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NUCLEAR
Cat-and-Mouse With North Korea
Fear missile can hit U.S.
S.Korea Urges N.Korea to Scrap Nuclear Program
U.S. Says Talks on Hold Until N. Korea Drops Nuclear Bid
H.R.5493: Benefits for contractor employees of the Department of Energy
The Doctrine of No. 1
MILITARY
Only Fla. Prepared for Bioterrorism
Cuba denies it is developing biological arms
War on Iraq 'too expensive': UK
Iraqis Confused by American Enmity
New Sites May Be Inspected in Iraq
Police investigate new Israeli Defence Minister over war crimes
Sharon Offers Foreign Ministry to Political Rival Netanyahu
Bases may be off-limits if US goes it alone in Iraq
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
An Electronic Cop That Plays Hunches
Kuwait to Exempt U.S. on War Crimes
On Russia's War, and America's
OTHER
Proposal to Reduce Greenhouse Gases Loses Momentum
Giant to Sell Irradiated Beef
U.S. May Abandon Support of U.N. Population Accord
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- korea
Cat-and-Mouse With North Korea
Saturday, November 2, 2002
Washington Post; Page A23
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A54788-2002Nov1?language=printer
In his Oct. 25 op-ed column, Charles Krauthammer expressed contempt for the opinions I offered about North Korea in an editorial in the New York Times in October 1994.
In that piece, I applauded the Agreed Framework, which stopped plutonium reprocessing by North Korea. The United States, in return, promised to provide a light-water reactor by 2003, supply heavy fuel oil in the interim and improve relations with its onetime enemy.
Washington got what it most wanted up front, but it did not live up to its end of the bargain. Flayed by Krauthammer and hard-liners in Congress, the Clinton administration shrank from implementing the deal. Pyongyang's covert effort to acquire the means to enrich uranium may date from that time.
Pyongyang tried again to end its enmity with Washington using missiles as inducement. That effort culminated in October 2000, when the two sides issued a joint communique declaring "neither government would have hostile intent toward the other."
Two weeks later, Kim Jong Il offered to end exports of all missile technology and to freeze testing, production and deployment of the No Dong and Taepo Dong missiles.
Those offers led Krauthammer to conclude that North Korea was engaging in "extortion" in an attempt to obtain economic aid without giving up anything in return. It was not. It was cooperating when Washington cooperated and retaliating when Washington reneged.
The Bush administration refused to negotiate. Worse, the president included North Korea in his "axis of evil" and threatened preemptive war. That gave new impetus to North Korean efforts to acquire uranium-enrichment capability. Yet, when confronted by U.S. evidence of its covert nuclear program, North Korea acknowledged it, putting it on the negotiating table. In response, U.S. allies South Korea and Japan sped up talks with North Korea.
The great divide in American foreign policy thinking is between those like Krauthammer who think that the only way to get our way in the world is to push other countries around and those who think that cooperation can sometimes reduce threats.
-- Leon V. Sigal
The writer, a former member of the editorial board of the New York Times, is director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council in New York.
----
Fear missile can hit U.S.
N. Korea testing deadly weapon
By RICHARD SISK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
November 2, 2002
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/31849p-30212c.html
WASHINGTON - Nuclear-capable North Korea may be getting ready to test a new long-rang missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland, a top Pentagon official said yesterday.
The North Koreans are likely conducting ground tests on the engines of the new Taepo Dong 2 intercontinental ballistic missile and may be preparing for flight tests, said Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, who heads the government's Missile Defense Agency.
Kadish is in charge of a program that would station five prototypes of an anti-missile missile in Alaska within two years. But for now, the U.S. has no defense against the ICBMs.
At a breakfast with defense writers, Kadish said the U.S. might consider a first strike to destroy the long-range threat if the North Koreans went ahead with flight tests.
"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 [in Alaska silos] and do nothing," Kadish said.
There have been periodic reports that North Korea was ready to test a Taepo Dong 2 since 1998, when a Taepo Dong 1 was fired in a failed attempt to launch a satellite.
U.S. intelligence sources estimated that the Taepo Dong 1 could hit Alaska and Hawaii, and the Taepo Dong 2 could threaten the West Coast of the U.S.
Promises, promises
There has been no flight testing since 1998, and President Kim Jong Il has promised that North Korea would honor a self-imposed moratorium on flight tests through 2003.
But the moratorium has been thrown in doubt since his government admitted last month ago that it is developing nuclear weapons in violation of an eight-year-old pact negotiated by the Clinton administration.
Robert Einhorn, a former assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation, said the North Koreans were testing missiles on the ground and "we assume they're in a position to flight test at any time, but we don't know for sure."
No pushovers
The North Koreans were embarrassed when the U.S. caught them developing nuclear weapons, Einhorn said, and "they're demonstrating defiantly that they can't be pushed around."
In effect, the North Koreans are sending a message to the U.S. that "if you think we're going to be next after Iraq, you've got another think coming," Einhorn said.
Through its government-controlled media, North Korea kept up the defiant rhetoric yesterday, saying North Korea "can never accept the U.S. brigandish demands because submission leads to death," the Korean Central News Agency said.
The Bush administration is hoping pressure from South Korea, Japan, China and Russia would persuade Kim to change course. But administration officials also are considering choking off oil and food supplies to the struggling country.
----
S.Korea Urges N.Korea to Scrap Nuclear Program
Reuters
Saturday, November 2, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A55530-2002Nov2?language=printer
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's President Kim Dae-jung called on Saturday for concrete action from communist North Korea to scrap its nuclear weapons development program.
Kim's remarks set the tone for meetings scheduled this week in Seoul and Tokyo between South Korea, Japan and the U.S., who are trying to pressure North Korea to end its nuclear weapons program.
