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NUCLEAR
Treat Iraq, N. Korea the Same
TRIAL TO BEGIN IN CASE OF DEPLETED URANIUM WORKER
Timeline: India
New Sites May Be Inspected in Iraq
Japan Mulls Constitutional Changes
North Korea warns of nuclear retaliation
UN Wants Talks with N.Korea on Nuclear Arms Reports
N. Korea missile threat increases
N. Korea Official Defends Nukes
Russians Now Fault N. Korea on Nuclear Talk
U.S. Rules Out Talks With N. Korea
U.S. Skips Talks, Shows Displeasure with N.Korea
Lawsuit to Block President Bush's Withdrawal from ABM Treaty
Study: No Cancer Jump Near Pa. Plant
Normal Cancer Rate Found Near Three Mile Island Plant
Global Eye -- Into the Dark
Bush's Iraq adventure is bound to backfire
Exposing Karl Rove
MILITARY
Veterans Sue Over Secret Biological, Chemical Tests
ASEAN leaders to weigh counterterrorism agenda
U.S. Tested Sarin in Hawaiian Rain Forest
U.S. Tested a Nerve Gas in Hawaii
U.S. Bioterror Readiness Assessed
U.S. Finds Hurdles in Search for Nonlethal Gas
Iraq VP Sends U.S. Harsh Warning
Crucial US allies on Iraq fall out over oil
Iraqi Intelligence
Metzger arrives for consultations ahead of Iraq war
Sharon Said to Offer Foreign Ministry Post to Netanyahu
U.S. Official Omits Disputed Charge Against Syria
Conflict Between Chechens and Russia
Satellite To Be 'Boosted' By Microwave Beam Proposed
The Space Industry: Supporting U.S. Supremacy
CIA Touts Successes In Fighting Terrorism
Shift Toward the U.S. Stand on Iraq Is Noted in Council
Rivalry between Defense Department, CIA reportedly growing
Doubt in the Ranks
Pentagon takes over program to gather intelligence on Iraq
130,000 troops sought for invasion force in Iraq
Pentagon agrees to Navy's new generation of carriers
U.S. Orders Large Volume of Ammunition to Gulf
Fighting terror
Russian Deputies Back New Post-Siege Media Curbs
Russia Backs New Restrictions on Press Freedom
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Qaeda Uses Teeming Karachi as New Base, Pakistanis Say
ENERGY AND OTHER
Scientists Say a Quest for Clean Energy Must Begin Now
Massive Solar Development Underway in Arizona
U.S. scientists say fossil fuel alternatives lacking
At Climate Meeting, Unlikely Ally for Have-Nots
Syrian Kurds Speak Out for Equality
ACTIVISTS
Nuclear Threat Initiative Fact Sheet
9/11 Relatives, Suing Saudis, to Protest Today
New Action on Iraq
Halloween Parade - NYC
-------- NUCLEAR
Treat Iraq, N. Korea the Same:
Nonmilitary Means Can Work
COMMENTARY
By Stansfield Turner
November 1, 2002
Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/la-oe-turner1nov01,0,1864459.story
In responding to North Korea's confession of nuclear perfidy, we are missing the bigger picture.
The issue is not whether North Korea or Iraq is the greater threat to us today. It is that we have every reason to believe both countries are striving to acquire nuclear weapons. Both should be stopped cold, not just for what they might do with such weapons but for the precedent it would set for other would-be proliferators.
Back in 1990, the United Nations Security Council agreed that it was important to denuclearize Iraq. It forced a highly intrusive inspection-and-destruction regime on the Iraqis, an unprecedented interference with a sovereign nation, in the name of preventing nuclear proliferation. That regime, unfortunately, was allowed to lapse in 1998.
Why is it any less important today? Should not the Security Council be even more concerned, in light of North Korea's admitted effort to acquire nuclear weapons? Or is the world community going to give up on preventing the spread of nuclear weaponry?
If the Security Council or some other group does not reinstate the inspection/destruction regime in Iraq and begin one in North Korea, a moment of opportunity may pass.
Rather than debate whether we should deal with Iraq through war and North Korea through diplomacy, we should insist on the same treatment for both.
That would be an even more coercive approach than the 1970 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the 1990 sanctions on Iraq or the 1994 agreements with North Korea. It could include economic sanctions, such as those now in effect with Iraq; diplomatic isolation, including suspension from the U.N.; physical isolation, including flight bans; and financial isolation, including denial of access to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
This would be an ambitious undertaking. The United States would have to sell it to the Security Council, NATO or some other enforcing grouping.
That would not be easy, but there are reasons to be hopeful. One is that applying the same rules to both nations would lessen the sting for nations that support one or the other. Another is that there would be a long-range objective, limiting the numbers of nuclear powers to those existing today, with which few nations could take issue.
In short, we must look past Iraqi and North Korean programs for weapons of mass destruction to a broader purpose. The hour is getting late, but if the world community sets an objective of preventing further nuclear proliferation, there is at least a chance it could work.
The United States should not pass up such an opportunity in a rush to settle scores with Saddam Hussein, stop him from supporting terrorists or some other objective.
A world of many nuclear powers could easily be a world that experiences the use of nuclear weapons. Is that the world we want to leave to our children and grandchildren?
Retired Adm. Stansfield Turner, a former CIA director, is on the faculty of the School of Public Affairs at the University of Maryland.
-------- depleted uranium
TRIAL TO BEGIN IN CASE OF DEPLETED URANIUM WORKER WHO BLEW THE WHISTLE ON SEVERE DEFICIENCIES AT INEEL
From: Clare Gilbert <clareg@whistleblower.org>
Date: Fri, 01 Nov 2002
MEDIA ADVISORY
FOR: Friday, November 1, 2002
CONTACT: Tom Carpenter, GAP,
tel. (206)292-2850
(206)409-5829 (after 11/3/02)
Clare Gilbert, GAP, tel. (206)292-2850
(206)579-5466 (after 11/3/02)
Clint Jensen, an employee at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEEL), is suing his employer for harassment and discrimination against him for his raising of safety and health concerns involving exposure to Depleted Uranium (DU). Mr. Jensen worked at INEEL's Specific Manufacturing Capability, which processes DU to line the U.S. Army's M1-A1 Abrams Main Battle Tanks. After observing numerous health and safety violations at the SMC program and developing Gulf War Syndrome-like symptoms, Mr. Jensen began raising his concerns that his ill health, and the ill health and pre-mature deaths of his co-workers, might be a result of occupational exposures. Mr. Jensen's employer responded by engaging in numerous retaliatory and discriminatory acts, in an attempt to silence Mr. Jensen and remove him from the workplace.
WHISTLEBLOWER TRIAL
WHO: Clinton Jensen v. Bechtel B&W Idaho LLC
WHEN: Tuesday, November 5, 2002 - Thursday, November 7, 2002
9:00 am - 5:00 pm each day
WHERE: Bonneville County Courthouse
605 N. Capitol
Idaho Falls, ID 83402-3582
Fact Sheet, and Frequently Asked Questions are attached (embargoed until Monday November 4, 2002) and will will be available at www.whistleblower.org on November 4 , 2002. Feel free to contact Tom Carpenter or Clare Gilbert with any questions before then.
-------- india / pakistan
Timeline: India
Friday, 1 November, 2002
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1155813.stm
A chronology of key events:
1858 - India comes under direct rule of the British crown after failed Indian mutiny.
1885 - Indian National Congress founded as forum for emerging nationalist feeling.
Mahatma Gandhi Mahatma Gandhi: Revered as father of the nation 1920-22 - Nationlist figurehead Mahatma Gandhi launches anti-British civil disobedience campaign.
1942-43 - Congress launches "Quit India" movement.
1947 - End of British rule and partition of sub-continent into mainly Hindu India and Muslim-majority state of Pakistan.
Newly independent
1947-48 - Hundreds of thousands die in widespread communal bloodshed after partition.
1948 - Mahatma Gandhi assassinated by Hindu extremist.
1948 - War with Pakistan over disputed territory of Kashmir.
1951-52 - Congress Party wins first general elections under leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru.
Regional tensions
1962 - India loses brief border war with China.
1964 - Death of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
1965 - Second war with Pakistan over Kashmir.
1966 - Nehru's daughter Indira Gandhi becomes prime minister.
1971 - Third war with Pakistan over creation of Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan.
1971 - Twenty-year treaty of friendship signed with Soviet Union.
1974 - India explodes first nuclear device in underground test.
Democratic strains
1975 - Indira Gandhi declares state of emergency after being found guilty of electoral malpractice.
Indira Gandhi Indira Gandhi: State of emergency led to mass arrests 1975-1977 - Nearly 1,000 political opponents imprisoned and programme of compulsory birth control introduced.
1977 - Indira Gandhi's Congress Party loses general elections.
1980 - Indira Gandhi returns to power heading Congress party splinter group, Congress (Indira).
1984 - Troops storm Golden Temple - Sikh's most holy shrine - to flush out Sikh militants pressing for self-rule.
1984 - Indira Gandhi assassinated by Sikh bodyguards, following which her son, Rajiv, takes over.
1984 December - Gas leak at Union Carbide pesticides plant in Bhopal. Thousands are killed immediately, many more subsequently die or are left disabled.
1987 - India deploys troops for peacekeeping operation in Sri Lanka's ethnic conflict.
Rajiv Gandhi coffin The body of Rajiv Gandhi after his killing by pro-Tamil assassin 1989 - Falling public support leads to Congress defeat in general election.
1990 - Indian troops withdrawn from Sri Lanka.
1990 - Muslim separatist groups begin campaign of violence in Kashmir.
1991 - Rajiv Gandhi assassinated by suicide bomber sympathetic to Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers.
1991 - Economic reform programme begun by Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao.
1992 - Hindu extremists demolish mosque in Ayodhya, triggering widespread Hindu-Muslim violence.
BJP to the fore
1996 - Congress suffers worst ever electoral defeat as Hindu nationalist BJP emerges as largest single party.
India's nuclear-capable Agni missile Nuclear tests raised fears of an arms race 1998 - BJP forms coalition government under Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.
1998 - India carries out nuclear tests, leading to widespread international condemnation.
1999 February - Vajpayee makes historic bus trip to Pakistan to meet Premier Nawaz Sharif and to sign bilateral Lahore peace declaration.
1999 May - Tension in Kashmir leads to brief war with Pakistan-backed forces in the icy heights around Kargil in Indian-held Kashmir.
1999 October - Cyclone devastates eastern state of Orissa, leaving at least 10,000 dead.
Population: 1 billion
2000 May - India marks birth of its billionth citizen.
2000 - US President Bill Clinton makes groundbreaking visit to India to improve ties.
2001 January - Massive earthquakes hit western state of Gujarat, leaving at least 30,000 dead.
2001 April - Sixteen Indian and three Bangladeshi soldiers killed in their worst border clashes. High-powered rocket launched, propelling India into ranks of select club of countries able to fire big satellites deep into space.
Pakistani-Indian summit: Musharraf and Vajpayee meet but fail to achieve a breakthrough 2001 July - Vajpayee meets Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in the first summit between the two neighbours in more than two years. The meeting ends without a breakthrough or even a joint statement because of differences over Kashmir.
2001 July - Vajpayee's BJP party declines his offer to resign over a number of political scandals and the apparent failure of his talks with Pakistani President Musharraf.
2001 September - US lifts sanctions which it imposed against India and Pakistan after they staged nuclear tests in 1998. The move is seen as a reward for their support for the US anti-terror campaign.
Kashmir tensions rise
2001 October - India fires on Pakistani military posts in the heaviest firing along the dividing line of control in Kashmir for almost a year.
2001 December - Suicide squad attacks parliament in New Dehli, killing several police. The five gunmen die in the assault.
2001 December - India imposes sanctions against Pakistan, to force it to take action against two Kashmir militant groups blamed for the suicide attack on parliament. Pakistan retaliates with similar sanctions, and bans the groups in January.
Fires of hate rage for weeks after Muslims attacked a train carrying Hindu activists in February 2002 Religious strife: A body is removed after a train attack which sparked weeks of rioting 2001 December - India, Pakistan mass troops on common border amid mounting fears of a looming war.
2002 January - India successfully test-fires a nuclear-capable ballistic missile - the Agni - off its eastern coast.
2002 February - The worst inter-religious bloodshed in a decade breaks out in western India after Muslims set fire to a train carrying Hindus returning from pilgrimage to Ayodhya. More than 800, mainly Muslims, die in revenge killings by Hindu mobs over the next two months.
