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NUCLEAR
Kazakh customs foil attempt to smuggle radioactive waste
Nukes Concern N. Korea Neighbors
Pakistan Matches India's Pledge to Withdraw Troops
N. Korea breaks its promises on nukes
N. Korea Admits Having Secret Nuclear Arms
North Korea Says It Has a Program on Nuclear Arms
North Korea admits nuclear program
S. Korea stunned by nuclear admission
South Korea to Continue Dialogue with North Korea
Opportunity, Peril Seen in N.Korea Nuclear Admission
Clinton Bankrolled North Korea's Nuke Program
Revelation May End Nuclear Agreement
S.Korea Urges North to Abide by Nuclear Agreements
UN Deeply Concerned by N.Korea Nuclear Admission
Today in Congress
Armey: Justice 'out of control'
U.N. Is Urged to 'Be Firm' On Iraq
Senate OKs biggest defense increase in decades
Time Grows Short for Iraq Accord, Bush Warns
Bush tough talk backfired on N Korea
Bush Troubled by North Korean Nuclear Arms Program
Bush OKs Israeli retaliation
U.N. Is Urged to 'Be Firm' On Iraq
Rumsfeld Denies Ignoring Military Advice
MILITARY
Commandos resist loss of purchasing authority
Not a supergun by a long shot
Restored rights to firearms argued
The right to fair arms
Military Business Boosts Defense Firms' Revenue
Navy Project Buffeted
Report says Saddam's troops weak
US Readies New UN Resolution
Saddam Says Iraqis More Ready to Fight After Vote
Israeli settlers face down troops, cops
Israeli Tank Shells Kill Six Palestinians in Camp
Yemen Pursuing Terror Its Own Way
Pakistan Matches India Troop Cuts
Report Decries Saudi Laxity
Ex-analyst sentenced to 25 years for spying
US Intelligence Chiefs to Testify at 9/11 Inquiry
Havana Enshrines Heroes of Espionage
U.S. Offers U.N. Resolution Deal
Bush Garners Little Support at U.N. for an Attack on Iraq
And Just How Many Countries Have We Attacked?
Are all the bases covered?
Air Force: 4 Laptops Stolen
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Looks of spy plane are deceiving
Spies, lies and polygraphs
AAA pulls its support for traffic cameras
House, Senate Agree on Security Bill
U.S. Borders Lack Radiation Detectors
U.S. Worried Al-Qaida Targeting Oil
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
Kazakh customs foil attempt to smuggle radioactive waste from Russia to China
Thursday, October 17, 2002
By Associated Press
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/10/10172002/ap_48739.asp
ALMATY, Kazakhstan - Customs officers in eastern Kazakhstan have foiled an attempt to smuggle nearly 900 kilograms (1,980 pounds) of radioactive waste into China through this former Soviet republic in Central Asia, officials said Wednesday.
Customs inspectors on the Kazakh-Chinese border seized 17 sacks containing a light-brown substance and one sack with a dark substance on Sept. 30, said Valentina Lisitskaya, a regional customs department official. The sacks had come from Russia and were bound from Russia to China, she said.
The sacks were hidden under the wooden floor of a truck. Radiological tests at the national epidemiological center identified the substances as low-level radioactive waste, authorities said.
The cargo belonged to a private Russian firm and was shipped to a Chinese citizen.
The substances have been put in safe storage, the truck driver has been taken into custody, and the case is being investigated, officials said.
-------- asia
Nukes Concern N. Korea Neighbors
October 17, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-NKorea-Nuclear-Reaction.html
TOKYO (AP) -- North Korea's Asian neighbors expressed surprise and concern Thursday after the White House said the enigmatic communist country admitted it is developing nuclear weapons.
The news -- combined with the North's claim it's not bound by previous non-nuclear agreements -- was especially startling because it came after a series of signs that its government, pressured by food shortages, was taking a softer stance in relations with the outside world.
Concerns were highest in South Korea and Japan, which have been actively pursuing closer relations with their secretive and often hostile neighbor.
In both countries, the announcement topped morning news programs.
In Seoul, South Korea convened its National Security Council and rebuked the North, but the government said it would pursue its ``sunshine'' policy. Ongoing efforts to build cross-border roads and railways would continue.
``We are opposed to North Korea developing a nuclear weapon and will strengthen cooperation with the United States, Japan and the rest of the international community in thoroughly investigating and dismantling this new suspected nuclear weapons program,'' the security council said in a statement released after the meeting.
Japan's prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, said ``We hope North Korea will take a sincere stance toward dispelling suspicions over its nuclear program.''
His spokeswoman Misako Kaji said Koizumi ``will continue to press North Korea strongly on this matter,'' and senior Cabinet member Yasuo Fukuda confirmed the subject would be raised in bilateral talks later this month.
President Bush, Koizumi and South Korean President Kim Dae-jung will discuss North Korea when they attend a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Mexico on Oct. 24-27, the statement said.
South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Tae-sik said his country will raise the issue in a round of Cabinet-level talks between the Koreas scheduled for Oct. 19-22 in Pyongyang, North Korea's capital.
``All these issues should be resolved through dialogue and peacefully, and we will continue to strengthen cooperative consultations with the United States and Japan,'' Lee said.
South Korea has pursued the de-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in line with international agreements, including the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the 1994 Agreed Framework between North Korea and the United States.
The Philippines' Acting Foreign Secretary, Lauro Baja, said the North's admission was a setback for the region and called it ``another source of worry,'' while China denounced the ``proliferation of any weapons of mass destruction'' and urged the North and South to settle their differences peacefully.
The White House confirmed late Wednesday that North Korea told the United States it has a secret nuclear weapons program in violation of the Agreed Framework, which it signed with former President Bill Clinton.
North Korea also told U.S. diplomats it's not beholden to the anti-nuclear agreement, said a senior U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The U.N. nuclear monitoring agency said Thursday that not much is known about how advanced the North's nuclear weapons might be. Inspectors haven't been to North Korea since 1994.
``We just don't know,'' said Mark Gwozdecky, spokesman for the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency. ``We can't say what might be there now.''
In Brussels, Gunnar Wiegand, a spokesman for the European Union, said that if reports are true, it could scuttle a deal to have a U.S.-led consortium build a pair of modern nuclear reactors in North Korea.
Under a 1994 deal, energy-starved North Korea agreed to halt a suspected weapons program in return for the reactors, which will use non-weapons grade radioactive materials.
The disclosure complicates Bush's campaign to disarm Iraq under threat of military force, coming almost nine months after he called North Korea part of an ``axis of evil'' along with Iran and Iraq.
``We seek a peaceful resolution of this situation,'' said White House spokesman Sean McCormack. ``Everyone in the region has a stake in this issue and no peaceful nation wants to see a nuclear-armed North Korea.''
A senior U.S. official was to travel to Japan and South Korea for consultations soon.
North Korea had no immediate response.
The news put Tokyo in a particularly delicate position.
In an unprecedented summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il on Sept. 17, Koizumi vowed to push ahead with talks to establish formal diplomatic ties. The two sides are scheduled to meet in Malaysia Oct. 29-30.
The resumption of talks was made possible by Kim's acknowledgment that elements of the North Korean military kidnapped more than a dozen Japanese in the 1970s and 80s. The five known survivors are visiting family in Japan, their first homecoming in nearly 25 years.
Though Koizumi's support ratings surged after the summit, public outrage has swelled as more details emerged about the deaths of at least eight of the abduction victims.
Polls indicate most Japanese now think it is too early to normalize relations, and the North's secret development of nuclear weapons would likely increase such concerns in a country where anti-nuclear sentiment runs especially deep.
Japan is the only nation to be attacked with nuclear weapons. The cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were struck by U.S. atomic bombs during World War II in 1945.
-------- india / pakistan
Pakistan Matches India's Pledge to Withdraw Troops
October 17, 2002
New York Times
By AMY WALDMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/17/international/17CND-INDI.html
NEW DELHI, Oct. 17 - Pakistan, matching a similar pledge by the Indian government, announced today that it would withdraw hundreds of thousands of troops deployed along its border with India to their "peacetime locations."
"The pullback will commence shortly," the Foreign Ministry said in a brief statement from Islamabad, adding that the decision was made after a top-level meeting led by the president of Pakistan, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
A senior Pakistani defense official said the army had sent 400,000 to 500,000 troops to the border, "but now we will be withdrawing them."
India's announcement of a pullback came Wednesday night, its most substantial step to reducing a military buildup begun 10 months ago that helped bring the two nations to the brink of war.
Defense Minister George Fernandes announced the pullback after a meeting of the cabinet's committee on security. The committee, Mr. Fernandes said, had decided that "the armed forces have achieved the objective assigned to them." That objective, in part, was the successful conduct of elections in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, which Pakistan-backed militants had vowed to disrupt.
The pullback, expected to cover up to 500,000 troops, will not affect troops stationed along the Line of Control in Kashmir, which is divided between India and Pakistan. They will remain on alert, Mr. Fernandes said.
It was unclear from today's announcement if Pakistan would remove any of its troops from the Line of Control, where the two armies often shell each other.
Mr. Fernandes said India's troops would be redeployed "without impairing their capacity to respond decisively to any emergency." He and other Indian officials made clear that decision was not a prologue to resuming dialogue with Pakistan. That, they said, was contingent on Pakistan ending its support for militants crossing into Indian territory.
The buildup was prompted by a Dec. 13 attack on the Indian Parliament for which India blamed Pakistan-backed militants. It elicited a promise from Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the president of Pakistan, to end cross-border terrorism. India says infiltration by militants into Jammu and Kashmir has decreased but not ended.
Indian officials indicated several months ago that they would make a decision on reducing the troops after the elections in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, and that they would be inclined toward a pullback if the elections were successfully conducted.
While the voting was marred by hundreds of killings by Pakistan-backed militants, India earned considerable international credit for a largely fair election. American officials have been pressing the Indians to use that political capital to scale back their border troops and resume dialogue with Pakistan.
There had been a growing sense recently that the deployment had long ago exhausted its effectiveness. As the months passed, it had become clear that India was not going to go to war - a perception made concrete last week when Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee stated unequivocally that there would be no war.
The question became, as Lt. Gen. V. R. Raghavan, a retired director general of military operations in the Indian Army, put it on Star News on Wednesday night, "If there's going to be no war, what's the deployment all about?"
Defense analysts say India may have erred by leaping to such a huge buildup so quickly that it left itself no room to apply more pressure to Pakistan without going to war. But Indian officials say the buildup succeeded in bringing pressure to bear on Pakistan, not least because international attention was suddenly riveted on the region.
Still, the deployment was wearing on a military in a heightened state of alert for 10 months, with leave barred for the first 6 of them. Murmurs of dissatisfaction had been seeping from the ranks.
In an interview with The New York Times last month, retired Gen. Ved Prakash Malik, a former army chief of staff, said he could no longer see the "political justification" for the deployment on the border. People were "not quite clear" as to the purpose, he said.
-------- korea
N. Korea breaks its promises on nukes
By David R. Sands
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
October 17, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021017-1360048.htm
North Korea has broken pledges made to the Clinton administration to give up its nuclear weapons program and has signaled it no longer will abide by the 1994 anti-nuclear accord, the Bush administration said last night.
The North Koreans are in "material breach" of the 8-year-old Agreed Framework, White House spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters, referring to the cornerstone accord under which Pyongyang promised to freeze and eventually dismantle its nuclear program in exchange for U.S. help in building two nuclear power plants.
The startling revelation seems certain to place a major strain on U.S.-North Korean relations, which plummeted when President Bush ordered a full-scale review of the Clinton administration's engagement policy and last year included the communist regime with Iraq and Iran in the "axis of evil." State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said last night that arms control chief John Bolton and James Kelly, assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs, are traveling to the region to confer with allies.
North Korea's secret nuclear weapons program "is a serious violation of North Korea's commitment under the Agreed Framework as well as under the Nonproliferation Treaty [and] its International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards agreement."
A U.S. official told The Washington Times that senior Bush administration national security officials met on Tuesday to discuss the North Korean nuclear program and whether the 1994 Agreed Framework could be salvaged.
The official said the framework likely will be jettisoned since it was supposed to halt North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
U.S. intelligence agencies have detected signs in the past several years that North Korea was covertly seeking nuclear-enrichment capability.
In 1999, U.S. intelligence agencies detected efforts by a North Korean trading company to purchase enrichment technology from a Japanese manufacturer. An intelligence report, first disclosed by The Times, stated that the technology could allow North Korea to develop the capability to produce fuel for nuclear weapons within six years. The sale of the equipment was blocked at the time, U.S. officials said.
In August, construction began on the concrete foundation for the building in Kumho that eventually will house a light-water nuclear reactor that is to be delivered in 2004 under the Agreed Framework.
The disclosure also places a major obstacle in the path of improved relations between North and South Korea, where South Korean President Kim Dae-jung has pursued a rapprochement with the poorer North in a bid to end a half-century of division on the Korean peninsula.
In Seoul today, South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Tae-sik said South Korea has consistently pursued the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula in line with international agreements.
"We urge North Korea to abide by its obligations," he said. The Japanese government issued no immediate response. Japan and South Korea are treaty allies of the United States.
Administration officials said North Korean officials acknowledged during Mr. Kelly's visit to Pyongyang earlier this month that they were pursuing a uranium-enrichment program. U.S. government arms control specialists contend that the enriched uranium can be used only for nuclear weapons.
The Agreed Framework has been a matter of sharp dispute within U.S. arms-control circles, with many conservatives suspicious of the ability of U.S. monitors to police the secretive North Korean regime's compliance with the agreement.
Skeptics of the Agreed Framework in Congress have pressed the Bush administration to declare North Korea in violation of the agreement, while supporters of the accord have accused the administration of seeking any pretext to declare the agreement null and void.
Despite the skeptics, Jack Pritchard, the State Department's special envoy for negotiations with North Korea, was sent to North Korea to attend the Aug. 7 foundation-laying ceremony for the first nuclear reactor promised by the United States under the framework accord.
North Korea has maintained that the United States has failed to follow through with promised economic benefits that are supposed to be the compensation for Pyongyang's agreement to halt its nuclear research.
Mr. Kelly's Oct. 3-5 trip to Pyongyang involved the first high-level talks between U.S. and North Korean officials since Mr. Bush took office.
In public statements after the meeting, both sides signaled that the conversations had been difficult.
The Pyongyang talks "were frank as befits the seriousness of our differences, and they were useful, too," Mr. Kelly told reporters in Seoul, where he briefed South Korean officials on the day his visit to North Korea ended.
Mr. Kelly said he raised Washington's concerns about the missile and weapons programs and about North Korea's human rights record, adding that no immediate plans were made for additional meetings.
The State Department emissary did not mention in his brief public remarks the North Korean admission cited by Mr. McCormack last night.
North Korea labeled Mr. Kelly "arrogant and high-handed" in his talks with senior officials there.
Last night's announcement by the White House left many questions unanswered, said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association and a supporter of the 1994 accord.
"Based on what little we know, it's very unclear whether the evidence presented by the administration really does constitute a breach by North Korea of the agreement," he said. "If there is a new crisis regarding North Korea's nuclear ambitions, the Bush administration bears a heavy responsibility to try and resolve it."
Under the 1994 agreement, North Korea promised to give up its nuclear program and to allow inspections to verify that it did not have the material needed to construct such weapons.
Mr. Kelly's trip to North Korea had been expected to explore the issue of the ostensibly frozen nuclear program as well as missile technology and conventional forces.
----
N. Korea Admits Having Secret Nuclear Arms
Stunned U.S. Ponders Next Steps
By Peter Slevin and Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 17, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37481-2002Oct16?language=printer
The North Korean government has acknowledged for the first time that it has been secretly developing nuclear weapons for years in violation of international agreements -- and that it possesses "more powerful" weapons, as well -- Bush administration officials said last night.
The North Koreans, who confirmed the project when challenged by visiting U.S. diplomats earlier this month, said the existence of the program nullifies a 1994 deal with the United States to halt their nuclear weapons program in return for foreign help. One senior U.S. official said the new weapons project is a "very serious material breach" of the accord.
The Bush administration, stunned by the admission, dispatched envoys to the region yesterday to consult with allies and called on North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to halt the weapons project. The administration also has begun consultations with Congress about what to do next.
"The United States is calling on North Korea to comply with all of its commitments under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and to eliminate its nuclear weapons program in a verifiable manner," a U.S. official said. "What we seek is a peaceful resolution of this situation."
The revelation from the isolated Stalinist country presents the Bush administration with a serious, unanticipated foreign policy challenge as officials prepare to confront Iraqi President Saddam Hussein over his refusal to surrender weapons of mass destruction. Meanwhile, thousands of U.S. troops remain deployed in an unstable Afghanistan and terrorist attacks have spiked in recent weeks from Yemen to Indonesia.
U.S. officials and commentators offered differing assessments last night of the implications of North Korea's announcement, with some considering it a belligerent act deserving of a strong response, and others saying it could be a bid by North Korea to create an opening to the United States.
"This is going to require a reassessment of our commitments to North Korea," said Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), chairman of the Senate intelligence committee. "It's a very serious development if a country we had thought had entered into a serious and credible negotiation to retreat from a nuclear program in exchange for generous assistance" has violated that agreement.
President Bush counts North Korea as a member of an "axis of evil," along with Iraq and Iran. Yet the revelation of the nuclear program comes amid a string of surprisingly conciliatory moves by Kim, long criticized for peddling dangerous weapons and oppressing an impoverished population. In recent weeks, the Pyongyang government apologized for a naval battle with South Korea in the Yellow Sea and for the abduction of Japanese citizens in the 1970s.
A U.S. delegation headed by Assistant Secretary of State James A. Kelly presented detailed evidence of a covert nuclear weapons program during an Oct. 3-5 trip, U.S. officials said. The North Koreans called the allegations "fabrications," but then a day later, a more senior official, Deputy Foreign Minister Kang Sok Joo, confirmed Kelly's charges. He said the North Koreans met through the night before deciding to reveal that the project had been underway for several years. He also said his government had developed other, more powerful weapons.
Kang offered no apologies. He was "assertive, aggressive about it," a U.S. official said.
The administration says it does not know the full extent of North Korea's nuclear capabilities, and experts are uncertain what Kang meant when he referred to more powerful weapons. Last night, they said they assume he meant weapons of mass destruction, which typically include biological and chemical weapons.
North Korea's new nuclear project relies on highly enriched uranium, a switch from an earlier plutonium-based program that Pyongyang agreed to halt in the groundbreaking 1994 Agreed Framework. U.S. officials would not answer when asked whether the highly enriched uranium had yet been turned into a weapon.
The CIA's National Intelligence Estimate, released in December, reported that North Korea had likely produced one or two plutonium-based nuclear weapons by the mid-1990s.
Administration officials have struggled with the North Korean policy since Bush took office, with some officials advocating a much more demanding approach than the engagement policy of the Clinton administration and others urging continued diplomatic flexibility.
The disclosure has not ended that debate, said one high-ranking official, who reported that some administration leaders believe "we should go to war tomorrow." He added, however, that Bush has been "very calm, cool and collected. He doesn't need another crisis."
The North Korean disclosure was "a jaw-dropper," said the official. It revealed a worrisome determination to build a nuclear device, but it also left open the possibility that Kim, who has been repairing relations with foreign rivals, unveiled the project as a way of coming clean.
The admission "represented a candor on the part of North Korean officials that we are unaccustomed to," the official said. "It has promise. It has opportunity. It has dangers."
For now, the administration is suspending its offer to engage North Korea -- a pledge of an economic and political opening in return for reductions in North Korea's military posture and policies of weapons proliferation, along with an improvement in humanitarian conditions.
"In light of our concerns about the nuclear weapons program, we could not pursue that approach," a U.S. official said during the conference call. "Everyone in the region has a stake in this issue, and no peaceful nation wants to see a nuclear-armed North Korea."
Joseph Cirincione, director of the non-proliferation project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the administration faces two very distinct choices. "They either play 'gotcha' " and cut off relations, he said, "or they can justifiably claim that their tough approach produced exactly the change in North Korean behavior we had been seeking."
Cirincione noted that as the United States has begun its campaign against Iraq, "North Korea has taken some surprising steps just in the last three months. They are not changing regimes but they are making change in their regime."
In Japan, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's spokeswoman, Misako Kaji, said, "Japan is gravely concerned about the U.S. announcement North Korea is developing nuclear weapons.
The parallels between North Korea and Iraq are worth noting, said Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Non-Proliferation Education Center. He pointed to the administration's repeated assertions that Iraq will not be secure until Hussein is removed from power.
"If we're serious about Iraq, as we are and should be, we need to be twice as serious as we currently are about North Korea," said Sokolski, who believes the administration should be tough on Kim. "If you've got a nuclear cheater, do you give them the benefit of the doubt and coddle him? Or do you say the burden's on you to come clean?"
Staff writer Glenn Kessler contributed to this report.
----
North Korea Says It Has a Program on Nuclear Arms
October 17, 2002,
New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/17/international/asia/17KORE.html
WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 - Confronted by new American intelligence, North Korea has admitted that it has been conducting a major clandestine nuclear-weapons development program for the past several years, the Bush administration said tonight. Officials added that North Korea had also informed them that it was terminating a 1994 agreement with the United States to freeze all of its nuclear activity.
North Korea's surprise revelation came 12 days ago in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, after a senior American diplomat confronted his North Korean counterparts with American intelligence data suggesting a secret project was under way. At first, the North Korean officials denied the allegation, according to an American official who was present.
The next day they acknowledged the nuclear program and according to one American official, said "they have more powerful things as well." American officials have interpreted that cryptic comment as an acknowledgment that North Korea possesses other weapons of mass destruction.
Administration officials refused to say tonight whether the North Koreans had acknowledged successfully producing a nuclear weapon from the project, which uses highly enriched uranium. Nor would administration officials say whether, based on American intelligence, they believe North Korea has produced such a weapon.
But another official said, "We're not certain that it's been weaponized yet," noting that North Korea has conducted no nuclear testing, which the United States could easily detect.
The idea of a North Korean arsenal immediately alters the delicate nuclear balance in Asia and confronts the Bush administration with two simultaneous crises involving nations developing weapons of mass destruction: one in Iraq, the other on the Korean Peninsula.
"We seek a peaceful resolution to this situation," a senior administration official said tonight, briefing reporters as news of the North Korean program began to leak. "No peaceful nation wants to see a nuclear-armed North Korea."
At a meeting today of the National Security Council, President Bush and his aides, who have been seeking to rid Iraq of the weapons of mass destruction it is believed to possess - by United Nations mandate if possible, and by force if necessary - decided to handle the North Korean matter through diplomatic channels.
They have dispatched two senior officials to China and other nations in the region in hopes of defusing the situation. One senior official said today that North Korea was "belligerent," rather than apologetic, in its declaration and that it would not end its program.
The strongest action the administration announced tonight was the cessation of talks that could lead to economic cooperation. The delegation that was informed of the nuclear program, led by James A. Kelly, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, had gone to North Korea in hopes of beginning a dialogue on improving relations.
But in deciding on a very measured response the White House recognized the reality of how North Korea differs from Iraq. It may already have nuclear weapons and it has a huge army and conventional weapons capable of wreaking havoc on South Korea. Military action against North Korea conducted at the same time the administration is considering an attack on Iraq would also mean that the Pentagon would be confronted by the prospect of fighting a two-front war.
North Korea conducted an aggressive nuclear weapons program in the 1980's and 1990's that resulted in a major confrontation with the Clinton administration in 1994. Officials who served at the time said they feared the dispute could veer into war. At one point in 1994, President Bill Clinton ordered Stealth bombers and other forces into South Korea.
But a deal was struck, partly with the intervention of former President Jimmy Carter. The result was a 1994 agreement under which North Korea committed to halting its nuclear work, and the United States, Japan and South Korea, among others, agreed to provide the country with proliferation-resistant nuclear reactors to produce electric power.
The reactors have yet to be delivered, and now that agreement appears dead, officials said tonight.
