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NUCLEAR
Nuclear capability becoming easier
US fears groups may get radiation devices
Experts find traces of depleted uranium from NATO ammunition
Iraqi cancers, birth defects blamed on U.S. depleted uranium
Iraq has few weapons left, says former UN inspector
Military force against N Korea ruled out
North Korea accuses South of military provocation
Crunch Time Approaching on Oil for Nuclear N.Korea
Weapons-grade Plutonium Disposition in Russia
Energizing Aging Nuclear Plants
Deadlock Broken on Homeland Security Bill
MILITARY
After the War - [Bosnia]
Nations seek reduced germ-warfare threat
Attack on Iraq
Blair says terror warnings are coming 'almost daily'
Pull troops from overseas, Canadian senators say
Iraq Said to Try to Buy Antidote Against Nerve Gas
Top Chinese leaders not listed on panel
Colombian Army Launches Operation to Rescue Bishop
Iraq war 'could kill 500,000'
Provision Could Trigger Iraq War
US warns war on Iraq may start before Christmas
U.S. Back On Ground In Northern Iraq
The shape of an Iraq invasion
Iraqi Exile Groups' Efforts Stalled by Intense Rivalries
Officials In Iraq Condemn Resolution
Iraqi lawmakers reject U.N. resolution
Israelis fear war crimes arrests
Israel's Netanyahu Vows if Elected to Expel Arafat
Israel Fires Missiles on Gaza City
NATO summit to discuss possible Iraq action
Putin brushes aside European advice on Chechnya
Chechnya Is Caught in Grip of Russia's Antiterror Wrath
U.S. Looks to Expand Covert Forces
Sweden expels Russian jet 'spies'
Russian Convicted of Spying
U.N. Urges U.S. to End Cuba Embargo
What's Troubling U.S. War Vets?
Unilateral attack on Iraq backed by Church
Pentagon Leakers Strike Again
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
U.S. Hopes to Check Computers Globally
Officials Question FBI Terror Readiness
Items Prohibited on Airlines
Pakistanis ask U.S. to halt execution
Ashcroft's Narco-Terror War
Voice on Tape Portrayed as bin Laden's Praises Recent Attacks
Blair Warns of New Qaeda Threats
F.B.I. Attacks Firearm Agency in Draft Report
U.S. Estimates Terror Attacks Cost
ENERGY AND OTHER
Solar Power Generated Atop Navy Carport
Hydrogen or 'hot air'?
A Big Victory by California in Energy Case
ACTIVISTS
Police open fire on Afghan student protest
Police fire in air to quell Kabul student protest
Student protests mount in Iran despite Khamenei threat of force
Protesters reject Shell's slick change of face
Police Fire in Air to Quell Kabul Student Protests
Venezuela Protest Turns Violent
U.S. Bishops Grapple With the Morality of War With Iraq
Two police injured as hundreds of antinuclear activists protest
-------- NUCLEAR
Nuclear capability becoming easier
By Ralph Joseph
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 12, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021112-17129695.htm
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A prominent Pakistani nuclear scientist who has criticized his nation for developing nuclear weapons says he doubts North Korea needs Pakistan's help to make its own atom bombs.
Pervez Hoodbhoy, a professor at the Quaid-i-Azam University, said: "Nuclear technology is not very difficult. In a few years, almost every country in the world is going to have it."
His remarks follow reports that Pakistan supplied North Korean with equipment, including centrifuge machines used to make weapons-grade uranium in exchange for rockets and missile technology.
President Pervez Musharraf denied the reports.
Mr. Hoodbhoy, who has criticized his own country and India for their game of nuclear brinkmanship in the recent military standoff, conceded that U.S. officials had a seemingly plausible theory of a Pakistani-North Korean exchange in the 1990s.
"You know, the Pakistani Ghauri missile is based on the North Korean Nodong," he said.
It was conceivable that Islamabad paid for the missile technology by supplying Pyongyang with uranium-enrichment technology, but the nuclear programs of the two countries are so small that it would be easy for both sides to hide any collaboration. "Only those who are involved would know," he said.
North Korea recently shocked the world by admitting to U.S. officials that it had begun refining bomb-grade uranium in violation of a 1994 agreement to give up nuclear weapons.
Mr. Hoodbhoy said there are sources other than Pakistan for the North Koreans to acquire uranium-enrichment technology. "There are the Chinese, for example," he said.
An Indian analyst, meanwhile, suggested that Pakistan had earlier acquired its uranium-enrichment technology by stealing it from the Russians.
B. Raman, director of the Institute of Topical Studies in Chennai, India, said in an article reprinted in the Lahore newspaper the Weekly Independent that a Pakistani intelligence operative, retired Maj. Gen. Sultan Habib, "had distinguished himself in the clandestine procurement and theft" of nuclear material while posted as defense attache in the Pakistani Embassy in Moscow from 1991 to 1993.
Mr. Raman does not provide his sources but said Gen. Habib was later "posted as ambassador to North Korea to oversee the clandestine nuclear and missile cooperation between North Korea and Pakistan."
-------- accidents and safety
US fears groups may get radiation devices - report
REUTERS USA:
November 12, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18540/story.htm
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is concerned that devices used in the former Soviet Union to measure the effects of radiation on plants may fall into the hands of terror groups that could use the material to make so-called dirty bombs, The Washington Post reported yesterday.
U.S. and international nuclear experts are searching the former Soviet republics for the lead-shielded canister devices that contained radioactive cesium 137 in the form of pellets or a fine powder, the newspaper said.
Some of the tests the devices were used for were to determine farming conditions after a nuclear attack.
The total number of experimental devices put in the countryside by Soviet scientists during the 1970s range from 100 to 1,000, an official from the International Atomic Energy Agency told the Post. Only nine of the devices have been found so far.
A few ounces of cesium 137 put into a conventional explosive would make a "dirty bomb" that could contaminate a large area with radiation. A computer simulation showed a "dirty bomb" attack on New York City with about 1.75 ounces (50 grams) of cesium could spread radioactive fallout over 60 city blocks, the paper said.
Victims nearest the blast would be the initial casualties, but the relocation of people and businesses and the cleanup could cost tens of billions of dollars, the paper said.
-------- depleted uranium
Experts find traces of depleted uranium from NATO ammunition on three sites in Bosnia
By Aida Cerkez-Robinson,
Associated Press
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
From: "Steve Taylor" Steve@miltoxproj.org
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina - U.N. experts have found three radioactive hotspots in Bosnia resulting from ammunition containing depleted uranium used during NATO airstrikes in 1995.
The team found a presence of radioactivity at two spots in the Sarajevo suburb of Hadzici and one at Han Pijesak in the Bosnian Serb republic, the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) said Monday in a statement. The experts found the spots after using highly sensitive instruments to investigate 14 sites in Bosnia for a month.
They advised the Bosnian government to start decontaminating the three sites and educating the population about the hazard.
During the 1995 bombings of Serb positions around Sarajevo, NATO aircraft used munitions containing depleted uranium, a slightly radioactive heavy metal that is effective for piercing armor. According to the Bosnian government, some 10,800 of such rounds - 30 mm armor-piercing projectiles - were fired in Bosnia.
Buried in the soil, such ordnance can contaminate ground water, leading to up to a 100-fold increase in uranium levels in drinking water.
"We are concerned about the situation at the Hadzici tank repair facility and the Han Pijesak barracks," said Pekka Haavisto, the chairman of the UNEP task force.
The team detected depleted uranium-related materials and dust inside buildings that are currently used by local business or, like in Han Pijesak, by Bosnian Serb army troops as storage facilities, he said.
Before using facilities targeted by ammunition containing depleted uranium, the area has to be properly cleaned up to prevent unnecessary health risks. Such decontamination should be done by experts, Haavisto said in his statement.
The 17 international experts were invited by the Bosnian government to investigate rumors claiming depleted uranium still present in the environment may have adversely affected the health of not only the local population but also of the international peacekeepers in Bosnia. The rumors had prompted several governments to investigate their troops serving in this Balkan country.
A medical sub-team composed of experts from the World Health Organization and the U.S. Army also visited several hospitals in Bosnia, collecting medical data and statistics.
A full report is to be published in March 2003.
----
Iraqi cancers, birth defects blamed on U.S. depleted uranium
[DU shell holes in the vehicles along the Highway of Death are 1,000 times more radioactive than background radiation]
By LARRY JOHNSON
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER FOREIGN DESK EDITOR
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/95178_du12.shtml
Depleted Uranium World Map: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/dayart/20021112/DepletedUrnaiumMap.gif
SOUTHERN DEMILITARIZED ZONE, Iraq -- On the "Highway of Death," 11 miles north of the Kuwait border, a collection of tanks, armored personnel carriers and other military vehicles are rusting in the desert.
They also are radiating nuclear energy.
Paul Kitagaki Jr. / P-I Six-year-old Fatma Rakwan, being held by her mother at the Basra Hospital for Maternity and Children, was recently diagnosed with leukemia.
In 1991, the United States and its Persian Gulf War allies blasted the vehicles with armor-piercing shells made of depleted uranium -- the first time such weapons had been used in warfare -- as the Iraqis retreated from Kuwait. The devastating results gave the highway its name.
Today, nearly 12 years after the use of the super-tough weapons was credited with bringing the war to a swift conclusion, the battlefield remains a radioactive toxic wasteland -- and depleted uranium munitions remain a mystery.
Although the Pentagon has sent mixed signals about the effects of depleted uranium, Iraqi doctors believe that it is responsible for a significant increase in cancer and birth defects in the region. Many researchers outside Iraq, and several U.S. veterans organizations, agree; they also suspect depleted uranium of playing a role in Gulf War Syndrome, the still-unexplained malady that has plagued hundreds of thousands of Gulf War veterans.
Depleted uranium is a problem in other former war zones as well. Yesterday, U.N. experts said they found radioactive hot spots in Bosnia resulting from the use of depleted uranium during NATO air strikes in 1995.
With another war in Iraq perhaps imminent, scientists and others are concerned that the side effects of depleted uranium munitions -- still a major part of the U.S. arsenal -- will cause serious illnesses or deaths in a new generation of U.S. soldiers as well as Iraqis.
THE DANGERS
Depleted uranium, known as DU, is a highly dense metal that is the byproduct of the process during which fissionable uranium used to manufacture nuclear bombs and reactor fuel is separated from natural uranium. DU remains radioactive for about 4.5 billion years.
Uranium, a weakly radioactive element, occurs naturally in soil and water everywhere on Earth, but mainly in trace quantities. Humans ingest it daily in minute quantities.
Paul Kitagaki Jr. / P-I Dr. Khajak Vartaanian, a radiation expert, holds a Geiger counter next to a hole in an Iraqi tank destroyed by depleted uranium weapons in the Persian Gulf War in 1991. The shell holes show 1,000 times the normal background radiation level. DU shell holes in the vehicles along the Highway of Death are 1,000 times more radioactive than background radiation, according to Geiger counter readings done for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Dr. Khajak Vartaanian, a nuclear medicine expert from the Iraq Department of Radiation Protection in Basra, and Col. Amal Kassim of the Iraqi navy.
The desert around the vehicles was 100 times more radioactive than background radiation; Basra, a city of 1 million people, some 125 miles away, registered only slightly above background radiation level.
But the radioactivity is only one concern about DU munitions.
A second, potentially more serious hazard is created when a DU round hits its target. As much as 70 percent of the projectile can burn up on impact, creating a firestorm of ceramic DU oxide particles. The residue of this firestorm is an extremely fine ceramic uranium dust that can be spread by the wind, inhaled and absorbed into the human body and absorbed by plants and animals, becoming part of the food chain.
Once lodged in the soil, the munitions can pollute the environment and create up to a hundredfold increase in uranium levels in ground water, according to the U.N. Environmental Program.
Studies show it can remain in human organs for years.
The U.S. Army acknowledges the hazards in a training manual, in which it requires that anyone who comes within 25 meters of any DU-contaminated equipment or terrain wear respiratory and skin protection, and states that "contamination will make food and water unsafe for consumption."
Just six months before the Gulf War, the Army released a report on DU predicting that large amounts of DU dust could be inhaled by soldiers and civilians during and after combat.
Infantry were identified as potentially receiving the highest exposures, and the expected health outcomes included cancers and kidney problems.
The report also warned that public knowledge of the health and environmental effects of depleted uranium could lead to efforts to ban DU munitions.
But today the Pentagon plays down the effects. Officials refer queries on DU munitions to the latest government report on the subject, last updated on Dec. 13, 2000, which said DU is "40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium."
The report also said, "Gulf War exposures to depleted uranium (DU) have not to date produced any observable adverse health effects attributable to DU's chemical toxicity or low-level radiation. . . ."
In response to written queries, the Defense Department said, "The U.S. Military Services use DU munitions because of DU's superior lethality against armor and other hard targets."
It said DU munitions are "war reserve munitions; that is, used for combat and not fired for training purposes," with the exception that DU munitions may be fired at sea for weapon calibration purposes.
In addition to Iraq and Bosnia, DU munitions were used in Kosovo and Serbia in 1999.
Paul Kitagaki Jr. / P-I Hamdin and his brother Amhid are receiving follow-up treatment after being treated successfully for leukemia two years ago at the Basra Hospital for Maternity and Children.
Also in 1999, a United Nations subcommission considered DU hazardous enough to call for an initiative banning its use worldwide. The initiative has remained in committee, blocked primarily by the United States, according to Karen Parker, a lawyer with the International Educational Development/Humanitarian Law Project, which has consultative status at the United Nations.
Parker, who first raised the DU issue in the United Nations in 1996, contends that DU "violates the existing law and customs of war."
She said there are four rules derived from all of humanitarian law regarding weapons:
•Weapons may only be used in the legal field of battle, defined as legal military targets of the enemy in war. Weapons may not have an adverse effect off the legal field of battle.
•Weapons can only be used for the duration of an armed conflict. A weapon that is used or continues to act after the war is over violates this criterion.
•Weapons may not be unduly inhumane.
•Weapons may not have an unduly negative effect on the natural environment.
"Depleted uranium fails all four of these rules," Parker said last week.
On Oct. 17, 2001, Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., introduced a bill calling for "the suspension of the use, sale, development, production, testing, and export of depleted uranium munitions pending the outcome of certain studies of the health effects of such munitions. . . ."
More than a year later, the bill -- co-sponsored by Reps. Anibal Acevedo-Vila, Puerto Rico; Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.; Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio; Barbara Lee, D-Ca.; and Jim McDermott, D-Wash. -- remains in committee awaiting comment from the Defense Department.
THE STUDIES
Gulf War veterans faced a wide array of potentially toxic materials during the war: smoke from oil and chemical fires, insecticides, pesticides, vaccinations and DU.
Of the 696,778 troops who served during the recognized conflict phase (1990-1991) of the Gulf War, at least 20,6861 have applied for VA medical benefits. As of May 2002, 159,238 veterans have been awarded service-connected disability by the Department of Veterans Affairs for health effects collectively known as the Gulf War Syndrome.
Paul Kitagaki Jr. / P-I The woman in the foreground shares a room with four other cancer patients at the Saddam Teaching Hospital in Basra. The patient lying on the bed behind died earlier in the day on which this photograph was taken.
There have been many studies on Gulf War Syndrome over the years, as well as on possible long-term health hazards of DU munitions. Most have been inconclusive. But some researchers said the previous studies on DU, conducted by groups and agencies ranging from the World Health Organization to the Rand Corp. to the investigative arm of Congress, weren't looking in the right place -- at the effects of inhaled DU.
Dr. Asaf Durakovic, director of the private, non-profit Uranium Medical Research Centre in Canada and the United States, and center research associates Patricia Horan and Leonard Dietz, published a unique study in the August issue of Military Medicine medical journal.
The study is believed to be the first to look at inhaled DU among Gulf War veterans, using the ultrasensitive technique of thermal ionization mass spectrometry, which enabled them to easily distinguish between natural uranium and DU.
The study, which examined British, Canadian and U.S. veterans, all suffering typical Gulf War Syndrome ailments, found that, nine years after the war, 14 of 27 veterans studied had DU in their urine. DU also was found in the lung and bone of a deceased Gulf War veteran.
That no governmental study has been done on inhaled DU "amounts to a massive malpractice," Dietz said in an interview last week.
THE ACTIVIST
Dr. Doug Rokke was an Army health physicist assigned in 1991 to the command staff of the 12th Preventive Medicine Command and 3rd U.S. Army Medical Command headquarters. Rokke was recalled to active duty 20 years after serving in Vietnam, from his research job with the University of Illinois Physics Department, and sent to the Gulf to take charge of the DU cleanup operation.
Today, in poor health, he has become an outspoken opponent of the use of DU munitions.
"DU is the stuff of nightmares," said Rokke, who said he has reactive airway disease, neurological damage, cataracts and kidney problems, and receives a 40 percent disability payment from the government. He blames his health problems on exposure to DU.
Rokke and his primary team of about 100 performed their cleanup task without any specialized training or protective gear. Today, Rokke said, at least 30 members of the team are dead, and most of the others -- including Rokke -- have serious health problems.
Rokke said: "Verified adverse health effects from personal experience, physicians and from personal reports from individuals with known DU exposures include reactive airway disease, neurological abnormalities, kidney stones and chronic kidney pain, rashes, vision degradation and night vision losses, lymphoma, various forms of skin and organ cancer, neuropsychological disorders, uranium in semen, sexual dysfunction and birth defects in offspring.
"This whole thing is a crime against God and humanity."
Speaking from his home in Rantoul, Ill., where he works as a substitute high school science teacher, Rokke said, "When we went to the Gulf, we were all really healthy, and we got trashed."
Rokke, an Army Reserve major who describes himself as "a patriot to the right of Rush Limbaugh," said hearing the latest Pentagon statements on DU is especially frustrating now that another war against Iraq appears likely.
"Since 1991, numerous U.S. Department of Defense reports have said that the consequences of DU were unknown," Rokke said. "That is a lie. We warned them in 1991 after the Gulf War, but because of liability issues, they continue to ignore the problem." Rokke worked until 1996 for the military, developing DU training and management procedures. The procedures were ignored, he said.
"Their arrogance is beyond comprehension," he said. "We have spread radioactive waste all over the place and refused medical treatment to people . . . it's all arrogance.
"DU is a snapshot of technology gone crazy."
BIRTH DEFECTS IN IRAQ
At the Saddam Teaching Hospital in Basra, Dr. Jawad Al-Ali, a British-trained oncologist, displays, in four gaily colored photo albums, what he says are actual snapshots of the nightmares. The photos represent the surge in birth defects -- in 1989 there were 11 per 100,000 births; in 2001 there were 116 per 100,000 births -- that even before they heard about DU, had doctors in southern Iraq making comparisons to the birth defects that followed the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII.
There were photos of infants born without brains, with their internal organs outside their bodies, without sexual organs, without spines, and the list of deformities went on and on. There also were photos of cancer patients.
Cancer has increased dramatically in southern Iraq. In 1988, 34 people died of cancer; in 1998, 450 died of cancer; in 2001 there were 603 cancer deaths.
On a tour of one ward of the hospital, doctors pointed out boys and girls who were suffering from leukemia. Most of the children die, the doctors said, because there are insufficient drugs available for their treatment.
There was one notable exception, a young boy whose family was able to buy the expensive drugs on the black market.
Al-Ali said it defies logic to absolve DU of blame when veterans of the Gulf War and of the fighting in the Balkans share common illnesses with children in southern Iraq.
"The cause of all of these cancers and deformities remains theoretical because we can't confirm the presence of uranium in tissue or urine with the equipment we have," said Al-Ali. "And because of the sanctions, we can't get the equipment we need."
Dr. Doug Rokke, a U.S. Army health physicist assigned to help clean up depleted uranium after the Persian Gulf War, will speak in Seattle on Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m. at University Baptist Church, Northeast 47th Street and 12th Avenue Northeast. Rokke is on a six-state speaking tour sponsored by The Interfaith Network of Concern for the People of Iraq, and co-sponsored by the Traprock Peace Center in Deerfield, Mass.
P-I foreign desk editor Larry Johnson can be reached at 206-448-8035 or larryjohnson@seattlepi.com
--
Re: Article "Iraqi cancers, birth defects blamed on U.S. depleted uranium"
Vancouver, November 12, 2002
From: "Piotr Bein" <piotr.bein@imag.net>
Mr. Larry Johnson Foreign Desk Editor Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Dear Mr. Johnson,
Congratulations on an informative article. It is not easy to write about a complex subject for the average public. But without accurate information the public will remain vulnerable to propaganda.
A few comments in priority order:
1. DU anti-armour munitions familiar from the Gulf and Balkan wars would not be the prime weapon in an air attack on Iraq. Hardened and deeply buried targets (command centres, missile launchers, supply depots, production and storage of weapons of mass destruction) call for bunker-busters and earth penetrators. Over 20 weapon systems in this family are currently stocked in Western countries in sufficient quantities for a major offensive.
These weapons had been kept secret, but some information leaked out. Most likely they contain large quantities of uranium metal (depleted or not), since an extremely dense material is needed in a bomb shield to penetrate earth or concrete. Uranium could also be used in multiple warheads stacked one after another within the uranium shield. The warhead would survive partial penetration into a target thanks to the shield, and then detonate one penetrator at a time, making further advance into the target, concluded with a charge that destroys the inside contents of the target with help of uranium powder, since the metal ignites easily.
However effective they might be in destroying enemy's capability in weapons of mass destruction, the bunker busters and earth penetrators would have very severe health effects. Compared to DU ammunition which contains between 0.3 kg (30 mm caliber) to several kg (120 mm caliber) of uranium metal per bullet, each bomb or guided missile against buried and hardened targets may contain tens to thousands times more uranium.
The contamination by uranium dust and fine particles produced from explosions of these weapons would also be up to thousands times more severe. When used near troops (own, allied or enemy's) or population centres, these weapons would become weapons of mass destruction. In any case, they would be weapons of indiscriminate effects, since the contamination stays practically indefinitely and also spreads out into the environs.
Why would a civilized country use weapons that contravene the customs, laws and conventions on war? Because the uranium in them does the job as well or better than more expensive materials like tungsten, and would be difficult to detect, if formulated in proportions (99.3% U238, 0.7% U235) resembling omnipresent natural uranium.
The weapons have been tested on ranges and in wars, and were very likely used in bombing of Iraq to date, and recently in Afghanistan.
Reports on the uranium weapons by an independent UK researcher Dai Williams are at www.eoslifework.co.uk/
Recent measurements of uranium levels in Afghan environment by Dr. Asaf Djurakovic (www.umrc.net/ in your footnotes) indicate that these weapons must have been used there.
2. Your article gives an impression that the authorities do not have conclusive proofs of the hazards of conventional uranium weapons (depleted or not). At the bottom is a digest of a sample of such official documents.
3. The article states that radioactivity is one kind of hazard from DU, and uranium oxide dust is another, implying that the latter is not radioactive. An element remains radioactive in chemical compunds and regardless of the physical form. Thus metallic fine particles (as from chiseling a chunk of DU metal) pose the same hazards as the fine oxide dust. The fine dust's radioactive hazard inside the body is the alpha radiation. Alpha radiation is stopped by clothing and skin, so it can not harm from the outside of the body.
Inside the body, the particles act as toxic AND radioactive substance -- a fact conveniently omitted by the pro-DU propaganda.
The DU dust created on impact or at high temperature is a mix of soluble and insoluble uranium oxide particles, including ceramic. The latter ones are particularly harmful, because they do not break down into soluble compounds. They also have sharp edges that catch onto the tissue.
4. DU is not a pure Uranium 238 (U238) that would be "only" 60% as radioactive as enriched uranium (Uranium 235). It contains 99.8% of U238, 0.2% of U235 and small amounts of other highly radioactive and toxic elements, such as plutonium that should not be in DU at all, according to industry and military specifications. The trace components of DU are so powerful that their joint effects on health are comparable to the effects of U238 in DU metal. That the US authorities allowed these elements to enter the DU metal in ammunition (and other weapons and uses?) is a crime by itself.
5. The map is incomplete. Another category are civilian airplane crashes in which DU counterweights burned and contaminated the sites with DU dust. The most famous airplane crashes involving release of DU are Lockerbie (in UK) and El-Al (in Holland). At least two accidental releases from DU weapon manufacturing happened in England. If an "accidental use" in Germany (presumably the American A-10 crash in a residential area) is shown, then all the other known releases should be noted. Of course nobody knows how many accidents remain covered up.
DU ammunition was used on military ranges in Scotland and Wales, and in the Middle East in the Yom Kippur war between Israel and Egypt. DU weapons were used on US military ranges on Viesques Island (Puerto Rico) and Okinawa Island (Japan), which are marked "accidental use" on your map. Over 30 other countries produce and use DU weapons, so there must be more dots, circles and triangles on the map. NATO has admitted to using DU ammunition in Southern Serbia, Kosovo and Montenegro, but not in Macedonia.
6. "20,6861" should read 206,861.
Let's hope that you will soon be able to produce a sequel on hazards of the other uranium weapons. Not only the health of own troops and local populations are at stake, but also human health worldwide, as the uranium particles travel indiscriminately, driven by winds, water movements and electromagnetic fields.
I would be pleased to assist you in identifying sources of information for your research.
Yours sincerely,
Piotr Bein, PhD, PEng Vancouver, Canada Member, Institute for Risk Research, University of Waterloo, Canada
Excerpt from a paper "Propaganda for DU -- a Crime against Humankind" by Piotr Bein and Pedja Zoric to "Facts about DU" conference, Prague, Czech Republic, November 2001,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-watch/files/DUPraha.doc; revised for a monograph "Environmental Politics of the 21st Century" being prepared by Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Belgrade.
For years, standard textbooks on radioactivity state that a thin piece of paper or the skin can stop alpha particles - the main radioactivity of DU, emitted by uranium 238 atoms. So they are not dangerous to the body as long they remain external. However, if they are inhaled or enter the body with food or through open wounds, they become exceptionally dangerous, since they emit much energy to each cell, seriously damaging it. Although beta particles penetrate tissue to the depth of several centimetres, the resulting biological damage is significantly smaller compared to that of alpha particles. Gamma and X-ray radiation is weakened by the tissue only to a small degree. The biological effect of one absorbed quantum of this radiation in the tissue is the same as from one quantum of beta radiation.
The standard texts are also clear that long-term effects of accumulated small exposures transfer to future generations. Every dose is harmful and can cause cancer or genetic changes after years, therefore one must always avoid unnecessary exposure and maintain doses in smallest quantities possible.
The risks posed by depleted uranium (U238) and a mix of uranium isotopes with majority U238 are similar. Official US and UK government documents have been warning about toxic-radioactive risks of depleted uranium, as follows,
- A 1983 literature study by the Batelle Pacific Nothwest Laboratory for the US Department of the Army, clearly discerns the two types of DU risk: "The chemical toxicity is the critical limit for soluble uranium compounds, and the critical organ is the kidney. Insoluble compounds present a [radiological] hazard primarily to the lungs [...] The exposure limits for toxicity are more conservative than most of the radiological limits and thus protect from either type of insult."
- In 1984, US Federal Aviation Agency document cautions the investigators of aircraft crashes against the hazard from DU in counterweights of civilian airplanes: particles inhaled or ingested are toxic and can cause long-term irradiation of the internal tissue.
- Six months before the Gulf War, a Science Applications International Corporation report wrote, "Short-term effects of high doses can result in death, while long-term effects of low doses have been implicated in cancer."
- Shortly after the Gulf War in March 1991, a memo from US Defence Nuclear Agency stated that alpha particles emitted from DU dust created from exploded DU ammunition pose a health risk, but beta particles from DU shrapnel and from intact DU bullets are a serious hazard to health.
- In the early nineties, UK Atomic Energy Authority warned that if all of the DU fired by tanks in the Gulf War was inhaled, "there could be half a million deaths as a result by 2000." Tanks fired only about 8% of all DU used in that war.
- 1993 US General Accounting Office report GAO/NSIAD-93-90 stated, "Inhaled insoluble [uranium] oxides stay in the lungs longer and pose a potential cancer risk due to radiation. Ingested DU dust can also pose both a radioactive and toxicity risk."
- 1995 US Army Environmental Policy Institute report warned, "Toxicologically, DU poses a health risk when internalized. Radiologically, the radiation emitted by DU results in health risks from both external and internal exposures [...] If DU enters the body, it has the potential to generate significant medical consequences."
- An incident involving pulverization of metallic DU occurred at the Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, in in 1999. The following note was sent to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission: "At 1000 on 07/26/99, USAF personnel were performing maintenance on a C-141 cargo aircraft aileron. A technician was found using a hammer and chisel to remove installed depleted uranium counterweights from the aileron. This process produced dust and debris which was scattered by a nearby fan. The technician using a hammer and chisel on the depleted uranium was in violation of several rules. Upon discovery of this activity, the technician was told to immediately stop work. The area has been secured and decontamination procedures initiated."
- January 2001, leak: UK Ministry of Defense was secretly testing for radiation poisoning among British soldiers just months before it sent troops to Kosovo. At the time the ministry was refusing screening for Gulf War veterans. The disclosure went much further than an earlier leak that showed only that officers knew 4 years earlier about the risk of developing lung, lymph and brain cancers from DU shells. The industry is also well aware of the risks from airborne contamination by DU. Paul Loewenstein, vice president of Nuclear Metals Inc. (now Starmet Corporation, the prime US supplier of DU metal and related products) wrote: "The main hazard to health occurs in those fabrication steps where finely divided particles (dust or oxides) can become airborne. In operations such as melting and casting, machining, grinding, pickling and heating without using a protective atmosphere or vacuum, it is essential to provide extensive ventilation and to monitor worker's breathing zones. Vents and fume hoods that protect workers are exhausted through carefully monitored filter systems. Workers must change footwear and clothing when leaving areas where finely divided uranium is present."
Boeing Corporation safety guide for DU counterweights in aircraft and missiles advises:
"4.1.2 Most heavy metals, such as uranium, are toxic to humans depending on the amount introduced into the body. For short-term (acute) exposures, the toxicological effects are the primary concern, and acute exposures to significant amounts of uranium may result in kidney damage.
4.1.3 The principal radiological hazard associated with uranium is due to high linear energy transfer of the alpha particles its radionuclides and daughters emit. A chronic exposure to these radionuclides result in an increased risk of cancer, typically in the bones, kidney, and lungs, since these are the organs where uranium is deposited. [...]
6.2.5 Airborne Contamination
[I]t is possible for significant levels of airborne contamination to result from activity that vigorously disturbs the surface, such as vigorous floor sweeping in a contaminated area or a direct, high-volume airflow across such an area. Failure to control airborne contamination could result in inhalation of the contamination and spread of contamination to other areas. [...]