2002 May - More than 30 people killed in raid on Indian army camp in Kashmir, which India blames on Pakistani-based rebels. Moderate Kashmiri separatist leader Abdul Gani Lone shot dead at a meeting in Srinagar.
Vajpayee tells front-line troops that the time has come for a decisive fight.
Kashmir, India, May, 2002 Fear of war: Villagers flee the Kashmir front-line as cross-border shelling intensifies Pakistan test fires three medium-range surface-to-surface Ghauri missiles, which are capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Musharraf tells nation that Pakistan doesn't want war but is ready to respond with full force if attacked.
India accuses Pakistan of stoking tensions and says there will be no talks or military pull-back until Pakistan halts "cross-border terrorism".
2002 June - Britain and USA maintain diplomatic offensive to avert war, urge their citizens to leave India and Pakistan.
2002 July - Retired scientist APJ Abdul Kalam is elected president. Dr Kalam - known as "Missile Man" - was the architect of India's missile programme. He becomes India's third Muslim president.
2002 October - India says its troops have begun withdrawing from the border with Pakistan; Islamabad says it wants proof before starting its own pull-back.
--
Timeline: Pakistan
Friday, 1 November, 2002, 11:02 GMT (BBC)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1156716.stm
A chronology of key events:
1906 - Muslim League founded as forum for Indian Muslim separatism.
1940 - Muslim League endorses idea of separate nation for India's Muslims.
1947 - Muslim state of East and West Pakistan created out of partition of India at the end of British rule. Hundreds of thousands die in widespread communal violence and millions are made homeless.
1948 - Muhammed Ali Jinnah, the first governor general of Pakistan, dies.
1948 - First war with India over disputed territory of Kashmir.
Military rule
1951 - Jinnah's successor Liaquat Ali Khan is assassinated.
1956 - Constitution proclaims Pakistan an Islamic republic.
1958 - Martial law declared and General Ayyub Khan takes over.
1960 - General Ayyub Khan becomes president.
War and secession
1965 - Second war with India over Kashmir.
Pakistani troops Pakistan and India have fought three wars
1969 - General Ayyub Khan resigns and General Yahya Khan takes over.
1970 - Victory in general elections in East Pakistan for breakaway Awami League, leading to rising tension with West Pakistan.
1971 - East Pakistan attempts to secede, leading to civil war. India intervenes in support of East Pakistan which eventually breaks away to become Bangladesh.
1972 - Simla peace agreement with India sets new frontline in Kashmir.
1973 - Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto becomes prime minister.
Zia takes charge
1977 - Riots erupt over allegations of vote-rigging by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP). General Zia ul-Haq stages military coup.
General Zia General Zia: Killed in mysterious air crash 1978 - General Zia becomes president.
1979 - Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto hanged.
1980 - US pledges military assistance to Pakistan following Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.
1985 - Martial law and political parties ban lifted.
1986 - Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's daughter Benazir returns from exile to lead PPP in campaign for fresh elections.
1988 August - General Zia, the US ambassador and top Pakistan army officials die in mysterious air crash.
Bhutto comeback
1988 November - Benazir Bhutto's PPP wins general election.
Benazir Bhutto Benazir Bhutto: Dogged by corruption charges 1990 - Benazir Bhutto dismissed as prime minister on charges of incompetence and corruption.
1991 - Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif begins economic liberalisation programme. Islamic Shariah law formally incorporated into legal code.
1992 - Government launches campaign to stamp out violence by Urdu-speaking supporters of the Mohajir Quami Movement.
1993 - President Khan and Prime Minister Sharif both resign under pressure from military. General election brings Benazir Bhutto back to power.
Politics and corruption
1996 - President Leghari dismisses Bhutto government amid corruption allegations.
1997 - Nawaz Sharif returns as prime minister after his Pakistan Muslim League party wins elections.
1998 - Pakistan conducts its own nuclear tests after India explodes several devices.
1999 April - Benazir Bhutto and her husband convicted of corruption and given jail sentences. Benazir stays out of the country.
1999 October - Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif overthrown in military coup led by General Pervez Musharraf. Coup is widely condemned, Pakistan is suspended from Commonwealth.
2000 April - Nawaz Sharif sentenced to life imprisonment on hijacking and terrorism charges.
2000 December - Nawaz Sharif goes into exile in Saudi Arabia after being pardoned by military authorities.
Prime minister Nawaz Sharif, overthrown in 1999 coup Ousted in coup: Premier Nawaz Sharif 2001 20 June - Gen Pervez Musharraf names himself president while remaining head of the army. He replaced the figurehead president, Rafiq Tarar, who vacated his position earlier in the day after the parliament that elected him was dissolved.
2001 July - Musharraf meets Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in the first summit between the two neighbours in more than two years. The meeting ends without a breakthrough or even a joint statement because of differences over Kashmir.
2001 September - Musharraf swings in behind the US in its fight against terrorism and supports attacks on Afghanistan. US lifts some sanctions imposed after Pakistan's nuclear tests in 1998, but retains others put in place after Musharraf's coup.
Protesters burn President Bush in effigy, October 2001 Anti-US anger: Pakistanis protest against US attacks on Afghanistan
Kashmir tensions
2001 October - India fires on Pakistani military posts in the heaviest firing along the dividing line of control in Kashmir for almost a year.
2001 December - India imposes sanctions against Pakistan, to force it to take action against two Kashmir militant groups blamed for a suicide attack on parliament in New Dehli. Pakistan retaliates with similar sanctions.
2001 December - India, Pakistan mass troops along common border amid mounting fears of a looming war.
Pakistani soldier near Line of Control in Chakoti, Pakistan-administered Kashmir Mountain flashpoint: a Pakistani soldier on guard duty in Kashmir 2002 January - President Musharraf bans two militant groups - Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad - and takes steps to curb religious extremism.
2002 January - Musharraf announces that elections will be held in October 2002 to end three years of military rule.
2002 April - Musharraf wins another five years in office in a referendum criticised as unconstitutional and fraught with irregularities.
2002 May - 14 people, including 11 French technicians, are killed in a suicide attack on a bus in Karachi. The following month 12 people are killed in a suicide attack outside the US consulate in the city.
2002 May - Pakistan test fires three medium-range surface-to-surface Ghauri missiles, which are capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Musharraf tells nation that Pakistan doesn't want war but is ready to respond with full force if attacked.
2002 June - Britain and USA maintain diplomatic offensive to avert war, urge their citizens to leave India and Pakistan.
2002 August - President Musharraf grants himself sweeping new powers, including the right to dismiss an elected parliament. Opposition forces accuse Musharraf of perpetuating dictatorship.
2002 October - First general election since the 1999 military coup results in a hung parliament. Parties haggle over the make-up of a coalition. Religious parties fare better than expected.
2002 October - Pakistan says it wants proof of India's promised troop withdrawal from their common border before starting its own pull-back.
-------- inspections
New Sites May Be Inspected in Iraq
November 1, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Iraq-Sites.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. and U.N. officials preparing for tough new weapons inspections in Iraq are comparing notes on sites inspectors will want to check for evidence of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
At the top of the list are known ``dual use'' sites that could provide a legitimate civilian cover story for illicit weapons work. Those facilities include laboratories that Iraq says make vaccines but inspectors suspect make biological weapons, and chemical factories Iraq says are legitimate but intelligence agencies say could make chemical weapons.
Former U.N. weapons inspector Jonathan Tucker said inspecting those facilities would make it impossible for Iraq to use them to make weapons.
``That would force Iraq, if it intends to violate U.N. resolutions, to do so in clandestine facilities which are inherently more difficult to use and riskier,'' Tucker said.
The United States is working at the U.N. Security Council to develop a resolution outlining conditions for new weapons inspections in Iraq and threatening consequences if Iraq does not comply. Russia, China and France -- which each has veto power -- have opposed resolutions the United States has presented thus far that authorize the use of military force against Iraq if inspections are thwarted.
U.N. inspectors first entered Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War to enforce Security Council resolutions demanding that Saddam Hussein give up all of his weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. The inspectors left in 1998 in a dispute over Iraq's refusal to let them inspect presidential sites and because they knew U.S and British airstrikes on Iraq were about to begin. Four days of those airstrikes followed, and the inspectors have yet to return.
If inspectors return, part of their mission will be to inspect known weapons sites to see what has changed since 1998. A more important and sensitive part of the mission will be to inspect other sites where banned weapons or the equipment to make them could be hidden.
Intelligence from the United States and other countries will help that search. For example, U.S. intelligence has a few hundred suspected underground weapons sites in Iraq it wants information on, said a defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Any sites weapons inspectors look at also would be possible targets of a U.S.-led military campaign. Officials from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, known as UNMOVIC, have said they will not share their findings with U.S. intelligence agencies until they report to the United Nations.
But former inspectors say information sharing has to go both ways to be effective.
``My experience is you have to discuss the information given to you,'' said former weapons inspector Terrence Taylor of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. ``You can't just have someone give you a note with information, say, 'Thank you very much,' and walk away.''
A push to investigate sites where weapons are hidden -- or the grounds of Saddam's palaces -- could provoke a confrontation with Iraq.
Hans Blix, the head of UNMOVIC, is not seeking a deliberate provocation, said Ronald Cleminson, a Canadian UNMOVIC commissioner.
``I don't think he's looking at his actions as pushing a confrontation,'' said Cleminson, who also was a member of the previous U.N. inspection commission. ``If he found he didn't have the cooperation from Iraq that he feels is essential, I think he would reflect and go back to the Security Council.''
Many of the sites are clustered in and around Baghdad, Iraq's capital and largest city. That's where UNMOVIC's Iraq headquarters and 80 inspectors will be.
Most of the other sites are in the central belt of Iraq not covered by northern and southern no-fly zones patrolled by U.S. and British warplanes.
Some sites likely to be targeted include:
--Possible biological weapons facilities at Daura and Amiriyah, both near Baghdad. Both have civilian cover as vaccine facilities, but Iraq admitted to U.N. inspectors that both had been used in its biological weapons programs. Iraq announced last year it was renovating the Daura vaccine plant, damaged by U.S. and British airstrikes in 1991 and 1998.
--Chemical plants at al-Sharqat, Fallujah, al-Qa'qa and Tarmiyah. Chlorine and phosgene plants at Fallujah and al-Qa'qa have been rebuilt since allied airstrikes destroyed them; those two chemicals are precursors to the kinds of nerve agents Iraq has used in the past. Iraq has built a new chemical plant at al-Sharqat, a former uranium processing site, that U.S. and British intelligence agencies suspect could be part of a chemical, nuclear or missile program. The Ibn Sinah Company at Tarmiyah employs the scientist whom Saddam ordered to keep his chemical weapons experts together after the Gulf War, according to a British dossier on Iraq.
--Nuclear facilities at Tuwaitha. Iraq has done extensive rebuilding at this large complex, which was the heart of its nuclear weapons program, since 1998.
--Missile testing sites at al-Rafah and al-Mamoun. Iraq has built a test area at this site that's larger than the test areas used for its now-banned Scud missiles.
--Presidential palaces in Mosul and Radwaniyah. U.S. and British officials have released satellite photos of the sprawling Radwaniyah complex near Baghdad superimposed with outlines of the much smaller grounds of the White House and Buckingham Palace, suggesting the site is too large to be simply a retreat for Saddam. U.S. officials also have released satellite images of the Mosul site, identifying possible hardened bunkers and warehouses.
``These facilities suggest that presidential sites perform functions other than supporting the lifestyles of the rich and famous in Iraq,'' John Yurechko of the Defense Intelligence Agency told reporters.
On the Net:
UNMOVIC: http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/
CIA document on Iraq: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/iraq--wmd/Iraq--Oct--2002.htm
-------- japan
Japan Mulls Constitutional Changes
November 1, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Japan-No-War-Constitution.html
TOKYO (AP) -- Japanese lawmakers received a parliamentary report Friday that raised the traditionally taboo issue of scrapping a clause in the constitution that renounces war.
The supreme law, written by U.S. occupation forces after World War II, is a cornerstone of Japanese democracy and has not been amended since its 1947 adoption.
But after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, a growing number of Japanese lawmakers have expressed interest in changing Article 9, the section that renounces Japan's right to wage war.
The report presented Friday outlined the pros and cons of changing the constitution, but did not give recommendations.
