesson, director of the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo, Norway. "The Nobel Peace Prize committee would lose all credibility in Europe."
"The committee isn't that crazy," said Sverre Lodgaard, director of the Norwegian Institute of International affairs.
The winner was chosen from a large field that reflected the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States and their aftermath. A record 156 - 117 individuals and 39 groups - were nominated by a Feb. 1 deadline.
Among the nominees were Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has sought to unify his country after the hard-line Taliban was ousted by U.S.-led air strikes, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, the Salvation Army and the U.S. Peace Corps.
"We have noted in the media that there is no clear favorite," Committee secretary Geir Lundestad said about speculation on the coveted prize, first awarded in 1901.
Toennesson and Lodgaard both guessed that two American politicians, former Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia and Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, were hot prospects for their 10-year effort to reduce stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction from the ex-Soviet Union before they fall into the hands of terrorists.
They also said honoring the two, who have called for moderation in U.S. foreign policy, would be an indirect message to the Bush administration.
Giuliani and others central to the tragedy of Sept. 11 were seen as unlikely by the Norwegian media, which pointed out the prize should contribute to world peace.
Other known nominees include former President Jimmy Carter, the Rome-based Catholic group Church of Sant'Egidio for peace and humanitarian efforts, the Mission of Mercy humanitarian group for work in Latin America and the SOS Children's Villages aid group and Mohamed Abdelaziz, a Western Saharan peace activist.
Other names commonly assumed to be on the list were Chinese-American dissident Harry Wu, jailed former Malaysian deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, Chinese Falun Gong movement founder Li Hongzhi and jailed Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu.
The Nobel Prizes, worth $1 million, are always presented on Dec. 10, the anniversary of their Swedish creator Alfred Nobel's death in 1896.
The prizes in physiology or medicine, literature, physics, chemistry and economics are awarded in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, while the peace prize is awarded in Oslo.
Nominations can be made by former laureates, committee members, some university professors and selected organizations. The nominations are kept secret for 50 years, although those making them often announce their choice.
On the Net:
Nobel site, http://www.nobel.se
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More people find their voices in call to stop war
Michael Gilbert;
The Tacomah WA News Tribune
October 4th, 2002
http://www.tribnet.com/news/story/1889655p-2004099c.html
Most Wednesday afternoons the past year, a few people have taken up their regular spot outside the U.S. District Courthouse on Pacific Avenue.
They carry signs urging a nonviolent response to the terrorist attacks against America, and lately, opposing a U.S. war in Iraq.
Organizers concede their numbers at the Union Station vigils are small. But local antiwar activists say more people in the Tacoma area are beginning to speak up against the seemingly inevitable prospect of American military action to oust Saddam Hussein.
A full-page ad in Tuesday's News Tribune, under the headline "Do You Question an Attack on Iraq?" was signed by more than 250 residents, including politicians, religious leaders, doctors, teachers, attorneys and others.
Mark Jensen of the Tacoma group People for Peace, Justice and Healing, which sponsored the ad, said members saw their counterparts in Seattle buying newspaper space there and decided to do the same.
"We put the word out to our members and got quite a few names in just a few days," said Jensen, a Pacific Lutheran University professor.
People who signed said they hope they're not too late to sway President Bush to pursue diplomatic means to ensure Saddam doesn't acquire weapons of mass destruction. Some said they object to war under any circumstances; others said the administration has much work to do before a first-strike attack is justified.
"I signed the ad because I felt like those of us opposed to war in Iraq had not had a voice," said Marcia Matthaei, a Tacoma counselor who said she learned about the ad from friends at church.
"I know under the regime of Saddam Hussein there are all kinds of injustice, torture and deaths of innocents, I know that that is happening," she said. "But I'm not convinced that us striking against them is the best way to resolve this problem."
Tacoma has long been home to a relatively small but lively community of antiwar and social justice activists.
But there was little public opposition expressed last year at the onset of strikes against the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan. Circumstances were different then, said people objecting to war with Iraq.
For one thing, the United States had been attacked, and most people were certain about who was responsible. Many who might normally oppose military action believed the country was justified in hitting back.
And some who may have opposed a military response were silent for fear of being branded unpatriotic.
"The response seemed reasonable by most people's standards," said ad signer Dennis Flannigan, a North End Democrat just elected to the state House of Representatives. "But here we have a war of choice, without knowing really why we're going in there.
"For the last 10 years we've functioned in the crisis that's already there, and to step so far beyond what we're doing, I don't know why we have to take such drastic action," Flannigan said.
Recent polls generally show most Americans support military action to end Saddam's rule in Iraq. But they also show most don't want the country to go it alone, without first enlisting the backing of the United Nations.
While Congress appears ready to give President Bush the authority to attack Iraq, constituent calls and letters to local members of Congress are running heavily against a U.S. invasion.
U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Belfair) is backing the president's request for warmaking authority. But hundreds of his constituents have called the past few weeks, most opposing an invasion, said Dicks' district director Bryan McConaghey.
"It's very similar to back in '91, where the general public was split," he said, referring to public feelings heading into the Persian Gulf War.
The antiwar calls are even more pronounced at the offices of U.S. Rep. Adam Smith (D-Tacoma), who hasn't decided how he'll vote on the Iraq war resolution.