Around the time that the Clinton administration negotiated the 1994 accord, the Central Intelligence Agency estimated that the country's nuclear weapons facilities at Yongbyon, a program that was based on reprocessing nuclear waste into plutonium, had already produced enough material to manufacture one or two weapons.
If the North Korean assertions are true - and administration officials assume they are - the government of Kim Jong Il began in the mid- or late-1990's a secret, parallel program to produce weapons-grade material from highly enriched uranium. That does not require nuclear reactors, but it is a slow process that the United States may have discovered through Korean efforts to acquire centrifuges. That is also the process that the administration believes the Iraqis are undertaking.
"We have to assume that they now have the capacity to build many more weapons, and they may have already," said a senior official who has seen the intelligence.
It was unclear today why North Korea admitted to the weapons program. Only last month, Kim Jong Il admitted that North Korean agents had kidnapped Japanese decades earlier, and apologized. Some of those kidnapped returned to Japan for visits only this week.
But one official who was in the room on Oct. 4 when the North Korean deputy foreign minister, Kang Sok Joo, described the existence of the nuclear program said, "I would not describe them as apologetic."
The administration's decision to keep news of the North Korean admission secret for the past 12 days while it fashioned a response appears significant for several reasons. Mr. Bush and his aides have clearly decided to avoid describing the situation as a crisis that requires a military response at a time when dealing with Iraq is the No. 1 priority.
"Imagine if Saddam had done this, that he had admitted - or bluffed - that he has the bomb or is about to have one," one senior official said. "But there's been a decision made that the system can take only so much at one time."
The response also has much to do with the vulnerability of America's allies. Every American administration that has considered military action against North Korea - including the Clinton administration in 1994 - has come to the same conclusion: it is virtually impossible without risking a second Korean war, and the destruction of Seoul, South Korea. North Korea maintains a vast arsenal of conventional weapons and hundreds of thousands of troops, many along the demilitarized zone, within an hour's drive of Seoul, the South Korean capital.
But dealing with the problem diplomatically will be a tremendous challenge, at a time when the administration is already at odds with many of its closest allies over how to deal with Saddam Hussein. "The big problem for the U.S. is now not only how to deal with a potentially nuclear armed North Korea, but how to manage the frayed nerves and new calculations of its neighbors," said Kurt Campbell, who directs Asian studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in Washington, and who served as a senior defense officials in Asia.
American officials used the past dozen days to formulate a common response. At a press conference in South Korea on Thursday morning, local time, Lee Tae Sik, deputy minister for foreign affairs, urged North Korea to abide by a series of agreements it now clearly violates: the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the 1994 agreement, and a "joint declaration" signed with South Korea to keep the Korean Peninsula nuclear-free.
"All the issues including the North's nuclear program should be resolved through peaceful methods and by dialogue," Mr. Lee said.
Tonight, senior administration officials said that inside the White House theories have sprouted about what North Korea hoped to gain from its declaration.
According to one theory, discussed widely in the Pentagon and the State Department, North Korea's leaders want to demonstrate that they cannot be bullied by the United States. "Here they are declaring they have the stuff to make a nuke," one official said. "Whether they have one, or they are bluffing, we don't know for sure. But the message is, `Don't mess with us.' "
Another theory holds that North Korea is seeking attention, as it has done many times before, hoping to trade its nuclear capability for economic aid. That worked in 1994, according to this theory. But it could backfire now, in a post-Sept. 11 environment, and it would seem to undercut North Korea's recent efforts to attract Western investors.
The revelation comes just eight days before President Bush is scheduled to meet with Asian leaders at the annual Pacific economic conference, to be held in Mexico. Mr. Bush will now have to use the conference to build support for both his Iraq and his North Korea policies, even if he is advocating very different strategies in the two cases.
---
North Korea admits nuclear program
By Chris H. Sieroty
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
October 17, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20021016-094758-3119r.htm
WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 (UPI) -- North Korea has acknowledged it has a secret nuclear weapons program in violation of an agreement signed in 1994 with the Clinton administration, U.S. officials confirmed late Wednesday.
The announcement, which came early Thursday Korean time, has stunned South Korea, which then urged its communist neighbor to abide by all anti-nuclear agreements. The prospect of nuclear weapons in the North is likely to upset the delicate peace process that has recently restarted between the two Koreas.
White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said North Korea was in violation of its agreements and the Bush administration is consulting on the matter with Congress and U.S. allies.
"Under the agreed framework North Korea committed not to pursue nuclear weapons and to come into compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty," Stanzel told United Press International.
The agreed framework called on North Korea to halt its weapons program in exchange for U.S. assistance in building two light water reactors.
The State Department called the North Korean acknowledgment a "serious violation" of the agreed framework and urged Pyongyang to eliminate its nuclear weapons program in a "verifiable manner."
"We seek a peaceful resolution of this situation," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. "Everyone in the region has a stake in this issue and no peaceful nation wants to see a nuclear-armed North Korea. This is an opportunity for peace-loving nations in the region to deal, effectively, with this challenge."
Boucher said Asst. Secretary of State James Kelly and the State Department's chief arms control official, John Bolton, were being sent to the region to confer with U.S. allies on how to best handle the surprising admission.
North Korea was one of three states dubbed a part of the "axis of evil" by President George W. Bush, along with Iran and Iraq. However, Kelly returned from North Korea earlier this month, saying he had had "frank" and "useful" talks with its Communist leadership.
In Seoul, officials expressed concern that the North's admission could deal a fatal blow to President Kim Dae-jung's Nobel Peace Prize-wining policy of peaceful engagement with Pyongyang.
"President Kim considers North Korea's nuclear development a very serious matter which cannot be accepted under any circumstances," Yim Sung-joon, a national security adviser, told journalists. Kim will use the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, APEC, summit in Mexico later this month to discuss the North's nuclear weapons program, Yim said.
Under the 1994 agreement between North Korea and the United States, North Korea pledged to freeze its Soviet-designed weapon-grade plutonium producing graphite-moderated reactors, in return for a U.S. promise to build safer light-water models for the energy-starved communist state. Seoul's Defense Ministry has estimated North Korea has stockpiled enough plutonium to build at least one atomic bomb.
(With reporting by Roy Clark in Washington and Jong-Heon Lee in Seoul, South Korea.)
----
S. Korea stunned by nuclear admission
By Jong-Heon Lee
UPI Correspondent
October 17, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20021017-015847-3565r.htm
SEOUL, South Korea, Oct. 17 (UPI) -- Stunned by North Korea's admission of a secret nuclear weapons program, South Korea on Thursday urged its communist neighbor to abide by all anti-nuclear agreements.
The rare call from South Korea came just after the United States announced North Korea had acknowledged it had been secretly developing nuclear weapons in breach of a 1994 agreement to freeze its nuclear development program. The North also said it would no longer be restricted by the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
South Korea had refrained from directly raising the North's nuclear issue, fearing it could trigger Pyongyang's angry response and hurt fledgling inter-Korean reconciliation efforts.
But Seoul officials seemed concerned that Pyongyang's admission of a secret nuclear program could deal a fatal blow to President Kim Dae-jung's Nobel Peace Prize-wining policy of peaceful engagement with North Korea, and upset the fragile peace process on the divided Korean peninsula.
"President Kim considers North Korea's nuclear development as a very serious matter which cannot be accepted under any circumstances," Yim Sung-joon, a national security adviser, told journalists. Kim will use the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, APEC, summit in Mexico later this month to discuss the North's nuclear weapons program, Yim said.
"The South Korean government urges North Korea to be responsible and to abide by the (1994) Geneva agreements, nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a South-North Korea joint declaration to make the Korean peninsula nuclear free," the Foreign Ministry said.
South Korea has consistently pursued the de-nuclearization of the Korean peninsula, said the statement read by Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Tae-sik. South Korea has been in close consultations with the United States and Japan after being informed about the "suspected North Korean nuclear development," Lee said.
South Korea will raise the nuclear issue in high-level talks with North Korea this week, Lee said. The ministerial talks slated for Oct. 19-22 is the key dialogue channel to review reconciliation efforts and discuss cooperation projects.
"The talks this time should discuss the suspicious nuclear development," said Kim Hyung-ki, South Korea's vice unification minister. The North's nuclear program should be resolved through peaceful methods and by dialogue, he said.
Some analysts and government officials here interpret North Korea's "frank confession" as a sign it wants talks with Washington to solve the nuclear problem. "We regard the confession as a sign North Korea is willing to resolve this problem through dialogue with Washington," a senior government official told United Press International.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said North Korean officials had tried to strike a "package deal" encompassing all arms control issues, including nuclear weapons, missiles and conventional forces, during talks with a U.S. special envoy earlier this month.
"North Korean officials admitted its secret nuclear program and proposed a package deal after U.S. envoy, James Kelly (U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs), expressed concerns about the North's nuclear weapons program, raising evidence that Pyongyang may have a uranium-enrichment program.
"Pyongyang's confession indicates it would raise its nuclear program as an agenda item in talks with the United States, as part of efforts to break a heavy diplomatic stalemate," said Suh Joo-sok, a North Korea expert at the Korea Institute of Defense Affairs.
Under the 1994 agreed framework, North Korea pledged to freeze its Soviet-designed weapon-grade plutonium producing graphite-moderated reactors, in return for a U.S. promise to build safer light-water models for the energy-starved communist state. Seoul's Defense Ministry has estimated North Korea has stockpiled enough plutonium to build at least one atomic bomb.
North Korea has long threatened to revive its nuclear weapons development program, citing "antagonistic" U.S. attitudes and rejecting demands to open its nuclear facilities to international inspectors.
---
South Korea to Continue Dialogue with North Korea
Japan, China Denounce N. Korea, But Urge U.S. to Use Talks
By John Pomfret
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, October 17, 2002; 12:26 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40088-2002Oct17?language=printer
BEIJING, Oct. 17 - South Korea said today it saw North Korea's confession of a secret nuclear weapons program as part of the the politically isolated country's quest for dialogue with Washington and vowed to continue its "Sunshine" policy of engaging its neighbor.
While expressing "grave concerns" about Pyongyang's declaration, Japan also showed no signs of rupturing a fledgling dialogue with North Korea. China, too, called on the United States to solve any issues through negotiations. Regional stock markets, meanwhile, a bellwether of security concerns, shrugged off the news, rising in Seoul, Tokyo and Hong Kong.
North Korean officials acknowledged the existence of a secret nuclear weapons program to U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly during an Oct. 3-5 visit to the North Korean capital Pyongyang after he had presented the North Koreans with documentation about suspected nuclear activities.
A Bush administration official said the admission was a "material breach" of a 1994 agreement wherein energy-starved North Korea agreed to freeze a suspected nuclear weapons program in return for two modern, light-water reactors built by a U.S.-led consortium.
Kelly and Undersecretary of State John Bolton arrived in Beijing today for consultations on the North Korean announcement. They were to consult with South Korea and Japan as well.
Yim Sung Joon, top adviser on national security and foreign policy to South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, said Kim viewed the announcement "as a grave matter and it is his position that it is unacceptable under any circumstances for North Korea to develop nuclear weapons."
However, he placed the admission, which he termed "frank," in the context of several dramatic steps Pyongyang has recently taken this year to improve ties with the outside world, including acknowledging that its agents had kidnapped 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s.
"We regard it as a sign North Korea is willing to resolve this problem through dialogue," Yim said, adding that President Kim would take up the issue with Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi at a three-way summit next week in Mexico.
In a brief statement, Koizumi called on North Korea to "take a sincere stance toward dispelling suspicions over its nuclear program." Japanese government officials, meanwhile, confirmed that bilateral talks with North Korea scheduled for Oct. 29 would go on.
However, NHK, Japan's public broadcasting station, reported that Japan intends to urge North Korea to suspend the program during the talks and if Pyongyang doesn't agree Japan would respond that it would be difficult to continue talks.
China's response was muted. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said that while China has also opposed the introduction of nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula, the issue "should be settled through dialogue and negotiations and should be settled peacefully."
Nonetheless, analysts agreed that North Korea's acknowledgment threatened the region. First, it could ruin efforts by South Korea and Japan to improve ties with the isolated government.
It also could turn back the clock on nascent economic reforms in North Korea. Finally, the admission could prompt the United States to pressure Tokyo and Seoul to slow their rapprochement with Pyongyang, thereby raising tension on the Korean peninsula and straining ties between Washington and its two main Asian allies.
Taik Yong Hamm, a professor at Kyungnam University's Graduate School of North Korean Studies, said the North Korean disclosure appeared to be an effort by the government to come clean and signal it is serious about negotiation, but it misfired.
"They may have seen it like the admission they kidnapped Japanese, but it's quite different," he said. "This is in direct violation of the 1994 agreement. It demonstrates they are no longer trustworthy. It's a very serious blunder."
Among North Korea's neighbors, the admission has put China in a difficult position, analysts said. Considered the closest country in the world to Pyongyang, China will now be under intense American pressure to influence North Korea, Chinese analysts predicted. China, analysts said, could end up embarrassed by North Korea's acknowledgment. For one, the announcement from Washington came while a delegation of senior North Korean officials was visiting China amid statements on both sides about the enduring brotherly ties between the two countries.
Today, spokeswoman Zhang said the two sides did not broach the nuclear weapons issue. Secondly, Chinese officials, in particular Chi Haotian, now defense minister, acted as intermediaries during the Clinton administration's negotiations to secure North Korea's agreement in 1994, Western sources said.
Chi, who served as a military attach in Pyongyang for more than five years, was introduced to U.S. officials as a man who knew the North Koreans well and could get them to keep a deal, said a former U.S. diplomat. "I guess that did not happen," he said.
A senior Chinese scholar with close ties to the government predicted that Beijing would "be neutral on the surface" but work behind the scenes to persuade Pyongyang to end its program.
"It would be incredible for us to just look on and do nothing," said the scholar, who like several others in Beijing spoke on condition of anonymity.
However, recent signs point to a significant cooling of Beijing's ties to Pyongyang. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the main government-run think tank, recently warned its scholars not to speak to either Chinese or foreign reporters about the Korean peninsula without the approval of its publicity department, Chinese sources said.
Earlier this month, Beijing detained Yang Bin, a Chinese-born businessman whom Pyongyang had picked to head a special economic zone that it wants to set up along the North Korean border with China. A diplomat familiar with the plans said China opposed the zone because it was going to be "a gambling enclave to suck up money from Chinese high-rollers" and a banking center to "launder money for mobsters, arms dealers, and narcotrafficantes."
"While this might be a windfall for the [North Korea], it is probably not something the PRC wants on its border," he said.
----
Opportunity, Peril Seen in N.Korea Nuclear Admission
Reuters
Thursday, October 17, 2002
By Carol Giacomo and Paul Eckert
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A39562-2002Oct17?language=printer
WASHINGTON/SEOUL (Reuters) - The United States said North Korea had admitted running a secretive nuclear-weapons program, a disclosure that surprised Asian neighbors but which experts said showed Pyongyang's desire for talks with Washington.
The United States said on Wednesday North Korea, confronted with U.S. evidence, had acknowledged it was operating a uranium-enrichment program in violation of a 1994 non-proliferation pact that brought the peninsula back from the brink of crisis.
The assertion from Washington drew demands from Seoul and Tokyo that the reclusive communist state abide by all nuclear pledges and open its facilities to inspections.
Diplomats and academic analysts said an impasse could scupper inter-Korean rapprochement and kill embryonic economic reforms in North Korea, while poisoning an already bitter election-year debate in South Korea over policy toward the North.
But others, including a top aide to South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, said the admission by North Korea two weeks after it reversed decades of denial and owned up to abducting Japanese nationals was another sign Pyongyang wanted serious talks.
U.S. officials said special envoy James Kelly had presented the North Koreans with documentation about the nuclear activities during an October 3-5 visit to Pyongyang and the North Koreans had finally acknowledged conducting a secret weapons program.
Kelly's visit was the first since President Bush took office and dubbed North Korea part of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and Iran. North Korean media later accused Kelly of making "very arrogant and threatening remarks" in Pyongyang.
Yim Sung-joon, top South Korean presidential adviser on national security and foreign policy, told reporters Kim would take up the issue with Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi at a three-way summit next week in Mexico.
"The president views this as a grave matter and it is his position that it is unacceptable under any circumstances for North Korea to develop nuclear weapons," Yim told reporters.
South Korea's Unification Ministry said in a statement it would raise the nuclear issue in ministerial talks between the two Koreas set to start in Pyongyang on October 19.
QUEST FOR DIALOGUE
But he added that South Korea saw North Korea's surprising confession as part of a quest for dialogue, the latest of several dramatic steps Pyongyang has taken this year to improve ties with the outside world and overhaul its sickly, aid-dependent economy.
"The government is paying close attention to this frank confirmation of nuclear suspicions during special envoy Kelly's visit to North Korea and we regard it as a sign North Korea is willing to resolve this problem through dialogue," Yim said.
One Pyongyang-based diplomat agreed, telling Reuters the nuclear disclosure "could reflect a need to bring these discussions from political rhetoric to a technical level so perhaps both sides can make progress on specific issues."
Japan received a shock admission and an apology from North Korea last month for the abductions of more than a dozen Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s to teach Japanese to North Korean spies. The confession opened the way for normalization talks this month.
A second diplomat in the North Korean capital said he thought Washington's nuclear revelation was a U.S. tactic to pressure Pyongyang after Kelly's trip failed to make headway.
"The North Koreans are de facto ready to make some concessions, even substantial concessions, but they want some reward," he said by telephone.
A senior U.S. official told Reuters in Washington that the Bush administration believed the North's activities had "effectively nullified the 1994 Agreed Framework," a deal under which North Korea promised to freeze its nuclear arms program.
NO U.S. DECISION
But U.S. officials said the administration was consulting Congress and U.S. allies and had made no decision on the next steps in its relations with North Korea.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said: "We seek a peaceful resolution of this situation.
"Everyone in the region has a stake in this issue and no peaceful nation wants to see a nuclear-armed North Korea. This is an opportunity for peace-loving nations in the region to deal, effectively, with this challenge," he said.
Kelly and Undersecretary of State John Bolton arrived in Beijing on Thursday, their first stop on a whirlwind trip which will also take them to Seoul and Tokyo for talks on the issue.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said Beijing learned of the U.S. allegations from news reports. "We have always supported denuclearization of the Korean peninsula to protect the peninsula's peace and stability," she told reporters. "We think the nuclear issue in Korea should be resolved peacefully through dialogue and consultation."
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the North Korean weapons program was a serious violation of its commitments.
"World opinion is united in calling for North Korea to comply with its international obligations and to eliminate its nuclear weapons program," Straw said in a statement.
Russia, which has broadened its ties with North Korea in recent years, said on Thursday it would consult Pyongyang.
"We will hold relevant consultations, including with our colleagues in North Korea, and after that we will have the information...to comment on this," Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told reporters in Moscow.
Japan said it would go ahead with talks with North Korea due to start on October 29. "We want to ask North Korea to deal with this sincerely and get rid of the nuclear suspicions," Prime Minister Koizumi told reporters.
In Seoul, where policy toward Pyongyang has become a bone of contention in the run-up to a December presidential poll, the main opposition party said the disclosure showed the government must "reconsider its policy toward the North from the beginning."
The Dong-a Ilbo, a conservative daily long critical of unconditional aid for North Korea, called the nuclear revelation tantamount to "another stab in the back from North Korea." (Additional reporting by Kim Myong-hwan, Linda Sieg in Tokyo, and Jeremy Page and John Ruwitch in Beijing)
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Clinton Bankrolled North Korea's Nuke Program
Thursday, Oct. 17, 2002
NewsMax.com
http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2002/10/17/80959
In what now looks like one of the worst foreign policy blunders of the postwar era in light of North Korea's acknowledgement yesterday that it's working to develop nuclear weapons, the Clinton administration poured billions of dollars in foreign aid into the rogue state throughout the 1990s - and earmarked a substantial portion of that aid for North Korea's nuclear energy program.
As NewsMax.com reported in February:
A country designated by President Bush as part of the "axis of evil" received more foreign aid during President Clinton's two terms than any other country in the Asia-Pacific region, a congressional study concluded two years ago.
House Republican Policy Committee Chairman Christopher Cox, R-Calif., said the study conducted by his panel found that under the Clinton administration, North Korea became the "largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid in the Asia-Pacific region," according to the committee's report as quoted by CNSNews.com.
"In an astonishing reversal of nine previous U.S. administrations, the Clinton-Gore administration, in 1994, committed not only to provide foreign aid for North Korea, but to earmark that aid primarily for the construction of nuclear reactors worth up to $6 billion," the Cox Committee contended.
The committee's report added:
"The U.S.-funded light water reactors in North Korea will accumulate plutonium in spent fuel at the rate of about 17,300 ounces per year, enough to produce 65 nuclear bombs a year.
"The Clinton-Gore policy, it is now clear, has severely worsened the threat that North Korea poses to the world by systematically rewarding Kim Jong-il for his most dangerous misconduct. It has provided North Korea with an increased capacity for the development of nuclear weapons and the long-range missiles to deliver them."
Cox, along with fellow congressmen Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Benjamin Gilman, R-N.Y., sent a letter to President Bush in February calling for the U.S. to cancel the nuke deal and urged him to spotlight the North Korean threat during his then-upcoming visit to Japan, South Korea and China.
Beyond aiding North Korea's nuke program, the Clinton administration provided 500,000 metric tons of fuel oil per year to the communist dictatorship's state-run military-industrial base, a figure that was "almost double what North Korea's civilian economy can use," the Cox Committee said.
In 1999, Rep. Cox conducted a separate investigation into China's acquisition of U.S. nuclear secrets during the Clinton years, concluding that the People's Liberation Army had, for the first time in its history, acquired the capacity to strike the continental United States with nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles.
Editor's note: Find out the complete details of China's and Russia's Military Buildup in "Bitter Legacy: NewsMax Reveals the Untold Story of the Clinton-Gore Years" - http://www.newsmaxstore.com/nms/showdetl.cfm?&DID=6&Product_ID=73&CATID=9&GroupID=12
-------- treaties
Revelation May End Nuclear Agreement
October 17, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Koreas-Nuclear-Deal.html
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- The U.S. announcement that North Korea has a secret nuclear weapons program could signal the end of an oft-criticized anchor of engagement between the two foes: the Agreed Framework.
Under that deal, signed in Geneva on Oct. 21, 1994, energy-starved North Korea agreed to freeze a suspected nuclear weapons program in return for two modern, light-water reactors built by a U.S.-led consortium.
But the White House said Wednesday night that North Korea admitted it was developing nuclear weapons in violation of that agreement, which was widely credited at its signing with averting war.
Critics of the agreement, however, said it was a case of communist blackmail and that the North had deliberately ratcheted up tension over its shadowy nuclear program in order to win a concession, a tactic known as brinkmanship.
The Agreed Framework did not require North Korea to immediately open up all its nuclear facilities to international inspections. That led to eight years of ambiguity over whether it had a nuclear bomb, or at least the means and material to produce one.
If North Korea is indeed developing nuclear weapons, it would be ``legally impossible for the U.S. to continue with the project,'' said Daniel Pinkston, an analyst at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California.
The withdrawal of U.S. backing would halt the nearly $5 billion project on North Korea's east coast, possibly triggering an escalation of political tension on the divided peninsula.
``That would put us back to the summer of 1994, but potentially worse,'' Pinkston said.
On the other hand, he said, there is a small possibility that North Korea is ``coming clean'' about its nuclear program in the same way that it recently admitted the abductions of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s.
The revelation was perplexing to some analysts, who said they were waiting to hear whether North Korea made the admission to U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly in a defiant, or confessional, tone. Kelly visited Pyongyang, North Korea's capital, Oct. 3-5 to raise concerns about the North's weapons programs.
Lee Jong-suk, a senior analyst at the Sejong Institute, an independent research center in Seoul, said he would have expected the North to preserve the secrecy of a nuclear program ``as a real bargaining card in future heavyweight negotiations.''
``It's not in line with their usual strategy and tactics. It's a clumsy, suicidal method that does not befit North Korean diplomacy,'' Lee said.