Lawmakers in the current special session of Parliament may consider a bill to outline the role of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces, the euphemistic term for the military, in case of invasion.
At the same time, more politicians are advocating changes in Article 9 to give the government more freedom to participate in international peacekeeping operations and to assist allies in conflicts.
Japan needs to spell out its right to aid allies if they are attacked, a subject of debate among legal scholars, according to the report.
The government found itself restricted by Article 9 last fall when it debated whether to help the United States in the war on terrorism. While Parliament eventually sent troops to the Indian Ocean, they could only provide non-combat support.
A March poll of Parliament's upper and lower houses by the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper showed 55 percent of lawmakers favor amending Article 9, up from 41 percent five years ago.
Despite the trend, amending any part of the constitution is likely to be difficult. Public opinion is still cautious and many opposition lawmakers remain strongly opposed.
-------- korea
North Korea warns of nuclear retaliation
By Dmitry Zaks in Moscow
November 2 2002
Agence France-Presse
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/11/01/1036027036787.html
North Korea has a right to develop nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction because of a threat by the United States to its sovereignty, Pyongyang's ambassador to Moscow has said in the first firm defence of the Stalinist state's clandestine military program.
Rejecting US claims that it is acquiring these weapons, Pak Hui Chun denied that North Korea was developing a nuclear arsenal, calling the accusations groundless.
"We unambiguously told the US presidential special envoy that, facing a growing nuclear threat from the US, we have the right to possess not only nuclear but even more powerful weapons in order to defend our sovereignty and the right to survive," news agencies quoted Mr Pak as saying.
"If the US tries to crush us with tough policy, we will retaliate to this with super toughness," he warned.
On a more conciliatory note, Mr Pak said North Korea preferred to resolve its conflict with the US "through talks, not deterrence".
The ambassador further rejected US allegations that North Korea had abandoned a 1994 agreement in which Pyongyang had agreed to halt development of its nuclear program in exchange for Washington's assistance for its civilian nuclear energy program. However, Mr Pak said the US had "long ago lost its right to speak about observing the agreement" because Washington viewed North Korea as part of an "axis of evil" with Iran and Iraq.
In a rare appearance before Russian reporters, Mr Pak argued that the US had "failed to present any proof" that North Korea was enriching its uranium to weapons-grade during a visit there by the US State Department representative, James Kelly.
Washington officials said Pyongyang admitted to developing nuclear weapons one day after Mr Kelly presented irrefutable US intelligence information that showed North Korea was enriching uranium. Pyongyang, however, had remained silent over the report.
Moscow has often attempted to act as a mediator between Pyongyang and Washington.
Russian officials have said they have no evidence that North Korea has a nuclear weapons program, but at the same time scolded Pyongyang for its refusal to address the US allegations.
In an unusually harshly worded statement, the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Alexander Losyukov, said recent statements on nuclear arms used by North Korea "contain some ambiguity".
----
UN Wants Talks with N.Korea on Nuclear Arms Reports
Reuters
Friday, November 1, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A50400-2002Nov1?language=printer
VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Friday that reports North Korea had a secret nuclear weapons program were shocking and that it wants talks with Pyongyang as soon as possible.
"The new revelations or reports that they have in addition to plutonium also a uranium-enrichment program were quite shocking to us," International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei told Reuters in an interview.
The United States said North Korea had admitted to having a secret nuclear weapons program during a visit to Pyongyang early last month by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly.
ElBaradei said that the reports, if true, were not a complete surprise as Pyongyang had been in violation of its Safeguards Agreement with the U.N. agency since 1993.
"They have been in violation of their agreement with us since 1993 when we came to the conclusion that that they have developed more plutonium than was declared to us," he said.
After learning North Korea might have a uranium-enrichment program that could be used to make nuclear weapons, the IAEA requested immediate talks in Pyongyang or Vienna.
"We have received no response," said ElBaradei.
Earlier on Friday, Pyongyang's Ambassador to China defended North Korea's right have to nuclear weapons, without saying whether his country actually had any.
President Bush has labeled North Korea part of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and Iran and unveiled a doctrine of pre-emptive strikes against states allegedly developing weapons of mass destruction.
Although the IAEA has been carrying out very limited inspections in North Korea since the early 1990s, it has never been able to conduct intrusive inspections under the Safeguard Agreement needed to flush out any secret weapons program.
----
N. Korea missile threat increases
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 1, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021101-11616336.htm
North Korea is continuing to develop long-range missiles that threaten the United States and a basic defense system against them is about two years from deployment, the Pentagon's missile-defense chief said yesterday.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, director of the Missile Defense Agency, said North Korea's first long-range missile test in 1998 caught U.S. intelligence by surprise. As a result, missile-defense development efforts have shifted to meeting a range of threats rather than any specific danger from a single nation.
"Along the way, if we get threatened by North Korea, I think the American people understand we would not just sit by with five missiles in the hole and do nothing," Gen. Kadish said.
Asked if North Korea was continuing to develop its long-range Taepodong-2 missile without any flight tests, Gen. Kadish told a group of defense reporters: "All the indications that I see and watch, the answer is yes."
The Defense Intelligence Agency stated in a report made public by the Senate last month that North Korea's 1999 ban on missile flight tests was having "minimal" impact on continued development of the Taepodong-2 (TD-2).
"By precluding flight testing, the moratorium probably would delay deployment of TD-2 missiles as long as it remains in place," the DIA said, noting that the missile could be deployed without a flight test, although it would be unlikely.
"North Korea likely perceives its TD-2 ballistic missile capability primarily as a tool for deterrence and political coercion," the DIA said. "During a conflict, the North also could attempt to strike U.S. and U.S. interests with ballistic missiles, if North Korea's leadership were attacked directly or was facing imminent destruction."
The DIA stated that North Korea had one or two nuclear weapons.
Gen. Kadish said U.S. efforts to defend against threats of missile attack no longer are focused on the former Soviet Union and China but rogue states.
"It's not about the Soviet Union," he said. "It's about North Korea, it's about Iran, it's about Iraq, it's about Libya and other states that might threaten us in the process."
Iran is continuing to test missiles and "they continue to make progress," he said.
Nations that are building missile systems also appear willing to share missile technology, he said.
"They are moving from the capability of having very good systems in short-range missiles, to the intermediate and longer-range missiles that we're seeing," Gen. Kadish said. "And that's the trend."
North Korea, Iran, Iraq and Libya are key missile-developing states of concern against which the United States is preparing to build defenses, he said.
Gen. Kadish said the missile-defense test site being built at Fort Greely, Alaska, is moving ahead and by late 2004 or early 2005 will provide the nation with an emergency defense against a North Korean missile attack.
"Once the test bed is in place, there will be some amount of capability because of its location to handle any threats from North Korea that might arise, but it will be extremely limited," he said.
Five anti-missile interceptors will be deployed at the site.
Gen. Kadish singled out Libya as a state working hard to buy and build long-range missile systems.
"The Libyans have been pretty active in trying to get missile capability," he said. "And not just short range I will say this: They have enough money to buy it."
The Libyans appear to be having problems developing an indigenous missile capability, he said.
The CIA stated in an analysis made public by the Senate Intelligence Committee last month that Libya was "continuing its efforts to obtain ballistic missile-related equipment, materials, technology and expertise from foreign sources."
"Outside assistance is critical to Libya's ballistic missile development programs and may eventually result in Libya achieving its long-desired goal of a [medium-range ballistic missile] capability within a few years."
Gen. Kadish said the administration's withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty has made it easier to design and build missile defenses without the restrictions imposed under the Cold War-era agreement.
"My life got a lot better after the treaty, in terms of our ability to get the job done," he said.
Critics of the Bush administration's withdrawal from the treaty had warned that abrogating the pact would lead to a new arms race and a strategic missile buildup.
Gen. Kadish also said the military should step up purchases of a new Patriot missile system known as PAC-3, the first defense system built from the ground up to counter missiles. Earlier versions of the Patriot were designed as anti-aircraft systems.
"My recommendation has been and will continue to be to buy Patriot-3s as quickly and as fast as we can afford to buy them because they're ready to be bought," he said.
The U.S. military faces missile threats in the Middle East and in Northeast Asia.
Iraq's Scuds and short-range missiles can be countered more effectively today than during the 1991 Persian Gulf war, when Patriots had some success against Scuds, Gen. Kadish said.
The U.S. military and several nations in the Middle East have either a few Patriot PAC-3s or larger numbers of an earlier version known as PAC-2.
Israel is defended by the Arrow missile-defense system.
------
N. Korea Official Defends Nukes
November 1, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-China-NKorea.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51370-2002Nov1?language=printer
BEIJING (AP) -- North Korea's ambassador to China on Friday defended his country's right to develop nuclear weapons, calling the United States a bully that used ``gangster-like'' tactics.
North Korea shocked the world with its admission last month that it has an active program to develop nuclear arms. The disclosure came in talks with Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea.
But Ambassador Choe Jin Su said the U.S. envoy ``asserted with no evidence'' that North Korea was engaged in an enriched uranium program to make nuclear weapons.
He complained that Kelly said unless the program is halted, there would be no talks between North Korea and the United States, and North Korea's links with South Korea and Japan would be harmed.
``The U.S. unilateralism and high-handedness took the DPRK (North Korea) rather by surprise,'' the ambassador said at a lengthy news conference at the North Korean Embassy in Beijing. ``The U.S. is sadly mistaken if it thinks such gangster-like logic would work with the DPRK.''
The ambassador sidestepped questions about whether Pyongyang was actually developing nuclear weapons.
``The DPRK has neither need nor duty to explain something to the U.S.,'' Choe said.
The Bush administration considers the North Korean program a violation of its international non-nuclear commitments. Choe said the North is no longer bound by them since President Bush included it as part of the ``axis of evil'' with Iran and Iraq.
``Obviously, this was a declaration of war against the DPRK,'' Choe said.
He said North Korean officials told Kelly ``that the DPRK was entitled to possess not only nuclear weapons but any type of weapon more powerful than that.''
However, Choe said North Korea is prepared to talk about a nonaggression pact with the United States. Pyongyang has said that might clear the way for North Korea to end its nuclear weapons program, but administration officials have not indicated interest in such a treaty.
Meanwhile, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea said Friday he would visit Pyongyang soon. Donald Gregg, ambassador in Seoul in 1989-93, would not say whether he will discuss the nuclear weapons issue.
``I am going as an unofficial person,'' Gregg said. ``They invited me to come and we will talk freely.''
He had hoped to arrive in North Korea on Saturday but said he needed more time to arrange travel documents.
----
Russians Now Fault N. Korea on Nuclear Talk
From Associated Press
November 1, 2002
http://www.latimes.com/la-fg-norkor1nov01,0,4495089.story
MOSCOW -- In a sharp change of course, Russia on Thursday accused North Korea of being insufficiently forthcoming about its alleged nuclear weapons program, the Interfax news agency reported.
The U.S. said last month that North Korean officials admitted having a nuclear weapons program. A U.S. official then went to Russia to present Moscow with evidence of the alleged uranium-enrichment effort.
Moscow reacted with caution, saying it would like to independently check the information before drawing any conclusions.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov said that Moscow had received an explanation from the North Koreans but that it was insufficient, Interfax reported.
"There is some ambiguity in the statements by North Korean representatives," Losyukov was quoted as saying. "In our view, such ambiguity is very dangerous because it leads to mutual suspicions."
----
U.S. Rules Out Talks With N. Korea
November 1, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Korea-Japan.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration Friday ruled out any talks with North Korea until it dismantles a program that a senior U.S. official says is capable of producing one or two nuclear weapons.
Declaring North Korea's announcement last month that it was embarked on enriching uranium ``a cause of grave concern,'' Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton said North Korea had produced enough plutonium for one and possibly two nuclear weapons.
Bolton said North Korea led the world in export of missile technology and has active chemical and biological weapons programs.
Ruling out any talks with North Korea until it ``completely and verifiably'' dismantles its nuclear weapons program, Bolton said ``it's pretty hard to see how we can have conversations with a government that has blatantly violated its agreements.''
The Bush administration seeks a peaceful solution and is trying to apply diplomatic pressure on Pyongyang, he said at a conference on terrorism sponsored by the Hudson Institute.
The United States has not been in touch with North Korea since the disclosure last month that it has a nuclear program, said Philip T. Reeker, a State Department spokesman.