"North Korea's nuclear development programs should be scrapped," Kim said in a statement. "South Korea will continue to urge the North through inter-Korean dialogue to come up with concrete action in the near future."
The statement was released after Kim held a meeting with senior foreign affairs and security officials.
The United States disclosed two weeks ago that Pyongyang earlier this month had acknowledged a secret nuclear weapons program for uranium enrichment that has operated for several years in violation of international and bilateral agreements.
However, defense undersecretary Douglas Feith told Reuters in Washington on Friday no concrete plan of action on North Korea was expected from the meetings.
South Korea has so far rejected any sanctions and has kept up exchanges with North Korea in the wake of the nuclear revelation.
-------- us politics
U.S. Says Talks on Hold Until N. Korea Drops Nuclear Bid
WASHINGTON IN BRIEF
Saturday, November 2, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A54751-2002Nov1?language=printer
The Bush administration yesterday 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.
----
H.R.5493:
Benefits for contractor employees of the Department of Energy
From: "Vina K Colley" <vcolley@earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2002
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:HR05493:@@@X
Bill Summary & Status for the 107th Congress
Proposed EEOICPA Amendment H.R.5493
Sponsor: Rep Strickland, Ted(introduced 9/26/2002)
Latest Major Action: 9/26/2002 Referred to House committee.
Status: Referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and in addition to the Committee on Education and the Workforce, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.
Title: To amend the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000 to provide benefits for contractor employees of the Department of Energy who were exposed to toxic substances at Department of Energy facilities, to provide coverage under subtitle B of that Act for certain additional individuals, to establish an ombudsman and otherwise reform the assistance provided to claimants under that Act, and for other purposes.
STATUS:
9/26/2002: Referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and in addition to the committee on Education and the Workforce, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.
9/26/2002: Referred to House Judiciary
9/26/2002: Referred to House Education and the Workforce
9/30/2002: Introductory remarks on measure. (E1699)
----
The Doctrine of No. 1
November 2, 2002
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/02/opinion/L02BUSH.html
To the Editor:
The imperial overtones of President Bush's pre-eminence doctrine and its avowed goal of perpetual, unchallenged military supremacy certainly risk increasing yet further the world's already alarming level of disaffection with its remaining superpower ("Keeping U.S. No. 1: Is It Wise? Is It New?," Arts & Ideas pages, Oct. 26).
Why would the United States make a doctrine out of what is a fact and flaunt it before the world? President Dwight D. Eisenhower, among many others, would have recognized part of the answer: the weapons industry's need to justify production in the wake of the Soviet collapse. With a pre-eminence doctrine in place, this problem evaporates for the foreseeable future.
It would be foolish to presume that the president's doctrine can be reduced simply to the profits and well-being of the arms industry. Given a presidency so closely linked to industry, however, it would be equally foolish to ignore the link.
JIM ROSCOE
Bangor, Me.,
Oct. 26, 2002
• To the Editor:
Your commentary about the Bush-Cheney doctrine of permanent military supremacy (Arts & Ideas, Oct. 26) centers on the foreign policy implications of such a doctrine. At least as important are the domestic ramifications, some of which already exist. Are we willing, for the sake of world hegemony, to build a garrison state that consumes billions of dollars for weaponry while ignoring the true security needs of its citizens, like health care, civil liberties and clean air?
CHRIS CHRISTENSEN
Portland, Ore.,
Oct. 26, 2002
-------- MILITARY
-------- biological weapons
Only Fla. Prepared for Bioterrorism
By LAURA MECKLER
Associated Press Writer
Nov 2, 2002
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BIOTERRORISM_PREPAREDNESS?SITE=FLPET&SECTION=HOME
Kozel reports that states still have more work to do in preparing for possible bioterrorism. (Audio)
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The federal government has truckloads of medicine and vaccines ready to deploy should bioterrorism strike, but only Florida is fully prepared to receive and distribute those treatments.
Most regions have yet to figure out how they will dedicate 500 hospital beds that could be needed in an emergency, and even fewer have found rooms inside hospitals to isolate contagious patients who could be victims of a bioterrorism attack, federal officials say.
Updates to state bioterrorism preparation plans were due in Washington on Friday, and more progress is expected in what is a continual effort to get ready for a germ attack. Yet top health officials say much work remains.
That's particularly true in handling the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile. Even Florida, the one state deemed ready to receive its contents, still must conduct drills to make sure its plans will work.
"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.
Federal officials emphasize that states still could handle an emergency if they had to, even if they are not considered prepared.
"People ask if our state is ready to respond to bioterrorism," said Dr. Patricia Nolan, director of the Rhode Island Health Department. "Let me answer in this way: Being ready is a process."
After the Sept. 11 attacks, when the stockpile was deployed for the first time, it took New York City officials hours to figure out where to send 50 tons of general medical supplies and how to secure them, but eventually the medicine was delivered.
By Friday's deadline, states were supposed to address key questions about 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.
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 said that math could be conservative if there were an outbreak of smallpox - a highly contagious, fatal disease. "Five days might actually be a luxury," he 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 planned to spend $250,000 to handle the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile; federal officials said they should count on needing $1 million.
Another concern: States with budget crunches will have federal money to hire needed workers, but won't be allowed to spend it because of 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, five territories and three associated independent states.
Just one project, Florida, is in the "green" category, meaning ready to go, pending a rehearsal. Its rating is "green-minus."
Two states - Wisconsin and Hawaii - are "red-plus," meaning they are making little or no progress. Puerto Rico is also "red-plus"; the Virgin Islands is "red." Wisconsin officials said Friday that they have made progress since the last federal evaluation and expect their rating to improve.