Supporters of the Agreed Framework have said the commitment of all sides to its survival has served as a model of engagement with the reclusive North.
Charles Kartman, head of KEDO, the international consortium that is building the reactors, said the agreement has even helped stabilize periodic confrontations on the Korean peninsula.
However, there have been repeated calls for an overhaul of the deal, and both sides have accused each other of violating its terms.
The U.S.-backed reactors were supposed to be finished in 2003, but they are years behind schedule. North Korea has demanded economic compensation, and has sometimes threatened to pull out of the agreement.
Part of the problem is that the four-page Agreed Framework left out details about contracts and financing, and much of that work was done later. South Korea is footing at least 70 percent of the bill.
The document also deferred full nuclear inspections in the North by the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, a prerequisite for the delivery of key nuclear components under the Agreed Framework.
This year, North Korea rebuffed U.S. demands for immediate inspections. The IAEA says it would take three to four years to complete them.
``Either side could create a crisis (over the Agreed Framework) anytime it wants,'' Bradley Babson, a consultant on Asian issues for the World Bank and the United Nations, said in an interview earlier this week.
He also said the nuclear project was so economically unsound that the United States may never have intended to build the reactors, assuming that destitute North Korea would crumble before their completion.
Experts agree the North Korean power grid is too small and unstable to support the nuclear plant, which would provide 2 million kilowatts of electricity. Some have said the plant needs to be linked to the South Korean power grid.
In recent months, North Korea had appeared to be pursuing a campaign to improve ties with Washington and its chief partners in the KEDO project, South Korea and Japan. The North desperately needs aid from its traditional adversaries.
Kartman said at a forum in Seoul earlier this week that Washington has become ``progressively less interested'' in the project, a Clinton-era compromise that seems at odds with Bush's tougher foreign policy.
--------
S.Korea Urges North to Abide by Nuclear Agreements
October 17, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-north-nuclear-south.html
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea urged North Korea on Thursday to abide by all nuclear pledges after Washington revealed that the North had acknowledged it was violating a 1994 agreement by operating a secret nuclear weapons program.
An aide to South Korean President Kim Dae-jung said that his government interpreted North Korea's surprising confession as showing willingness to solve a decade-old nuclear problem through dialogue.
But analysts said the communist state's confession risked derailing delicate ties with the United States and with South Korea, where policy toward Pyongyang has become a bitter point of contention in a presidential election just two months away.
Lee Tae-sik, deputy foreign minister, told a news conference: ``The South Korean government urges North Korea to be responsible and to abide by the Geneva agreements, NPT (the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty) and a South-North Korea joint declaration to make the Korean peninsula nuclear free.''
Yim Sung-joon, top presidential adviser on national security and foreign policy, told reporters Kim Dae-jung would take up the issue with President Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi at a three-way summit next week in Mexico.
``The president views this as a grave matter and it is his position that it is unacceptable under any circumstances for North Korea to develop nuclear weapons,'' Yim told reporters.
NORTH GAMBIT FOR TALKS?
U.S. officials said the admission was made to U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly after he had presented the North Koreans with documentation about the nuclear activities during a visit to Pyongyang from October 3 to 5.
Lee and Yim stressed that Seoul sought a peaceful resolution of the latest potential crisis and that North Korea must keep its pledges and allow inspections to clear up nuclear suspicions.
But Yim said South Korea interpreted the revelation by North Korea -- shortly after it reversed decades of denial and admitted abducting Japanese nationals -- as a sign Pyongyang wanted talks.
``The government is paying close attention to this frank confirmation of nuclear suspicions during special envoy Kelly's visit to North Korea and we regard it as a sign North Korea is willing to resolve this problem through dialogue,'' he said.
Yim said Seoul and Washington had not had significant discussions on the North's motives for owning up to breaking earlier nuclear pledges. He said Kelly had told South Korea about the admission when he visited Seoul after the Pyongyang trip.
A senior U.S. official told Reuters in Washington that the Bush administration believed the North's activities had ``effectively nullified the 1994 Agreed Framework,'' a deal under which North Korea promised to freeze its nuclear arms program.
But U.S. officials said the administration was consulting Congress and U.S. allies and had made no decision on the next steps in its relations with North Korea, which has made clear it wants more cooperation with the international community.
OLD BRINKMANSHIP WON'T WORK
South Korea's main opposition Grand National Party, long a critic of Kim Dae-jung's engagement with North Korea, said the nuclear program showed that the government ``should reconsider its policy toward the North from the beginning.''
The GNP has expressed skepticism about North Korea similar to that of Bush. Bush has included North Korea with Iran and Iraq in what he termed an ``axis of evil'' of states developing weapons of mass destruction and backing international terrorism.
Yu Suk-ryul, a fellow at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, said the revelation had the hallmarks of North Korea's old policy of creating crises to force talks.
``The North seems to hope its brinkmanship diplomacy will work again. But the tactic looks anachronistic because it will only make other countries more skeptical,'' Yu said.
Shin Jung-hyun, a political science professor at Seoul's Kyunghee University, said the South would have to change its engagement policy unless Pyongyang dropped its nuclear weapons program.
``The South's policy now depends on what the North will do next about the nuclear issue,'' Shin said. ``If the North sticks with its nuclear program, the South will lose the rationale for a peaceful approach.''
-------- u.n.
UN Deeply Concerned by N.Korea Nuclear Admission
October 17, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-un-nuclear.html
VIENNA, Austria (Reuters) - The United Nations' nuclear watchdog said on Thursday it was deeply concerned about North Korea's reported acknowledgment to the United States that it had a secret nuclear weapons program and wanted more information.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said the assertions, if true, meant Pyongyang had been misleading the United Nations about what it had always portrayed as a peaceful atomic power program but which Washington says was intended to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.
``We are urgently seeking information from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in response to this report, as well as information from the United States that will allow us to follow up on this very serious allegation,'' said IAEA Director General Mohamed Elbaradei.
Under Pyongyang's agreement with the Vienna-based watchdog, North Korea should have declared the existence of any nuclear facility to the IAEA and placed it under the agency's safeguards, Elbaradei said in a statement, expressing his ``deep concern'' about the U.S. report.
Senior U.S. officials said on Wednesday that North Korea had acknowledged operating a secret nuclear weapons program in violation of a 1994 bilateral agreement under which Pyongyang had promised to freeze any nuclear arms development.
``North Korea has been in non-compliance with their Safeguards Agreement for many years and we've not been able to have the cooperation we need to verify their initial declaration of nuclear material back in 1992,'' IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky told Reuters.
U.S. officials said special envoy James Kelly had presented the North Koreans with documentation about their activities during an Oct. 3-5 visit to Pyongyang and that they had finally acknowledged a secret nuclear weapons program.
Washington said the North Korean project centered on a uranium-enrichment program that had been under way for several years. Fissile highly-enriched uranium or plutonium are necessary ingredients for an atomic bomb.
A NOT-SO-PEACEFUL NUCLEAR PROGRAM?
Although the IAEA has been carrying out limited inspections in North Korea since the 1990s, it has never been allowed to conduct the kind of intrusive inspections under the Safeguards Agreement needed to flush out a clandestine weapons program.
When the 1994 pact between the United States and North Korea was signed, the IAEA was asked to carry out full-scale inspections, including a hunt for signs of a secret weapons program. But it has not been allowed to begin this task.
Although the U.S. statement came as a surprise for the IAEA, the agency hopes the revelations could lead to the commencement of intrusive inspections in North Korea.
``We're ready to go there,'' said Gwozdecky, though he said that it would take the inspectors three to four years to verify whether North Korea's 1992 declaration was correct.
Gwozdecky also said that over the last decade Pyongyang had never admitted to running a weapons program.
``They declared a number of nuclear facilities and showed us less than 100 grams of plutonium they said had been extracted from damaged fuel rods,'' he said. ``They claimed this was a peaceful program.''
The RAND Corporation, a U.S. security think-tank, says a country which got hold of just 11 pounds (five kg) of plutonium or 33 pounds (15 kg) of highly-enriched uranium could theoretically build a fully-fledged nuclear bomb in just a few days.
-------- us politics
Today in Congress
Thursday, October 17, 2002
Washington Post; Page A04
Reuters
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37851-2002Oct16?language=printer
SENATE
Meets at 11 a.m.
Committees:
Intelligence -- 10 a.m. Joint hearing with the House Select Intelligence Committee to examine activities of the intelligence community in connection with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. CIA Director George J. Tenet and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III. Meets again at 2 p.m. 216 Hart Office Building.
HOUSE
Meets at 10 a.m.
Committees:
Energy and Commerce -- 9 a.m. Oversight and investigations subc. Nuclear terrorism at ports and borders. 2123 Rayburn House Office Building.
Energy and Commerce -- 10:30 a.m. Commerce, trade and consumer protection subc. Electronic communications networks and their role in the marketplace. 2123 RHOB.
Judiciary -- 2 p.m. Immigration and claims subc. Use of Justice Dept. funds by correctional facilities to assist the INS in deporting criminal aliens. 2237 RHOB.
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Armey: Justice 'out of control'
By Mimi Hall,
USA TODAY
10/16/2002
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2002-10-16-armey-usat_x.htm
WASHINGTON - House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, lashed out at the Justice Department Wednesday for what he called its "lack of regard for personal civil liberties in America" while combating terrorism. Dick Armey has long expressed concerns about civil liberties violations in the name of fighting terrorism. By Dennis Cook, AP
"I told the president I thought his Justice Department was out of control," the retiring lawmaker told USA TODAY's editorial board.
Armey has long expressed concerns about civil liberties violations in the name of fighting terrorism. He helped scuttle Bush's plan to set up a government hotline for delivery workers and others to report suspicious activity.
"Are we going to save ourselves from international terrorism in order to deny the fundamental liberties we protect to ourselves?" he said. "It doesn't make sense to me."
Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo said the actions have been "well within the bounds of the Constitution and statutory authority provided by Congress."
Armey's comments came as the American Civil Liberties Union launched a $3.5 million advertising and lobbying campaign accusing Attorney General John Ashcroft of eroding personal freedoms.
The ACLU campaign is aimed at getting Congress to repeal portions of the year-old USA Patriot Act, passed in response to Sept. 11. The act gave the government broad powers to monitor citizens suspected of having ties to terrorists.
The Justice Department has defended its new wiretapping authority and other surveillance as necessary to fight terrorism.
Contributing: Wire reports
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U.N. Is Urged to 'Be Firm' On Iraq
Council Debates Arms Inspections
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 17, 2002; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37642-2002Oct16?language=printer
UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 16 -- U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan encouraged the Security Council today to impose "firm" but "reasonable" new terms for weapons inspections on Iraq while appealing to the Iraqi government to make use of its "last chance" to provide unimpeded access to U.N. arms experts.
"Iraq has to comply," Annan said in a statement delivered by a senior aide at the opening of a public debate on Iraq in the Security Council. "If Iraq fails to make use of the last chance, and defiance continues, the council will have to face its responsibilities."
In the debate, delegates from throughout the developing world railed against the United States for trying to compel the council to endorse a war on Iraq. They urged the council to give Iraq another chance to prove it has disarmed and expressed resentment that the fate of Iraq was being decided behind closed doors by five veto-bearing members of the council.
Even stalwart U.S. allies, including Canada and New Zealand, echoed France's demand that the Security Council reserve the authority to trigger force until after new weapons inspections tested Baghdad's willingness to comply with demands that it dismantle its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.
The meeting was convened at the request of the 115-member nonaligned movement. It coincided with a reinvigorated push by Bush administration officials to break an impasse with France over the adoption of a U.S. draft resolution that would compel Iraq to submit to stringent U.N. inspections or face possible military action.
It revealed increasing international support for France's efforts to prevent the 15-nation council from granting Washington a blank check for military action.
"The Security Council represents our collective security concerns and should ultimately be accountable to the entire United Nations," said South Africa's envoy, Dumisani Shadrack Kumalo, who is serving as the chairman of the nonaligned movement. The council cannot "allow itself to agree to a decision that will subject and condemn large numbers of innocent civilians to conditions of war in efforts to enforce its resolution."
More than a dozen Arab governments urged the council to avoid war. Tunisia's ambassador, Noureddine Mejdoub, said that a war against Iraq would "be an affront to the Arab world" and "would undermine the war on terrorism."
"We must put an end to war-mongering hysteria," he said.
Despite widespread opposition to unilateral military action, there is growing support at the United Nations for a U.N.-sponsored military strike on Iraq if it continues to defy weapons inspectors. France has offered to include language in a resolution that would threaten military action if the chief U.N. weapons inspector concludes he cannot conduct credible inspections.
"We are confident that force can be avoided," said Argentina's ambassador, Arnoldo M. Listre. "Nevertheless, if all negotiating mechanisms are exhausted and regrettably force becomes the only option, it must be exercised with caution and moderation, avoiding to the maximum possible extent to hurt the civilian population."
Iraqi Ambassador Mohammed Douri denied that Iraq possesses banned chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. He said the United States was "changing the map of the region by force" in order to control the oil resources.
"The United States wants the Security Council to give them a blank check to occupy Iraq . . . and subject the entire world to American hegemony," he said.
U.S. officials countered that Iraq is lying, and that it is time for U.N. members to back council efforts to end more than a decade of Iraqi defiance. "We think that all member states should use their time to encourage the Security Council to take action because 16 of its resolutions have gone unanswered," said Richard Grenell, spokesman for John D. Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
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Senate OKs biggest defense increase in decades
ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 17, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021017-75514098.htm
The Senate increased defense spending by the largest amount in decades yesterday, approving $355.4 billion for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.
The vote came as the Republican-controlled House, badly divided with the Democratic Senate over non-defense budgetary issues, decided to adjourn until after the Nov. 5 election.
The defense bill boosts spending by $34.4 billion over last year's level, reflecting the increased needs of the war on terrorism and a potential conflict with Iraq. It was the largest real growth in the defense budget since the Reagan administration.
The 93-1 Senate vote sends the bill to President Bush for his signature. The lone dissenting vote in the Senate was cast by Sen. Russell D. Feingold, Wisconsin Democrat. The House approved the measure last week by 409-14.
"This defense budget will provide our troops with the best pay, the best equipment and the best possible training," Mr. Bush said. "It also sends an important signal that we are committed to defending freedom and defeating terror."
The defense bill is only the second of the 13 annual spending bills that Congress has passed. The other bill was also military-related, providing $10.5 billion for military construction projects.
Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, Hawaii Democrat, chairman of the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, said it was "imperative we pass this bill before we recess" to ensure the military the support it needs as it prepares for a potential Iraqi war.
With the White House and Senate Democrats unable to agree on spending levels for non-defense federal programs, there was little chance of Congress enacting other appropriations bills before the elections.
The House on yesterday, in a 228-172 vote, approved a fourth temporary-spending measure to keep agencies operating at current-year levels until Nov. 22. The Senate approved the measure by voice vote.
After the vote, the House recessed until the week after the election. Republican leaders said they were prepared to come back before that if the Senate acted on spending bills or other pending legislation, such as a bill to create a homeland security department.
House Republicans have insisted that spending for the 13 appropriations bills be held within the president's goal of $759 billion. Senate Democrats say that is unrealistic because the needs of education, health, environment and other programs, and are demanding at least another $9 billion.
The Senate yesterday did approve a measure to restore a rule requiring a 60-vote majority to overcome an objection to new spending or tax cuts that go beyond established budget levels or that increase the deficit. The rule expired on Sept. 30.
The defense measure increases spending in almost every area, from weapons procurement to payroll. It includes a 4.1 percent pay raise for military personnel and nearly all the $7.4 billion Mr. Bush requested to keep developing a national missile-defense system.
The bill also provides $3.3 billion for 15 C-17 transport aircraft, $2.3 billion for two Aegis destroyers, $3.2 billion for 46 Navy F/A-18 E/F fighters and $3.5 billion to continue developing the Joint Strike Fighter. Another $249 million is allotted for Navy Tomahawk cruise missiles, a key weapon in the Persian Gulf war.
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Time Grows Short for Iraq Accord, Bush Warns
France Shows Little Sign Of Softening Its Position
By Karen DeYoung and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 17, 2002; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A35937-2002Oct16?language=printer
President Bush warned yesterday that time is growing short for an international agreement on action against Iraq as his administration began final efforts to convince reluctant United Nations partners that war will be inevitable if an accord is not reached.
"Those who choose to live in denial may eventually be forced to live in fear," Bush said at an elaborate White House ceremony to sign last week's congressional resolution authorizing military force. "The time has arrived once again for the United Nations to live up to the purposes of its founding to protect our common security."
Senior administration officials said the principal target of Bush's remarks was France, which has rejected a U.S.-drafted Security Council resolution authorizing automatic use of force if Iraq fails to cooperate with a new round of U.N. weapons inspections.
But there was little sign of give in the French position. President Jacques Chirac, in a statement some interpreted as a veto threat, said France would continue to push for a resolution "in line with the interests of the region as we see them." If it did not succeed, Chirac said, "France, as a member of the Security Council and a permanent member, will assume its responsibilities."
On a day when war seemed more rather than less likely, Bush assured visiting Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that the United States would "make every effort to avoid the need for [Israeli] retaliation" if military action against Iraq is begun, a senior Israeli official said.
The administration wants to keep Israel out of any potential war against Baghdad lest it further inflame anti-Americanism in the Arab world. Although Sharon has said his government would retaliate if Iraq launched missiles against Israel, Bush told Sharon he would seek to avoid that happening by making the elimination of Iraqi Scuds pointed at Israel an early priority for U.S. forces. Israel abided by a U.S. request not to retaliate after Iraq fired a number of missiles at Tel Aviv during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Asked by reporters after yesterday's meeting what would happen if "an Iraqi missile landed in Tel Aviv," Bush said "If Iraq attacks Israel tomorrow, I would assume the prime minister would respond. He's got a desire to defend himself.
"Our hope is that the Iraqi regime will disarm peacefully," Bush said. "But I can't -- I mean, maybe [Iraqi leader] Saddam [Hussein] will attack tomorrow. He's certainly a dangerous man. And he's got to understand that the international community won't tolerate an unprovoked attack on Israel, or anybody else, for that matter."
The Oval Office meeting was the sixth between Bush and Sharon since both came to office early last year and the first without the Israeli-Palestinian dispute dominating the agenda. The two sides announced an agreement on a plan for Israel to disburse money it owes to the Palestinian Authority. Israel had refused to turn over the money, charging it would go to terrorists. Under the new plan, the United States will monitor the funds.
Speaking to reporters, Sharon effusively praised Bush's leadership in the campaign against "world terror." In a compliment that Bush may have preferred receiving in private as he seeks to separate U.S. support for Israel from its antipathy toward Iraq, Sharon said that Israel had "never had such relations with any president of the United States as we have with you. We never had such a cooperation in everything as we have with the current administration."
Protracted discussions about a U.N. resolution on a new arms inspection program for Iraq continued among the five permanent members of the Security Council, with the United States and Britain on one side and France, Russia and China on the other. But the most intense negotiations involved Paris and Washington.
Each has proposed alternate wording for the most contentious part of a draft U.S. resolution, which authorizes council members to use "all necessary means," including military force, against Iraq if it does not comply with tough new U.N. inspections of its weapons of mass destruction programs and destruction of its chemical and biological weapons stockpiles. France has insisted on two resolutions: one imposing new inspections, and another, if Iraq fails to comply, on any further action.
Chirac, who was traveling yesterday in Egypt, told reporters at a joint news conference with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that "this region does not need another war, if it can be avoided. And so everything has to be done to avoid it."
Senior administration officials said it has been made clear to the French that there are only two options: a U.S.-launched war without a U.N. resolution, or a resolution that would begin inspections under threat of war. The United States, officials said, is willing to modify some of the language in its proposal, but will agree to no change in what it sees as its two essential elements: rigorous new inspections and guaranteed consequences for Iraqi non-cooperation. Although U.S. officials said they had not set a final deadline for the end of negotiations, "we'll know [the end] when we see it," one official said. "There's a point at which you don't feel people are treating the issue seriously."
The administration is divided between senior State Department officials, including Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who believe negotiations still may bear fruit, and the Pentagon's civilian leaders, who feel there is no point in further talks. But officials agree war is likely anyway, because Iraq would likely defy a new inspections regime, U.S. officials believe.
U.N. Ambassador John Negroponte was brought from New York Tuesday to brief Bush and his senior foreign policy and national security officials on the state of affairs in New York. Negroponte, sources said, told them that the majority of United Nations members, and a likely majority on the 15-member council, disagreed with the U.S. position. But Bush's feeling, sources said, is that he made good on his pledge to consult the United Nations and it will not be his fault if agreement is not reached. If war comes without a resolution, one source said, "the French will be responsible for it."
Last week, Bush won overwhelming majorities in both chambers of Congress for a resolution authorizing him to use force against Iraq with or without U.N. backing. "I hope the use of force will not become necessary," Bush said today in the signing ceremony, as dozens of members of the House and Senate who supported the resolution surrounded him. "Yet confronting the threat posed by Iraq is necessary, by whatever means that requires."
Bush has said that "many nations" would be at America's side even without a U.N. resolution, although only Britain and Bulgaria have said so publicly and dozens have said they would not participate in the absence of Security Council authorization.
In a reflection of continuing political unrest over Iraq, despite last week's overwhelming majorities, Democratic attendance at yesterday's ceremony was sparse, although White House officials said they invited every lawmaker who voted for the resolution. Capitol Hill's top two Democrats, Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) and House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), did not attend.
Several Democratic officials said they viewed the ceremony as grandstanding by Bush three weeks before the midterm elections.
"We're simply not going to be used as props as Bush shoves the war down voters' throats," a senior Democratic official said. "Why play the loyal opposition when he's wielding the war like a political club?"
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Bush tough talk backfired on N Korea
By Martin Sieff
UPI Senior News Analyst
October 17, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20021017-120505-7335r.htm
WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 (UPI) -- The North Koreans have taken a page out of Israel's deterrence playbook. And like Israel, they did so because they were scared.
North Korean officials have made the bombshell admission to U.S. diplomats that their country for years has continued a nuclear development program in secret, even though this was in clear contravention of its 1994 commitments to the United States, U.S. and South Korean officials told UPI early Thursday.
Why did they make such an admission at all? And above all, why did they make it now?
The North Korean capital, Pyongyang, is probably the most inaccessible capital city on earth. But certain things are known for a certainty, and very clear inferences can indeed be drawn from them.
First, senior South Korean intelligence officials and close advisers to President Kim Dae-jung have repeatedly told UPI Analysis that North Korean leader Kim Il-sung and his innermost circle are truly ignorant of the nature of democratic societies in the wider world. Even worse, these top South Korean officials say, the North's Kim and his advisers are also still in a very much of a state of paranoid fear about everyone outside their own tightly policed borders.
That is why the South's President Kim made his "Sunshine" policy of very cautious détente with the North the center-piece of his nation's national security policies. And it is also why the South's Kim and his own top officials were so appalled at what they considered the reckless actions and rhetoric of President George W. Bush when he visited the Demilitarized Zone border between South and North. They feared Bush's tough talk could wreck the fragile foundations of their own détente.
The North's leaders, however, do watch the outside world. And it was certainly not lost upon them when Bush, in his State of the Union Address at the beginning of this year, included their country along with Iraq and Iran in an "axis of evil." Now they see Bush is on the brink of going to war with Iraq to topple its longtime leader, President Saddam Hussein.
Mighty Iran has a population of 80 million, four times that of either Iraq or North Korea. But North Korea has the same population, a smaller area and a far, far smaller resource base than Iraq. Also, where Iraq can at least hope for uprisings of popular support among the Middle East's remaining 260 million Arabs outside its borders, or in the wider Muslim world, which numbers around one billion, the North Koreans are out on their own.
Their only supporter is neighboring China. It is determined to keep the North intact as a protective buffer against the contagion of the free speech, democratic societies of South Korea and Japan.
But while China has been making long-term, serious and massive military investment to prepare for a possible air-sea war against the United States in the Taiwan Straits, it is no position to actively militarily intervene, on the North's side against the far superior U.S. high-tech military forces.