He said the ``channel'' to Pyongyang remains open if North Korean officials wish to use it to say the program is being dismantled.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith will consult in Japan and South Korea next week. Administration officials said Feith's week-long trip will be focused on coordination with the two closest U.S. allies in the region.
Some U.S. experts regard North Korea's acknowledgment of a nuclear program as a strategy to gain new economic and other concessions for the impoverished nation.
----
U.S. Skips Talks, Shows Displeasure with N.Korea
Reuters
Friday, November 1, 2002
By Jonathan Wright
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A53637-2002Nov1?language=printer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States showed its displeasure with North Korea this week by boycotting a meeting of the organization which helps Pyongyang with its energy supplies under a 1994 agreement, officials said on Friday.
The boycott was in response to North Korea's defiant attitude toward U.S. demands that it dismantle the uranium enrichment program it acknowledged to a U.S. official who visited Pyongyang last month, diplomats said.
But the move did not necessarily indicate the United States will stop cooperating, or that it will block the next shipment of heavy fuel oil to North Korea, which is due to leave Singapore in about 10 days, the officials said.
The fuel oil, funded by the United States, is meant to cover North Korea's energy needs until two light-water reactors come on line under the 1994 Agreed Framework.
Legal and technical experts from the U.S. State and Justice departments skipped a regular meeting of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, called to discuss technical aspects of building the reactors in North Korea.
The working-level meeting took place at organization headquarters in New York, starting on Wednesday and ending on Friday.
State Department spokesman Philip Reeker, asked why the experts did not attend, said: "In light of North Korea's admission of a uranium enrichment program for nuclear weapons purposes, and their declaration that they considered the Agreed Framework nullified, we are consulting with allies and friends to consider next steps in our approach with (the energy organization)."
Experts from Japan, South Korea and the European Union -- the other members of the energy organization's executive board -- attended the meeting, and North Korea sent a delegation of nine people to negotiate "nuclear liability issues," a diplomat said.
The North Koreans received their U.S. visas last week, after North Korea admitted the uranium enrichment project.
But denying the North Koreans visas would have been an exceptional measure, because the energy development organization is an international organization with privileges similar to those enjoyed by the United Nations in New York, the diplomat said.
SENT COMMENTS IN WRITING
The United States, in another sign that it is not withdrawing completely from the energy development process, sent technical comments and instructions to the meeting in writing, said the diplomat, who asked not to be named.
"They (the United States) just said they were not ready to meet the North Koreans, but they did not want to block the meeting as it was arranged before," he added.
The United States says it has not yet decided what to do if North Korea persists in refusing to dismantle the uranium program, which violates the Agreed Framework, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and other international obligations.
It says that it wants Asian allies Japan and South Korea, as well as Russia and China, to put diplomatic pressure on the North Koreans and that it will consult those allies before reaching a joint decision on their next steps.
The next major decision will come after a tanker carrying about 40,000 tons of heavy fuel oil leaves Singapore for North Korea around Nov. 10.
The energy organization's executive board will meet in mid-November and could, in theory, recall the vessel on the high seas, if the United States decides to withhold the fuel.
But the North Koreans could interpret that as a sign the United States is withdrawing completely from the arrangements agreed under the 1994 deal, leaving them free to pursue their own nuclear weapons plans.
The North Koreans have argued that their uranium project was in response to President Bush's inclusion of their country in an "axis of evil" and U.S. threats to launch preemptive strikes on countries it sees as a threat.
But U.S. officials have argued that the uranium project began years ago under the Clinton administration, well before Bush's "axis of evil" speech in January.
The purpose of the meeting this week was to prepare the arrangements for dealing with a nuclear accident at the two light-water reactors, which cannot easily produce material for nuclear weapons. The arrangements would have to be in place before any nuclear material arrives on site, but that is not scheduled to happen for several years.
-------- treaties
Oral Arguments Held in Lawsuit to Block President Bush's Withdrawal from ABM Treaty
From: Jackie Cabasso <wslf@earthlink.net>
For Immediate Release: October 31, 2002
The oral arguments in Kucinich v. Bush on Plaintiffs' Motion for Summary Judgment and Defendants' Motion to Dismiss took place today in Federal District court in Washington, DC. A written decision by Federal District Judge John Bates is expected in the next few weeks.
Thirty-one Members of Congress led by Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich filed the lawsuit on June 11, 2002 to block the President from withdrawing from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
The lawsuit, which names President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as defendants, requests a decision on whether or not the Constitution permits the President to withdraw from the treaty without the consent of Congress.
"By withdrawing from the ABM treaty, the Administration puts global security at risk, by altering the careful balance of nuclear deterrence that has protected the world for 30 years," stated Kucinich.
"The President's termination of the ABM treaty represents an unconstitutional repeal of a law duly enacted by Congress. If the President is allowed to repeal laws at his own instance, it would be destructive of our Constitution. It is our position that the President should respect the Constitution and bring the issue of withdrawing from the ABM treaty back to the Congress from which it originated."
According to attorney John Burroughs, Executive Director of the Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy: "The Members of Congress bringing this lawsuit are reminding the country that the under the Constitution the President is not a king who can rule by fiat. Decisions as momentous as withdrawal from the ABM Treaty must involve Congress if the United States is to remain a democracy."
Co-counsel Michael Veiluva, an attorney with the Western States Legal Foundation, added: "Unilaterally declaring the ABM Treaty defunct was an unconstitutional usurpation of Congress' role in enacting and promulgating treaties. This usurpation was particularly harmful here because the ABM Treaty is such a cornerstone of American arms control law."
Veiluva concluded: "The President's decision to do away with this 30-year old treaty without Congressional approval is part and parcel of his Administration's attitude with respect to international law and international relations -- namely to go it alone. The Bush administration across-the-board methodology in abolishing treaties and undertaking unilateral military action is almost eerie."
The thirty-one Members of Congress bringing the lawsuit are:
Dennis Kucinich, D-10-Ohio;
James Oberstar, D-8-MN;
Patsy Mink, D-2-HI;
Tammy Baldwin, D-2-WI;
Peter DeFazio, D-4-OR;
John Olver, D-1-MA;
Sam Farr, D-17-CA;
Barbara Lee, D-9-CA;
Maurice Hinchey, D-26-NY;
John Conyers, D-14-MI;
Hilda Solis, D-31-CA;
Janice Schakowsky, D-9-IL;
Alcee Hasting, D-23-FL;
Fortney (Pete) Stark, D-13-CA;
Bernard Sanders, I-1-VT;
Earl Hilliard, D-7-AL;
Carolyn Kilpatrick, D-15-MI;
Lane Evans, D-17-IL;
Jim McDermott, D-7-WA;
Bob Filner, D-50-CA;
Cynthia McKinney, D-4-GA;
George Miller, D-7-CA;
Lynn Woolsey, D-6-CA;
William Lacy Clay, D-1-MO;
Edolphus Towns, D-10-NY;
Maxine Waters, D-35-CA;
Jesse Jackson, Jr., D-2-IL;
Gregory Meeks, D-6-NY;
Marcy Kaptur, D-9-OH;
Jerrold Nadler, D-8-NY;
Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-11-OH; and
Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-18-TX.
They are represented by James Klimaksi, Klimaski & Grill, P.C. Washington, DC; Peter Weiss and John Burroughs, Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy, New York, NY; Bruce Ackerman, Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science,Yale Law School, New Haven CT ; Jeremy Manning, Esq., New York, NY; Jules Lobel and Michael Ratner, Center for Constitutional Rights, New York, NY; Edward Aguilar, Philadelphia Lawyers Alliance for World Security, Philadelphia, PA; and Michael Veiluva, Western States Legal Foundation, Oakland, CA.
The main papers filed in the case are available on line, in pdf format, at http://www.lcnp.org/disarmament/ABMlawsuit/indexoflinks.htm
Contact:
John Burroughs, Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy (cell): 917-439-4585
Jackie Cabasso, Western States Legal Foundation: (cell) 510-306-0119
Katie Auerbach, office of Rep. Dennis Kucinch: (w) 202 225-5871
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- pennsylvania
[To reply - mailto:OPED@washpost.com]
Study: No Cancer Jump Near Pa. Plant
The Associated Press
Friday, November 1, 2002; 5:42 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A50109-2002Nov1?language=printer
WASHINGTON -- People who live near the Three Mile Island nuclear plant show no significant increase in cancer deaths more than 20 years after an accident at the plant released low amounts of radiation.
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh studied deaths between 1979 and 1998 among people who reside within five miles of the Pennsylvania plant. Their findings are reported on the Web site of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
"This survey of data, which covers the normal latency period for most cancers, confirms our earlier analysis that radioactivity released ... does not appear to have caused an overall increase in cancer deaths among residents of that area," principal investigator Evelyn Talbott said in a statement.
The researchers did note that overall deaths among the residents near the plant were higher than would have been expected, but most of the increase was the result of heart disease, not cancer.
The researchers looked at 32,135 people who lived near the plant at the time of the accident in 1979 and who were interviewed by the Pennsylvania Department of Health at the time.
The new findings are similar to those reported earlier in an analysis of the same population covering 13 years, except that an apparent increase in breast cancer at that time was no longer evident in the 20-year study.
After adjusting for smoking, educational level and other factors, the researchers say there was no significant difference in the number of deaths in the plant area population compared with the expected number of deaths in the general population.
The researchers studied causes of death that included heart disease and cancers, in particular cancers known to be sensitive to radioactivity such as bronchial, throat and lung, breast, lymph system, blood-forming organs and the central nervous system.
The only elevated risk of cancer, they said, was a slight increase in the risk of lymphatic and blood cancers among men, which the researchers said was related to radiation exposure from the accident, and an increased risk of death from lymphatic and blood cancers in women, which they said was related to everyday background radiation exposure.
"While these findings overall convey good news for TMI residents, the slight increased risk of death from lymphatic and hematopoietic (blood) cancers may warrant further investigation," the team said in a statement.
On the Net:
Environmental Health Perspectives: http://www.ehponline.org
----
Normal Cancer Rate Found Near Three Mile Island Plant
November 1, 2002
New York Times
By MATTHEW L. WALD
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/01/health/01NUKE.html
A new study of 32,100 people living within five miles of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Harrisburg, Pa., found no significant difference in the overall rate of cancer deaths compared with the general population. The study did find some differences when cancers were analyzed by time period, type of cancer and sex of the patient.
The study, by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health, said that their surveillance "provides no consistent evidence that radioactivity released during the nuclear accident has had a significant impact on the overall mortality experience of these residents."
But the study also said that "several elevations persist and certain potential dose-response relationships cannot be definitively excluded."
The study generally agreed with earlier evaluations, that the 1979 accident did not add significantly to cancer risk. But the researchers said their study was stronger because it covered from 1979 through the end of 1998 and that cancers that take years to develop would have done so by then.
The study is to be published today on http://ehis.niehs.nih.gov, a Web site that is part of the National Institutes of Health. It will be published later in the institutes' journal, Environmental Health Perspectives.
The lead author, Dr. Evelyn O. Talbott, said in a telephone interview, "When you compare observed with expected cancer, there was virtually no difference."
But Dr. Talbott added, "We did see one blip." From 1985 to 1989, 24 women in the group died of lymphoma or hematopoietic tissue (blood-forming organs), up from 14 that were expected to contract the disease during that period.
Among men, she said, the rates of those cancers were the same as what was expected, but the cancers were more common in those whom researchers believe were exposed to more radiation from the accident than in those who are thought to have received less. (The accident exposures were calculated, not measured.) Even the largest dose from the accident, though, was "very tiny," she said.
"You would expect, really by chance, when you do 20 or more analyses, you're going to have a couple that by random chance come up," Dr. Talbott said.
But she added, "You still need to report it when you see it."
The study was not thorough enough to capture other risk factors, she said. "Did we adjust for everything under the sun? No," she said.
Among the questions that researchers might pursue, she said, is whether those with higher cancer rates had more exposure to medical X-rays, pesticides or other possible risk factors.
After the explosion of the Chernobyl reactor, in Ukraine, in 1986, researchers found numerous cases of thyroid cancer. But the new Three Mile Island study found only one thyroid cancer death in the area over the period.
-------- us politics
Global Eye -- Into the Dark
By Chris Floyd
Friday, Nov. 1, 2002.