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. Among those, eight are "amber-plus," 26 are "amber" and 17 are "amber-minus." Officials would not say which states fall into each subcategory.
-------- biological weapons
Cuba denies it is developing biological arms, demands US prove its charge
Saturday November 2, 2002
AFP
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/021102/1/34chs.html
Cuba's Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque denied a charge by Washington's top diplomat for Latin America that Havana is developing biological weapons.
Responding to the allegation Thursday by Otto Reich, a Cuban-born US diplomat now assistant secretary of state in the bureau of western hemisphere affairs, Perez Roque demanded Washington back up its allegations, and told reporters Cuba's research facilities were open to visiting scientists.
"These statements can be called bald-faced lies," said Perez Roque, who said Havana does not produce weapons of mass destruction and noted its biotech facilities "are visited systematically by specialists from other countries, including the United States."
Reich said Thursday Cuba has at least a limited offensive biological weapons research and development program.
Perez Roque said his denial was "categorical," and challenged Reich to "put up some proof of it, a bit of evidence, the slightest bit of proof."
In May, Havana and Washington -- which do not maintain full diplomatic relations -- slid into a diplomatic huffing match after US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton, said May 6 "the US believes Cuba has at least a limited offensive biological warfare research and development effort. Cuba has provided dual-use biotechnology to other rogue states."
A week later President Fidel Castro offered visiting former US president Jimmy Carter "free and complete access" to personally inspect Cuba's scientific research centers with experts of his choosing to help refute the US government charge that Havana was producing biological weapons. Castro did not take up Castro's offer.
But Carter on May 13 strongly suggested US President George W. Bush's administration sought to complicate the context of his landmark visit to Cuba by charging Havana developed and exported biological arms, after telling him there was no evidence to back any such claims.
Cuba has aggressively challenged the charge of involvment in bioterror. Castro has called them "Olympic-sized lies."
Havana, which the US State Department lists as a state sponsor of terrorism, is fiercely proud of what it sees as the humanitarian component of its biotech center's development of vaccines and medicines that are more affordable for developing countries.
On June 5, another senior US official softened Bolton's charge that Cuba was developing and exporting biological arms, saying Washington did not have evidence Havana had a full-fledged weapons "program."
"We never tried to suggest we had a smoking gun," Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research Carl Ford conceded in testimony before Congress.
The United States and Cuba do not have full diplomatic ties, and Bush has kept his rhetoric harsh against neighboring Cuba, the only communist-ruled country in the Americas.
Elections are looming November 5, and the president's brother, Governor Jeb Bush, is seeking reelection in the state of Florida, which has the largest concentration of anti-Castro Cuban-Americans.
-------- britain
War on Iraq 'too expensive': UK
From correspondents in London
02Nov02
NEWS.com.au
http://news.com.au/common/printpage/0,6093,5408912,00.html
BRITISH Finance Minister Gordon Brown has told the defence ministry that Britain, Washington's main supporter of possible military in Iraq, cannot afford to send troops to the Gulf, a London-based daily said today.
Brown has ordered military planners to come up with new strategies after it worked out that the contribution to a US-led war would cost STG3 billion ($A8.49 billion), The Daily Telegraph said, quoting senior defence sources.
This figure is about half a billion pounds ($A1.4 billion) more than the cost of the military action in 1991 in the last Gulf War, led by the US President George W Bush's father and namesake, the daily added.
"Defence chiefs are furious over the suggestion that they might have to cut the force numbers they believe they need to fight a war in order to fit into a Treasury-imposed straitjacket," the front-page article said.
Half of the Treasury's STG3 billion ($A8.49 billion) figure was for its estimate of the cost of deploying an armoured division to Kuwait to oppose Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's elite Republican guard, according to the same source.
"They have told the planners at PJHQ (Permanent Joint Headquarters) to come away and come up with a plan that does not involve deploying ground forces," a senior defence source told the paper.
"People at the very top are extremely angry about all this," another source said, according to The Daily Telegraph.
"Instead of working out what you need to do the job and then costing it, everything has to be costed first and the job tailored to fit the money," it added.
Military planners put the cost of a British contribution to an operation that lasts more than a year and involves a post-war occupation force as high as STG15 billion ($A42.44 billion), according to the daily.
"The Treasury said we can't afford it," a senior defence source told the paper.
"Well that will look great for (British Prime Minister) Tony Blair, the only allied leader who has actually been asked to send forces," the source added.
This report appears on news.com.au.
-------- iraq
Iraqis Confused by American Enmity
By Dusan Stojanovic
Associated Press Writer
Saturday, November 2, 2002; 2:14 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57360-2002Nov2?language=printer
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Faced with U.S. threats of war, people on the drab streets of Baghdad speak of dying for Saddam Hussein - but as a remote possibility and without much anger or emotion.
They seem more concerned about why Washington is so focused on Iraq and not on Iran or North Korea, other countries President Bush has labeled part of the "axis of evil."
"Bush, like his father, obviously has something against us Iraqis," Nawar Adnan Al Baidi said as he sipped tea at the Spinach Cafe across from Baghdad's University of Technology, where he is a student. A government minder was nearby during the brief interview.
The United States says Saddam must stop trying to develop nuclear weapons and give up the biological and chemical arsenal he was building even before the first President Bush recruited a coalition to drive Iraq out of Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War.
Bush the son said Iraq, Iran and North Korea were an "axis of evil" for allegedly trying to obtain weapons of mass destruction and sponsoring international terrorism.
"Even if it's true that Iraq developed weapons of mass destruction, so did Iran and North Korea - and Bush is not threatening war against them," said 20-year-old Al Baidi.