Besides the North's revered, although catastrophic, founding ideology of chu-chi, or independent self-reliance, teaches that national security and even survival can be entrusted to no other nation's hands.
The clear strategic inference to be drawn from such premises is that a nuclear deterrent would be necessary to maintain the cherished independence of the North against an outside world presumed to be entirely hostile against it. Similar motivations based on all too real recent history motivated democratic Israel's founding father David Ben-Gurion to launch an ambitious nuclear development program in the 1950s.
Ever since then, Israel has been coy about its nuclear weapons capability, generally believed to amount to no less than 200 to 300 nuclear weapons and the delivery systems to carry them. Up to now, the North Koreans have been even more coy, denying they even had any nuclear program beyond what they had admitted to for civilian power-generating purposes.
Going public now is clearly a risk. There is a danger that the South may break off its "Sunshine" relationship with the North and that Japan may beak off its own budding dialogue with Pyongyang.
However, both these developments appear unlikely. President Kim in Seoul and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in Tokyo both have far too much political capital invested in dialogue and détente with the North to break it off now. Besides, these policies have proven very popular with their electorates.
The main risk of the North Korean admission lies, as Pyongyang leaders well know, in what Bush's reaction in Washington will be. They may be giving him a justification to turn the heat up on them after he has finished with Saddam.
However, it appears that North Korean leaders have, rather, made the calculation that only the fear that they already possess nuclear weapons will deter Bush from taking major military action against them at some point soon.
Indeed, they may well already be convinced that Bush has already made up his mind to launch U.S. armed forces against them after Iraq is conquered. If that is the case, it would follow that only indicating obliquely but still clearly that they may already possess a nuclear deterrent will be sufficient to keep Bush off their backs.
For more than a decade Pentagon nuclear strategists have had a name for this kind of calculation. They call it "nuclear bee-sting" theory. It means that Third World or "rogue state" leaders believe the threat of having a single nuclear weapon that could destroy an American city or of kill tens or hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops in the field would be sufficient to deter any major U.S. military action against them.
Right after the 1991 Gulf War, when India's then-chief of staff was asked privately by some American interlocutors what strategic lessons should be drawn from the rapid and overwhelming U.S. victory, he replied, "Make sure you have your own atomic bomb before you challenge the United States."
And one of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's top national security advisers said, "This is not fantasy. Nuclear bee-sting theory is very real. The Americans are treating it this way. And so are we."
With their announcement Wednesday, the North Koreans appear to be adopting "nuclear bee-sting" theory as their deterrent strategy as well. In poker-playing terms, it is unlikely to be a bluff.
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Bush Troubled by North Korean Nuclear Arms Program
Reuters
Thursday, October 17, 2002
By Steve Holland
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40120-2002Oct17?language=printer
ATLANTA (Reuters) - President Bush believes North Korea's admission that it has a nuclear weapons program is "troubling" but wants a diplomatic solution and views the situation as different from Iraq's alleged pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, the White House said on Thursday.
"This is a serious violation of the Agreed Framework and the Nonproliferation Treaty. The president believes this is troubling, sobering news," McClellan told reporters aboard Air Force One as Bush flew to Atlanta.
The United States on Wednesday said North Korea, confronted with U.S. evidence, had acknowledged it was operating a secret nuclear weapons program in violation of the 1994 Agreed Framework under which it agreed to freeze its nuclear program.
The revelation opened up the possibility of a nuclear crisis in Asia as the United States braces for possible war against Iraq, which it also accuses of developing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
U.S. officials said they viewed North Korea differently from Iraq, which Bush has threatened with military action if President Saddam Hussein fails to abandon his weapons programs.
"We are seeking a peaceful resolution. This is best addressed through diplomatic channels at this point," McClellan said.
Asked how the two situations differed, he said: "Iraq is an aggressive invader that has launched military attacks on neighboring nations recently ... Iraq has also demonstrated a willingness to use weapons of mass destruction."
"These are different regions, different circumstances." he added. "Saddam Hussein is a homicidal dictator who is addicted to weapons of mass destruction."
Another senior Bush administration official told Reuters: "These regimes may share some characteristics, but Iraq is in a class by itself."
The spokesman said the United States had no immediate plans for further talks with North Korea, but would consult Congress and allies in the region. Bush also plans to discuss the issue with Chinese President Jiang Zemin when they meet next week at Bush's central Texas ranch.
The Agreed Framework was brokered by Washington after the Korean peninsula, divided since the 1950-53 war that ended in a truce -- not a treaty -- faced a crisis in the early 1990s when it was determined the North had produced one or two nuclear weapons. Some 37,000 U.S. troops are stationed in the South.
Under the 1994 accord, Pyongyang promised to freeze its nuclear program. In return, Washington would provide the North with two light-water nuclear reactors for power generation, which are harder to divert to weapons material production than the North's Soviet-era models.
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Bush OKs Israeli retaliation
By Joseph Curl and Bill Sammon
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
October 17, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021017-552030.htm
President Bush yesterday gave Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon implicit approval to retaliate if Iraq attacks, hours after the president signed a congressional resolution authorizing him to use force against Saddam Hussein.
Mr. Bush said Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is "a dangerous man" known to strike his enemies without warning.
"I mean, maybe Saddam will attack tomorrow," the president said after meeting with Mr. Sharon in the Oval Office. "If Iraq attacks Israel tomorrow, I would assume the prime minister would respond. He's got a desire to defend himself."
But afterward, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said that in a war situation, the United States would consult Israel about how to respond to an Iraqi attack.
"That is a separate issue from, if Iraq tomorrow launched an attack unprovoked, whether [the Israelis] would have a right to defend themselves," he said.
Mr. Bush told the Israeli prime minister that the United States would take action against Hezbollah if the Lebanese militant group attacked Israel.
Mr. Bush dodged a question on whether he had asked the prime minister to stay on the sidelines if Iraq attacks, a move pressed by his father upon Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in 1991 during the U.S.-led Persian Gulf war - even after Iraq struck Tel Aviv with 39 Scud missiles.
"I have told the prime minister that my hope is that we can achieve a disarmament of the Iraqi regime peacefully," Mr. Bush said in response to the question: "Have you asked the prime minister not to respond if Iraq attacks?"
Said Mr. Sharon: "We never had such cooperation in everything as we have with the current administration."
"We expect there to be no attacks. This is terrorist activity. We will fight terror wherever terror exists," the president said. "We expect Hezbollah not to attack our friend."
Mr. Bush also said he was sending Assistant Secretary of State William Burns back to the Middle East to help secure "concrete, real, objective, measurable reform" of the Palestinian Authority "so that there is a peaceful future for the region."
Mr. Bush laid out his case for directly confronting Saddam.
"That's what I've explained to the American people. He's attacked two nations. He's gassed his own people. He's a dangerous man. That's why he must be disarmed. And that's why the international community must work to disarm him."
Mr. Bush said Saddam has to "understand that the international community won't tolerate an unprovoked attack on Israel, or anybody else, for that matter."
White House spokesmen later drew distinctions between Israel's response to an unprovoked Iraqi attack and what Baghdad might do in the event of war with the United States.
Said spokesman Sean McCormack: "Of course a country has a right to defend itself." But if there was a war, he said, the United States would consult with Israel and other countries to decide what course of action other nations should take.
The White House had been expected to urge Mr. Sharon - who said last week that "if Israel is attacked, it will protect its citizens" - to stay out of the conflict should the United States decide to use military force against Saddam. A senior administration official said that Mr. Bush in yesterday's meeting outlined a plan by which the United States will shield Israel from Iraqi missiles and biological or chemical weapons.
When Israel refrained from retaliating in 1991, the United States deployed Patriot anti-missile batteries to prevent strikes.
The Oval Office meeting came amid new tensions between the two allies, with the United States pressing Israel to pull out of at least one of the six West Bank cities it holds after taking over seven cities in June. Over the weekend, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Daniel Kurtzer, sent a letter to the prime minister calling for troop withdrawals, the easing of restrictions on the movement of Palestinians and the hand-over of hundreds of millions of dollars in Palestinian tax revenues that Israel has withheld.
Just hours before the meeting, Israeli machine-gun fire wounded 12 Palestinians, including five children, in the southern Gaza Strip.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Bush signed a congressional resolution authorizing him to use force against Iraq, calling it an "overwhelming statement of support" to oust Saddam.
"The 107th Congress is one of the few called by history to authorize military action," Mr. Bush said in an East Room ceremony. "If any doubt our nation's resolve, our determination, they would be unwise to test it."
Flanked by a bipartisan group of lawmakers from the House and Senate, Mr. Bush savored the hard-fought victory over congressional doves. But before he signed the resolution, he called for the United Nations to produce its own resolution against Iraq.
"The time has arrived once again for the United Nations to live up to the purposes of its founding to protect our common security," the president said. "The time has arrived once again for free nations to face up to our global responsibilities and confront a gathering danger."
Among the lawmakers attending yesterday's ceremony were House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Illinois Republican, and Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, Mississippi Republican. Absent were the top two congressional Democrats: Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, who was not invited, and House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, who was out of town.
The Democratic Party was represented by Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut and Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, among others.
Mr. Bush also said he hopes bloodshed can be avoided.
Although the president has been warning for months about military action against Saddam, his rhetoric yesterday became more grave and warlike in the wake of congressional support.
"I've carefully weighed the human cost of every option before us," he said. "If we go into battle, as a last resort, we will confront an enemy capable of irrational miscalculations, capable of terrible deeds.
"As the commander in chief, I know the risks to our country. I'm fully responsible to the young men and women in uniform who may face these risks. Yet those risks only increase with time. And the costs could be immeasurably higher in years to come."
Not since Oct. 7, 2001, when Mr. Bush began military operations against Afghanistan, has he spoken in such ominous terms about the possibility of American battlefield casualties.
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U.N. Is Urged to 'Be Firm' On Iraq
Council Debates Arms Inspections
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 17, 2002; Page A18
UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 16 -- U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan encouraged the Security Council today to impose "firm" but "reasonable" new terms for weapons inspections on Iraq while appealing to the Iraqi government to make use of its "last chance" to provide unimpeded access to U.N. arms experts.
"Iraq has to comply," Annan said in a statement delivered by a senior aide at the opening of a public debate on Iraq in the Security Council. "If Iraq fails to make use of the last chance, and defiance continues, the council will have to face its responsibilities."
In the debate, delegates from throughout the developing world railed against the United States for trying to compel the council to endorse a war on Iraq. They urged the council to give Iraq another chance to prove it has disarmed and expressed resentment that the fate of Iraq was being decided behind closed doors by five veto-bearing members of the council.
Even stalwart U.S. allies, including Canada and New Zealand, echoed France's demand that the Security Council reserve the authority to trigger force until after new weapons inspections tested Baghdad's willingness to comply with demands that it dismantle its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.
The meeting was convened at the request of the 115-member nonaligned movement. It coincided with a reinvigorated push by Bush administration officials to break an impasse with France over the adoption of a U.S. draft resolution that would compel Iraq to submit to stringent U.N. inspections or face possible military action.
It revealed increasing international support for France's efforts to prevent the 15-nation council from granting Washington a blank check for military action.
"The Security Council represents our collective security concerns and should ultimately be accountable to the entire United Nations," said South Africa's envoy, Dumisani Shadrack Kumalo, who is serving as the chairman of the nonaligned movement. The council cannot "allow itself to agree to a decision that will subject and condemn large numbers of innocent civilians to conditions of war in efforts to enforce its resolution."
More than a dozen Arab governments urged the council to avoid war. Tunisia's ambassador, Noureddine Mejdoub, said that a war against Iraq would "be an affront to the Arab world" and "would undermine the war on terrorism."
"We must put an end to war-mongering hysteria," he said.
Despite widespread opposition to unilateral military action, there is growing support at the United Nations for a U.N.-sponsored military strike on Iraq if it continues to defy weapons inspectors. France has offered to include language in a resolution that would threaten military action if the chief U.N. weapons inspector concludes he cannot conduct credible inspections.
"We are confident that force can be avoided," said Argentina's ambassador, Arnoldo M. Listre. "Nevertheless, if all negotiating mechanisms are exhausted and regrettably force becomes the only option, it must be exercised with caution and moderation, avoiding to the maximum possible extent to hurt the civilian population."
Iraqi Ambassador Mohammed Douri denied that Iraq possesses banned chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. He said the United States was "changing the map of the region by force" in order to control the oil resources.
"The United States wants the Security Council to give them a blank check to occupy Iraq . . . and subject the entire world to American hegemony," he said.
U.S. officials countered that Iraq is lying, and that it is time for U.N. members to back council efforts to end more than a decade of Iraqi defiance. "We think that all member states should use their time to encourage the Security Council to take action because 16 of its resolutions have gone unanswered," said Richard Grenell, spokesman for John D. Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
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Rumsfeld Denies Ignoring Military Advice
October 17, 2002
By Charles Aldinger
Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=topnews&StoryID=1595236#
WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Thursday denied that he has shrugged off advice from military leaders and relied instead on close civilian advisers to reshape the U.S. armed forces and prepare for a possible war with Iraq.
"It's nonsense," Rumsfeld told reporters when asked if his tough leadership style had left generals and admirals out of the loop and if it, as one media report suggested, might spark resignations by the civilian secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force.
"I am sweet and lovable," he quipped with a grin. That drew laughter at a Pentagon press briefing because Rumsfeld is often impatient with subordinates and distrustful of entrenched Cold War thinking among some military leaders.
"I would guess that I've probably met more with the senior military leadership in the United States of America in the last 20 months than any other secretary possibly ever did in four years," Rumsfeld said. "It is continuous."
Rumsfeld and Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, attacked a Washington Post report this week quoting defense officials who accused Rumsfeld of heeding a small cadre of civilian advisers while giving short shrift to military and civilian leaders of the armed services.
ABUSIVE AND INDECISIVE?
The Post said the tension could be influencing internal debate over a possible U.S. invasion of Iraq, with some officers questioning whether their concerns about the dangers of urban warfare and other aspects of a potential conflict were being dismissed.
In a second such article questioning Rumsfeld's standing with the military since he took office last year, the newspaper said the 70-year-old secretary was seen by some senior officers as "frequently abusive and indecisive.."
"I called one of those articles a world-class thumb-sucker," said Rumsfeld on Thursday of the initial Post report. "I'd like to apologize. This one was a world-class one. That (initial) one was second-rate."
But he left no doubt about where he stood on civilian control over the military, which he said was a hallmark of American democracy.
"The article had the tinge that there's something wrong with civilian control. And it struck me as a little odd," Rumsfeld told reporters.
"Someone ought to go back and read the founding fathers and what they had in mind. It is intended that there be civilian control in this department. That's the design of the system."
Myers, as he has often done in the past, defended Rumsfeld.
"The secretary plays a very active role, but he doesn't play that role solo. Everybody's involved, to include the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Joint Staff, other members of OSD (office of the secretary of defense) and anybody that would have a valuable input," the general said.
"And that's my view ... I think the innuendo in that article is absolutely wrong."
-------- MILITARY
-------- arms sales
Commandos resist loss of purchasing authority
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
October 17, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021017-13300576.htm
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has ordered a review of whether weapons-buying authority should be stripped away from U.S. Special Operations Command, an increasingly important player in the military's war against al Qaeda.
Administration officials say Mr. Rumsfeld's written directive has touched off an internal battle between his budget staff, who want the change, and special operations forces, which oppose the loss of autonomy.
The argument for the change is that it would free up Special Operations Command (SoCom), headquartered in Tampa, Fla., to focus solely on its war-fighting role of supporting global clandestine missions to capture or kill al Qaeda terrorists.
But opponents counter that the command's ability to buy specialized weapons is the key reason the underfunded special operations force of the failed 1980 Desert One mission became the crack outfit that helped win the war in Afghanistan.
"The command knows specifically what they need and set their own priorities," said a senior administration official who opposes any change. "The problem is not in the procurement process, it's in the leadership of SoCom."
The official added, "If you take it away from SoCom it would be like taking aircraft procurement from the Air Force or submarine procurement from the Navy."
A Pentagon spokesman yesterday declined to discuss specific budget issues as the Pentagon puts together the fiscal 2004 budget for submission to the White House later this year.
The command today oversees a $5 billion annual budget code named Major Force Package 11. About $3 billion of that is an acquisition account that buys helicopters, weapons, radios and other gear for some 47,000 special operations personnel. Special operations, with some of the nation's most elite warriors, includes Army Green Berets and Delta Force, and Navy SEALs.
The Pentagon's other major combatant commands, such as U.S. Central Command and Pacific Command, rely on the four military services to buy equipment for forces in their region. U.S. Special Operations alone has the authority to equip its personnel, a leeway granted by Congress 15 years ago to ensure these specialized warriors get the unique gear they need, without a long bureaucratic process.
Mr. Rumsfeld recently sent a memo to military and civilian leaders asking why the command should not use the same process as other combatant commands. Mr. Rumsfeld often provokes debates and policy changes by issuing such white-paper memos, dubbed "snowflakes" by Pentagon officials because of the frequency with which they descend on policy-makers.
Officials said the Joint Staff, the planning arm of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, originally endorsed the idea, but now has backed off in the face of opposition from the commando community.
Ironically, say opponents, the proposal to weaken the command's authority comes as Mr. Rumsfeld is looking to it to take on a larger role in the war against Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network and other Islamic terrorist groups.
Special operations is a major player in the war. In Afghanistan, for example, Army Green Berets turned the tide of battle last fall. Since then, commando units have been continually hunting down Taliban and al Qaeda members.
In June, Mr. Rumsfeld sent a classified order to Gen. Charles Holland, who heads Special Operations Command, to develop a new clandestine war plan for capturing and killing terrorists. That evolving plan is expected to give the command authority to actually execute missions, not just support them.
The argument for stripping budget authority is that "SoCom is so busy on the resource management side it can't go out and fight the war," said one administration official.
A military official said Congress created SoCom, and its budget authority, in 1987 because the commando units could not compete for dollars against the demands of four military branches. The result: an underfunded, dispirited special operations cadre that exposed its equipment shortfalls in the failed attempt to rescue American hostages in Iran in 1980.
"The crown jewel is the fact we have our own [procurement] money," said the official.
Giving one example, the official said SoCom was able to quickly develop and field a new hand-held radio, the multiband inter/intra team radio (MBITR). Without budget leeway, it is "highly unlikely" the 6,600 radios could have been developed and purchased as fast, the official said.
During the Afghan war, troops discovered they needed ground transportation. SoCom quickly purchased hundreds of light trucks.
----
Not a supergun by a long shot
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
October 17, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20021017-23412975.htm#2
Last Thursday's Page One article on Saddam Hussein's proposed "supergun" is proof that when addressing the general public, standard measurements should be used rather than metric ones ("Saddam seeks German aid for 'supergun'"). Or at least the article should provide the correct metric measurements.
The article referenced a cannon with a 209 millimeter bore. That converts to 8.28 inches, a moderate caliber for standard heavy artillery. Rather, the supergun's bore should measure 209 centimeters, or 82.28 inches. Now that is a supergun. Most American readers can better imagine a designation in inches, anyway.
O.H. MCKAGEN
Falls Church, Va.
----
Restored rights to firearms argued
By Frank J. Murray
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
October 17, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021017-390471.htm
A Supreme Court case that both sides in the war over gun rights call a potential turning point in Second Amendment law was argued yesterday without mentioning the linchpin issues surrounding individual gun ownership.
The government seeks to overturn a federal court order restoring Texas gun dealer Thomas Bean's right to own firearms - and, thereby, his eligibility to regain a gun-dealer's license lost after a felony conviction in Mexico.
In order to stop felons from regaining gun rights, Congress in 1992 cut off the $4 million a year the Treasury Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms spent pondering applications to restore gun rights. When ATF returned Mr. Bean's file without acting, he went to court. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a district judge's ruling restoring his gun rights.
Instead of the predicted forum on the scope of gun rights, yesterday's debate hinged on a jurisdictional matter - whether the ATF's refusal to consider the request was a denial that may be appealed to federal court - and other mundane aspects of the complex Administrative Procedures Act.
"We think it is not a denial," Deputy U.S. Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler said in arguing against letting Mr. Bean own guns. "ATF is not granting or denying relief."
Mr. Kneedler seized on Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's suggestion that restoring a felon's right to own a gun is a gift, like a pardon.
"A matter of grace that may be withheld," Mr. Kneedler agreed, likening it also to the Justice Department prerogative not to deport aliens despite a removal order.
Washington lawyer Thomas Goldstein argued that the government cannot simply let applications stack up without acting upon them.
"This is a safety valve," he said, arguing for court intervention in extraordinary cases like Mr. Bean's.
"The plain meaning of the word 'denial' is a refusal to grant the relief requested," he said.
Mr. Kneedler's only overt reference to the underlying issue employed the phrase "restoration of firearms ability."
That usage normally is preferred by such gun-ownership opponents as the Violence Policy Center, whose research spurred the original law and whose friend-of-the-court brief supports what it calls an appeal by "the most pro-gun attorney general in history, John Ashcroft."
"A case that had never been about the Second Amendment became a Second Amendment case thanks to John Ashcroft," said Mathew Nosanchuk, litigation director for the Violence Policy Center.
In May the Bush administration said in two unrelated Supreme Court cases that the Second Amendment right to own guns is an individual one.
"The current position of the United States is that the Second Amendment more broadly protects the rights of individuals, including persons who are not members of any militia or engaged in active military service or training, to possess and bear their own firearms," Solicitor General Theodore Olson wrote then. But he also said the Justice Department would defend existing gun laws as it did yesterday.
Mr. Olson did not argue the Bean case, but sat nearby taking notes throughout.
Another of three friend-of-the-court briefs citing constitutional issues came from the Second Amendment Foundation, whose spokesman Dave LaCourse called the case a potential "blockbuster" to clarify the "fundamental individual right to own a firearm."
Mr. Goldstein defended Mr. Bean's lower-court victory with rhetoric that Justice Stephen G. Breyer called "powerful" despite lack of enthusiasm for the objective.
"I agree with you that you found a literal way around it," said Justice Breyer, who nonetheless said he opposed Mr. Goldstein's argument that Congress had not blocked the courts in its order withholding ATF from using any funds to process applications for restored gun rights.
Mexico since has downgraded Mr. Bean's offense - taking 200 bullets across the border and back in what Mr. Bean calls an oversight - to the equivalent of a misdemeanor. Federal and state courts in Texas have ruled that Mr. Bean is not a felon.
--------
The right to fair arms
Gideon Burrows asks why British government representatives are at this year's Sofex arms fair when countries known to be 'sponsors of state terrorism' - such as Iraq - are also there
Thursday October 17, 2002
UK Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/armstrade/story/0,10674,814138,00.html
Britain's presence at the Special Operations Forces Exhibition (Sofex) 2002 in Jordan this week is the latest in a long list of New Labour's broken promises over the issue of weapons sales.
The first promise to go by the wayside was their much-vaunted ethical foreign policy, which was quickly dispatched during Labour's first four years in power so that arms could be sold to Indonesia, China and other countries known to be human rights abusers.
Next, the government's pledge not to sell arms to countries crushed by poverty and debt was reneged so that a £28m military air traffic control system could be shipped to Tanzania, one of the world's poorest countries. It was a piece of kit the country neither needed or could afford.
More recently the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, consigned the European code of conduct on arms exports to the dustbin when he announced the UK would now take its strategic relationship with a recipient country into account when deciding whether to grant export licenses.
But the British presence at Sofex 2002 tops them all. The British army, British arms companies and a British government agency (not to mention, of course, Prince Andrew and the defence minister, Lord Bach) are this week buying, selling, doing deals and sharing information at a Middle Eastern showcase for all kinds of weapons, from small arms to landmines, battlefield tanks and fighter jets.
Official delegations from Iraq (one of which had an encounter with Prince Andrew that was described by Radio 4's Today programme as a "strategic jostle") and Iran are also attending the show. Both are members of Tony Blair and George Bush's so-called "axis of evil".