12.2.3 Wear a respirator [...] whenever entering areas with airborne DU dust particles."
-------- inspections
Iraq has few weapons left, says former UN inspector
12.11.2002
REUTERS
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3003936&msg=emaillink
UNITED NATIONS - Iraq had few weapons left when inspectors were last in the country but to find new dangerous arms may take months, despite pressure for quick results, a former chief UN arms inspector said on Monday (Tuesday NZ time).
Rolf Ekeus, who led the inspectors from 1991 to mid-1997, said the arms experts, expected to resume work later this month, could find Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction, if they were given enough time.
A UN Security Council resolution, adopted last Friday, gives the inspectors until Feb. 21 at the latest to file an initial report but they must tell the council of any serious violations sooner.
Many believe the United States, if it attacks Iraq as it has threatened if Baghdad does not fully disarm, wants to do so before March when the weather begins to get hot.
"It will work but only if they are allowed to take their time. And I am not quite sure that the political scenario is organized so that we have time," Ekeus told the "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer" public television programme.
He said he fellow Swede Hans Blix, the current chief inspector, and his Egyptian counterpart from the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, had a "terrible burden" on their shoulders as their word could mean war.
"They are fine, reflecting men with good minds," he said. "I think we must give them time, and with time I think they will be successful."
Ekeus, like Blix earlier this month, questioned a crucial declaration Iraq has to submit by December 8. Ekeus said Iraq could meet the deadline in drawing up a list of dangerous weapons it still might have.
But the declaration also demands Iraq list civilian chemical and biological components, which Ekeus characterized as a "vague and complex" operation, ranging from ingredients in soap detergents to petrochemical and medical industries.
The United States, at Blix's urging, had considered giving Iraq more time for this part of the declaration but did not.
Ekeus said Iraqi President Saddam Hussein would probably make a relatively sound declaration of weapons issues. "But on the other area, which is huge, there will be a very selective approach and space for a lot of dispute."
Ekeus said most of the weapons were discovered during his term in office and those of his successor, Australian Richard Butler. But in the nearly four years inspectors had been out of the country, Iraq could have "anything from zero to quite a considerable quantity of weapons."
Before inspectors can go back to Iraq, the Baghdad government by Friday has to accept the resolution. The Iraqi parliament, currently meeting on the resolution. has heaped scorn on its provisions but not issued a decision.
The first teams of about two dozen technicians, are scheduled to leave for Cyprus, a staging base, on Friday.
Blix and ElBaradei plan to accompany this group, which is to set up offices, laboratories, communications and transport, to Baghdad on Nov. 18. About a week later, on Nov. 25, a dozen inspectors are expected to arrive and make some spot checks.
Another 250 potential inspectors around the world have undergone training courses and are on call. Of this group about 80 to 100 are expected to be in Iraq by Dec. 23.
When the inspectors left in December 1998, the eve of a US-British bombing raid, they had accounted for or destroyed equipment and materials that could be used in making nuclear bombs, 817 of 819 Scud missiles, 39,000 chemical munitions and more than 3,000 tonnes of agents and precursors.
But unaccounted for were 500 mustard-gas shells, 150 aerial bombs, 20 tonnes of complex growth material that could be used to nourish biological weapons and 200 tonnes of chemicals for the nerve agent VX.
"For me, I think it's a high probability that he (Saddam) has tried to strengthen his production capabilities ... with regard first to chemical weapons but also with regard to biological warfare agents," Ekeus said.
-------- korea
Military force against N Korea ruled out
November 12 2002
Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/11/11/1036308630914.html
Washington: United States officials say Washington has no plan to invade North Korea but have warned Pyongyang it will not be business as usual if it refuses to scrap its nuclear weapons program.
Their comments came amid news reports of a planned cut-off of heavy oil delivery.
"We're not threatening military force because we don't need to threaten military force right now," the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, told CNN on Sunday.
"The President has made this clear when he was in [South] Korea earlier this year; he made it clear that the United States does not intend to invade North Korea. That has not changed."
The US National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, on Sunday would not confirm reports that the US planned to cut off delivery of fuel oil to Pyongyang. But she made it clear that refusal to co-operate would come at a price.
"I don't want to get ahead of the diplomacy. We're talking to the other members of the Korean Energy Development Organisation, which is actually the organisation KEDO, that provides these oil shipments.
"The North Koreans should understand that it's not going to be business as usual as we move forward here. But we'll look at the specifics with the people who are involved in this decision."
Japanese press reports said the US assistant secretary of state James Kelly told Japanese legislators the US Congress was unlikely to pass a new budget that included funds to provide fuel oil for North Korea, which it has done since 1994.
Mr Kelly was reported to have added that a decision on whether to deliver the latest shipment of oil would be made at a KEDO meeting in New York on Thursday attended by officials from the US, Japan, South Korea and the European Union.
The latest shipment of fuel oil left Singapore for North Korea on Wednesday. It will take 10 to 12 days to reach North Korea but the KEDO executive board can recall the vessel while it is at sea, diplomats have said.
Mr Kelly's reported remarks came after meetings in Tokyo with the South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Tae-shik and a Japanese Foreign Ministry official, Hitoshi Tanaka, to resolve the nuclear weapons crisis with North Korea.
Calls for a halt to economic aid to North Korea have mounted since Washington said last month that Pyongyang had admitted it was secretly developing nuclear weapons in violation of a 1994 deal.
Pyongyang countered that Washington itself had violated the deal by threatening it with nuclear weapons and listing the country as part of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and Iran.
----
North Korea accuses South of military provocation
Tuesday November 12, 2002
AFP
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/021112/1/34nd1.html
North Korea accused South Korea of dangerous military provocation by sending warships into its territorial waters and moving tanks and guns along their border.
Pyongyang's government mouthpiece, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), said South Korean warships had infiltrated Northern waters off the eastern coast of the peninsula twice on Tuesday.
It also said South Korean forces had staged tank and armoured car manoeuvres and brought self-propelled guns to the border that has divided the country for half-a-century.
The charges were made amid heightened tension on the Korean peninsula following US revelations last month that North Korea is running a nuclear weapons programme in violation of a 1994 arms control accord with the United States, the so-called Agreed Framework.
North Korea's accusations also came ahead of a meeting in New York on Thursday on whether to continue economic aid to Pyongyang in the form of heavy fuel oil deliveries.
KCNA said it was clear that the Southern "provocations" were aimed at raising tension between the rival states and warned Seoul it should "think twice" about the consequences.
The South Korea Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Defense Ministry dismissed the reports of provocation as groundless.
"There was a routine operation in the West Sea today by South Korean patrol boats and North Korean fishing boats were spotted in operation near the Northern Limit Line," the inter-Korean maritime border, a joint chiefs official said.
"A South Korea navy ship approached the North Korean fishing boat to see if they violated the maritime border under the bad weather conditions," he said, flatly denying any provocation on the part of the navy.
Five months ago North and South fought a naval battle in the Yellow Sea after North Korean vessels entered South Korean waters. Five South Korean sailors died and the North suffered some 30 casualties.
The confrontation briefly interrupted bilateral efforts to improve ties that have accelerated in subsequent months and brought economic accords and agreements on relinking road and railways.
Engagement was once more thrown in doubt by Washington's revelation last month that the North had admitted to runnning an enriched uranium-based atomic programme. The news sparked alarm among North Korea's Asian neighbours, who joined the United States in demanding that Pyongyang dismantle its atomic programme.
Under the 1994 Agreed Framework, the North pledged to freeze its nuclear weapons programme in return for 500,000 tonnes a year of heavy fuel oil and the construction of two light-water reactors by an international consortium known as the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Corporation (KEDO).
Thursday's New York meeting of KEDO's executive board, made up of the United States, South Korea, Japan and the European Union, could decide to stop the shipments of oil to the energy-starved North. The move would effectively end the accord, which is already seriously compromised by North Korea's violations.
The United States has taken a hard line in its latest standoff with North Korea, and has not ruled out economic or other sanctions while South Korea and Japan have expressed hope that they can resolve the issue through dialogue while continuing to develop economic and diplomatic engagement with the Stalinist state.
--------
Crunch Time Approaching on Oil for Nuclear N.Korea
November 12, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-korea-north-diplomacy.html
SEOUL (Reuters) - The top U.S. envoy on North Korea departed South Korea for China Tuesday, leaving unresolved differences between Washington and Seoul about how to respond to communist North Korea's nuclear arms program.
World attention is focused on Iraq's looming deadline for complying with a U.N. resolution on arms inspections, but crunch time is also approaching for efforts to disarm North Korea, a second member of President Bush's ``axis of evil.''
With a tanker of fuel oil headed to North Korea and a pivotal allied meeting opening in New York Thursday, a Seoul official said South Korea and the United States were apart on whether to continue supplying North Korea with energy aid under a 1994 agreement which North Korea's new arms program has violated.
``There are still differences between the U.S. and South Korean governments over whether to allow the oil shipment,'' an official at South Korea's presidential Blue House told Reuters, requesting anonymity.
``South Korea's position is that the current shipment should go ahead and then we'll decide, based on North Korea's reaction,'' the official said after the visit by U.S. envoy James Kelly.
South Korean President Kim Dae-jung has made his ``Sunshine Policy'' of engaging the North one of the hallmarks of his single five-year term, which ends in February after an election for his successor next month.
Kelly, who flew to China Tuesday, made no public remarks in Seoul. A Bush administration official said the United States was still consulting South Korea and Japan on the fuel-oil shipment.
KEDO DECISION LOOMS
The stated position of the three allied governments is the issue will be resolved at an executive board meeting of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) to open Thursday in New York. The meeting will be attended by U.S., Japanese, South Korean and European Union officials.
KEDO is implementing the 1994 Agreed Framework, under which North Korea agreed to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for 500,000 tons of fuel oil a year and two light-water reactors that cannot easily be converted to produce weapons material.
Washington, which funds the oil supplies while allies finance the reactors, has not announced a decision on the oil shipments.
``There is still time to deal with North Korean fuel shipments should KEDO decide to do it. KEDO is looking at the case. I don't want to get ahead of the diplomacy here because we're talking to KEDO about it,'' said the senior Bush administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
But there are some U.S. voices calling for turning back the latest shipment of fuel oil that left Singapore on November 6 for the 10-12 day voyage to North Korea.
The KEDO executive board can recall the vessel while it is at sea, diplomats have said.
Kelly has said on several occasions the disclosure about North Korea's nuclear arms scheme has sapped support in the U.S. Congress for funding next year's fuel-oil aid. Some EU lawmakers have called for freezing Europe's KEDO contribution.
``EXTREME SCENARIO''
Chang Sun-sup, the South Korean executive member of KEDO, was quoted by a newspaper as playing down differences over the oil.
``Turning around the ship loaded with oil already on its way to the North is an extreme scenario,'' the Korea Times quoted Chang as saying Monday before leaving for New York.
The foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan, which are within range of North Korean ballistic missiles, met in Seoul Monday and later issued a statement underscoring their shared fear that halting the oil supplies would provoke Pyongyang.
Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi and South Korean Foreign Minister Choi Sung-hong agreed KEDO was important and effective and the issue ``should not be decided in a hasty way'' a Japanese official said.
North Korea's stance, restated almost daily by its state media, is that resolving the nuclear issue will require Washington to negotiate a non-aggression pact with Pyongyang and guarantee the sovereignty of Kim Jong-il's communist rule.
The United States has said there is nothing to talk about until North Korea has verifiably abandoned a uranium enrichment program it said last month it was running.
-------- russia
Weapons-grade Plutonium Disposition in Russia
Bellona Position Paper
Zackary Moss,
2002-11-12 13:03
http://www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/nuke-weapons/nonproliferation/27158.html
OSLO - In September 2000, the United States and Russia each agreed to render 34 metric tonnes of weapons-grade plutonium unsuitable for nuclear weapons. Bellona's position paper examines plutonium disposition in Russia.
The governments of the Russia Federation and the United States (US) have embarked on a programme to use weapons-grade plutonium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel in nuclear reactors. In September 2000, an agreement between the US and Russia was reached for each side to render 34 metric tonnes (MT) of surplus weapons-grade plutonium unsuitable for nuclear weapons.
Weapons-grade plutonium disposition
According to a Federation of American Scientists' Public Interest Report, 200-270MT of weapons-grade plutonium exited worldwide in 1996.1 The USA was reported to have 85MT and Russia was estimated to have between 100-165MT, although the exact figure has never been made public. The end of the cold war and US-Russian disarmament agreements have resulted fissile material, plutonium and highly-enriched uranium (HEU) becoming redundant.2
A chief goal of plutonium disposition is to make weapons-grade plutonium cores recovered from deactivated nuclear warheads, or pits, inaccessible for nuclear weapons-making purposes. This should render the plutonium as inaccessible as the plutonium found in highly radioactive spent commercial fuel, thereby meeting the "spent fuel standard" defined by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).3 To achieve this, the plutonium is combined with a gamma radiation source such as high-level waste. This process, known as immobilisation, transforms the plutonium into a quality similar to spent nuclear fuel, which is highly radioactive and difficult to handle. Both MOX irradiation and immobilisation were judged by the NAS to be comparable means of achieving the "spent fuel standard".4
Immobilisation
There are two methods of immobilising weapons-grade plutonium and disposing of it as waste: it can be immobilised in a glass matrix (vitrification) or a ceramic matrix (ceramification). The vitrification process involves contaminating plutonium with high-level radioactive liquid waste, which is then mixed with borosilicate glass to create a borosilicate matrix (glass logs). The logs are then sealed in stainless steel cylinders and stored for geological disposal at a nuclear waste repository. The ceramic immobilisation process uses a titanate matrix instead of a borosilicate matrix. Both these options create a highly radioactive environment for plutonium prior to geological disposal and meet the "spent fuel standard".
MOX irradiation
MOX-based plutonium disposition, or MOX irradiation, mixes recovered weapons-grade plutonium with uranium to form a mixed oxide, or MOX, fuel. The MOX fuel is then burnt (irradiated) in nuclear reactors, which can form a "closed fuel cycle" where the plutonium is irradiated, reprocessed and re-used. Irradiating MOX fuel in reactors produces more reactor-grade plutonium than the original MOX fuel because some of the uranium oxide in MOX transforms into plutonium. The burning of weapons-grade plutonium from recovered pits is a method to eliminate part of the fissile material stockpiles in nuclear weapons states. But as a nuclear weapons state, Russia is exempt International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. Nonetheless, the MOX irradiation of weapons-grade plutonium is being pursed by the US and Russia-backed by the nuclear industry-under the guise of nuclear disarmament.
Plutonium disposition in Russia
In 1995 the US declared 50MT of military plutonium surplus to its requirements and in 1997 Russia followed. On 1 September 2000, US Vice President Al Gore and Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov signed the Plutonium Disposition Agreement committing each side to dispose of 34MT of surplus weapons-grade plutonium. The agreement is due to take place at an initial rate of 2 MT per year, commencing by December 2007, with the aim transforming excess weapons-grade plutonium into a form unusable for weapons. During the agreement it was decided that the US would burn 25MT of plutonium in MOX fuel and immobilise 9MT in high-level waste as part of its "dual track" disposition policy.
The agreement stipulated that Russia would burn all 34MT of surplus weapons-grade plutonium as MOX fuel. Russia has no commitment to dispose of plutonium through immobilisation with the decision not to immobilise was agreed by US negotiators. In the months of negotiations preceding the final agreement, Russia did offer 1MT of weapons-grade plutonium contained in low-assay sludge for immobilisation, but the offer was rebuffed by the US negotiators, which insisted that only high-assay materials were to be covered by the agreement.5
The agreement forbids either country from separating plutonium from irradiated MOX fuel until that party has disposed of all 34MT of plutonium. The initial cost estimates for the Russian programme were more than $1.7bn. To ensure that plutonium is irreversibly removed from use in nuclear weapons, the agreement specified that both parties would implement monitoring and inspection activities.
According to agreement, the Russian programme includes one industrial-scale site for MOX fuel fabrication, a test-fuel line for fabrication of initial VVER-1000 lead-test MOX assemblies, the modification of a facility for the fabrication of BN-600 pellet fuel and the completion of the Demonstration Conversion Facility.
In 2002, US-Russian officials completed a joint review of Russia's plutonium disposition programme, following a year-long National Security Council review of US non-proliferation programmes in Russia. The joint review reportedly endorsed a new action plan that will engage PWRs and fast reactors in the disposition of weapons-grade plutonium, much like the initial programme. Four VVER-1000 PWRs at the Balakovo plant near Saratov will be used, as well as the BOR-60 experimental fast reactor near Dimitrovgrad and the BN-600 fast reactor near Yekaterinburg. The BN-600 operates on the basis of HEU and plutonium bearing fuels have only been tested. In February 2001, Minatom announced its intention to build a BN-800 fast neutron reactor at Beloyarsk NPP by 2009. The BN-800 is a modification of the BN-600, which could also be used for plutonium disposition.
However, Russian reactors may use a lower MOX core fraction than the US. In order to increase the plutonium disposition rate either the core fraction of Russian reactors will have to be increased or Russian MOX fuel would have to be exported. In other words, increasing Russia's weapons-plutonium disposition rate to 4MT a year would require utilising additional reactor capacity.6 And according to the Nuclear Control Institute (NCI), Minatom's reluctance to declassify the isotopic composition of weapons-grade plutonium means that this military plutonium will be blended with about 12% reactor-grade plutonium to conceal its isotopic composition before converting it to MOX fuel.7 The G8 and plutonium disposition
The G8 and non-proliferation
Read Bellona's Position Paper on the G8 Global Partnership against the Spread of WMD Under the 2001 agreement, however, the cost of the Russian plutonium disposition is to be covered by contributions from the G8 countries. At the 1996 Nuclear Safety and Security Summit in Moscow, the G8 initiated the "Programmes for Preventing and Combating Illicit Trafficking in Nuclear Materials". This pledged to support efforts to ensure that all sensitive nuclear material (separated plutonium and HEU) was properly accounted for. The G8 began to identify possible means of international co-operation to address the management and disposal of plutonium not required for military purposes. And since 1996, the G8 have been examining both immobilisation and MOX irradiation as a means of dealing with weapons-grade plutonium disposition.
On 17 December 1999, the European Council established the "European Union Co-operation Programme for Non-proliferation and Disarmament in the Russian Federation". The G8 Plutonium Disposition Programme Group (PDPG) and the Non-proliferation and Disarmament Co-operation Initiative (NDCI) have in the past discussed European financing of Russian MOX. But while most of the G8 countries have embraced the MOX option for plutonium disposition in Russia on a rhetorical level, they have not been as eager to provide funding for the project.
The G8 foreign ministers' joint statement from July 2000 pledged "to co-operate to establish multilateral arrangements necessary for a co-ordinated and integrated programme for the safe management and disposition of weapons-grade plutonium no longer required for defence purposes, and call on other states to join us [the G8] in supporting this effort." Still, the ministers did not make any financial commitments to pay for weapons-grade plutonium disposition.
At the G8 Summit in Canada in June 2002 the G8 nations agreed to fund a weapons-grade plutonium MOX fuel programme in Russia.8 The nations pledged to raise to up $20bn over ten years to support non-proliferation programmes as part of "The G8 Global Partnership against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction", including plutonium disposition in Russia.9 In the past, though, the US has been unsuccessful in raising any of the $2bn cost for the Russian MOX programme from the other G8 nations.10 This being the case, the future of G8 non-proliferation assistance to Russia looks uncertain.
Furthermore, in January 2002 the Bush administration decided to indefinitely suspend the development of immobilisation. It has ordered the dismantling of the Plutonium Ceramification Test Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which was due to test the process for incorporating weapons-grade plutonium into ceramic pucks. The US will now focus on the MOX fuel track and will now proceed with the MOX irradiation of weapons-grade plutonium in parallel with Russia. In its rejection of the bipartisan US policy that opposed the commercial trade in plutonium and closed fuel cycles, the support for the MOX programme reflects a fundamental change in US non-proliferation policy.
Problems with MOX irradiation
Problems with irradiating MOX fuel in nuclear reactors can be broken down into costs, reactor safety issues and fissile material diversion leading to proliferation.
Costs associated with MOX fabrication
The US Department of Energy estimates that the cost of MOX based plutonium disposition in Russia is around $2bn including the cost of building and operating the MOX fuel plant. The cost of disposing of Russia's surplus weapons-grade plutonium could be reduced to $1bn if one or more Western European countries that already use MOX fuel were willing to purchase Russian MOX fuel.11
According to Frank von Hippel, roughly $700m would be required for research and development and design and construction facilities to convert the plutonium from metal oxide and produce the MOX fuel. This figure includes transportation and storage infrastructure. An additional $1bn would be needed to operate the MOX plant. At 4% plutonium content, 34 MT of plutonium would be turned into MOX fuel with 850MT of heavy-metal content. This plutonium would displace lightly-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel worth roughly $1,000 a kilogramme.12 What is more, MOX fuel is 3-5 times more expensive to produce than LEU fuel.
A joint US-Russian government study concluded that a MOX fuel plutonium disposition programme in Russia would cost up to $2.5bn, though this does not include the cost of upgrading Russian VVER-1000 reactors to Western safety standards. Doubts over the availability of funding have led Minatom to consider the leasing of MOX fuel to reactors outside of Russia. Minatom has made proposals to lease to Western Europe and East Asia MOX fuel produced in Russia from warhead plutonium.13 The MOX fuel would remain the property of Russia. Once used, the SNF would be shipped back to Russia for reprocessing or disposal. This would delay the shut down of Western reactors, which would receive subsidised fuel and be able to send SNF to Russia for reprocessing.
MOX fuel and reactor safety
The use of MOX fuel carries risks that apply to both reactor-grade and weapons-grade MOX fuel and can jeopardise reactor safety. What is more, there is no experience anywhere with the use of weapons-grade plutonium in MOX fuel. The substitution of MOX fuel for lightly-enriched uranium (LEU) in LWRs raises safety risks that have not been adequately assessed. Concerns with operating breeder reactors with MOX fuel exist. Breeder reactors are cooled with sodium, which becomes volatile when it comes into contact with water and air. BN-600 has already had a sodium accident, despite having Russia's best nuclear safety record.
The likelihood of severe accidents would increase with using MOX fuel. The introduction of MOX fuel into LWRs reduces the effectiveness of the materials used to absorb neutrons in the core, such as control rods and the boron dissolved in the coolant. This makes it more difficult to control the nuclear reactions in the core and reduces the margin available to safely shut down the reactor. The "delayed neutron fraction", a constraint determining the speed at which the power level of the reactor responds to changes in conditions, is small when MOX fuel is used in LWRs. This means that the operator has less control over reactor transients, as well having less time to respond to them.
Using MOX fuel in a reactor core would increase the affects of a severe accident involving containment failure or containment bypass because MOX cores have higher concentrations of actinides, including isotopes of americium, curium and plutonium. Most of these are alpha-particle emitters with radio-toxicities. In the event of a severe, Chernobyl-type accident with containment failure or bypass at a PWR with a 40% weapons-grade MOX core, the number of latent cancer fatalities would be around 25% higher than for a PWR with an all LEU core. The NCI finds that the use of MOX fuel could have serious negative effects on other aspects of PWR operation such as overcooling transients and pressurised thermal shock, which is of concern to VVER-1000s.14 It would cost $120m-$180m to upgrade each VVER-1000 reactor to meet Western safety standards.
MOX diversion and proliferation risks
Bellona believes that a MOX fuel programme in Russia would increase plutonium proliferation risks. One of the main problems with using MOX fuel on a commercial scale is that it will result in the increased transport of plutonium and fresh MOX fuel. Both the plutonium and fresh MOX fuel would be a very tempting target for terrorist groups or "rogue states" that would like to develop nuclear weapons. Even the IAEA classifies MOX fuel as a "direct-use weapons material" meaning that the plutonium could be extracted and used for weapons purposes.
MOX fuel disposition would provide Russia with a technical infrastructure to develop a plutonium-based "closed fuel cycle" for its civilian nuclear programme. Minatom has also retained the option to reprocess its irradiated weapons-grade plutonium MOX fuel after the end of the disposition programme. It is possible that weapons-useable plutonium could be separated by reprocessing and re-used in the fabrication of a nuclear weapon. Moreover, large-scale MOX fuel production and transportation also carries with it the threat that fresh MOX fuel could be stolen and diverted to other uses. After all, warhead-derived MOX fuel is merely plutonium and uranium blended and held in ceramic form. It can be dissolved and the two elements separated out, one of which is heavier than the other.15 In fact, reprocessing requires the SNF to be dissolved in nitric acid whereby uranium, plutonium and radioactive waste are separated. This process produces uranium powder and plutonium powder, where the later is used for MOX fuel.
A report by Frank Barnaby for the Oxford Research Group concluded that it would be relatively easy for a terrorist group to make a nuclear device based on plutonium from fresh MOX fuel.16 Dr Barnaby, a physicist who worked for Britain's nuclear weapons laboratory at Aldermaston, outlined three methods of chemically separating the plutonium dioxide from the uranium dioxide in MOX fuel. What is more, the US Department of Energy came to the conclusion that: "fresh MOX fuel remains a material in the most sensitive category because plutonium suitable for use in [nuclear] weapons could be separated from it relative easy". Moreover, an article by Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Non-proliferation Policy Education Center, who served in the Department of Defense under Bush Senior, suggested the US government is risking the spread of plutonium around the world by supporting the disposition of weapons-grade plutonium as MOX fuel.17
Another problem associated with MOX fuel is connected with breeder reactors. While the BN-600 reactor would be operated without a "blanket" so it will not breed more plutonium, it could in fact be operated in breeder mode. More worrying is Minatom's pursuit of a new, larger fast breeder reactor, the BN-800. This could lead to a plutonium-based "closed fuel cycle" and increase separated plutonium stockpiles. By subsidising Minatom's plutonium economy, the G8 might inadvertently contribute to proliferation risks instead of reducing them.
Conclusion
Bellona believes the best solution is to convert weapons-grade plutonium into the "spent fuel standard" by means of immobilisation. Immobilisation requires far less resources than MOX irradiation (industrial infrastructure, fuel fabrication, handling, shipment). Immobilisation has the advantage of keeping the plutonium under state control at designated sites. This makes physical protection much easier. Immobilisation also makes the recovery of nuclear weapons-usable plutonium difficult. In the post-11 September 2001 security environment, immobilisation would remove weapons-useable material from circulation.
Bellona believes that preventing nuclear proliferation is one of the most urgent tasks facing the world and the use of MOX fuel would add to proliferation risks. Surplus weapons-grade plutonium should be converted into the "spent fuel standard" by immobilising the plutonium with high-level waste, which should be disposed of in a secure geological repository.
Notes
1. Frank von Hippel, 'Recommendations for Preventing Nuclear Terrorism', Journal of the Federation of American Scientists, Public Interest Report, Vol.54, No.6, Nov/Dec 2001. (http://www.fas.org/faspir/2001/v54n6/prevent.htm).
2. Prof. J. E. Harris, 'Disarmament and disposal of fissile material', Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 1998, Vol.23, No.3.
3. Committee on International Security and Arms Control (CISAC), National Academy of Sciences, 'Managing and Disposition of Excess Weapons Plutonium: Reactor-Related Options', National Academy Press, 1995.
4. See the Nuclear Control Institute: Plutonium Disposal Section (www.nci.org).
5. Edwin S Lyman, 'The Future of Immobilisation under the US-Russian Plutonium Disposition Agreement', NCI, July 2001, (http://www.nci.org/new/el-inmm2001.htm).
6. NCI. Ibid, July 2001.
7. Edwin S Lyman, 'The Safety Risks of Using Mixed-Oxide Fuel in VVER-1000 Reactors: An Overview', NCI, May 2000, (http://www.nci.org/e-el-russiamox.htm).
8. Documents from the G8 Summit are available at: (http://www.g8.gc.ca/event_site/medianews-e.asp).
9. See Bellona's Position Paper on 'The G8 Global Partnership against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction'.
10. NCI. 'G8 Nations to Waste Billions on Dangerous Russian Plutonium Fuel', 27 June 2002, (http://www.nci.org/02NCI/06/pr6272002.htm).
11. FAS. Ibid.
12. FAS. Ibid.
13. Greenpeace Briefing, 'The Disarmament Myth of Plutonium Fuel Production', March 2001.
14. Edwin S Lyman, 'Public Health Consequences of Substituting Mixed-Oxide Fuel for Uranium in Light-Water Reactors, NCI, January 1999, (http://www.nci.org/k-m/moxsum.htm).
15. CND, UK, Briefing Paper, Mixed Oxide Fuel: some answers to some questions (http://www.cnduk.org/briefing/mox.htm).
16. Stuart Miller, the Guardian, 'Scientists says BNFL plant is terrorist risk', 31 May 2001, (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,499014,00.html).
17. The Non-proliferation Policy Education Center (http://www.npec-web.org).
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Energizing Aging Nuclear Plants
BusinessWeek Online
Tue Nov 12, 2002
by Reuters
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/bw/20021112/bs_bw/nf200211125445
In March, 1979, leaking coolant at Three Mile Island Reactor Unit 2 in Pennsylvania brought the nuclear power plant within 30 minutes of a catastrophic meltdown. The accident was contained, and only small amounts of radioactive gas escaped from the damaged reactor.
The near disaster marked the beginning of the end of America's romance with atomic fission. Yet it didn't curtail the growth of nuclear power. Indeed, ever since Three Mile Island, efficiency improvements have helped nuclear-power generation to grow steadily, even as the number of functioning commercial reactors in the U.S. has fallen to 103, from a peak of 109.
And over the next decade, nuclear output will grow an additional 10%, says Tom Christopher, CEO of Framatome ANP Inc., the U.S. unit of Paris-based Framatome ANP, the world's largest provider of nuclear-engineering services. The result will be an additional 10,000 megawatts' worth of electrical capacity -- the equivalent of 8 to 10 big nuclear facilities -- without requiring the construction of a single new plant.
The surge in capacity growth, Christopher says, is a result of the ongoing relicensing of the nation's commercial nuclear fleet. Today's power plants were commissioned to split atoms for not more than four decades. Starting in the late 1990s, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission [NRC] began to extend that term to 60 years on a plant-by-plant basis.
The extensions have opened the door to major capital investment, much of which is funneled through Framatome. Plants pay the engineering company to upgrade their key systems, replacing clunky, '70s generators, mechanical switches, and manual gauges with high-efficiency motors and digital controls. The upshot is not just increased output but improved safety, says Christopher, a 29-year veteran of the nuclear-power business.
BusinessWeek Industries Editor Adam Aston met with Christopher to learn more about the surprising growth of the nation's nuclear capacity. Edited excerpts from their conversation follow:
Q: Why have the operating extensions made such a difference to the industry?
A: Under NRC guidelines, the operators can submit an application for a renewed license within three years of a facility's 30th year. The renewal adds 20 years to the plant's original 40-year license. The life extensions open the door to capital improvements and make it possible for operators to take advantage of the lessons learned over the past 30 years, and to retool and upgrade for another 30.