"Why only us then?" he asked, offering no answer.
Officials here regularly speak of Iraqis happily standing up to American invaders and defeating them decisively. Only Friday, Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said the Americans "will be sent to hell if they attack Iraq."
Tunai Sabah, another student at Al Baidi's table, said she was ready to fight the Americans "until the last drop of blood." But then she added that she did not understand why Americans hate Iraq.
"They say they want to get rid of Saddam, but it is the ordinary people who will suffer and bleed," she said.
Privately, Iraqis speak of knots in their stomachs and growing worry for their children in case of another war. None, however, would acknowledge that to strangers, especially to foreign reporters accompanied by government employees.
Still, vendors selling vegetables, nuts and spices at Baghdad's bustling open air Al Suq Aurubi market seemed more fatalistic than the regime's patriotic rhetoric would indicate.
"For 12 years, we have suffered under wars and sanctions, so one more suffering won't make a difference," said Isaa Kadum, selling home made cookies. "If Bush thinks his threats are scaring us, he is wrong."
Around him, shoppers bargained for flour, sugar, spaghetti, oil and spices - goods only recently becoming a little more plentiful and affordable in isolated Iraq.
Iraqis say life has gotten slightly easier in the past three or four years. More money and goods have been coming in under a U.N. program easing sanctions imposed since the Gulf War to try to force Saddam to stop cultivating banned weapons.
The Iraqi government, thanks to oil revenue from the U.N. program, has lifted salaries for state employees and some others slightly beyond the national average of $10 a month. The size of the monthly government ration from the so-called oil-for-food program has recently doubled, so citizens can store food reserves in case of attack, Baghdad's people say.
But, Iraqis are preoccupied with survival, and the looming American attack is something too far away to be confronted immediately.
"All we think about is one day at a time, and the priority is food for our children," said Saddam Nuri, an employee of the Iraqi state oil company, who shopped for cheap food with his wife and three small children.
Asked who is to blame for the dismal life in Iraq, he stopped, pointed his finger up as if to say someone high up in the regime. But, perhaps fearful of the implications of his gesture, he said with a tinge of sarcasm: "Of course, America!"
----
New Sites May Be Inspected in Iraq
By Matt Kelley
Associated Press Writer
Saturday, November 2, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A56274-2002Nov2?language=printer
WASHINGTON -- 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
-------- israel / palestine
Police investigate new Israeli Defence Minister over war crimes
By Chris McGreal and and Brian Whitaker in Jerusalem and London
November 2 2002
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/11/01/1036027036796.html
Lieutenant-General Shaul Mofaz, named as Israeli Defence Minister by the Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, is under investigation by British police for alleged war crimes in the occupied territories.
The appointment of General Mofaz, a former army chief of staff, to such a key post has confirmed suspicions that Mr Sharon would lurch further to the right after the Labour Party walked out of the coalition government on Wednesday.
The Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, described the appointment as a further blow to hopes for peace and warned it would lead to an Israeli military escalation.
But it remained unclear how long General Mofaz would remain in his new post as Mr Sharon struggled to put together a coalition with right-wing parties to keep his Government in power.
General Mofaz was in Britain this week on a speaking tour but cut short his visit on Wednesday as the Israeli Government collapsed and the director of public prosecutions in England asked police in London to investigate war crimes allegations.
The investigation was ordered after lawyers representing several Palestinian families presented the DPP with a dossier demanding General Mofaz's arrest under the Geneva Convention. The dossier accuses him of crimes resulting from Israel's "targeted assassinations" policy and the destruction of Palestinian homes.
In a 17-page letter sent to the British Justice Minister, a human rights lawyer, Imran Kahn, also accused General Mofaz of breaching the convention banning the use of torture while he was head of the Israeli Army.
He led the army at the height of this year's crackdown in the occupied territories and was an enthusiastic advocate of the selective killing of "terrorists" which has often led to civilian deaths.
He replaces Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, the Labour Party leader, who led a walkout from the coalition government ostensibly over high levels of funding for Jewish settlements.
Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch has denounced Palestinian suicide bombers as "war criminals" and said the Palestinian Authority bore heavy responsibility for not stopping them.
A series of explosions tore through the home of a Palestinian Hamas militant in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing three people apparently preparing bombs, Hamas officials and hospital sources said.
The Guardian, New York Times, Agence France-Presse, agencies
--------
Sharon Offers Foreign Ministry to Political Rival Netanyahu
November 2, 2002
New York Times
By JAMES BENNET
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/02/international/middleeast/02ISRA.html
JERUSALEM, Nov. 1 - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon today offered his political rival, Benjamin Netanyahu, the post of foreign minister, seeking to shore up his coalition with the articulate, rightist former prime minister after the defection of the Labor Party this week.
The two men agreed to meet again on Sunday. Despite some reservations, Mr. Netanyahu - the foremost challenger to Mr. Sharon for leadership of their Likud Party - appeared to be leaning toward accepting the offer, Israeli officials said.
Their meeting, at Mr. Sharon's ranch in the Negev, lasted for more than a hour, at the start of the Jewish Sabbath, which finally brought a pause to the week's political tumult.
Mr. Sharon has recruited as his defense minister another formidable hawk, Shaul Mofaz, a former armed forces chief of staff.
Under Israel's parliamentary system, the resignations of Labor's ministers, submitted on Wednesday over a budget dispute, took effect this evening, making final the divorce of the unity government. That coalition endured for 19 months, usually presenting a solid front in the conflict with the Palestinians.
During that period Mr. Sharon proved adept at balancing the demands of left and right within his government. Now, with a minority of 55 seats in the 120-seat Parliament, he must perform a balancing act of a different sort, between international pressures and domestic political realities.