Moscow Times Page XXIV
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2002/11/01/120.html
This column stands foursquare with the Honorable Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Defense Secretary, when he warns that there will be more terrorist attacks against the American people and civilization at large. We know, as does the Honorable Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Defense Secretary, that this statement is an incontrovertible fact, a matter of scientific certainty. And how can we and the Honorable Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Defense Secretary, be so sure that there will be more terrorist attacks against the American people and civilization at large?
Because these attacks will be instigated at the order of the Honorable Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Defense Secretary.
This astonishing admission was buried deep in a story, which was itself submerged by mounds of gray newsprint and glossy underwear ads in last Sunday's Los Angeles Times. There -- in an article by military analyst William Arkin detailing the vast expansion of the secret armies being massed by the former Nixon bureaucrat now lording it over the Pentagon -- came the revelation of Rumsfeld's plan to create "a super-Intelligence Support Activity" that will "bring together CIA and military covert action, information warfare, intelligence and cover and deception."
According to a classified document prepared for Rumsfeld by his Defense Science Board, the new organization -- the "Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG)" -- will carry out secret missions designed to "stimulate reactions" among terrorist groups, provoking them into committing violent acts which would then expose them to "counterattack" by U.S. forces.
In other words -- and let's say this plainly, clearly and soberly, so that no one can mistake the intention of Rumsfeld's plan -- the United States government is planning to use "cover and deception" and secret military operations to provoke murderous terrorist attacks on innocent people. Let's say it again: Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush and the other members of the unelected regime in Washington plan to deliberately foment the murder of innocent people -- your family, your friends, your lovers, you -- in order to further their geopolitical ambitions.
For P2OG is not designed solely to flush out terrorists and bring them to justice -- a laudable goal in itself, although the Rumsfeld way of combating terrorism by causing it is pure moral lunacy. (Or should we use the Regime's own preferred terminology and just call it "evil"?) No, it seems the Pee-Twos have bigger fish to fry. Once they have sparked terrorists into action -- by killing their family members? luring them with loot? fueling them with drugs? plying them with jihad propaganda? messing with their mamas? or with agents provocateurs, perhaps, who infiltrate groups then plan and direct the attacks themselves? -- they can then take measures against the "states/sub-state actors accountable" for "harboring" the Rumsfeld-roused gangs. What kind of measures exactly? Well, the classified Pentagon program puts it this way: "Their sovereignty will be at risk."
The Pee-Twos will thus come in handy whenever the Regime hankers to add a little oil-laden real estate or a new military base to the Empire's burgeoning portfolio. Just find a nest of violent malcontents, stir 'em with a stick, and presto: instant "justification" for whatever level of intervention/conquest/rapine you might desire. And what if the territory you fancy doesn't actually harbor any convenient marauders to use for fun and profit? Well, surely a God-like "super-Intelligence Support Activity" is capable of creation nihilo, yes?
The Rumsfeld-Bush plan to employ murder and terrorism for political, financial and ideological gain does have historical roots (besides al-Qaida, the Stern Gang, the SA, the SS, the KGB, the IRA, the UDF, Eta, Hamas, Shining Path and countless other upholders of Bushian morality, decency and freedom). We refer of course to Operations Northwoods, oft mentioned in these pages: the plan that America's top military brass presented to President John Kennedy in 1963, calling for a phony terrorist campaign -- complete with bombings, hijackings, plane crashes and dead Americans -- to provide "justification" for an invasion of Cuba, the mafia/corporate fiefdom that had recently been lost to Castro.
Kennedy rejected the plan, and was killed a few months later. Now Rumsfeld has resurrected Northwoods, but on a far grander scale, with resources at his disposal undreamed of by those brass of yore, with no counterbalancing global rival to restrain him -- and with an ignorant, corrupt president who has shown himself all too eager to embrace any means whatsoever that will augment the wealth and power of his own narrow, undemocratic, elitist clique.
There is prestuplyeniye here, transgression, a stepping-over -- deliberately, with open eyes, with forethought, planning, and conscious will -- of lines that should never be crossed. Acting in deadly symbiosis with rage-maddened killers, God-crazed ranters and those supreme "sub-state actors," the mafias, Bush and his cohorts are plunging the world into an abyss, an endless night of black ops, retribution, blowback, deceit, of murder and terror -- wholesale, retail, state-sponsored, privatized; of fear and degradation, servility, chaos, and the perversion of all that's best in us, of all that we've won from the bestiality of our primal nature, all that we've raised above the mindless ravening urges and impulses still boiling in the mud of our monkey brains.
It's not a fight for freedom; it's a retreat into darkness.
And the day will be a long time coming.
--
The Secret War Los Angeles Times, Oct. 27, 2002
Friendly Fire: Operation Northwoods ABCNews.com, May 1, 2001
Making a Killing: The Business of War: Overview Center for Public Integrity, Oct. 29, 2002
Making a Killing: The Business of War Center for Public Integrity, Oct. 29, 2002
Privatizing Combat: The New World Order Center for Public Integrity, Oct. 29, 2002
Deeper Into the Big Muddy Consortiumnews.com, Oct. 27, 2002
America's Secret Armies US News & World Report, Nov. 4, 2002 issue
An American Invitation to Deter America International Herald Tribune, Oct. 24, 2002
Vidal Claims 'Bush Junta' Complicit in 9-11 The Observer, Oct. 27, 2002
Operation Endless Deployment The Nation, Oct. 3, 2002
U.S. Weapons Secrets Exposed The Guardian, Oct. 29, 2002
The Rumsfeld Intelligence Agency Slate.com, Oct. 28, 2002
------
Bush's Iraq adventure is bound to backfire
Marching into a trap
Youssef M. Ibrahim
IHT
Friday, November 1, 2002
http://www.iht.com/articles/75500.html
(The writer, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, covered the Middle East for 30 years for The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. He contributed this comment to the International Herald Tribune.)
NEW YORK Let us not be fooled: The upcoming war against Iraq has nothing to do with the war against terror.
President George W. Bush's war is fueled by two things: bolstering the president's popularity as he attempts to ride on the natural wave of American patriotism unleashed by the criminal attacks of Sept. 11; and a misguided temptation to get more oil out of the Middle East by turning a ''friendly" Iraq into a private American oil pumping station.
Both will backfire and may indeed cost this president and his warmongering cabinet their sought-after second term.
To begin with, the emperor is naked because the real war on terror is far from finished. If anything it is falling apart.
In Afghanistan, where it all started, things are so bad that the puppet president the United States installed, Hamid Karzai, is now guarded by U.S. special forces because he cannot trust his life to his own people.
Al Qaeda, according to the CIA and the Pentagon, is reconstituting itself. In fact every Middle East and Muslim affairs expert is saying that Al Qaeda's ranks will be fattened by new recruits right now and will have more of them when the United States attacks Iraq.
Those joining are no longer Muslim religious fanatics. They now include secularist young men and women angry at the impact of U.S. policies on the world's 1.2 billion Muslims.
In other words, a new Al Qaeda, far more dangerous than the existing one, is in the making. Witness the attack on the tourist resort of Bali, on U.S. Marines in Kuwait and on a French oil tanker off Yemen. In Afghanistan the United States' main enemies, Osama bin Laden's cadre of leadership, has disappeared, while his shock troops, the Taliban, are there in their homes and villages sitting on their weapons, patiently waiting for the right moment to go back into action when America gets busy attacking Iraq.
Thus far, all the arguments presented for sending American boys and girls into one of the world's most dangerous neighborhoods are half-truths, spurious assumptions and utter nonsense. Washington simply cannot prove the case that Iraq is tied to Al Qaeda.
Saddam Hussein has neither nuclear weapons nor the means to deliver them on missiles or in suitcases to America. His immediate neighbors, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, feel he is better contained than aroused. Indeed they have all publicly and privately told the administration that attacking Iraq would open a Pandora's box.
If this is how they feel, why is America afraid of Saddam? For my money, North Korea is a far clearer and more present danger. It has just announced it does have missiles and nukes and that it will expand its arsenal further. So why isn't the United States going to war against North Korea?
The fact that Saddam Hussein tortures, jails and oppresses his people, which Bush keeps repeating in every speech, has been going on for 30 years without disturbing Americans. Many countries, including the Russians in Chechnya , the Chinese in Tibet and elsewhere, and scores of American friends and allies including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, to mention just a few, repress their people's freedom.
When Saddam took on Iran in 1980 the United States joined in attacking the Iranian navy and destroyed Iranian off-shore oil platforms, crippling Iran's economy and making sure he survived the war he started. In 1991, the first President Bush saved Saddam again when the uprising against him turned into an uncontrolled civil war.
So all the talk about spreading democracy and changing the whole Middle East, starting with Iraq, does not hold water. The United States, obsessed with oil and something called "regime change," wants to create a totally pro-American Middle East. The problem is that it will not work. You don't impose democracy by installing an occupying power in a region that has no tradition for it.
What's more ominous is not the 100,000 people who demonstrated in Washington against the war the other day, nor the fact that the United States will go ahead with or without allies, with or without a UN seal of approval. Rather it is that the suits in the Pentagon are ignoring a significant number of senior military commanders, serving and retired, who have warned the president that U.S. forces are marching into a deadly trap with no exit strategy.
Most commanders of the previous Gulf War and many inside the army now are saying that Washington is about to place American men and women in one of the world's most anti-American regions. Why? Things are very different from 1990, when the United States had a vast Arab and international coalition with it and much of the Arab and Muslim world looked to America with love and admiration.
Iraq's 22 million people would welcome the death of Saddam Hussein, his family and his Ba'ath Party troops, but it does not follow that they will welcome Americans with open arms.
Eleven years of American-inspired economic sanctions have embittered Iraqis. Their standard of living has collapsed, while Saddam and his clique of 100,000 have lived very well indeed. Yet America hangs on to those sanctions. When Iraqis finish settling their very bloody internal account with Saddam's folks, they will turn against America's troops and against one another.
Next door, for 11 years Iran has been training 40,000 Shiite Iraqi fighters for just this moment, when American troops are about to become sitting ducks.
Remember Hezbollah and Beirut? The United States lost 240 Marines there. This year the president declared Iran part of the "axis of evil." The Iranians are waiting to settle some scores with us-this time on their own ground.
Finally, it is almost a certainty that a U.S. attack will trigger a wider regional war that will drag in Israel, Lebanon and Syria. Hezbollah in Lebanon, another Iranian creature, will start this one, or Israel, America's best friend and ally in the region, will do it if attacked by Iraq.
It is a disgrace that Congress has failed in its duty to debate properly the Tonkin-like resolution that Bush has been given. Americans' elected representatives will have to explain themselves when the body bags begin to come back. U.S. forces, caught in a bloody civil war in Iraq, will become the target of attacks by Iranian and Iraqi guerrillas.
For any president, 60 percent popularity ratings are not worth paying such a price: This president is wrapping himself in the American flag for the wrong reason.
The war on terror so far is a failure. This administration has confiscated the civil rights of millions of people in America, encouraged Americans to spy on one another, alienated America's Arab and Muslim friends and let Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda's top lieutenants slip through its fingers.
I hope wisdom prevails before the United States jumps into the Iraqi inferno.
The writer, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, covered the Middle East for 30 years for The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. He contributed this comment to the International Herald Tribune.
Marching into a trap
NEW YORK Let us not be fooled: The upcoming war against Iraq has nothing to do with the war against terror.
President George W. Bush's war is fueled by two things: bolstering the president's popularity as he attempts to ride on the natural wave of American patriotism unleashed by the criminal attacks of Sept. 11; and a misguided temptation to get more oil out of the Middle East by turning a ''friendly" Iraq into a private American oil pumping station.
Both will backfire and may indeed cost this president and his warmongering cabinet their sought-after second term.
To begin with, the emperor is naked because the real war on terror is far from finished. If anything it is falling apart.
In Afghanistan, where it all started, things are so bad that the puppet president the United States installed, Hamid Karzai, is now guarded by U.S. special forces because he cannot trust his life to his own people.
Al Qaeda, according to the CIA and the Pentagon, is reconstituting itself. In fact every Middle East and Muslim affairs expert is saying that Al Qaeda's ranks will be fattened by new recruits right now and will have more of them when the United States attacks Iraq.
Those joining are no longer Muslim religious fanatics. They now include secularist young men and women angry at the impact of U.S. policies on the world's 1.2 billion Muslims.