Did Mr Blair not notice them on the guest list? Did Jack Straw overlook the fact that delegations from Sudan, Syria and Libya, three more states defined as "sponsors of state terrorism" by the US state department, would also be attending?
The British government agency attending the fair is the defence export services organisation, whose sole job is to flog British equipment abroad. The British Defence Manufacturers Association, which represents and lobbies on behalf of British weapons firms, is also there. And the British army is participating, at the fair, in the official handover to Jordan of Challenger tanks.
Among the British arms manufacturers attending are the tank firm Vickers, and the British arm of the US weapons giant Lockheed-Martin. Lockheed-Martin makes the Longbow "fire and forget" missile and Hellfire II anti-tank missiles, as well as the F-16 fighter jet. All are likely to be deployed when the US attacks Iraq.
Among the ten American firms exhibiting at Sofex is Raytheon, the world's largest missile manufacturer and purveyor of the Tomahawk cruise missile, which was rained down over Afghanistan earlier this year.
If the Britain and the United States are serious about halting tyranny, terrorism and weapons proliferation in the Middle East, they should not be flogging arms there, but acting to restrict weapons sales.
Arms sales are good for British jobs, runs the argument. But Iraq, Iran, Syria, Sudan, and all the other declared enemies of the free world, are not at the arms fair for fun or to make new friends. Official delegations are sent to arms fairs to buy weapons.
At Sofex 2000, many Middle Eastern states took a keen interest in a piece of Ukrainian-built kit called the Kolchuga radar. The system can detect US stealth bombers. It has since emerged that, following the fair, the Ukraine reportedly sold the system to Iraq, in breach of the UN arms embargo. US defence intelligence has confirmed that Iraq has the system, and this week British and American detectives are travelling to the Ukraine to investigate.
The billions of arms shipped to the Saudis as well as other major Middle Eastern states over the past 20 years has resulted in very little, if any, political influence. The region is still defined by forced oligarchies and dictatorships. Despite whirlwind support-building tours by top dogs in the US and UK administrations, not one Middle Eastern country is yet fully on board with the war on terror, and not one has agreed to sanction a unilateral attack on Iraq.
Study after study, including one commissioned by the British government, has revealed that the job losses incurred by a drastic reduction in UK arms exports would be unfortunate, but not crushing to the UK economy.
One study by the respected military issues thinktank, the Oxford Research Group, revealed the UK already subsidises every British arms export job to the tune of £4,600 a year. Another study by Ian Goudie of the Defence and Aerospace Analysts group revealed UK arms exports account for only 0.3% of total UK employment. Nearly three times as many people leave the unemployment register every year.
If the argument over arms sales is about jobs, it is also about human lives. Not just the lives of the thousands who will be killed by British-sold military equipment over the coming decades, but the very real threat to the life of every person in the UK that is maintained and fuelled by the fact that the British government continues to pour weapons into the world's most volatile region.
· Gideon Burrows is author of the No-Nonsense Guide to the Arms Trade, published by Verso this month
· This article will appear in the October 25 issue of Tribune
-------- business
Military Business Boosts Defense Firms' Revenue
Slump in Air Industry Weighs on Contractors' Profits
By Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 17, 2002; Page E05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37834-2002Oct16?language=printer
Defense contractors General Dynamics Corp. and Boeing Co. reported improved revenue in their military businesses yesterday but said third-quarter results also reflected economic downturns in sales of commercial airliners and business jets.
During the quarter that ended in September, Falls Church-based General Dynamics reported net income of $268 million ($1.32 per share) on $3.28 billion in revenue. That's up from a profit of $230 million ($1.13) on $3.02 billion in revenue in the year-earlier quarter.
The information technology division, launched in 1997, has grown into General Dynamics' largest business, outpacing shipbuilding and combat vehicles. True to form, that unit also reported the largest jump in revenue, 38.3 percent, during the quarter, to $895 million from $647 million.
Sales in the combat vehicles division rose 30 percent, to $707 million from $545 million. But revenue in the shipbuilding unit fell 5.4 percent, to $863 million from $912 million, partially because work on two ships at a yard in San Diego have encountered several delays, company officials said.
The sale of Gulfstream business jets also slowed during the quarter as customers put off large purchases. Revenue in that sector fell 12 percent, to $739 million from $838 million.
Wall Street has also been watching whether the company's Stryker, an eight-wheeled combat vehicle, will survive federal budget cuts. General Dynamics officials said they were not concerned, noting that the Army held a demonstration of the vehicle just yesterday. "We feel good about Stryker. It's on time, on budget, and the soldiers are excited about it," Nicholas D. Chabraja, chairman and chief executive, said during a conference call.
Meanwhile, Chicago-based rival Boeing Co. reported a 43 percent drop in profit during the quarter as its commercial airline business continued to slump. It predicted that sales and profit would keep falling next year and said that more layoffs, in addition to the 30,000 already planned for this year, could be necessary.
Quarterly net income fell to $372 million (46 cents), from $650 million (80 cents) in the same period of 2001. Revenue fell 7.2 percent, to $12.69 billion from $13.68 billion. That included several one-time charges, including accounting for the declining value of planes because of the tough economic environment, company officials said.
"Our markets remain dramatically altered, one year after the September 11 events, and this is reflected in our results for the quarter," Philip M. Condit, chairman and chief executive, said in a conference call.
Because airlines have slashed commercial jet orders and postponed hundreds of deliveries amid a steep travel slump, Boeing delivered only 73 commercial jets during the quarter, down from 120 in the third quarter of 2001. Earlier this week, the company lost the year's largest jet order -- 120 narrow-body airliners with Britain's EasyJet PLC -- to archrival Airbus SAS.
Revenue in the unit fell to $6.06 billion from $7.95 billion. Boeing also trimmed its full-year 2003 delivery forecast, from 275 to 300 to a range of 275 to 285.
At the same time, Boeing's strength continued to be in its military and space unit, which reported $3.75 billion in revenue, compared with $3.28 billion last year. That increase was largely related to military aircraft deliveries, including F-15 fighter jets, C-17 cargo planes and more orders of JDAM munitions, a kit used to turn unguided bombs into satellite-guided "smart bombs," company officials said.
----
Navy Project Buffeted
EDS, WorldCom Problems Complicate Computer Update
By Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 17, 2002; Page E01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37882-2002Oct17?language=printer
For years, the worst technological enemy facing Navy servicemen and women hasn't been on the open seas. It's been on their desktops. The Navy's out-of-date computer systems have created a confusing and inefficient patchwork that has made it difficult to share electronic information.
The Navy-Marine Corps intranet, an internal Web site for the two service branches, was supposed to change all that. The network is to carry a broad range of information -- things as sensitive as classified communication and as mundane as budget projections.
But the $6.9 billion project has turned into a major technology headache for the services and the prime contractor on the job, Electronic Data Systems Corp. (EDS). The project is a year behind schedule, and some in Congress are concerned it won't stay within its budget.
It's the largest federal information technology project ever attempted, and the pressure on the project's managers is intense: Much of the military and intelligence establishment is closely watching the effort because of a Bush administration mandate to improve internal communications for homeland security.
And shadowing the whole project are the problems of two companies vital to its success: EDS and WorldCom Inc. EDS's difficulties include an informal Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry and investors' concerns after it warned that third-quarter earnings would be a mere 18 percent of the company's previous estimate.
"It has been very challenging, more than any of us really thought," said Capt. Chris Christopher, deputy director for plans, policy and oversight of the Navy intranet project. "We're fighting our way through this."
Among the problems, the Navy discovered that instead of tens of thousands of software applications, from a hodgepodge of e-mail programs to computer games, its systems actually housed a staggering 100,000. Hundreds of old applications can't be moved to the new system, meaning that hundreds of workers still have two computers on their desks.
The intranet project is at the center of technology transformation spreading through the federal government and encouraged by President Bush's proposed 8 percent increase in information technology spending. With pressure mounting for better communication within government agencies, many of them divided by geography and function, integrating disparate computer networks, software and technical capabilities has become a high priority. And despite its troubles, the administration considers the Navy intranet project a model, especially for the technology puzzle it faces in combining 21 agencies into the proposed Department of Homeland Security.
The proposed agency is likely to be one of the "largest technology overhauls in history," Richard Clark, special adviser to President Bush for cyberspace security, said recently at the 2002 Pacific Crest Technology Forum. "The model that we're looking at is the model of the Navy-Marine Corps [intranet]."
The project's problems are an expected byproduct of launching such an ambitious program, EDS and Navy officials said. "When you're talking about a project this large you have to expect to have some of those [issues] from a start-up standpoint," said Bill Richards, who heads the program for EDS. "You just have to work through it."
Before launching the project, Navy officials consulted the private sector, including senior executives at General Motors Corp. and Xerox Corp., which had gone through similar technology overhauls. "They all said it was painful and bloody and they don't even have our size," Christopher said.
Much of the pain is borne by desk personnel who have to use the new system. "From an employee standpoint it has had a demoralizing effect because it's making the job more difficult," said Ken Polk, the Marine Corps representative to the Federal Managers Association, a nonprofit group representing professional federal employees.
Polk, a security manager who has worked for the Marines for 16 years and eventually will be transferred to the new system, said he agrees that the Navy needs a better, more uniform way to communicate within the ranks. But, he said, "I would like to see the appropriate level of research done beforehand to make sure we are getting what we need."
The new intranet was designed to address the Navy's technology gap. For years, unit commanders have unilaterally made technology purchases, creating an information technology patchwork without communication. While some installations suffered through technology famine using black-and-white computer screens, typewriters and the earliest version of every software program, others had multiple terminals per officer with 20-inch screens -- some even had CD burners.
That also meant that when sailors wanted to send e-mail attachments to a Navy base across the country they sometimes found that their counterparts couldn't open the Microsoft Word or Excel document.
The new system was designed to change all that. For the first time, all Navy departments were to be on the same system using the same e-mail and financial management programs. Security was a top priority.
But Congress has been skeptical about the cost benefit of the project ever since it was proposed. The Navy was originally set to announce the contract award in May 2000, but it was delayed four months after Congress raised objections. "The concerns were that we're talking about a lot of money and institutional resistance" to change within the service, said Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee's subcommittee on military readiness. Though a supporter of the project, Hefley worried that the time and money budgeted for the intranet could balloon.
For now, the Navy is most concerned with the logistics of installing the new system. In addition to the 100,000 software applications it found on Navy computers -- more than 10 times more than it wanted -- the Navy discovered it housed a complicated mixture of applications, some illegal. On some computers, EDS found that Navy personnel were still working on WordStar, a decades-old word-processing program for which they no longer had the disk or license. Others were using DOS-based programs. But also cluttering the files were computer games like Doom and music-swapping Napster software.
The large number of old applications uncovered another set of problems: Some programs can't be merged into the new system. They are either too antiquated to be compatible with the Microsoft Windows 2000 operating system or aren't in compliance with security requirements.
The incompatible applications -- 862 in all -- have been "quarantined" in separate terminals, meaning some employees have two computers -- one handling the new system's traffic and another with the old programs. The House Appropriations Committee report found that at one test center more than 50 percent of workstations require more than one computer.
The problem is not that extensive, Navy officials contend. Of the 20 sites transferred to the new system so far, only five need two workstations for 20 percent of the workforce, and the number is much lower at the others, they said. Programs in quarantine will eventually be upgraded to meet security requirements or eliminated all together, Navy officials said.
But continuing the rollout while such problems exist creates "the potential for this crisis to grow exponentially," according to a June House Appropriations Committee report on the Defense Department budget.
"It's become apparent that a lot more testing needs to be done" before the intranet project is allowed to continue, said Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee's subcommittee on defense. "I haven't been satisfied so far."
Costs also continue to be a concern. The General Accounting Office is scheduled to release a report this month on whether the complexity of the project will raise operational costs at shipyards. The Navy says it won't. And a House Armed Services Committee report found that the $1.4 billion the Navy requested for the system next year doesn't include several costs, including the expense of maintaining old systems and the classified network used by the Defense Department, which could add another $600 million.
"Costs are a great concern in areas that we're applying new technology," Lewis said. "We must insist that any changes to the budget are reviewed carefully."
Then there is the WorldCom connection. The bankrupt telecommunications provider is slated to provide the new system's Internet backbone. But its bankruptcy has raised questions about whether it will be able to fulfill its duties, congressional staffers said.
For example, a sale of WorldCom could further delay the intranet project if the new owner doesn't want to be in the defense business, Lewis said. "When you have a big piece of the pie in trouble, it just gums up a process that already has great difficulty," he said.
EDS and Navy officials dismiss such concerns. "EDS is closely monitoring the situation with WorldCom and will obtain alternative providers if necessary," an EDS spokesman said.
For Plano, Tex.-based EDS, which competed with General Dynamics Corp. and Computer Sciences Corp. for the contract, the Navy job represents a lone bright spot in an otherwise bleak IT market. The company's shares have been battered by investors since it announced that earnings would fall well below previous expectations for the rest of the year. Then the Securities and Exchange Commission launched an informal inquiry.
EDS says there are about 3,500 people working on the Navy intranet. Of those, 1,136 are EDS employees, and the rest work for one of the 303 subcontractors also involved in the project at naval facilities around the world.
Deploying the equipment and manpower has been costly. After already investing $650 million to $800 million in the Navy intranet, it will take longer than expected for EDS to turn a profit, analysts said. Financially, it may only account for a small portion of EDS's revenue, "but it is using a lot of capital, it's costing the company a lot of money to get the contract up," said Bill Loomis, an analyst with Legg Mason Inc.
And given its financial position, reaching profitability is increasingly important, analysts said. "With the drain that [the project] has been, investors are looking for them to gain some momentum," said Chris Penny, an analyst for Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co. The question is, "can they turn that thing profitable over the next two quarters."
EDS dismisses such concerns, noting that the contract model has always called for the firm to invest money upfront and make a profit later. The Navy has asked Congress to extend the contract from five to seven years, which would make up for delays and allow EDS to recoup its costs.
EDS points out that the system passed a Defense Department test in May verifying that it was working properly. Earlier this month the firm announced it had linked two top Navy officials -- Adm. Robert J. Natter and Vice Adm. Albert H. Konetzni Jr. -- to the system as well as 522 computers used for classified operations.
More important, the rollout is gaining momentum, company officials said. EDS tackled the most complex Navy sites first, but with less complex sites coming up it should be able to accelerate the rollout, said Kevin Clarke, a company spokesman. Navy officials said they will eventually be able to connect 10,000 computers a month to the intranet. "The NMCI program is steadily and successfully moving forward," Clarke said.
-------- iraq
Report says Saddam's troops weak
By Paul Martin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
October 17, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021017-99885084.htm
LONDON - Half of Iraq's military equipment lacks spare parts, and its armed forces are operating at only 50 percent effectiveness, the International Institute for Strategic Studies estimates in its annual survey of world armed forces.
The Institute's Washington director has also said a military invasion of Baghdad itself may not be necessary to topple Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
The report, titled, "The Military Balance 2002-2003," is to be released later today in London and Washington.
While estimating Iraq's ground forces at 350,000 men - far fewer than prior to the 1991 Persian Gulf war to liberate Kuwait - the prestigious institute also warns that Iraq's elite units are in much better shape than the bulk of the army.
Most significantly, it reports that Iraq's air-defense command has been modernized over the past year.
Early warning radar is now being used in the greater Baghdad area, the report says, so Western coalition aircraft policing the southern and northern no-fly zones can no longer successfully attack Iraqi surface-to-air missile batteries by hitting them with anti-radiation missiles.
It also says Iraq's SA-3 missiles are no longer static, but mainly are being carried on rotating launchers on the back of six- or eight-wheeled trucks. Also, SA-3 and SA-6 missile sites are said to be linked by a new fiber-optic network that enhances air-defense command and control.
The report says Iran's reaction to the outbreak of hostilities against Iraq would be "uncertain."
"The fact that both [Iran and Iraq] were named as 'rogue states' in an 'axis of evil' by the Bush administration has in a sense given the two former enemies a common cause - to stand up to the U.S."
However, the Institute's Washington director, Terry Taylor, expressed confidence in an interview that many of Iraq's armed forces would wilt or put up minimal resistance under a U.S.-led assault.
"I would be very surprised if it is anything more than a patchy defense," said Mr. Taylor, a former British colonel who was a chief U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq for six years.
"Last time, they said it would be the 'mother of all battles,' and it was not. Their on-paper formidable numbers just melted away."
But he added that even though much of the army was undertrained and probably not highly motivated, "that's not to say it will be a pushover this time."
In any battle plan, the coalition commanders will be assuming a worst-case scenario under which all available forces will fight, Mr. Taylor said.
He also said the outright capture of Baghdad may not be necessary.
"It's questionable whether there needs to be an assault on Baghdad," he said. "Who knows what negotiations [for surrender] would go ahead at that stage? It may not be necessary to fight street by street."
By the time Baghdad is encircled, he said, it is possible that military opposition will have melted away.
A key military objective will be to minimize civilian casualties to limit the political repercussions, Mr. Taylor said. "I would doubt whether civilian causalities will be on a large scale."
As for American casualties, he expects those to be low. "The 1991 war illustrates that point. The figures turned out to be extremely low, in the hundreds on the allied side, and many of those were accidents."
He predicted the bulk of resistance will come from the elite Republican Guard, of whom the most effective is likely to be the elite Special Republican Guard Brigades, comprising between 12,000 and 20,000 men.
----
US Readies New UN Resolution;
Baghdad Defiant
Reuters
Thursday, October 17, 2002
By Evelyn Leopold and Nadim Ladki
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A39859-2002Oct17?language=printer
UNITED NATIONS/BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) - Faced with almost unanimous opposition to a tough U.N. resolution authorizing military action against Iraq, the United States prepared on Thursday to circulate a new plan to win support of key Security Council members.
The new U.S. draft adds language that gives more credence to reports from U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq and shows a willingness to drop provisions that would have troops open any routes that may be barred to arms experts.
Diplomats said the new proposal still authorizes use of force -- which could prove to be a stumbling block in the Security Council.
France and Russia, veto-holding members of the council, said on Thursday they wanted to resolve the issue and get weapons inspectors back into Iraq after a four-year absence.
But neither said they were willing to approve a U.S. proposal that gives Washington the authority to attack Iraq for the slightest failure to meet U.N. requirements.
Speaking to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov emphasized that Moscow had not changed its view.
"Ivanov stressed that such a resolution should aim to secure the quickest possible resumption of work by the international inspectors in Iraq and not authorize automatic use of force against Baghdad," the Foreign Ministry said.
French President Jacques Chirac told the parliament in Lebanon: "Military action, the last option, is not a foregone conclusion. Let us first bet on responsibility and security in the framework of peace."
SECOND DAY OF DEBATE
The United States and Britain are trying to persuade the Security Council to pass a new resolution to support a return of U.N. weapons inspectors to Iraq and also threaten Saddam with military strikes if he hinders the inspections.
Inspectors were authorized by the United Nations after the 1991 Gulf War to investigate whether Iraq had chemical, biological or nuclear weapons -- and destroy them if they were discovered. They left the country in 1998 ahead of a U.S. and British bombing campaign.
Bush says Iraq has used those years to develop an arsenal of weapons that threaten the region and the world. Iraq denies the charges.
The United Nations on Thursday opened a second day of debate on the U.S.-backed resolution, which has met strong opposition. On Wednesday, nation after nation warned against military action before inspectors had a chance to determine if Iraq indeed possessed weapons of mass destruction.
In Baghdad however, President Saddam Hussein said the issue that has so divided diplomats had united his country.
In his first comments since a referendum on Tuesday produced a 100 percent vote in favor of extending his rule, Saddam was quoted on Thursday as telling senior aides that U.S. threats had bolstered his support and showed the world Iraq's leadership and its people were at one.
"It was natural that Iraqis were mobilized by the challenge...It was their chance to seize a historic opportunity to take a sincere stand," state-controlled newspapers quoted Saddam telling the ruling Revolutionary Command Council.
Saddam was to take a new oath of office and deliver a speech to the Iraqi people on Thursday, the official Iraqi News Agency reported.
President Bush, also claiming a domestic victory for his stand on Iraq, warned Baghdad on Wednesday the only way to avoid war was to completely surrender its suspected weapons of mass destruction.
Armed with new congressional approval for use of force against Iraq, Bush said: "Failure to make such an accounting would be further indication of the regime's bad faith and aggressive intent." ASSAD WARNS OF CRISIS
In a rare media interview, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told Reuters in Damascus on Thursday that a war in Iraq would kill millions of people and have a huge regional impact including a flood of refugees, poverty and damage to the economies of all countries in the area.
"What America did in Afghanistan is not applicable to Iraq. Afghanistan was a piece of cake compared with Iraq," he said.
"Our concern is about entering the unknown. Even the United States does not know how a war in Iraq is going to end."
Washington intends to submit a revised draft on Thursday or Friday to the other four members with veto power -- Britain, France, Russia and China, diplomats said. No vote is expected until next week at the earliest.
While the U.S. plan had little support so far beyond key ally Britain, French Foreign Ministry spokesman Francois Rivasseau said the U.N. debate showed broad international support for France's rival proposal.
Paris wants the Security Council first to demand the inspectors' return and full access for them to all sites. If Iraq did not cooperate fully, the use of force would be authorized in a second resolution. "The debates under way, notably the current debate in the Security Council, show that the two-step approach we are backing enjoys large support," Rivasseau told a news briefing in Paris.
----
Saddam Says Iraqis More Ready to Fight After Vote
Reuters
Thursday, October 17, 2002
By Nadim Ladki
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40096-2002Oct17?language=printer
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein said the Iraqi people were even more determined to resist any American attack after handing him a perfect 100 percent score in a referendum.
In his first comments since Tuesday's vote on extending his rule, the president was quoted on Thursday as telling senior aides that U.S. threats had boosted a result that he believed showed the world Iraq's leadership and its people were at one.
"After the referendum, the Iraqi has more confidence in the future and has more readiness to fight if God so wishes," state-controlled newspapers quoted Saddam as telling the ruling Revolutionary Command Council late on Wednesday.
"Yes, the (U.S.) challenge played a role," he added.
"It was natural that Iraqis were mobilized by the challenge...It was their chance to seize an historic opportunity to take a sincere stand."
The Iraqi News Agency (INA) said Saddam would take a new oath of office and deliver a speech to the Iraqi people on Thursday night.
Official results, dismissed by Washington, showed every one of the nearly 11.5 million Iraqis eligible to vote turned out to cast a Yes ballot, giving Saddam another term in office in a referendum that offered no alternative candidate. He had been in power since 1979.
"100 percent -- Saddam Hussein is Iraq and Iraq is Saddam Hussein," ran the front page headline in al-Iraq newspaper.
Authorities had urged voters to turn out in force to show massive support for Saddam in response to President Bush's threats of military action.
Saddam said the people had "declared to the whole world that it is at one with its leadership."
IRAQIS "INSULTED"
Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz was quoted as telling the same meeting that Iraqis had been insulted by repeated U.S. threats.
"The Iraqi does not accept insults," he said.
"This American insistence created an unusual reaction among Iraqis... Every day they repeat 'We want to attack Iraq'. The Iraqis are wondering 'What do they want from us?"'
Al-Thawra newspaper said in an editorial: "The (Iraqi) people wanted through this absolute support, in these circumstances, to send a frank and clear message to the enemies of Iraq -- Americans, Zionists and British -- challenging them and warning them against any adventurous aggression."
Bush accuses Saddam of developing weapons of mass destruction -- nuclear, chemical and biological -- and wants to topple him. Iraq denies having such weapons.
The United States and Britain are trying to persuade the United Nations Security Council to pass a tough new resolution to support a return of U.N. weapons inspectors to Iraq and also threaten Saddam with war if he hinders the inspections.
France and Russia, which have veto powers, are leading resistance to Washington's strategy, arguing that any threats of military action should be put off for the time being.
-------- israel / palestine
Israeli settlers face down troops, cops
By Jason Keyser
ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 17, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021017-11862040.htm
HAVAT GILAD, West Bank - Israeli soldiers and police backed down from a confrontation with Jewish settlers at an illegal West Bank outpost yesterday, permitting them to remain at the disputed hilltop site during daylight hours, the settlers said.