Q: What kinds of changes are taking place?
A: Every year, our ability to upgrade a plant improves. Productivity gains have been so high over the past 20 years that our costs to upgrade a plant have fallen by half. For instance, when a nuke [plant] refuels, which is every 15 to 18 months, it's required to do an intensive inspection. In the past, that was done by people -- even in high-risk radioactive areas. Now in practically every instance, we have a robot do the work. These machines can even do repairs -- they can weld and grind. So now, labor counts for only about 30% of the value we provide in an upgrade.
Q: What's the scale of these upgrades?
A: It depends on what the operator is willing to spend. And that, in turn, depends on the average price of power over the plant's remaining years. If you assume a conservative price -- say $2.50 to $3.50 per megawatt hour -- a typical facility could justify $100 million to $200 million in spending per reactor and still recover that over 20 years.
These refits can be big operations. Picture a Navy ship that comes into a shipyard for a refitting, with hundreds of workers fixing and upgrading the ship. We do the reverse. We take the shipyard to the ship. During a fueling outage, it's not unusual for a plant to have 900 contractors on site.
Q: How do you decide what to replace?
A: The majority of U.S. plants were designed in the late '60s and '70s. In many ways, they're crude by today's standards. But they were designed very conservatively, with lots of redundancy, so there are parts that don't need to be changed. Also, it varies with the unit. If the plant is on a lake and cannot increase its discharge of cooling water, then upgrading its generating capacity isn't an option. If a plant is able to boost its output, then we can replace the steam turbines and generators.
A lot of little things can also increase efficiency -- and power output. Thousands of detectors in a nuclear plant measure things like temperature and pressure. Each is connected to an electromechanical control panel. You can replace those analog detectors and gauges with microprocessors that will do more. And you can integrate the controls into a simpler system that requires fewer engineers to monitor.
We can also reduce the house load power -- the electricity the plant needs to operate. The cuts can be significant -- say, 40 to 60 megawatts. It's not unusual for a plant to have 3,000 motor-operated valves. We can replace these valves and pumps with more efficient variable-speed motors, cutting the house load by 10%. And all that [saved] power can be sold to market.
Q: What's the net effect of these upgrades?
A: You will hear industry people say we've begun a period of pseudo-construction of new nuclear plants in the U.S. On average, we'll see a 10% capacity increase from the nuclear plants here, so you're talking 10,000 megawatts in the next 10 years.
Q: What sorts of efficiency gains have we already seen?
A: Think of it in terms of capacity factor, which is the industry's actual production as a percentage of its potential maximum. The average for the U.S.'s 103 nuclear plants is 91%, the highest such rating in the world. It means that a typical plant is down only 9% of the year, or 33 to 35 days. That's remarkable, especially since, in the early '70s, that measure was 60% or so -- around eighth place compared with other national nuclear fleets. The improvement began before the current round of relicensing. It's due partly to the efforts of the industry associations to share operating practices.
Q: Yet U.S. investment in new nuclear plants and technology has all but stalled. So where are these updated systems coming from?
A: The U.S. industry designed and constructed its plants in the '60s and '70s. At the time, the Germans and particularly the French took the U.S. plant designs, modified them, and then began the creation of this large French fleet. But they built their units using mostly late '70s and early '80s technology.
Since then, France has religiously been going back and backfitting those plants. So when Framatome talks to a U.S. customer today, we say, "Before you rebuild, we will be your window on the world." We can take U.S. customers to a European plant that started with American designs and then optimized them.
Q: Will the U.S. build any new nuclear plants?
A: Given the volatility of power prices, nuclear operators look at the near term -- say, three to five years. In that time, is anybody going to need a big base-load nuclear plant [i.e., a large-capacity facility that is run continuously]? Not likely. In 5 to 10 years, there may be a window. If so, the decision will probably be driven by other issues, such as environmental c onstraints. You might see the value of nuclear facilities rise if the world moves toward some sort of carbon tax.
Since nuclear power emits no greenhouse gases, it could be used to offset dirtier sources. It's impossible to predict what sort of energy technology will be available then. Perhaps we'll have a hydrogen economy, where nuclear power will be used to split water into hydrogen gas. Q: What are your thoughts on radioactive waste?
A: It's important to put the problem in context. I've seen data that say if you take all of the spent fuel rods generated in nuclear plants in the U.S. and stack them up, you'll have a pile that's 10 yards high and fits inside a football field. That's it.
Now, the issue is how do we deal with it. To us, Yucca Mountain [a waste-storage facility in Nevada] is the ideal solution. And frankly, the tax that's currently in the electricity rates -- two-tenths of a cent per kilowatt hour -- would be more than enough to build and operate Yucca Mountain.
Q: In 1998, Germany voted to phase out its existing nuclear plants. Does this mean few nukes will be built abroad?
A: Some countries are backing away from nuclear energy. But the news is more positive than negative. Finland just approved a public referendum to build a new nuclear plant. And in the former Soviet Union, they are determined to go back and complete a number of their plants that were never finished.
Framatome is completing work on two plants in China. South Korea (news - web sites), of course, also continues to build nuclear plants. And Japan has a robust construction program -- maybe six or eight more plants are planned over the next decade.
-------- us politics
Deadlock Broken on Homeland Security Bill
November 12, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Congress-Lame-Duck.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House and congressional leaders agreed Tuesday to begin pushing a bill to create a Homeland Security Department through Congress this week, moving toward a major legislative victory for President Bush.
Congressional officials said they expected the Republican-run House to approve the bill on Wednesday while the Democratic-controlled Senate will begin debating it the same day. Possible procedural delays by Senate opponents could delay final passage there until next week.
Passage would give the president one of the key parts of his plan for responding to last year's terrorist attacks. It would also spotlight the political muscle he gained from last week's Election Day wins by congressional Republicans.
``I believe we can get this done. I believe Congress can show the country that they can finish their work on a high note of achievement,'' the president said in a day of prodding lawmakers to complete the bill.
Passage also would represent a reversal by Senate Democrats who before the election opposed the bill because they said it would undermine civil service protections at the new agency.
According to a description circulating on Capitol Hill, the measure would allow airline pilots to be armed in cockpits, another proposal that became popular after the Sept. 11 attacks. Initial versions of that plan have already passed the House and Senate, but the two chambers have not finished a compromise bill.
The bill would also allow a one-year delay in the Jan. 1 deadline for airports to screen all luggage for explosives, and let the new agency do business with American companies that move offshore to avoid U.S. taxes if there are national or economic security reasons to do so, congressional aides said.
The bill would drop Senate language that would have established an independent commission to investigate why U.S. authorities failed to prevent the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, congressional aides said.
The overall legislation would take a small step to address complaints by Senate Democrats that the new agency's 170,000 workers would lack sufficient job protection.
It would require the department to negotiate any workplace changes with the employees' union and require federal mediation if no agreement was reached. But in the end, the department could make whatever changes it wanted -- flexibility that administration officials have argued they will need.
That language drew opposition from unions representing federal workers. Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said that under the bill, civil service protections ``will not exist in the new department.''
Ranit Schmelzer, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said Daschle believes the measure's worker protections do not go far enough, but he would bring the bill to the Senate floor because the new department is needed. She said the bill appears to have enough votes to pass the Senate.
``There may be differences of opinion on different components of the legislation but there is no disagreement that we need to complete our work on this bill promptly,'' Daschle said in a written statement.
Meanwhile, House and Senate leaders were ready to postpone completion of overdue spending bills until at least January.
Only two of the 13 spending bills financing agencies in the current federal budget year have become law. Leaders were planning to push legislation through Congress keeping agencies open until Jan. 11 in hopes that the House and Senate Appropriations committees could complete work on a final, huge spending package by then.
Congressional leaders are hoping to limit their postelection session -- which started Tuesday -- to a week or less. As it began, independent Sen. Dean Barkley of Minnesota was sworn in to replace the late Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., leaving Democrats running the Senate for now by 50-49-1.
The breakthrough on homeland security came after congressional GOP leaders met at the White House with Bush, who has made the bill's passage the top priority of the session.
Bush opened the meeting by telling the lawmakers they should ``see the election for what it was'' and get working quickly on homeland security and terrorism insurance, said a senior White House official who was present.
It remained in doubt whether the separate legislation creating federally backed insurance against terrorists' acts could be approved during the lame-duck session.
But the homeland security bill seemed destined for rapid-fire passage by the House. Senate officials said there appeared to be enough votes there for approval as well, though it was uncertain whether delaying tactics would slow that work.
Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., has complained that creation of what would be one of the government's biggest and most important agencies should be phased in, rather than created in a single stroke. Aides to Byrd said it was uncertain whether he would try to slow passage of the legislation.
The measure would combine about two dozen federal agencies into a new department. They would include the Coast Guard, Customs Service, the Secret Service, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and much of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
-------- MILITARY
-------- balkans
After the War - [Bosnia]
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41185-2002Nov11?language=printer
WHAT DOES it take for outside powers to rebuild a war-ruined and badly divided country? Bosnia offers a state-of-the-art -- and sobering -- example. Seven years after a U.S. intervention helped end its civil war and Western troops poured in to keep the peace, the Balkan nation of 3.5 million remains far from able to live on its own. The good news is that the horrific fighting that killed a quarter of a million people in less than four years has not been renewed, that several hundred thousand refugees and victims of ethnic cleansing have returned to their homes, and that peaceful and free democratic elections were held this month for all levels of government -- the sixth elections to be staged in as many years. But the peace continues to depend on 12,000 foreign troops, including 2,000 Americans; the functioning of government relies in no small part on the interventions of a Western "high representative" with near-dictatorial powers; and, most discouraging of all, the victors in the recent elections were the same nationalist parties that tore the country apart a decade ago. Bosnia is not now a failed state, but it is a center for the trafficking of women and narcotics, a hide-out for war criminals and a steady drain on Western aid and defense budgets. It's not likely to collapse soon, but neither will foreign troops and administrators likely be able to safely pull out for many years to come.
The Bush administration has from its onset disparaged the nation-building projects supported by President Clinton in Bosnia and elsewhere in the Balkans, and it has occasionally threatened to withdraw American troops. In Afghanistan the administration has deliberately pursued a different model, eschewing international administration or a large foreign peacekeeping force and trying to invest a skeletal Afghan government with authority. But that strategy has left Afghanistan at the mercy of brutal warlords and at perpetual risk of chaos. So now White House officials, looking forward to Iraq, are floating still another model: direct administration by the U.S. military. The idea is a regime that would last for a period of several years while a civilian democracy was constructed.
The Bosnia experience offers some support for this more muscular postwar scheme. Paddy Ashdown, the veteran British politician and statesman who is now the high representative in Bosnia, has pointed out that the repeated elections in that country have sometimes impeded rather than advanced the progress of desperately needed economic and political reforms. Most of the important changes in the country, from guarantees for returning refugees to the purging of criminals from government, have happened on the orders of Mr. Ashdown and his predecessors. And further progress is unlikely unless Western governments tightly condition continued aid on concrete steps by the Bosnians. In short, while democracy should be a central aim of postwar nation-building, it cannot necessarily be the starting point -- and even if it is, a strong outside authority is essential.
Yet Bosnia also shows that it is far easier to take over a devastated state than to let go of it. The Clinton administration originally promised, with calculated insincerity, that U.S. troops would be needed only a year. They have now been there nearly seven, and Mr. Ashdown and other international experts believe they will be needed for several more years at least. Iraq offers a far larger and more complicated challenge of nation-building; it can only be expected that any postwar mission will be even harder and take still longer. The Bush administration needs to be honest, both with itself and with the public, about the scale of the coming commitment -- and scrupulous about planning for the long term. Just as it unwillingly inherited the Clinton administration's scheme for Bosnia, its successors will surely be burdened with implementing the decisions made in the coming months about Iraq.
-------- biological weapons
Nations seek reduced germ-warfare threat
By Alexander G. Higgins
ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 12, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021112-89161928.htm
GENEVA - A 146-nation conference looked for new ways yesterday to reduce the threat of germ warfare, meeting for the first time since the United States quashed a plan to enforce the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention.
The group agreed to consider a proposal on holding annual meetings to discuss what nations could do on their own or together short of changing the treaty. But they acknowledged the U.S. opposition would keep the document from setting out strong enforcement measures.
"I am aware that the proposal is not likely to fully satisfy many or even any delegation," Tibor Toth, chairman of the conference, said of the proposal. "This is a rescue operation."
It was the first time the group had met since last December, when talks were suspended for a year when the United States backed away from a draft proposal on enforcing the global ban.
"Everyone in the conference is walking on eggshells," said Indian Ambassador Rakesh Sood.
He said Mr. Toth's proposal was carefully worded to avoid offending any country.
Officials said it was crucial to keep world attention focused on the threat of biological weapons. Discussion topics under the proposal would include improving national control of microorganisms and toxins, enhancing international response to suspicious outbreaks of disease and adopting a code of conduct for scientists.
"The very worst thing that can happen is that this thing is not discussed at an international level," said Patricia Lewis, director of the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research.
The Biological Weapons Convention has never had serious enforcement measures because the threat was not believed to be high when it was drafted. But that changed with rising concerns that Iraq would use biological weapons during the Persian Gulf war.
At the end of meetings last year, the United States shocked other nations by saying it would not support stringent enforcement, including inspections, because it did not want to give away defense or commercial secrets.
The United States said inspections probably would not be able to detect violations anyway.
Washington invests more than $1 billion a year on its program to defend against biological weapons. Some experts say Iraq is not the only country suspected of having a germ-warfare program. The United States says a dozen or more nations have such programs.
The United States says they include Iran, Libya, Sudan, Syria, Cuba and North Korea.
The Federation of American Scientists and seven other organizations announced yesterday they were creating a global monitoring network to watch for violations of the treaty because of the treaty countries' failure to adopt an enforcement system.
The project aims to follow in the footsteps of other efforts against land mines and small arms.
"For the first time, compliance with the bioweapons ban will be monitored comprehensively and objectively," a statement said.
----
Attack on Iraq could lead Saddam to unleash his chemical and biological weapons, warns Jane's report
12 November 2002
Jane's Terrorism & Security Monitor
http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/jtsm/jtsm021112_1_n.shtml
If the US and its allies wage war on Iraq, Saddam Hussein could order chemical and biological weapons to be unleashed - potentially directly into Western or allied cities. "Additionally, an invasion might actually increase the likelihood of terrorist access to and acquisition of Iraq's chemical and biological assets," argues a new report in the authoritative Jane's Terrorism & Security Monitor magazine.
"During the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam authorised commanders of his missile forces to launch biological and chemical weapons at Israel if US-led coalition forces had marched on Baghdad," states Andrew Oppenheimer, author of the report. "Presumably, if the US were to invade Iraq to enforce a change of regime, Saddam could give such apocalyptic orders again."
Although Saddam only has short-range missile delivery systems, the West should not dismiss the other ways that these weapons can be deployed. The report argues that Saddam could well decide to disseminate these weapons to anti-West terror groups such as Al-Qaeda or alternatively have his own followers deploy them.
"Saddam might decide that the extreme step of assisting Islamist terrorists in conducting an attack using weapons of mass destruction against the US would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him," states the report. "While he is not likely to share his weapons with anyone as long as he remains in power, it is less apparent, however, whether this limit to proliferation would still apply under conditions in which his regime was collapsing and his power was under threat."
Smallpox is increasingly regarded as a threat and the possibility that Iraq has turned it into a weapon is causing Western analysts much concern. Iraqi specialists are known to have been working with the camelpox virus, which may be used for the development of such a smallpox virus. Iraq doesn't have the technology to deploy smallpox in a missile but it is a lethal weapon when dispersed into crowds, for example.
The report describes a worst-case scenario in which warehouses around the US potentially already have such weapons deployed within them, ready for dispersal in aerosol form via smokestacks or into water supplies. A concerted attack on Iraq could result in Saddam revealing the location of one such site to show that there is a real threat.
The West and its allies should be thankful that Iraq lacks any strong motivation for a covert attack. "This is because there would be no glory or gain for Iraq, and if Iraq was identified or suspected as the source of the attack, there would undoubtedly be an overwhelming and devastating counterattack that would eliminate the Iraqi leadership," states the report. However, the allies should be very mindful of Saddam's political and psychological predisposition to attack, should the Iraq situation deteriorate.
Further reassurance might be gained from the lack of mass casualties when potentially apocalyptic weaponry is deployed in real-life situations. If they are to achieve mass casualties, chemical weapons and especially biological weapons require resources and that are usually lacking in those who wish to deploy them--including many Iraqi agents. When the Aum Shinrikyo cult bombed the Tokyo underground with Sarin in 1995, less deaths were caused than by the conventional explosion that rocked the USS Cole in 2000. "These facts support the argument that weapons of choice for terrorists are, for now, truck bombs and other conventional tools that are markedly less technically demanding, less resource-intensive, and less dangerous for the perpetrators - suicide bombers aside," argues the report.
-------- britain
Blair says terror warnings are coming 'almost daily'
By Andrew Grice Political Editor
12 November 2002
UK Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=351319
Tony Blair prepared the British public last night for the "pain" of terrorist attacks by al-Qa'ida but warned that the world would only defeat terrorism by political as well as security co-operation.
The Prime Minister called for the Bush administration to be fully engaged in the wider problems facing the world as well as focusing on Iraq and terrorism. Despite an imminent election in Israel, Mr Blair renewed his call for an urgent initiative to kickstart the Middle East peace process. In his annual foreign affairs speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet in the City of London, Mr Blair gave a gloomy assessment of what he called the warnings of possible terrorist acts coming across his desk almost every day.
It emerged this morning that Britain's ferry ports have been put on their highest state of alert for at least two years, because of fears of terrorists targeting ships.
BBC Radio 4's Today programme claimed that the alert was issued last week after French and Dutch security services warned that terrorists would attempt to board a North Sea ferry in a truck loaded with explosives.
The intelligence is believed to have originated from the FBI, the programme said.
Acknowledging that al- Qa'ida cells were operating in Britain, the Prime Minister said that when this was known, the security services were monitoring, disrupting, imprisoning or expelling the terrorists.
While calling for the public to be vigilant, he highlighted the "dilemma" facing the Government over when to issue specific warnings. Some MPs believe he issued the general warning so the Government could say people had been warned if an attack took place.
Stressing that a "balance" had to be struck, Mr Blair said he would have shut roads, railways, airports, stations, shopping centres, factories and military installations on many occasions if he had acted on every piece of raw intelligence.
"The purpose of terrorism is not just to kill and maim," he said. "It is to scare people, disrupt their normal lives, produce chaos and disorder, distort proper and sensible decision-making. The dilemma is reconciling warning people without alarming them; taking preventive measures without destroying normal life."
The Prime Minister warned: "This is a new type of war, fought in a different way by different means. But as with all wars, it will test not just our ability to fight, but our character, our resilience and our belief in our own way of life."
Mr Blair said the international community needed to be unified in its political response. Coalitions of force were stronger when buttressed by a coalition of common ideas.
He added: "The world needs a broader agenda than simply terrorism and weapons of mass destruction (WMD). And we need full US engagement and leadership of all of it. President Bush recognises that."
The danger, he argued, was not just terrorism or WMD, but polarised opinion in how they were dealt with: Europe dividing off from America; the Arab world versus the West; Muslim versus Christian. "We will not defeat terrorism only by security measures," he said.
The Prime Minister accepted a substantial part of the world was "deeply inimical to all we stand for". Although the view was profoundly mistaken, it menaced the unity needed.
So there was a need to "reach out" to the Arab and Muslim world. "We need to understand the passion and anger the state of the Middle East peace process arouses," he said. "The answer is not to apportion blame. The answer is to move the process forward: on security, on political reform, on the only viable solution the whole world now supports - an Israeli state, recognised by all, and a viable Palestinian state. And to do it quickly. Until this happens, this issue hangs like a dark shadow over our world, chilling our relations with each other, poisoning the understanding of our motives, providing the cover under which the fanatics build strength."
In the meantime, ministers are considering plans to warn the general public about specific terrorist dangers. One option is a poster campaign at railway stations on what to do in the event of a gas attack.
-------- canada
Pull troops from overseas, Canadian senators say
Tuesday, November 12
By ALLISON DUNFIELD
Globe and Mail Update With a report from Canadian Press
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/front/RTGAM/20021112/wsena1112_3/Front/homeBN/breakingnews
A Senate committee on national security and defence released a bleak report Tuesday on the financial crisis facing Canada's military saying that in order to survive, troops should be pulled from overseas deployment to stave off further fatigue.
"Money alone will not solve the problem. We became convinced over the summer that in addition to significant infusion of cash that the military needed a pause from overseas deployments," Senator Colin Kenny, chairman of the committee, said at an Ottawa press conference.
"Normally troops go out for six months at a time. We're suggesting that as those tours come to an end, no more troops be sent overseas and that they remain here in Canada for 24 months - two years - in order to regroup and try to pull the structure back into shape."
Mr. Kenny later told globeandmail.com that the military is headed for a critical personnel shortage if it does not address training issues.
The Senate report says that a withdrawal from international duty for 24 months makes more sense than allowing the Canadian Forces to continue to fall apart.
"What we're saying is, you've got to give both the money and the time to get people trained up," Mr. Kenny said.
Mr. Kenny said the request comes from speaking to military members from 15 bases across the country.
Troop pullback could begin in six months.
But Leon Benoit, the Opposition defence critic, told globeandmail.com that Canada can't renege on its international commitments overseas.
"It would be naive and irresponsible," he said. "You can't simply withdraw our troops from all overseas operations for two years ... it's unacceptable. When you make a commitment to allies you keep it."
Titled "For an Extra $130 bucks ... Update on Canada's Military Crisis - A View From the Bottom Up," the report also recommends an immediate funding injection of $4-billion - the same amount it recommended in an earlier report in February.
"That's the minimum, and the full increase is required immediately," Senator Joseph Day said. He added: "There hasn't been much of a reaction or a change since that February report so we've continued studying the problem."
Mr. Kenny said that amounts to an extra $130 per person in Canada. Currently, per-capita spending on military amounts to about $435.
When asked whether he feels the government will be responsive to the Senate report, Mr. Kenny told globeandmail.com that "this is a dilemma for the government, there's no question about it.
"We don't see it as an either/or thing, first of all. Secondly, if you don't have a secure country, all the other important things that you want to have fall by the wayside. It's fundamental to Canadians that they have a secure country first."
He called it an "insurance policy." Canadians clearly spend more to insure their cars and homes, he said.
In a speech last week, Defence Minister John McCallum said he will cut administrative fat and outdated weapon systems out of the Canadian Forces, and acknowledged that he is looking for money for more troops and modern equipment.
Mr. McCallum is in Britain preparing for next week's NATO meetings in Prague, spokesman Shane Diaczuk told globeandmail.com.
Mr. Diaczuk said the report will be looked at by the Defence Department in the "overall sense of developing a sustainability for the Canadian Forces. This report, like other reports that have come out recently, will be well looked at."
Mr. Kenny said he is satisfied with the work of the Defence Minister, who was appointed in January.
"He's doing a fine job. I think he's drawn attention to the problem, and I think he's endeavouring the best he can to get more funding."
Tuesday's report was based in part on interviews with officers and enlisted personnel at 15 military bases across Canada.
It is the first in a series of interim reports to be issued under its current mandate to "review matters relating to national defence and security generally, including veterans affairs."
The committee's last report also talked about the need for an increase in troops - from the current 52,000 to 75,000.
The report also talks about a crisis in personnel on bases as well as qualified technical instructors to perform training, insufficient funding for operations, maintenance and infrastructure, and an equipment crisis, which the report refers to as "Canada's Antiques Roadshow."
"We had technicians say 'look, I get halfway through a job and I need a part,' and we don't have any parts. And that happens day after day."
Mr. Benoit said the committee is right in pointing out that Canada is not properly fulfilling its commitment overseas because the military is overstretched, because of outdated equipment and because of a lack of personnel.
The report may have some potency among the public as it was released one day after a poignant Remembrance Day in which Canadians mourned the loss of four soldiers in an April friendly fire incident.
-------- chemical weapons
CHEMICAL WEAPONS
Iraq Said to Try to Buy Antidote Against Nerve Gas
November 12, 2002
New York Times
By JUDITH MILLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/12/international/middleeast/12NERV.html
Iraq has ordered large quantities of a drug that can be used to counter the effects of nerve gas, mainly from suppliers in Turkey, which is being pressed to stop the sales, according to senior Bush administration officials.
The officials said the orders far outstripped the amount Iraq could conceivably need for normal hospital use, and they said Turkey had indicated in talks with the State Department that it was willing to review the matter.
"If the Iraqis were going to use nerve agents," an official said, "they would want to take steps to protect their own soldiers, if not their population. This is something that U.S. intelligence is mindful of and very concerned about."
Iraq has ordered, mainly from a Turkish company, a million doses of the drug, atropine, and the 7-inch autoinjectors that inject it into a person's leg, the officials said.
It is not clear how much, if any, of the drug has actually been delivered.
Atropine is highly effective at blocking such nerve agents as sarin and VX, both of which Iraq has acknowledged having made and stockpiled. Iraq claims to have destroyed those stockpiles, but American intelligence agencies doubt it has done so.
One official said Iraq had also placed orders for another antidote for chemical weapons, obidoxime chloride.
Officials said hospitals and clinics around the world commonly stocked atropine to resuscitate patients who have had heart attacks. As a result, atropine was not included on a list of thousands of "dual use" items that the United Nations Security Council members drafted in May that inspectors must review more carefully before they can be sold to Iraq.
The bulk purchases of autoinjectors and atropine, however, have raised concerns among chemical weapons experts, intelligence analysts and senior White House officials, who argue that atropine to counter heart attacks is normally given intravenously and in much smaller doses. Obidoxime chloride is not used at all for that purpose, one expert said.
All this, the officials and experts say, illustrates how hard it is to control dual-use products - those that have civilian purposes, yet also can strengthen a country's military. That is true even when the seller is an ally, they said.
The United States renounced the use of nerve agents and other chemical weapons in the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, pledging not to use such weapons in war, and saying it no longer has them in its arsenal. But the American armed forces do carry atropine and autoinjectors in first-aid kits in case of attack.
Iraq has not ratified the treaty that bans the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons. It used chemical weapons during its war against Iran in the 1980's and to suppress dissent among its own Kurdish citizens in the north.
White House officials have recently considered the Iraqi orders at meetings, and the State Department has tried to stop the sales through discussions with Turkey in the last two months. One official said Turkey, a NATO member and staunch American ally, had agreed to review the orders and consider the request.
In a telephone interview, Turkey's ambassador to Washington, O. Faruk Logoglu, said he was unaware of such discussions. But he added that they might well have been conducted by American Embassy and Turkish officials in Ankara, the Turkish capital, bypassing his embassy.
Administration officials declined to identify the Turkish supplier, but one official characterized the company as an important regional producer of bio-defense products and equipment with international customers.
"Atropine and autoinjectors are common products," an official said.
Administration officials said the contracts demonstrated deficiencies in the system put in place last summer to simplify the shipment of aid to Iraqi civilians under the United Nations "oil for food" program. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell extolled the new system as "smart sanctions."
Under the previous system, shipments of food, medicine and other goods that Iraq said were for civilians were routinely delayed for months while Security Council members and United Nations weapons inspectors pored over contracts to determine whether the sales could strengthen Iraq's military.
The new system adopted in May allows for the sale and shipment of most goods without extensive review unless they are on the list put together by the United States, Russia, France, and other Security Council members. It took almost a year for negotiators to develop the list, because the United States wanted it to be as comprehensive as possible, while Russia and France, both large exporters to Iraq, lobbied for a shorter list.
The United States has yet to conduct a formal assessment of the new system, now just a few months' old. But officials said in interviews that they feared that Iraq was already exploiting omissions from the list.
American officials said it was becoming obvious that some items that should have been included, like the atropine and autoinjectors, had been omitted.
Iraq's military capabilities, "though far less impressive than they were before the 1991 gulf war, are becoming better through such purchases every day," a senior administration official said. "And we're seeing that the traditional mechanisms for controlling the transfer of such items - export controls, border patrols, and other sanctions - are still porous."
Technically, the list can be reopened for changes every six months, but administration officials said the State Department was reluctant to do so. "If we try to add items to that list," an official said, "Russia and France will demand that other items be subtracted from it, and we'll be back again to square one."
But the Pentagon is more willing to seek a change, officials said. If any Security Council member does want to change the list, the deadline to do so is late this month.
Dave Franz, a former director of the Army's bio-defense lab at Fort Detrick, Md., and Frederick R. Sidell, a chemical agents expert who worked at the Army Medical Institute of Chemical Defense, agreed that Iraq's orders raised concern because there were virtually no peaceful uses for that much atropine. "The Iraqis must know that we are not going to use such agents against them, because we don't have chemical weapons," Dr. Franz said.
Dr. Sidell said obidoxime chloride was not used for anything in the United States. Furthermore, autoinjectors contain five times the amount of atropine normally administered intravenously to treat malfunctioning hearts.
-------- china
Top Chinese leaders not listed on panel
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 12, 2002
From combined dispatches
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021112-7719900.htm
BEIJING - President Jiang Zemin and several other leaders are not standing for re-election to an elite Communist Party committee, a delegate to this week's party Congress said yesterday, puncturing speculation that Mr. Jiang will resist plans for him to retire.
Mr. Jiang, as well as No. 2 party boss Li Peng and Prime Minister Zhu Rongji among others, were not on an initial list of candidates for the new Central Committee, which was secretly circulated yesterday, a delegate to the ongoing 16th Party Congress who had seen the list told Agence France-Presse.
"All the major leaders are not on the list, except for Hu Jintao," he said, referring to China's 59-year-old vice president, who is expected to take over from Mr. Jiang as party leader at the Congress.
The comments are the first concrete sign that the party is going ahead with a reshuffle of leaders that had been expected to begin at the weeklong 16th Party Congress. It also appears to show the ruling party is set for a major clearing-out of its elderly leadership.
In all, six of the seven members of China's top governing body, the party's Politburo Standing Committee, were not on the initial list, said the eastern province delegate, who asked not to be named.
"Jiang Zemin, Li Peng, Li Ruihuan, Zhu Rongji, Li Lanqing are not on the list. Wei Jianxing also is not on the list," he said.
"Of the original Politburo members, only 15 are left," he said. The main Politburo currently contains 21 members.
Officially, the Central Committee elects the Politburo, which in turn elects the Politburo Standing Committee, although any leadership changes are assumed to have been worked out by a coterie of leaders long before the Congress.
However cadres who hold top party positions have to first join the Central Committee.
Delegates to the Party Congress, held in the Great Hall of the People in the center of Beijing, retreated yesterday behind closed doors and were to examine the candidate list.
Some delegates said they had not seen the list, while others refused to comment.