In an effort to reassure the Bush administration, Mr. Sharon's allies said his new government would not deviate from his old government's principles.
"That Israel is going to have a government driven by right-wing extremists, that's nonsense," said a senior official in Mr. Sharon's office. "The prime minister is intent on continuing the same course he has pursued the last two years."
The official said Mr. Sharon would keep all of his commitments to President Bush, including a pledge not to harm Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader.
The White House recently presented Israel and the Palestinians with a proposed "road map" for achieving peace and a Palestinian state in three years. Although he has criticized that plan, Mr. Sharon has said he accepts the idea of an eventual Palestinian state.
To safeguard his coalition, though, Mr. Sharon must woo the hard right. On Sunday he is to begin bargaining with leaders of a faction, National Union-Yisrael Beiteinu, that opposes the Oslo accords and rejects any Palestinian state in the West Bank. The faction controls seven seats in Parliament, which would give Mr. Sharon a slender majority of 62 votes.
Without a majority, he will be vulnerable to a vote of no confidence by Parliament, which would force him to call elections in 90 days.
But Yuri Shtern, the chairman of National Union-Yisrael Beiteinu, said in an interview here that as the price of joining the government, he intended to demand that it strike from its official guidelines any acceptance of Oslo and declare clear opposition to Palestinian statehood. The Oslo agreements of 1993 and 1995 established a framework for Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Dr. Shtern, an economist, said that President Bush's road map would reward Palestinian terrorism and that Mr. Sharon lacked a strategy for confronting the violence. "We are obliged to win this war by crushing the motivation of Palestinians to attack us," he said. "We have to be committed to victory."
It is perhaps an index of Mr. Sharon's political skill that he remains politically popular despite conflicting suspicions on the right and the left over what he stands for.
Mr. Sharon's opposition to the Oslo accords has raised suspicions on the left that he harbors a secret plan to destroy them, and with them the possibility of a Palestinian state.
He is suspected by the right of having gone soft since his days as a general and defense minister. According to that theory, he embraced Labor to gain the political leverage to resist his own rightist base.
Mr. Netanyahu compromised with the Palestinians as prime minister in the late 1990's and, unlike Mr. Sharon, even shook Mr. Arafat's hand. But having repeatedly criticized Mr. Sharon as not doing enough to destroy Mr. Arafat's governing Palestinian Authority, he has become the favorite of the hard right within Likud.
If Mr. Sharon's coalition falls and elections are called, Mr. Netanyahu may be able to beat him in a primary. But turning down the post of foreign minister would carry some political risk, since he may be seen as serving his own ambition rather than the country in a time of crisis.
Likud politicians speculated that the two men had discussed some arrangement under which Mr. Sharon would eventually step aside in Mr. Netanyahu's favor.
On his last day as Mr. Sharon's defense minister, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, the Labor chairman, today kept up his criticism of the government, declaring that it was time for Israel to press diplomacy with the Palestinians.
-------- mideast
Bases may be off-limits if US goes it alone in Iraq
By Peter Fray
November 2 2002
Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/11/01/1036027036766.html
Ankara: A former Turkish ambassador to the United Nations has warned that his country would place key military bases out of bounds to United States strike planes if President George Bush insisted on attacking Iraq without a new UN resolution.
Turkey, the only Muslim member of NATO, has several key strategic bases which the US military command, under General Tommy Franks, is negotiating to use for air strikes and on-ground support against neighbouring Iraq.
The former ambassador, Inal Batu, now a senior member of the Republican People's Party (CHP), which is expected to play a key role in a coalition government after tomorrow's election, said Turkey could not stop the US using the Incirlik base, from which US and British aircraft patrol the no-fly zone in northern Iraq, but it could withhold approval for other key bases, near Diyarbakir, close to the Iraqi border.
"We insist they must have a resolution from the UN before any military action." he said. Asked how Turkey would respond to a unilateral US attack, he said: "I do not think we'll be able to co-operate with them if they do so ... other Turkish bases will be out of touch for them."
Mr Batu is a likely candidate for foreign minister in a coalition government between the CHP and the Islamist Justice and Development Party, which is expected to top tomorrow's poll.
General Franks and General Joseph Ralston, supreme allied commander in Europe, recently held talks with the Turkish military, including the chief of staff, General Hilmi Ozkok, about Turkey's role in any Iraqi conflict.
Turkish MPs and the military are understood to want huge debt relief from the US and new military equipment in return for co-operating in a war against Iraq. They also want the US to pressure the European Union, especially Germany, to drop its opposition to Turkey joining the EU.
Turkey's President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, the caretaker Prime Minister, Bulent Ecevit, and politicians from other parties have recently warned that military action against Iraq would destabilise the region and called for a peaceful solution to the issue.
Mr Ecevit called on the US to abandon the planned attack and warned that "the US cannot carry out this operation without us".
But Western diplomats believe Turkey will eventually join the US-led assault against Saddam Hussein, if only to stop Kurds in southern Turkey and northern Iraq from forming a Kurdish homeland, based on the oil-rich Iraqi city of Kirkuk.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
An Electronic Cop That Plays Hunches
November 2, 2002
New York Times
By MINDY SINK
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/02/arts/02COPL.html
TUCSON, Oct. 28 - Officials building a case against the Washington-area sniper suspects are using a new investigative tool to help trace their movements across the country. It is an Internet-based system called Coplink, developed at an artificial intelligence laboratory here, that allows police departments to establish links quickly among their own files and to those of other departments.