"It's a victory for us," said Rivka Shimon, a relative of the family that lives on the land, maintaining that for the first time, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government had given tacit approval to creation of a new settlement in the West Bank.
About 2,000 settlers and backers, most of them teenagers, had gathered in a show of force to discourage soldiers from tearing down a cluster of three mobile homes, camping tents and a roofless synagogue placed there as the beginning of a new settlement near the Palestinian town of Nablus.
The Defense Ministry, which has ordered two dozen outposts dismantled, agreed with the Settlers' Council to allow the dwellings to remain on this hilltop as long as protesters left the area, Miss Shimon said. The families living here would be allowed to care for small agricultural plots during the day, she said.
The Defense Ministry did not return phone calls seeking comment on the agreement.
The developments came just before Mr. Sharon's meeting with President Bush at the White House. The United States has been critical of settlement building, calling it an obstacle to Middle East peace efforts.
Mr. Sharon has been an avid supporter of settlements but has sought to avoid a clash with Washington, Israel's leading ally.
In the southern Gaza Strip, meanwhile, Palestinian security sources told Agence France-Presse that Israeli machine-gun fire had wounded 16 Palestinians, including nine children.
Two tanks opened fire after rumbling a few yards up Salahedin Street, the main boulevard in the Rafah refugee camp next to the border with Egypt, the sources said.
Six persons were immediately hit, including a 12-year-old boy, Ahmed Abu Shahar, and 53-year-old Ahmed Asfour, who were both struck in the head and seriously wounded, security and medical sources added.
The gunfire hit several houses and a United Nations-administered school for Palestinian refugees. It triggered clashes between soldiers and stone-throwing youths that left another six persons wounded.
The wrangle over the dozens of hilltop outposts is the latest chapter in the history of a movement that has placed more than 200,000 Jews in the West Bank and Gaza since Israel captured the areas in the 1967 Mideast war.
The confrontation could endanger Mr. Sharon's coalition government with the more centrist Labor Party of Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer. Labor favors trading much of the West Bank for peace with the Palestinians.
At Havat Gilad, or Gilad's Ranch, settlers prayed in a small synagogue made of corrugated metal walls. Others lay in vans crowded with sleeping bags. A few teens piled rocks to make a 3-foot-high wall on the road, hoping to hamper army jeeps.
"In a few years we will come here and find a lot of houses," Rabbi Elyakim Levanon said through a megaphone as the crowd cheered. "In the meantime we'll have some vegetable fields," he said, as five soldiers climbed the hill.
Settler Moshe Zar set up the outpost after his son, Gilad, was shot dead in May 2001 by Palestinian militants in the area.
Mr. Zar asked the settlers to use nonviolent resistance yesterday. However, settlers threw stones at journalists' cars and flattened tires. Others urged the crowd to stay put as soldiers moved in.
--------
Israeli Tank Shells Kill Six Palestinians in Camp
October 17, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast.html
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - Israeli tank shelling killed at least six Palestinians and wounded 60 in a Gaza Strip refugee camp Thursday after gunmen fired at army bulldozers, aggravating tensions that were already close to the boiling point.
Two other people were feared dead in the wreckage of a house destroyed in the Rafah camp, said Palestinian medics.
Witnesses said the bodies of two women, two young men and a 10-year-old girl were pulled from the rubble of homes. Ambulance workers, ducking at the sound of gunfire, frantically wove through narrow alleys trying to reach the wounded.
A school operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, which serves Palestinian refugees, and another run by the Palestinian Authority were hit by machine gun rounds fired from Israeli tanks, the agency said in a statement.
Pupils in the UNRWA boys' school had to be moved to a basement for safety, it said. There were no injuries.
The army expressed ``regret at the loss of innocent lives'' but a senior commander said troops had fired in self-defense after being shot at while using bulldozers to build a new watchtower at an army base in the area.
The violence undermined U.S. demands for calm in the Middle East as it sought Arab support for possible war on Iraq. It erupted after President Bush put those demands to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at talks in Washington.
Unfazed by the Rafah bloodshed, Sharon told reporters the army has ``the highest level of morality in the world and it is making supreme efforts not to harm civilians.''
HOUSES HIT
Palestinian medics and witnesses said a total of six bodies were recovered from a cluster of houses hit by Israeli shells.
``We have six martyrs,'' said Ali Moussa, director of the Rafah hospital, using the term to describe Palestinians killed in the uprising for independence in Gaza and the West Bank. Most of the 60 people wounded were in serious condition, he said.
Witnesses said both the dead and wounded were civilians.
Israeli bulldozers had come under fire from Palestinian gunmen near the border fence, the army said.
Rafah, on Gaza's southern border with Egypt, has been the scene of frequent violence in the uprising and is seen by Israel as a militant stronghold. Israel often uses bulldozers to destroy houses there, saying they are used as cover for gunmen.
``Palestinian terrorists fired an anti-tank rocket at an army unit that operated in the area and troops returned fire, targeting the attackers,'' it said in a statement.
The Palestinian Authority denounced what it called ``the massacre'' in Rafah and renewed its call for international protection for Palestinians, a request opposed by Israel.
Peter Hansen, commissioner-general of UNRWA, said he was dismayed by the civilian deaths and damage to schools. ``This is another case of disproportionate force being used against civilian targets, including schools full of children,'' he said.
Israel has recently stepped up raids on Gaza militants spearheading the revolt that began in September 2000 after talks on Palestinian statehood in the West Bank and Gaza failed.
The United States has criticized such raids when civilians have been killed and has demanded Israel ease the hardships of civilians living under curfews and blockades since it reoccupied West Bank cities after a wave of suicide bombings.
HIGH-LEVEL TALKS
The violence in Rafah began hours after Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat met in Jerusalem, signaling a desire by both sides to at least maintain dialogue.
They discussed more Israeli troop withdrawals from the West Bank, following a pullout from the city of Bethlehem in August, and the release of tax revenues and other funds owed to the Palestinians but withheld by Israel since the uprising started.
Israel is considering removing troops from Hebron.
``It was decided that expanded teams from the two sides will meet early next week,'' a Palestinian official said. Israel's Foreign Ministry called it a ``preparatory meeting.''
In Washington, a senior Israeli official told reporters after Sharon met Bush that Israel would not scale back military actions against militants and had not been asked to do so.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State William Burns will take stock of the situation during a two-week trip to the Middle East starting Friday after a meeting in Paris with other mediators.
Despite the flurry of meetings, there is little hope of a quick end to the violence, which has killed at least 1,622 Palestinians and 604 Israelis in the past two years.
-------- mideast
Yemen Pursuing Terror Its Own Way
Tactics, Results Vary, But Target Is Al Qaeda
By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, October 17, 2002; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37362-2002Oct16?language=printer
SANAA, Yemen, Oct. 16 -- In the weeks after the World Trade towers fell, U.S. generals were mentioning Yemen in the same breath with Afghanistan, and officials here feared that the country's reputation as a terrorist haven meant it was next on the list.
A year later, however, Yemeni forces are doing the shooting. President Ali Abdallah Salih has mounted a multi-front offensive against al Qaeda elements embedded in the land of Osama bin Laden's ancestors, forming an anti-terrorism alliance with Washington that the president recently boasted averted a U.S. strike against his country.
The tactics vary with the terrain. In the remote tribal areas where al Qaeda fugitives have found hideaways, the army lobs artillery shells into mountain villages. In city prisons, meanwhile, Islamic jurists visit al Qaeda suspects, nudging the militants back to the "true path," according to a supreme court justice, by explicating fine points of Koranic law.
The impacts vary as well, according to analysts and diplomats here. Yemen has more than 100 suspects in custody and has deported scores of foreigners with suspicious backgrounds. Yet the bombing of a French supertanker off the Yemeni coast Oct. 6 -- under circumstances almost identical to the attack that killed 17 Americans aboard the USS Cole two years ago -- demonstrated that extremists here retain a destructive capacity as al Qaeda broadens its aim to economic targets.
But in contrast to Indonesia, which hesitated to crack down on Islamic extremists despite repeated U.S. appeals, Yemen shows signs it has made the fight its own. "The Yemeni position is that they have primary responsibility for dealing with al Qaeda here, and I think we agree with that," said a diplomat in Sanaa, the capital.
The diplomat declined to evaluate Yemen's change from two years ago, when FBI investigators expressed frustration with their Yemeni counterparts during the Cole investigation. But one measure of progress is that the most pressing manhunt here remains the one for suspects in the Cole case. And officials from both countries said al Qaeda operatives forced out of bases in Afghanistan have failed to show up in Yemen in substantial numbers.
"Yemen is a much less hospitable destination than al Qaeda wanted it to be," the diplomat said.
U.S. assistance in computerizing Yemen's immigration counters helped. And the United States has promised to help create a coast guard to patrol the country's 2,000-mile shoreline, a commitment that will be underlined by a visit scheduled Thursday by Gen. Tommy R. Franks, head of the U.S. Central Command.
But the turning point, by all accounts, was a visit to the White House by Salih last November. Western-leaning to begin with, Salih within weeks after returning ordered an assault on the hideout of Abu Ali al-Harithi, described by a diplomat here as the "godfather of al Qaeda in Yemen" and a key plotter in the attack on the Cole.
As a member of the local tribe in al-Hosun, near Marib, 75 miles east of Sanaa, al-Harithi was enjoying the independence that Yemen's remote tribal regions have maintained through the country's long history. But on Dec. 18, Salih sent armor and helicopters to assert government authority. The outcome -- 18 Yemeni soldiers dead and the suspects still at large -- sharpened Yemen's appetite for the military training the United States had offered. In the following months, U.S. Special Forces instructed and equipped a Yemeni anti-terrorism squad.
At the same time, al Qaeda sympathizers and Yemen settled into a low-intensity conflict. After the December fiasco, Salih deployed 2,000 troops to three areas along the border with Saudi Arabia. The rugged topography of Marib, Al Jawf and Shabwah runs from the dunes of Saudi Arabia's Empty Quarter into washes and mountains. The resident clans, religious and conservative as is much of northern Yemen, are best known for their fighting.
Although Yemeni journalists complain that reporting from the area is restricted, glimpses have emerged in the local press. In July, ground fire clipped an army helicopter, wounding the deputy chief of staff over Al Jawf. Later that month, Yemeni forces shelled a village for three hours and sent warplanes overhead at low altitude, shattering the sound barrier and scattering residents to the surrounding hills.
A member of parliament from the region was arrested for sheltering al Qaeda operatives. The government also held relatives of an Al Jawf sheik in a traditional bid to coerce his cooperation.
The U.S. ambassador, Edmund J. Hull, toured the region to solicit tribal leaders. In Marib, the United States equipped and helped staff a new hospital in what amounts to a hearts and minds campaign.
"In the long run if the population is not supportive, is not seeing a plus to the government pressure, then the security is not going to be sustained," the diplomat said. "What you want to do in these situations is use all of the tools in your kit."
Yemen has also moved against al Qaeda in urban areas, sometimes acting on U.S. intelligence, officials said. In February, a dragnet closed on Sameer Mohammed Ahmed al-Hada, the brother-in-law of a man identified as one of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Khalid al-Midhar. The family's telephone had received calls from bin Laden's satellite phone and a man identified as an organizer of the bombings of the U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998. When al-Hada was surrounded, he blew himself up with a grenade.
But the extremists have fought back. Since April, blasts have rocked at least three buildings housing Yemen's Political Security Office, the agency that has detained and -- according to a parliamentary report, often abused -- al Qaeda suspects. Leaflets distributed afterward attributed the first bombing to "Sympathizers of Al Qaeda." The Sanaa office of the civil aviation authority was also hit, and a grenade was lobbed over the wall of the fortress-like U.S. Embassy.
Some Yemenis described those blasts, in which no one was killed, as part of the background noise in a country with 18 million people, an estimated 60 million guns and a political tradition that regards small explosions as a form of protest. But a roar from an apartment building in Sanaa on Aug. 9 received unusual attention.
An al Qaeda operative had accidentally detonated a missile he was tinkering with, killing himself and another person. Nearby crates that appeared to hold pomegranates also contained 620 pounds of Semtex plastic explosive. The discovery prompted a late-night raid on a house near the Sanaa airport six weeks later. An officer's call of "Abu Saif, open the door," was answered by gunfire that wounded one soldier. The suspect was killed after fleeing through the back door to escape tear gas, according to neighbors.
Yemen has also accelerated efforts to guide religious discourse. One religious university has been shuttered and another emptied of foreign students, who were expelled as potential undesirables. The Education Ministry absorbed 400 religious secondary schools formerly run by the opposition Islah party, a generally moderate Islamic group.
Islah's leader, Sheik Abdallah Ahmar, embodies the tension between tribe and state. As head of Yemen's largest tribe, the Hashid, he sports a particularly large version of the dagger most Yemeni men wear to declare their identity as tribesmen. He warns that any U.S. soldiers trying to operate in Yemen -- about 400 special operations troops are standing by in nearby Djibouti -- "will be eaten. Yemen will swallow them."
And a U.S.-led war against Iraq, Ahmar asserted, "will make the whole Arab state a base for al Qaeda."
But as speaker of parliament, the sheik knows the power of the state. When two of his sons insisted on parking in a security zone opposite the British Embassy earlier this month, a shootout between tribal bodyguards and government security ended with the arrest of his sons.
"If people feel the law is coming from the Yemeni government, then they will accept it," Ahmar said.
-------- pakistan / india
Pakistan Matches India Troop Cuts
By PAUL HAVEN
Associated Press
Oct 17,
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/PAKISTAN_INDIA?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistan will withdraw hundreds of thousands of troops deployed along its border with India to their "peacetime locations," the government announced Thursday, matching a similar pledge by India.
The moves were the most concrete steps by the two South Asian nuclear rivals to reduce tension since they nearly went to war in May, and were sure to be welcomed by Washington, which counts both countries as allies.
"The government of Pakistan has decided to withdraw its forces from the Pakistan-India border to their peacetime locations," the Foreign Ministry said in a brief statement. "The pullback will commence shortly."
The ministry said the decision was made after a top-level meeting chaired by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
A senior defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Pakistan would withdraw 90 percent of its troops, including naval and air forces. He said the pullback would occur in phases, depending on the progress of India's phased withdrawal.
He said the army had sent 400,000 to 500,000 troops to the border, "but now we will be withdrawing them."
"It's welcome news," said U.S. Embassy spokesman Terry White. In Washington, a State Department official had earlier expressed hope that India's announcement would lead to further steps to reduce tension and move toward dialogue.
However, a spokesman for India's Foreign Ministry, Navtej Sarna, said Thursday that Pakistan's decision to match its withdrawal was still not enough to lead to talks.
"What is needed to start a dialogue with Pakistan is a complete and visible end to cross-border terrorism and we have seen no change in this," Sarna said. India accuses Pakistan of sponsoring attacks by Islamic militant groups, a charge Pakistan denies.
India and Pakistan have a long history of tension along their 1,800 mile-border, especially in the disputed Himalayan province of Kashmir. More than 1 million troops are currently deployed on both sides.
Earlier this month, Pakistan and India conducted tit-for-tat tests of medium-range nuclear-capable missiles, renewing fears of an arms race and highlighting the size of the stakes involved in their dispute.
India said Wednesday it would withdraw tens of thousands of its troops from the border with Pakistan, but none from the Line of Control, which separates the disputed region of Kashmir.
A senior Pakistani defense analyst said both sides were looking to ease tension, in part because of the difficulty of keeping their armies on high alert for such a long time.
"I think the Indians were looking for an opportunity to withdraw troops because they have been there for the last 10 months," said retired Gen. Talat Masood. "It is a good and positive development."
No details were immediately available on when the pullback would start. It was also unclear if Pakistan would remove any of its troops from the tense Line of Control, where the two armies frequently shell each other.
The rival South Asian countries have fought two wars for control of the lush, mountainous province. At least 61,000 people have died in the last 12 years of an insurgency by more than a dozen Islamic groups fighting for Kashmir's secession from India or its merger with Pakistan.
Tension between India and Pakistan has been high since a Dec. 13 attack on the Indian Parliament, which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based Islamic groups and Islamabad's spy agency.
Pakistan and the rebel groups reject the charge, but more rebel attacks in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir again pushed the countries to the brink of war earlier this year.
The statement followed a longer one by the Foreign Ministry that called India's move a "step in the right direction." But that statement made no specific pledge to reciprocate the pullback.
"Pakistan has always stood for normal relations with India," the earlier Foreign Ministry statement said. "Pakistan has consistently called for deescalation, withdrawal by India of its forces to peacetime locations and the resumption of dialogue."
The earlier statement said Pakistan would have a "positive and timely response" to India's announced troop withdrawal, once it was implemented on the ground, but the second statement contained no such caveats.
India's announcement on Wednesday followed lobbying by European Union leaders, who pressed Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to move toward dialogue with Pakistan. In announcing the troop pullback, however, Defense Minister George Fernandes ruled out any new talks.
Fernandes said the Indian army will decide when to move the soldiers and where they will go. Indian military officers are known to favor an easing of their nation's war readiness.
-------- saudi arabia
Report Decries Saudi Laxity
U.S. Must Act to Dry Up Al Qaeda Funds, Policy Group Says
By Douglas Farah
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 17, 2002; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37535-2002Oct16?language=printer
The Bush administration's efforts to cut off funds for international terrorism are destined to fail until it confronts Saudi Arabia, whose leaders have tolerated some of its wealthy citizens raising millions of dollars a year for al Qaeda, according to a new report from an influential foreign policy organization.
The report from the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, scheduled for release today, contends that the administration must pressure the Saudis -- as well as other governments -- to crack down on terror financing, even at the risk of sparking a public backlash that could jeopardize the Saudi government.
"It is worth stating clearly and unambiguously what official U.S. government spokespersons have not," the report notes. "For years, individuals and charities based in Saudi Arabia have been the most important source of funds for al Qaeda, and for years the Saudi officials have turned a blind eye to this problem."
Administration criticism of Saudi Arabia, among the top crude oil suppliers to the United States and a crucial ally if the Bush administration takes military action against Iraq, has been largely muted since the Sept. 11 attacks, despite the belief of many law enforcement and intelligence officials here and abroad that al Qaeda relies on wealthy Saudis for most of its funding.
Earlier this year, however, relations became strained when a defense consultant told a Pentagon advisory committee that Saudis were active at all levels of the terror chain.
The Saudi government had no immediate response to the report. Its embassy here issued a statement praising U.S.-Saudi cooperation in freezing terrorist assets and cracking down on charities, saying the support and financing of terrorism "cannot be tolerated."
But the report drew a sharp rebuttal from the Bush administration. Robert Nichols, the Treasury Department's deputy assistant secretary for public affairs, said the report was "seriously flawed" and that his department considered it a "Clinton-era snapshot of what al Qaeda looked like in 1999 or 2000" without taking into account the new resources and strategies to combat terror financing.
"We are not claiming victory, we are not spiking the football, but we are off to a good start," Nichols said.
Administration officials said they were angry that Treasury and other agencies had not been invited to brief the panel. But Maurice R. Greenberg, the panel's chairman, said that in late August the council extended a written invitation to the National Security Council to address the group and an oral invitation to Treasury. Both were declined, he said.
The report, prepared by a bipartisan panel of financial and terrorism experts, reveals no new details about U.S. or Saudi efforts to stanch terror funding. But it plainly asserts what many officials have said privately for some time.
"I know a lot of people in the administration are really upset with this, but it essentially lays out what many of us have been saying," said one senior administration official. "That is, we need to come up with strategies that are as creative as those of the enemy, and that, like it or not, many of the financial roads to al Qaeda go through Saudi Arabia."
While the United Nations and others have recently warned that the financial war on terror was sputtering, analysts inside and outside government said the conclusions of the panel carry particular weight because it is bipartisan. Greenberg is an influential Republican fundraiser and corporate executive. The two co-directors, William F. Wechsler and Lee S. Wolosky, tracked terrorist financing while serving in the Clinton administration's NSC.
The report concludes that al Qaeda retains access to millions of dollars and that as long as its financial network is viable, the terrorist organization "remains a lethal threat to the United States." Financing for Osama bin Laden's terror network is often routed through charities, front companies and shell banks in offshore havens.
In recent testimony to Congress, senior administration officials have acknowledged that al Qaeda retains the financial capability to carry out attacks on the United States and elsewhere. Administration officials have said that since Sept. 11, the United States has designated 240 people and organizations as terrorist supporters and blocked $112 million in suspected terrorist assets.
"The problem [of terrorist financing] is of enormous magnitude," James Gurule, undersecretary of Treasury for enforcement, told the Senate Finance Committee last week. "We have made a dent, but we have a long way to go."
The report touched on another sensitive issue, saying the administration's difficulties in tracking and disrupting al Qaeda's financial empire "have been exacerbated by the lack of interagency coordination within the U.S. government," and citing duplication of tasks and information-sharing difficulties among the CIA, the FBI and the Treasury Department.
Nichols said that, while there were initially problems with interagency coordination, "the kinks have been worked out, and interagency cooperation is alive and well."
The report was especially harsh on the Bush administration's relationship with Saudi Arabia. The administration "appears to have made a policy decision not to use the full power of U.S. influence and legal authorities to pressure or compel other governments to combat terrorist financing more effectively."
Greenberg, chairman and chief executive officer of AIG, said the administration needs to be "much more forceful" in dealing with Saudi Arabia, and that the administration "should be all over" the Saudi government whenever terrorist financial ties were found.
"Sitting in a corner is not the answer," Greenberg said. "Whatever we are doing, it isn't working."
The report acknowledged that criticizing Saudi Arabia publicly and demanding a crackdown on Islamic banks, charities and wealthy sponsors of al Qaeda could create a backlash that would jeopardize the survival of the Saudi government.
But it said the risk of inaction was even greater, because it will allow terrorist supporters to "gain strength and influence steadily among their own population," which ultimately will put the Saudi government at risk anyway.
------- spies
Ex-analyst sentenced to 25 years for spying
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
October 17, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021017-85033106.htm
A former senior Defense Department intelligence analyst was sentenced yesterday to 25 years in prison for giving U.S. defense secrets to Cuba, after telling a federal judge she felt "morally obligated" to help defend that communist nation against U.S. policies.
"I believe our government's policy toward Cuba is cruel and unfair, profoundly unneighborly, and I felt morally obligated to help the island defend itself from our efforts to impose our values and our political system on it," Ana Belen Montes told U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina.
Judge Urbina said Montes put her fellow Americans and her country "in harm's way" and had to suffer the consequences of prison. He also ordered her to serve five years of probation at the completion of her prison sentence and perform 500 hours of community service.
"If you can't love your country, then at the very least you should do it no wrong," Judge Urbina told Montes. He wished her "good luck" after ordering her to prison.
U.S. intelligence officials said it is difficult to assess the damage Montes caused to the nation's intelligence network. As a senior analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency, she worked in direct and close contact with U.S. policy-makers, intelligence and political analysts, briefed legislators on Capitol Hill and had access to key classified information.
In court, Montes admitted she spied for Cuba for 17 years, but she declined to apologize.
She agreed to the prison term in exchange for her cooperation with prosecutors as part of a plea bargain approved by the government and her attorneys. Prosecutors could have sought the death penalty or life in prison.
U.S. Attorney Roscoe C. Howard Jr., whose office prosecuted the case, said that while Montes had cooperated fully with federal authorities, she had done "grave damage" to her country and "owed the country an apology." He said he was "disappointed" she failed to do so.
"What we were all looking for is the recognition of the crime, the gravity of what she has done and the harm she has caused a lot of people," he said. "She seemed not really to appreciate that."
The government said Montes, who is single and lived alone, was not motivated by money, because she was paid nominal amounts by the Cuban government for her expenses.
Montes, 45, said that while Cuba's right to exist free of political and economic coercion "did not justify giving the island classified information," she did so "to counter a grave injustice." She said she hoped to see "amicable relations" between the United States and Cuba.