"This hasn't gone through a vote in the Congress, so I can't talk about it," said Shanghai Delegate Ling Donglu, head of the Bao Steel company.
The retirement of leaders from their party posts is expected to be followed by a similar reshuffle of state government positions.
Mr. Jiang is expected to also be stepping down as president in favor of Mr. Hu next March at a meeting of China's parliament, with other leaders such as Mr. Zhu and Mr. Li, currently parliamentary head, also giving up their posts.
However, many observers say Mr. Jiang is hoping to exert a great degree of influence over the new leadership if he does retire.
The president has been trying to secure his legacy at the Congress.
-------- colombia
Colombian Army Launches Operation to Rescue Bishop
November 12, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-colombia-bishop.html
BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Colombian troops backed by helicopters launched a massive hunt on Tuesday for a senior Roman Catholic bishop who was kidnapped by suspected leftist rebels as the church was again caught in the cross fire of the country's 38-year war.
The kidnapping on Monday of Monsignor Jorge Enrique Jimenez, president of CELAM, the conference of Latin America's Roman Catholic bishops, drew international condemnation from the Vatican to the United Nations.
Pope John Paul appealed to guerrillas to free Jimenez, who was seized with another priest near the capital Bogota by suspected rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia -- Latin America's most powerful rebel force known as FARC.
The United Nations called the abductions ``unacceptable.''
Jimenez, 60, is bishop of the colonial city of Zipaquira, some 30 miles north of Bogota, known for its subterranean cathedral carved out of salt.
The clergymen had been on their way to a religious service.
The kidnappers' motive was not immediately known but in the past Marxist rebels have held priests for short periods, later releasing them with messages or peace proposals.
The army has suggested the FARC, which was thrown out of peace talks last February by former President Andres Pastrana, could add Jimenez to the list of high-profile kidnap victims it wants to swap for jailed guerrillas. The list includes regional lawmakers, a former defense minister and former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.
The FARC, a 17,000-member peasant army fighting in a war that claims thousands of lives a year, has not commented on whether it was involved in the kidnapping, which took place in a rural district north of Bogota.
``Since last night we have made a significant deployment of troops in that entire region. We also have some helicopters helping in the operation,'' Defense Minister Martha Lucia Ramirez told reporters. The army is offering a $35,000 reward for information leading to the men's release.
The archbishop of Santiago and CELAM Vice President Francisco Javier Errazuriz flew to Bogota from Chile to temporarily take over the conference's presidency and try to mediate in the kidnapping, a Chilean church official said.
ABDUCTION SHOCKS NATION
The kidnapping shocked this deeply Catholic nation, where the church has played an important role in peace negotiations between the government and leftist rebels and has insisted that peace come with social justice -- a traditional rebel demand.
Cardinal Pedro Rubiano, president of Colombia's Episcopal Conference, accused kidnappers of ``abducting the word of the Lord'' and London-based Amnesty International called it a ``flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.''
The driver, who was freed, said one of the kidnappers identified the group as rebels.
``He told me that they wanted to have a chat with Monsignor and that between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. (on Monday) he would be back in town and that we should not worry,'' Uriel Rodriguez said.
Since 1984, guerrillas, paramilitaries or drug gangs have killed 48 priests, two bishops and kidnapped 18 clergymen.
In March gunmen apparently in the pay of drug traffickers killed the archbishop of Cali, Isaias Duarte Cancino.
Colombia has the highest kidnapping rate in the world, with about 3,700 reported in 2001, most carried out by rebels seeking extortion money.
Hard-line President Alvaro Uribe took office in August helped by frustration at peace talks with the FARC, a group branded as ``terrorists'' by the United States and European Union but which claims it is fighting for socialist reforms.
-------- iraq
Iraq war 'could kill 500,000'
Rob Edwards,
12 November 02
New Scientist
http://www.newscientist.com/news/print.jsp?id=ns99993043
A war against Iraq could kill half a million people, warns a new report by medical experts - and most would be civilians.
The report claims as many as 260,000 could die in the conflict and its three-month aftermath, with a further 200,000 at risk in the longer term from famine and disease. A civil war in Iraq could add another 20,000 deaths.
Collateral Damage is being published on Tuesday in 14 countries and has been compiled by Medact, an organisation of British health professionals. It comes as the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, is deciding how to respond to a series of deadlines on weapons inspections imposed by the United Nations.
If he fails to meet any conditions, the US and the UK have threatened to destroy Iraq's presumed weapons of mass destruction using military force.
The report has been commended by both medical and military specialists. "It is really important that people understand the consequences of war," says Vivienne Nathanson, head of science and ethics at the British Medical Association.
"All doctors look at war with a very large degree of horror because they know the meaning of casualties," she told New Scientist. "Even in the cleanest, most limited conflicts, people die and people suffer."
General Pete Gration, former Chief of the Australian Defence Forces and an opponent of a war on Iraq, adds: "This is no exaggerated tract by a bunch of zealots. It is a coldly factual report by health professionals who draw on the best evidence available."
Nuclear attack
The report assumes an attack on Iraq will begin with sustained air strikes, followed by an invasion of ground troops and culminating in the overthrow of Baghdad.
It concludes that the resulting death toll will be much higher than either the 1991 Gulf War, which killed around 200,000 Iraqis, or the war on Afghanistan, which has so far left less than 5000 dead.
In the report's worst-case scenario, nuclear weapons are fired on Iraq in response to a chemical and biological attack on Kuwait and Israel, leaving a massive 3.9 million people dead. But the report states that even the best-case estimates for a short war would initially kill 10,000 people, "more than three times the number who died on September 11".
The report argues that the 1991 war led to the severe weakening of the health of Iraq's people and the country's healthcare infrastructure, and that this would mean higher casualties in any new war.
"Casualties, the cycle of violence and other consequences continue to affect generation after generation," says the report's author, health consultant Jane Salvage.
----
Provision Could Trigger Iraq War
ROBERT BURNS
Associated Press
Tue, Nov. 12, 2002
http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/politics/4498533.htm
WASHINGTON - The U.N. resolution demanding that Iraq disarm includes a little-noted provision that could be an early trigger for war. The wording could be interpreted as requiring Iraq to stop its frequent firings on American and British planes enforcing "no-fly" zones over the country's northern and southern sectors.
One sentence in Resolution 1441 says Iraq "shall not take or threaten hostile acts" against any personnel of any U.N. member state who are "taking action to uphold" any Security Council resolution. Some in the Bush administration say this is relevant to the flight-interdiction patrols because the flights were implemented to uphold an April 1991 U.N. resolution designed to keep Iraq from repressing its civilian population.
That view is not universally accepted, however, because the patrols are not explicitly authorized by the Security Council.
Iraq has never accepted the legitimacy of the no-fly zones and has tried for years to shoot down the pilots who enforce them. Iraqi gunners have used an extensive network of radars, surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery guns to challenge the aerial patrols, although it has never downed a pilot.
The joint U.S.-British patrols in the southern zone, below the 33rd parallel, are known as Operation Southern Watch and began in August 1992. The planes that patrol it fly from bases in Kuwait and from aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf. Operation Northern Watch patrols, above the 36th parallel, are flown from Incirlik, Turkey.
On Sunday, Navy fighter jets bombed two surface-to-air missile sites near the city of Tallil, about 175 miles southeast of Baghdad, even though the Iraqis had not fired at them. The U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Gulf, justified the attack on grounds that Iraq committed "hostile acts" against U.S. forces by moving the targeted surface-to-air missiles into the southern no-fly zone.
Central Command said Iraq's movement of the missiles violated U.N. resolution 688, adopted in April 1991, one month after the Persian Gulf War ended in a cease-fire. Resolution 688 demanded that Iraq end repression of civilian populations, mentioning only the Kurdish people of northern Iraq, whose attempted revolt against President Saddam Hussein after the Gulf War was brutally put down by Iraqi forces. The resolution says nothing about prohibiting movement of Iraqi surface-to-air missile batteries.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has often pointed to Iraq's firing on pilots in the no-fly zones as evidence that Saddam has no regard for U.N. resolutions and no intention to comply with them.
Asked at a Pentagon news conference Friday whether Iraq would be in violation of the latest U.N. disarmament resolution if it kept firing on U.S. and British patrols, Rumsfeld would not answer directly.
He said that was a question to be considered by President Bush and by the U.N. Security Council. Other defense officials said there is no consensus within the administration how hard to press the argument that Iraqi targeting of no-fly zone patrols should be considered a breach of its Iraqi commitments to the United Nations.
"That's for the United Nations and the president of the United States to make judgments like that," Rumsfeld said. "At what point does Saddam Hussein's behavior reflect compliance and cooperation, and at what point does it reflect something other than that?"
He noted that any U.N. member state has the right to take such a matter to the Security Council and suggested the possibility that the Bush administration would do so if Iraq should continue to fire on aerial patrols.
"Clearly they are there to enforce U.N. resolutions, and that's why the coalition forces fly them," he said.
On the Net:
U.N. resolutions on Iraq:
http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/01fs/14906.htm
Operation Southern Watch at
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/southern_watch.htm
Operation Northern Watch at
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/northern_watch.htm
----
US warns war on Iraq may start before Christmas
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington,
12 November 2002
UK Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=351331
President Bush issued a tough new warning to Saddam Hussein yesterday as administration officials said that a war could begin before the end of the year.
In a series of Veterans' Day memorial services, Mr Bush said he was ready to take his country to war. Unless President Saddam Hussein fully disarmed, "America will lead a coalition to fully disarm him.
"I have no greater responsibility than protecting the American people. Should military action become necessary for our own security, I will commit the full force and might of the United States' military, and we will prevail," he said.
Colin Powell, the American Secretary of State, told CNN: "We're not going to wait until February to see whether Iraq is co-operating or not.''
The Iraqi leader began the process of deciding a formal response to the United Nations Security Council resolution, which calls on his government to provide free and unfettered access to weapons inspectors or else face "serious consequences". Iraq has until Friday to respond. If President Saddam rejects the resolution, Mr Bush is determined to act alone if necessary to punish him with massive military strikes.
Iraq's parliament gathered in a bellicose mood yesterday and dismissed the resolution as a document "packed with lies". To applause from the 250 deputies, the head of the assembly's foreign relations committee urged parliament to reject the UN resolution. The parliament's recommendation - which is to be endorsed by the Revolutionary Command Council chaired by President Saddam - is not expected until later today at the earliest.
Mr Bush said at a ceremony at Arlington Cemetery: "This great nation will not live at the mercy of any foreign plot or power. We will not permit a dictator who's used weapons of mass destruction to threaten America with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons." According to leaks in the American press at the weekend, Mr Bush has approved a battle plan involving a 250,000-strong force if Iraq fails to comply.
After Friday's deadline to accept the UN's terms and promise to comply, Iraq has until 8 December to give weapons inspectors a declaration of all its chemical, biological and nuclear programmes.
----
U.S. Back On Ground In Northern Iraq
November 12, 2002
By ROBIN WRIGHT,
Special To The Hartford Courant
http://www.ctnow.com/news/custom/newsat3/hc-kurds1112.artnov12,0,4131325.story?coll=hc%2Dheadlines%2Dnewsat3
IRBIL, Iraq -- The United States has quietly renewed its covert cooperation with Kurds in northern Iraq who are potentially crucial players in any future U.S.-led military operation, according to senior Kurdish officials.
Kurdish sources say U.S. intelligence officials are now in Kurdish territory on multiple missions, which include advance work for a possible attack on Iraq President Saddam Hussein, establishing a listening post on what is happening in the rest of Iraq and probing the strength and operations of an Islamic extremist group with ties to al Qaeda.
Washington has also promised to protect the Kurds if Hussein should order his troops into their region, the officials say.
"If Saddam Hussein invades the north, the United States will act immediately," Jalal Talabani, head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of two main Kurdish movements in the north, said in an interview. "Now there is all kinds of cooperation with the United States. Militarily, there is all kinds of cooperation."
The involvement marks a comeback for the United States, which was forced to withdraw its CIA station from the north after Hussein invaded in 1996. That offensive also led to the collapse of the north as the headquarters for the U.S.-backed Iraqi opposition coalition. Since then, both the CIA and the coalition have operated from outside Iraq.
Some people here fear that Hussein might launch a pre-emptive thrust into the north to divert attention from the renewed effort to make him give up any weapons of mass destruction, leaving the outside world scrambling to respond before it is ready to take him on.
"Every person in Kurdistan has prepared food and medicine and is ready to go to the mountains or the border for fear that Saddam Hussein will move on the north. He can't attack other countries, but he can hit his own people. And he's slaughtered us here more than once before," said Nasreen Mustafa Sadiq, the Harvard-educated minister of reconstruction and development in the Kurds' government.
The renewed U.S.-Kurdish bond illustrates the depth of the Bush administration's intentions to get involved in Iraq and to be prepared militarily. It was unable to prepare adequately before the campaign to oust the ruling Taliban in nearby Afghanistan last year.
In Washington, officials at the CIA and the Pentagon on Monday said they could not confirm the reports of increased cooperation with the Kurds or that any new commitments had been made to protect them.
For years, Kurdish leaders have been appealing for guarantees beyond a general statement that Washington would retaliate at a time and a place of its choosing for any strike against the Kurds.
A senior leader of the Kurdish Democratic Party, the other main party, said a "new relationship" with the United States has evolved over the past two months.
"I sincerely believe that U.S. cooperation with the Kurds will be beneficial to both sides," said Kurdish Deputy Prime Minister Sami Abdurrahman.
Much of the north has been protected from Iraqi airstrikes by U.S. and British warplanes enforcing a "no-fly" zone over Iraq. But the unofficial internal border on the ground is considered a "red line" that Hussein may not cross, Kurdish officials say.
"If Saddam violates that red line again the response will not be mere punishment," said another senior Kurdish leader who spoke on condition of anonymity. "The response would be to annihilate him altogether."
Kurdish leaders expect to hold talks with U.S. officials about deepening their mutual cooperation after a conference of joint Iraqi opposition forces scheduled for Brussels, Belgium, later this month. One Kurdish leader said he wants the United States to guarantee that it will prevent any outside interference by neighboring states either during or after a war to oust Saddam.
"We now await guarantees from the United States," said Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdish Democratic Party.
Northern Kurdistan is important to the United States as a possible entry point for U.S. troops in the event of an invasion of Iraq. In the meantime, it is also the only area where U.S. intelligence can operate comparatively freely.
Three airfields - Harir east of Irbil, Bakrajo near Sulaimaniya and Bamarni near Dohuk - could also be prime facilities for the U.S. military. The senior Kurdish leader described them as "ideal" logistically for a military operation against Baghdad.
Robin Wright is a Los Angeles Times reporter.
----
The shape of an Iraq invasion
Attack would blend swift surgical strikes with backup by 200,000 ground troops.
By Ann Scott Tyson
The Christian Science Monitor,
November 12, 2002
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1112/p01s01-usmi.html
WASHINGTON - Lt. Col. Stephen Twitty, surrounded by photographs of his service in the 1991 Gulf War, sits in his office at a sprawling US Army base once again wearing tan desert fatigues.
Waging another war against Iraq "won't be tougher" than last time, predicts Colonel Twitty, commander of a Kuwait-bound heavy infantry battalion. "Our capability is much stronger than theirs. We would be successful."
Such confidence, widespread in the American military, underpins a bold US war plan that envisions ending the rule of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein with speed, precision strikes, and - above all - the shock of an overwhelming force.
The Pentagon is leaving no doubt that it is poised to execute the plan should Mr. Hussein fail to comply with a tough new UN disarmament resolution. "The Iraqi regime has a choice to make. He [Hussein] can give up his weapons of mass destruction [WMD] or, as the president has said, he will lose power," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Friday.
Indeed, the mobilization of US forces for a war with Iraq is well under way, as Navy battle groups, Army troops, vehicles, and attack helicopters, Air Force long-range bombers as well as US Central Command headquarters elements all move into position in the Gulf region.
"We are watching the staging happen now," says retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who commanded the 24th Infantry Division in the Gulf War. "Most of the ground forces will sprint into place at the last minute."
Driven by the goals of decapitating Mr. Hussein's regime and preventing chemical and biological attacks against US troops and neighboring countries, while also minimizing US and Iraqi casualties and damage to Iraq's infrastructure - the plan is both optimistic and prudent.
On one hand, it reflects a belief by US commanders that the bulk of Iraqi military forces and civilians could quickly turn against the regime if a lightning US military invasion made the collapse of Mr. Hussein's government appear imminent.
On the other, it provides for putting in place a massive US air, sea, and ground force of an estimated 200,000 troops - likely including four US Army divisions, a Marine division, and one British division - able to wage a more prolonged war if Iraqi resistance proves stiffer than expected, as well as to stabilize Iraq in the wake of Hussein's overthrow.
In this sense, the plan appears to reflect a compromise between what insiders say was the civilian Pentagon leadership's desire for an innovative war plan relying heavily on air power and Special Operations Forces, as well as possibly Iraqi opposition forces - and Central Command chief Gen. Tommy Franks' concern with deploying a large enough ground force to handle worst-case scenarios, such as drawn-out urban warfare.
"Soldiers, especially, know that war has a tendency to go in unplanned directions," says Mackubin Owens, a strategist at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I.
Indeed, in terms of size, scope, and sheer firepower, the Iraq plan has been dubbed "Desert Storm Light," after the Gulf War that involved more than 500,000 troops. "We risk a political and military disaster if we don't put adequate air, ground, and sea forces in the area to overwhelm the opposition," says General McCaffrey.
Conceptually, however, senior US military officials say the plan shares similarities with the relatively small-scale 1989 invasion of Panama, Operation Just Cause. The regime-change operation, viewed as largely successful in the military, unseated Gen. Manuel Noriega through a surgical "coup de main" that minimized civilian casualties and collateral damage. In a rapid, strategic airlift, some 14,000 US air assault troops struck dozens of key targets simultaneously on Dec. 20, 1989, destroying organized resistance by Panamanian defense forces and paramilitary "dignity battalions" within the first 24 hours.
The strategy reflects a fundamental change in US warfare from the slow massing of forces for linear battles, to the vertical use of more rapid, dispersed forces, senior US commanders say. The change is possible due to dramatic technological advances - such as aerial drones that allow 24-hour day and night battlefield surveillance, and a far higher percentage of precision munitions - that allow US forces to see and strike targets from a greater distance, more quickly, with greater lethality.
Key elements of a US invasion, according to current and former US defense and military officials and experts, would include:
• A near simultaneous air and ground campaign. US stealth bombers and fighters armed with JDAM guided missiles and other precision munitions would strike hard at core leadership targets such as Hussein's palaces and elite security forces, suspected WMD sites, and military command facilities.
• Meanwhile, a three-sided insertion of US troops would take place. In Western Iraq, troops would seek to prevent Iraqi missile attacks on Israel and other neighbors. In the northern Kurdish territory, where Iraqi opposition leaders say the CIA and possibly Special Forces troops have already scouted out airfields, troops would set up staging and refuelling bases. In the south, troops would move in from Kuwait to seize key facilities around the port of Basra.
• A psychological operations campaign, which is under way in parts of Iraq already, would drop leaflets and transmit radio broadcasts warning Iraqi troops not to leave their barracks or launch chemical weapons attacks. A "blackout bomb" could temporarily short out electrical grids in cities, preventing Hussein from using TV to spread propaganda, says John Pike, an analyst at GlobalSecurity.org.
• Humanitarian missions aimed at providing basic necessities to Iraqis would also likely be carried out in tandem with military operations, as they were in Afghanistan.
One of the worst nightmare scenarios for American forces would be if Hussein can persuade loyalists to hold out in cities, requiring US forces to come in at the risk of inflicting high civilian casualties, says Mr. Pike.
Still, several analysts predict that a US-led war to oust Hussein would last no more than a few weeks.
----
Iraqi Exile Groups' Efforts Stalled by Intense Rivalries
Power Struggle Emerges Over Plan for Post-Hussein Era; Key Faction Also Feuding With U.S. on Funds
By Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, November 12, 2002; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40750-2002Nov11?language=printer
ROME, Nov. 11 -- Three months after the Bush administration encouraged them to unite and create a common political platform for the future of their country, Iraq's exile factions are locked in an ethnic, religious and political power struggle.
Potentially important players are fighting tenaciously over rival agendas. One of the major factions, the Iraqi National Congress (INC), is also feuding with the State Department over $8 million in funding for propaganda, humanitarian and other programs it is supposed to oversee, State Department officials said. A much-heralded INC "information-gathering" operation inside Iraq has yet to get off the ground, the officials said, because of uncertainty in the Bush administration about the INC's ability to get and relay useful intelligence, as well as competing views within the Washington bureaucracy.
Also stalled are the preparations for a pan-opposition conference that was meant to project a vision for democratic rule if President Saddam Hussein is overthrown. The conference was originally scheduled for late September, but has been repeatedly postponed. The next possible date is Nov. 22, in Brussels, but the INC is threatening a boycott. The State Department plans to send a delegate to London soon to meet with opposition officials in an attempt to end the infighting that has blocked the conference, a department official said.
The arguing has put into doubt a role for Iraqi exiles in the country's future and presents a grim preview of problems for any U.S. occupation of Iraq.
Some of the disputes are based on ethnic suspicions and religious rivalries. During his decades in power, Hussein has tamped down such conflicts through repression. But by President Bush's reckoning, the new Iraq is supposed to resolve its problems within a democratic system.
The Bush administration officially recognizes six opposition organizations. One is the INC, an amalgam of anti-Hussein groups. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party represent the Kurdish population, based in northern Iraq. The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution (SCIRI), an Iranian-based fundamentalist group, claims to represent the majority Shiite Muslim population. The Iraqi National Accord is composed of former army officers and defectors from Hussein's Baathist party. Also thrown into the mix is a monarchist party that embodies the aspirations of Sharif Ali bin Al Hussein, an exiled aristocrat, to restore the Hashemite throne to Iraq.
Bush also has authorized expansion of the opposition organizations to include groups representing other former military officers and Turkish, Assyrian and Christian minorities.
The INC leader, Ahmed Chalabi, may boycott the conference over the scope of its agenda, the number of delegates and the quotas given invited organizations. Chalabi had wanted the conference to endorse a provisional government, with him as its leader. He also wanted upwards of 300 delegates chosen partly on the basis of profession, gender and politics, not solely because of ethnicity or religion.
The Kurdish parties, SCIRI and the Iraqi National Accord combined to squash the provisional government idea and other Chalabi proposals, and to limit the conference to about 180 participants. Fundamentalist Shiite Muslim representatives would make up about 35 percent of the delegates, a quota that offended secular Iraqis such as Chalabi. The Kurds would make up 25 percent, Turks and Assyrians 10 percent. The remaining delegates would be Sunni Muslims, the group that has traditionally ruled Iraq.
Kanan Makiya, a prominent writer and critic of the Iraqi government, launched a fierce critique of the conference plans and called on Iraqi exiles to deluge the State Department with statements of protest. "Where are the independents? Where are the democrats? . . . Where is Iraq in such a travesty of democracy and fairness?" he asked.
"If the conference goes ahead as is, it will only further divide the Iraqi opposition, the opposite of its intended aims," said Siyamend Othman, an independent political observer.
Last week, Chalabi walked out of a meeting of conference organizers after SCIRI delegates criticized him for opposing the meeting. Kurdish officials involved insist the conference will go on as scheduled. "Calls for change are a minority opinion," said Latif Rashid, a Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) representative in London. "There are just details that have to be worked out."
"The problem is just one person -- Chalabi," said Hoshyar Zibari, a top Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) official. "He doesn't want the conference to take place. He is fighting for his political life."
In the meantime, the PUK and KDP have made proposals that have upset their nominal opposition partners. The Kurdish parties plan to present a constitution for Iraq that would grant the Kurds autonomy in an expanded territory in the country's north. The city of Kirkuk is designated as the Kurdish capital. The central government would control only foreign affairs, the military and economic planning.
In effect, the Kurds want a federated Iraq divided between Arabs and Kurds. "This is a non-starter for the Arabs," said a SCIRI representative.
Turkey, one of Iraq's powerful neighbors, opposes anything that looks like a step toward Kurdish statehood and has been battling Kurdish nationalism within its own borders for decades. The Turks warned that if the Kurds occupy Kirkuk, a city surrounded by rich oil resources, they could face an invasion by Turkish troops. During a meeting last month in Ankara, the Turks asked Gen. Tommy R. Franks, who heads the U.S. Central Command that covers Iraq, not to use the Kurds in military action, Western diplomats said. The Kurds boast a militia of 50,000 troops and their leaders have expressed hope that an alliance with the United States would ensure an autonomous northern Iraq.
The infighting has discouraged U.S. officials. Although the Pentagon has tasked Chalabi with recruiting guides and logistics officers among Iraqis to help U.S. troops in any invasion, for instance, the program has yet to get underway.
The INC also had harbored hopes of getting funds to collect intelligence inside Iraq via the "information-gathering" scheme. Because of previous disagreements between the INC and the State Department, the program was passed to the Pentagon, which agreed to pay but then pulled back when Chalabi made the pledge public.
----
Officials In Iraq Condemn Resolution
Rejection Urged By Legislators
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, November 12, 2002; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40838-2002Nov11?language=printer
CAIRO, Nov. 11 -- Despite the threat of war, Iraqi parliament members urged President Saddam Hussein tonight to reject a new U.N. resolution requiring the country to disarm and submit to intrusive weapons inspections, condemning the document in blistering declarations as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty.
Meeting in an emergency session at Hussein's behest, parliament members spent more than two hours criticizing the resolution, which the Security Council approved unanimously on Friday. The parliament speaker, Saadoun Hammadi, labeled it "provocative, deceitful and a preamble for war." Others called it "unfair" and a "violation of human rights."
Several members, including the head of an influential foreign affairs committee, said the parliament should refuse to endorse the resolution and noted the final decision on whether to accept it rests with Hussein and the supreme ruling body that he presides over, the Revolutionary Command Council.
It is unusual, however, for Hussein to overrule the parliament. Its members are all his ardent supporters and its decisions are almost always in lock step with his views. Hussein often refers issues to parliament so he and top officials can say their decisions are based on the will of the Iraqi people.
The parliament is expected to continue discussing the resolution Tuesday. Hammadi did not say whether the body would hold a formal vote.
Iraq has until Friday to formally accept the terms of the resolution. If it does, Hussein's government then must declare within 30 days all Iraqi programs to develop weapons of mass destruction and provide inspectors unfettered access to any place in the country, including presidential palaces and other sensitive sites.
If Hussein does not accept the resolution by Friday, the Bush administration could ask the Security Council to authorize the use of force, or the United States could opt to take unilateral action.
The tenor of the comments during the session in Baghdad, broadcast live on an Iraqi satellite television channel, took some political observers in the Arab world by surprise. Arab foreign ministers and diplomats had expressed confidence on Sunday night that Hussein would accept the resolution as the best way to avert a military confrontation with the United States.
The ministers and diplomats, gathered for an Arab League meeting in Cairo, said they had received assurances from Iraq's foreign minister, Naji Sabri, and other Iraqi officials that the resolution would be endorsed by Hussein's government. Before the Iraqi parliament session began, Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said he thought Iraq would "cooperate positively" with the new resolution.
"We were expecting some criticism, but nothing like this," said one Arab diplomat involved in discussions with Sabri over the weekend. "It's difficult to say what Saddam's strategy is."
Another official who participated in the Arab League meeting said the tone of the parliament session reflected "classic Saddam strategy."
"He's unpredictable," the official said. "You never know what he's going to do until the very last minute, when he actually makes the decision."
The criticism, the official said, "may be more political theater than anything else. They could just be saying this because they have to, but at the end, they'll grudgingly vote to support it."
Wamidh Nadhmi, a professor of political science at Baghdad University, said he doubted parliament members would reverse course overnight. But he said Hussein could issue a grudging statement of acquiescence based on assurances from nations close to Iraq, particularly Syria and Russia, that the resolution does not authorize U.S. military action.
Syria's foreign minister, Farouk Charaa, told the Arab League on Sunday that he received a letter from Secretary of State Colin L. Powell stating that the resolution would not be used by the Bush administration to launch an attack on Iraq. Arab diplomats said the contents of the letter have been shared with Iraqi officials.
"With these assurances, the Iraqi leadership can be more flexible," Nadhmi said.
President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, dismissed the parliament session as irrelevant. "I don't think anyone believes this is anything but an absolute dictatorship and this decision is up to Saddam Hussein," she said Sunday in Washington.
Salim al-Kubaisi, chairman of the Arab and International Relations Committee, recommended that the parliament refer the final decision to the Revolutionary Command Council "to take the appropriate decision to defend the people of Iraq, their independence and dignity."
In his opening remarks, Hammadi said the resolution "seeks to create crises rather than cooperation and paves the way for aggression rather than for peace." Sitting on a dais under a black-and-white portrait of Hussein, he argued that the U.N. demand violates international law and "does not have the minimum of fairness, objectivity and balance."
One parliament member did point out that he regarded as positive change the way in which the resolution proceeded from an initial U.S. and British draft to the document approved Friday. The member praised the fact that the Arab League was lauded for its efforts to resolve the crisis and that U.N. weapons inspectors would be allowed considerable autonomy in deciding how and where to search.
But that member and several others also delivered rambling, invective-filled speeches calling the resolution an infringement of Iraq's sovereignty and saying it would put the country in the untenable position of trying to prove, as it has long insisted, that it does not possess weapons of mass destruction.
"This resolution assumes we have weapons," one deputy said. "What is this based on? Is it based on pictures from satellites? Is it based on what the previous inspectors said? This is based on nothing. Yet it is the basis for this resolution. So it seems we have to prove that we have no weapons on mass destruction. It's like we're guilty until proven innocent."
Another member asked: "Where are our human rights? Where is our sovereignty?"
----
Iraqi lawmakers reject U.N. resolution
By Sameer N. Yacoub
ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 12, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021112-21274784.htm
BAGHDAD - Iraqi lawmakers denounced a tough, new U.N. resolution on weapons inspections yesterday as dishonest, provocative and worthy of rejection, despite the risk of war. But parliament said it will trust whatever President Saddam Hussein decides.
One after the other, senior lawmakers rejected the resolution, the latest in a long effort to ensure Iraq scraps its weapons of mass destruction. This time, however, the United States and Britain have made clear they will attack Iraq if it does not fully comply.
Saadoun Hamadi, speaker of Iraq's parliament, said the resolution was stacked with "ill intentions," "falsehood," "lies" and "dishonesty." Salim al-Koubaisi, head of parliament's foreign relations committee, recommended rejecting the resolution but also advised deferring to the "wise Iraqi leadership" to act as it sees fit to defend Iraq's people and dignity.
"The committee advises the rejection of Security Council Resolution 1441 and to not agree to it in response to the opinions of our people, who put their trust in us," Mr. al-Koubaisi told fellow lawmakers.