In other words, a new Al Qaeda, far more dangerous than the existing one, is in the making. Witness the attack on the tourist resort of Bali, on U.S. Marines in Kuwait and on a French oil tanker off Yemen. In Afghanistan the United States' main enemies, Osama bin Laden's cadre of leadership, has disappeared, while his shock troops, the Taliban, are there in their homes and villages sitting on their weapons, patiently waiting for the right moment to go back into action when America gets busy attacking Iraq.
Thus far, all the arguments presented for sending American boys and girls into one of the world's most dangerous neighborhoods are half-truths, spurious assumptions and utter nonsense. Washington simply cannot prove the case that Iraq is tied to Al Qaeda.
Saddam Hussein has neither nuclear weapons nor the means to deliver them on missiles or in suitcases to America. His immediate neighbors, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, feel he is better contained than aroused. Indeed they have all publicly and privately told the administration that attacking Iraq would open a Pandora's box.
If this is how they feel, why is America afraid of Saddam? For my money, North Korea is a far clearer and more present danger. It has just announced it does have missiles and nukes and that it will expand its arsenal further. So why isn't the United States going to war against North Korea?
The fact that Saddam Hussein tortures, jails and oppresses his people, which Bush keeps repeating in every speech, has been going on for 30 years without disturbing Americans. Many countries, including the Russians in Chechnya , the Chinese in Tibet and elsewhere, and scores of American friends and allies including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, to mention just a few, repress their people's freedom.
When Saddam took on Iran in 1980 the United States joined in attacking the Iranian navy and destroyed Iranian off-shore oil platforms, crippling Iran's economy and making sure he survived the war he started. In 1991, the first President Bush saved Saddam again when the uprising against him turned into an uncontrolled civil war.
So all the talk about spreading democracy and changing the whole Middle East, starting with Iraq, does not hold water. The United States, obsessed with oil and something called "regime change," wants to create a totally pro-American Middle East. The problem is that it will not work. You don't impose democracy by installing an occupying power in a region that has no tradition for it.
What's more ominous is not the 100,000 people who demonstrated in Washington against the war the other day, nor the fact that the United States will go ahead with or without allies, with or without a UN seal of approval. Rather it is that the suits in the Pentagon are ignoring a significant number of senior military commanders, serving and retired, who have warned the president that U.S. forces are marching into a deadly trap with no exit strategy.
Most commanders of the previous Gulf War and many inside the army now are saying that Washington is about to place American men and women in one of the world's most anti-American regions. Why? Things are very different from 1990, when the United States had a vast Arab and international coalition with it and much of the Arab and Muslim world looked to America with love and admiration.
Iraq's 22 million people would welcome the death of Saddam Hussein, his family and his Ba'ath Party troops, but it does not follow that they will welcome Americans with open arms.
Eleven years of American-inspired economic sanctions have embittered Iraqis. Their standard of living has collapsed, while Saddam and his clique of 100,000 have lived very well indeed. Yet America hangs on to those sanctions. When Iraqis finish settling their very bloody internal account with Saddam's folks, they will turn against America's troops and against one another.
Next door, for 11 years Iran has been training 40,000 Shiite Iraqi fighters for just this moment, when American troops are about to become sitting ducks.
Remember Hezbollah and Beirut? The United States lost 240 Marines there. This year the president declared Iran part of the "axis of evil." The Iranians are waiting to settle some scores with us-this time on their own ground.
Finally, it is almost a certainty that a U.S. attack will trigger a wider regional war that will drag in Israel, Lebanon and Syria. Hezbollah in Lebanon, another Iranian creature, will start this one, or Israel, America's best friend and ally in the region, will do it if attacked by Iraq.
It is a disgrace that Congress has failed in its duty to debate properly the Tonkin-like resolution that Bush has been given. Americans' elected representatives will have to explain themselves when the body bags begin to come back. U.S. forces, caught in a bloody civil war in Iraq, will become the target of attacks by Iranian and Iraqi guerrillas.
For any president, 60 percent popularity ratings are not worth paying such a price: This president is wrapping himself in the American flag for the wrong reason.
The war on terror so far is a failure. This administration has confiscated the civil rights of millions of people in America, encouraged Americans to spy on one another, alienated America's Arab and Muslim friends and let Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda's top lieutenants slip through its fingers.
I hope wisdom prevails before the United States jumps into the Iraqi inferno.
-------
Exposing Karl Rove
CounterPunch
November 1, 2002
by WAYNE MADSEN
http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen1101.html
He's America's Joseph Goebbels. As a 21-year old Young Republican in Texas, Karl Rove not only pimped for Richard Nixon's chief political dirty tricks strategist Donald Segretti but soon caught the eye of the incoming Republican National Committee Chairman, George H. W. Bush. Rove's dirty tricks on behalf of Nixon's 1972 campaign catapulted Rove onto the national stage. From his Eagle's Nest in the West Wing of the White House, Rove now directs a formidable political dirty tricks operation and disinformation mill.
Since his formative political years when he tried to paint World War II B-24 pilot and hero George McGovern as a left-wing peacenik through his mid-level career as a planter of disinformation in the media on behalf of Texas and national GOP candidates to his current role as Dubya's "Svengali," Rove has practiced the same style of slash and burn politics as did his Nixonian mentor Segretti. Many of us remember the Lincolnesque Senator Ed Muskie breaking down in tears during the 1972 campaign over Segretti-planted false stories in a New Hampshire newspaper that accused Mrs. Muskie of being a heavy smoker, drinker, and cusser and accused Muskie of uttering a slur in describing New Hampshire's French Canadian population. Rove's hero also forged letters on fake Muskie campaign letterhead, disrupted rallies and fundraising dinners, and spread false stories about the sex lives of candidates. Segretti's brush also smeared George McGovern, George Wallace, Shirley Chisholm, and McGovern's first vice presidential choice, Senator Tom Eagleton. Segretti of course did not go on to a high-level White House job -- he was sentenced to six months in federal prison for distributing illegal campaign material.
In many respects, however, the apprentice Rove has far exceeded the chicanery and evil-mindedness of his mentor Segretti. Rove is a tech-savvy puppet master for Bush. Take, for example, last June's discovery of a "lost" CD-ROM in Lafayette Park across from the White House. Contained on the CD was a PowerPoint presentation given by White House political director Ken Mehlman to Rove on the strategy for next Tuesday's off-year election. The slide show showed First Brother Jeb Bush being vulnerable in Florida. Jeb Bush later joked that the disc was part of a plot cooked up by him and his brother to make it appear that he was vulnerable in order to rally an otherwise complacent GOP base in the Sunshine State. Or was it a joke? Jeb Bush and his political minions like Katherine Harris have shown us that if anyone thinks what the GOP has done in Florida is funny they have an incredibly sick sense of humor.
Rove's own tendency to be sick-minded originates with his mentor Segretti. The 2000 GOP primary was a chance for Rove to hone his skills in dirty tricks. His target then was Senator John McCain who appeared to be within striking distance of Dubya in South Carolina after the then-GOP maverick's surprise upset victory in New Hampshire. Rove's operation proceeded to target McCain with false stories: McCain was a stoolie for his captors in the Hanoi Hilton (this from a lunatic self-promoting Vietnam "veteran"); McCain fathered a black daughter out of wedlock (a despicable reference to McCain's adopted Bangladeshi daughter); Cindy McCain's drug "abuse"; and even McCain's "homosexuality." In the spirit of Segretti, Rove engineered a victory for Dubya but at the cost of trashing an honorable man and his family. Muskie, McGovern, Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Hart, Tsongas, Clinton, Biden, Dole, Perot, and others had all seen the Segretti/Rove slash and burn tactics before.
And Rove's penchant for fascistic demagoguery and outright lying continues to this very day. After Paul Wellstone's sons asked that Vice President Dick Cheney not attend the Minneapolis memorial service for their father, mother, and sister, the White House explained that the real reason wasn't the surviving Wellstone family's abhorrence for Cheney but the fact the family didn't want Cheney's Secret Service protection to interfere with public access to the service. Of course, the Rove and Ari Fleischer disinformation machine forgot to take into account that two attendees, Bill and Hillary Clinton, had their own Secret Service details. But such is the case with a White House that takes its lessons from Goebbels and the editorial staff of the old Soviet News Agency Tass.
Rove's dirty fingerprints could also be seen in the Iowa Senate race between Tom Harkin and GOP candidate Greg Ganske. A few months ago, a story was leaked that the Harkin campaign had employed a spy within the Ganske campaign. To put this in a Rove context, we must go back to the 1986 Texas gubernatorial race in which Rove's candidate Bill Clements was taking on Democratic Governor Mark White. Just before a debate between the two candidates, Rove spun the story that his office had been bugged. No proof. But the insinuation that White's people had carried out the bugging was reported by the media. In the election, Clements defeated White. Rove stashed away more political capital into his already heavy knapsack of ill-gotten IOUs.
During the 2000 presidential campaign, we were obviously treated to more Rove chicanery when the following Associated Press story hit the wires: "A woman who worked for a media company that produced ads for President George W. Bush's campaign was indicted for secretly mailing a videotape of Bush practicing for a debate to Vice President Al Gore's campaign." Yes, that videotape, along with a 120-page briefing book, just happened to turn up in Gore's headquarters as fast as the CD-ROM turned up in Lafayette Park. The sourcerer Segretti must be very proud of his apprentice. In 1980, no Republican bemoaned the fact that Jimmy Carter's debate briefing book was swiped and found its way into the hands of the Reagan-Bush campaign. In Rove's world, its only an affront when someone "steals" your own campaign secrets and not when your are on the receiving end of a heist.
"If you're not with me, you're against me." Bush's binary view of "good and evil" and "friend and enemy" sits well with the Rove strategy. Georgia's conservative but libertarian-minded Representative Bob Barr found out about this in last August's primary when his GOP primary opponent John Linder began spreading around stories that Barr was "soft on terrorism." Because Barr was skeptical about a number of aspects of the Bush-Ashcroft USA PATRIOT Act, he became a target for the Rove machine. However, it was likely that Barr became a target earlier on when he supported Steve Forbes against Bush in the 2000 primary. Bush apparently means to say, "If you've not always been with me, you're against me." It must have really been a dilemma for Bush and Rove to have to come to the support of John Sununu, Jr. in the New Hampshire Senate race. Although Daddy made George W. unceremoniously give the axe to Sununu's father as White House Chief of Staff during the Bush 41 administration, the man who the junior Sununu defeated in the primary, Bob Smith, was even more of a problem. He had the temerity to quit the Republican Party in 2000 and run against Dubya for President. So in Bushspeak, which is obviously borrowed from Forrest Gump's scripts, "if you're less with me than the other guy, you're more against me."
Undoubtedly, Rove was also behind the campaign to "get" Georgia Representative Cynthia McKinney who was the first nationally-known politician to question what Bush may have known beforehand about 9-11. She was defeated by a former Republican state judge who had supported the wacky Alan Keyes for President in 2000. Never mind, McKinney was "less with Bush" than Keyes, so it was more important to get McKinney who was "more against" Bush.
In all seriousness, rewarding the GOP on November 5 will only increase the appetite of Rove to amass more and more power into the White House. The advent of a Democratic-controlled Senate and House might even begin to spell the end of the road for Segretti's star pupil. German opposition figures in the mid-1930s often lamented the fact that they could have stopped the rise of the Nazis if only they had been more united in a common front when they had a chance. However, they fell prey to the media manipulation of Goebbels and fought among themselves more than they did against the menace from the far right. We Americans also have an early opportunity to stem an out-of-control and anti-constitutional regime with the Rasputin-like Rove at the after steerage helm of our ship of state. That opportunity presents itself next Tuesday--Election Day.
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and columnist. He wrote the introduction to Forbidden Truth.
Madsen can be reached at: WMadsen777@aol.com
-------- MILITARY
Veterans Sue Over Secret Biological, Chemical Tests
November 1, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/nov2002/2002-11-01-09.asp#anchor4
WASHINGTON, DC, Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) has joined a class action lawsuit in federal court that seeks redress for the consequences of exposure to hazardous agents during the government's secret weapons testing programs.
Project SHAD (Shipboard Hazard and Defense), part of a much larger weapons testing program called "Project 112," involved the intentional exposure of military personnel to biological and chemical, and perhaps radioactive, agents to determine the vulnerability of naval vessels to such attacks. Similar tests were conducted on land.
These tests, which took place during the 1960s and 1970s, have resulted in illness and disability to which the government is only beginning to respond, the lawsuit charges.
The class action is based upon government officials' alleged attempts to conceal relevant records, many of which are the veterans' personal medical records that would allow them to seek health care and compensation for the adverse health effects of being test subjects.