"I hope my case in some way will encourage our government to abandon its hostility toward Cuba and to work with Havana in a spirit of tolerance, mutual respect and understanding," she said.
Montes, a U.S. citizen of Puerto Rican descent, had worked as an analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency since 1985 when she was arrested by FBI agents at her office at the DIA's headquarters at Bolling Air Force Base in September 2001.
She was accused of conspiring to deliver U.S. national security information to Cuba. The DIA provides the Pentagon with information on the military capabilities of foreign countries, along with troop strengths. It is considered one of the government's key national security operations.
In a 17-page FBI affidavit, she was accused of being in contact by shortwave radio with Cuban intelligence officials. The affidavit said she transmitted substantial amounts of classified information to the Cubans using encrypted messages.
FBI agents who searched Montes' home found several Defense Department documents, including plans for a 1996 war-games exercise conducted by the U.S. Atlantic Command. Montes had attended the war games in Norfolk as part of her DIA duties.
The FBI said the Cubans responded to the war-games information with a message that said: "Practically everything that takes place there will be of intelligence value. Let's see if it deals with contingency plans and specific targets in Cuba."
Agents also partially recovered a message from a hard drive on her laptop computer dealing with "a particular special access program related to the national defense of the United States." The FBI said the document was so sensitive it could not be publicly revealed. The DIA said Montes was briefed on the program in 1997.
The FBI also said the veteran analyst disclosed to Cuban intelligence officials the pending arrival of a U.S. military intelligence officer in Cuba. As a result, the FBI said, the Cuban government "was able to direct its counterintelligence resources against the U.S. officer."
Cuba's response to that tip-off, the FBI said, was a note from Montes' contacts: "We were waiting here for him with open arms."
The government said she also provided documents to her Cuban handlers that revealed the identity of three other undercover agents. The U.S. government has said little about the four agents Montes betrayed, other than that they are alive and not in a Cuban prison.
Montes is believed to have been recruited by Cuba when she worked in the Justice Department's Freedom of Information Office between 1979 and 1985, when she moved to the DIA. The government has declined to say what led investigators to focus on Montes in May 2001.
Montes' attorney, Plato Cacheris, said his client could be released from prison in 2022, with time off for good behavior and credit for jail time since her September 2001 arrest.
A 1979 graduate of the University of Virginia, Montes later received a master's degree at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, where she focused on Latin America. Her brother is an FBI agent in Atlanta, and her sister works as an FBI translator in South Florida. Last year, her sister helped prosecute a Cuban spy ring.
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US Intelligence Chiefs to Testify at 9/11 Inquiry
Reuters
Thursday, October 17, 2002
By Tabassum Zakaria
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38267-2002Oct17?language=printer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - CIA, FBI and National Security Agency directors on Thursday will respond to criticism that missed clues and poor information sharing contributed to an intelligence failure to uncover the Sept. 11 plot.
The top officials at the three agencies were due to make their first public appearance at a hearing of the joint inquiry into last year's Sept. 11 attacks being conducted by the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate intelligence committees.
"I would hope that they would explain to the American people why all of the intelligence failures have come about," said Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Richard Shelby, an outspoken critic of the agencies' performance.
"There needs to be an overhaul of the entire intelligence community," the Alabama Republican said. "If there are not structural changes then we're right back where we were on September the 11th or before."
Four hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11, 2001, killing more than 3,000 people.
The United States has blamed Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network for the attacks and launched a "war on terrorism" aimed at wiping them out.
Thursday will cap a string of open hearings at which congressional investigators issued reports detailing lapses and shortcomings in the performance of intelligence agencies.
CIA Director George Tenet was expected to testify that the spy agency had actively pursued bin Laden and al Qaeda since 1993 and intensified those efforts in 1998.
He was expected to acknowledge the CIA made a mistake in not putting the names of two of the Sept. 11 hijackers on a State Department watch list until just weeks before the attacks.
Congressional investigators have said the CIA first became aware of Saudis Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi in January 2000 but did not put them on government watch lists until Aug. 23, 2001, when both were already inside the United States.
Tenet was also expected to address the inquiry's accusations that intelligence reports had warned of hijacked aircraft being used as weapons.
And he will likely repeat what intelligence officials have said since Sept. 11, that the spy agencies never had the detailed information required to prevent the attacks.
FOCUS ON CHANGE
FBI Director Robert Mueller was expected to focus on changes since the attacks, when he declared fighting terrorism would be the agency's top priority.
The FBI was criticized for ignoring a July 2001 memo from an agent in Phoenix concerned that Middle Eastern men connected with bin Laden were taking lessons at U.S. flight schools.
That information was never connected with the August 2001 arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui in Minnesota on immigration violations after he raised suspicions at a flight school. Moussaoui is now charged as a conspirator in the attack, and authorities believe he might have been one of the hijackers if he had not been in custody at the time.
Inadequate information sharing by the CIA and FBI has been a major criticism, but officials at both agencies say steps have been taken to address that issue.
The NSA, headed by Director Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, eavesdrops on communications worldwide and has been blamed for its inability to sift through the vast amount of information it sweeps up and analyze in a timely manner.
All three agencies have been criticized for not having enough employees with the language skills needed to fight terrorism in the Middle East and Asia.
Lawmakers say no "smoking gun" has emerged in the intelligence inquiry, but if missed clues had been pieced together that could have spurred further investigation and perhaps unraveled the plot.
But congressional investigators and intelligence officials have said it was impossible to conclude the Sept. 11 attacks could have been prevented.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat, is hoping the inquiry will produce a draft report by the end of this year, his spokesman said.
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Havana Enshrines Heroes of Espionage
October 17, 2002
New York Times
By DAVID GONZALEZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/17/international/americas/17CUBA.html
HAVANA, Oct. 14 - René González's smiling face beams from several small picture frames in his family's living room, where his 4-year-old daughter, Ivette, scampers about with her friends. When his wife, Olga Salanueva, takes Ivette outside, she has to explain why Papi's portrait appears, with four others, on T-shirts, billboards and book covers.
"Her father is everywhere, but not where he should be, which is at home," Ms. Salanueva said. "These are difficult things to explain. It is sad for a growing child."
In Cuba, the government calls the five men heroes of the revolution and lauds them for fighting against Miami-based exile groups. In the United States, however, they were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage, among other charges, and sentenced in December to terms ranging from 15 years to life.
The case of the five, who remain in prison while their convictions are on appeal, has provided the Cuban government with its latest ideological battleground against the United States, diplomats and political analysts say. As with Elián González, the shipwrecked child ultimately reunited with his father in Cuba, the government has made them the focus of rallies, televised discussions and appeals to the international community.
But diplomats say it has proved difficult to generate much sympathy for grown men who admitted to having worked for Cuban intelligence. Arrest, they point out, is a normal risk in that line of work.
"They all knew what they were getting into," said the military attaché at one embassy.
Although the arrests occurred in 1998, the case had until last year received scant attention in the official media here. Now Cuba is relying upon the jitters of the post-Sept. 11 world to portray the five men as protectors of the homeland who infiltrated Miami groups to stop or prevent terrorism.
"After Sept. 11, it should be easier to explain what these men did," said Miguel Álvarez, an adviser to the president of the National Assembly. "The United States in its rhetoric puts a name on terrorism and calls it global terrorism. When it is not global, does that mean it is not terrorism? What comes from Florida to Cuba, since it is not global it does not need to be watched?"
Foreign diplomats, for their part, have questioned Cuba's sincerity in fighting terrorism, faulting it recently for providing false leads on terrorism investigations.
The Cuban case is laid out in a new Web site, www.antiterroristas.cu, where the foreign minister will participate in a live forum on Friday.
According to documents on the Web site, and to other official declarations on the case, the men did not receive an impartial trial in Miami, and they never obtained information that threatened the national security of the United States. Instead, advocates say, they obtained public information or reported on the activities of exile groups like Brothers to the Rescue or the Democracy Movement.
Cuban officials also said the men's activities were justified by past violence, like the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airplane that killed 73 people, or the string of hotel bombings in Havana in 1997.
The government has recently stepped up its campaign for the five, calling 2002 "The Year of the Heroes Imprisoned by the Empire." Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators have marched past the offices of the American government in Havana to demand freedom for the five, and reporters covering the visit of former President Jimmy Carter asked him his opinion of the case.
Ms. Salanueva says the public support has helped her get through a difficult time. She has traveled to Chile to speak to a solidarity group on the plight of her husband, who is serving a 15-year sentence in Pennsylvania. Similar groups have emerged in 50 countries, according to the government, although it is unclear how many people might be involved.
Like the wives and mothers of the other four prisoners, Ms. Salanueva has been honored by the Cuban government, which put her up in an apartment when she was deported from the United States two years after her husband's arrest.
She said Mr. González was born in Chicago in 1956, but returned to Cuba with his parents in 1961. He moved to Miami in 1990 and worked as a flight instructor, also joining exile groups like Brothers to the Rescue, which patrolled the waters for refugees on rafts.
"I had nothing to do with those activities," she said of his contacts with the exile groups. "We never had extensive conversations about that. It is not true that he and the others are spies. They did not take out any secrets. They protected this country."
"When I learned of that work he did, I was proud," she said. "He had every possibility of triumphing in life because he is very intelligent. He risked all that, including his life, to defend the achievements of the Cuban people."
She and her elder daughter, Irma, 18, said they were holding up despite the distance, citing the help of a psychologist who visits often and was present during a recent interview.
As for Ivette, she does not really know her father, Ms. Salanueva said. The girl has been slowly learning about him from phone calls and from a 17-page letter he wrote to her in May.
Ms. Salanueva brought out the letter, which she said was difficult to read without crying.
"I have to read it many times," she said, adding that Ivette had a lot of questions about it. " `What is the U.S.? What is a country? Why did we come here?' "
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U.S. Offers U.N. Resolution Deal
By EDITH M. LEDERER
Associated Press Writer
October 17, 2002, 12:42 PM EDT
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-un-iraq1017oct17,0,4162305.story
UNITED NATIONS -- Facing strong opposition from dozens of nations, the United States has backed down from its demand that a new U.N. resolution must authorize military force if Baghdad fails to cooperate with weapons inspectors, diplomats told The Associated Press on Thursday.
Instead, the United States is now floating a compromise which would give inspectors a chance to test Iraq's will to cooperate on the ground. If Iraq then failed to disarm, the Bush administration would agree to return to the Security Council for further debate and possibly another resolution authorizing action.
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said he believes there are now "favorable conditions" for council agreement on a resolution that will lead to the quick return of inspectors.
The new compromise also drops tough wording explicitly threatening Iraq upfront, although the diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a threat of consequences will be implied.
The diplomats said France, which has been the main stumbling block for the United States, was studying the new offer amid a flurry of diplomatic activity aimed at solving an impasse among the Security Council powers on Iraq.
During an open Security Council debate on Iraq, which started Wednesday and continued Thursday, more than two dozen nations -- including Iraq's closest neighbors and key U.S. allies -- refused to endorse the Bush administration's demand for an authorization of military force if Baghdad fails to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspections.
They said Iraq must be given a chance to completely disarm without the imminent threat of military action.
Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock of Britain, whose country is supporting the U.S. position, said the emphasis was on reaching a deal that all sides could accept.
"We're looking for unity in the council," he said.
Many U.N. members favor the two-resolution approach proposed by France and backed by Russia and China.
Ivanov said Thursday that U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told him the new U.S. and British proposals will take Russia's opinion into account, and will be submitted in the next day or two.
"We believe that there are favorable conditions now to preserve the unity of the global community and ensure the return of international inspectors and their efficient work in Iraq," he said. "We are looking forward to seeing this document."
He said Powell "underlined that the United States is interested in reaching a consensus among the permanent five members of the U.N. Security Council in order to implement all U.N. Security Council resolution on Iraq."
Ivanov said he told Powell that Russia is "ready for the most constructive cooperation to find common understanding so that a new resolution would become an important element supporting international inspectors, who should leave for Iraq as quickly as possible."
Under the French approach, the first resolution would toughen U.N. inspections and warn Iraq that it will face consequences, including the possible use of force, if it doesn't comply with inspections. The second would authorize action against Iraq if it failed to cooperate.
"Every possible effort should be made to avert war," Bangladesh's U.N. Ambassador Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury told the council on Thursday.
In speech after speech, ambassadors from Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America called Iraq's decision last month to allow U.N. inspectors to return an important first step -- and said the council should send the inspectors back quickly and test Baghdad's commitment.
Many warned that a new war would add to the suffering of the Iraqi people, possibly engulf the Middle East in conflict, and have dire consequences on global stability and the world economy.
"This war is useless because its motives are not well-founded," Tunisia's U.N. Ambassador Noureddine Mejdoub said Wednesday. "It would unleash a chain of reactions in Iraq and in the region."
The council meeting was held at the behest of the Nonaligned Movement, comprising 115 mainly developing countries that favor a peaceful solution in Iraq, and it was open to all 191 U.N. member states. Some 50 nations that aren't on the council took up the opportunity, and they were speaking ahead of the 15 council members who will wrap up the debate on Thursday.
Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Mohammed al-Douri was pleased at the opposition to military action and support for the return of inspectors in Wednesday's speeches. He said he expected to hear more of the same on Thursday.
Reiterating that Iraq would cooperate with the U.N. inspectors "in every possible way," al-Douri told the council that the United States was attempting "to hamper and delay the return of inspectors" to adopt a new resolution which would serve as "a pretext to cover aggression against Iraq."
Since the 1980s, Iraq has gone to war with two of its neighbors -- Iran and Kuwait -- but neither supported an immediate authorization to use force. Both urged the Iraqi government to strictly comply with all U.N. resolutions to avert war.
"Any use of force must be a last resort and within the United Nations framework and only after all other available means have been exhausted," said Kuwait's Ambassador Mohammad Abulhasan.
Several U.S. allies -- the European Union, Canada, Australia and New Zealand -- backed the U.S. view that after 11 years of failing to comply with U.N. resolutions, Iraq should be given a tough new mandate spelling out that inspectors must have unconditional and unrestricted access to all sites.
However, none of the allies called for a new resolution to include a green light for military action.
Denmark's U.N. Ambassador Ellen Margrethe Loj, speaking on behalf of the EU, said: "The government of Iraq should make no mistake about the fact that noncompliance with this inspection regime would have serious consequences."
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Bush Garners Little Support at U.N. for an Attack on Iraq
October 17, 2002
New York Times
By JULIA PRESTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/17/international/middleeast/17NATI.html
UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 16 - The Bush administration's push for an early American-led war against Iraq drew broad opposition today in an unusual open debate in the Security Council. Many countries backed weapons inspections, and Arab states said they would not support an attack without United Nations endorsement, considering an attack only as a last resort.
In the first day of a special Council session, which was charged with the sense that the basic shape of global security was at stake, Secretary General Kofi Annan appealed to the Security Council to maintain unity, warning that the United Nations would be seriously weakened by a rift.
Iraq defiantly denied charges, which were repeated frequently today, that it had failed to comply with Council resolutions requiring it to give up weapons of mass destruction.
Iraq's ambassador, Mohammed Aldouri, called the United Nations economic sanctions against his country an act of genocide. He sharply rejected the American and British proposal for a new, tougher resolution for Iraq to disarm, calling it "an insult to the international community and the United Nations." [Excerpts from speeches, Page A18.]
In Washington, President Bush warned European and Arab nations that are resisting a confrontation with President Saddam Hussein that "those who choose to live in denial may eventually be forced to live in fear."
After a meeting with the Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Mr. Bush said he fully expected that Israel would retaliate against any unprovoked Iraqi attack. [Page A11.]
Mr. Bush also painted a far more ominous picture than he has to date about the dangers of allowing the debate in the United Nations to drag on for more than a few weeks.
"If Iraq gains even greater destructive power, nations in the Middle East would face blackmail, intimidation or attack," he said in the East Room, flanked by Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. "Chaos in that region would be felt in Europe and beyond. And Iraq's combination of weapons of mass destruction and ties to terrorist groups and ballistic missiles would threaten the peace and security of many nations."
The two-day public debate in the Security Council was called at the insistence of the nonaligned movement, a loose coalition of developing nations. Speakers today were from countries that do not hold seats on the 15-member Council, but were invited to join the debate.
As intensive negotiations over a new resolution among the five permanent, veto-bearing Council powers dragged into the fifth week, the non-Council nations have become exasperated that their views were not being considered and demanded to be heard.
With no Council votes, the nations that spoke today cannot directly influence the discussions on the resolution. But they included Egypt, Kuwait, Turkey and other nations that could be directly involved if the United States goes to war against Iraq, as well as the European Union, Canada and other important American allies. The veto-bearing members of the Council - the United States, Britain, Russia, China and France - are to speak on Thursday.
The deadlock over the resolution continued today, with France and the United States wrangling over the stage at which to authorize military force. No meetings of the five permanent members to discuss Iraq were even on the schedule.
Bush administration officials listened to the debate with only one ear, focusing on the detailed discussions among the Council power players. Washington remains determined to get a single resolution that would give it authority to launch a military attack, administration officials said.
Mr. Annan, in a statement that was read in the Council as he traveled in Asia, said he supported a new resolution to strengthen the weapons' inspectors hands. He told Iraq that Baghdad was in violation of many resolutions.
"Iraq has to comply," Mr. Annan said bluntly, and he warned that the Council would have to "face its responsibilities" if it did not, a code word for war. But in a plea clearly directed at the United States and France, Mr. Annan said, "If you allow yourselves to be divided, the authority and credibility of this organization will undoubtedly suffer."
Mr. Annan's call for the Council to reach consensus was echoed by many nations, as was his demand for Iraq meet its obligations to the Council. There was also nearly unanimous support for allowing the United Nations weapons inspectors to return as soon as possible to Iraq to search for prohibited weapons programs. Many nations described the inspections as the last chance to force Baghdad to give up its most dangerous weapons without war.
Apprehension about Washington's war plans to topple Mr. Hussein was especially strong among the Arab nations.
"An attack on Iraq would open a Pandora's box," said Yahia A. Mahmassani, the representative of the Arab League. "It will lead to civil and ethnic war in Iraq and also destabilize the whole Arab region, which is already outraged at the Israeli occupation," he said.
"The war on Iraq will negate the present world order, the charter of the United Nations and international law," he said.
Even Kuwait, which was freed from Iraqi occupation in the Persian Gulf war of 1991, insisted that "any use of force must be a last resort and within the United Nations framework, and only after all other available means have been exhausted."
Arab representatives, including those from American allies like Egypt and Jordan, complained of a double standard, saying the Council had been less forceful in bringing Israel to comply with resolutions calling for a nuclear-free Middle East and for it to withdraw from lands occupied in the 1967 war.
"It would be tragic if the Security Council were to pre-judge the work of the inspectors before they set foot in Iraq," said South Africa's ambassador, Dumisani S. Kumalo, who was also speaking on behalf of the nonaligned nations.
Iran, a neighbor that fought a bloody eight-year war with Iraq, objected strongly to the Bush administration's policy of "regime change" for the Iraqi leader, calling it "fully alien" to international law. Ambassador Javad Zarif warned that an attack on Iraq would "sow seeds of new hatred" in the Middle East "that will feed instability for years to come."
Even United States allies like the European Union, which supported tough pressure to disarm Iraq, gave no support for a unilateral American strike against Baghdad. It insisted that the issue be handled through the Security Council.
Mr. Bush surrounded himself today with Democratic supporters of the Congressional war resolution, which he signed this morning. It authorizes him, at his sole discretion, to decide when diplomacy has failed and force is necessary. He repeated today that he had not made that decision - but then described a series of conditions for Mr. Hussein that seemed to make military action all but inevitable.
For the first time, Mr. Bush painted a picture of what Iraq might look like after Mr. Hussein is no longer in power, promising to "help Iraqi citizens find the blessings of liberty within their own culture and their own traditions." But he made no specific mention of the Administration's plans to occupy Iraq for a period of months or years before the country can hold free elections.
He argued that time was wasting, and his press secretary, Ari Fleischer, said later the president was only willing to wait a few more weeks for the United Nations to end its deliberations.
"Our goal is to fully and finally remove a real threat to world peace and to America," Mr. Bush said. Asked later whether Mr. Bush was talking about removing Mr. Hussein's weapons or the leader himself, Mr. Fleischer said, "Both."
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And Just How Many Countries Have We Attacked?
by James Glaser
October 17, 2002,
AntiWar.com
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/glaser2.html
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Early this morning I was at the VFW Post doing some paperwork and a man came in that wanted to join our Post. Usually that is no problem as most people are transferring from their old Post to ours, when they move into our area. This was different because this man had never joined the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
We have three rules of eligibility and they are, 1. US Citizenship, 2. Honorable service in the US Armed Forces, and 3. Service entitling the applicant to the award of a recognized Campaign Medal as set forth in the VFW Congressional Charter. The only exception is service in Korea. Anyone serving in Korea for 30 consecutive days from 1949 to present is eligible.
Well I asked this man where he had served and he said "Quemoy and Matsu Island in 1962." I knew Quemoy and Matsu are Islands off the coast of China, but didn't know we had service personnel there. I had him fill out the application, told him to bring in his DD 214 discharge papers, and when our next meeting was.
I looked up the VFW web page and went to the section for eligibility and to my surprise I found 65 places on this globe that America has been at war in some way, since WW 2. I have read many times in Antiwar.com and Lew Rockwell that we have engaged the enemy 23 times since 1945, but the Congress of the United States put that number at 65.
There were no countries that surprised me, however the thing that really caught my eye were the names assigned to some of these operations.
Operation Urgent Fury, when we took on that powder keg in Grenada. How about Operation Joint Guard, then there is Operation Vigilant Sentinel, Operation Desert Thunder, Operation Desert Fox, Operation Distant Runner, and my personal favorite "Noble Anvil."
While in Vietnam I went on several operations like "Dewey Canyon 2" and the Vietnam war had hundreds if not thousands of operations, but these eligibility operations are from different countries in different years.
Here is the list as written in the VFW site.
1. Quemoy & Matsu Island
2. Taiwan Straits
3. Congo
4. Laos
5. Vietnam
6. Cuba
7. Dominican Republic
8. Korea
9. Cambodia
10. Thailand (in direct support of Cambodia Operation)
11. Operation Eagle Pull - Evacuation of Cambodia
12. Operation Frequent Wind - Evacuation of Vietnam
13. Mayaguez Operation
14. Operation Urgent Fury - Grenada
15. Lebanon
16. Germany (West Berlin)
17. Austria
18. Korea
19. Japan
20. Italy
21. Trieste
22. Germany (except West Berlin)
23. Austria
24. Asiatic Pacific
25. Korean Service Medal (Army, Navy, Air Force)
26. Berlin
27. Lebanon
28. Libyan Operation El Dorado Canyon
29. Persian Gulf Operation Earnest Will
30. Panama Operation Just Cause
31. Somalia-United Shield-Operation Restore Hope
32. Haiti - Operation Uphold Democracy
33. Operation Southern Watch (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Oman, Gulf of Omen W. Of 62' E. Long, Yemen, Egypt, Jordan)
34. El Salvador
35. Bosnia - Operation Joint Endeavor
36. Operation Joint Guard
37. Operation Vigilant Sentinel
38. Operation Northern Watch
39. Operation Maritime Intercept
40. Operation Joint Forge (Bosnia-Herzegovina)
41. Operation Desert Thunder
42. Operation Desert Fox
43. Thailand Military Operation
44. Cuban Military Operation
45. Iranian, Yemen & Indian Ocean Operation
46. Lebanon
47. Libyan Expedition
48. Panama - (pre and post invasion)
49. Liberia (Operation Sharp Edge)
50. Rwanda (Operation Distant runner)
51. Vietnam Service Medal
52. Operation Desert Storm/Operation Desert Shield
53. Combat Action Ribbon
54. Korean Service
55. Kosovo Campaign Medal (Allied Force)
56. Joint Guardian
57. Allied Harbor
58. Sustain Hope/Shining Hope
59. Nobel Anvil
60. Kosovo Task Force Hawk
61. Kosovo Task Force Saber
62. Kosovo Task Force Falcon
63. Kosovo Task force Hunter
64. Kosovo Air Campaign
65. Kosovo Defense campaign
Now I know some of these countries are repeated, but the dates of action are different. That means we have repeatedly returned to some countries for new engagements much like we are going to do now in Iraq.