Saddam has used parliament's action as cover for difficult decisions in the past, and harsh rhetoric does not necessarily mean parliament will reject the proposal. Saddam ordered parliament to recommend a formal response, and lawmakers were expected to vote on recommendations for the Iraqi leadership today.
Iraq has until Friday to accept or reject the resolution, approved unanimously last week by the U.N. Security Council. Exactly when on Friday was left intentionally vague in the resolution, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said.
There are numerous interpretations for the deadline: one week from the minute the resolution was adopted, the minute Iraq was notified, the end of business Friday or midnight Friday. It is up to the Security Council to interpret its own resolution, Mr. Eckhard said.
If Saddam does not follow through, a Pentagon plan calls for more than 200,000 troops to invade Iraq.
Parliament's advice on the new U.N. resolution, which demands that Iraq cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors or face "serious consequences," will go to the Revolutionary Command Council, Iraq's ruling body, led by Saddam.
Should parliament recommend acceptance, it would allow Saddam to say the decision was the will of the Iraqi people and more smoothly retreat from previous objections to any new resolution governing weapons inspections.
In Washington, President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, rejected the legitimacy of the parliament debate.
"One has to be a bit skeptical of the independence of the Iraqi parliament from Saddam Hussein," she said. "I don't think anyone believes this is anything but an absolute dictatorship and this decision is up to Saddam Hussein."
She also said Iraq has no right to accept or reject the resolution. "They are obligated to accept, but the U.N. thought it best to ask for return-receipt requested," Miss Rice said.
On Sunday, Arab League foreign ministers ended meetings in Cairo with a final communique urging cooperation between Iraq and the United Nations. The Arab ministers also called on the United States to commit to pledges Syria said it received that the resolution could not be used to justify military action. They also put forward a united position of "absolute rejection" of military action.
The Iraqi parliament is stacked with Saddam's allies. During opening speeches aired live on Iraqi television, lawmakers applauded every mention of Saddam's name in speeches praising "His Excellency Mr. President, the holy warrior leader Saddam Hussein."
Wafa Samir, a 30-year-old teacher, watched the speeches on television at a Baghdad shopping center. "For how long will they keep issuing resolutions and expect Iraq to implement them?" she asked. "They have to stop sometime for the Iraqis' sake."
On convening the session, Mr. Hamadi, the parliament speaker, told lawmakers that the resolution "does not have the minimum of fairness, objectivity and balance" and violates international law.
"The ill intentions in this resolution are flagrant and loud in ignoring all the work that has been achieved in past years and takes the issue back to square one," Mr. Hamadi said. "This resolution includes many impossible demands that can't be executed."
-------- israel / palestine
Israelis fear war crimes arrests
Chris McGreal in Jerusalem
Tuesday November 12, 2002
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,838186,00.html
The Israeli government has ordered an urgent assessment of whether its politicians and soldiers could face arrest and trial for war crimes while travelling abroad.
The move follows a report by the justice ministry that singled out Britain, Spain and Belgium as the most likely to prosecute Israeli officials who breach international law. But the government fears there is a growing trend towards global justice that could see Israelis effectively barred from visiting a host of states.
"We are building a map of all those countries that might give us a headache," said Ra'anan Gissin, spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon. "They want to arrest Israelis who are enforcing the law while the real war criminals, like Saddam Hussein and Yasser Arafat, get away scot free."
The report was ordered after lawyers presented the cabinet with a report commissioned in the wake of a failed legal action in the Belgian courts last year accusing Mr Sharon of war crimes over the massacres of Palestinians in refugee camps 20 years ago.
Last month, Scotland Yard launched an investigation of Israel's new defence minister, Lieutenant General Shaul Mofaz, during his short visit to Britain.
Amnesty International has called on signatories to the Geneva conventions to put on trial Israeli soldiers "responsible for war crimes" as defined in the Geneva conventions, such as unlawful killings, torture and the use of Palestinians as human shields in Jenin and Nablus earlier this year.
· Binyamin Netanyahu, the new Israeli foreign minister, yesterday called for Mr Arafat's removal after a gunman killed five Israelis, including a mother and two children, in a kibbutz on Sunday.
--------
Israel's Netanyahu Vows if Elected to Expel Arafat
November 12, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast-netanyahu.html
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, trying to outflank Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on the right, vowed Tuesday that if he were elected prime minister he would expel Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat.
The hawkish ex-premier, challenging Sharon to lead the rightist Likud party in a Jan. 28 election, made the comment hours after troops raided a West Bank refugee camp in response to a Palestinian raid that killed five Israelis in a kibbutz.
Netanyahu's comments marked his most scathing attack on Arafat since the 53-year-old joined Israel's cabinet last week after the collapse of Sharon's unity coalition.
``I as prime minister will expel Arafat,'' Netanyahu told a Likud party convention in a nationally televised speech.
Recent polls have given Sharon a commanding lead over the center-left Labor Party for the general election but only a narrow lead over Netanyahu for the party leadership.
Netanyahu said Arafat was ``head of the murderers'' behind a rare attack on a collective farm in northern Israel Sunday.
A gunman burst into a house in Kibbutz Metzer, shooting dead a 34-year-old mother and killing her sons, aged four and five, as they cowered under their blankets.
A militant group linked to Arafat's Fatah movement claimed responsibility. The Palestinian president condemned the attack.
RAID ON REFUGEE CAMP
Israeli tanks and troops hunting the gunman swept through the West Bank town of Tulkarm and an adjacent refugee camp before dawn Tuesday. Witnesses said two Palestinians were arrested amid heavy gunfire before troops withdrew to the outskirts.
In the village of Shweike, north of Tulkarm, Israeli troops demolished the house of Mohammed Naifeh, described as a senior activist from the armed wing of Arafat's Fatah movement. The army said Naifeh was responsible for Sunday's attack.
The Palestinian Authority condemned the army action.
The violence clouded a visit by U.S. envoy David Satterfield to push a peace ``road map'' aiming for a Palestinian state in 2005. Most in the region believe the plan will achieve little before Israel's general election and before the crisis over Iraq now preoccupying President Bush is resolved.
ANNAN ISSUES WARNING
Shortly before Netanyahu spoke, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned Israel against forcing Arafat out of the West Bank. ``Many governments around the world have indicated that it would be unwise to exile Chairman Arafat, and I hope that will not happen,'' he told a news conference in New York.
Sharon, who faces Netanyahu in a Nov. 28 Likud primary to determine who will be Likud's prime ministerial candidate, has promised Bush not to oust or harm Arafat.
Following Netanyahu to the podium, Sharon responded with what was widely seen as veiled criticism of his rival. ``We will fight terror and defeat it, but security will not be achieved through slogans,'' he said.
``The Israeli nation wants responsible leadership, leadership that acts with discretion, and a leadership that prioritizes in every instance the national interest over the party or personal interest,'' he said.
Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat called Netanyahu's threat ``unacceptable'' and urged Israelis to elect a leadership ``capable of making peace and not one that that will sustain the vicious cycle of violence and bloodshed.''
Tensions were running high in the Gaza Strip after the funeral of a two-year-old Palestinian boy who was shot dead in his father's arms in the Rafah refugee camp Monday night.
Palestinian witnesses said the gunfire came from an Israeli army watchtower and the shooting was unprovoked, but an army spokesman said troops had responded to shots fired at them.
Militants have been waging an uprising against Israeli occupation since 2000.
At least 1,655 Palestinians and 631 Israelis have been killed since the Palestinian revolt erupted in September 2000.
--------
Israel Fires Missiles on Gaza City
November 12, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Gaza-Strike.html
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -- Israeli helicopters fired four missiles on a suspected weapons-making workshop in downtown Gaza City early Wednesday, the second such strike on the site in two days, Israeli and Palestinian officials said.
The attack demolished a car repair shop that had been severely damaged in a similar pre-dawn attack on Monday. The strike took place shortly before 2 a.m., and the shop was empty at the time. There were no reports of casualties. Shop owner Deab Fasiah insisted his shop has nothing to do with producing weapons.
``I challenge the Israelis to give me any evidence that my place had been used to produce anything except spare parts for cars,'' Fasiah said just minutes after the attack.
An army spokesman said the missile attack targeted a workshop believed to produce mortar shells and rockets, and came in response to recent firing of mortar shells and rockets from Gaza toward nearby Israel communities.
Palestinian security officials said four missiles were fired in the strike.
The strikes sent massive black plumes of smoke over the city as ambulances rushed to the scene, witnesses said. Rescue officials said several people were taken to hospital to be treated for shock.
The missiles landed in a crowded area of Gaza City composed of homes, defunct workshops and vegetable markets. Several houses were damaged, their windows blown out.
-------- nato
NATO summit to discuss possible Iraq action
November 12, 2002
Jang PK
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/nov2002-daily/12-11-2002/world/w14.htm
BRUSSELS: NATO leaders will use a summit next week to discuss possible action if Iraq fails to abide by the new UN disarmament resolution, Alliance chief George Robertson said Monday.
The November 20-21 Prague summit will deliver a "strong political message" on the resolution demanding Baghdad's full cooperation with weapons inspectors, he said. "If Saddam complies with the resolution, then there won't be any need for military action," he said. But "it is more than possible that a discussion will take place on what individual countries .. or organisations collectively might do in the case of a failure of the resolution," he said.
US President George W. Bush will join his NATO allies at the two-day summit, which has long been expected to be dominated by the issue of enlargement and the Alliance's future development. The 19-member Alliance is expected to invite up to seven new countries to join NATO, in a "big bang" expansion made easier by the geo-political shifts after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
Enlargement has long been the summit's headline goal. But in the circumstances Iraq will now likely cloud the summit. Robertson said NATO leaders will discuss the new UN Security Council resolution on Iraq, passed last Friday, during an informal lunch at the landmark NATO summit Thursday. "Now that there is a resolution, various allies might want to raise the possibility of NATO coming forth collectively and individual countries assisting if the UN process fails and they will probably use Prague as the opportunity for doing so," he said. "I would have thought it would send a very strong political message in relation to the Security Council resolution," he told reporters.
"Having a summit that comes so quickly after the security council resolution and beyond the seven days given to Saddam to accept them, is ideal for 19 countries to meet and discuss it," Robertson said. Robertson added that he did not foresee problems in securing support for the UN resolution from the 19-member Alliance.
One likely exception among the European NATO allies will be Germany, which has made it clear that it will not take part in any military action against Iraq. Asked about this, Robertson commented: "There is a process and I don't see any problem with people staying out of the process," adding: "I don't think we should second guess any discussions.
-------- russia / chechnya
Putin brushes aside European advice on Chechnya
By Alister Doyle
Tuesday November 12, 2002
Reuters
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/reuters/asia-133926.html
OSLO - Russian President Vladimir Putin brushed aside European advice on a peaceful solution to the Chechen conflict on Tuesday, saying it had to be solved by the Russian and Chechen people alone.
"Of course we listen to advice from our colleagues in Europe," Putin told a news conference in Oslo after talks with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who said he hoped for a peaceful, political solution in Chechnya. But he added: "It is an internal Russian problem to be solved between the Chechen people and the Russian federation."
Russia has scrapped plans for a partial military pullout from the southerly province since Chechen separatists took a Moscow theatre hostage last month. The siege ended with the deaths of 128 hostages and 41 rebels.
"We don't want to turn up our noses and say that others' opinions are irrelevant," Putin said. But he added: "The problem is so complicated that no one can give really good advice."
Putin said Europe had some good examples of conflict resolution but that other conflicts had rumbled on unsolved in other parts of Europe for hundreds of years.
Putin has shown no sign of reining in the Russian military in Chechnya, where thousands of people have died in almost a decade of fighting. Putin has said a new constitution and elections offer the best prospects of a swift resolution.
Schroeder praised Putin for progress so far but insisted: "The political process on Chechnya must continue."
"We have taken note of how the political process with regard to Chechnya is being organised and moved forward. This involves in particular the constitutional process and is, I believe, a good start that deserves our support," Schroeder said.
Putin and Schroeder met in Oslo because Putin cancelled a planned visit to Germany last month during the theatre siege. Both men were, by coincidence, on visits to the Nordic nation.
Schroeder and Putin also said a U.N. resolution seeking to disarm Iraq offered a chance of peace. Shortly afterwards, Iraq's parliament voted to reject the resolution while leaving the final decision to President Saddam Hussein.
Putin said he hoped Arab countries would bring pressure on Iraq to comply.
Putin said Moscow was keeping up contacts with Baghdad but that only Saddam knew what Iraq would finally decide.
Schroeder reiterated on Monday that Germany would not take part in any U.S.-led attacks on Iraq if Saddam failed to comply fully with the resolution. Schroeder won popularity before his re-election in September by ruling out sending troops.
--------
Chechnya Is Caught in Grip of Russia's Antiterror Wrath
November 12, 2002
New York Times
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/12/international/europe/12CHEC.html
CHECHEN-AUL, Russia, Nov. 9 - Near the grassy edge of the cemetery lay the bodies of five young men, waiting for burial. Their faces were bruised and torn. Some necks bore traces of rope marks. The men of this small town stood silently in a circle around them, their hands occasionally rising to their faces in a Muslim prayer.
The five men were taken from their homes here in Chechnya after midnight on Oct. 27, less than 48 hours after Russian forces ended the 57-hour siege of a Moscow theater by Chechen terrorists. Ten groups of about 15 Russian-speaking men in black-and-gray camouflage wearing black masks went to each house, witnesses said. The witnesses did not wish to be identified because they fear for their lives.
Early today, the bodies were found in a field outside a nearby village and brought back here for burial. The bodies of another two were found in the village dump several days before.
The war in Chechnya has claimed tens of thousands of victims, brutality is characteristic for both sides, and, in many cases, distinctions between them and what they are fighting for have become less clear.
But the deadly raid here in Chechen-Aul, a small town of 8,000 south of Chechnya's capital, Grozny, appears to reflect intensifying Russian pressure on Chechnya since the Chechen attack on civilians at the theater in Moscow. In the two weeks since the theater siege ended, at least five municipalities in Chechnya have been cordoned off by Russian troops for house to house searches for rebels and weapons, a rise from the one or two simultaneous searches that is usual, the witnesses and Russian human rights workers said.
In Chechen-Aul, residents said soldiers who came after the Oct. 27 raid said they had been given permission by President Putin for tougher action in the fight against terrorism. Russian forces blew up six apartment buildings near an army base in Grozny, where a sniper was suspected to be hiding.
An aide to Sergei Yastrzhembsky, the Kremlin's spokesman on Chechnya, said his office did not comment on incidents like the one in Chechen-Aul. He said they were often the results of internal fighting among Chechens, and then Russian forces were blamed. An official in the Chechen prosecutor's office said an investigation into other disappearances from the town had begun recently, but he provided no details on the five bodies.
The hostage crisis in the Moscow theater and the subsequent shooting down of two Russian helicopters over an army base in Grozny have brought fresh promises of searches for Chechen fighters by Defense Minister Sergei B. Ivanov.
Although most of the 128 hostages who died in the theater siege succumbed to gas used by the security forces to end it, Russian troops in Chechnya feel armed with a new sense of international legitimacy and domestic outrage over the Chechen assault in Moscow.
A village elder in Chechen-Aul, who, fearing for his safety, requested anonymity, said the Oct. 27 raid had come as a surprise, as Russian searches had become less arbitrary in recent months. Troops had started to use lists of suspected fighters and refrained from taking away anyone not on them. Before that, as again on Oct. 27, soldiers seemed to choose people at random, the elder said.
"People are afraid to sleep at night," he said. "We have never had fighters here. They were killed long ago."
It appeared possible that at least one of the dead men had connections to Chechen fighters. Among them was a guest from the mountains, a rebel stronghold, identified only by his first name, Ibragim. Relatives in the village said one man worked as a bricklayer in Grozny. Another collected scraps of metal to sell.
If the truth about the Oct. 27 raid is never discovered, it will be consistent with a murky war in which casualties often trickle out in single digits, with each side inflating the other's losses.
Since the Russian Army took Grozny in 2000 - an invasion that heaped further destruction on a city heavily damaged in the first Chechen war from 1994 to 1996 - it has held the city under its control, as well as many of the surrounding villages.
But in the mountains to the south, which rebel forces have traditionally used as a retreat, Russian forces have much less control.
Russian officials and parliamentarians say the Kremlin wants the war to end. They talk of a new constitution - which has been postponed at least until spring - and Mr. Putin has even called for new elections as part of an apparent Kremlin push to try to keep Chechnya within Russia and yet quell violence.
"Chechnya was and is a part of Russia," said Mikhail V. Margelov, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Russia's upper house of Parliament and an informal adviser to Mr. Putin, in an interview in Moscow. "Russia is very tired of this conflict. No one needs it. There are few political powers who would be able to use it to their advantage."
Chechens are skeptical. They elected a president in 1997. Aslan Maskhadov, a field commander considered to be a moderate, won 65 percent of the vote, and many say they would vote for him again.
But Mr. Maskhadov has been in hiding since Russia and Chechen separatists began fighting again in 1999, after separatist forces and Islamic fighters based in Chechnya attacked a neighboring Russian republic, Dagestan. Russia now accuses him of assisting the siege in Moscow, a charge he has denied.
"It's as if they want to erase the last 10 years of our history," said Monsur Tagirov, a former general prosecutor under Mr. Maskhadov. "We already have a Constitution. I helped write it. We already have a president. I voted for him."
Many ordinary Chechens supported separatism in the mid-1990's; now, two wars later, the word "independence" has lost its lure for people who are bent on trying to survive.
In interviews over the past three days, Chechens expressed little sympathy for rebel fighters, whom many hold responsible for the war. Fighters are distant figures who offer no shield from the horrors of daily life like nightly shelling, curfews and the lack of running water and electricity.
"To me independence means walking freely at night under street lights or going to a movie," said Akhmed, 20, who agreed to speak on the condition his last name not be used. In Chechnya, it is young men who are most often harassed and scrutinized by Russian forces, as they search for rebels, and many fear identifying themselves in full.
The religious rhetoric of the fighters - who say they want a Muslim state - also seems to hold little appeal. Chechens are Muslim but tend to speak of more rigid forms of Islam, like Wahhabism, in derogatory tones.
One Chechen religious leader, originally from Serzhen-Yurt, next to what in 2000 was a well-known camp of radical Muslim fighters, said he frequently clashed with them over their activities and even rejected their offers to build a new mosque.
"They'll tell you they are fighting for Islam," said the religious leader, Turko, who refused to give his last name. "But our grandfathers and fathers gave us Islam, and that Islam shows the way to heaven. Their Islam," he continued, referring to the fighters, "is the way to hell. Guns, bombs, fighting. That is not Chechen Islam."
Chechens say the war, at this point, is sustained by war itself. With as many as 200,000 dead, and years of abuses by Russian soldiers - meticulously documented by organizations like Human Rights Watch, with help from Chechen and Russian co-workers - has created a deep resentment against Russian forces, particularly among young Chechens.
"When I see my people shot, blown up, tortured, humiliated, the desire to fight becomes very strong," said Malik Gatayev, 34, who runs an orphanage for Chechen children in the neighboring republic of Ingushetia.
Jabrail Gakayev, a Chechen historian at the Russian Academy of Sciences, said angry young people were one of the biggest threats to any future peace.
"An entire generation of young people has grown up on the war," he said in an interview in Moscow. "Many are not going to school and do not even speak Russian. They know only how to steal and fight. They set off rockets for money for the fighters. They will become the new base for the continuation of this war."
Defusing that anger and controlling the Russian Army is Mr. Putin's challenge in any effort to end the war. He has warned his army not to attack the Chechen people in its searches for rebel fighters, calling for precise and controlled operations. While there is evidence of some improvement, the search operations are still far from perfect.
Husein Gakayev, a cobbler, brought his four children and wife back to Grozny from a cramped apartment in neighboring Ingushetiya, when his money ran out. They live in a small shed provided by the local government. From the tiny shelter, Mr. Gakayev can see the apartment building he grew up in across the street, now bombed and burned from the war.
"It seems we are terrorists whereever we go," said Mr. Gakayev, as darkness fell in the lightless trailer park. "Hostages in Moscow got the whole world's attention. We feel like hostages, too. But I don't think anyone is listening."
-------- spies
U.S. Looks to Expand Covert Forces
November 12, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Secret-Warriors.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The secret side of the U.S. military's war on terrorism is quietly growing.
The Pentagon is planning to expand its use of special operations troops, including those that operate covertly in tandem with the CIA's paramilitary force, officials and private experts say.
Special operations forces played a critical role in toppling the Taliban regime in Afghanistan last fall and they almost surely would figure prominently in the earliest stages of a U.S. military action in Iraq, coordinating with local forces opposed to Saddam Hussein and hunting for Scud missile launchers.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld believes the military needs to improve its ability to find and track terrorists around the globe and to take decisive action against them. His moves toward that goal have caused some friction with the CIA and led to concern among some that the Pentagon's civilian leaders will only gather and act on those pieces of intelligence that they want to hear and deliver to the Bush White House.
Officially, the Pentagon does not discuss its covert capabilities, but indications of Rumsfeld's interest in this shadowy area are apparent in a recent study by an advisory group.
The study called for the Pentagon and CIA to develop a new capability to ``evoke responses'' from terrorist groups so they can be attacked pre-emptively. Covert action, psychological operations, computer attacks, special operations forces and ``deception operations'' would be combined in that role.
Michael Vickers, a former Special Forces soldier and one-time CIA officer, said the evolving nature of the war on terrorism makes it likely that covert military operators will be called on more often in the months ahead. Having successfully chased the al-Qaida from Afghanistan -- their main operating base -- the United States and its coalition partners may need more unconventional forces to chase down individual fugitives elsewhere.
``This is basically a growth industry,'' said Vickers, now an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
The CIA missile strike that killed a suspected al-Qaida leader in Yemen this week is stark evidence that the methods used to target terrorists are changing. It was the kind of pre-emptive action outside a traditional war zone that Rumsfeld wants the military to take.
Rumsfeld is considering adding billions of dollars to the $5 billion budget of the Special Operations Command, the Florida-based headquarters that has responsibility for all of the military's special operations forces -- the Army's Rangers and Green Berets, the Navy's Seals and the Air Force's special operations commandos. He also may approve increases in the numbers of such troops, now totaling 45,000, including reservists.
The defense secretary also has asked Special Operations Command to take the lead in some anti-terrorism operations. That is a change from the usual arrangement of having a regional command, such as the Middle East-oriented Central Command, take the lead.
Special Operations Command is so secretive that its Defense Department Web site offers nothing about it except a likeness of its insignia (adapted from one designed by William Donovan's Office of Strategic Services, a forerunner of the CIA) and information on how defense contractors can submit proposals.
The covert side of the military's special operations force resides in a sub-command, known as the Joint Special Operations Command. Based at Fort Bragg, N.C., it reportedly has command of the Special Forces Operational Detachment Delta, or Delta Force, a secretive counterterrorism unit.
William Arkin, a private military and intelligence expert who has written about the Pentagon's efforts to expand covert capabilities, says Rumsfeld is building up ``an elite secret army'' and that this emphasis on covert action reflects Pentagon frustrations with the performance of the CIA and other intelligence agencies.
``Insulated from outside pressures, armed with matchless weapons and technology, trained to operate below the shadow line, the Pentagon's black world of classified operations holds out the hope of swift, decisive action'' in the war on terror, Arkin wrote recently in the Los Angeles Times.
This approach fits with Rumsfeld's emphasis on pre-empting future terrorist attacks, in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, rather than relying on the military's traditional approach of organizing forces to defend against or to deter attacks.
In fact the word ``pre-emptive'' is in the name given a proposed new counter-terrorism organization. The ``Proactive Preemptive Operations Group'' would be comprised of about 100 people with experience in covert activities, intelligence gathering, computer network attacks and other highly specialized skills.
The group would be overseen by the White House's deputy national security adviser for combatting terrorism, John A. Gordon, and it would carry out missions coordinated by the secretary of defense or the CIA director.
The idea of creating this group was proposed in August by the Defense Science Board, which advises the secretary of defense. Another recommendation is that the CIA and Pentagon increase emphasis on counterterrorism covert action and develop a way to ``enable deep penetration of adversaries.''
``The proposal is the latest sign of a new assertiveness by the Defense Department in intelligence matters, and an indication that the cutting edge of intelligence reform is not to be found in Congress but behind closed doors in the Pentagon,'' Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists wrote in an analysis of the plan.
The study also called for expanding the Pentagon's human intelligence, or humint, services abroad and ensuring a role for special operations forces.
On the Net:
Defense Department at http://www.defenselink.mil
CIA at http://www.cia.gov
Special Operations Command at http://www.socom.mil
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Sweden expels Russian jet 'spies'
Andrew Osborn
Tuesday November 12, 2002
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,2763,838287,00.html
Russia was accused by Sweden yesterday of planting a spy network in the international telecommunications giant Ericsson, in an attempt to obtain information about the company's work on fighter jet technology.
The Swedish government expelled two Russian embassy staff for spying on the telecommunications and defence company.
It said the unnamed pair had been carrying out activities "incompatible with their diplomatic status" - a thinly veiled phrase for spying - prompting an angry response from Russia's foreign ministry.
Sweden said the expulsions were directly linked to a recently uncovered case of industrial espionage at Ericsson, which develops radar and missile guidance systems for Sweden's Gripen fighter plane as well as making mobile phones.
The Swedish foreign ministry confirmed yesterday that the Russian ambassador had been summoned to be informed of the news, and the accused embassy staff had already left Swedish territory.
A tit-for-tat retaliation could follow swiftly, after Russia's foreign ministry issued a fierce statement.
"The decision by Swedish authorities to declare two diplomats at the Russian embassy persona non grata gives rise to bewilderment and regret," it said. "The Russian side reserves the right to make an adequate response to this latest step."
The Swedish authorities are reluctant to disclose details of the alleged spy ring, but it is known that five current and former employees of Ericsson are under police investigation and are suspected of passing sensitive information to the Russians.
Three of the five are in custody pending charges of industrial espionage or straightforward - and far more seriously - espionage. Prosecutors have until November 22 to file formal charges against them.
One of the three, a former employee of the company, is suspected of being the ringleader, and was apparently caught in the act of handing over sensitive material to one of the Russian diplomats after a covert surveillance operation.
Ericsson is involved with radar and missile guidance systems for the JAS 39 Gripen fighter plane, the country's main strike aircraft.
The aircraft is produced by Saab Aerospace, a joint venture between Sweden's Saab AB and Britain's BAE Systems.
Anxious to minimise damage to its reputation, Ericsson said that none of the five employees was particularly senior, and they were caught quickly, before much damage could be done.
The Gripen fighter is competing with bids by Lockheed Martin of the US and Dassault of France for a lucrative £2.2bn Polish contract for 48 fighters.
The deadline for placing offers is today. Any suggestion that Ericsson's defence systems have been compromised could be disastrous - but both Ericsson and Saab have denied any serious security breach.
Since 1992, nine foreign diplomats have been declared persona non grata and forced to leave Sweden.
Although the country is not a member of Nato, technology secrets are shared with the 19-member alliance.
Anders Mellbourn, the director of the Swedish Institute for International Affairs, said: "Sweden is more and more integrated into the western defence establishment, and so Swedish secrets are Nato secrets too."
----
Russian Convicted of Spying
World In Brief
Associated Press
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
Washington Post; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41249-2002Nov11?language=printer
MOSCOW -- A military court convicted Col. Alexander Sypachev of espionage, sentenced him to eight years in a maximum-security labor camp and stripped him of his rank, the Russian military prosecutor's office said.
The prosecutor's office provided no details about the alleged espionage. U.S. Embassy officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
The Interfax news agency said Sypachev, a Russian intelligence agent, was detained in April and accused of divulging state secrets to the CIA and other offenses. Interfax quoted Moscow district military court official Yevgeny Komissarov as saying Sypachev wrote a two-page report about Russian intelligence personnel for his U.S. contacts.
-------- un
U.N. Urges U.S. to End Cuba Embargo
November 12, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-Cuba.html
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- For the 11th straight year, the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday overwhelmingly adopted a resolution urging the United States to end its four-decade trade embargo against Cuba.
The resolution, which is not binding, was approved by a vote of 173-3 with four abstentions -- a larger majority than last year when 167 nations voted to lift the embargo.
Only the United States, Israel and the Marshall Islands voted in favor of keeping the embargo, as they did last year.
Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's National Assembly, in a speech before the vote, accused powerful Americans of Cuban descent of acting against what he called the ``true interests'' of the United States by insisting on the embargo.
Cuba has been under a U.S. trade embargo since Fidel Castro defeated the CIA-backed assault at the Bay of Pigs in 1961. Americans are barred from traveling to the Caribbean island nation except with special approval.
Creating a small opening in the trade embargo, Congress two years ago legalized sales of food to the communist island for the first time since 1961. Cuba started buying U.S. food this year and Alarcon said sales could reach $200 million.
Ambassador Sichan Siv, the U.S. representative to the U.N. Economic and Social Council, told the General Assembly that President Bush has made clear he would only work to ease the embargo if Cuba takes ``concrete'' steps toward political and economic reforms.
``Unfortunately, the Cuban government shows no signs of abandoning its policies that deny the Cuban people their fundamental rights,'' Siv said.
The United States was ``particularly disappointed'' by the Cuban government's decision to ignore the Varela Project, which collected more than 11,000 signatures for a referendum that would ask voters if they favor greater freedom of speech and private business ownership, Siv said.
In appealing for a ``no'' vote on the resolution, Siv denied that the embargo was the cause of Cuba's economic problems, saying Cuba imports some one billion dollars worth of goods every year from many different countries.
``The focus of the international community ... should be on the continuing human rights crisis in Cuba rather than on the bilateral United States efforts to encourage a peaceful transition to democracy,'' he said.
-------- us
What's Troubling U.S. War Vets?
By Eric Ture Muhammad
FinalCall.com Staff Writer
Nov 12, 2002
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/printer_124.shtml
WASHINGTON - Prior to his Oct. 28 shooting rampage that claimed the lives of three professors before killing himself, Robert Flores Jr., was a struggling student at the University of Arizona Nursing School, with no prior criminal record, and described only in recent months as "very rude and obnoxious."
He left behind a 22-page letter to be remembered by with an Arizona newspaper that opened, "Greetings from the dead." The letter was discovered shortly after the premeditated shooting spree.
He was a Gulf War veteran.
Four days earlier, the world learned in horrific fashion of suspected gunman John Allen Williams, a.k.a. John Allen Muhammad. He is alleged to have killed 10 people while wounding three others in a D.C.-area sniper-shooting assault. In addition, federal authorities have now implicated Mr. Muhammad in a Louisiana shooting and other crimes. Family and former colleagues of Mr. Muhammad described the suspect up to a few years ago as "a regular guy." Before leaving the Washington state area people began noticing a distinct change of behavior, and described his new demeanor now as "belligerent." They spoke of strange eating habits, firing weapons in his backyard for target practice and reportedly were plagued by his sentiments regarding war.