During the 21 days in which snipers terrorized the area, investigators used everything from specialized ballistics testing to geographic and criminal profiling to radio and television announcements to track them down. Then, in what turned out to be the 11th hour of the pursuit, they finally reached out to Coplink. As it turned out, John Muhammad and Lee Malvo were arrested before it was fully installed, but now the post-arrest task force is using the system to help connect the dots.
All of the information that was collected - including that from other computer database systems like the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Rapidstart - is now being downloaded into the Coplink database so that the accumulated data can be compared, said Robert Griffin, president of Knowledge Computing Corporation of Tucson, which is turning the prototype in the laboratory into a commercial product. "The more data you get, the better Coplink works," he said.
Coplink was designed by Hsinchun Chen, the director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the University of Arizona. "It's the Google for law enforcement," he said, referring to a speedy popular Internet search engine that, given a couple of words, can find an array of related Web sites. "Things that a human can do intuitively we are getting the computer to do, too."
During the sniper investigation, which generated hundreds of thousands of tips, the number of potential clues to assimilate was daunting. "We were mobilizing a massive effort," said Lt. Mitch Cunningham of the Montgomery County police. "We had tactile resources, the military, federal, state and local law enforcement agencies and information technology using several products where each one of these had a role." So when the National Institute of Justice, the Justice Department's research and development arm, suggested that the sniper task force try Coplink, the officials agreed.
While no one is suggesting that old-fashioned detective work is being replaced by machines, the idea behind Coplink is to provide a computer program that can save busy police officers precious time and sometimes even help solve cases. That's something Coplink's oh-so-human advocates will boast about like a good story about a rookie getting a lucky break in a case. It is like having a new partner in the form of a computer backing up a cop.
"There is a greater and greater role for technology in law enforcement," Lieutenant Cunningham said. Software like Coplink's is already part of everyday life, said Rodney A. Brooks, director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "It's inevitable that it's going to have some law enforcement application, too."
Mr. Brooks said that his company, iRobot, has machines that investigate caves in Afghanistan before military units enter and that such machines are finding their way into municipal police forces. "Columbine High School is a great example of how the police did not know what was going on inside," he said of the 1999 school shootings in Colorado.
Furthermore, he said, the human mind can process and retain only so much information. "There are enormous amounts of facts and connections out there, more than can be held in any one person's mind," he added. "Just like with gene patterns, it's much too complex for someone to remember it all."
Coplink works by linking and comparing data from new and existing files. For example, Mr. Griffin said, in a Tucson case a man was found lying face down after his throat had been cut and he had been run over by a vehicle. The man was still alive, and before he was taken to a hospital he told people at the scene, "Shorty did it." The name Shorty was put into Coplink and cross-referenced with the victim's personal data, and within minutes the records showed that the two men had been in prison together.
The program also allows users to look at lists of data or to create graphs and charts showing affiliations among different criminals.
At the moment, the Tucson Police Department is the only one in the country where Coplink is fully installed, although about a half-dozen other cities have begun to introduce Coplink into their existing computer systems. The cost of the program and training can run anywhere from $40,000 to over $200,000, depending on the size of the department and existing computer systems, Mr. Griffin said. The development of Coplink has been financed in part by the National Institute of Justice and by the National Science Foundation.
Widespread use should expand the technology's impact. Although criminals often go beyond a single jurisdiction, as in the sniper case, data on a crime ,from the type of weapon used to physical characteristics, may remain in a single department's files and the connections between crimes may be overlooked. But Dr. Chen insists Coplink is not just link analysis.
"It takes a large amount of data and, like a super black book of data, has to detect or play detective from this large knowledge base," he said. "It has to consolidate and analyze."
"Even in Spielberg movies," he added, "the robot is learning from the humans and does not just know everything."
Before coming to Arizona, Dr. Chen had worked on knowledge management issues at the Defense Department and the Central Intelligence Agency. A student in a class at the University of Arizona - a police officer, as it happened - asked Dr. Chen whether there might be a way to help the Tucson police share and analyze problems. Dr. Chen took up the idea in 1997, after receiving funds from the National Institute of Justice, and went on to develop Coplink with the Police Department here.
Lt. Jenny Schroeder of the Tucson police says that the Coplink files are all public records. "This is not classified or secret information," she said. "A lot of criminals are repeat offenders, and they can't hide their behavior." She noted John Muhammad's history of domestic violence.
Because Coplink relies on existing criminal records, it does not necessarily cause Big Brother concerns, but it is not without critics.
"When this kind of knowledge is applied to discrete databases, or an investigation of a single type of crime, say serial rape, then I don't see a lot of privacy issues," said James X. Dempsey, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington-based advocacy group dealing with issues of privacy on the Internet. "When you start trying to extend this technology to many different types of crimes or into information other than law enforcement, then the problems multiply rapidly."
Mr. Dempsey said one security concern could emerge if Coplink went nationwide and was open to law enforcement officials at varying levels. "The nightmare would be when the bad guys tap into it, and we know how many insecure Internet-based systems there are," he said.
And ultimately, Mr. Dempsey said, there might be too much reliance on technology.
"There is a lot that technology can do with fingerprinting, sharing Department of Motor Vehicle data," he said. "But there seems to be a classic case of believing that technology can solve every problem, and I'm very skeptical that it can."
But Dr. Chen said that in time, if Coplink goes nationwide, it could help law enforcement agencies share information equally and quickly. "Everyone can now be on the same page," he said.
-------- courts
Kuwait to Exempt U.S. on War Crimes
November 2, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/02/international/middleeast/02COUR.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 - Kuwait, Washington's closest ally in the Arab world, has agreed to exempt Americans from prosecution by the new International Criminal Court for actions inside the country's borders, a State Department official said today.