The complaint seeks monetary damages for the violation of the affected veterans' constitutional rights, and court ordered disclosure of information that will assist them in obtaining Veterans Administration (VA) health care and benefits for the consequences of exposure to hazardous agents during their participation in the SHAD and Project 112 testing programs.
While the class action is not designed to seek individual VA compensation benefits, the proceedings should help to facilitate access to records that would allow these veterans and their service representatives to do so.
"America's veterans deserve proper health care for illnesses that may be due to exposure to harmful agents as a result of their military service," said VVA national president Thomas Corey. "Veterans deserve to be told the truth about their military service, as well as accountability from senior bureaucrats and other government officials. Justice for our nation's veterans is at the heart of VVA's mission. This class action will help veterans obtain the justice to which they have long been entitled."
The class of veterans that are eligible to join the lawsuit might number in the thousands. The named defendants include former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, who first ordered the testing program in the early 1960s under President John F. Kennedy, as well as current and former employees of the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs.
"The problem has been that certain individuals have been acting in their own interests, rather than serving the military personnel and veterans to whom this country owes so much," Corey said. "VVA will continue to work with appointed officials, leaders in Congress and through the courts until justice is accorded these veterans."
VVA hopes that by holding these officials accountable for their actions, the situation will not repeat itself as troops prepare for possible biological and chemical exposure on the battlefield.
-------- asia
ASEAN leaders to weigh counterterrorism agenda
By P. Parameswaran
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
November 1, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021101-12114486.htm
MANILA - Southeast Asian leaders at their annual talks next week are expected to seek stiffer counterterrorism measures and sign a landmark pact with China to forge the world's largest free-trade area, officials said.
The 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders will meet Nov. 4-5 in Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh, for the first time since the deadly Bali blast, the biggest terrorist strike since the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
The terrorism threat - and the reported presence of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda-linked cells in Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Indonesia - is seen as the biggest challenge to Southeast Asia in about 25 years.
"Today's international terrorism is probably the most serious security threat in the region since the Indochina conflict," ASEAN spokesman M.C. Abad said.
The Vietnam War was followed by a long civil war in Cambodia that provoked an invasion by Vietnamese troops in 1978 to oust a Chinese-backed regime. Beijing responded with a brief incursion into northern Vietnam.
Since then, ASEAN has been preoccupied with managing interstate relations and conflict, not with nontraditional security issues, such as terrorism, regional diplomats say.
"The leaders of ASEAN have taken cognizance of this threat to regional stability and economic recovery and the imperative of regional and international cooperation to combat it," Mr. Abad said.
The ASEAN leaders are expected "to exchange views on how to further intensify the ongoing collaboration to counter this nontraditional security threat."
The Oct. 12 terrorist attack on Indonesia's Bali island tourism paradise killed more than 190 people, mostly foreigners, and injured hundreds more.
There are growing suspicions that Jemaah Islamiyah, a regional terrorist group believed linked to al Qaeda, had a hand in the Bali carnage, which dampened not only Southeast Asia's vibrant tourism industry, but also frightened off potential foreign investors.
Investment house Morgan Stanley has warned that the Bali incident could permanently raise the risk premium for the whole of Southeast Asia.
There is growing doubt among international investors that the region can contain its geopolitical and domestic sociopolitical risks, given its "strong and inseparable ties to Islam," Morgan Stanley economist Daniel Lian said in a recent report.
Muslims account for more than half of the 500 million people in Southeast Asia. Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation. ASEAN member states - Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam - have already signed a regional counterterrorism agreement and have another pact with the United States to fight the scourge.
Mr. Abad, the ASEAN spokesman, said that while terrorism would place high on the agenda of the group's eighth summit, "the leaders are expected to remain focused on the economic agenda, such as enhancing the region's competitiveness through economic integration."
The ASEAN leaders are slated to sign a pact with Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji for a giant free-trade area (FTA) covering 2 billion people of Southeast Asia and China.
The ASEAN summit is usually followed by a meeting with the leaders of China, Japan and South Korea. This year, India will make its debut with the participation of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.
Details of the ASEAN-China FTA plan are to be incorporated in a "framework agreement on ASEAN-China economic cooperation," regional diplomats said.
"Under this agreement, we hope to commence negotiations for tariff reduction and elimination for goods in early 2003, to be concluded in about a year," a senior diplomat told AFP.
He said the objective was for China to have a free-trade area with senior ASEAN member states Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand by between 2010 and 2013, and the newer members Burma, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam between 2013 and 2016.
The ASEAN leaders are also expected to sign with China a hotly debated declaration to resolve disputes in the South China Sea.
Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, as well as China and Taiwan, have laid claims to the Spratly Islands, a potential military flash point in the South China Sea.
-------- biological weapons
U.S. Tested Sarin in Hawaiian Rain Forest
5,000 Troops Involved in 1967 Experiments Are Urged to Contact Pentagon
Reuters
Friday, November 1, 2002; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A48950-2002Oct31?language=printer
The U.S. military in 1967 conducted tests using the deadly nerve agent sarin in a Hawaiian rain forest as part of a Cold War series of chemical and biological experiments on land and sea, the Pentagon said yesterday. .
Military units involved in the Hawaii test, dubbed "Red Oak, Phase 1," were not identified, and there was no indication of harm to troops or civilians from explosions to determine the effectiveness of artillery shells using sarin in the jungle.
But the Defense Department, releasing five new reports in a continuing series on tests conducted in the 1960s and 1970s, urged any of the more than 5,000 troops involved who might have suffered ill effects to contact the Pentagon.
The Red Oak tests in April and May 1967 were conducted in the Upper Waiakea Forest Reserve on Hawaii and near Fort Sherman in the Panama Canal Zone. The Panama phase used a simulated nerve agent, not sarin.
Sarin is a volatile, deadly nerve agent that can be inhaled or absorbed through the eyes and skin. A sufficient dose within minutes causes difficult breathing, runny nose, confusion and dimming vision -- then coma and death.
Very little information is available involving the long-term effects of low-level exposure to sarin.
The Pentagon yesterday also released details on four other tests -- three in the Panama Canal Zone and a fourth in an unspecified jungle environment -- but said none used deadly chemical or biological agents.
In addition to the riot-control agent tear gas, however, some of the tests used normally occurring bacteria that more recent information has indicated can cause acute infections of the ear, brain lining, lung, urinary tract and other body sites.
The tests were all part of a major U.S. military review put in motion by then-Defense Secretary Robert McNamara in 1961 shortly after President John F. Kennedy's inauguration. That study consisted of 150 separate projects.
The United States acknowledged in reports during the summer and earlier this month that it carried out a sweeping Cold War-era test program of chemical and germ warfare agents at sea in the Pacific and on American soil and in Britain and Canada.
--------
U.S. Tested a Nerve Gas in Hawaii
November 1, 2002
New York Times
By THOM SHANKER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/01/politics/01CHEM.html
WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 - In the latest release of once-classified reports on chemical warfare tests during the cold war, the Pentagon said today that it detonated artillery shells and rockets filled with deadly Sarin gas in Hawaii in 1967.
There were no reports of military personnel or civilians being exposed to the nerve agent during the tests, conducted in the Upper Waiakea Forest Reserve, a dense rain forest on the island of Hawaii, Pentagon officials said.
Sarin, a highly toxic nerve agent that is absorbed through the nose, mouth, eyes and, to a lesser extent, the skin, can block breathing, dim vision and, in sufficient doses, bring on coma and death.
It dissipates to nondeadly levels after a few hours, Pentagon health officials said. Even so, the Pentagon report said, "very little information is available regarding long-term health effects following exposures to low levels that do not cause acute symptoms."
According to the reports, released today by the Deployment Health Support Directorate, a branch of the Pentagon office of Health Affairs, the Army detonated warheads filled with Sarin in the forest reserve in April and May of 1967.
The goal of the test, named Red Oak, Phase 1, was to "evaluate the effectiveness of Sarin-filled 155-mm artillery projectiles and 115-mm rocket warheads in a tropical jungle environment," the report states.
Barbara Goodno, a spokeswoman for the Deployment Health Support Directorate, said the tests were in a "remote location, far away from any populated area."
The five new studies released today are the latest in a series of declassified reports about the chemical warfare experiments. Pentagon officials said 46 exercises were conducted by the Deseret Test Center, based at Fort Douglas, Utah, from 1962 to 1973. Today's release brings to 41 the number of tests whose reports have been declassified.
The tests were not conducted to study the effects of chemical and biological weapons on human health. Instead, those on land were to learn more about how chemical and biological weapons would be affected by climate, environment and other combat conditions. Tests at sea were intended to gauge the vulnerability of warships and how they might respond to attack.
The Defense Department is working with the Department of Veterans Affairs to identify an estimated 5,500 people believed to have participated in the land and sea tests. It is not known whether all the military personnel were fully aware of the nature of the exercises and the potential risks.
The new reports also describe three previously unknown tests that were conducted using less-toxic substances in the Panama Canal Zone, and another in an unspecified jungle location.
CS gas, commonly known as tear gas, was used in the jungle location.
In tests conducted in the Canal Zone, a biological agent called Bacillus globigii, in the same family as anthrax, was sprayed to simulate the dispersal of a more lethal biological warfare substance.
At the time, Bacillus globigii was considered harmless, but in the intervening years medical experts have determined that it could cause acute infections in people with weakened immune systems.
One series of tests in the Canal Zone, in which Bacillus globigii was sprayed by aircraft, was conducted near the Fort Sherman Military Reservation in February and March 1963. In a related series of tests, the substance was exploded from bomblets in Hawaii in April and May 1966.
--------
U.S. Bioterror Readiness Assessed
November 1, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Bioterrorism-Preparedness.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The federal government has truckloads of medicine and vaccines ready to deploy should bioterrorism strike, but only one state is fully prepared to receive and distribute those treatments.
Federal officials say that while states have made considerable progress in preparing for bioterrorism, much work remains.
``Our biggest concern is we will get to a location and a state or a city will not be ready,'' said Jerry Hauer, assistant secretary for public health preparedness at the Department of Health and Human Services.
Even Florida, the one state deemed ready to receive the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile, still must conduct drills to make sure its plans will work.
Federal officials emphasize that states still could handle an emergency if they had to, even if they are not considered prepared. After the Sept. 11 attacks, when the stockpile was deployed for the first time, it took New York City officials ``several valuable hours'' figuring out where to send 50 tons of general medical supplies and how to secure them -- but eventually the medicine was delivered, said Steven Bice, who runs the program for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Friday was the deadline for states to report progress in preparing for bioterrorism. Key questions asked by HHS included how they will distribute medicine, where they can provide 500 hospital beds in case of mass casualties and how hospitals will isolate highly contagious patients.
Most regions are not prepared to dedicate 500 beds in an emergency, much less the 1,500 beds that they are supposed to have in place by next year, Hauer said. Even fewer communities have rooms in place inside hospitals that could used to isolate infectious victims of bioterror attacks.
Meanwhile, states have until Dec. 1 to produce detailed plans for vaccinating their entire populations within days of a smallpox attack. So far, plans have been filed by only 20 of the 62 states, large cities and territories that are receiving federal bioterrorism money. And those plans, not yet scrutinized, may have serious holes, health officials say.
Many states admit they are far from ready.
In Kentucky, officials have not yet figured out who will deliver the shots or where to find the people to do it, said Dr. Steven Englender, the state epidemiologist. He said it could take 60,000 people at 250 clinics to vaccinate Kentucky's 4 million people over five days.
``That's the math. The practicality is something different,'' Englender said in an interview this week.
Hauer says that math could be conservative if there were an outbreak of smallpox -- a highly contagious, fatal disease.
``Five days might actually be a luxury,'' Hauer said.
Early this year, the federal government began distributing $1.1 billion to help cities and states improve communication systems, upgrade labs, hire disaster coordinators and otherwise build up neglected public health systems. At the last progress report, in June, HHS identified several problems.
In Arkansas, officials had plans to train people to respond to bioterrorism, but not to detect disease in the first place. In Delaware, planners identified hospital beds for 250 unexpected patients, just half of what federal rules require. In Kansas, officials were planning on spending $250,000 to handle the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile; federal officials said they should count on needing $1 million.
Nearly one in three states failed to show how they would work with bordering states, and about half the states failed to include Indian tribes in planning.