"It's pretty much all we've been hearing about in both our district and D.C. offices for the past month, and probably about 95 percent are against going to war," said Katharine Lister, Smith's spokeswoman. She said many are first-time callers.
"Most aren't saying they're against war, period," Lister said. "They're saying 'we don't know enough, slow down, don't do unilateral strikes, get our allies involved.'"
It's a sentiment shared by people who signed the newspaper ad, such as Tacoma City Councilman Bill Evans.
"I just don't think that we've really exhausted all the possibilities," he said.
Michael Gilbert: 253-597-8921 mike.gilbert@mail.tribnet.com
Antiwar events
A number of antiwar events are scheduled for the next several days:
• More than 1,000 Roman Catholic nuns and priests will conduct street-corner vigils at 5:30 p.m. today across Washington and Oregon. In Tacoma, they'll be at the corner of South 11th Street and Fawcett Avenue to pray for peaceful resolution of the conflict with Iraq.
• Scott Ritter, a former United Nations arms inspector in Iraq, will speak about "The Coming War with Iraq: How Did We Get Here?" at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at University Temple United Methodist Church, 1415 N.E. 43rd St., in Seattle's University District.
• A "Not in Our Name" rally is set for 1 p.m. Sunday at Seattle's Volunteer Park after a 3 p.m. march to Westlake Center.
• On Monday, Tacoma's People for Peace, Justice and Healing is sponsoring a vigil at 5:07 to 6:37 p.m. at the U.S. District Courthouse, 1717 Pacific Ave. The event marks the first anniversary of the onset of U.S. military action in Afghanistan.
• On Tuesday, Associated Ministries of Tacoma-Pierce County is sponsoring an open forum of area religious leaders from 2 to 5 p.m. at Mason United Methodist Church, 2710 N. Madison St.
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Retrospective Salutes an Indian Actress and Activist
New York Times
October 4, 2002
By ELVIS MITCHELL
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/04/movies/04NOTE.html
After watching a few films starring the Indian actress and political activist Shabana Azmi, you quickly learn to identify how she uses her eyes - especially since she often plays characters who don't get to express their intelligence.
"The Actor as Activist: Celebrating Shabana Azmi," a retrospective of her work programmed by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, runs through Oct. 10. It is an offshoot of the New York Film Festival that's also a collaboration with the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival. The program, at the Walter Reade Theater, salutes her work in support of AIDS research, women's rights and civil rights.
In the handful of Azmi films I've seen, the actress somehow conveys an eagerness to be heard, no small feat, since the put-upon characters she portrays often cope with punishing chauvinism and class awareness - conditions that undoubtedly have informed her own consciousness and compelled her to work for change. One of her best performances that I have seen is in the pulpy and entrancing 1997 "Death Sentence," which plays today and again on Sunday.
"Sentence" features Ms. Azmi as the suffering wife of a schemer with a bad hairpiece; he plots the murder of a holy man and assumes the dead man's role, abandoning his wife for his new existence. "Don't make me a widow," she pleads, and the years of hurt stored up in her thoughtful face may make you share her tears. There's as much intrigue and whoppingly engrossing personal drama in "Sentence" as you'd find in several Dickens novels. It starts with a pregnant woman being hounded by an angry mob. She tumbles into a pool of muddy red water, crumpling into the fetal position, and then is flung over a bridge. A magistrate charges into the village, announcing that the crime will not go unpunished. And that's only the first 10 minutes of the picture.
Though there are musical numbers in "Death Sentence," Ms. Azmi doesn't perform them. She does sing in "Congregation," which will be shown next Tuesday and Wednesday, but her mellow yet forceful voice doesn't have the airy, Kewpie-doll pertness we've come to associate with Bollywood. Given that she works mostly in India and has appeared in over 60 films, it's probably axiomatic that she croon her way though at least one movie. But Ms. Azmi has maintained a long-running acting career in more serious films.
In her 1973 debut film, "The Seedling," which will be presented on Sunday, the actress communicates a torn anxiety with minimal exertion. She's a young woman whose widowed mother married her off to a deaf-mute potter when she was a young girl. Still quite young, she's a lotus in bloom and damp with yearning; in the opening of the picture she's praying for a child, something her husband, who's now unemployed and a drunk, can't give her. She's seduced into a relationship with the married owner of the farm where she works. Even the farmer's father calls him "spoilt," but the director, Shyam Benegal, is interested in something richer than potboiler melodrama. The farmer wants to be more than his father, an ambition that included resisting an affair. (His father carried on for years, shaming his mother.) But he's drawn into a relationship with her anyway. When a streak of cowardice is finally revealed, Ms. Azmi gets to perform a monologue of sorrow and rage that's as powerful as any acted by Jane Fonda or Glenda Jackson - actress-activists with whom she has been compared. Her charismatic and contradictory willowy toughness is evident, and there's more of it in the other pictures in the "Actor as Activist" series.
"The Actor as Activist: Celebrating Shabana Azmi" is at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center through Oct. 10. Tickets: $9.50; $7 for students and $5 for Film Society members. Discounts for 65+ for screenings Mondays through Fridays before 6 p.m. Information and screening schedule: (212) 875-5600.
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