Like Mr. Flores, Mr. Muhammad had no prior criminal record and also served in the Gulf War.
Highly decorated Gulf War veteran turned killer Timothy McVeigh admitted setting the bomb in the Oklahoma federal building on April 19,1995, the anniversary of the 1993 FBI siege on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. The Oklahoma bombing killed 168 people, including 19 children, and injured 500 others. He refused to name his cohorts and was eventually executed for the crime. Like the aforementioned, he had a clean criminal record and was often described as a "very shy guy, who liked to drive old beat up cars," before going off the deep end.
In a televised "60 Minutes" interview months before his execution, Mr. McVeigh insisted that serving in the Gulf War changed his life.
"I came to terms with my mortality in the Gulf War," he said. "I went over there hyped up, just like everyone else. What I experienced, though, was an entirely different ballgame."
Asked if it was acceptable to use violence against the government, as in bombing the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Mr. McVeigh said: "If government is the teacher, violence would be an acceptable option. What did we do to Sudan? What did we do to Afghanistan? Belgrade? What are we doing with the death penalty? It appears they (government) use violence as an option all the time."
"Based on the record that we now have before us, could Flores, Muhammad and McVeigh, have been suffering from a neuro-psychological disorder, or some debilitating medical condition like it, still unnamed, at the time they went on their criminal rampages?" asked Internet syndicated columnist William Hughes. "What other rational explanation is there to show how these three men (and probably many more like them) abruptly went from being model patriots, to accused raving homicidal maniacs?"
New hope for vets
During the Gulf War alone, the U.S. left 600,000 pounds of radioactive waste containing depleted uranium from its use of these "dirty bombs," said Mr. Hughes. That's the same kind of weapon that is being used as a "bunker bomb" in the conflict in Afghanistan, he maintains.
"The story of John Allen Muhammad has given some Gulf War veterans a burst of hope, and the rest of us a reason to support them," said editor Tom Wolfe of East Journal.Com. "The hope is that Muhammad's arrest, along with renewed interest in Iraq's bio-chemical weapons capacity, will help the 175,000 or more veterans who developed neurological maladies known as Gulf War Syndrome.
"Many veterans who have been denied benefits see this as duplicity: On one hand the government is warning of the ominous potential of Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons. On the other hand it is denying their effects. As with Agent Orange and Vietnam, the result has been cynicism and suspicion," he said.
Homegrown terror in the United States unfortunately is not a new phenomenon and often during war climate is overlooked. One of the most common forms of aggression such as domestic and workplace violence can be found more and more at the feet of war veterans who have a very hard time coping with transitioning from war zones abroad to a more peaceful, patient and diplomatic posture at home. The challenge of communicating with loved ones, working in loosely structured environments, living in constant panic and for one year or more, using the language of combat as the only means of resolution, have contributed to keeping veterans in "kill mode" and a potential threat to the citizens they pledged to defend.
Experts in recent years have defined this experience as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), an anxiety disorder that can develop after experiencing or witnessing a life-threatening or traumatic event, such as military combat, a violent assault, or a serious accident. The event, experts say, causes a person to respond with fear, helplessness, and horror. Suffering repeated abuse, being in a war, or witnessing something as traumatic as the terrorist attack on America one year ago, are examples of horrifying incidents that may lead to PTSD in those who experienced or were closely connected to these events. The results, they say, can in fact lead to the recently witnessed rampages.
"Anger is usually a central feature of a survivor's response to trauma because it is a core component of the survival response in humans," read a recent report from the Journal of Traumatic Stress, released by the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. "Anger helps people cope with life's adversities by providing us with increased energy to persist in the face of obstacles. However, uncontrolled anger can lead to a continued sense of being out of control of oneself and can create multiple problems in the personal lives of those who suffer from PTSD," it reads.
One theory of anger and trauma suggests that high levels of anger are related to a natural survival instinct. When initially confronted with extreme threat or fear, anger is a normal response to terror, events that seem unfair and feeling out of control or victimized. It can help a person survive by mobilizing all of his or her attention, thought, brain energy and action toward survival.
Recent research has shown that these responses to extreme threats can become "stuck" in persons with PTSD. This may lead to a survival mode response where the individual is more likely to react to situations with "full activation," as if the circumstances were life threatening, or self-threatening. This automatic response of irritability and anger in individuals with PTSD can create serious problems in the workplace and in family life. It can also affect the individuals' feelings about themselves and their roles in society, according to the report.
"The last thing you want is a trained soldier to become disgruntled. America trained Osama bin Laden and then he got disgruntled," former U.S. Marshall Mathew Fogg told The Final Call. "The Army trains soldiers to kill indiscriminately. It doesn't matter whether you know the person or not. I can understand the mechanics in these soldiers' minds.
"Technically, that's how the military trains the soldiers. After a while, you begin to lose focus on who the enemy is, you just begin to kill indiscriminately. The rage in you was started first by being told to kill indiscriminately. The spirit of killing is still in them even after they leave the military," he said.
Fort Bragg murders
Before the Gulf War ended, veterans complained of illnesses that doctors could not explain. In time, the undiagnosed became known as "Gulf War Syndrome." Still largely unexplained, many veterans believed their ailments are derived from exposure to nerve gas, depleted uranium, oil well fires, medications and various vaccines associated with building tolerance.
It was George W. Bush Sr. who in 1991 sent McVeigh, Flores and Muhammad into harm's way in the first Gulf War. This was a war from which "an estimated 50,000 to 60,000" U.S. troops returned home suffering from the effects of the Gulf War Syndrome. Soldiers in that conflict, including Mr. Flores, Mr. McVeigh and Mr. Muhammad, were potentially exposed to enormous levels of toxicity, biological agents and poisons.
Another invasion of Iraq in 2002 will be very different from the invasion of 1991. The war's mission has changed in the intervening years, from removing Iraq from Kuwait to removing the entire Iraqi government and military establishment from power.
The June and July homicides and murder-suicides involving five Fort Bragg military couples have brought international attention to how the U.S. military deals with domestic violence. Investigators say that in four of the cases Fort Bragg soldiers killed their wives. Two of those soldiers then committed suicide. In a fifth case, investigators say a wife killed her husband, an Army major.
The killings raised questions concerning combat stress overseas on soldiers and forced the Army to probe whether there were medical, behavioral, social or physical factors linking the killings. According to Army sources in published reports, there were none. Army officials concluded that the cluster of four cases in two months did not indicate increased violence in the Army. The only common link, they concluded, was that the soldiers were all in troubled marriages, and that at least one of the men sought and received marriage counseling. The report also denies any link to allegations that an anti-malaria drug, Lariam, could be linked to the incidents.
Since the declared war on terrorism, the nation has been on high alert and chasing down any sign or indication of threat. The U.S. action in Afghanistan against the Taliban government, the search for Osama bin Laden, the replacing of the Afghan government and assuming responsibility for its defense and protection are just a few of the activities undertaken by the U.S. before the now pursuit of an Iraq regime change. Although declaring the Afghanistan actions necessary and victorious, some soldiers returned home disillusioned and volatile.
Three of the Fort Bragg soldiers were Green Berets who had been to Afghanistan to fight in the war on terrorism. Lariam is routinely given to soldiers headed overseas. Two of the three soldiers reportedly used the drug. Additionally, the report concludes that many troubled soldiers shun counseling out of fear that seeking help would be seen as a sign of instability and hurt their military careers.
With all the war fever about re-invading Iraq, there are some who are of the opinion that mainstream media and politicians are ignoring the opinion of the veterans of the last war in the Gulf. Those who served, however, have unique and critical first-hand knowledge of the course and consequences of warfare in Iraq. Many believe their opinions should be solicited and heard before troops are deploy for battle.
Another Gulf War?
The domestic terror issue at the hands of veterans became more apparent when Viet Nam vets returned home to a changed America. They left the U.S. as the vanguards of patriotism, with hopes of being welcomed home by ticker-tape parades and Congressional Medals of Honor. Instead they returned vilified, condemned as drug abusers and alienated.
"Nobody understands the trauma that you go through during war except those who have been in war," Black Viet Nam war veteran Lonnie Miller told The Final Call in an interview. "I guess the easiest way to explain it is, if you can recall what if feels like to have extreme fear go through you-just for a second. Imagine that fear at that level 24 hours, 365 days constantly. It takes a lot out of you and at some point, life don't really mean anything to you, because you don't know whether you are going to live or die," he said.
Mr. Miller entered the war in 1968 at 19 years of age and returned from combat a year later looking at a very changed America. "While you're there, you are not fighting for flag, mom or apple pie. You are fighting for the guy next to you and he is fighting for you. We have this Hollywood vision of war, but understanding the trauma afterwards" is the dilemma, he said.
There are many parallels between the days of Viet Nam and today. The most glaring is the anti-war sentiment in the U.S. and a failing economy. Mr. Miller believes those soldiers who will be able to return home will have some of the same resentments aimed in their direction as when he returned home.
The psychological effects, he said, will definitely be the same.
"You're in combat and people are shooting at you every day for a whole year (at least), then you leave and you come here. Over there, violence is accepted. You have to be violent to stay alive. But when you get back here, you can't be violent," but the violence will still be in them, he said.
-------- propaganda wars
Unilateral attack on Iraq backed by Church
By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent
12/11/2002
UK Telegraph
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/11/12/nirq12.xml&sSheet=/news/2002/11/12/ixnewstop.html
British and American plans to attack Iraq if Saddam Hussein breaches the latest United Nations resolution could be justified even without the further backing of the UN, the Church of England decided last night.
In an unexpected rebuff to a number of senior bishops, a move to insist that only the UN could permit war was rejected by the Church's General Synod by 141 to 110 votes after speakers argued that it would play into Saddam's hands.
But the synod, which is meeting in London this week, nevertheless decided that any unilateral military action risked undermining the credibility of the UN. It unanimously approved a resolution saying that war should be a last resort.
In an often passionate debate, speaker after speaker warned of the dangers of war, but several argued that the Church would display a lack of understanding of international politics if it tried to tie the hands of Western governments.
The Bishop of Coventry, the Rt Rev Colin Bennetts, who introduced the debate, was critical of American foreign policy and suggested that the new UN resolution could make war more likely.
"Some of us cannot avoid the suspicion that this crisis may have been somewhat manufactured to suit American foreign policy interests," he said.
----
Pentagon Leakers Strike Again
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42466-2002Nov12?language=printer
Someone was sending a message.
These things don't happen by coincidence.
Even Colin Powell didn't bother to deny it.
On Sunday, both the New York Times and Washington Post had long, detailed stories about the U.S. war plans for pulverizing Saddam.
Such leaks have appeared before. But now, just as the U.N. is about to send in weapons inspectors and the administration is rattling its sabers about the need for swift compliance, the war blueprints make their way into the press.
This is not to suggest that the information was nicely packaged like a gourmet meal and FedExed to compliant correspondents. The process doesn't work that way. Reporters have to dig and call numerous sources to excavate such material.
But it's also true that if an administration clams up tight - and the Bush team is very good at that - it can be all but impossible to get such stories. We are, after all, talking about Pentagon military plans. So someone, it seems to us, opened that door enough to prepare the country - and Iraq - for what might happen.
Could this be disinformation, such as when Norman Schwarzkopf floated a false invasion route before the Gulf War? It's hard to know. The plans probably bear a strong relation to reality, even though military war-gaming is constantly evolving. These undoubtedly aren't the last such stories to make their way into the press. But they seem to have been authorized at a fairly high level, as opposed to the one-disgruntled-bureaucrat, Daniel Ellsberg-type leak.
On "Face the Nation," Bob Schieffer asked the secretary of state about the Times and Post stories. First Powell offered the standard I-don't-discuss-military-planning response. "There's a lot of speculation in the press about what a plan might look like. Some of it is informed speculation, some is not," he said.
But then Schieffer found a clever way of framing the question: "If you were Saddam Hussein and you picked up The Washington Post and the New York Times this morning and you saw what was there, how would you take that, if you were Saddam Hussein?"
"Well," said Powell, "if I were Saddam Hussein I would take it with a great deal of concern and seriousness, and understand this is not some idle threat that has been issued by the United States."
Bingo.
No knockdown.
Stories confirmed.
Here's what the pieces said, starting with The Washington Post:
"The Bush administration has settled on a plan for a possible invasion of Iraq that envisions seizing most of the country quickly and encircling Baghdad, but assumes that Saddam Hussein will probably fall from power before U.S. forces enter the capital, senior U.S. military officials said."
Note the "senior."
"Hedging its bets, the Pentagon is also preparing for the possibility of prolonged fighting in and around Baghdad. Administration war planners expect that, even if the Iraqi president is deposed from power, there could be messy skirmishes there and in Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, the military officials said.
"The war plan, sometimes the subject of bitter arguments between senior civilian and military officials, has been refined in recent weeks even as the Bush administration pursued a successful diplomatic effort to secure a new U.N. weapons inspection system for Iraq."
Here's the New York Times report:
"President Bush has settled on a war plan for Iraq that would begin with an air campaign shorter than the one for the Persian Gulf war, senior administration officials say. It would feature swift ground actions to seize footholds in the country and strikes to cut off the leadership in Baghdad.
"The plan, approved in recent weeks by Mr. Bush well before the Security Council's unanimous vote on Friday to disarm Iraq, calls for massing 200,000 to 250,000 troops for attack by air, land and sea. The offensive would probably begin with a 'rolling start' of substantially fewer forces, Pentagon and military officials say. . . .
"The military plan calls for the quick capture of land within Iraq, which would be used as bases to funnel American forces deeper into the country."
It's all made to sound so easy.
Andrew Sullivan likes what he's hearing from Powell:
"It's hard not to feel dread when Saddam seems to be moving toward 'compliance' with the latest U.N. resolution. I don't mean, of course, that we should dread actually disarming him; merely that we should dread his trapping the U.S. and the rest of the world in yet another sandpit of confusion and obfuscation. That's why it seems to me that we should be publicly mobilizing for war right away.
"There are some signs that this is happening already. I was reassured by Colin Powell's statement on CNN yesterday that, 'I can assure you if he doesn't comply this time we are going to ask the UN to give authorisation for all necessary means, and if the UN isn't willing to do that, the United States with like-minded nations will go and disarm him forcefully.' Powell is the right man to make such a statement."
In Salon, Josh Marshall says the Democratic failure on Iraq was worse than we imagined:
"The Democrats lost so big this week, an emerging consensus has it, not because their message was rejected but because they didn't have much of a message at all. The president's persistence in making the case for war against Iraq gave Republicans something to vote for, the argument goes; Democrats weren't quite sure what their leaders thought. Perhaps if they'd played the part of the loyal opposition and made a forceful case against the president's policy, the election might have gone better for them.
"The problem with this argument is that it ignores the much more straightforward possibility that the Democrats were simply wrong on Iraq - both in the policy they supported and the way they arrived at it. After all, if voters were really dead-set on sending a message of opposition to the war, was it really so hard to know which party to vote for?
"The Democrats' first problem on Iraq was not so much their policy itself as the way they approached the debate. From the get-go, Democrats approached Iraq less as a matter of foreign policy than one of domestic politics - they sought to get through the issue with as little political damage as possible and get back to domestic policy questions, where their political bread was really buttered. That meant dealing with the Iraq question tactically, rather than substantively - as a matter of politics rather than foreign policy.
"Because of that, over time their message became not whatever particular angle they were pursuing on this or that given day, but their own fundamental unseriousness about national security policy. That impression in itself proved deeply damaging. "On substance, moreover, it's really not clear that congressional Democrats ever seriously confronted the Iraq question. The truth is that Iraq is a very grave danger to the security of the United States - not in the wing-nut sense of Saddam Hussein setting off nuclear warheads in American cities or dousing us with anthrax the first chance he gets, but a very serious danger nonetheless. Like it or not, the United States is the guarantor of the peace, security and free flow of oil out of the Persian Gulf, the jugular vein of the world economy. For 30 years Saddam has demonstrated a desire to dominate the region. And he's launched a series of reckless and destructive wars - most notably against Iran and Kuwait - to secure those ends."
Wait! We've got a victory for the Democrats (short-lived, at least). It says so in the Los Angeles Times:
"Dean Barkley, the third-party activist appointed interim senator from Minnesota, announced yesterday that he will not side with either major party during his short stay in office, allowing Democrats to keep control of the Senate during the lame-duck session - at least for now.
"That means Democrat Tom Daschle of South Dakota will remain Senate majority leader for another week or so - giving his party a last gasp of power and visibility after its losses in the Nov. 5 elections.
"Barkley's decision ends a bizarre interlude in which the leadership of the Senate could have been changed single-handedly by a man who, until his Nov. 4 appointment by Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, was a little-known former carwash operator."
New post-election poll numbers here, get 'em while they're hot. USA Today has the details:
"Republican gains in last week's elections solidified public support and raised expectations for President Bush and the GOP leadership in Congress, while Democrats say their party needs to moderate its message, a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll shows.
"The weekend poll also shows that 76% of Americans doubt that Iraq's Saddam Hussein will comply with a United Nations resolution that orders tougher new inspections on his weapons program mass, and 61% do not believe they will be effective, even if allowed. As an alternative, 59% favor sending U.S. ground troops to oust Saddam, up from 54% three weeks ago.
"Iraq aside, expectations for Bush and the GOP are high:
"74% expect that with Republicans controlling the White House and both houses of Congress things will get accomplished. 60% want to see tax cuts enacted last year made permanent. But 52% do not want additional tax cuts. 80% say it is important to pass a bill creating a department of homeland security. The Senate is expected to take it up this week. Overall, 50% believe the Republicans have a clear plan for solving the country's problems, compared with 30% for the Democrats."
Which means it's time to stand and deliver.
Harvey Pitt's final recruit may also be biting the dust, says the Wall Street Journal:
"William Webster said he probably will step aside as chairman of the new accounting-oversight board because of questions about his involvement in a failed Internet investment firm.
"In an interview, he said he hoped to resolve the matter quickly. 'I am terribly concerned about my value to the board at this point,' Mr. Webster said. Asked directly if he intended to withdraw, Mr. Webster said, 'I think that's about right.'
"The former federal judge, who also headed the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Central Intelligence Agency, added that while he hasn't made a final decision or informed the White House, he doesn't want controversy to impede the work of the Securities and Exchange Commission's new five-member Public Company Accounting Oversight Board."
The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn looks at another talk show guest:
"Senator John Kerry made a little news on Sunday, although he tried very hard to insist otherwise. Early in his interview with George Stephanopoulos, on ABC's 'This Week,' Kerry announced that he favored freezing the 2001 Bush tax cut and then using some of the money to finance tax relief for middle- and lower-income Americans. When Stephanopoulos noted that Kerry had equivocated on the tax cut in the past, Kerry insisted his position had been the same all along: 'I never equivocated. I said during the campaign, I was very clear, I said this months ago, on national television I said, we should not allow new Bush tax cuts to go into effect.'
"Um, no. A quick search on the Lexis-Nexis news database brings up two recent interviews on national television in which Kerry discussed the Bush tax cut: a June appearance on NBC's 'Meet the Press' and a July appearance on CNBC's 'Hardball.' In both interviews, Kerry attacked the Bush tax cut strongly. Yet in both interviews, Kerry refused to say he would repeal those portions of the Bush tax cut that haven't taken effect--which was the clear meaning of his statement on Sunday.
"As for the idea that Kerry endorsed repeal on the campaign trail, there's no evidence of that, either. Yes, Kerry attacked the tax cut relentlessly, like the time he called it 'irresponsible and unfairly structured' in a speech to the Democratic Leadership Council this July. But, just like on television, Kerry stopped short of endorsing a freeze in every single speech he made. (Or, I should say, in every single line I could pull from his campaign website or Lexis-Nexis.)"
A lack of candor, right? But then Cohn is quick to add:
"Not that this is such a big deal. When you compare Kerry's evasion to the outright lies about tax policy this president and this administration have told, Kerry has committed a relatively petty infraction."
Even the Nation has nothing good to say about the Dems:
"The president, let's understand, won a historic victory by committing politics--shrewd, aggressive, old-fashioned, take-no-prisoners politics--while the opposition party did the opposite. That is why Republicans reclaimed control of the Senate and even added to their House majority. They are now in a position to do real damage with long-term consequences for the Republic, from gutting the federal tax code to packing the Supreme Court with more right-wingers, advancing an agenda we continue to believe Americans at large neither want nor support. Nevertheless, progressives should take reality's cold shower and acknowledge that this was no fluke or fraud like 2000. Bush and his party brilliantly, daringly used what they had to maximum advantage, while the Dems went limp."
Let's not mince words here.
"The war-and-terrorism presidency trumped all, silenced Democrats and pushed aside other matters from serious examination. Meanwhile, the GOP cleverly co-opted or smothered the issues that threaten them, from the troubled economy to corporate corruption to prescription drugs (the SEC scandal conveniently vanished election night when chairman Harvey Pitt resigned). And Republicans also ran away from the killer issues like their plan for Social Security privatization. But, above all, they played to win.
"The Democrats, meanwhile, once again pursued a minimalist strategy, even emptier than their presidential campaign of 2000, and the results were worse than minimal. Let the recriminations begin. At least, we hope they do. Start by demanding the resignation of the national chairman, Terry McAuliffe, who sounded like a fool on television, trying to spin this terrible defeat into not-so-bad news. This is a disaster for the Democratic Party, given the great public issues they had available for a fight but instead turned into mush."
Finally, we were intrigued by this Nicholas Kristol column last week in the New York Times:
"In the 1990's, nothing made conservatives look sillier than the way they excoriated Bill and Hillary Clinton as traitors and even murderers.
"Yet these days, the intelligent left is dumbing down and showing signs of slipping into a similar cesspool of outraged incoherence. It's debasing and marginalizing itself by marshaling epithets rather than arguments.
"President Bush is criticized not just for catastrophically frittering away our budget surplus or for rushing us into a mess in Iraq. Rather, Citizens for Legitimate Government put it this way in its e-mail newsletter: 'We have an Idiot Usurping Lying Weasel for a President.' Close your eyes, and it sounds just like Rush Limbaugh.
"The latest leftist silliness is the suggestion that Senator Paul Wellstone was assassinated. Liberal Web sites are suggesting such a conspiracy. Sample headlines: 'Wellstone Murdered? Last Politician Similarly Killed Was Running Against John Ashcroft'; 'They Shoot Leftists, Don't They?'; and 'Most Liberal D-Sen. Wellstone Plane Shot Down.'
"The White House team that executed Vincent Foster must have struck again."
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
U.S. Hopes to Check Computers Globally
System Would Be Used to Hunt Terrorists
By Robert O'Harrow Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40942-2002Nov11?language=printer
A new Pentagon research office has started designing a global computer-surveillance system to give U.S. counterterrorism officials access to personal information in government and commercial databases around the world.
The Information Awareness Office, run by former national security adviser John M. Poindexter, aims to develop new technologies to sift through "ultra-large" data warehouses and networked computers in search of threatening patterns among everyday transactions, such as credit card purchases and travel reservations, according to interviews and documents.
Authorities already have access to a wealth of information about individual terrorists, but they typically have to obtain court approval in the United States or make laborious diplomatic and intelligence efforts overseas. The system proposed by Poindexter and funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) at about $200 million a year, would be able to sweep up and analyze data in a much more systematic way. It would provide a more detailed look at data than the super-secret National Security Agency now has, the former Navy admiral said.
"How are we going to find terrorists and preempt them, except by following their trail," said Poindexter, who brought the idea to the Pentagon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and now is beginning to award contracts to high-technology vendors.
"The problem is much more complex, I believe, than we've faced before," he said. "It's how do we harness with technology the street smarts of people on the ground, on a global scale."
Although formidable foreign policy and privacy hurdles remain before any prototype becomes operational, the initiative shows how far the government has come in its willingness to use information technology and expanded surveillance authorities in the war on terrorism.
Poindexter said it will take years to realize his vision, but the office has already begun providing some technology to government agencies. For example, Poindexter recently agreed to help the FBI build its data-warehousing system. He's also spoken to the Transportation Security Administration about aiding its development of a massive passenger-profiling system.
In his first interview since he started the "information awareness" program, Poindexter, who figured prominently in the Iran-contra scandal more than a decade ago, said the systems under development would, among other things, help analysts search randomly for indications of travel to risky areas, suspicious e-mails, odd fund transfers and improbable medical activity, such as the treatments of anthrax sores. Much of the data would be collected through computer "appliances" -- some mixture of hardware and software -- that would, with permission of governments and businesses, enable intelligence agencies to routinely extract information.
Some specialists question whether the technology Poindexter envisions is even feasible, given the immense amount of data it would handle. Others question whether it is diplomatically possible, given the sensitivities about privacy around the world. But many agree, if implemented as planned, it probably would be the largest data-surveillance system ever built.
Paul Werbos, a computing and artificial-intelligence specialist at the National Science Foundation, doubted whether such "appliances" can be calibrated to adequately filter out details about innocent people that should not be in the hands of the government. "By definition, they're going to send highly sensitive, private personal data," he said. "How many innocent people are going to get falsely pinged? How many terrorists are going to slip through?"
Former senator Gary Hart (D-Colo.), a member of the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century, said there's no question about the need to use data more effectively. But he criticized the scope of Poindexter's program, saying it is "total overkill of intelligence" and a potentially "huge waste of money."
"There's an Orwellian concept if I've ever heard one," Hart said when told about the program.
Poindexter said any operational system would include safeguards to govern the collection of information. He said rules built into the software would identify users, create an audit trail and govern the information that is available. But he added that his mission is to develop the technology, not the policy. It would be up to Congress and policymakers to debate the issue and establish the limits that would make the system politically acceptable.
"We can develop the best technology in the world and unless there is public acceptance and understanding of the necessity, it will never be implemented," he said. "We're just as concerned as the next person with protecting privacy."
Getting the Defense Department job is something of a comeback for Poindexter. The Reagan administration national security adviser was convicted in 1990 of five felony counts of lying to Congress, destroying official documents and obstructing congressional inquiries into the Iran-contra affair, which involved the secret sale of arms to Iran in the mid-1980s and diversion of profits to help the contra rebels in Nicaragua.
Poindexter, a retired Navy rear admiral, was the highest-ranking Regan administration official found guilty in the scandal. He was sentenced to six months in jail by a federal judge who called him "the decision-making head" of a scheme to deceive Congress. The U.S. Court of Appeals overturned that conviction in 1991, saying Poindexter's rights had been violated through the use of testimony he had given to Congress after being granted immunity.
In recent years, he has worked as a DARPA contractor at Syntek Technologies Inc., an Arlington consulting firm that helped develop technology to search through large amounts of data. Poindexter now has a corner office at a DARPA facility in Arlington. He still wears cuff links with the White House seal and a large ring from the Naval Academy, where he graduated at the top of his class in 1958.
As Poindexter views the plan, counterterrorism officials will use "transformational" technology to sift through almost unimaginably large amounts of data, something Poindexter calls "noise," to find a discernable "signal" indicating terrorist activity or planning. In addition to gathering data, the tools he is trying to develop would give analysts a way to visually represent what that information means. The system also would include the technology to identify people at a distance, based on known details about their faces and gaits.
He cited the recent sniper case as an example of something that would have benefited from such technology. The suspects' car, a 1990 Chevrolet Caprice, was repeatedly seen by police near the shooting scenes. Had investigators been able to know that, Poindexter said, they might have detained the suspects sooner.
The office already has several substantial contracts in the works with technology vendors. They include Hicks & Associates Inc., a national security consultant in McLean; Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., a management and technology consultant in McLean; and Ratheon Corp., a technology company that will provide search and data-mining tools. "Poindexter made the argument to the right players, so they asked him back into the government," said Mike McConnell, a vice president at Booz Allen and former director of the NSA. The office already has an emblem that features a variation of the great seal of the United States: An eye looms over a pyramid and appears to scan the world. The motto reads: Scientia Est Potentia, or "knowledge is power."
----
Officials Question FBI Terror Readiness
By Dana Priest and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, November 12, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40996-2002Nov11?language=printer
With intelligence agencies predicting that Iraq and sympathetic Islamic extremists will attempt to launch terrorist attacks against the United States in the event of war, many government officials are growing concerned that the FBI is dangerously unprepared to detect or thwart strikes on U.S. soil.
Fourteen months after the terror attacks on New York and Washington, the FBI does not have a detailed understanding of domestic terrorist networks that could fund, prepare and launch revenge attacks, said administration and congressional officials and outside experts.
The FBI's assessment of the domestic threat includes a much more narrow cast of characters that focuses on a small number of Iraqi agents, including intelligence officers, and militants identified in ongoing investigations.
"They still don't know where the terrorists are, how many are here, what their intentions are, what kind of support network they have," said Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who has been regularly briefed on FBI plans and the bureau's knowledge of suspected U.S.-based terrorists. "They can't give me an answer because they don't have one. . . . They have so little to show for their work and we have so little time to take action now.
"No evidence I've seen shows they have a sense of urgency or a thoughtful plan or very much information to predicate a plan on," Graham added. "There will be hell to pay if we don't use the next 60 days [before a war with Iraq might begin] to do everything in our power to dismantle their capability."
Graham is not alone in his concerns. The FBI's ability to convert from a primarily case-oriented criminal justice agency into a domestic investigatory body is being questioned and debated with great urgency by the National Security Council, members of Congress and intelligence experts who have been called upon to help out.
FBI officials strongly dispute critics' assessment of their preparations. "We are doing things far beyond what has been done before," said one official familiar with the FBI's efforts. He declined to elaborate.
But law enforcement sources said agents in the 56 terrorism task forces around the country are making efforts to identify and monitor militant Iraqis supportive of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein within the United States, among them former members of Hussein's Republican Guard who settled here after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. In addition, FBI agents are reviving contacts with anti-Hussein dissidents and other Iraqi refugees who were first cultivated as intelligence sources during the previous conflict, sources said.
The CIA, which is chasing terror networks abroad, has intensified its focus on operations with potential links to Iraq.
"It's a matter of trying to assess the threat and where it might come from if we go to war," one senior FBI official said. "There is very real concern about a number of possibilities, both Iraq-connected and from other groups. . . . We're doing what you'd expect us to do: measuring the threat, talking to old contacts."
History suggests retaliatory strikes are likely. During the Persian Gulf War, the number of terror attacks tripled. Intelligence analysts believe a backlash this time would be much stronger.
An unclassified version of a recent National Intelligence Estimate, which includes the opinions of all U.S. intelligence agencies, predicted that an invasion of Iraq would prompt Hussein "to become much less constrained in adopting terrorist actions," including enlisting the aid of extremists.