Jack Pittman, administrator of public health preparedness at the Florida Department of Health, agreed that working with tribes is a problem.
``We've invited them to formally sit with us on advisory committees. To this date they have not taken us up on that,'' he said.
Another concern is states with budget crunches will have federal money to hire needed workers, but won't be allowed to spend it because of state hiring freezes.
The most urgent issue may be the handling of the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile.
The federal government can deliver 50 tons of medical supplies to any city in the United States within 12 hours. But communities must be ready to take control of these supplies from the airport. They must have transportation and security for the supplies and a place to distribute them. They need people who can repackage huge cartons of antibiotics into individual doses.
Federal officials use a traffic light metaphor to characterize readiness for the 62 projects, which include the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the cities of New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, the territories of American Samoa, Guam, Northern Marianas, Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands, and three associated independent states: Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau.
Just one project, Florida, is ``green,'' meaning ready to go, pending a rehearsal. Two states are ``red,'' Wisconsin -- HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson's home state -- and Hawaii, meaning they are making little or no progress. Also red: Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
Six projects haven't been reviewed yet; the remaining 51 are rated ``amber,'' meaning they are making significant progress toward readiness but aren't there yet.
For instance, some state plans relied on the National Guard, but HHS pointed out that the Guard might be unavailable in an emergency, said Bill Raub, who is reviewing state plans for HHS.
Preparedness is an ongoing process, and HHS doesn't expect this week's progress reports to be the final word, Raub added. ``We just want to make sure they are moving down the right road.''
-------- chemical weapons
U.S. Finds Hurdles in Search for Nonlethal Gas
By Guy Gugliotta
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 1, 2002; Page A30
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A48722-2002Oct31?language=printer
The quest for an effective "nonlethal" chemical agent like the one that killed more than 100 hostages in Moscow last weekend has tantalized U.S. military and law enforcement officials for years.
But even though the government has undertaken several research projects into incapacitating gases and aerosols since the mid-1990s, the effort has proceeded slowly in the face of thus-far insurmountable technical hurdles and concern about violating the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention.
A Pentagon spokesman this week issued a statement saying "the U.S. military is not currently involved in any programs or research related to the development or procurement of incapacitating agents," did not plan any such research and has not stockpiled any agents.
But as recently as May 2000, the Defense Department paid $69,931 to a Michigan-based firm to begin a multiphase project "to demonstrate the feasibility of innovative, safe and reliable chemical immobilizing agents."
The first phase of the project was to include animal tests, and the second phase was to include "human volunteer studies." Officials at the Bel Air, Md., office of OptiMetrics, Inc., the contractor, did not respond to telephone inquiries seeking information about the project.
Also in 2000, the Pentagon-funded Applied Research Laboratory at Pennsylvania State University issued a report on incapacitating agents that concluded their development is "both achievable and desirable."
"There was no hard research done, and there has been none done here" on such agents, said Andrew Mazzara, director of the laboratory's Institute for Emerging Defense Technologies. He characterized the study as a review of existing literature on the subject.
Still, Mazzara, a retired Marine colonel who ran the Pentagon's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate before joining the laboratory in 1999, suggested that "what we saw in Russia almost cries out for more rather than less research into this."
His views clashed sharply with those of Edward Hammond, director of the Austin-based Sunshine Project, a leading opponent of U.S. ventures into nonlethal technology:
"Using chemical weapons, including incapacitating chemical weapons, is a slippery slope," Hammond said. "We've gone down it before, but it seems like we're going down it again."
Next week, the National Academy of Science is scheduled to release "An Assessment of Non-lethal Weapons Science and Technology," which will, in part, evaluate the utility of incapacitating agents. The report was commissioned by the Marine Corps' Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate and the Office of Naval Research.
Advocates and opponents of incapacitating agents agree that the idea is a noble one -- a gas or aerosol that would gently yet immediately render large numbers of people harmlessly unconscious, instantly terminating a hostage crisis or a riot without gunfire, billy clubs or needless violence.
In practice, however, as the Moscow theater debacle showed last weekend, implementing such a remedy is fraught with dangers. When it comes to using these disabling "calmatives," as they known, the margin of error is so narrow as to be nonexistent.
"There is no such thing as a knockout drug," said Alan P. Zelicoff, senior scientist in the Center for National Security and Arms Control, at Sandia National Laboratory. "I can put you down with morphine; I can put you down with valium, I can put you down with barbiturates. But in all cases, I have a high risk of hurting you very badly."
Zelicoff said the opioid drug fentanyl, acknowledged by Russian authorities as the basis of the aerosol pumped into the Moscow theater, has an extremely low "therapeutic index" -- the difference between rendering a person unconscious and hurting or killing the person is very small. Anesthesia, Zelicoff said, is "controlled death."
This problem -- that anesthesia, relaxants or anti-pain analgesics are highly individualized at high doses -- has never been overcome. Many experts agreed that knocking out a heterogeneous population of several hundred people of all ages, all sizes, both sexes and with some of them sitting close to the vents and others far away, is simply not possible with current technology and should never even be attempted.
"The whole idea of nonlethal chemical warfare agents is a myth," said Elisa Harris, a senior research scholar at the University of Maryland and a former Clinton administration National Security Council official. "Anyone who tries to suggest otherwise is ignoring the evidence."
Discussion of this dilemma pervades government studies of incapacitants. C. Parker Ferguson, a key researcher for the Army in the mid-1990s, acknowledged that "it's a very complex situation -- it's hard enough to use them in the operating room without compounding the problem with larger groups."
Still, the difficulties have not stopped researchers. Ferguson, now working as an independent consultant and contract researcher, is listed as principal investigator for the OptiMetrics contract, which dismisses "previous approaches" to the problem as "deficient in one or more technical aspects." Ferguson said he was no longer connected with the project, and would not describe the results to date.
Opponents of incapacitants suggest not only that the research is a waste of time, but also that the use of the agents undermines the Chemical Weapons Convention in many respects.
"You just know our people are saying, 'What the hell are the Russians up to?' " said the University of Maryland's Harris. "Incidents like that could engender greater efforts not only on our part, but in other countries."
Still, noted Ted Prociv, a deputy assistant to the secretary of defense for chemical and biological matters in the Clinton administration, the stakes could be huge in a world where the United States is involved in "police actions" like those in Haiti, Somalia and Bosnia, where large numbers of civilians were involved.
"These rogue countries think nothing of drawing you into a situation where you're surrounded by noncombatants and where you can't kill anybody," said Prociv, president and CEO of the Springfield engineering firm Versar. "You have to have something besides billy clubs and machine guns."
-------- iraq
Iraq VP Sends U.S. Harsh Warning
By Dusan Stojanovic
Associated Press Writer
Friday, November 1, 2002; 3:14 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52383-2002Nov1?language=printer
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Saddam Hussein's deputy warned Americans on Friday they would be "sent to hell" if they attack Iraq.
Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan also called on the U.N. Security Council to prevent the United States from pushing through a tougher resolution about Iraq's weapons programs, seen by critics as an automatic green light to attack.
"The aggressors will be sent to hell if they attack Iraq," Ramadan told reporters.
He called on Russia, China and France, all three veto-holding Security Council members, to reject the U.S.-sponsored draft resolution that threatens Iraq with "serious consequences" if it does not allow U.N. weapons inspectors unhindered work when they return to Iraq.
"There is no need for a new resolution," Ramadan said, "but the U.S. administration is exerting economic and political pressure in order to force some countries to bow to the U.S. demands."
The United States does not want the inspectors to return, Ramadan said. Instead, "It wants either that Iraq refuses the formula proposed by the U.S. administration so it can say that Iraq is not complying with U.N. resolutions, or that the inspectors come with obstacles that prevent them from performing their job properly."
The Bush administration wants the Council to support a resolution that strengthens inspections, warns Iraq of "serious consequences" if it fails to cooperate, and declares that Iraq is still in "material breach" of its obligations to get rid of its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs.
The administration said it was working on a new version of its resolution, but it wasn't clear whether it would address Russian, French and Chinese opposition to language they believe could trigger U.S. military action against Baghdad.
----
Crucial US allies on Iraq fall out over oil
Owen Bowcott in Ankara
Friday November 1, 2002
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,823646,00.html
Two of the United States' closest strategic allies in its campaign against Saddam Hussein - Turkey and the autonomous Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq - have fallen out amid a chorus of belligerent pre-election rhetoric.
As party minibuses are touring the streets broadcasting arabesque folk music and political slogans to drum up support for the weekend poll, the veteran prime minister Bulent Ecevit and senior generals have threatened to seize the oil-rich Iraqi cities of Kirkuk and Mosul in the event of war.
But the outburst of nationalist rhetoric in Ankara is having a limited impact on an election in which politicians across the political spectrum would prefer to avoid an American-led war for fear of it destabilising a weak economy.
In party headquarters - uniformly decked out with carnival-style bunting and streamers - the crippled economy is the main issue.
Turkey is crucial for America's military preparations. The air base at Incirlik, in southern Turkey, is used daily by British and US planes patrolling the no-fly zones over northern Iraq.
Air assaults on Iraqi defences north of Baghdad would be difficult to launch without these Turkish bases.
But earlier this month Mr Ecevit, 77, who has served as prime minister five times, declared: "We know that the United States cannot carry out this operation without us. That is why we are advising that it abandon the idea. We're telling Washington we are worried about the matter."
Few doubt that Turkey would fall into line once war became inevitable, but it remains anxious about the economic chaos war would bring. As it frequently points out, enforcement of sanctions against Saddam Hussein's regime has cost the country between £25bn and £40bn in lost trade over the past decade.
Unemployment, in a population of 68 million, is well over 10%, and inflation is running at 35%. An influx of Iraqi refugees would further hinder recovery.
But last month, the army reluctantly began preparing emergency tents at sites along the border.
On top of the economic worries, Mr Ecevit's recurring nightmare is that war would lead to the creation of a Kurdish state in northern Iraq.
The outgoing prime minister, whose protracted illness led to the collapse of his governing coalition and early elec tions, fears that Turkey's 12 million Kurds, mainly in the south-east, would break away and fragment the country.
Reconciliation between the two Kurdish factions in northern Iraq earlier this summer sharpened Ankara's suspicions that America had secretly offered independence in return for Kurdish cooperation.
The Turkish government further reasoned that if the Kurds occupied Kirkuk and Mosul, once Ottoman cities, the oil wealth in the area would boost their political aspirations.
Threats have come from government spokesmen and retired generals, suggesting that Turkish troops would occupy cities in northern Iraq once fighting began.
Rightwing parties have urged preventive occupation of the oilfields. Opponents have warned of a Cyprus-style crisis.
Hoshar Zebari, the head of international relations for the Kurdistan Democratic Party, held talks with the government in Ankara. Afterwards he told the Guardian: "Mr Ecevit and Mrs Ciller have been competing with each other over who is more nationalistic on the issue of attacking the Kurds in northern Iraq.
"We made clear we will oppose unilateral intervention by Turkey. People will resist."
Mr Ecevit, the leader of the Democratic Left party, has not been a persuasive election campaigner. Few expect his party to poll above the 10% threshold which allows a party is parliamentary representation.
The threshold has also proved a barrier for Turkey's Kurdish groups. To improve its chances of success, the main Kurdish party, Hadep, has teamed up with two smaller leftwing parties.
The authorities are clearly worried about this strategy. More than 20 members of the party have been banned from standing as candidates.
At Hadep headquarters in a quiet Ankara side-street, Kemal Pozoz, the vice-president, sits warming his hands on a tulip-shaped glass of sweet tea.
"Turkey's rulers have their eyes on the oil-producing areas," he said. "The Kurds in Iraq want a federal country. In Turkey we just want our basic human rights and to be able to receive education in the Kurdish language."
Support is growing, he insisted. Last weekend in Istanbul at least 300,000 people, mainly Kurds forced out of their villages in the south-east, attended a party electoral rally.
"Maybe every Kurd has a utopia in his mind of an independent state," Mr Pozoz says, "but we are demanding our rights within the Turkish state."
----
Iraqi Intelligence
American Conservative Magazine,
November 2002
http://www.amconmag.com/11_4/iraqi_intelligence.html
A funny thing happened on the way to the war. President Bush had enraptured an invited crowd - if not the networks - with his "full force and fury" battle plan. Congress was primed to vote consent. Public opinion was breaking toward the White House, and all the president's men looked to be lining up behind.
Then CIA Director George Tenet sent a letter to the S