Kuwait and the United States are to sign the agreement, known as an Article 98 agreement after the relevant section of the treaty that set up the court, at a ceremony in Washington next week, the official said.
The court has a mandate to prosecute war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
Thirteen other countries - Romania, Israel, East Timor, the Marshall Islands, Tajikistan, Palau, Mauritania, the Dominican Republic, Uzbekistan, Honduras, Afghanistan, Micronesia and Gambia - have accepted similar agreements with the United States.
The United States wants all countries to sign such pacts on the ground that Americans should not be exposed to politically motivated or frivolous prosecutions. Most of its European allies have resisted, saying the agreements undermine the court's authority.
-------- terrorism
On Russia's War, and America's
November 2, 2002
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/02/opinion/L02RUSS.html
To the Editor:
Re "Putin Vows Hunt for Terror Cells Around the World" (front page, Oct. 29):
President Vladimir V. Putin's announcement that Russia will respond to the tragedy at the Moscow theater by striking back at the Chechen terrorists and their backers has widened the war on terrorism in a dangerous direction.
Should all acts of terror be allowed to be lumped into a single war, with different countries entering and exiting at will from an indefinite campaign that knows no international borders and needs no authorization from the United Nations?
The Bush administration seems untroubled by the distinct differences between the acts of Sept. 11 and other acts of violence in the world. By allowing any country to join the war on terrorism, bringing its own definition of terrorism, and then to use the broader war as cover for its response, we risk becoming complicit in other countries' handling of their internal problems.
It's time to return our focus to our war - the war against Al Qaeda - and stop inviting other nations to join their causes to our own.
KEVIN FELDMAN
Los Angeles,
Oct. 29, 2002
•To the Editor:
Mirroring our grief after 9/11, "The Boy on a Date and Other Sad Stories" (news article, Oct. 29) described Russians mourning their losses to terrorism. Here, airwaves were filled with criticism, not recognition that both our countries face a decades-long war on Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. We cannot fight this one alone.
Passing the Russian Mission to the United Nations on Monday, I saw its flag at half-staff. If I left flowers, would my photo go into some F.B.I. file? Perhaps, but it felt right. The mission guard waved his O.K.
Sadly, my flowers were the only ones there, in contrast to broadcast images of mountains of flowers outside the blood-spattered theater. Arguments about the use of gas and poor coordination between the Russian military and civil authorities miss the point. We, too, have communications problems. Could we have handled that rescue any better? And, we need each other.
DAVE ROSENSTEIN
New York,
Oct. 29, 2002
•To the Editor:
Re "The Slaughter in Moscow" (editorial, Oct. 28):
Our hearts still heavy from our own tragedy, Americans join the Russian people in mourning the innocent victims of last week's attack by Chechen terrorists. However, President Vladimir V. Putin is mistaken in his belief that military might alone will keep the Russian people secure.
You are to be commended for daring to take to task the leaders of both sides, while the rest of Western society stands by in embarrassed silence. To say that the Chechens have legitimate grievances against the Russian government is not to condone terrorist acts, for while the terrorists were indeed Chechen, not all Chechens are terrorists.
The longer serious negotiations are delayed, the more time and opportunity fanatics have for taking matters into their own hands.
BARBARA QUINTILIANO
Malvern, Pa.,
Oct. 29, 2002
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- environment
Proposal to Reduce Greenhouse Gases Loses Momentum
November 2, 2002
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/02/international/asia/02DELH.html
NEW DELHI, Nov. 1 - An international conference on climate change concluded here today with the adoption of a declaration that sidestepped any future commitments by developing countries to curb the emission of the gases that cause global warming.
Within a decade, countries like China, Mexico and India are collectively predicted to surpass industrial nations in their releases of these gases. But climate agreements so far have exempted the poorer countries from obligations to reduce the release of greenhouse gases.
After two days and a night of negotiations, the wording was a victory for the developing countries, which fought hard to ensure that the declaration did not include any possible future measures they might have to abide by. The European Union, by contrast, had pushed for language on future reductions in the production of greenhouse gases.
In essence, the final document, the Delhi Ministerial Declaration on Climate Change and Sustainable Development, says each poor country should develop its own "appropriate" strategy to reduce emissions according to its own capacity, rather than being bound by an international consensus. In the meantime, the declaration said, the focus should be on adapting to climate change as much as trying to prevent it.
Building on principles laid down in Johannesburg in August at the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development, the declaration reiterated that economic and social development and the eradication of poverty are the priorities of developing countries.
-------- health
Giant to Sell Irradiated Beef
Region's Chains Have Avoided Bacteria-Killing Process
By Dina ElBoghdady
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 2, 2002; Page E03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A54617-2002Nov1?language=printer
Giant Food Inc. tomorrow will become the first supermarket chain in the Washington and Baltimore areas to sell irradiated ground beef.
Shoppers will be able to identify the somewhat controversial product: It will be set aside and marked with signs in the meat displays. Three stickers on each package should indicate that the meat has gone through an irradiation process patented by SureBeam Corp. of San Diego.
Given recent high-profile outbreaks of food-borne illness and this summer's recall of nearly 19 million pounds of contaminated beef, Giant said its decision was based on wanting to offer choices to customers who want the safest possible meat.
The Food and Drug Administration approved the treatment of red meat with measured doses of radiation in 1997. But supermarkets have been slow to adopt the technology even though it has been around for nearly 40 years, said Christine Bruhn, director of the Center for Consumer Research at the University of California at Davis.
The companies fear protests and bad publicity, even though irradiation has been used routinely for spices, astronaut food, military meals and even Band-Aids. It decontaminates, controls insects and increases shelf life.