Hussein would likely set aside his differences with terrorist groups and "might decide that the extreme step of assisting Islamic terrorists in conducting a weapons-of-mass-destruction attack against the United States would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him," the report predicted.
Daniel Benjamin, a member of the National Security Council staff during the Clinton administration, said most analysts agree that the risk of a terror attack organized by Hussein's moribund intelligence service is low. But if Hussein's hold on power weakens, enlisting the help of extremists would change the equation, he said.
In Oct. 17 testimony to Congress, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III said that the bureau was "increasing our resources [committed] to those individuals who might be in our country that might find this as an occasion to commit some sort of attack were we to initiate some operation with regard to Iraq.
"There is a substantial risk out there that they could undertake" attacks, Mueller continued. "And by 'they,' I mean not just those associated with Iraq, but those associated with al Qaeda or [the militant Lebanese group] Hezbollah or somebody else." Mueller's testimony also included this sober view: "I would be uncomfortable in saying that you should relax and say, 'The FBI or the CIA is taking care of that issue.' "
Mueller has told Congress that the number of terrorist investigations the FBI is conducting has tripled since Sept. 11, 2001, and the number of requests to surveil suspected terrorists has quadrupled.
At the same time, however, the FBI's new Office of Intelligence, created after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, has yet to hire and train a full staff, congressional and administration officials said. Mueller has said publicly that the bureau is struggling to keep up with the number of terrorism cases it must address.
Knowledgeable officials said the FBI's problems go beyond money and staff needs.
Unlike the CIA, which has elaborate analysis of terrorist networks from Paraguay to Malaysia to Saudi Arabia, FBI officials "still aren't looking at this as an intelligence agency, but as cops," said one U.S. government official who has been briefed on FBI assessments and plans. "You get the sense they don't really have a clue" about domestic terrorists in the United States.
FBI supporters counter that the bureau has in recent months broken up what authorities call terrorist "sleeper cells" in Detroit; Lackawanna, N.Y.; Seattle; and Portland, Ore. Last week, the Justice Department announced the arrest of men who allegedly tried to acquire missiles to sell to al Qaeda and a separate group accused of trying to trade drugs and cash for a large quantity of weapons for a Colombian paramilitary group.
U.S. foreign policy and actions toward Middle Eastern countries have long provoked violent reactions from individuals, groups and nations. One example cited by authorities is the case of Mir Aimal Kasi the Pakistani national who has said that he killed two CIA employees outside the agency's Langley headquarters in 1993 in retaliation for U.S. policies in the Middle East. His scheduled execution on Thursday has prompted the State Department to issue a worldwide caution about possible retaliatory strikes.
During the Persian Gulf War, Hussein called on Muslims to launch a "holy war" against the United States. More than 100 suspected Iraqi intelligence operatives working out of Iraqi embassies were expelled from 30 nations. Terrorists mounted 160 attacks during the 42 days of Desert Storm, three times the typical number, but none on U.S. soil, according to the State Department. Eight people were killed.
Anticipating retaliation in 1991, the FBI set up 24-hour counterterrorism command centers, and security was tightened on airlines, in Washington public buildings and at selected U.S. embassies. The CIA's counterterrorism center went on full alert, and the agency determined that Iraq had transformed its worldwide intelligence network into a terrorist support enterprise.
CIA covert action disrupted several plots in their planning stages. Several other attacks linked to Iraq were foiled, including the botched bombing of a U.S. library in Manila and another attack that was thwarted when Western intelligence agencies spotted and arrested Iraqi operatives using passports with consecutive numbers.
Most of the attacks in 1991, however, were launched by other terrorist groups seeking international attention -- Greek leftist guerrillas, a Turkish revolutionary movement, Japanese communists -- not Islamic militants or pro-Palestinian Arab groups.
At the time, U.S. officials credited unprecedented international cooperation from countries such as Syria and Libya for maintaining control of many terrorist groups. Eventually the threat fizzled.
The main difference this time around, said terrorism experts, is that international terrorism now includes determined militant Islamic groups such as al Qaeda that are not under state control. On the contrary, as the U.S. war on terrorism has captured or killed al Qaeda's leadership, it has spawned small bands of entrepreneurial terrorists encouraged by the idea of a jihad or "holy war" against the United States to act independently.
"Al Qaeda has always portrayed itself as the defender of Muslims or defenders of Islam, and [a U.S. war against Iraq] will be viewed in some quarters as an assault against Islam," said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert and head of the Rand Corp.'s Washington office. "If al Qaeda has any credibility, it has to be on the field. If they're going to be a player and have these pretensions, as their propaganda belabors ad nauseam, they've got to be active or they're a nonentity."
--------
Items Prohibited on Airlines
November 12, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Prohibited-Items.html
Items listed in a 1994 airline industry manual that passengers were forbidden to carry beyond airport checkpoints:
--Ammunition
--Axes
--Box cutters
--Brass knuckles
--Carbon dioxide cartridges
--Dynamite
--Fireworks
--Gasoline
--Gun powder
--Hammers
--Hand grenades
--Hunting knives
--Mace
--Meat cleavers
--Oxygen tanks
--Paint
--Pepper spray
--Pistols
--Plastic explosives
--Radioactive materials
--Revolvers
--Rifles
--Starter pistols
--Swords
--Tear gas
--Toy transformer robots (forms toy gun)
--Toy weapons
Among items allowed past checkpoints:
--Baseball bats
--Darts
--Hockey sticks
--Knitting needles
--Letter openers
--Pocket utility knives (less than four-inch blade)
--Scissors
--Ski poles
Source: Checkpoint Operations Guide from Air Transport Association and Regional Airline Association.
-------- death penalty
Pakistanis ask U.S. to halt execution
By Patrick Quinn
ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 12, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20021112-9748516.htm
QUETTA, Pakistan - Two Middle East politicians have asked the United States to spare the life of convicted killer Aimal Kasi, saying such an act would help win the war on terrorism, a Pakistani newspaper reported Monday.
Mr. Kasi, 38, born in the dusty border town of Quetta, is scheduled to be executed Thursday by lethal injection in Virginia for gunning down two CIA employees as they sat in their cars outside agency headquarters.
Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner said yesterday he had received a clemency petition from Mr. Kasi, but will not comment on the case until court appeals are exhausted.
In Kasi's hometown, newspapers have published appeals for clemency and have asked the city's more than 1 million residents to "pray for Aimal Kasi that God save his life from execution." His family, friends and 1,000 Muslim clerics have also issued appeals.
Two prominent local politicians, according to the newspaper story, said putting Kasi to death won't help the United States' relationship with Pakistan, a key ally in the fight against Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
"By forgiving one person the U.S. can win the hearts of millions of people in its war against terrorism," the Baluchistan Times quoted Sarwar Khan Kakar and Noor Jehan Panezai as saying in a joint statement. Mr. Kakar is secretary-general of the state branch of the party that supports Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the Quaid-e-Azam faction of the Pakistan Muslim League.
The U.S. State Department has warned that Mr. Kasi's execution could result in retaliation against Americans around the world. Just two days after Mr. Kasi was convicted in 1997, assailants gunned down four American oil company workers in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi.
The newspaper also published an editorial yesterday calling for the United States to grant Mr. Kasi clemency.
"Pardoning him at this stage by President Bush will definitely have a very healthy effect, not only on Pakistan-U.S. relations but on the entire Muslim world, where the sentiments against America have been growing," the editorial read.
-------- drug war
Ashcroft's Narco-Terror War
by JOANNE MARINER
November 12, 2002
Counterpunch
http://www.counterpunch.org/mariner1112.html
Announcing the arrest last Wednesday of suspects in two drugs-for-weapons deals, Attorney General John Ashcroft declared, "The war on terrorism has been joined with the war on illegal drug use." One could almost hear him lick his lips, savoring the thought of it.
Since the September 11 attacks last year, the drug war has ceded priority to the war on terrorism. Government funding that previously went toward counter-narcotics efforts has been reallocated to fighting terror; manpower has been reassigned, including several hundred FBI agents; and public attention has shifted.
Never notable for its success, the drug war, juxtaposed against the more menacing threat of terrorism, has began to seem like a dispensable extravagance.
Ashcroft would no doubt be the last person to acknowledge this. When he was appointed Attorney General, he vowed to reinvigorate the country's counter-drug efforts. "I want to escalate the war on drugs. I want to renew it. I want to refresh it, relaunch it, if you will," said Ashcroft, in his first interview upon taking office. His words were buttressed by his record in the U.S. Senate, where he was a drearily reliable proponent of tough anti-drug policies and long prison sentences for drug offenders.
It must have been straight away obvious, in the wake of September 11, that the best way to revive the drug war would be to piggyback it on the war against terrorism. That Ashcroft would seek to join the two was probably a given.
For now, the pressing question is this: What does the proclaimed merger entail? With drugs and terror conjoined, can we expect Bolivian coca growers to swell the ever-growing crowd of "enemy combatants" on Guantanamo? Will drug couriers face "targeted killing," like the missile strike carried out last week in Yemen? Or is Ashcroft's latest gambit just a way to update the same old formula for filling up prisons, discouraging effective drug treatment, and ruining lives?
War as War, or as Metaphor
Given the circumstances of Ashcroft's announcement--involving arrests, criminal charges, and indictments--it would be premature to predict an end to the traditional law enforcement approach to the drug "war." (Yes, the mocking quotes are still appropriate.) But the possibility of using more war-like tactics in confronting drugs and terror is worth examining.
Before September 11, loose references to "war" made by people like our Attorney General could be safely understood, and decoded, as a sort of linguistic convention. War, as declared by such generals, was simply a shorthand way of saying: we're really serious, we're going to put a lot of resources into this, and we're going to succeed. Indeed, in more optimistic times, the United States even declared war on poverty--and no one really thought we would kill the poor.
Even though the war on terrorism was declared long before 2001, the United States continued to prosecute terrorists as criminals, fill Guantanamo with Haitians instead of Arabs, and focus defense thinking on missile shields rather than on airport security. War was a metaphor in those days, not a literal fact.
That era has passed. The war on terrorism may still be a metaphor, but it is now a metaphor with an army behind it. Putting aside, for the moment, the question of whether the government is correct to characterize the anti-terrorism effort as a war that justifies a military approach, it is indisputable that the tactics have changed.
There is, to begin with, the armed conflict in Afghanistan, although that seems to be winding down dramatically. But Bush Administration officials insist, at any rate, that the relevant war is not the Afghan war, which they see as just a battlefield, but rather the much larger--indeed, global--war on terrorism. It is for that reason that even if Afghanistan quiets down and ultimately evolves into a Central Asian Switzerland, the 625 detainees held on Guantanamo as "enemy combatants" cannot expect to claim their freedom.
But at least they're still alive, the detainees might tell themselves, were they to know about the Bush Administration's missile strike against six alleged terrorists in Yemen last week. (The detainees have probably not thought to celebrate their good fortune, however, because they have absolutely no access to news.)
The Yemen group of "enemy combatants," caught driving across the desert in a car, even included a U.S. citizen: a dead version of Jose Padilla and Yaser Hamdi. (Like the latter two "enemy combatants," he paid a price for his alleged Al Qaeda links without ever having been put on trial.) According to news accounts, moreover, the Yemen air strike will almost certainly be followed by others.
Fighting the Drug War with Arrests or with Missiles?
Whether the drug war will ever be fought using such overtly military methods remains to be seen. Despite Ashcroft's martial rhetoric, I do not really expect to see a fundamental change in the existing approach. His words are part of a strategy for preserving the status quo, not for transforming it.
And even in the past, of course, the drug "war" has occasionally lived up to its moniker. Just over a decade ago, the U.S. invaded Panama in order to bring back military strongman Manuel Noriega, now a drug war prisoner in Florida.
In Peru, another drug war battleground, the U.S. has sponsored air interdiction operations by which planes suspected of drug smuggling are shot down if the pilots do not respond to calls to land. An American missionary and her seven-month-old daughter were killed last year--becoming real civilian casualties of a metaphorical war--in one such operation. The small Cessna that transported them, flown by the woman's husband, who survived the crash, was mistakenly downed after a CIA surveillance plane called in a Peruvian jet to intercept it.
A Losing War
But let's stick with the assumption that Ashcroft's repackaging of the drug war is more about preserving counter-narcotics funding, and gaining public support, than it is about adopting military tactics. What is objectionable about that?
Without attempting a comprehensive list of the drug war's failures, suffice to say that its impact in reducing the flow of drugs has been negligible. By Ashcroft's own estimation, Americans spend about $64 billion annually on illegal drugs. Overall drug use has hardly changed since the mid-1980s, and the price of most drugs has fallen. Billions of dollars spent, millions of people incarcerated, and no results--it's a dismal picture.
The drug-trafficking-and-terrorism angle, moreover, has its own complications. Ashcroft may be factually correct in spotting a link between the two activities, but he should think about why this is so. By making the drug trade illegal, the government ensures that only criminal organizations profit from it. If drugs were decriminalized, then traffickers would have to fall back on other criminal enterprises--immigrant-smuggling, for example, or the illegal arms trade.
Oh yes, the arms trade. That reminds me of one final reason to doubt the sincerity of Ashcroft's drug-terror reasoning. Recall that the case in which Ashcroft made his announcement about drugs and terror actually involved a drugs-for-weapons scheme, with the weapons meant for two groups on the official U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations.
Here is an inventory of the weaponry that the defendants were hoping to buy: 9,000 assault rifles, including AK-47 submachine guns and sniper rifles; 300 pistols; approximately 53 million rounds of various types of ammunition; rocket-propelled grenade launchers and almost 300,000 grenades; and several shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. In short, a very scary bag of loot - scarier, to me, than the hashish and opium that was going to be exchanged for it.
So can somebody please explain why Ashcroft isn't trumpeting his office's efforts to stem the flow of illegal arms?
End the Drug War
The drug war and the war on terrorism do resemble each other in important ways, although not those that Ashcroft emphasizes. Both efforts are open-ended, or maybe never-ending. Both lend themselves to broad extensions of government power, and thus, if not carefully controlled, both can lead to violations of fundamental rights. But in trying to combat terrorism the government has at least chosen a worthwhile opponent.
The drug war is not just a conspicuously unsuccessful war, it is a misguided one. Reviving it under the guise of fighting terrorism--and possibly making it more war-like in the process--will only make matters worse.
Joanne Mariner is a human rights attorney in New York.
-------- terrorism
Voice on Tape Portrayed as bin Laden's Praises Recent Attacks
November 12, 2002
New York Times
By DAVID STOUT
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/12/international/12CND-OSAM.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 12 - Intelligence analysts are studying a tape-recorded message to determine if it contains the voice of Osama bin Laden praising recent terrorist activities, government officials said today.
If the voice is authenticated as that of Mr. bin Laden, the references to recent events, including the Oct. 12 Bali bombings, would be persuasive evidence that the terrorist leader of Al Qaeda survived American air strikes in Afghanistan last year.
The voice purporting to be that of Mr. bin Laden was on an audiotape broadcast to the Arab world today by Al Jazeera, the Arabic satellite television channel. Experts who have heard Mr. bin Laden's voice said the taped message sounded very much like him.
Intelligence officials in Washington were not ready this afternoon to declare that the voice was that of Mr. bin Laden. But the officials were taking seriously the possibility that the words are indeed those of the man widely believed to have been the mastermind behind the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"Our people in Palestine are being killed, are being subjected to the worse kind of suffering for almost a century now," the speaker on the tape said in Arabic. "If we defend our people in Palestine, the world is disturbed and allied against Muslims under the banner of combating terrorism."
The Associated Press reported from Cairo that in addition to referring to the Bali bombings, the voice on the tape mentioned last month's killing of an American marine in Kuwait, the bombing of a French oil tanker last month off Yemen and the bloody hostage-taking in Moscow by Chechen extremists. Those attacks were "undertaken by sons who are zealous in the defense of their religion," the voice declared.
The speaker on the tape said those attacks and others were "only a reaction in response to what Bush, the pharaoh of the age, is doing by killing our sons in Iraq and what America's ally Israel is doing, bombarding houses with women and old people and children inside with American planes."
Al Jazeera has aired voice recordings of Mr. bin Laden and top Al Qaeda operatives before. The Central Intelligence Agency has been able to authenticate some of those, although their timing has remained uncertain.
The last known evidence that Mr. bin Laden was alive was a videotape of him having dinner with some of his deputies, which is believed to have been filmed on Nov. 9, 2001. The men are shown chatting with obvious pleasure about the collapse of the World Trade Center towers.
In the months since the American-led offensive in Afghanistan, there has been speculation about whether Mr. bin Laden is still alive, or whether he was blown to bits in one of the bombs that devastated whole regions of Afghan caves. People pursuing Mr. bin Laden have said that if he is alive, he may have fled to Pakistan, or he could still be hiding in the jagged terrain of Afghanistan.
A videotape of Mr. bin Laden was sent to Al Jazeera after the bombing began in Afghanistan. It showed a thinner Mr. bin Laden, but there was no way to determine when the tape was made.
On the audiotape being studied in Washington, the speaker condemns countries that have joined with the United States in fighting terrorism. The speaker mentions Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Germany and Australia.
"If you don't like looking at your dead," the speaker says after listing those countries, "remember our dead, including the children in Iraq."
--------
EUROPE ON ALERT
Blair Warns of New Qaeda Threats, but Says Britain Won't Succumb to Panic
November 12, 2002
New York Times
By WARREN HOGE with DESMOND BUTLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/12/international/europe/12TERR.html
LONDON, Nov. 11 - Prime Minister Tony Blair placed Britain on watch tonight against terror attacks but coupled the alert with a word of caution, that drastically curtailing activity in response to the threats would be conceding victory to terrorism.
"The dilemma is reconciling warning people with alarming them; taking preventive measures without destroying normal life," he said.
Using his annual speech to the Lord Mayor's Banquet in the City of London financial district, traditionally a forum for a foreign policy address, to focus on the terrorist threat to Britain, Mr. Blair acknowledged that the country was a target for Al Qaeda.
But he added: "If on the basis of a general warning we were to shut down all the places that Al Qaeda terrorists might be considering for attack, we would be doing their job for them."
Mr. Blair also took the occasion to underline the need for an expanded approach to security. "The world needs a broader agenda than simply terrorism and weapons of mass destruction," he said. "And we need full U.S. engagement and leadership on all of it. President Bush recognizes that."
Mr. Blair's comments followed a series of warnings in recent weeks from government officials and police authorities in other European countries that Al Qaeda might be broadening its targets beyond American and Jewish institutions and that Europe was at risk.
Last week, Ronald Noble, secretary general of the French-based international policing authority, Interpol, told the Paris daily Le Figaro that recent intelligence suggested that Al Qaeda had been preparing to carry out simultaneous attacks in a number of countries.
"Something worrying is going on," Mr. Noble said. "All intelligence experts are agreed that Al Qaeda is preparing a major terrorist operation, simultaneous attacks that would not target the United States alone but several countries at the same time."
Officials in Germany have recently issued warnings since threats by a Qaeda deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, against Germany and France were broadcast last month by the Arabic satellite television channel Al Jazeera.
"The mujahid youth has already sent messages to Germany and France," Mr. Zawihiri said in the recording. "However, if these doses are not enough, we are prepared, with the help of Allah, to inject further doses."
In a television interview last week, August Hanning, director of the Federal Intelligence Service in Germany, warned that he believed that Al Qaeda was planning a major attack, possibly in his country, though he did not say he had concrete evidence.
"We have to count on a new attack, an attack of a much larger dimension," he said. "There is a big threat, also in Germany."
French officials have taken a more cautious line. Responding on Saturday to press reports - including Mr. Noble's comments suggesting that France is a likely Qaeda target - Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said, "The interior-security council worked on all these questions, but the work is confidential."
Officials have also echoed Mr. Blair's concern that repeated warnings may be counterproductive. But Mr. Hanning dismissed arguments that the recent warnings issued by Germany were alarmist. "It is a fact that the situation has grown more critical," he said.
European officials have also expressed concern that terrorist attacks linked to Al Qaeda since Sept. 11 have broken old patterns, making it difficult for the police to anticipate likely targets.
In his speech, Mr. Blair pointed to the bombing in Bali on Oct. 12 that killed more than 190 people as unsettling evidence that attacks could occur anywhere at any time.
Another German official, Bodo Franz, director of criminal investigations at the Hamburg state police, also cited the Bali attack in a recent inteview. "After Bali it is becoming increasingly less clear what is being threatened," he said. "We can no longer limit potential targets. It keeps getting more diffuse."
But Mr. Blair asserted that the aftermath of the Bali blast also represented the danger of possible overreaction.
"If we acted on every piece of raw intelligence in a way that some were suggesting after Bali," he said, "we would have in my time as prime minister on many occasions shut down roads, railways, airports, stations, shopping centers, factories, military installations.
"If a terrorist thought that all he had to do to shut down the travel industry, for example, was to issue a threat against our airports, we really would be conceding defeat in the war against terrorism."
Mr. Franz said that the repeated security warnings from many sources, particularly American officials since Sept. 11, could help achieve the terrorist's ends. "If I were bin Laden, I would just rub my hands, then do nothing and think, `They are rubbing themselves raw,' " he said.
Today, Mr. Blair assured his audience that Britain was actively trying to thwart particular attacks detected by its intelligence agencies, monitoring and disrupting Qaeda cells wherever it could find them and increasing security and surveillance at potential targets.
But he emphasized that the government put a high premium on doing that "without causing unnecessary hardship or alarm to the public."
He said that "barely a day goes by without some new piece of intelligence coming via our security services about a threat to U.K. interests," and that warnings and threats were "crossing the desks of the intelligence agencies, my desk, the home secretary's desk, all the time, and other nations are in exactly the same situation."
--------
F.B.I. Attacks Firearm Agency in Draft Report
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
November 12, 2002
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/12/national/12ATF.html?pagewanted=all&position=top
WASHINGTON, Nov. 11 - The F.B.I. has initiated an unusual behind-the-scenes attack on another law enforcement agency, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, as part of an effort to protect its turf and responsibility for domestic security, law enforcement officials said today.
An internal F.B.I. draft full of criticisms of the firearms agency has circulated in the last week among law enforcement officials. Some of those officials say the draft is part of an effort by the bureau to head off a plan to move the firearms operations from the Treasury Department to the Justice Department in a broad reorganization of domestic security.
Some officials of the F.B.I., which is under the Justice Department, said such a plan could undermine its authority to investigate domestic terrorism. One official said the draft did not represent the bureau's views.
The unsigned report accuses counterparts at the firearms agency of poor training for agents, dangerous handling of explosives at crime scenes and efforts to control cases outside its jurisdiction. The report cites examples from the recent sniper investigation, terrorism inquiries, the Salt Lake City Olympics and other prominent cases pursued by both agencies.
"Due to the A.T.F.'s lack of strategic vision and sole jurisdiction mission," the report says, "they have `crept' into areas beyond their mandate."
Agents from the firearms agency who have seen the document said that they were outraged and that the accusations were unfounded.
"I'm appalled at the shots the F.B.I. is taking at us," said Art Gordon, a 27-year veteran at the agency and its representative to the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association.
A spokesman for the agency, Tom Hill, said that its officials had seen the report but that because they were uncertain who wrote it or whether it reflected current views, "we don't know whether it has any credence."
Mr. Hill and other employees at the agency acknowledged that circulating the report could harm its relations with the F.B.I. as law enforcement agencies were trying to work more closely.
An F.B.I. official declined to comment on the specific criticisms in the report and said it was merely "an early draft." The official said the draft "wasn't meant for dissemination."
The two agencies have historically had a testy relationship, reaching its nadir, perhaps, after they responded to the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Tex., in 1993. Publicly, relations appeared to have warmed in the last few years, with the agencies praising each other's cooperation in the sniper investigation.
But possible reorganization plans for the firearms agency appear to have revived tensions.
Proposals in Congress for a Homeland Defense Department do not address reorganization. Officials in the Bush administration and on Capitol Hill said they had reached an agreement that would move the firearms agency's law enforcement functions related to explosives, firearms and arson to the Justice Department.
Proponents regard those as traditional law enforcement functions more closely aligned with the Justice Department's other responsibilities than the Treasury Department. Other functions, including regulating alcohol and tobacco, would remain at the Treasury Department.
Law enforcement officials said a formal amendment might be offered in the Senate on the proposed reorganization in a few days.
F.B.I. officials would not say who wrote the report or for what purpose. An official not associated with either agency who has reviewed the draft said he was convinced from its detail and authoritative tone that a fairly senior official at headquarters here had most likely written it. The official characterized the report as a seemingly "paranoid" attack from an agency under intense criticism since the Sept. 11 attacks and trying to protect its turf.
The report was provided to The New York Times by an official who objected to the Federal Bureau of Investigation attack on the firearms agency as unfair and unjustified.
The undated paper says that "the F.B.I. is not opposed" to the transfer of functions to the Justice Department. According to the report, the bureau is concerned that the move would expand the authority of the firearms agency "quite dramatically" into domestic terrorism, where the bureau has the lead role. Some officials, however, said that the F.B.I. was misreading the plan and that the firearms role would remain unchanged.
The bureau, which has a broad mandate to investigate crime and terrorism, and the firearms agency, with a much narrower role involving explosives and weapons, have often worked side by side in inquiries like the Oklahoma City bombing, the Unabom case and the sniper rampage.
The F.B.I., with nearly 13,000 criminal investigators, dwarfs the A.T.F., with 3,900, according to federal data.
Even so, the paper indicates that some bureau officials believe that firearms agents have sought to undermine their authority and have sometimes endangered bureau agents and the public. The two-section 11-page report contrasts the "shortcomings" of the firearms agency against what the bureau says is its proven ability to handle better even domestic terrorism operations that involve explosives and firearms.
For instance, in an arrest in Nashville of a suspected white supremacist tied to threatening a synagogue with explosives this year, the report said the firearms agency had used "unsafe practices" to store high explosives and live pipe bombs at the local police department. The bureau supervisor in Nashville "had to remove F.B.I. personnel from the area" as a result, the report said.
The report also contends that the firearms agency "has demonstrated its disregard" for bomb technicians' safety in such situations "by making it a practice to handle and store pipe bombs as if they were not bombs."
The report said that the firearms agency used lesser standards for handling explosives and that "these differences in operational philosophy translate to dangerous situations."
"To this day, A.T.F. has not been able to get all of its bomb technicians to comply with the certification standards that have been set," the report said. As a result, it added, the agency "had to send some personnel home from the Olympics who were not certified."
Law enforcement officials said tensions became particularly heated at the Sept. 11 attack on the Pentagon, where firearms investigators complained that they were shut out of the inquiry and ignored by the F.B.I. Firearms investigators questioned whether bureau investigators had the expertise to undertake the extensive evidence gathering, law enforcement officials said.
An aide to Senator Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who has criticized the F.B.I. as running roughshod over other agencies, said the report and feud could hurt the bureau on Capitol Hill.
"This," the aide said, "is a perfect example of the kind of Pac-Man mentality that the F.B.I. has."
---------
U.S. Estimates Terror Attacks Cost
November 12, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Cost.html
NEW YORK (AP) -- The attack that destroyed the World Trade Center has cost the city $33 billion to $36 billion in lost wages and business, property damage and cleanup, Federal Reserve experts said Tuesday.
The losses, estimated from October 2001 through June, include $7.8 billion the 2,795 people killed in the trade center attack would have earned had they lived and $21.6 billion to clean up and replace the twin towers.
The report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York appears in the November issue of the bank's Economic Policy Review.
The Sept. 11 attack ``significantly reduced the productive potential of the New York City economy'' and hit the airline, restaurant, hotel and financial services industries especially hard, the report said.
Those businesses accounted for 42,000 of the 51,000 private-sector jobs lost in the city in October 2001 alone, the report said.
The financial services industry, with many businesses headquartered at the trade center, lost 12,000 jobs in October and an additional 6,000 jobs through June, the report said. The number of jobs at the city's two airports fell by about 20 percent.
The report calculated the lost income of the victims of the attacks by finding the average income of trade center employees -- $127,000 a year -- their average age, and estimating how much they would earn until they retired. The loss amounted to $2.8 million per worker.
The city lost an additional $3.6 billion to $6.4 billion in wages from job cuts and reduced hours in businesses like the restaurant industry, the report said. Studies showed some residents also smoked and drank more and became depressed after the attacks, which likely also cut productivity.
The cleanup and replacement costs for the World Trade Center includes a $1.4 billion estimate to replace a commuter rail hub destroyed underneath the center.
An $11.2 billion estimate to replace the trade center's two towers assumed that officials ``will essentially duplicate what existed before the attack.'' Six architects have issued competing proposals for developing the site and no conclusions have been reached.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
Solar Power Generated Atop Navy Carport
November 12, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/nov2002/2002-11-12-09.asp
SAN DIEGO, California - The U.S. Navy has deployed the largest federal solar photovoltaic system in the nation on a carport at Naval Base Coronado in San Diego. The installation includes two contiguous solar arrays, covering a half-mile long parking structure that serves U.S. Navy personnel. In addition to providing shade for parked cars, the system generates enough energy during the day to power more than 935 homes.
The 750 kilowatt (kW) solar electric system will reduce the base's demand on California's power grid, and improve air quality by avoiding the emission of thousands of tons of nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide emissions.
"The deployment of solar power at Navy Region Southwest demonstrates the Navy's commitment to using energy management practices that reduce energy consumption and control costs," said Commander Pat Rios, the base's public works officer. "Using clean generation is very consistent with our base's mission of leveraging superior operational expertise and technologies."
The 750 kW solar electric system was implemented as part of an energy savings performance contract (ESPC) project developed by NORESCO. The photovoltaic system was designed, manufactured and installed by PowerLight Corporation. The photovoltaic system will produce about 1,244,000 kWh per year and is expected to save over $228,000 in annual operating costs by avoiding purchases of expensive peak electricity.
"Solar power proved to be the ideal energy solution for Naval Base Coronado," said Lieutenant Commander Wade Wilhelm, Navy Region Southwest utilities program manager. "The photovoltaic system combines the environmental benefits of solar with the ability to provide on site power that serves to reduce our vulnerability to disruptions of the power grid."
The energy project was made possible through the Department of Energy's Western Region Super ESPC, developed and executed by the Navy's ESPC team comprised of the Naval Facilities Engineering Service Center and the Naval Facilities Engineering Command Contracts Office.
"Installing solar photovoltaics at governmental agencies and private corporations is a sound, sensible way for us to use distributed energy resources to meet our renewable energy goals as well as reduce operating costs," noted Beth Shearer, director of the Federal Energy Management Program. "In addition, deploying these technologies assures our energy independence and national security."
----
Hydrogen or 'hot air'?
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
November 12, 2002
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20021112-97853660.htm#2
Ah, "inevitability," we know it well. Most failed ersatz religions - from Marxism to the Kyoto Protocol - have been promoted on the basis of their "inevitability." Yet, Sunday's editorial "The burning questions of hydrogen" invokes the same certainty regarding the cult of a hydrogen future.