Every one of these actions have been approved by Congress to qualify the combatants for members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States. Those serving in Afghanistan are really not eligible at this date, but all we are waiting for is the President to sign the bill making them so. I believe that all Posts are taking their applications right now.
As you can see by this list America has been a very busy country in the last 50 years and that our "Military Might" has been in the forefront of American Foreign Policy.
Jim Glaser is a Vietnam vet and a volunteer in veterans hospitals. He is a regular columnist for LewRockwell.com. Visit his website - http://www.jamesglaser.org/.
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Are all the bases covered?
EDITORIAL
October 17, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20021017-7348527.htm
U.S. servicemen stationed abroad face threats that are difficult to anticipate, even when not engaged in combat, as evidenced by the fatal attack in Kuwait last Tuesday. Troops were ambushed while training outside their base. But according to terrorist experts, military personnel face their most glaring threat within their base - while eating their meals, or relaxing after a day's training. This specific risk can't be rectified through more bricks and mortar.
Foreign nationals working in U.S. bases who are not natives of the host country pose the largest threat, since information on their background is usually scarce. But many bases, particularly in sensitive areas such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, have many of these third-country nationals working inside them, serving food, cleaning floors, etc. A Pentagon spokesman said that the background of all foreigners working on U.S. bases is checked by the host country government or the private-sector contractor that hired them - not the U.S. government. This worries many terrorism experts, since contractors are most concerned with profits, while foreign governments are bound to have scant information on individuals not native to their country.
Peter Probst, a former Pentagon and CIA official, told The Washington Times that he raised the alarm at the Pentagon from 1996 to 2000. The Pentagon appeared to have somewhat heeded his concerns, and in April 2000 it published a report titled "Insider threat mitigation." While the study calls for increased vigilance and other precautions, it falls short of some of the more comprehensive policy prescriptions that are relevant to this post-September 11 world. The study focuses mostly on the threat that administrative workers, who have access to unclassified but still sensitive information, could pose. But terrorism experts today are focusing on a more direct potential attack by foreign nationals, such as the poisoning of a base's food supply.
The Pentagon said it has drafted policy prescriptions based on the findings of the report and will make them public in about two months - a welcome step. But, coming more than two years after the report was published, it seems long overdue.
Given the peril that troops face abroad, the Pentagon should take bold steps to bolster security. Military officials should carefully reassess the need for maintaining foreign bases abroad. In the bases that are considered to be central to U.S. interests but are high-risk areas, foreign-national workers should be replaced with U.S. citizens. This would double or triple labor costs in some countries, a cost that is easily justified when one considers the many American military lives it would almost certainly save.
The recent ambush in Kuwait, the horrific bombing of a club frequented by Westerners in Indonesia and the attack on a French vessel in Yemen demonstrate that terrorists, most likely linked to al Qaeda, are determined to regroup. An attack within a U.S. base would deal a dramatic blow to morale at a critical moment for U.S. interests. Surely, Pentagon officials are aware of the threat. Now is the time to take action on that awareness.
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Air Force: 4 Laptops Stolen
By GEORGE CORYELL gcoryell@tampatrib.com
Oct 17, 2002
Tampa Tribune
http://info.mgnetwork.com/printthispage.cgi?url=http%3A//www.tampatrib.com/FloridaMetro/MGAW3AC4E7D.html
MacDILL AIR FORCE BASE - Four laptop computers were stolen from the closely guarded headquarters of Army Gen. Tommy Franks over the summer, the U.S. Air Force disclosed Wednesday - not two, as the military originally reported.
A laptop hard drive, the removable brain of a computer, and two personal digital assistants, sometimes known as PDAs, also were taken, the Air Force said.
The disclosure was made in written answers from the Air Force to questions from The Tampa Tribune after investigators charged Staff Sgt. Sheridan R. Ferrell II in the case last week. Ferrell faces three counts of larceny and two counts of dereliction of duty.
The Air Force would not reveal any more about the thefts. For example, although the military said the first two laptops disappeared from a highly secure compound in Franks' headquarters known as a Secure Compartmented Information Facility, it made no mention of where the other two laptops, the hard drive or the PDAs came from.
``You can't rule out espionage, but this looks like theft,'' said Mike Pheneger, a retired Army colonel who once was deputy director of intelligence for U.S. Central Command, the sprawling military structure that Franks commands and which runs the war in Afghanistan and is planning for a possible invasion of Iraq.
``But I'm not sure why, if it was theft, they kept it under wraps that he took four computers,'' Pheneger added. ``Maybe as a way to take the heat off, because nobody is questioning the secretary of defense about security now.''
When the first two laptops were reported missing, it caused a storm of media attention because of Central Command's prominent role in the war on terrorism. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Franks were bombarded with questions about the disappearance.
At least one of the computers contained highly classified information, authorities said.
The hard drive did, as well - unencoded CIA information. Typically, a removable hard drive allows a computer to be ``sanitized,'' Pheneger said, meaning that the hard drive can be locked in a safe when the computer is not in use.
Although Franks later said he wasn't concerned about the incident and thought security worked the way it was supposed to, the Air Force assigned 51 agents from its Office of Special Investigations to the case, making it the largest domestic military investigation in recent history. For a period while agents searched for the laptops, all of MacDill was sealed.
Ferrell has been in custody at the base since Aug. 9 but wasn't identified until last week when he was charged. He was arrested after Office of Special Investigations agents said he had confessed during what began as a routine interview.
Public records show that at about the same time, Ferrell declared bankruptcy and said he was more than $31,000 in debt, with his only assets a wedding ring, television, VCR and a microwave oven.
Under the military justice system, Ferrell must go to something known as an Article 32 procedure to determine whether there is sufficient cause for him to be court-martialed. That will occur at MacDill in November, the Air Force said.
If a court-martial is ordered, it presumably would be a general court-martial, rather than a special court-martial, which would be called were the case to involve more serious allegations such as espionage.
If convicted on all counts, Ferrell faces a maximum of 22 years at Fort Leavenworth military prison in Kansas, dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances and reduction in rank to airman basic.
Reporter George Coryell can be reached at (813) 259-7966.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Looks of spy plane are deceiving
From combined dispatches
October 17, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021017-86360157.htm
The Army RC-7B spy plane ordered by the Pentagon to help hunt for a sniper terrorizing the Washington area is a much more potent weapon than its looks would suggest.
The new and modified version of the original four-engine, turboprop De Havilland Canada Dash-7 airliner is packed with sophisticated surveillance equipment. It can track people and vehicles on the ground day and night.
The quiet RC-7B (R for reconnaissance) carries a crew of pilot, co-pilot and four systems operators. But the $17 million electronics system is highly automated to reduce workload on the crew.
Used in recent years to hunt for drug smugglers in Latin America and to look closely at the military in North Korea, it also carries computer-enhanced, long-range camera equipment.
The aircraft is 80 feet long, has a wingspan of 93 feet and can stay aloft for nearly 10 hours at a stretch, circling an area to watch the ground with heat-seeking infrared and other sensors.
It could provide high-resolution imagery and night vision for such things as tracking the light-colored van that authorities say was seen at one or more of the shooting sites. Infrared sensors that can detect flashes of gunfire on the ground also could be used, officials said.
The Pentagon earlier considered using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) such as the military's Predator spy plane, but that option was rejected because of major requirements for such craft over Afghanistan and in the Gulf region.
The response to a request from the FBI and local police to use the military in a domestic criminal case is not unprecedented. But it is highly unusual and reflects the pressure in the search for a sniper who has killed nine persons and wounded two others since Oct. 2.
While defense officials declined to provide specifics of the operation except to say that only a small number of planes would be involved, they stressed that crews would include civilian federal agents and that the military would not become directly involved in police work.
Under terms of the federal Posse Comitatus law, the military can provide equipment, supplies, technical assistance and training to domestic law enforcement agencies. But it cannot be involved in making arrests or other such direct civilian police work.
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Spies, lies and polygraphs
Drew Richardson
October 17, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20021017-15032558.htm
Recently, the National Academy of Sciences issued a landmark report regarding the use of polygraphy by various federal agencies. Although many issues were explored and several conclusions were drawn, none was more important than the finding that polygraph screening is completely invalid as a diagnostic instrument for determining truth regarding counter-terrorism, counter-espionage, past activities of job applicants and other important issues currently so assessed by our various federal, state and local governments.
During an Associated Press briefing, it was stated by various panel members very clearly and emphatically that no spy had ever been caught as a result of polygraphy, none would ever be expected to be so revealed, and that although a precise figure cannot be assigned to the number of false-positive results, large numbers of the tens of thousands of people subjected yearly to this sort of "testing" are likely being falsely accused about their backgrounds and activities.
The jury is in and the evidence is clear and compelling. The American people should insist and our executive and legislative branches of government should ensure that the technological and sociological embarrassment we have come to know as polygraph screening should be immediately stopped. Not one more innocent applicant or employee should be falsely accused and not one more spy should be given cover through having passed a polygraph exam. The notion (as will be suggested by some in government agencies using polygraph screening) that this is just one tool among many being used to address problems is wrong and dangerous mumbo-jumbo. The results of polygraph screening examinations are either believed or they are not. If they are believed, they are acted upon and, furthermore, these actions, if based upon erroneous polygraph results, will continue to lead to the sorts of grave injury to country and citizens as previously noted.
There exist few, if any, better examples than polygraph screening to disprove the notion and oft-said maxim about "anything being better than nothing" as a solution for a problem. Although the difficulties of protecting the national security and of hiring trustworthy and competent employees do represent real challenges and do present real problems, polygraph screening is not, and never was, a meaningful solution to these problems. Many innocent and honest applicants have been and are wrongly being denied federal, state, and local government employment solely based on polygraph results. These individuals do not have an inalienable right to government employment, but they do have a right as U.S. citizens to fair and just treatment by their respective governments.
Spies such as Aldrich Ames and Ana Montes have been allowed to continue spying, at least in part due to the confidence placed in polygraph exams having been passed by these individuals while they were committing their acts of espionage. As has been demonstrated in spades over the years, not only is polygraph screening not a solution for the problems encountered by those entrusted with protecting the national security, but it is, in fact, a real threat itself to the national security and the reputations of our citizens.
Although the report correctly assesses there are many things that need to be changed and that there is much to be done over time to shore up the national security, there is only one compelling short-term action that screams for completion - end polygraph screening now. It presumably was not easy for this panel to tell their sponsors that procedures they are currently using are invalid as truth identifiers and lie detectors. Our governments should be no less courageous in following the panel conclusions with the timely decisions and policy actions so badly needed and so clearly required by this report.
Drew Richardson is a former supervisory special agent of the FBI as well as a research physiologist and former examiner in the FBI laboratory.
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AAA pulls its support for traffic cameras
By Brian DeBose
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
October 17, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20021017-78921861.htm
One of the foremost advocates of traffic safety has withdrawn support for the District's traffic camera enforcement program after city officials conceded revenue was a primary motivation.
The AAA, which supports the use of traffic cameras to enhance road safety, has rebuffed the city's plan to expand the program to earn more revenue.
The Metropolitan Police Department collected $18,368,436 in fines through August 2002 with the automated red-light enforcement program, which was implemented in August 1999 to combat "the serious problem of red-light running."
"There is a mixed message being sent here. When using these cameras you should not have a vested interest in catching one person running a red light or speeding," said Lon Anderson, spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic.
Mr. Anderson said that AAA brought attention to a camera that the automobile association deemed unfair on H Street Northeast adjacent to the Union Station garage exit. The camera was affixed at a location on a declining hill with a flashing yellow light that went to red without changing to a solid yellow.
"Drivers didn't even know they were running a light. That camera issued 20,000 tickets before we caught it," Mr. Anderson said.
He said the camera also caused its share of rear-end collisions, as opponents have contended since the first few months after the program began.
"At the H Street camera, we noticed several near rear-end collisions" Mr. Anderson said. "There have been studies that show that red-light cameras can cause an increase of rear-end accidents, but there aren't any hard numbers yet."
He said he became furious when he read reports in The Washington Times a week ago quoting D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams as saying that the cameras were about "money and safety." The mayor is also reported to have said that the city was looking to expand the program, in part, to earn revenue to offset a projected $323 million budget deficit.
Mr. Anderson said the mayor's comments made it appear as if the city had a dual policy on cameras and that they undercut the credibility of Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey's automated red-light enforcement program.
"That is what happens when you're putting [on] pressure for numbers," he said.
Until recently, both Mr. Williams and Chief Ramsey have said that the No. 1 goal of the cameras is to make the streets safer for motorists, pedestrians, and cyclists by targeting red-light violations and speed infractions.
The city also may be heading for a court fight, said Richard Diamond, spokesman for House Majority Leader Dick Armey, Texas Republican, a strong opponent of the cameras.
A number of cases against the cameras have been filed in D.C. Superior Court, but "when the courts get a hint that the case is trying to attack the system it is immediately dismissed," the spokesman said.
A recent report by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety showed that red-light running in the District had dropped 64 percent since the cameras were set up.
But Mr. Diamond and Mr. Anderson said that the report says nothing about the increased number of rear-end collisions that may have been caused by the cameras.
Richard Retting, the insurance institute's senior transportation engineer, said such collision increases were not studied for the report but may be included in studies later.
Mr. Anderson and Mr. Diamond said that drivers approaching red-light cameras are so afraid of being flashed that they slam on their brakes well short of intersections, surprising tailing motorists and causing accidents.
Mr. Diamond cited the camera problems last year in San Diego.
A judge threw out almost 292 traffic tickets issued by automated red-light cameras last year, ruling that the city had given away too much police power to the private company running the devices.
"The only reason we found out about the accident increases in San Diego is because the courts forced them to release all of the data," he said.
It also was discovered that the city's vendor, Lockheed Martin IMS, placed some of the cameras too close to the intersection and reduced the yellow-light time.
San Diego Police Chief David Bejarano later said that more accidents were reported at some camera intersections than prior to the red-light photo enforcement. And at some intersections there was no change in accident totals.
All of the information on the cameras' lack of effectiveness came after the courts forced the police department to release all the data.
"This is the only case where we have the full data and the cameras didn't work," Mr. Diamond said.
The Los Angeles Times reported last November that accidents also were up at red-light camera intersections in that city. It was also reported that accidents were up as much as 11 percent citywide.
---- coast guard
House, Senate Agree on Security Bill
October 17, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Port-Security.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- House and Senate negotiators broke an impasse Thursday over a bill to tighten security at the nation's ports, giving the Coast Guard additional powers and requiring background checks of some port employees and new tracking systems for commercial ships.
The bill also requires every seaport to create a security committee involving federal, state, local and private law enforcement agencies.
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., said the bill's need was underscored by the recent terrorist attack on a French oil tanker near a Yemeni port and the economic impact of a labor dispute at West Coast ports.
``The dire consequences of a terrorist event at our ports -- in human lives and economic disruption -- would be devastating,'' Hollings said. ``Completion of this legislation represents a significant step forward for the nation's security.''
The measure must be approved by the full Senate and the House, which won't consider it until after the Nov. 5 elections.
Since Sept. 11, concerns have been raised about possible terrorist attacks on ships containing highly flammable liquids or on fuel farms near ports, as well as the possibility of a nuclear weapon or other device hidden inside a container ship.
House Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young, R-Alaska, was especially pleased that the bill expands the Coast Guard's role, said his spokesman, Steve Hansen.
Young sponsored the House version of the bill, which would require the Coast Guard to assess every U.S. port's vulnerability to terrorism and security standards at foreign ports served by ships that call on the United States.
Ships from ports that don't meet those standards could be barred from entering U.S. ports, and the Coast Guard would be given new powers to board ships in order to deter a possible hijacking.
Hansen cautioned that the House and Senate have only agreed on about 90 percent of their differences.
``We have not reached a final agreement, but things are going very well,'' Hansen said.
The House and Senate differ over language requiring vessel operators to provide background information about crews, he said.
The House and Senate had both passed a port security bill and worked out their main differences in conference, but couldn't agree on how to come up with the $1.2 billion to pay for it.
The bill would fund such security measures as cargo scanning equipment and transponders to keep track of ships.
Hollings, another sponsor, wanted to impose a user fee on shippers, which the House opposed. He agreed to drop the user fee because, he said, the bill was too important to wait until the next session. He said he will work with the Bush administration and the House to resolve the funding issue.
House and Senate negotiators expect to pass a finished bill during the week of Nov. 11, after Congress returns from its election recess, Hollings said.
The bill also:
--Requires a maritime intelligence system be developed to collect and analyze information about ships that operate in U.S. waters;
--Restricts guns and other weapons at U.S. ports.
--Establishes a sea marshal program.
On the Net:
The bill number is S. 1214 and can be found at
http://www.thomas.loc.gov
------- immigration/customs
U.S. Borders Lack Radiation Detectors
October 17, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nuclear-Smuggling.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- It may be several years before border checkpoints will have the equipment needed to detect nuclear material being smuggled into the country, government auditors told a congressional hearing Thursday. One lawmaker called the program to beef up border checkpoints ``ineffective and plodding.''
The General Accounting Office said that while the federal government in recent years has spent more than $11.2 million to install portal radiation monitors in Russia, only one U.S. border point has them more than a year after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks -- and that is part of a pilot project to test the equipment.
More than 4,200 radiation ``pagers'' that have been given to border patrol agents and are designed to hang from their belts ``have limited range and are not designed to detect weapons-usable nuclear material,'' the GAO said. It said the devices ``may be inappropriate for the task'' because of their limitations.
Customs officials said the pagers have been shown to detect radiation that could be used for making a dirty bomb.
Unlike the pagers, the portal monitors are designed to scan individuals and vehicles for nuclear material as they pass through checkpoints on the nation's borders or at other entry points such as airports.
U.S. Customs Commissioner Robert Bonner said the agency has bought 172 of the radiation devices, with 40 of them expected to arrive soon. More are being ordered.
``These systems are being and will be deployed as rapidly as the manufacturers build them,'' Bonner told a House Energy and Commerce investigations subcommittee.
But deployment of the portal detectors also has been complicated because the technology is so sensitive, Customs officials said. It detects the smallest levels of radiation from a shipment of bananas or a cargo of TV sets as easily as hidden plutonium or uranium, Customs spokesman Dennis Murphy said in an interview.
To deal with that, the agency is buying devices that can identify different isotopes to work in tandem with the portal monitors, said Murphy. ``One of our concerns is jamming up the borders with too many (false) hits. You could really create some backups that we don't need.''
The GAO report to the subcommittee said Customs hopes to have 400 of the portal radiation monitors a year from now, but that it will probably take several more years to evaluate the equipment, get it working properly and train users.
Still, lawmakers were not impressed with the progress so far.
The government is spending $8.3 billion on a missile defense shield and a war with Iraq will cost billions and cost American lives, said Rep. James Greenwood, R-Pa., the subcommittee's chairman. ``Given these stark facts, there is simply no explanation for the federal government's diffuse, ineffective and plodding effort to secure this nation's ports and borders from nuclear terrorism.''
``Our ports and borders are not significantly more secure against nuclear smuggling than before the (September 11) attacks,'' added Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., chairman of the full Energy and Commerce committee.
Bonner said that 200 X-ray vans with radiation detection units have been deployed to examine individual packages coming through checkpoints. And 96 large-scale X-ray systems that can detect gamma radiation are being used to screen samples of cargo containers coming into the U.S. ports.
The portal monitors have been effective in Russia.
Linton Brooks, acting administrator of the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration, said that over the last five years 250 of the devices have been deployed in Russia under a DOE program.
``The protection of U.S. borders,'' he said, ``really begins thousands of miles from our shores.''
Bonner and other administration officials testified that their effort is focused on detecting nuclear, chemical or biological material before it reaches U.S. ports and -- as Bonner put it -- ``pushing our zone of security outward so American borders are the last line of defense, not the first.''
A key element of the strategy involves targeting high-risk containers and other shipments by closely examining shipping manifests before a cargo leaves the foreign port. Any high-risk containers would then be screened by available radiation detection technology.
Seven countries, representing 11 of the largest 20 ports that ship to the United States, have agreed to the screening and inspection programs. But Bonner acknowledged the success of the program largely depends on accurate cargo manifest information.
And the program is focused on the more than 5.7 million cargo containers that are shipped into the United States annually, and not finding nuclear material that might be carried by an individual or a single vehicle, crossing a border checkpoint.
-------- terrorism
U.S. Worried Al-Qaida Targeting Oil
By John J. Lumpkin
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, October 17, 2002; 1:38 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38177-2002Oct17?language=printer
WASHINGTON -- The terrorist bombing of a French oil tanker off Yemen and a foiled attack on a Saudi oil complex has American counterterrorism officials worried that al-Qaida is targeting petroleum interests in the Middle East.
Recent statements attributed to senior al-Qaida leaders also suggest economic interests, including oil, are being considered for strikes. This would be a new tactic for the terrorist network, which has previously focused its attacks in the Middle East on the U.S. military and diplomatic presence there.
Saudi authorities reported averting an attack on a major pipeline and oil terminal complex this summer, said a U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Documents recovered during the war in Afghanistan also suggested al-Qaida was planning strikes on oil interests, another defense official said.
On Wednesday, Yemeni officials also acknowledged an explosives-laden boat crashed into the French tanker Limburg on Oct. 6 off the coast of Yemen, killing one crewman. U.S. counterterrorism officials say they believe the attack was conducted by al-Qaida operatives.
Details of the Saudi plot were sketchy, but Saudi authorities are said to have made more than 20 arrests over the summer in connection with the planned strike.
The target was believed to have been the Ras Tanura oil terminal and refinery, as well as pipelines that serve it. Whether the plotters had the capability to knock such a large facility out of action is unclear.
The sprawling industrial complex, on the Persian Gulf, daily transfers 5 million barrels of oil to tankers, more than 6 percent of the 76 million barrels produced worldwide each day.
"It's the single most important facility in the oil industry," said Roger Diwan, an energy market analyst with the Petroleum Finance Company in Washington. "It's the vital artery for oil exports."
A strike on a single tanker has a negligible economic effect, experts said. Pipeline bombings - a frequent tactic of Colombian guerillas - are troublesome, but lines can be repaired. But a successful bombing of Ras Tanura could have far-reaching consequences, even if the complex was not shut down, experts said.
Fear of strikes on the oil industry could cause prices to rise, as suppliers worldwide take extra security precautions and insurance premiums go up, experts said. Much of the Ras Tanura terminal's oil is bound for Asia, but plenty goes to Europe and the Americas, analysts said.
"Ras Tanura is a vast complex," said Diwan. "It's very well-secured. It has redundant facilities. You put a bomb somewhere; it doesn't matter." It also is extremely difficult to approach without being detected, he said.
Experts said major bombings at multiple points would be necessary to even damage the complex.
But if Ras Tanura shut down for a significant period, oil shortages are a possibility, particularly if Iraqi oil also stopped flowing during a U.S. invasion, said Lowell Feld, an oil analyst at the Energy Information Administration, a statistical agency in the Department of Energy.
U.S. counterterrorism officials see attacks on oil interests in line with recent promises by al-Qaida leaders to attack economic targets. And Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud said last week that authorities had recently made several new arrests of al-Qaida operatives, but declined to go into detail.
On Oct. 6, an audio tape of Osama bin Laden, aired on the pan-Arabic al-Jazeera network, threatened strikes that "target your economic lifeline." The voice is believed, indeed, to be bin Laden's, but it is not known when the recording was made.
On Monday, a written statement, attributed to bin Laden, was given to al-Jazeera and appeared on some Internet sites associated with Islamic extremists. "By exploding the oil tanker in Yemen," it said, "the holy warriors hit the umbilical cord and lifeline of the crusader community."
U.S. officials aren't certain bin Laden wrote it.
Associated Press Writer Pauline Jelinek contributed to this story.
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