In the past six weeks, 10 major retailers have signed up for SureBeam's services, said SureBeam's spokesman Mark Stephenson. They include Farm Fresh in southeastern Virginia, Pathmark in Philadelphia and New York, and Hy-Vee in the Midwest.
Odonna Mathews, Giant's vice president of consumer affairs, said the irradiated beef will cost the company about 10 to 30 cents extra per pound, but for now Giant will not pass on the cost to customers.
Though the beef will be offered in all Giant stores in this region, it will make up only about 10 percent of the ground beef offered, said Mathews.
"At this point, we want to see what the consumer reaction is," she said.
There should be no difference in taste or look between the two types of beef, she added.
But some public interest groups say the decision to turn to irradiation is unfortunate because it ultimately could let slaughterhouses off the hook by eroding their incentive to improve meat-handling techniques.
"With irradiation, the meat is assumed to be contaminated," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, a director at the Washington-based Center for Science in the Public Interest. "We'd like to see steps taken earlier to make sure whatever is in the meat is safe."
Even so, CSPI agrees with the Food and Drug Administration and numerous scientific bodies on one point: Irradiation is a safe process with minimal health risks.
Wenonah Hauter, a director of Public Citizen, said irradiation allows large food corporations to import cheaper food and save a few pennies by extending its shelf life.
The process is rather quick, said SureBeam's Stephenson. Packaged ground beef arrives at a SureBeam service center and is placed on conveyor belts, then passed under an electron beam that, he said, zaps pathogens in a fraction of a second. The belt then loads the beef onto trucks headed for the stores.
Consumers are not likely to squawk, Bruhn of the Center for Consumer Research said. Many surveys, she said, suggest that 80 percent of consumers are eager to buy irradiated food and 80 percent recognize the names salmonella and E. coli.
"It's a no-brainer for the supermarkets," Bruhn said.
-------- population
U.S. May Abandon Support of U.N. Population Accord
November 2, 2002
New York Times
By JAMES DAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/02/international/asia/02ABOR.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 - The Bush administration, embroiling itself in a new fight at the United Nations, has threatened to withdraw its support for a landmark family planning agreement that the United States helped write eight years ago.
The reason for the threat is contained in two terms that the administration contends can be construed as promoting abortion.
The terms - reproductive health services and reproductive rights - figure in the final declaration of the United Nations population conference in 1994 in Cairo, which embraced a new concept of population policy based on improving the legal rights and economic status of women. The declaration has since been endorsed by 179 nations.
But during a population and development conference in Bangkok this week, the American delegation announced that Washington would not reaffirm its support for the Cairo "program of action" unless the disputed words were changed or removed, United States and United Nations officials said.
The threat startled members of other delegations attending the Asian and Pacific Population Conference and drew immediate criticism from Chinese, Indian and Indonesian officials, who argued that the American position would undermine a global consensus on population policy, according to United Nations officials.
The threat has also elicited a sharp response from some Europeans.
"I think it is disappointing and incredible," said Agnes van Ardenne, the Dutch minister for development cooperation. "Poverty reduction will not be successful without reproductive health and without women being able to make their own choices."
Congressional Democrats and United Nations officials underscored these concerns today, saying that a decision by the administration to withdraw support for the Cairo program would undermine the efforts of family planning officials in countries that have looked to the United States to take the lead in checking population growth.
"The impact of these public statements is devastating and could undermine 10 years of work," Representative Carolyn Maloney, Democrat of New York, said in a draft letter to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell that she began circulating on Capitol Hill today. "It is likely that repressive countries will follow the U.S. in its decision and the progress that has been made will cease."
The State Department declined to comment on the dispute today. But administration officials acknowledged that the United States might not reaffirm its support for the Cairo program unless the disputed phrases were withdrawn or modified.
The 1994 conference was widely considered a watershed event because it moved away from traditional ideas of family planning and embraced the idea that giving women more control over their lives would provide a check against explosive population growth.
The program of action called for stabilizing the world's population at no more than 9.8 billion by 2050 and it urged countries to make health care widely accessible, reduce maternal mortality, provide universal access to primary education and stem the spread of H.I.V. and AIDS. The program also suggested that where abortion is legal, it should be made safe.
The program's acknowledgment that legal abortion could be part of health care has drawn objections from the Vatican and several Muslim and Latin American countries. But over the years, the United States has consistently reaffirmed the Cairo principles.
One of the Vatican's chief negotiators in Cairo, John Klink, was an adviser to the United States delegation in Bangkok, United Nations officials said.
Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, praised the Bush administration's stand.
"We certainly approve of any effort by the administration to make it clear that abortion is not an acceptable method of family planning," Mr. Johnson said. "There is a sort of code used in some of these U.N. documents, and groups that advocate expanded access to abortion do construe these phrases to include abortion."
The dispute over the Cairo program is only the most recent example of administration efforts to withdraw American support from United Nations programs that it contends promote abortion.
In July, the administration decided to withhold $34 million in previously approved aid to the United Nations Population Fund, contending that the agency helps Chinese government agencies that force women to have abortions.
In May, during the United Nations General Assembly's special session on children, the Bush administration, the Vatican and some Muslim countries unsuccessfully pushed for a policy to prevent teenagers from getting abortions. The group also sought to make abstinence the centerpiece of sex education for unmarried teenagers.
Timothy E. Wirth, the under secretary of state for global affairs in 1994, said he expected the Bush administration to reaffirm the Cairo program eventually. If it does not, he said, the United States might alienate important allies just as it is trying to build international support for its Iraq policies.
"The reaction would be very negative," Mr. Wirth added, "at a time when the administration is trying to put together international coalitions on various efforts."
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