It is noteworthy, however, to consider one more factor in addition to technological hurdles facing market delivery of this mechanism for storing and transporting energy: The Greens will do everything in their power to ensure it never happens. Consider the following "environmentalist" gasps, typical of their emissions when confronted with one energy technological breakthrough or another:
- "If you ask me, it'd be a little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we would do with it. We ought to be looking for energy sources that are adequate for our needs, but that won't give us the excesses of concentrated energy with which we could do mischief to the Earth or to each other." - Amory Lovins in "The Mother Earth" (from a Playboy interview, Nov.-Dec. 1977 issue)
- "Giving society cheap, abundant energywould be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun." - Paul Ehrlich (from "An Ecologist's Perspective on Nuclear Power," May-June 1978 issue of Federation of American Scientists Public Issue Report)
These and other statements by individuals who remain in the vanguard of today's Green leadership certainly seem to represent the thinking in environmentalism and explain the proliferation of Green scare campaigns. (Speaking of which, see: "[W]e have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." - Stephen Schneider, quoted in "Our Fragile Earth" by Jonathan Schell).
Man is the world's most resourceful creature, and we will exit the fossil fuel age not because we ran out of fossil fuels any more than we left the Stone Age for want of stones. Yet, we must be resourceful enough to overcome our inherent susceptibility to calamitous claims as we seek to improve the lot of humanity though ensuring more energy, not less.
CHRISTOPHER C. HORNER
Senior fellow Competitive Enterprise Institute Washington •
I would like to direct some comments regarding Sunday's editorial on hydrogen.
Hydrogen is not like gas, which packs a lot of energy into a small tank. Unless hydrogen is liquefied at -400 degrees (F), it's not very practical. Much storage space would be needed if hydrogen gas were used in a fuel-cell powered car. A typical car's gas tank contains about two million Btu of energy, but only 700 Btu if it's filled with hydrogen gas at atmospheric pressure. If the pressure is raised to 150 psi (like a barbeque's five-gallon propane tank) this would be 7,000 Btu. About 285 barbecue propane tanks would be needed to equal the energy in a full tank of gasoline. Heavier, high pressure hydrogen spheres could cut the space requirement a bit, but most people have better uses for their car trunks.
JIM HOOD Laughlin, Nev.
-------- energy
A Big Victory by California in Energy Case
November 12, 2002
New York Times
By DAVID BARBOZA
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/12/business/12ENER.html
In the first major settlement to come out of the California energy deregulation debacle, the Williams Companies agreed yesterday to pay more than $400 million to settle accusations that it helped drive up prices and overcharged customers during the state's electric power crisis.
Williams, one of the nation's biggest suppliers of electricity and natural gas, said it would settle a broad set of civil claims with three West Coast states - California, Oregon and Washington - and also resolve class-action lawsuits. As part of the settlement, California said it would not seek customer refunds.
Williams also agreed to restructure a 10-year, $4.3 billion power contract it signed with California at the height of the energy crisis last year, when power prices were soaring.
The settlement is considered an important victory for California state officials, who have insisted that some of the biggest energy companies manipulated prices and the state's complex power system in 2000 and 2001, creating widespread shortages and causing electricity prices to soar.
State officials say that by renegotiating the power contract with Williams, they could save more than $1 billion. Williams is also expected to make huge cash payments to the states, to help California reduce its energy consumption and to provide equipment for new power plants to serve the West.
"This is an important victory for ratepayers," said Gov. Gray Davis of California, who has called some of the big energy companies pirates for their actions during the energy crisis. "The new contract provides us with reliable power delivered at more favorable terms."
Williams officials had once called California's accusations that the company withheld power or helped contribute to the power shortages "erroneous" and "patently false."
But yesterday, officials at Williams said they were tired of fighting in California.
"At some point it's best to simply cease striving and make peace," said Kelly Swan, a spokesman for Williams, which is based in Tulsa, Okla. "We've always tried to act in good faith in California. But we need to get some legal issues behind us."
The announcement comes at a time when federal and state officials are stepping up their investigations into whether some of the biggest power marketers conspired to manipulate West Coast power and natural gas prices in 2000 and 2001.
Last week, Duke Energy, Reliant Resources and Williams said they had received subpoenas from federal officials seeking information about their involvement in the California electricity market, which depends largely on natural gas generating plants in the state, along with nuclear energy installations and hydroelectric dams in California and elsewhere in the West.
Yesterday, two other companies - Mirant and AES - said they had also received federal subpoenas regarding energy they supplied to California.
The announcements come less than a month after Timothy N. Belden, a senior power trader at Enron, agreed to plead guilty to federal charges that he participated in a conspiracy to manipulate the California power market during the energy crisis. He also agreed to cooperate in the investigation.
Profits at most major energy trading companies - those that deal primarily in power and natural gas - have collapsed in the aftermath of the bankruptcy of Enron, once the nation's biggest energy trader.
Several suppliers have decided to get out of the energy trading business entirely. Others, like Williams and Dynegy, once energy trading behemoths, are now trying to stave off bankruptcy and return to concentrating on their traditional roles as energy suppliers and pipeline distributors.
Robert McCullough, who runs an energy consulting firm in Portland, Ore., that has been investigating the California energy crisis for major energy users, said that, all in all, Williams appeared to be getting off relatively lightly.
"The value seems low to me," he said. "Williams had one of the biggest footprints in California. They appear all over the place with possible antitrust issues. So I'm not surprised they'd want to settle."
Williams shares, which had fallen in trading during the day, rose 12 percent in after-hours trading, after the settlement was disclosed, to $2.60.
Williams is one of the most troubled energy traders. Not long ago, it represented a highflying array of energy providers branching out also into telecommunications.
Now, the company is struggling to survive after drastically cutting its work force and scaling back its ambitions. Williams is trying to decide whether to sell its trading unit or find a partner. Resolving this case, the company says, could help market the trading operation because, even at the lower renegotiated prices, a long-term deal worth billions of dollars remains in place.
"We still have eight years on that contract," Mr. Swan said. "This makes our trading portfolio more valuable if we are to find a joint venture partner."
As part of the settlement, Governor Davis negotiated up to $1.1 billion in price reductions in the state's $4.3 billion power contract, which was signed in February 2001. The state's attorney general negotiated an additional $180 million in price cuts.
State officials said Williams had also agreed to pay $147 million in cash, with most of the money going to California municipalities and state programs to reduce energy consumption. The states of Oregon and Washington will receive $15 million in cash each over three years. And Williams will provide six power turbines worth about $90 million to California so that the state can build power plants in San Diego and San Francisco.
State officials said that they were continuing to investigate Williams and that Williams was cooperating with their investigation and making documents available.
State officials say the settlement does not close off the possibility of bringing criminal charges against Williams in the future and that the state is monitoring federal investigations.
The settlement, while resolving state claims, also does not preclude investor-owned utilities like Pacific Gas and Electric from seeking their own refunds or settlements.
Bill Lockyer, the attorney general of California, called the settlement a big victory for the state.
"This is sweet justice," he said. "The idea that the energy gougers would have to pay to reduce the demand for energy is great."
State officials had accused Williams, among other things, of promising as early as 2000 to sell the state electricity and then contending that the power was not available in order to resell it for a higher price on the open market, where state agencies were forced to purchase it at a premium.
"They were double-selling electrons," Mr. Lockyer said in a telephone interview. "They withheld power, and then they resold it at a higher price."
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and other federal agencies are still looking into a variety of issues related to the California energy prices, like whether energy traders created sham transactions, whether they bottled up supplies to drive up prices, and whether they sent falsified pricing data to companies that publish gas and power prices.
Mr. Lockyer also said he was not finished.
"We've got three more in our sights," he said, "Duke, Mirant and Reliant. They help make up the four horsemen of the apocalypse."
-------- ACTIVISTS
Police open fire on Afghan student protest
Tuesday November 12, 2002
AFP
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/021112/1/34n89.html
Police opened fire on several thousand students protesting in the Afghan capital against the authorities' handling of an earlier university riot, in which at least one student was killed.
The protests marked the first major demonstration in the city since it was liberated from the hardline Taliban regime almost exactly one year ago by a US-led military campaign.
Crowds shouting "death to the student-killers" charged riot police armed with rifles and batons and the police turned water cannons on them.
The students retaliated with stones, prompting police to open fire initially in the air and then into the crowds.
Din Mohammad Jurat, the interior ministry's director of public order, told reporters at the Kabul university campus that no shots had been aimed at the students.
"The students are our brothers. We tried to calm down the situation. There were just a small number of problem-creating elements.
"We haven't fired at the students today. We just fired in the air to control the situation."
Police were also seen beating several students with batons. At least three were carried away with severe head injuries. Security forces later sealed off the campus and posted troops around its perimeter.
The students had taken to the streets in protest at police handling of a demonstration late Monday against a lack of power, water and food at the university's dormitories.
Interior Minister Taj Mohammad Wardak said at least one student died in the Monday protest when police and soldiers were called in to break up a rock-throwing crowd.
Officials said another 15 were injured, including two military personnel.
A spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) which patrols Kabul confirmed one person died in Monday's uprising.
"Sadly several people were injured and it appears at least one person was killed," Major Gordon Mackenzie said.
Student representative Mohammad Shafiq said six students had been killed in the two protests.
One student, who did not wish to be identified, said the demonstrators were only asking why conditions could not be improved.
"We asked them a logical question: why they did not improve conditions? They answered us with bullets," he said.
President Hamid Karzai expressed his sadness at the incident, criticising police for opening fire and calling for a full investigation.
Afghanistan's education ministry earlier ordered that medical students would shortly have to sit end-of-year exams, despite appeals to delay the tests because of recent bad weather.
Some 3,000 students, mostly from the country's poor outlying provinces, have protested that without electricity they are unable to study at night or keep warm in the large, poorly insulated university dormitories.
The Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which started last week, has added to problems since students have no power to heat the little food they have before beginning or after breaking their traditional daily fast.
Kabul has been hit by a series of student protests since last year's fall of the fundamentalist Taliban, under which education was severely restricted.
Afzal Aman, deputy chief of Kabul's garrison, said the latest uprising may have been inflamed by infiltrators belonging to the Taliban or the al-Qaeda terror network of Osama bin Laden.
"Inshalla (God willing) there is not any political reason for this demonstration. Of course, during the Taliban time there were lots of people studying here who were trained to fight by al-Qaeda.
"Maybe there are a number here who will use the situation to their benefit."
---
Police fire in air to quell Kabul student protest
By Mike Collett-White
Tuesday November 12, 2002
Reuters
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/reuters/asia-133897.html
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan police fired into the air and used water cannons to break up a protest march by hundreds of students in Kabul on Tuesday after up to four demonstrators were killed the previous evening.
Dozens of police in riot gear and carrying rifles surrounded a Kabul University compound and made several arrests after a crowd of over 500 students had been prevented from marching on government buildings, witnesses said.
A student delegation met senior government officials at the Education Ministry in downtown Kabul to try to resolve the standoff and President Hamid Karzai held a crisis meeting about the protests before leaving for the United States.
The students, most of them ethnic Pashtuns from the south and east of the country, were protesting about poor living conditions and the lack of food in their dormitories, and some demanded the return of the bodies of those who had died.
"Last night some of our friends were killed in a demonstration," said one young student called Hamid, his face covered in blood from a head wound sustained during the clashes on Tuesday.
"Today we wanted to march peacefully to the presidential palace and look what has happened. For the last three or four days we have had nothing to eat and no electricity in our hostel," he added.
The protest, in a badly war-damaged district in southwest Kabul, came a day before the U.S.-backed government was due to mark the first anniversary of the capture of Kabul from the Taliban, a movement led by Pashtun clerics.
SECOND DAY OF CLASHES
Students said late on Monday that four demonstrators had been killed and several seriously wounded after police opened fire on protests involving about 1,000 people.
They had marched towards government buildings in the centre of the city and, according to one account, police opened fire when the students threw stones at them.
Several policemen, including one senior officer, were also injured, according to police.
Deputy Interior Minister General Hilal told Reuters outside the hostel that only one student had died.
Zaher Wahab, an adviser to Higher Education Minister Sharif Fayez, said a group of around 15 students met senior government officials including Fayez, Interior Minister Taj Mohammad Wardak and Vice President Nematullah Shahrani.
"They demanded the punishment of the student's killer, treatment for the wounded, the release of prisoners and an improvement in living conditions," Wahab told Reuters.
He said the violence was a manifestation of tensions in the university between Pashtuns, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group, and others.
"Underneath all of this there is an ethnic component," he said. "There is no question that Pashtuns throughout the country feel discriminated against at this point."
Karzai, a Pashtun, denies Afghanistan faces serious ethnic divisions. Tajiks from the Northern Alliance, which overran the Taliban militia last year with the help of U.S. air attacks, hold many key positions in government even though Pashtuns are the country's main ethnic group.
Hilal said some inside the compound were armed and had shouted slogans in support of Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network being pursued by U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
He did not rule out the possibility of al Qaeda involvement.
The latest protest came as President Hamid Karzai left Kabul for the United States, where he was due to receive an award for promoting freedom from a U.S. aid agency.
While many in Kabul are glad to be free of the Taliban, frustration is growing that despite billions of dollars of aid promised by foreign donors since the fall of the hardline Islamic regime, their lives have yet to improve materially.
----
Student protests mount in Iran despite Khamenei threat of force
Tuesday November 12, 2002
AFP
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/021112/1/34ncu.html
Student protests sparked by the sentencing to death of a reformist academic took on a wider political dimension, despite a threat from Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to intervene with "popular force".
At least 3,000 students gathered at Tehran's university campus chanting slogans including "death to despotism", on the fourth day of protests sparked by the sentencing to death for blasphemy of Hashem Aghajari, who had questioned the clergy's right to rule.
Demonstrators set a more overtly political tone, with some students chanting: "Death to the Taliban, in Kabul and Tehran", "the student movement is ready to revolt" and slogans lambasting the head of the hardline judiciary and powerful former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Police prevented students from moving outside the main Tehran campus and onto the streets, and the demonstrators later dispersed calmly due to the rain.
Crowd numbers have swelled from a few hundred on Saturday to more than 3,000 Tuesday.
Aghajari's leftist group, the Organisation of Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution (OMIR), called Tuesday for protests to continue but also urged calm.
"Everyone must keep their calm but also their determination. If there are any excesses, we will pay the price," warned Behzad Nabavi, deputy speaker of parliament and leading member of OMIR.
"But that does not mean you should stay at home," he said at a press conference.
Protests and student strikes have also been reported in other provincial universities, including Isfahan, Tabriz and Kerman.
Late on Monday, the all-powerful Khamenei said he may resort to "popular force" to end the mounting political crisis.
"The day when the three branches of government are unable to settle major problems, the supreme guide will, if he deems it necessary, make popular force intervene," Khamenei said.
"I hope that will never happen."
Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the Basij and other hardline militias are frequently referred to as "popular forces", and when called upon can easily smash pro-reform protests.
An Iranian analyst, who asked not to be named, said the warning was a reminder of a 1999 clampdown on massive student protests over newspaper closures that officially left one dead, dozens injured and even more students thrown in jail.
The Aghajari crisis comes amid a hardening of positions on both sides, with some reformers even threatening to walk out of the Islamic regime.
The reformers -- who control the legislative and the executive -- are trying to push through a challenge to the power of conservatives who control the courts, legislative watchdog bodies and much of the economy.
But the last-ditch twin-bill initiative -- which would strip unelected hardliners of their right to veto candidates for public office and allow Khatami to annul court rulings -- is prey to veto by the same watchdog bodies which have binned much of the rest of Khatami's initiatives.
And Khamenei, the successor of the regime's founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, said he had "advised" Khatami to instead "compensate for the shortcomings" of his government.
"Officials must not get involved in political games and insignificant affairs," Khamenei said, warning that the Islamic republic's "enemies are seeking to take advantage of the gaps to deal a blow to Islamic Iran".
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Protesters reject Shell's slick change of face
Terry Macalister
Tuesday November 12, 2002
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/oil/story/0,11319,838345,00.html
Environmental campaigners are to converge on Shell's London headquarters this morning to highlight the company's "shocking" pollution record.
The move coincides with the publication of a new book, Riding the Dragon: Royal Dutch Shell and the Fossil Fire, which catalogues more than 50 years of environmental and public safety spills.
Activists such as Desmond D'Sa, chairman of the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance, will call for talks with the company on a range of local problems.
Mr D'Sa said Shell's rhetoric on social corporate responsibility sat awkwardly with the kind of pollution dwellings in South Africa were facing from Shell's facilities. "The pipeline that runs from Shell's Durban refinery to the storage tanks at the port are constantly leaking into the community that borders it. I want a commitment from top management that instead of constantly patching up the pipelines they will be renewed."
His group hopes to hand in copies of the book, written by Washington environmental consultant Jack Doyle. Mr Doyle accepts that Shell is seen by its peers as an "outstanding company" and one that has been trying to show a more caring, sharing face.
He argues that the Anglo-Dutch company must turn its back on fossil fuels if it is to escape a legacy of well blow-outs, oil spills, chronic air pollution and polluted rivers.
"Few places and few species, no matter how remote or how special, have escaped the untoward and insinuating effects of oil and petrochemicals," Mr Doyle argues.
Shell said last night it had not yet seen the book but believed it covered historical incidents that had been made public before. "It does not appear to publish new evidence or provide a new analysis of the incidents. Nevertheless, we take all such events very seriously so that we can learn from them as we strive to improve our environmental and social performance," said a company spokesman.
He thought it unlikely any meeting would take place today but might be organised at a later date to discuss the book and individual grievances. The company has become adept at dealing with these kinds of attacks stemming from the lessons it learned during the Brent Spar platform sinking and Nigerian human rights controversies of the mid-1990s.
The words "Brent Spar" still bring a shudder to those Shell managers who were around when attempts to dispose of a former production platform at the bottom of the Atlantic led to worldwide boycotts and arson attacks on its petrol stations in Germany.
Greenpeace subsequently admitted it had got wrong some of its information about the toxic content of the huge steel structure but public opinion had already ruled against Shell and one of the world's most valuable brands had been tarnished.
The problems were compounded by events in Nigeria where Shell was caught up in a controversy over the state execution of poet Ken Saro-Wiwa. He had campaigned against the oil group's environmental record and associated human rights abuses by the military in Ogoniland and a New York court case against the oil company has been brought by relatives of Mr Saro-Wiwa.
The last years of the 1990s brought frantic soul-searching by Shell top brass who concluded that a successful business in the new millennium could not be built around the pursuit of profits alone. Care of the environment, human rights and what is now termed "corporate social responsibility" and "sustainable development" became more important issues.
The Shell Foundation was quietly launched two years ago as a legally independent charity to house new social investment programmes which would not directly benefit the commercial arm of the group. About $250m (£150m) was pumped into the new body which has its own team and a board of trustees made up of three oilmen led by Phil Watts, chairman of Shell group, and three outsiders: Sir John Houghton, former head of the meteorological office, Enos Ned Banda head of Credit Suisse in South Africa, and Pieter Winsemius, former Dutch environment minister.
Is there not a danger that Shell could run into future trouble that embarrasses the NGO? Marek Markus believes the risk is small but accepts that difficulties will always arise in businesses especially when they have the global scale and breadth of a huge oil company. He said: "It is not surprising multinationals have got problems because our small clients [businesses] have issues and dilemmas. So we are realistic on that side."
Cynics might believe that Shell, which is expanding its commercial network of petrol stations in Slovakia, is just using the NGO to oil the wheels of its commercial venture.
What does Greenpeace, which is hounding ExxonMobil over its global warming policies, think of Shell's new commitment to the wider community? "There are no angels in the oil industry but there are progressives and regressives and within that context it's fair to say that Shell and BP are on the side of the progressives," says Rob Gueterbock, senior climate and energy campaigner at Greenpeace.
· Riding the Dragon: Environmental Health Fund, Boston Mass, ISBN 0-9726155-0-4
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Police Fire in Air to Quell Kabul Student Protests
November 12, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-afghan-students.html
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan police fired into the air and used water cannons to break up a protest march by hundreds of students in Kabul on Tuesday after up to four demonstrators were killed the previous evening.
Dozens of police in riot gear and carrying rifles surrounded a Kabul University compound and made several arrests after a crowd of over 500 students had been prevented from marching on government buildings, witnesses said.
A student delegation met senior government officials at the Education Ministry in downtown Kabul to try to resolve the standoff and President Hamid Karzai held a crisis meeting about the protests before leaving for the United States.
The students, most of them ethnic Pashtuns from the south and east of the country, were protesting about poor living conditions and the lack of food in their dormitories, and some demanded the return of the bodies of those who had died.
``Last night some of our friends were killed in a demonstration,'' said one young student called Hamid, his face covered in blood from a head wound sustained during the clashes on Tuesday.
``Today we wanted to march peacefully to the presidential palace and look what has happened. For the last three or four days we have had nothing to eat and no electricity in our hostel,'' he added.
The protest, in a badly war-damaged district in southwest Kabul, came a day before the U.S.-backed government was due to mark the first anniversary of the capture of Kabul from the Taliban, a movement led by Pashtun clerics.
SECOND DAY OF CLASHES
Students said late on Monday that four demonstrators had been killed and several seriously wounded after police opened fire on protests involving about 1,000 people.
They had marched toward government buildings in the center of the city and, according to one account, police opened fire when the students threw stones at them.
Several policemen, including one senior officer, were also injured, according to police.
Deputy Interior Minister General Hilal told Reuters outside the hostel that only one student had died.
Zaher Wahab, an adviser to Higher Education Minister Sharif Fayez, said a group of around 15 students met senior government officials including Fayez, Interior Minister Taj Mohammad Wardak and Vice President Nematullah Shahrani.
``They demanded the punishment of the student's killer, treatment for the wounded, the release of prisoners and an improvement in living conditions,'' Wahab told Reuters.
He said the violence was a manifestation of tensions in the university between Pashtuns, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group, and others.
``Underneath all of this there is an ethnic component,'' he said. ``There is no question that Pashtuns throughout the country feel discriminated against at this point.''
Karzai, a Pashtun, denies Afghanistan faces serious ethnic divisions. Tajiks from the Northern Alliance, which overran the Taliban militia last year with the help of U.S. air attacks, hold many key positions in government even though Pashtuns are the country's main ethnic group.
Hilal said some inside the compound were armed and had shouted slogans in support of Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network being pursued by U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
He did not rule out the possibility of al Qaeda involvement.
The latest protest came as President Hamid Karzai left Kabul for the United States, where he was due to receive an award for promoting freedom from a U.S. aid agency.
While many in Kabul are glad to be free of the Taliban, frustration is growing that despite billions of dollars of aid promised by foreign donors since the fall of the hardline Islamic regime, their lives have yet to improve materially.
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Venezuela Protest Turns Violent
November 12, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Venezuela-Violence.html
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Venezuelan troops clashed with pro-government demonstrators Tuesday in violent protests that left one person dead, 20 others wounded and prompted a renewed plea for peace from the head of the Organization of American States.
More than 400 National Guardsmen and police fought dozens of armed activist supporters of President Hugo Chavez who had surrounded an opposition-dominated city hall, trapping the mayor and other leaders inside for several hours.
Protesters repeatedly fled tear gas and rubber bullets, only to regroup to throw rocks, fire shots and burn tires in the streets.
Alcides Rondon, a city security official, said police fired rubber bullets and the pro-Chavez activists used live ammunition to fire at officers and bystanders.
A 23-year-old man killed in the clash died from gunshot wounds, Rondon said. But it was not immediately known who fired the shot or what role, if any, the victim had in the protest.
Thirteen other people received gunshot wounds and seven were injured by rubber bullets, Rondon said.
The violence overshadowed peace talks several miles away mediated by Cesar Gaviria, secretary general of the Organization of American States.
Gaviria urged the government to punish those responsible for the violence, which raised tension during the talks. He expressed concern about a ``climate of impunity'' in the country.
As darkness fell, troops continued trading gunfire with protesters on debris-strewn streets. Officers rescued citizens hiding inside stores. Some, including infants, suffered tear gas exposure.
Among those trapped inside city hall for several hours were greater Caracas Mayor Alfredo Pena, a Chavez critic; Miranda state Gov. Enrique Mendoza; and members of an opposition political movement.
They were preparing a report for the Organization of American States on harassment by pro-Chavez street toughs when the siege began, Globovision television reported.
Pena blamed the violence on pro-Chavez activists and a small group of policemen who have been striking to demand the resignation of their bosses. Supporters of the embattled president have attacked city hall several times.
Chavez's government had no immediate comment.
It was the biggest eruption of political violence since Nov. 4, when the president's supporters attacked an opposition march, wounding and injuring more than 60 people. As with most violence fomented by Chavez supporters, there were no arrests.
Chavez has said he no longer controls violent radicals, many of them members of Chavez's so-called ``Bolivarian Circle'' neighborhood groups.
Venezuela's opposition is demanding early presidential elections.
Opposition leaders vow to call an indefinite strike if Chavez refuses to accept a referendum on his presidency. Venezuela's constitution says a binding referendum cannot be called until halfway into his six-year term, or next August.
Hundreds of white-collar workers at Venezuela's state-owned oil monopoly Petroleos de Venezuela SA demonstrated Tuesday to protest the use of company headquarters by members of Bolivarian Circles and Chavez's Fifth Republic Movement party for a teleconference convened by Chavez.
Dissident executives at the monopoly, which prizes its autonomy, were a key force in an April coup that briefly toppled Chavez.
Protesting Chavez's appointment of board members, they staged a strike that nearly halted oil production. Labor and business groups joined the protest, which culminated in a protest march April 11. When snipers fired on the demonstrators, killing 19, Chavez was ousted by the military. He was reinstated two days later after counter-protests.
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U.S. Bishops Grapple With the Morality of War With Iraq
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN,
Nov. 12, 2002
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/12/national/12CND-BISH.html?ex=1038147263&ei=1&en=1d8363fc3bb9265b
WASHINGTON -- Amid protests from sex abuse victims, gay Catholics and church reform groups, the nation's Roman Catholic bishops meeting here turned today to devising a statement to express their moral reservations about going to war against Iraq.
That is the kind of global concern that used to preoccupy the bishops before this year, when the church was overwhelmed by the scandal over some bishops' failure to discipline priests who had sexually abused children and teenagers. Advertisement Click to learn more...
On the second day of the bishops' annual conference, Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, whose handling of sexual abuse cases has been at the center of the scandal, presided over a debate today on whether war with Iraq qualifies as a just war. As chairman of the bishops' committee on international policy, Cardinal Law will have a major role in drafting a statement representing the view of a body that is clearly not of one mind on the prospect of an American war against Iraq.
Some bishops urged the committee to do more than raise questions about American policy, and give clear moral guidance for Catholics serving in the armed forces.
"We are on the brink of war, and I think we have to be very, very clear, that all of us are against the war in Iraq," Bishop Walter F. Sullivan of Richmond, Va., said.
"We need to be strong. We need to be forceful and not equivocate.
Former Archbishop Philip M. Hannan of New Orleans, differed, saying, "We ought to be very cautious about saying we are entirely against war." Archbishop Hannan, citing experiences in World War II when he saw the aftermath of the atomic bomb and helped liberate concentration camps, said could see the wisdom in pre-empting a despotic power like Saddam Hussein.
Cardinal Law said the statement was likely to reflect the letter that the bishops sent to President Bush in September, warning that a war against Iraq could have unpredictable consequences for civilians and for stability in Iraq and the Middle East. The letter also questioned the wisdom of unilateral force and asked whether the United States had proved that Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Cardinal Law said the statement, expected to be issued on Wednesday, would be a moral reflection on the issue and raise questions around certain key considerations drawn from just-war theory.
As the bishops began trickling out of their morning session at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, three protesters knelt down and opened their hands as if to receive Communion. The protest organizer, the Rev. Mel White, a minister who was once a ghostwriter for Jerry Falwell and who now leads the gay civil disobedience group Soulforce, explained that the three were gay Catholics who had been denied the Eucharist the previous night at a Mass for the bishops at the National Shrine in Washington D.C.
After ignoring warnings by hotel security, Mr. White and the three protesters, Ken Einhaus of Arlington, Va., Kara Speltz of Oakland, Ca., and Mike Perez of Seattle, were arrested by the police.
At a hotel across the street where victims of sexually abusive priests have gathered, one group distributed a database that it said contained the names of more than 500 clerical molesters, while others pressed for the bishops to do more to strengthen the final version of the sex abuse policy likely to be approved tomorrow.
In a new tactic, one group, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, praised eight bishops who had taken steps like meeting with victims or helping to lobby for laws against statutes of limitations that limit prosecutions of sex abusers.
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Two police injured as hundreds of antinuclear activists protest waste shipment
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
By Juergen Voges,
Associated Press
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/11/11122002/ap_48924.asp
DANNENBERG, Germany - Antinuclear activists staged a parade through this north German town near a nuclear waste dump Monday, and two police officers were injured in a skirmish with demonstrators.
Police said most of the roughly 1,000 protesters demonstrated peacefully against a shipment of 12 containers of atomic waste that are expected to arrive in midweek after traveling by rail and road from a reprocessing plant at La Hague in France - the biggest shipment yet to the dump at Gorleben.
Yet about 100 radicals clashed with police, who responded with truncheons. Two officers were injured, police said.
About 60 people also succeeded in blocking the road between the town of Dannenberg and Gorleben, ignoring a ban on all demonstrations within 50 meters (about 150 feet) of the final stretch of the route.
The site at Gorleben, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) southeast of Hamburg, has long been a traditional focus of Germany's antinuclear lobby.
On Monday evening the transport departed from La Hague, accompanied by more than 300 police riding in three cars that were added to the train, the Cogema reprocessing company said. The train was expected to reach the French-German border Tuesday afternoon.
About 15 Greenpeace activists wearing white jumpsuits protested at the Valognes train terminal as the 1,455 ton shipment left northern France.
Over the weekend, farmers and antinuclear groups in Germany symbolically set up at least 12 "villages," with camp fires and bales of hay, near the route, and several thousand people demonstrated at Gorleben.
Authorities have banned protests within 50 meters (about 150 feet) on either side of the final stretch of the convoy's route.
This week's shipment is the first since last November, when demonstrators repeatedly defied some 17,500 police to stage sit-down protests along the route through Germany. Those protests were smaller than demonstrations that marked the previous transport in March 2001, the first in three years. The previous German government had suspended shipments after radioactive leakage was discovered in some containers.
Spent fuel from Germany's 19 nuclear power plants is sent to France and Britain for reprocessing under contracts that oblige Germany to take back the waste.
Last year, the government and power companies signed an agreement to phase out nuclear power within about 20 years. Activists hope that protesting waste shipments will push up the security bill and force a quicker shutdown.
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